 CHAPTER VII. THE RIVER WAR. THE RIVER WAR. by Winston Churchill. CHAPTER VII. THE RECOVERY OF THE DONGALA PROVINCE. Countless and inestimable are the chances of war. Those who read the story and still more those who share the dangers of a campaign feel that every incident is surrounded with a host of possibilities any one of which, had it become real, would have changed the whole course of events. The influence of fortune is powerfully and continually exerted. In the flickering light of conflict the outlines of solid fact throw on every side the vague shadows of possibility. We live in a world of ifs. What happened is singular. What might have happened? Legion. But to try to gauge the influence of this uncertain force were utterly futile, and it is perhaps wise, and indisputably convenient, to assume that the favourable and adverse chances equate, and then eliminate them both from the calculation. The Sardar's luck became almost proverbial in the Sudan. As the account progresses numerous instances will suggest themselves. It was lucky that the dervishes did not harass the communications, or assail Akasha before it was fortified. It was lucky that they fought at Ferkhet, that they retired from Berber, that Mamud did not advance in January, that he advanced in March, that he did not retire before the battle of the Atbara, that the Khalifa did not hold the Shabluqa, that he did not attack on the night before Omdaman, and that he did attack at Dawn. But after Ferkhet all things were contrary. One unexpected misfortune succeeded another. Difficulties were replaced by others as soon as they had been overcome. The autumn of 1896 was marked by delay and disappointment. The state of the Nile, the storms, the floods, the cholera, and many minor obstacles, vexed but did not weary the commander. The victory at Ferkhet was succeeded by a long pause in the operations. The army had made one spring forward, it must now gather energy for another. The preparations, however, proceeded rapidly. A strong camp was formed at Ferkhet. McDonald's Brigade occupied Suarda two days after the fight, and this place now became the advance post, just as Akasha had been in the first phase of the campaign. The accumulation of stores at Ferkhet and Suarda began forthwith. Owing to the arrangements which had been made before the engagement, it was possible to collect within one week of the action two months supplies at Suarda for the garrison of two thousand men, and one months at Ferkhet for the seven thousand troops encamped there. Thereafter, however, the necessity of hurrying the railway construction and the considerable daily demands of nine thousand men only allowed this margin to be increased very gradually. The army had now passed beyond the scope of a camel, or other pack animal, system of supply, except for very short distances, and it was obvious that they could only advance in future along either the railway or a navigable reach of the river, and preferably along both. From the Daal Kataract, near Koshay, there is a clear waterway at High Nile to Merwawi. To Koshay, therefore, the railway must be extended before active operations could recommence. A third condition had also to be observed. For the expulsion of the dervishes from Kerma and Dangala, it was desirable that a flotilla of gun-boats should co-operate with the land-forces. Four of these vessels, the Tamai, El Teb, the Matema, and the Abukliya, and three steamers, the Kaibar, Daal, and Akasha, which was proposed to arm, had, since 1885, patrolled the river from Aswan to Wadi Haifa, and assisted in protecting the frontier from dervish raids. All seven were now collected at the foot of the second Kataract, and are weighted the rise of the river to attempt the passage. To strengthen the flotilla, three new and very powerful gun-boats had been ordered in England. These were to be brought in sections over the railway to a point above the second Kataract, and be fitted together there. It was thus necessary to wait, firstly, for the railway to reach Koshay, secondly for the Nile to rise, thirdly for the old gun-boats to ascend the Kataract, fourthly for the new gun-boats to be launched on the clear waterway, and fifthly for the accumulation of supplies. With all of these matters the Serdar now busied himself. The reconstruction of the railway to Akasha and its extension beyond this place towards Koshay was pressed forward. By the 26th of June Akasha was reached. Thence forward the engineers no longer followed an existing track but were obliged to survey and to make the formation for themselves. Strong fatigue parties from the Egyptian and Sudanese battalions were, however, employed on the embankments, and the line grew daily longer. On the 24th of July the first train ran across the battlefield of Ferkhet, and on the 4th of August the railway was working to Koshay. Koshay is six miles south of Ferkhet and consists, like most places in the military Sudan, of little more than a name and a few ruined mud huts which were once a village. On the 5th of July the whole camp was moved thither from the scene of the action. The reasons were clear and apparent. Koshay is a point on the river above the Daal Kataract whence a clear waterway runs at High Nile to beyond Dangala. The camp at Ferkhet had become foul and unsanitary. The bodies of the dead, swelling and decaying in their shallow graves, assailed as if in revenge the bodies of the living. The dysentery which had broken out was probably due to the green water of the Nile, for during the early period of the flood what is known as the false rise washes the filth and sewage off the foreshore, all along the river, and brings down the green and rotting vegetation from the spongy swamps of Equatoria. The water is then dangerous and impure. There was nothing else for the army to drink, but it was undesirable to aggravate the evil by keeping the troops in a dirty camp. The earliest freight which the railway carried to Koshay was the first of the new stern-wheel gun-boats. Train after train arrived with its load of steel and iron, or with the cumbrous sections of the hull, and a warship in pieces, engines, armaments, fittings, and stores, soon lay stacked by the side of the river. An improvised dockyard, equipped with powerful twenty-ton shears and other appliances, was established, and the work, complicated as a Chinese puzzle, of fitting and riveting together the hundreds of various parts proceeded swiftly. Gradually the strange heaps of parts began to evolve a mighty engine of war. The new gun-boats were in every way remarkable. The old vessels had been ninety feet long. These were one hundred and forty feet. Their breath was twenty-four feet. They steamed twelve miles an hour. They had a command of thirty feet. Their decks were all protected by steel plates and prepared by loop-hold shields for musketry. Their armament was formidable. Each carried one twelve-pounder quick-firing gun forward, two six-pounder quick-firing guns in the central battery, and four maxim guns. Every modern improvement, such as ammunition hoists, telegraphs, search lights, and steam winches, was added. Yet with all this they drew only thirty-nine inches of water. The contract specified that these vessels should be delivered at Alexandria by the fifth of September, but, by exertions, the first boat, the Zafir, reached Egypt on the twenty-third of July, having been made in eight weeks, and in time to have assisted in the advance on Dangala. The vessels and machinery had been constructed and erected in the works in London. They were then marked, numbered, and taken to pieces, and after being shipped to Alexandria and transported to the front, were finally put together at Cauchy. Although in a journey of four thousand miles they were seven times trans-shipped, not a single important piece was lost. The convenience of Cauchy on the clear waterway, and the dirty condition of Ferket, were in themselves sufficient reasons for the change of camp, but another engraver-cause lay behind. During the month of June an epidemic of cholera began to creep up the Nile from Cairo. On the twenty-ninth there were some cases at Aswan. On the thirtieth it reached Wadi Haifa. In consequence of this the North Staffordshire Regiment marched into camp at Gemai. Their three-months occupation of the town had not improved their health or their spirits. During the sixteen-mile march along the railway track to Gemai the first fatal case occurred, and thereafter the sickness clung to the regiment until the middle of August, causing continual deaths. The cholera spread steadily southward up the river, claiming successive victims in each camp. In the second week of July it reached the new camp at Cauchy, whence all possible precautions to exclude it had proved vain. The epidemic was at first of a virulent form. As is usual, when it had expended its destructive energy, the recoveries became more frequent. Of the first thousand cases between Aswan and Suarda nearly eight hundred proved fatal. Nor were the lives thus lost to be altogether measured by the number. The attacks and deaths from cholera in the Dangala Expeditionary Force were as follows. British troops, twenty-four attacks, nineteen deaths. Native troops, four hundred six attacks, two hundred sixty deaths. Followers, seven hundred eighty-eight attacks, six hundred forty deaths. To all the time was one of trial, almost of terror. The violence of the battle may be cheaply braved, but the insidious attacks of disease appalled the boldest. Death moved continually about the ranks of the army. Not the death they had been trained to meet unflinchingly. The death and high enthusiasm and the pride of life, with all the world to weep or cheer. But a silent, unnoticed, almost ignominious summons, scarcely less sudden and far more painful than the bullet or the sword-cut. The Egyptians, in spite of their fatalistic creed, manifested profound depression. The English soldiers were moody and ill-tempered. Even the light-hearted Sudanese lost their spirits, their merry grins were seen no longer, their laughter and their drums were stilled. Only the British officers preserved a stony cheerfulness and ceaselessly endeavored by energy and example to sustain the courage of their men. Yet they suffered most of all. Their education had developed their imaginations, and imagination elsewhere a priceless gift is amid such circumstances a dangerous burden. It was indeed a time of sore trouble to find the servant dead in the camp-kitchen, to catch a hurried glimpse of blanketed shapes hustled quickly to the desert on a stretcher, to hold the lantern over the grave into which a friend or comrade, alive and well six hours before, was hastily lowered even though it was still night, and threw it all to work incessantly at pressure in the solid, roaring heat, with a mind ever on the watch for the earliest of the fatal symptoms and a thirst that could only be quenched by drinking of the deadly and contaminated nile. All these things combined to produce an experience which those who endured are unwilling to remember but unlikely to forget. One by one some of the best of the field-army and the communication staff were stricken down. Gallant Fenwick, of whom they used to say that he was twice a VC without a Gazette—Powale, the railway subaltern, whose strange knowledge of the Egyptian soldiers had won their stranger love—Trask, an heroic