CHAPTER LII.
THE PRESENTIMENT FULFILLED.
So passed the night.
On the morning of the 17th of January, early, and without blast of bugle or beat of drum, a frugal breakfast—the last meal that many were to have in this world—was served round, and had been barely partaken of, when the Arab skirmishers came swarming over the low hills on our right flank, and opened fire with their Remingtons at eleven hundred yards' range.
With a succession of dreadful crashes, our shrapnel shell exploded among them, tearing many to pieces and putting the rest to flight; and after more than one attempt to lure the enemy from their position had failed, at 7 a.m. Sir Herbert Stewart began his preparations to advance, and drive them from the wells of Abu Klea.
Meanwhile the army of the Mahdi had been continually appearing and disappearing in front, their many-coloured pennons streaming out on the passing breeze, their long sword-blades and spear-heads flashing brightly in the red rays of the uprising sun, while the thunder of their battle-drums and their savage wild cries loaded the morning air.
Five ranks deep, four thousand of them deployed in irregular lines along a hollow in our front, led by mounted sheikhs and dervishes, clad in richly-embroidered Mahdi camises, and posted at intervals of twenty-five yards apart—conspicuous among them Moussa Abu Hagil, in his Darfour shirt of mail.
They were posted on strong ground westward of the wells, which our soldiers, sorely athirst, were full of anxiety to reach; and as the camels were mostly to be left in the rear, they were knee-haltered, and their stores and saddles used to strengthen the parapets of the detached fortlets.
In the fighting square which now advanced were only one hundred camels for carrying litters, stores, water, and spare ammunition.
The Heavies on this eventful morning were led by Colonel Talbot; the Guards by Colonel Boscawen; the gallant Barrow led the Mounted Infantry, and Lord Beresford the slender Naval Brigade.
Men were being knocked over now on every hand, and among the first who fell was Lord St. Vincent, of the 17th Lancers, who received a wound that proved mortal. Under Barrow the Mounted Infantry went darting forward, and the Arab skirmishers fell back before them, vanishing into the long wavy grass from amid which the smoke of their rifles spirted up. Skene had the spike of his helmet carried away by one ball; his bridle hand sharply grazed by another, but he bound his handkerchief about the wound and rode on.
By this time nearly an hour had elapsed since the zereba and its fortlets had been left in the rear, and only two miles of ground had been covered, and all the while our troops had been under a fire from the sable warriors on the hill slopes.
'Halt!' was now sounded by the bugles, and the faces of the square were redressed and post was to be taken on a slope, which the enemy would have to ascend when attacking.
Their total strength was now estimated at 14,000 men!
Our dead men were left where they fell; but frequent were the halts for picking up the wounded. Yet steady as if on parade in a home barrack square, our little band advanced, over stony crests, through dry water-courses, like some hugh machine, compact and slow, firm and regular, amid the storm of bullets poured into it from the front, from the flanks, and eventually from the rear.
At first the enemy swarmed in dark masses all along our front, and for two or three miles on either flank groups of their horsemen, with floating garments and glittering spears, could be seen watching the advance of the hollow square from black peaks of splintered rock. 'There was no avenue of retreat now for us,' wrote one, 'and no one thought of such a thing. "Let us do or die!" (in the words of Bruce's war song) was the emotion of all; and Colonel Barrow, C.B., with his "handful" of Hussars, became engaged about the same time as the square.'
He maintained a carbine fire, while General Stewart, with his personal staff, including Major Wardrop, the Earl of Airlie, and Captains Skene and Rhodes, galloped from point to point, keeping all in readiness to repulse a sudden charge; but, with all their bravery, it was a trial for our Heavy Dragoons to march on foot and fight with infantry rifles and bayonets—weapons to which they were totally unaccustomed.
The keen, yet dreamy sense of imminent peril—the chances of sudden death, with the spasmodic tightness of the chest that emotion sometimes causes, had passed from Malcolm Skene now completely; he 'felt cool as a cucumber,' yet instinct with the fierce desire to close with, to grapple, and to spur among the enemy sabre à la main; and he forgot even the smarting of his wounded bridle hand as the troops moved onward.
A few minutes after ten o'clock, when the leading face of the square had won the crest of a gentle slope on the other side of a hollow, a column of the enemy, about 5,000 strong, was seen echeloned in two long lines on the left, or opposite that face which was formed by the mounted infantry and heavy cavalry, and looking as if they meant to come on now.
