CHAPTER LI.
THE MARCH IN THE DESERT.
We have stated that Roland and his comrades were left stationed at a point where they were menaced by two forces of the enemy.
'These were,' says Colonel Eyre, of the Staffordshire, in his 'Diary,' 'the tribes whose people murdered poor Colonel Stewart. They are entrenched twenty-three miles in front of us up the river, and sent word that they were to fight. They have a large force on the Berber Road, forty miles on our flank; they were here two days ago, and took all the camels in the district. We are encamped on a wild desert, with ridges of rocky hills about two miles inland. We have pitched our tents.'
There we shall leave them for a time, and look back to Korti, where some boats of troops arrived from Hannek, twenty-three miles lower down the Nile, and in one of these, tugging manfully at an oar, came the rescued Malcolm Skene!
His disappearance many weeks before—nearly three months now—was well known to the troops; hence—though in that fierce warfare, a human life, more or less lost or saved, mattered little—his sudden appearance in camp, when he reported himself at the headquarter tent, did make a little stir for a time; and thus he was the hero of the hour; but great and forward movements were in progress now, and there was not much time to waste on anyone or anything else.
Though he had missed his corps, the Staffordshire, by about twenty-four hours, it was with a source of intense satisfaction that he found himself among his own countrymen again—once more with the troops and ready for active service of any kind.
One thought was fully prominent in his mind, never again would he be taken alive by the Soudanese.
A horse, harness, and arms, belonging to some of the killed or drowned, were speedily provided for him, and, by order of the General commanding, he was attached to the personal staff—pro tem.—of Sir Herbert Stewart, as his great knowledge of the country and of Arabic might prove of good service.
Considering the treachery of Hassan Abdullah, his long detention in the zereba of the Sheikh Moussa, and what his too probable end would have been after the deportation of Zebehr Pasha, with the recent close and deadly struggle he had for life in the grasp of Girolamo, and how nearly he escaped recapture and slaughter, Malcolm Skene had now a personal and somewhat rancorous animosity to the Soudanese.
Now that he had not perished in the desert, in the river, by Arab hands, or in any fashion as his troublesome presentiment had led him to expect when he left Cairo guided by that rascal Hassan on his lonely mission to Dayr-el-Syrian, he felt a curious sense of mortification, compunction, almost of regret, concerning the very tender and loving letter of farewell he had written to Hester Maule; and began to think it would be somewhat remarkable and awkward if—after all—he should again meet her face to face in society.
Then again, as often before, he seemed to see in fancy the conservatory at Earlshaugh, with its long and faintly lit vistas of flowers, rare exotics, with feathery acacias and orange trees and azaleas overhead; the gleam of the moonshine on the adjacent lakelet; the tall slender figure and soft dark eyes of Hester; and to his vivid imagination her words and his own came back to him, with the nervous expression of her sad and parted lips as she forbade him ever to hope, and yet gave him no reason why!
How long, long ago, it seemed since then! Yet he often fancied himself saying to her:
'Is the answer you gave me then still the same, dear Hester?'
Well—well—that was over and done with, as yet, and ere dawn came in on the 29th of December he was roused by the bugles sounding 'the assembly' for the advance.
Lord Wolseley's orders were now that General Earle, with an Infantry Brigade (including the Black Watch and Staffordshire), was to punish the Monassir tribe for the murder of Colonel Donald Stewart; while the Mounted Infantry and Guards Camel Corps, under Sir Herbert Stewart, were to advance on a march of exploration to Gakdul, a distance of ninety miles, with a convoy of camels laden with stores—a route between the deserts of Bayuda and Ababdeh.
A little after 3 a.m. on the 29th of December, the cavalry scouts, under Major Kitchener, with some Arab guides, moved off, and then Lord Wolseley gave his orders for the column to get into motion, and strike straight off across the pebble-strewn desert, towards the distant horizon, which was indicated only by a dark, opaque, and undulating line, against which a mimosa tuft stood up, and above which the rays of the yet unrisen sun were faintly crimsoning the then hazy sky, which otherwise as yet was totally dark.
