The treachery of the dervishes is well shown by the same graphic narrator:—
“One lance-corporal was running up the hill through their huts when three of them made for him. He shot one, bayoneted another, and then the third man threw down his spear and held up his hands (in token of surrender). The lad pointed to the rear, allowing his captive the way to take for safety, and was in the act of running after the enemy again, when the man he had spared picked up a rifle and blew the lance-corporal’s brains out. General Gatacre was running up behind, and, seeing the incident, gave the dervish such a blow with his sword that he nearly severed his head from his body. After that the order was given to show no mercy. It was not easy to distinguish the men from the women. A woman was on the point of being stabbed, when the fellow discovered his mistake and, laughing, turned away, when she immediately ran a spear clean through him. In an instant four bayonets pierced her body. On ceasing fire I found myself alone, wondering how I had escaped, and a fervent ‘thank God!’ escaped my lips.”
With such stirring tales as this the battle of the Atbara was brought to a successful issue, and crushing was its effect upon the forces of the Khalifa. Not until September were the dervish forces able once more to confront the arms of Britain, and then for the last time.
CHAPTER LXIII.
THE BATTLE OF OMDURMAN.
1898.
Though the snake of Mahdism had been severely scotched at the Atbara, it was far from being killed, and from the termination of that battle preparations were steadily pushed forward for the final overthrow of the Khalifa.
The magnitude of these preparations was upon a scale never before seen in the Soudan, and the army, assembled at Wad Hamed by the end of August, the largest that had ever taken the field in that disordered region. Regiment by regiment the troops poured into the town of Wad Hamed, the point of concentration chosen by the Sirdar, till the Egyptian army had been raised to nearly double its strength, and its attendant flotilla of gunboats vastly augmented. The railway had been pushed forward to Atbara, and, trainload after trainload, the troops dismounted almost upon the scene of the former battlefield, and pushed steadily southward, British, Egyptian, and even the recent dervish foe, all pressed into the service of the British army.
Mr. Steevens’ description of the changed conditions at Atbara is graphic in the extreme:—
“The platform was black and brown, blue and white, with a great crowd of natives. For drawn up in line opposite the waiting trucks were rigid squads of black figures.... The last time we had seen these particular blacks they were shooting at us. Every one had begun life as a dervish, and had been taken prisoner at or after the Atbara. Now, not four months after, here they were, erect and soldierly, on their way to fight their former masters, and very glad to do it.... In mid-April the Atbara was the as yet unattained objective of the railway; in mid-July the railway was ancient history, and the Atbara was the point of departure for the boats. Just a half-way house on the road to Khartoum.” And, adds Mr. Steevens sententiously, “What a man the Sirdar is!” Indeed, such organisation has seldom been seen before or since.
The force destined to overthrow the last stronghold of Mahdism was made up of two infantry divisions, one British and one Egyptian; one British cavalry regiment, and ten squadrons of Egyptian horse, and eight companies of camel corps, with batteries of artillery, a siege train and maxims—the latter to be used with deadly effect against the army of the Khalifa. The usual medical services and transport, both by land and river, completed the equipment. Six “fighting gunboats” accompanied the expedition.