doctor, indifferent alike to pestilence or bullets—Mr. Valom, the chief superintendent of engines at HALFA. Farmer, a young officer already on his fourth campaign, Mr. Nicholson, the London engineer, long, quaint, kind-hearted Roddy Owen, all filled graves in HALFA Cemetery or at the foot of Furquett Mountain. At length the epidemic was stamped out, and by the middle of August it had practically ceased to be a serious danger. But the necessity of enforcing quarantine and other precautions had hampered movement up and down the line of communications, and so delayed the progress of the preparations for and advance. Other unexpected hindrances arose. Sir H. Kitchener had clearly recognized that the railway, equipped as it then was, would be at the best a doubtful means for the continual supply of a large force many miles ahead of it. He therefore organized an auxiliary boat service and passed Jayassas and Nuggers, native sailing-craft, freely up the second cataract. During the summer months, in the Sudan, a strong north wind prevails, which not only drives the sailing boats up against the stream, sometimes at the rate of twenty miles a day, but also gratefully cools the air. This year, for forty consecutive days, at the critical period of the campaign, the wind blew hot and adverse from the south. The whole auxiliary boat service was thus practically arrested. But in spite of these aggravating obstacles, the preparations for the advance were forced onwards, and it soon became necessary for the gun-boats and steamers to be brought on to the upper reach of the river. The second cataract has a total descent of sixty feet, and is about nine miles long. For this distance the Nile flows down a rugged stairway formed by successive ledges of black granite. The flood river deeply submerges these steps, and rushes along above them with tremendous force but with a smooth, though swirling surface. As the Nile subsides, the steps begin to show, until the river tumbles violently from ledge to ledge, its whole surface for miles churn to the white foam of broken water, and thickly studded with black rocks. At the second cataract, moreover, the only deep channel of the Nile is choked between narrow limits, and the stream struggles furiously between stern walls of rock. These dark gorges present many perils to the navigator. The most formidable, the Bab El Kabir, is only thirty-five feet wide. The river here takes a plunge of ten feet in seventy yards, and drops five feet at a single bound. An extensive pool above, formed by the junction of two arms of the river, increases the volume of the water and the force of the stream, so that the gate constitutes an obstacle of difficulty and danger which might well have been considered insurmountable. It had been expected that in the beginning of July enough water would be passing down the second cataract to enable the gumboats and steamers waiting below to make the passage. Everything depended upon the rise of the river, and in the perversity of circumstances the river this year rose much later and slower than usual. By the middle of August, however, the attempt appeared possible. On the fourteenth, the first gumboat, the Matema, approached the cataract. The North Staffordshire Regiment from Gemai and the sixth and seventh Egyptian battalions from Koshay marched to the gate to draw the vessel bodily up in spite of the current. The best native pilots had been procured. Colonel Hunter and the naval officers under Commander Coville directed the work. The boat had been carefully prepared for the ordeal. To reduce, by raising the freeboard, the risk of swapping, the boughs were heightened and strengthened, and stout wooden bulwarks were built running from bow to stern. Guns and ammunition were then removed, and the vessel lightened by every possible means. A strop of wire rope was passed completely round the hull, and to this strong belt the five cables were fastened, two on each side and one at the bow. So steep was the slope of the water that it was found necessary to draw all the fires, and the steamer was thus dependent entirely upon external force. It was luckily possible to obtain a direct pull for a crag of black rock rose above the surface of the pool opposite the gate. On this a steel block was fixed, and the hauser was led away at right angles until it reached the east bank, where a smooth stretch of sand afforded a convenient place for the hauling parties. Two thousand men were then set to pull at the cables, yet such was the extraordinary force of the current that, although the actual distance in which these great efforts were necessary was scarcely one hundred yards, the passage of each steamer occupied an hour and a half, and required the most strenuous exertions of the soldiers. No accident, however, occurred, and the six other vessels accomplished the ascent on successive days. In a week the whole flotilla steamed safely in the open water of the upper reach. And now for a moment it seemed that the luck of the expedition had returned. The cholera was practically extinct. The new gunboat Zafir was nearly ready at Cauchet, and her imposing appearance delighted and impressed the army. On the twenty-third of August all the seven steamers which had passed the cataract arrived in a stately procession opposite the camp. Just at the same time the wind changed to the north, and a cool and delicious breeze refreshed the weary men, and bore southward to Suarda a whole fleet of sailing boats laid in with supplies, which had been lying weather-bound during the previous six weeks at the head of the rapids. The preparatory orders for the advance tinkled along the telegraph. The north staffordshire regiment were, to the intense relief of officers and men, warned to hold themselves in readiness for an immediate move. The mounted troops had already returned to the front from the camps in which they had been distributed. At last the miserable delay was over. From Cauchet to Kerma, the first dervish position, the distance by river is 127 miles. A study of the map shows that by land-marches this can be shortened by nearly 41 miles, 30 miles being saved by cutting across the great loop of the Nile from Cauchet to Sadin Fanti, and 11 miles by avoiding the angle from Farag to Abu Fatme. From Kerma to Dangala, which latter town was the objective of the expedition, a further distance of 35 miles must be traversed, making a total of 120 miles by land or 161 by river. The long desert march from Cauchet to Sadin Fanti was the only natural difficulty by land. Although the river from Cauchet to Kerma is broken by continual rapids, it is, with one interval, freely navigable at half Nile. The Amarok Cataract, ten miles beyond Cauchet, is easily ascended by sailing boats with a fair wind, and by steamers without assistance. From Amara to the Kaibar Cataract stretches a reach of 65 miles of open water. The Kaibar Cataract is, during the flood, scarcely any hindrance to navigation, but at Hanec, about 30 miles further on, the three miles of islands, rocks, rapids, and broken water which are called the Third Cataract are, except at High Nile, a formidable barrier. Once this is passed there is open water for more than 200 miles at all seasons to Merawih. The banks of the river, except near Sadin Fanti, where the hills close in, are flat and low. The eastern bank is lined with a fringe of palm trees and a thin strip of cultivation which constitutes what is called the fertile province of Dangala. On the other side the desert reaches the water's edge. Along the right bank of this part of the river the army was now to move. The first act of the advance was the occupation of Absarat, and on the 23rd of August McDonald's brigade marched thither from Suarda, cutting across the desert to Sadin Fanti, and then following the bank of the Nile. The occupation of Absarat covered the next movement. On the 26th, Lewis's brigade was ordered to march across the loop from Koshay to Sadin Fanti and reinforce the brigade at Absarat. The distance of 37 miles was far too great to be accomplished without a system of watering places. This the sardar rapidly organized. Water depots were formed by carrying tanks and waterskins on camels to two points in the desert and replenishing them by daily convoys. But now a heavy calamity descended on the arrangements of the general and the hopes of the troops. During the afternoon of the 25th the wind veered suddenly to the south, and there upon a terrific storm of sand and rain accompanied by thunder and lightning burst over the whole of the Nubian desert and swept along the line of communications from Suarda to Halfa. On the next day a second deluge delayed the march of Lewis's brigade. But late on the 27th they started with disastrous results. Before they had reached the first watering-place a third tempest preceded by its choking sandstorm overtook them. Nearly three hundred men fell out during the early part of the night and crawled and staggered back to Koshay. Before the column reached Sadin Fanti, seventeen hundred more sank exhausted to the ground. Out of one battalion, seven hundred strong, only sixty men marched in. Nine deaths and eighty serious cases of prostration occurred, and the movement of the brigade from Koshay to Absarat was grimly called the Death March. The Death March was the least of the misfortunes caused by the storms. The violent rains produced floods such as had not been seen in the Sudan for fifty years. The water, pouring down the broad valleys, formed furious torrents in the narrower gorges. More than twelve miles of the railway was washed away. The rails were twisted and bent. The formation entirely destroyed. The telegraph wires were broken. The work of weeks was lost in a few hours. The advance was stopped as soon as it had been begun. At the moment when every military reason demanded speed and suddenness, a hideous delay became inevitable. In this time of crisis the success of the whole campaign hung in the balance. Sir Herbert Kitchener did not then possess that measure of the confidence and affection of his officers, which his military successes have since compelled. Public opinion was still undecided on the general question of the war. The initial bad luck had frightened many. All the croakers were ready. A jingo government. An incapable general. Another disaster in the Sudan. Such were the whispers. A check would be the signal for an outcry. The accounts of the Death March had not yet reached England, but the correspondence, irritated at being chained to headquarters, were going to see about that. And, besides all this, there were the army to feed and the dervishes to fight. In this serious emergency, which threatened to wreck his schemes, the Serdar's organizing talents shone more brilliantly than at any other moment in this account. Traveling swiftly to Moghrat, he possessed himself of the telephone, which luckily still worked. He knew the exact position of every soldier, Cooley, camel, or donkey, at his disposal. In a few hours, in spite of his crippled transport, he concentrated five thousand men on the damaged sections of the line, and thereafter fed them until the work was finished. In seven days traffic was resumed. The advance had been delayed but it was not prevented. On the 5th of September, the 1st, Lewis, and 2nd, MacDonald, Brigades, moved to Delgo, and at the same time that remainder of the army began to march across the loop from Cauchy by Satin Fanti to Absarat. Every available soldier had been collected for the final operation of the campaign. The expeditionary force was organized as follows. Commander-in-chief, the Serdar. The infantry division, Colonel Hunter, commanding. 