To Sir Herbert Stewart the final orders were brought by Malcolm Skene, his new aide-de-camp.
'You are to advance, sir, in column of companies, with an interval of thirty paces between each, the Guards Camel Corps and Engineers in front, the convoy and baggage next, then the Artillery and Mounted Infantry, the Hussars to form the advance and rear guards.'
Malcolm saluted, reined back his horse, and betook him to the inevitable cigarette, while the camels ceased to grunt, and stalked off to the posts assigned them, and the column began to move, so as to be in readiness to form a hollow square at a moment's notice.
To Malcolm Skene, even to him who had recently seen so much, it was indeed a strange sight to watch the departing camels, with their long, slender necks stretched out like those of ostriches, and their legs, four thousand pairs in number, gliding along in military order, silently, softly, noiselessly, like a mighty column of phantoms, beast and rider, until the light, rising dust of the desert blended all, soldiers, camels, convoy, artillery, and baggage, into one gray, uniform mass, which ere long seemed to fade out, to pass away from the eyes of those who remained behind in the camp.
In case of an attack the Guards were to form square, echeloned on the left front of the column; the Mounted Infantry were to do the same on the right rear; but the column was so great in length that it was feared their fire would scarcely protect the entire line unless the usually swift enemy were seen approaching in time to get the baggage and convoy closed up; for, broad though the front of this strange column, it was fully a mile long, and would have proved very unwieldy to handle in case of a sudden onslaught. Thus on the march it frequently halted, dismounted, and, for practice, prepared to meet the enemy, and was so formed that if the latter got among the camels they would be exposed to an enfilading fire from two faces each way.
After a halt nine miles distant from Korti, and as many to the left of the Wady Makattem, the march was resumed under a peculiarly brilliant moonlight—one so bright that few present had ever seen anything like it before.
Not a cloud was visible in the far expanse of the firmament; there were millions upon millions of stars sparkling, but their brightness paled almost out in the brilliance of the moon. There were no leaves to shine in the dew, but showers of diamonds seemed to gem the yellow pebbles of the desert; and had birds been there, they might have sung as if a new day had dawned; yet how all unlike the warm glow of an Egyptian day was the icy splendour of the moonlight that mingled in one quarter with the coming redness of the east.
Every sword-blade, every rifle-barrel, every buckle and stirrup-iron, glinted out in light, while the figures of every camel and horse, soldier, and artillery-wheel were clearly defined as at noonday; and no sound broke the stillness save the shrill voices of the Somali camel-drivers.
It was soon after this that Major Barrow, when scouting with some Hussars, came upon a solitary messenger, bearer of a tiny scrap of paper, no larger than a postage stamp—one of the last missives from Gordon, dated 14th December, he being then shut up in Khartoum.
The moonlight faded; the red dawn came in, and still the march of the column went on; in front a dreary, sandy, and waterless desert; behind, the narrow streak of green that indicated the course of the Nile; and now our officers began to say to each other that 'if the camel corps alone was from the first deemed sufficient to relieve Khartoum, then why, at such enormous expense, exertion, and toil, were 3,000 infantry brought blundering up the Nile? And anon, if they were not sufficient, surely there was infinite danger in exposing the corps, unsupported, to the contingency of an overwhelming attack by the united forces of the Mahdi.'
It was found that there were wells, however, at Hamboka, El Howeiyat, and elsewhere, far apart, and that so far as water was concerned the practicability of the desert route to Metemneh was proved by the march to Gakdul; after reaching which Sir Herbert Stewart retraced his steps to Korti; where two days afterwards, about noon, a cloud of dust seen rising in the distance, almost to the welkin, announced the return of his column, looming large and darkly out of the mirage of the desert, in forms that were strange, distorted, and gigantic, after leaving twenty broken-down camels to die, abandoned in the awful waste.
Just as Stewart came, the sound of Scottish pipes on the Nile announced the arrival of the Black Watch in their boats off Korti. All round the world have our bagpipes sounded, but never before so far into the heart of the Dark Continent.
