The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
that steamer after my two months' tremendous toil getting the boats
through the Bab-el-Kebir and the long ride across the desert. So I lay
in the steamer and lived on the height of diet, fresh meat, milk,
butter and eggs, till my tunic hardly held me. I did not then know why
Lord Wolseley had sent for me in so great a hurry.
{247}
CHAPTER XXVI
THE SOUDAN WAR (_Continued_)
IV. THE FIRST MARCH OF THE DESERT COLUMN
NOTE
By the end of December, 1884, the whole of the expedition was in
process of concentrating at Korti. At Korti the Nile fetches a wide
arc north-eastward. The chord of the arc, running south-eastward, runs
from Korti to Metemmeh, and Shendi, which stands on the farther, or
east, bank. From Korti to Metemmeh is 176 miles across the desert.
Shendi was the rendezvous at which the troops were to meet Gordon's
steamers sent down by him from Khartoum. Wolseley's object in sending
Lord Charles Beresford with the Naval Brigade was that he should take
command of the steamers, which, filled with troops, were to proceed up
to Khartoum. The first business of the Desert Column under General Sir
Herbert Stewart, was to seize the wells of Jakdul, which lay 100 miles
distant from Korti, and to hold them, thus securing the main water
supply on the desert route and an intermediate station between Metemmeh
and the base at Korti. Having obtained possession of the wells, the
Guards' Battalion was to be left there, while the remainder of the
Column returned to Korti, there to be sufficiently reinforced to return
to Jakdul, and to complete the march to Metemmeh. Such was the
original idea. The reason why sufficient troops and transport were not
sent in the first instance, thereby avoiding the necessity of the
return {248} of the greater part of the Column to Korti, and its second
march with the reinforcements, seems to have been the scarcity of
camels.
When the Desert Column made its first march, Lord Charles Beresford and
the Naval Brigade were still on their way to Korti. The first division
under the command of Lord Charles marched with the Desert Column on its
return.
The first Desert Column numbered 73 officers, 1212 men and natives, and
2091 camels. It consisted of one squadron of the 19th Hussars, Guards'
Camel Regiment, Mounted Infantry, Engineers, 1357 camels carrying
stores and driven by natives, Medical Staff Corps, and Bearer Company.
Personal luggage was limited to 40 lb. a man. An account of the march
is given by Count Gleichen, in his pleasant and interesting book (to
which the present writer is much indebted) _With the Camel Corps up the
Nile_ (Chapman & Hall). Some years previously the route from Korti to
Metemmeh had been surveyed by Ismail Pasha, who had intended to run a
railway along it from Wady Halfa to Khartoum; and the map then made of
the district was in possession of the Column. The enemy were reported
to be about; but it was expected that they would be found beyond the
Jakdul Wells; as indeed they were.
The Desert Column started from Korti on the afternoon of Tuesday, 30th
December, 1884. The Hussars escorted a party of native guides and
scouted ahead. The Column marched the whole of that night, in the
light of a brilliant moon, across hard sand or gravel, amid low hills
of black rock, at whose bases grew long yellow savas grass and mimosa
bushes, and in places mimosa trees.
At 8.30 on the morning of the 31st December they halted until 3 p.m.,
marched till 8.30 p.m., found the wells of Abu Hashim nearly dry,
marched on, ascending a stony tableland, and still marching, sang the
New Year in at midnight; came to the wells of El Howeiyat, drank them
dry and bivouacked until 6 a.m. on the morning of the 1st January, 1885.
{249}
All that morning they marched, coming at midday to a plain covered with
scrub and intersected with dry water-courses; rested for three hours;
marched all that night, and about 7 a.m. on the morning of 2nd January,
entered the defile, floored with large loose stones and closed in with
steep black hills, leading to the wells of Jakdul. These are deep
pools filling clefts in the rock of the hills encompassing the little
valley, three reservoirs rising one above the other. Count Gleichen,
who was the first man to climb to the upper pools, thus describes the
middle pool.
"Eighty feet above my head towered an overhanging precipice of black
rock; behind me rose another of the same height; at the foot of the one
in front lay a beautiful, large ice-green pool, deepening into black as
I looked into its transparent depths. Scarlet dragon-flies flitted
about in the shade; rocks covered with dark-green weed looked out of
the water; the air was cool almost to coldness. It was like being
dropped into a fairy grotto, at least so it seemed to me after grilling
for days in the sun."
When the Desert Column reached that oasis, they had been on the march
for sixty-four hours, with no more than four hours' consecutive sleep.
The time as recorded by Count Gleichen was "sixty-four hours,
thirty-four hours on the move and thirty broken up into short halts."
The distance covered was a little under 100 miles; therefore the
camels' rate of marching averaged as nearly as may be two and
three-quarter miles an hour throughout. A camel walks like clock-work,
and if he quickens his speed he keeps the same length of pace, almost
exactly one yard.
The Guards' Battalion, to which were attached the Royal Marines, with
six Hussars and 15 Engineers remained at the Wells. The rest of the
Column left Jakdul at dusk of the day upon which they had arrived, to
return to Korti, bivouacking that night in the desert.
The detachment at Jakdul made roads, built forts, and laid out the camp
for the returning Column. On 11th {250} January, a convoy of 1000
camels carrying stores and ammunition, under the command of Colonel
Stanley Clarke, arrived at Jakdul.