1st Brigade commanded by Major Lewis with the 3rd and 4th Egyptians and the 9th and 10th Sudanese. The 2nd Brigade commanded by Major MacDonald with the 11th, 12th, and 13th Sudanese. 3rd Brigade with Major Maxwell, comprised of the 2nd, 7th, and 8th Egyptians. 4th Brigade with Major David with the 1st, 5th, and 15th Egyptians. Cavalry Brigade and mounted forces commanded by Major Byrne Murdoch. Cavalry, 8th Squadrons. Camel Corps, 6th Companies. Horse artillery, 1 battery. The artillery was commanded by Major Parsons. The field artillery comprised 2 batteries. Maxim's 1 battery, British. Divisional troops commanded by Major Curry, the North Staffordshire Regiment, 1st Battalion. The flotilla was commanded by Commander Colville. Gumboats, Zafir Tammay, Abu Klia, Matema, El Teb. Arms steamers, Kaibar, Dal, Akasha. Total 15,000 men, 8 war vessels, and 36 guns. Thus 13 of the 16 battalions of the Egyptian army were employed at the front. Two others, the 6th and 14th, were disposed along the line of communication, holding the various fortified posts. The 16th Battalion of reservists remained at Suwaken. The whole native army was engaged in the war, and the preservation of domestic order in the capital, and throughout the Khadiv's dominions, was left entirely to the police and to the British army of occupation. By the 9th, all four brigades had reached the rendezvous at Dulgo. On the 10th, the British Regiment, which it was determined to send up in the steamers, was moved to Koshe by rail from Saras and Gemai. The Serdar prepared to start with the flotilla on the 12th. But a culminating disappointment remained. By tremendous exertions the Zafir had been finished in time to take part in the operations. Throughout the army it was expected that the Zafir would be the feature of the campaign. At length the work was finished and the Zafir floated, powerful and majestic, on the waters of the Nile. On the afternoon of the 11th of September many officers and men came to witness her trial trip. The bank was lined with spectators. Coville took command. The Serdar and his staff embarked. Flags were hoisted, and amid general cheering the moorings were cast off. But the stern paddle had hardly revolved twice when there was a loud report, like that of a heavy gun, clouds of steam rushed up from the boilers and the engines stopped. Sir H. Kitchener and Commander Coville were on the upper deck. The ladder rushed below to learn what had happened, and found that she had burst her low-pressure cylinder, a misfortune impossible to repair, until a new one could be obtained from Halfa and fitted. In spite of this, however, the advance was not delayed. On the 13th the first, second and third brigades occupied Kederma. Here the flotilla overtook them, and henceforward the boats on the river kept pace with the army on the bank. Ferrague was reached on the 14th, and as the numerous palms by the water afforded a pleasant shade, a halt of two days was ordered. On the 16th the 4th brigade arrived, and the concentration of the force was then complete. With the annihilation of his strong advance post at Ferquette, the dervish Amir, Wad Bishara, concentrated his remaining forces in Dangala. Here during the summer he had awaited, and in the middle of August some small reinforcements under one Amir of low rank reached him from Amderman. The Caliph indeed promised that many more should follow, but his promises long remained unfulfilled, and the greatest strength that Bishara could muster was 900 Jihadiyah, 800 Bagara Arabs, 2800 Spearmen, 450 Camelmen, 650 Cavalry, in all 5600 men, with six small brass cannon, and one Mitrayer's gun. To augment in numbers, if not in strength, this small force of regular soldiers, he impressed a large number of the local tribesmen. And as these were for the most part anxious to join the government troops at the first opportunity, their effect in the conflict was inconsiderable. The first sign that the forces were drawing closer was the cutting of the telegraph wire by a dervish patrol on the 6th of September. On the 10th the Serdar heard that Kerma was strongly held. On the 15th of September the Egyptian cavalry first established contact with the dervish scouts, and a slight skirmish took place. On the 18th the whole force advanced to Sardek, and as Bishara still held his position at Kerma it looked as if an action was imminent. It was resolved to attack the dervish position at Kerma at dawn. Although it seemed that only four miles separated the combatants, the night passed quietly. With the first light the army began to move, and when the sun rose the spectacle of the moving masses of men and artillery, with the gun-boats on the right, was inspiring. The soldiers braced themselves for the expected action, but no sooner were the village and fort of Kerma visible than the report passed along the ranks that they were deserted. Rumour was soon merged in certainty, for on reaching Kerma it was found that the dervishes had evacuated the place, and only the strong, well-built mud fort attested the recent presence of Bishara. Wither had he gone, the question was not left unanswered. Half a mile to the southward, on the opposite bank of the river, among the groves of palm trees ran along and continuous line of sheltered trenches and loop-hold walls. The flanks of this new position rested on the deep morasses which extend from the river both on the north and south sides of Hafeer. A small steamer, a fleet of large Diyases, and other sailing vessels moored to the further shore, explained what had happened. Conscious of his weakness the prudent Amir had adroitly transported himself across the river, and had thus placed that broad flood between his troops and their destruction. Meanwhile the three gun-boats, all that now remained of the armed flotilla, for the tab had run on a rock in the Hannock cataract, were steaming gradually nearer the enemy, and the army swung to the right, and, forming along the river bank, became spectators of a scene of fascinating interest. At half-past six the horse-battery unlimbered at the water's edge, and began to fire obliquely up and across the river. As soon as the first few shells had reached the Arab entrenchment the whole line of sheltered trenches was edged with smoke, and the dervishes replied with a heavy rifle-fire. The distance was, however, too great for their bad rifles and inferior ammunition, and their bullets, although they occasionally struck the ground on which the infantry were drawn up, did not during the day cause any loss to the watching army. The dervish position was about half a mile in length. As the gun-boats approached the northern end they opened fire with their guns, striking the mud-entrenchments at every shot, and driving clouds of dust and splinters into the air. The Maxim guns began to search the parapets, and two companies of the Staffordshire Regiment on board the unarmored steamers, Dahl and Akasha, fired long-range volleys. Now, as on other occasions throughout the war, the dervishes by their military behavior excited the admiration of their enemies. Encouraged by the arrival in the morning of a reinforcement from Omderman of one thousand black jihadia and five hundred spearmen under Abdel Baki, the dervish gunners stood to their guns and the riflemen to their trenches, and, although suffering severely, maintained a formidable fire. The gun-boats continued to advance, beating up slowly against the strong current. As they came opposite Hafeer, where the channel narrows to about six hundred yards, they were received by a very heavy fire from guns placed in cleverly screened batteries, and from the riflemen sheltered in deep pits by the water's edge, or concealed amid the foliage of the tops of the palm trees. These aerial skirmishers commanded the decks of the vessels, and the shields of the guns were thus rendered of little protection. All the water round the gun-boats were torn into foam by the projectiles. The bullets patterned against their sides, and, except where they were protected by steel plates, penetrated. One shell struck the Abu Klia on the waterline and entered the magazine. Luckily it did not explode, the dervishes having forgotten to set the fuse. Three shells struck the Matema. On board the Tamai, which was leading, Commander Kovil was severely wounded in the wrist. Armorer Sergeant Richardson was killed at his maximum gun, and on each boat some casualties occurred. So hot was the fire that it was thought doubtful whether to proceed with the bombardment, and the Tamai swung round and hurried down the river with the current, and at full steam to report to the Sardar. The other gun-boats remained in action, and continued to shell the dervish defenses. The Tamai soon returned to the fight, and, steaming again up the river, was immediately hotly re-engaged. The sight which the army witness was thrilling. Beyond the flood-waters of the river, backed against the sky of staring blue and in the blazing sunlight, the whole of the enemy's position was plainly visible. The long row of shelter trenches was outlined by the white smoke of musketry, and dotted with the brightly colored flags waving defiantly in the wind, and with the still brighter flashes of the guns. In the entrenchments and among the mud-houses and enclosures, strong bodies of the jibba-clad Arabs were arrayed. Still further back in the plain a large force of cavalry, conspicuous by the gleams of light reflected from their broad-bladed spears, wheeled and maneuvered. By the Nile all the tops of the palm-trees were crowded with daring riflemen, whose positions were indicated by the smoke-puffs of their rifles, or when some tiny black figure fell, like a shot-rook to the ground. In the foreground the gun-boats, panting and puffing up the river, were surrounded on all sides by spouts and spurts of water, thrown up by the shells and bullets. Again the flotilla drew near the narrow channel, again the watching army held their breath, and again they saw the leading boat, the Matema, turn and run downstream toward safety, pursued by the wild cheers of the Arabs. It was evident that the gun-boats were not strong enough to silence the dervish fire. The want of the terrible Zafir was acutely felt. The firing had lasted two hours and a half, and the enemy's resistance was no less vigorous than at the beginning of the action. The Sardar now altered his plans. He saw that his flotilla could not hope to silence the dervishes. He therefore ordered Diruchmo, who had assumed the command after Kovil was wounded, to run past the entrenchments without trying to crush their fire, and steam on to Dangala. To support and cover the movement the three batteries of artillery under major parson's were brought into action from the swampy island of Artagasha, which was connected at this season with the right bank by a shoal. At the same time three battalions of infantry were moved along the river until opposite the Arab position. At nine a.m. the eighteen guns on the island opened a tremendous bombardment at twelve hundred yards range on the entrenchments, and at the same time the infantry and a rocket