They were still marshalled, as stated, by sheikhs and dervishes on horseback, and, with all their banners rustling in the wind, the battle-drums thundering, and their shrill cries of 'Allah! Allah!' loading the air, they advanced quickly, brandishing their flashing spears and two-handed swords. Abu Saleh, Ameer of Metemneh, led the right; Moussa Abu Hagil led the centre; and Mahommed Khuz, Ameer of Berber, who had soon to retire wounded, led the left, and our skirmishers came racing towards the square.
Strange to say, our fire as yet seemed to have little effect upon the foe; very few were falling, and the untouched began to believe that the spells of Osman Digna and the promises of the Mahdi had rendered their bodies shot-proof; and when within three hundred yards of the square they began to rush over the undulating ground like a vast wave of black surf. Now the Gardner gun was brought into action; but when most required, and at a moment full of peril, the wretched Government ammunition failed to act—the cartridges stuck ere the third round was fired; the human waves of Arabs came rolling down upon the square, leaping and yelling over their dead and wounded, never reeling nor wavering under the close sheets of lead that tore through them now.
Like fiends let loose they came surging and swooping on, their burnished weapons flashing, and their black brawny forms standing boldly out in the glow of the sunshine, unchecked by the hailstorm of bullets, spearing the horsemen around the useless Gardner gun, and fighting hand to hand, Abu Saleh and the Sheikh Moussa leading them on, and then it was that the gallant Colonel Burnaby, of the Blues, fell like the hero he was.
The wild and high desire to do something that might win him a name, and make, perhaps, Hester Maule proud of him, welled up in the heart of Malcolm Skene, even at that terrible crisis, and he spurred his horse forward a few paces, just as Burnaby had done, to succour some of the skirmishers, who, borne back by the Arab charge, had failed to reach the protection of the square, which was formed in the grand old British fashion, shoulder to shoulder like a living wall.
By one trenchant, back-handed stroke of his sword, he nearly swept the head off the yelling Arab, thereby saving from the latter's spear a Foot Guardsman, who had stumbled ere he could reach the square; but now Skene was furiously charged by another, who bore the standard of Sheikh Moussa.
Grasping his spear by his bridle hand, he ran his sword fairly through the Arab, who fell backward in a heap over his horse's crupper, and then Skene tore from his dying grip the banner, which was of green silk—the holy colour—edged with red, and bore a verse of the Koran in gold (for it was a gift from the Mahdi), and, regaining the shelter of the square, threw his trophy at the foot of the General.
'This shall go to the Queen—in your name, Captain Skene!' said the latter.
'The Queen—no, sir—but to a girl in Scotland, I hope, whether I live or not!' replied Malcolm.
It was sent to the Queen at Windsor eventually, however, for Malcolm, now, when the square, recoiling before the dreadful rush, had receded about a hundred yards, and the Arabs were charging our men breast high, and the Heavies, instead of remaining steady as infantry would have done, true to their cavalry instincts were springing forward to close with the foe, once more dashed to the front in headlong fashion, and found himself beyond the face of the square, opposed to a tribe of Ghazis, who were brandishing their spears, hurling javelins, and hewing right and left with their two-handed swords—all swarthy negroes from Kordofan, and copper-coloured Arabs of the Bayuda Desert with long, straight, floating hair.
Heedless of death—nay, rather courting it as the path to paradise—with weapons levelled or uplifted, they came forward, with blood pouring from their bullet wounds in many instances, some staggering under these till they dropped and died within five paces of the square, while the others rushed on, and the fight became hand to hand, the bayonet meeting the Arab spear. On our side there was not much shouting as yet, only a brief cry, an oath, or a short exclamation of prayer or agony as a soldier fell down in his place, and all the valour of the Heavies became unavailing, when their formation was broken, when the foe mingled with them, and they were driven back upon the Naval Brigade, with its still useless Gardner gun, upon the right of the Sussex Regiment, which strove to close up the gap.
Then it was that Skene found himself opposed to Moussa Abu Hagil, whose horse had been shot under him, and who, half-blinded by his own blood streaming from a bullet-wound from which his Darfour helmet failed to save him, fought like a wild animal, slashing about with his double-edged sword, which broke in his hand, and then using his spear.