In the meantime, on 31st December, the day after which the Desert
Column had started for the first time, Lord Wolseley had received a
written message from Gordon, "Khartoum all right," dated 14th December.
Should it be captured, the message was intended to deceive the captor.
The messenger delivered verbal information of a different tenure, to
the effect that Gordon was hard pressed and that provisions were
becoming very scarce.
At the time of the starting of the Desert Column upon its second march,
when it was accompanied by the first division of the Naval Brigade
under the command of Lord Charles Beresford, and by other
reinforcements, the general situation was briefly as follows.
The River Column, which was intended to clear the country along the
Nile, to occupy Berber, and thence to join the Desert Column at
Metemmeh, was assembling at Hamdab, 52 miles above Korti. It was
commanded by General Earle. The four steamers sent down the river from
Khartoum by General Gordon in October, were at Nasri Island, below the
Shabloka Cataract, half-way between Khartoum and Metemmeh, which are 98
miles apart. Korti and Berber, as a glance at the map will show,
occupy respectively the left and right corners of the base of an
inverted pyramid, of which Metemmeh is the apex, while Khartoum may be
figured as at the end of a line 98 miles long depending from the apex.
The Desert Column traversed one side of the triangle, from Korti to
Metemmeh; the River Column was intended to traverse the other two sides.
{251}
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SOUDAN WAR (_Continued_)
V. THE DESERT MARCH OF THE FORLORN HOPE
"When years ago I 'listed, lads,
To serve our Gracious Queen,
The sergeant made me understand
I was a 'Royal Marine.'
He said we sometimes served in ships,
And sometimes on the shore;
But did not say I should wear spurs,
Or be in the Camel Corps."
_Songs of the Camel Corps_ (Sergt. H. EAGLE, R.M.C.C.)
Korti was a city of tents arrayed amid groves of fronded palm
overhanging the broad river; beyond, the illimitable coloured spaces of
the desert, barred with plains of tawny grass set with mimosa, and
green fields of _dhura_, and merging into the far rose-hued hills. All
day long the strong sun smote upon its yellow avenues, and the bugles
called, and the north wind, steady and cool, blew the boats up the
river, and the men, ragged and cheery and tanned saddle-colour, came
marching in and were absorbed into the great armed camp. Thence were
to spring two long arms of fighting men, one to encircle the river, the
other to reach across the desert, strike at Khartoum and save Gordon.
The day after I arrived at Korti, 5th January, 1885, the desert arm had
bent back to obtain reinforcements; because there were not enough
camels to furnish transport for the first march.
{252}
The first division of the Naval Brigade, under Lieutenant Alfred
Pigott, also arrived on the 5th. Officers and men alike were covered
with little black pustules, due to the poison carried by the flies.
Nevertheless, they were fit and well and all a-taunto. They were
brigaded under my command with Sir Herbert Stewart's Desert Column.
The intention was that Gordon's steamers, then waiting for us somewhere
between Metemmeh and Khartoum, should be manned with the sailors and a
detachment of infantry, and should take Sir Charles Wilson up to
Khartoum. The second division of the Naval Brigade was still on its
way up. It eventually joined us at Gubat. I may here say, for the
sake of clearness, that Gubat is close to Metemmeh and that Shendi lies
on the farther, or east, bank of the Nile, so that Gubat, Metemmeh and
Shendi were really all within the area of the rendezvous at which the
River Column under General Earle was intended to join forces with the
Desert Column.
Sir Herbert Stewart arrived at Korti on the 5th and left that place on
the 8th, the intervening days being occupied in preparations. An
essential part of my own arrangements consisted in obtaining spare
boiler-plates, rivets, oakum, lubricating oil, and engineers' stores
generally, as I foresaw that these would be needed for the steamers,
which had already been knocking about the Nile in a hostile country for
some three months. At first, Sir Redvers Buller refused to let me have
either the stores or the camels upon which to carry them. He was most
good-natured and sympathetic, but he did not immediately perceive the
necessity.
"What do you want boiler-plates for?" he said. "Are you going to mend
the camels with them?"
But he let me have what I wanted. (I did mend the camels with oakum.)
With other stores, I took eight boiler-plates, and a quantity of
rivets. One of those plates, and a couple of dozen of those rivets,
saved the Column.
The Gardner gun of the Naval Brigade was carried in pieces on four
camels. Number one carried the barrels, {253} number two training and
elevating gear and wheels, number three the trail, number four, four
boxes of hoppers. The limber was abolished for the sake of handiness.
The gun was unloaded, mounted, feed-plate full, and ready to march in
under four minutes. When marching with the gun, the men hauled it with
drag-ropes, muzzle first, the trail being lifted and carried upon a
light pole. Upon going into action the trail was dropped and the gun
was ready, all the confusion and delay caused by unlimbering in a
crowded space being thus avoided.
At midday the 8th January, the Desert Column paraded for its second and
final march, behind the village of Korti, and was inspected by Lord
Wolseley. The same thought inspired every officer and man: we are
getting to the real business at last.
The Desert Column, quoting from the figures given in Sir Charles
Wilson's excellent work, _From Korti to Khartoum_, was composed as