detachment concentrated their fire on the tops of the palm trees. The artillery now succeeded in silencing three of the five dervish guns and in sinking the little dervish steamer, Tara, while the infantry by a tremendous long-range fire drove the riflemen out of the palms. Profiting by this the gun-boats at ten o'clock moved up the river in line, and disregarding the fuselage which the Arabs still stubbornly maintained, passed by the entrenchment, and steamed on towards Dangala. After this the firing on both sides became intermittent, and the fight may be said to have ended. The forces remained during the day facing each other on opposite sides of the river, and the dervishes, who evidently did not admit a defeat, brandished their rifles and waved their flags, and their shouts of loud defiance floated across the water to the troops. But they had suffered very heavily. Their brave and skillful leader was severely wounded by the splinters of a shell. The wicked Asman Azrak had been struck by a bullet, and more than two hundred Ansar had fallen, including several Amirs. Moreover, a long train of wounded was seen to start during the afternoon for the south. It is doubtful, however, whether Bishara would have retreated if he had not feared being cut off. He seems to have believed that the Sardar would march along the right bank at once to Dangala, and cross there under cover of his gun-boats. Like all Muslim soldiers he was nervous about his line of retreat. Nor, considering the overwhelming force against him, can we wonder. There was, besides this strategic reason for retiring, a more concrete cause. All his supplies of grain were accumulated in the Jayasis which lay moored to the west bank. These vessels were under the close and accurate fire of the artillery and maxim guns on Artegasha Island. Several times during the night the hungry dervishes attempted to reach their store, but the moon was bright and the gunners watchful. Each time the enemy exposed themselves, a vigorous fire was opened and they were driven back. When morning dawned it was found that Hafeer was evacuated and that the enemy had retreated on Dangala. Wad Bishara's anxiety about his line of retreat was unnecessary, for the Sardar could not advance on Dangala with a strong dervish force on his line of communications, and it was not desirable to divide the army and mask Hafeer with a covering force. But as soon as the dervishes had left their entrenchments the situation was simplified. At daybreak all the Arab boats were brought over to the right bank by the villagers, who reported that Bishara and his soldiers had abandoned the defense and were retreating to Dangala. Thereupon the Sardar, relieved of the necessity of forcing the passage, transported his army peacefully to the other bank. The operation afforded scope to his powers of organization, and the whole force, complete with cavalry, camels, and guns, was moved across the broad rushing river in less than thirty-six hours and without any apparent difficulty. The casualties on the nineteenth were not numerous, and in a force of nearly fifteen thousand men they appear insignificant. Commander Kovil was wounded. One British sergeant and one Egyptian officer were killed. Eleven native soldiers were wounded. The total, fourteen, amounted to less than one per thousand of the troops engaged. Nevertheless this picturesque and bloodless affair has been solemnly called the Battle of Hafeer. Special dispatches were written for it. It is officially counted in records of service as a general action. Telegrams of congratulation were received from Her Majesty and the Kediv. A special clasp was struck. Of all the instances of cheaply bought glory which the military history of recent years affords, Hafeer is the most remarkable. The twentieth and part of the twenty-first were occupied by the passage of the army across the Nile. The troops were still crossing when the gumboats returned from Dangala. The distance of this place by water from Hafeer is about thirty-six miles, and the flotilla had arrived opposite the town during the afternoon of the nineteenth. A few shells expelled the small dervish garrison, and a large number of sailing vessels were captured. The results of the movement of the gumboats to Dangala must, however, be looked for at Hafeer. In consequence of the Sardar's maneuver that place was evacuated and the unopposed passage of the river secured. Bishara continued his retreat during the twentieth, and, marching all day, reached Dangala in the evening. Wounded as he was, he reoccupied the town and began forthwith to make preparations for the defence of its considerable fortifications. The knowledge of his employment was not hidden from his enemy, and during the twenty-first the gumboat Abu Clia, under Lieutenant Beatty, R.N., arrived with the design of keeping him occupied. Throughout the day a desultery duel was maintained between the entrenchments and the steamer. At daylight on the twenty-second Beatty was reinforced by another gumboat, and an unceasing bombardment was made on the town and its defences. Notwithstanding that the army did not finish crossing the river until the afternoon of the twenty-first, the Sardar determined to continue his advance without delay, and the force accordingly marched twelve miles further south and camped opposite the middle of the large island of Argo. At daybreak the troops started again, and before the sun had attained its greatest power reached Zoerat. This place was scarcely six miles from Dangala, and, as it was expected that an action would be fought the next day, the rest of eighteen hours was welcomed by the weary soldiers. All day long the army remained halted by the palms of the Nile Bank. Looking through their glasses up the river the officers might watch the gumboats methodically bombarding Dangala, and the sound of the guns was clearly heard. At intervals during the day odd parties of dervishes, both horse and foot, approached the outpost line, and shots were exchanged. All these things, together with the consciousness that the culmination of the campaign was now at hand, raised the excitement of the army to a high pitch, and every one lay down that night warmed by keen anticipations. An atmosphere of unrest hung over the Bivouac, and few slept soundly. At three o'clock the troops were aroused, and at half-past four the final advance on Dangala had begun. It was still night. The full moon shining with tropical brilliancy in a cloudless sky, vaguely revealed the rolling plains of sand and the huge moving mass of the army. As long as it was dark the battalions were closely formed in quarter columns, but presently the warmer, yellower light of dawn began to grow across the river and through the palms, and gradually, as the sun rose and it became daylight, the dense formations of the army was extended to an array more than two miles long. On the left, nearest the river, marched Lewis's brigade, three battalions in line, and the fourth in column as a reserve. Next in order Maxwell's three battalions prolonged the line. The artillery were in the center, supported by the North Staffordshire Regiment. The gunners of the Maxim battery had donned their tunics, so that the lines and columns of yellow and brown were relieved by a vivid flash of British red. MacDonald's brigade was on the right. David's brigade followed in rear of the center as a reserve. The cavalry, the camel-core, and the horse artillery watched the right flank, and on the left the gum-boat steamed along the river. For two hours the army were the only living things visible on the smooth sand, but at seven o'clock a large body of dervish horse appeared on the right flank. The further advance of half a mile discovered the Arab forces. Their numbers were less than those of the Egyptians, but their white uniforms, conspicuous on the sand, and the rows of flags of many colors lent an imposing appearance to their array. Their determined aspect, no less than the reputation of Bishara, encouraged the belief that they were about to charge. The disparity of the forces was, however, too great, and as the Egyptian army steadily advanced the dervishes slowly retired. Their retreat was cleverly covered by the Bagara horse, who, by continually threatening the desert flank, delayed the progress of the troops. Bishara did not attempt to re-enter the town, on which the gum-boats were now concentrating their fire, but continued to retire in excellent order towards the south and Deba. The Egyptian infantry halted in Dangala, which when they arrived they found already in the hands of detachments from the flotilla. The red flag with the crescent and star waved once again from the roof of the Madeira. The garrison of four hundred black jihadia had capitulated and were already fraternizing with their Sudanese captors, whose comrades-in-arms they were soon to be. While the infantry occupied the town, the cavalry and camel-core were dispatched in pursuit. The Bagara horse, however, maintained a firm attitude and attempted several charges to cover the retreat of their infantry. In one of these an actual collision occurred, and Captain Adams's squadron of Egyptian cavalry inflicted a loss of six killed on the enemy, had a loss to themselves of eight men wounded. The cavalry and camel-core had about twenty casualties in the pursuit. But although the dervishes thus withdrew in an orderly manner from the field, the demoralizing influence of retreat soon impaired their discipline and order, and many small parties becoming detached from the main body were captured by the pursuers. The line of retreat was strewn with weapons and other effects, and so many babies were abandoned by their parents that an artillery-wagon had to be employed to collect and carry them. Wadbushara, Asman Azraq, and the Bagara horse, however, made good their flight across the desert to Matema, and in spite of terrible sufferings from thirst, retained sufficient discipline to detach a force to hold Abu Clio Wells in case the retreat was followed. The dervish infantry made their way along the river to Abu Hamad and were much harassed by the gun-boats until they reached the fourth cataract when the pursuit was brought to an end. The Egyptian losses in the capture of Dangala and in the subsequent pursuit were British Nile. Native ranks, killed one, wounded twenty-five, total twenty-six. The occupation of Dangala terminated the campaign of eighteen ninety-six. About nine hundred prisoners, mostly the Black Jihadia, all the six brass cannon, large stores of grain, and a great quantity of flags, spears, and swords fell to the victors, and the whole of the province said to be the most fertile in the Sudan, was restored to the Egyptian authority. The existence of a perpetual clear waterway from the head of the third cataract to Mirwawi enabled the gun-boats at once to steam up the river for more than two hundred miles, and in the course of the following month the greater part of the army was established in Mirwawi below the fourth cataract, at Deba, or at Korti, drawing supplies along the railway, and from railhead by a boat service on the long reach of open water. The position of a strong force at Mirwawi, only one hundred twenty miles along the riverbank from Abu Hamed, the northern dervish post, was, as will be seen, convenient to the continuance of the campaign whenever the time should arrive. But a long delay in