On Thursday, the 8th of January, the second advance through the desert began, and the natives looked upon the troops as doomed men. Three armies, larger and better equipped, had departed on the same errand to 'smash up' the Mahdi, but had been cut off nearly to a man, and their unburied skeletons were strewn all over the country.
All the officers in Sir Herbert Stewart's column were strangers to Malcolm Skene, but such is the influence of service together, camaraderie and companionship in danger and suffering, that even in these days of general muddle and 'scratch' formations, he felt already quite like an old friend with the staff and many others.
The pebble-strewn desert was glistening in the moonlight, when the column en route for Khartoum, viâ Gubat and Metemneh, marched off at two in the morning, and ever and anon the bugle rang out on the ambient air, sounding 'halt,' that the stragglers in the rear might close up, and then the long array continued to glide like a phantom army, or a mass of moving shadows, across the waste.
Three hours afterwards, there stole upon one quarter of the horizon a lurid gleam—the herald of the coming day; then the bugles struck up a Scottish quick-step—the silence was broken, and the men began to talk cheerily, and 'chaff' each other, though already enduring that parched sensation in the mouth, peculiar to all who traverse the deserts that border on the Nile—a parched feeling for which liquor, curious to say, is almost useless, and often increases the torture—and all, particularly the marching infantry, in defiance of orders, drank from their water-bottles surreptitiously, even when it was announced that seventy more miles had to be covered ere a proper supply could be obtained from wells.
Those at Hamboka, forty-seven miles from Korti, were found full of dry sand—destroyed by the horsemen of the Sheikh Moussa Abu Hagil, who was in that quarter; those at El Howieyat, eight miles further on, were in nearly the same condition, and already the soldiers were becoming maddened by thirst.
Day had passed, and again the weary march was resumed in the dark.
At the well of Abu Haifa, eighty miles from Korti, the scene that ensued was exciting and painful—even terrible. The orders were that the fighting men were to be first supplied; and, held back by the bayonet's point, the wretched camp-followers, Somali camel-drivers, and others frantically tore up the warm sand with their hands in the hope that a little water might collect therein, and when it did so, they stooped and lapped it up like thirsty cats or dogs. Others failed to achieve this, and with their mouths cracked, their entrails shrivelled, their flashing eyes wild and hollow, they rolled about with frenzy at their hearts, and blasphemy on their lips. There was no reasoning with them—they could no longer reason.
Even the resolute British soldier could scarcely be restrained by habitual discipline from throwing the latter aside, and joining in the throng that surged around the so-called well—a mere stony hole in the desert sand—while in the background were maddened horses, and even the ever-patient camels, plunging, struggling, unmanageable, and fighting desperately with their masters for a drop of that precious liquid.
In the struggle here Malcolm Skene, as an officer, got his water-bottle filled among the earliest, having ridden forward, and with a sigh that was somewhat of a prayer he was about to take a deep draught therefrom, when the wan face, the haggard eyes, and parched lips of a young soldier of the 2nd Sussex caught his eye. Too weak to struggle, perhaps too well-bred, if breeding could be remembered in that hour of madness, or so despairing as to be careless, he had made no effort to procure water, or if he did so, had failed.
Skene's heart smote him.
'Drink, my man,' said he, proffering his water-bottle, 'and then I shall.'
'Oh, may God bless you, sir,' murmured the poor infantry lad fervently, as he drank, and returned the bottle with a salute.
Gakdul—hemmed in by lofty and stupendous precipices of bare rock—was reached on the 12th January, when, amid cheers and rejoicings, a plentiful supply of water was obtained, after which preparations were made for the march to Metemneh, where it was known that thousands were gathering to bar our way to Khartoum. Yet Stewart's total strength was only 1,607 men of all ranks, encumbered by 304 camp followers, and 2,380 camels and horses. The halt of two days at Gakdul did wonders in restoring the energies of men and cattle.
There Malcolm Skene's knowledge of Arabic was frequently in requisition. As yet the leaders of this advanced column were utterly without any trustworthy intelligence as to the movements of the Mahdi's army, for bands of prowling robbers and the Bedouins of the Sheikh Moussa infested every route in front and rear, keeping carefully out of sight by day-time, but swooping down on the camping grounds by night in the hope of finding abandoned spoil—perhaps sick or wounded men to torture and slay.