Dashing at Skene with a demoniac yell, he levelled the long blade of the weapon at his throat. Parrying the thrust by a circular sweep of his sword, Skene checked his horse and reined it backwards; but the length of Skeikh Moussa's spear, nearly ten feet, put it out of his power to return with proper interest the fury of the attack. Twice at least his sword touched the Arab, thus making him, if more wary, all the more eager and fierce, and there was a grim and defiant smile on Skene's face as he fenced with Moussa and parried his thrusts; but now he was attacked by others when scarcely his horse's length from the face of the square.
One wounded him in the right shoulder; Skene turned in his saddle and clove him down. At that moment a soldier—the young lad of the 2nd Sussex to whom he gave his water-bottle at the well of Abu Haifa—ran from the ranks and attacked another assailant of Skene, but perished under twenty spears, and ere the latter could deliver one blow again, he was dragged from his saddle, covered with wounds in the neck and face—ghastly wounds from which the blood was streaming—'each a death to nature,' and literally hewn to pieces.
So thus, eventually, was his strange presentiment fulfilled!
Meanwhile the Ghazis had forced their way so far into the square that one was actually slain in the act of firing the battery ammunition. Despite the great efforts of a gallant Captain Verner and others, 'the Heavies were being massacred; and after the fall of Burnaby, whom Sir William Cumming, of the Scots Guards, tried to save, Verner was beaten down, but his life (it is recorded) was saved by Major Carmichael, of the Irish Lancers, whose dead body fell across him, as well as those of three Ghazis.'
The Earl of Airlie and Lord Beresford, fighting sword in hand, were both wounded, and so furious was the inrush of the Arabs, that many of them reached the heart of the square, where they slew the maimed and dying in the litters, and rushed hither and thither, with shrill yells, streaming hair, and flashing eyes, until they were all shot down or bayoneted to death.
Fighting for life and vengeance, and half maddened to find that their cartridges jammed hard and fast after the third shot, our soldiers—in some instances placed back to back—fought on the summit of a mound surrounded by thousands upon thousands of dark-skinned spearmen and swordsmen, hurling their strength on what were originally the left and rear faces of the square, till, with all its defects, our fire became so deadly and withering, that they began to waver, recoil, and eventually fly, while the triumphant cheers of our men rent the welkin.
Away went the Arabs streaming in full flight towards Berber, Metemneh, and the road to Khartoum, followed by Barrow and his Hussars cutting them down like ripened grain, and followed, to the screaming, plunging, and crashing fire of the screw guns which now came into action and pursuit with shot and shell.
So the field and the walls of Abu Klea were won, but dearly, as we had 135 other ranks killed, and above 200 wounded, including camel drivers and other camp followers.
The former were buried by the men of the 19th Hussars. Earth to earth—dust to dust—ashes to ashes; three carbine volleys rang above them in farewell, and all was over; while the native slain were left in their thousands to the birds of the air.
The column reached the city of Abu Klea in the evening, and then, parched and choked with thirst after the heat and toil and fierce excitement of the past night and day, all enjoyed the supreme luxury of the cold water from the fifty springs or more that bubbled in the Wady. Round these, men, horses, and camels gathered to quench their thirst, that amounted to agony, by deep and repeated draughts, while fires were lighted and a meal prepared.
Next followed the battle of Gubat and the futile expedition of Sir Charles Wilson, both of which are somewhat apart from our story.
The death of Colonel Burnaby, of the Blues, created a profound sensation in London society, where he was a great favourite; but there were many more than he to sorrow for.
Skene's fall made a deep impression among the Staffordshire, as he was greatly beloved by the soldiers.
'Poor Malcolm—killed at last!' said Roland, when the tidings came up the river to the bivouac at Hamdab. He should never see his brown, dark eyes again; feel the firm clasp of his friendly hand, or hear his cheery voice say—'Well, Roland—old fellow!'
'But it may be my turn next,' thought he.
'Poor Malcolm!' said Jack Elliot; 'I have known him nurse the sick, bury the dead, sit for hours playing with a soldier's ailing child, and once he swam a mile and more to save a poor dog from drowning.
And as he spoke, sometimes a tearless sob shook Elliot's sturdy frame, and Roland knew that with his friend Malcolm
'All was ended now—the hope, the fear, and the sorrow;
All the aching of the heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing;
All the dull, deep pain and constant anguish of patience—
His love and his life had ended together!'