the advance was now inevitable, and nearly a year was destined to pass without any collision between the forces of the Khadiv and those of the Khalifa. The success of the operations caused great public satisfaction in England. The first step had been taken. The Sudan was re-entered. After ten years of defensive war the dervishes had been attacked, and it was clear that when they were attacked with adequate forces they were not so very terrible after all. The croakers were silent. A general desire was manifested in the country that the operations should continue, and although the government did not yet abandon their tentative policy, or resolve utterly to destroy the Khalifa's power, it was decided that, as the road had so far been safe and pleasant, there was at present no need to stop or turn back. A general gazette of honors was published. With a single exception, which it would be invidious to specify, all the officers of the Egyptian army were mentioned in dispatches. Sir H. Kitchener, Colonel Hunter, and Colonel Rundle were promoted major generals for distinguished service in the field. A special medal, on whose ribbon the blue nile is shown flowing through the Yellow Desert, was struck. And both the engagement at Friquette and the affair at Hafir were commemorated by clasps. The casualties during the campaign, including the fighting round Suwaken, were forty-three killed and one hundred thirty-nine wounded. One hundred thirty officers and men died from cholera, and there were one hundred twenty-six deaths from other causes. A large number of British officers were also invalidated. CHAPTER VIII The River War by Winston Churchill CHAPTER VIII The Desert Railway It often happens that in prosperous public enterprises the applause of the nation and the rewards of the sovereign are bestowed on those whose offices are splendid and whose duties have been dramatic. Others whose labors were no less difficult, responsible, and vital to success, are unnoticed. If this be true of men, it is also true of things. In a tale of war the reader's mind is filled with the fighting, the battle, with its vivid scenes, its moving incidents, its plain and tremendous results, excites imagination and command's attention. The eye is fixed on the fighting brigades as they move amid the smoke, on the swarming figures of the enemy, on the general, serene and determined, mounted in the middle of his staff. The long trailing line of communications is unnoticed. The fierce glory that plays on red, triumphant bayonets dazzles the observer, nor does he care to look behind to where, along a thousand miles of rail, road, and river, the convoys are crawling to the front in uninterrupted succession. Victory is the beautiful, bright-colored flower. Transport is the stem without which it could never have blossomed. Yet even the military student, in his zeal to master the fascinating combinations of the actual conflict, often forgets the far more intricate complications of supply. It cannot be denied that a battle, the climax to which all military operations tend, is an event which is not controlled by strategy or organization. The scheme may be well planned, the troops well fed, the ammunition plentiful, and the enemy entangled, famished, or numerically inferior. The glorious uncertainties of the field can yet reverse everything. The human element, in defiance of experience and probability, may produce a wholly irrational result, and a starving, outmaneuvered army win food safety and honour by their bravery. But such considerations apply with greater force to wars where both sides are equal in equipment and discipline. In savage warfare, in a flat country, the power of modern machinery is such that flesh and blood can scarcely prevail, and the chances of battle are reduced to a minimum. Fighting the dervishes was primarily a matter of transport. The Califa was conquered on the railway. Hither, too, as the operations have progressed, it has been convenient to speak of the railway in a general manner as having been laid or extended to various points, and merely to indicate the direction of the lines of communication. The reader is now invited to take a closer view. This chapter is concerned with boats, railways, and pack animals, but particularly with railways. Throughout the Dangola Campaign in 1896, the Nile was the main channel of communication between the expeditionary force and its base in Egypt. All supplies were brought to the front as far as possible by water transport. Wherever the Nile was navigable, it was used. Other means of conveyance, by railways and pack animals, though essential, were merely supplementary. Boats carry more and cost less than any other form of transport. The service is not so liable to interruption. The plant needs only simple repair. The waterway is ready-made. But the Nile is not always available. Frequent cataracts obstruct its course for many miles. Other long reaches are only navigable when the river is in flood. To join the navigable reaches, and thus preserve the continuity of the communications, a complex system of railways and caravans was necessary. In the expedition to Dangola, a line of railway was required to connect the two navigable reaches of the Nile, which extend from Aswan to Wadi-Halfa, and from Kerma to Mirwawi. Before the capture of Dangola, however, this distance was shortened by the fact that the river at High Nile is navigable between the Third Cataract and Kerma. In consequence, it was at first only necessary to construct the stretch of 108 miles between Wadi-Halfa and Koshay. During the years when Wadi-Halfa was the southernmost garrison of the Egyptian forces, a strong post had been maintained at Saras. In the Nile expeditions of 1885 the railway from Halfa had been completed through Saras and as far as Akasha, a distance of 86 miles. After the abandonment of the Sudan the derishes destroyed the line as far north as Saras. The old embankments were still standing, but the sleepers had been burnt and the rails torn up, and in many cases bent or twisted. The position in 1896 may, in fact, be summed up as follows. The section of 33 miles from Wadi-Halfa to Saras was immediately available and in working order. The section of 53 miles from Saras to Akasha required partial reconstruction. The section of 32 miles from Akasha to Koshay must, with the exception of ten miles of embankment completed in 1885, at once be newly made. And finally, the section from Koshay to Kerma must be completed before the Nile flood subsided. The first duty, therefore, which the engineer officers had to perform, was the reconstruction of the line from Saras to Akasha. No trained staff or skilled workmen were available. The lack of men with technical knowledge was doubtfully supplied by the enlistment of a railway battalion 800 strong. These men were drawn from many tribes and classes. Their only qualification was capacity and willingness for work. They presented a motley appearance, dervish prisoners released but still wearing their Ojibas, assisted stalwart Egyptians in unloading rails and sleepers. Dinkas, Shalux, Jailin, and Barabas shoveled contentedly together at the embankments. One hundred civilians, Sudanese, chiefly time-expired soldiers, were also employed. And these, since they were trustworthy and took an essential pride in their work, soon learned the arts of spiking rails and sleepers, fishing rails together and straightening. To direct and control the labours of these men of varied race and language but of equal inexperience some civilian foremen plate-layers were obtained at high rates of pay from lower Egypt. These, however, with very few exceptions were not satisfactory, and they were gradually replaced by intelligent men of the railway battalion who had learned their trade as the line progressed. The projection, direction, and execution of the whole work were entrusted to a few subalterns of engineers, of whom the best known was Edward Jurrard. Work was begun south of Saras at the latter end of March. At first the efforts of so many unskilled workmen, instructed by few experienced officers, were productive of results ridiculous rather than important. Gradually, however, the knowledge and energy of the young director and the intelligence and devotion of his still more youthful subordinates began to take effect. The pace of construction increased and the labour was lightened by the contrivances of experience and skill. As the line grew longer, native officers and non-commissioned officers from the active and reserve lists of the Egyptian army were appointed station-masters. Intelligent non-commissioned officers and men were converted into shunters, guards, and pointsmen. Traffic was controlled by telephone. To work the telephone men were discovered who could read and write, very often who could read and write only their own names, and even that with such difficulty that they usually preferred a seal. They developed into clerks by a simple process of selection. To improve their education and to train a staff in the office work of a railway, two schools were instituted at HALFA. In these establishments, which were formed by the shade of two palm trees, twenty pupils received the beginnings of knowledge. The simplicity of the instruction was aided by the zeal of the students, and learning grew beneath the palm trees more quickly perhaps than in the magnificent schools of civilization. The rolling stock of the HALFA-Seras line was in good order and sufficient quantity, but the eight locomotives were out of all repair and had to be patched up again and again with painful repetition. The regularity of their breakdowns prevented the regularity of the road, and the Sudan military railway gained a doubtful reputation during the Dangala expedition and in its early days. Nor were there wanting those who employed their wits in scoffing at the undertaking and in pouring thoughtless indignation on the engineers. Nevertheless the work went on continually. The initial difficulties of the task were aggravated by an unexpected calamity. On the 26th of August the violent cyclonic rainstorm of which some account has been given in the last chapter broke over the Dangala province. A writer on the earlier phases of the war, A. Hilliard Adderidge, in Towards Freedom, has forcibly explained why the consequences were so serious. In a country where rain is an ordinary event the engineer lays his railway line not in the bottom of a valley but at a higher level on one slope or the other. Where he passes across branching side valleys he takes care to leave in all his embankments large culverts to carry off flood water. But here, in what was thought to be the rainless Sudan, the line south of Saras followed for mile after mile the bottom of the long valley of Kor Arusha. And no provision had been made, or had been thought necessary, for culverts in the embankments where minor hollows were crossed. Thus when the flood came it was not merely that the railway was cut through here and there by the rushing deluge. It was covered deep in water, the ballast was swept away, and some of the banks so destroyed that in places rails and sleepers were left hanging in the air across a wide gap. Nearly fourteen miles of track were destroyed. The camp of the construction gangs was wrecked and flooded. Some of the rifles of the escort for the conditions of war were never absent, were afterwards recovered