Sir Herbert Stewart arrived on the 16th of January within a few miles of the now famous wells of Abu Klea, after a waterless march of forty-three miles from those of El Faar, and already even the poor camels had become so reduced in physique that as many as thirty dropped down to die in one day; but the troops reached a line of black sandstone ridges lying westward of Abu Klea, and a squadron of Hussars, whose horses were suffering most severely from want of water, cantered forward to inspect the country, and Malcolm Skene rode with them.
At mid-day they found the enemy in a valley, where long and reedy grass was waving in the hot breeze—a place studded by several camel-thorns and acacias. The Arab centre occupied a long and gentle slope, like the glacis of an earthwork.
Led by a Sheikh, about 200 mounted men advanced resolutely and in tolerable order, opening fire with their Remingtons on the Hussars.
In their leader, Malcolm, through his field-glass, recognised the Sheikh Moussa Abu Hagil, who alone of all his band wore a suit of that mail armour of the Middle Ages, which is thus described by Colonel Colborne, who says 'it was in the Soudan' he first saw it, to his amazement: 'Whether original or a copy of it, it was undoubtedly the dress of the Crusaders. The hauberk was fastened round the body by the belt, and formed a complete covering from head to foot. The long and double-edged sword was worn between the leg and saddle.'
Moussa wore a flat-topped helmet with a plume, and tippet of Darfour mail; his horse's head was cased in steel, and covered by a quilt thick enough to turn a spear; but, save their bodies, which were clad in Mahdi shirts, his followers were naked—with their dark, bronze-like legs and arms bare.
Under their fire the reconnoitring force of Hussars fell back, an operation viewed by Sir Herbert Stewart and his staff from the summit of a lofty hill composed entirely of black and shining rock, from whence he could see the whole country for miles, and from where he ordered a general advance.
By difficult defiles, and in serious distress owing to the want of water, the troops advanced in steady and splendid order, the line being led by the Brigade Major, David, Earl of Airlie, of the 10th Hussars—one of a grand old historic race—round whose Castle of Cortachy a spectre drummer is said to beat when fate is nigh—and he had brought the whole into the valley by half-past two o'clock; then Sir Herbert, having ascertained from Skene's report that the wells of Abu Klea were too far in rear of the Arab position to be accessible that night, resolved to fortify the ground he occupied, a ridge rising gently from the Wady, but broken before it reached the hills, while close in rear of it was a grassy hollow, wherein the baggage animals were picketed.
Hasty parapets of stones, gathered from the ground whereon the troops lay, were constructed along the front of the position, flanked by abattis of thorny mimosa, while the great hill of black rock referred to was occupied by a party of signallers, who built thereon a redoubt; while a mile in its rear, on the brow of a precipice, another fortlet was formed as a rallying point in case of a reverse.
With his staff and a few Hussars Sir Herbert now rode to the front, and saw, as the ruddy sun began to set and cast long shadows over the swelling uplands of the scenery, the enemy in their thousands taking possession of a lofty hill sixteen hundred paces distant on his right—a position from whence they could completely enfilade his lines. Thus ere darkness fell they secured the range, and from that time no one could reckon on twenty minutes' sound sleep.
Prior to that a couple of shells were thrown among them, exploding with brilliant glares and loud crashes, on which they retired a little or sank down, leaving two great white banners floating out against the starry sky-line.
All night long they 'potted' away with their Remingtons, keeping up a desultory, but most harassing, fire, their long range and trajectory placing every point in danger, and some of their bullets fell whizzing downwards through the air upon the sleepers.
Many men were wounded, and many camels, too, and all night long, while their rifle shots flashed redly out of the darkness, they maintained a horrible din on their one-headed war drums, making the hours hideous.
All through the dark and moonless night these savage sounds rose and swelled upon the dewy air, and formed a fitting accompaniment to the wail of their pestering bullets as they swept over the silent British bivouac.