from a depth of three feet of sand. In one place, where the embankment had partly withstood the deluge, a great lake several miles square appeared. By extraordinary exertions the damage was repaired in a week. As soon as the line as far as Koshay was completed the advance towards Dangala began. After the army had been victorious at Hafeer the whole province was cleared of dervishes and the Egyptian forces pushed on to Merwawi. Here they were depended on river transport, but the Nile was falling rapidly and the army were soon in danger of being stranded by the interruption of river traffic between the third cataract and Kenna. The extension of the line from Koshay to Kerma was therefore of vital importance. The survey was at once undertaken and a suitable route was chosen through the newly acquired and unmapped territory. Of the ninety-five miles of extended track fifty-six were through the desert and the constructors here gained the experience which was afterwards of value on the Great Desert Railway from Wadi Haifa to the Atbara. Battalions of troops were distributed along the line in order to begin to make the embankments. Track laying commenced south of Koshay on the ninth of October and the whole work was carried forward with feverish energy. As it progressed and before it was completed the reach of the river from the third cataract to Kenna ceased to be navigable. The army were now dependent for their existence on the partly finished railway from the head of which supplies were conveyed by an elaborate system of camel transport. Every week the line grew, railhead moved forward, and the strain upon the pack animals diminished. But the problem of feeding the field army without interfering with the railway construction was one of extraordinary intricacy and difficulty. The carrying capacity of the line was strictly limited. The worn out engines frequently broke down. On many occasions only three were in working order and the other five undergoing heavy repairs which might secure them another short span of usefulness. Three times the construction had to be suspended to allow the army to be revictualed. Every difficulty was, however, overcome. By the beginning of May the line to Kenna was finished and the whole of the railway battalion, its subalterns and its director, turned their attention to a greater enterprise. In the first week in December the Sirdar returned from England with instructions or permission to continue the advance towards Khartoum and the momentous question of the route to be followed arose. It may at first seem that the plain course was to continue to work along the Nile, connecting its navigable reaches by sections of railway. But from Merwawi to Abu Hamid the river is broken by continual cataracts and the broken ground of both banks made a railway nearly an impossibility. The movements of the French expeditions towards the upper Nile counseled speed. The poverty of Egypt compelled economy. The Nile route, though sure, would be slow and very expensive. A shortcut must be found. Three daring and ambitious schemes presented themselves. One, the line followed by the desert column in 1884 from Korti to Matema. Two, the celebrated, if not notorious, route from Suaken to Berber. Three, across the Nubian desert from Karosco or Wadi-Halfa to Abu Hamid. The question involved the whole strategy of the war. No more important decision was ever taken by Sir Herbert Kitchener whether in office or in action. The request for a war-British division, the attack on Mahmoud's Zareba, the great left wheel towards Omderman during that battle, the treatment of their Mershand expedition were matters of lesser resolve than the selection of the line of advance. The known strength of the caliphate made it evident that a powerful force would be required for the destruction of his army and the capture of his capital. The use of railway transport to some point on the Nile, once there was a clear waterway, was therefore imperative. Berber and Matema were known, and Abu Hamid was believed to fulfill this condition. But both Berber and Matema were important strategic points. It was improbable that the Dervishes would abandon these keys to Khartoum and the Sudan without severe resistance. It seemed likely indeed that the caliphate would strongly reinforce both towns and desperately contest their possession. The deserts between Korti and Matema, and between Suaken and Berber, contained scattered wells, and small raiding parties might have cut the railway and perhaps have starved the army at its head. It was therefore too dangerous to project the railway towards either Berber or Matema until they were actually in our hands. The argument is circular. The towns could not be taken without a strong force, so strong a force could not advance until the railway was made, and the railway could not be made till the towns were taken. Both the Korti, Matema, and the Suaken-Berber routes were therefore rejected. The resolution to exclude the latter was further strengthened by the fact that the labor of building a railway over the hills behind Suaken would have been very great. The route via Abu Hamid was selected by the exclusion of the alternatives. But it had distinct and apparent advantages. Abu Hamid was within striking distance of the army at Mirawi. It was not a point essential to the dervish defences, and not therefore likely to be so strongly garrisoned as Berber or Matema. It might therefore be captured by a column marching along the river, and sufficiently small to be equipped with only camel transport. The deserts through which the railway to Abu Hamid would pass contain few wells, and therefore it would be difficult for small raiding parties to cut the line or attack the construction gangs. And before the line got within reach of the dervish garrison at Abu Hamid, that garrison would be dislodged and the place seized. The plan was perfect, and the argument in its favor conclusive. It turned, however, on one point. Was the desert railway a possibility? With this question the general was now confronted. He appealed to expert opinion. Eminent railway engineers in England were consulted. They replied with unanimity that, having due regard to the circumstances, and remembering the conditions of war under which the work must be executed, it was impossible to construct such a line. Distinguished soldiers were approached on the subject. They replied that the scheme was not only impossible but absurd. Many other persons who were not consulted volunteered the opinion that the whole idea was that of a lunatic, and predicted ruin and disaster to the expedition. Having received this advice, and reflected on it duly, the Serdar ordered the railway to be constructed without more delay. A further question immediately arose. Should the railway to Abu Hamid start from Kurosco or from Wadi Hafa? There were arguments on both sides. The adoption of the Kurosco line would reduce the river stage from Aswan by forty-eight hours upstream. The old caravan route, by which General Gordon had traveled to Khartoum on his last journey, had been from Kurosco via Murat Wells to Abu Hamid. On the other hand, many workshops and appliances for construction were already existing at Wadi Hafa. It was the northern terminus of the Dangala Railway. This was an enormous advantage. Both routes were reconnoitred that from Wadi Hafa was selected. The decision having been taken the enterprise was at once begun. Lieutenant Girard, to whom everything was entrusted, was told to make the necessary estimates. Sitting in his hut at Wadi Hafa he drew up a comprehensive list. Nothing was forgotten. Every want was provided for. Every difficulty was foreseen. Every requisite was noted. The questions to be decided were numerous and involved. How much carrying capacity was required? How much rolling stock? How many engines? What spare parts? How much oil? How many lathes? How many cutters? How many punching and shearing machines? What arrangements of signals would be necessary? How many lamps? How many points? How many trolleys? What amount of coal should be ordered? How much water would be wanted? How should it be carried? To what extent would its carriage affect the hauling power and influence all previous calculations? How much railway plant was needed? How many miles of rail? How many thousand sleepers? Where could they be procured at such short notice? How many fish plates were necessary? What tools would be required? What appliances? What machinery? How much skilled labour was wanted? How much of the class of labour available? How were the workmen to be fed and watered? How much food would they want? How many trains a day must be run to feed them in their escort? How many must be run to carry plant? How did these requirements affect the estimate for rolling stock? The answers to all these questions and to many others with which I will not inflict the reader were set forth by Lieutenant Girard in a ponderous volume several inches thick, and such was the comprehensive accuracy of the estimate that the working parties were never delayed by the want even of a piece of brass wire. In any circumstances the task would have been enormous. It was, however, complicated by five important considerations. It had to be executed with military precautions. There was apparently no water along the line. The feeding of two thousand plate-layers in a barren desert was a problem in itself. The work had to be completed before the winter, and finally the money voted was not to be outrun. The sardar attended to the last condition. Girard was sent to England to buy the plant in rolling stock. Fifteen new engines and two hundred trucks were ordered. The necessary new workshops were commenced at HALFA. Experience mechanics were procured to direct them. Fifteen hundred additional men were enlisted in the railway battalion and trained. Then the water question was dealt with. The reconordering surveys had reported that though the line was certainly good and easy for one hundred ten miles, and according to Arab accounts, for the remaining hundred twenty miles, no drop of water was to be found, and only two likely spots for wells were noted. Camel transport was, of course, out of the question. Each engine must first of all haul enough water to carry it to railhead and back besides the reserve against accidents. It was evident that the quantity of water required by any locomotive would continually increase as the work progressed and the distance grew greater until finally the material trains would have one-third of their carrying power absorbed in transporting the water for their own consumption. The amount of water necessary is largely dependent on the grades of the line. The flat desert proved to be a steady slope up to a height of sixteen hundred feet above HALFA, and the calculations were further complicated. The difficulty had, however, to be faced, when a hundred fifteen hundred-gallon tanks were procured. These were mounted on trucks and connected by hose, and the most striking characteristic of the trains of the Sudan military railway was the long succession of enormous boxes on wheels on which the motive power of the engine and the lives of the passengers depended. The first spade full of sand of the desert railway was turned on the first day of 1897. But until May, when the line to Kerma was finished, no great efforts were made and only forty miles of track had been laid. In the meanwhile the men of the new railway battalion were being trained. The plant was steadily accumulating. Engines, rolling stock, and material of all sorts had arrived from England. From the growing workshops at Wadi HALFA, the continual clattering clang of hammers, and the black smoke of manufacture rose to the African sky. The malodorous incense of civilization was offered to the startled gods of Egypt. All this was preparation, nor was it until the 8th of May that track laying into the desert was begun in earnest. The whole of the construction gangs and railroad staff were brought from Kerma to Wadi HALFA, and the daring pioneers of modern war started on their long march through the wilderness, dragging their railway behind them. Safe and sure road, which infantry, cavalry, guns, and gun-boats might follow with speed and convenience. It is scarcely within the power of words to describe the savage desolation of the regions into which the line and its constructors plunged. A smooth ocean of bright-colored sand spread far and wide to distant horizons. The tropical sun beat with senseless perseverance upon the level surface until it could scarcely be touched with a naked hand. And the filmy air glittered and shimmered as over a furnace. Here and there huge masses of crumbling rock rose from the plain, like islands of cinders in a sea of fire. Alone in this vast expanse stood Railhead, a canvas town of 2,500 inhabitants, complete with station, stores, post office, telegraph office, and canteen, and only connected with the living world of men and ideas by two parallel iron streaks, three feet six inches apart, growing dim and narrower in a long perspective until they were twisted and blurred by the mirage and vanished in the indefinite distance. Every morning in the remote nothingness there appeared a black spec growing larger and clearer, until with a whistle and a welcome clatter, amid the aching silence of ages, the material train arrived, carrying its own water and 2,500 yards of rails, sleepers, and accessories. At noon came another spec, developing in a similar manner into a supply train, also carrying its own water, food and water for the half battalion of the escort, and the two thousand artificers and plate-layers, and the letters, newspapers, sausages, jam, whiskey, soda water, and cigarettes, which enabled the Britain to conquer the world without discomfort. And presently the empty trains would depart, reversing the process of their arrival, and vanishing gradually along a line which appeared at last to turn up into the air and run at a tangent into an unreal world. The life of the strange and lonely town was characterized by a machine like regularity, born perhaps of the iron road from which it derived its nourishment. Daily at three o'clock in the morning the camp engine started with the bank-parties. With the dawn the material train arrived, the plate-laying gang swarmed over it like clusters of flies, and were carried to the extreme limit of the track. Every man knew his task, and knew too that he would return to camp when it was finished, and not before. Forthwith they set busily to work without the necessity of an order. A hundred yards of material was unloaded. The sleepers were arranged in a long succession. The rails were spiked to every alternate sleeper, and then the great eighty-ton engine moved cautiously forward along the unbalanced track, like an elephant trying a doubtful bridge. The operation was repeated continually through the hours of the burning day. Behind the train there followed other gangs of plate-layers who completed the spiking and ballasting process, and when the sun sank beneath the sands of the western horizon and the engine pushed the empty trucks and the weary men home to the railhead camp, it came back over a finished and permanent line. There was a brief interval while the camp-fires twinkled in the waste, like the lights of a liner in mid-ocean, while the officers and men chatted over their evening meal, and then the darkness and silence of the desert was unbroken till morning brought the glare and toil of another long day. So week in, week out, the work went on. Every few days saw a further advance into the wilderness. The scene changed and remained unaltered, another yet the same. As Wadi Halfa became more remote and Abu Hamed grew near, an element of danger, the more appalling since it was peculiar, was added to the strange conditions under which the inhabitants of railhead lived. What if the dervishes should cut the line behind them? They had three days' reserve of water. After that, unless the obstruction were removed and the traffic reached stored, all must wither and die in the sand, and only their bones and their cooking-pots would attest the folly of their undertaking. By the 20th of July, a hundred and thirty miles of line had been finished, and it became too dangerous to advance further until Abu Hamed had been cleared of the dervish force. They were still a hundred miles away, but camels travel fast and far, and the resources of the enemy were uncertain. It appeared the progress would be checked, but on the 7th of August, General Hunter, marching from Merwawi along the river bank, attacked and took Abu Hamed, an operation which will be described hereafter. Work was at once resumed with renewed energy. The pace of construction now became remarkable. As much as fifty-three hundred yards of track was surveyed, embanked, and laid in a single day. On the 1st of November, Abu Hamed was reached, and by the banks of the Nile the men who had fought their way across the desert joined hands with those who had fought their way along the river. The strain and hardship had not, however, been without effect on the constructors. Two of the engineer's subalterns, Pawele and Qator, out of the eight concerned in the laying of the dangla and desert railways, had died. Their places were eagerly filled by others. The completion of the line was accelerated by nearly a month through the fortunate discovery of water. At the beginning of July a well was sunk in what was thought to be a likely place at No. 4 Station, seventy-seven miles from Haifa. After five weeks' work water was found in abundance at a depth of ninety feet. A steam pump was erected, and the well yielded a continual supply. In October a second well was sunk at No. 6 Station, fifty-five miles further on, whence water was obtained in still greater quantity. These discoveries modified, though they did not solve, the water question. They substantially increased the carrying capacity of the line, and reduced the danger to which the construction gangs were exposed. The sinking of the wells, an enterprise at which the friendly Arabs scoffed, was begun on the Sardar's personal initiative. But the chronicler must impartially observe that the success was one by luck as much as by calculation, for, since the first two wells were made, eight others of greater depth had been bored, and in no case has water been obtained. As the railway had been made, the telegraph wire had, of course, followed it. Every consignment of rails and sleepers had been accompanied by its proportion of telegraph poles, insulators, and wire. Another subaltern of engineers, Lieutenant Manifold, who managed this part of the military operations against the Arabs, had also laid a line from Merawi to Abu Hamid, so that immediate correspondence was affected round the entire circle of rail and river. The labors of the railway battalion and its officers did not end with the completion of the line to Abu Hamid. The desert railway was made. It had now to be maintained, worked, and rapidly extended. The terminus at Haifa had become a busy town. A mud village was transformed into a miniature crew. The great workshops that had grown with the line were equipped with diverse and elaborate machines. Plant of all kinds purchased in Cairo, or a requisition from England, with odds and ends collected from Ishmael's scrap heaps, filled the depots with an extraordinary variety of stores. Foundries, lathes, dynamos, steam-hammers, hydraulic presses, cupola furnaces, screw-cutting machines, and drills had been set up and were in continual work. They needed constant attention. Every appliance for repairing each must be provided. To haul the tonnage necessary to supply the army and extend the line nearly forty engines were eventually required. Purchased at different times and from different countries, they included ten distinct patterns. Each pattern needed a special reserve of spare parts. The permutations and combinations of the stores were multiplied. Some of the engines were old and already worn out. These broke down periodically. The frictional parts of all were affected by the desert sand and needed ceaseless attention and repair. The workshops were busy night and day for seven days a week. To the complication of machinery was added the confusion of tongues. Natives of various races were employed as operatives. Foremen had been obtained from Europe. No fewer than seven separate languages were spoken in the shops. Wadi Haifa became a second babble. Yet the undertaking prospered. The engineer officers displayed qualities of tact and temper. Their director was cool and indefatigable. Overall the sardar exercised a regular control. Usually ungracious, rarely impatient, never unreasonable, he moved among the workshops and about the line, satisfying himself that all was proceeding with economy and dispatch. The sympathy of common labour won him the affection of the subalterns. Nowhere in the Sudan was he better known than on the railroad. Nowhere was he so ardently believed in. It is now necessary to anticipate the course of events. As soon as the railway reached Abu Hamid, General Hunter's force, which was holding that place, dropped its slender camel communications with Marawi and drew its supplies along the new line direct from Wadi Haifa. After the completion of the desert line there was still left seventeen miles of material for construction, and the railway was consequently at once extended to Dakhash, sixteen miles south of Abu Hamid. Meanwhile Berber was seized, and military considerations compelled the concentration of a larger force to maintain that town. The four battalions which had remained at Marawi were floated downstream to Kerma, and there in training were carried by Haifa and Abu Hamid to Dakhash, a journey of four hundred fifty miles. When the railway had been begun across the desert it was believed that the Nile was always navigable above Abu Hamid. In former campaigns it had been reconnoitred and the waterway declared clear. But as the river fell it became evident that this was untrue. With the subsidence of the waters cataracts began to appear, and to avoid these it became necessary, first of all, to extend the railway to Bashtinab, later on to Abadiya, and finally to the Atbara. To do this more money had to be obtained, and the usual financial difficulties presented themselves. Finally, however, the matter was settled, and the extension began at the rate of about a mile a day. The character of the country varies considerably between Abu Hamid and the Atbara River. For the first sixty miles the line ran beside the Nile, at the edge of the riparian belt. On the right was the cultivable, though mostly uncultivated strip, long neglected and silted up with fine sand drifted into dunes, from which scattered, scraggly, dumb palms and prickly mimosa bushes grew. Between the branches of these somber trees the river gleamed a cool and attractive flood. On the left was the desert, here broken by frequent rocks and dry water-courses. From Bashtinab to Abadiya another desert section of fifty miles was necessary to avoid some very difficult ground by the Nile bank. From Abadiya to the Atbara the last stretch of the line runs across a broad alluvial expanse, from whose surface plain trees of mean appearance, but affording welcome shade, rise watered by the autumn rains. The fact that the railway was approaching regions where rain is not an almost unknown phenomenon increased the labour of construction. To prevent the embankments from being washed away in the water-courses ten bridges and sixty culverts had to be made, and this involved the transport over the railway of more than one thousand tons of material in addition to the ordinary plant. By the arrival of the reinforcements at Berber the fighting force at the front was doubled. Doubled also was the business of supply. The task of providing the food of an army in a desert a thousand miles from their base, and with no apparent means of subsistence at the end of the day's march, is less picturesque, though not less important, than the building of railways along which that nourishment is drawn to the front. Supply and transport stand or fall together. History depends on both, and in order to explain the commissariat aspect of the river-war, I must again both repeat and anticipate the account. The Sirdar exercised a direct and personal supervision over the whole department of supply, but his action was restricted almost entirely to the distribution of the rations. Their accumulation and regular supply were the task of Colonel Rogers, and this officer, by three years of exact calculation and unfailing allowance for the unforeseen, has well deserved his high reputation as a feeder of armies. The first military necessity of the war was, as has been described, to place the bulk of the Egyptian army at Akasha. In ordinary circumstances this would not have been a serious commissariat, problem. The frontier reserves of food were calculated to meet such an emergency. But in 1895 the crops in Egypt had been much below the average. At the beginning of 1896 there was a great scarcity of grain. When the order for the advance was issued, the frontier grain stores were nearly exhausted. The new crops would not be garnered until the end of April. Thus while the world regarded Egypt as a vast granary, her soldiers were obliged to purchase four thousand tons of Dura and one thousand tons of barley from India and Russia, on which to begin the campaign. The chief item of a soldier's diet in most armies is bread. And several of our wars, the health, and consequently the efficiency of the troops has been impaired by bad bread or by the two-frequent substitution of hard biscuit. For more than a year the army up the river ate twenty tons of flour daily, and it is easy to imagine how bitter among ordinary circumstances would have been the battle between the commissariat officers whose duty it was to insist on proper quality and the contractors, often, I fear, meriting the epithet rascally, intent only upon profit. But in the well-managed Egyptian service no such difficulties arose. The War Department had, in 1892, converted one of Ishmael Pasha's gun factories near Cairo into a victualing yard. Here were set up their own mills for grinding flour, machinery for manufacturing biscuit to the extent of sixty thousand rations daily, and even for making soap. Three great advantages sprang from this wise arrangement. Firstly, the good quality of the supply was assured. Complaints about bread and biscuit were practically unknown. In the soap, since the soldier, in contrast to the mixture of rubble and grease with which the contractors had formerly furnished him, could actually wash himself and his clothes with it, was greatly prized. Secondly, all risk of contractors failing to deliver in time was avoided. Lastly, the funds resulting from the economy had been utilized to form a useful core of one hundred fifty bakers, and thus, although the purchase of foreign grain added to the expense, the beginning of the war found the commissariat of the Egyptian army in a thoroughly efficient state. Vast reserves of stores were quickly accumulated at Aswan. From these not an ounce of food was issued without the Serdar's direct sanction. At the subsidiary depot, formed at Wadi Haifa, the same rule prevailed. The man who was responsible to no one took all the responsibility, and the system whereby a chief of the staff is subjected to the continual bombardment of heads of departments was happily avoided. Sufficient supplies having been accumulated at Akasha, to allow of a forward movement, furket was fought. After furket the situation became difficult, and the problem of the supply officers was to keep the troops alive without delaying the progress of the railway with the carriage of their food. A small quantity of provisions was painfully dragged, with an average loss of fifty percent from theft and water damage, up the succession of cataracts which obstruct the riverway from Haifa to Koshay. Camel convoys from Railhead carried the rest. But until the line reached Koshay the resources of the transport were terribly strained, and at one time it was even necessary to send the mounted troops north to avoid actual famine. The apparent inadequacy of the means to the end reached a climax when the army moved southward from Dulgo. The marches and halts to Dangala were estimated to take ten days, which was the utmost capacity of camel and steam transport. A few boatloads of grain might be captured. A few handfuls of dates might be plucked. But scarcely any local supplies would be available. The sailing boats, which were the only regular means of transport, were all delayed by the adverse winds. Fortune returned at the critical moment. By good luck on the first day of the march the north wind began to blow, and twelve-day supplies, over and above those moved by camel and steamer, reached Dangala with the troops. With this reserve in hand, the occupation of the province was completed, and although the army only existed from hand to mouth until the railway reached Kerma, no further serious difficulty was experienced in supplying them. The account of the commissariat is now complete to the end of the Dangala expedition, but it may conveniently be carried forward with the railway construction. In the Abu Hamid phase the supplies were so regulated that a convoy travelling from Murat Wells, along the caravan route, arrived the day after the fight, and thereafter communications were opened with Murawi. The unexpected occupation of Berber, following Abu Hamid, created the most difficult situation of the war. Until the railway was forced on to Berber a peculiarly inconvenient line of supply had to be used, and strings of camels, scattering never less than thirty percent of their loads, meandered through the rough and thorny country between Murawi and Abu Hamid. This line was strengthened by other convoys from Murat, and the approaching railhead, and a system of boats and camel portages filtered the supplies to their destination. Even when the railway had reached Dakesh, the tension was only slightly relaxed. The necessity of supplying the large force at Berber, one hundred eight miles from railhead, still required the maintenance of a huge and complicated system of boat and camel transport. Of course, as the railway advanced, it absorbed, stage after stage of river and portage, and the difficulties decreased. But the reader may gain some idea of their magnitude by following the progress of a box of biscuits from Cairo to Berber in the month of December, 1897. The route was as follows. From Cairo to Nachhamari, three hundred forty miles, by rail. From Nachhamari to Aswan, two hundred five miles, by boat. From Aswan to Shalal, six miles, by rail. From Shalal to Halfa, two hundred twenty six miles, by boat. From Halfa to Dakesh, which was railhead, two hundred forty eight miles, by military railway. From Dakesh to Sheraik, forty five miles, by boat. From Sheraik by camel, thirteen miles, round a cataract, to Bhashtanab. From Bhashtanab by boat, twenty five miles, to Amsheo. From Amsheo round another impracticable reach, eleven miles, by camel to Genaineti, and thence twenty two miles to Berber by boat. The road taken by this box of biscuits was followed by every ton of supplies required by ten thousand men in the field. The uninterrupted working of the long and varied chain was vital to the welfare of the army and the success of the war. It could only be maintained if every section was adequately supplied, and none were either choked or starved. This problem had to be solved correctly every day by the transport officers, in spite of uncertain winds that retarded the boats, of camels that grew sick or died, and of engines that repeatedly broke down. In the face of every difficulty a regular supply was maintained. The construction of the railway was not delayed, nor the food of the troops reduced. The line continued to grow rapidly, and as it grew the difficulties of supply decreased. The weight was shifted from the backs of the camels and the bottoms of the sailing boats to the trucks of the iron road. The strong hands of steam were directed to the prosecution of the war, and the swiftness of the train replaced the toilsome plodding of the caravan. The advance of the dervishes towards Berber checked the progress of the railway. Military precautions were imperative. Construction was delayed by the passage of the first British brigade from Cairo to the front, and by the consequently increased volume of daily supplies. By the 10th of March, however, the line was completed to Bashtonab. On the 5th of May it had reached Abadiya. On the 3rd of July the whole railway from Wadi-Hoffa to the Atbara was finished, and the southern terminus was established in the great entrenched camp at the confluence of the rivers. The question of supply was then settled once and for all. In less than a week stores sufficient for three months were poured along the line, and the exhausting labors of the commissariat officers ended. Their relief and achievement were merged in the greater triumph of the railway staff. The director and his subalterns had labored long, and their efforts were crowned with complete success. On the day that the first troop train steamed into the fortified camp at the confluence of the Nile and the Atbara rivers, the doom of the dervishes was sealed. It had now become possible with convenience and speed to send into the heart of the Sudan great armies independent of the season of the year and of the resources of the country, to supply them not only with abundant food and ammunition, but with all the varied paraphernalia of scientific war, and to support their action on land by a powerful flotilla of gun-boats, which could dominate the river and command the banks, and could at any moment make their way past Khartoum even to Sennar, Vashoda, or Sobat. Though the battle was not yet fought, the victory was won. The Khalifa, his capital, and his army were now within the Sardar's reach. It remained only to pluck the fruit in the most convenient hour, with the least trouble, and at the smallest cost.