The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
follows:
N.-C. Officers
Officers and Men
Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 6
Naval Brigade . . . . . . . . . . . 5 53
19th Hussars . . . . . . . . . . . 9 121
Heavy Camel Regiment . . . . . . . 24 376
M. I. Camel Regiment . . . . . . . 21 336
Royal Artillery . . . . . . . . . . 4 39
Royal Sussex Regiment . . . . . . . 16 401
Essex Regiment . . . . . . . . . . 3 55
Commissariat and Transport . . . . 5 72
Medical Staff . . . . . . . . . . . 3 50
-- ----
98 1509
== ====
And four guns (one Gardner, three 7-pr. screw guns), 304 natives, 2228
camels, and 155 horses. Already there were along the route at the
wells of Howeiyat (left on the first march) 33 officers and men of the
M. I. Camel Regiment and 33 camels; and at Jakdul 422 officers and men
of the Guards' Camel Regiment (including Royal Marines), Royal
Engineers, and Medical Staff, and 20 camels. {254} The Desert Column
picked up these detachments as it went along, leaving others in their
places.
The Column rode off at 2 o'clock p.m. amid a chorus of good wishes from
our comrades. I rode my white donkey, County Waterford, which had been
sent up to Korti by boat, We marched ten miles; halted at sunset and
bivouacked, and started again half an hour after midnight. The moon
rode high, and it was very cold; but the cold was invigorating; and the
hard gravel or sand of the track made good going. Desert marching with
camels demands perpetual attention; the loads slip on the camels and
must be adjusted; a native driver unships the load and drops it to save
himself trouble; camels stray or break loose. By means of perpetual
driving, the unwieldy herd creeps forward with noiseless footsteps, at
something under three miles an hour.
Although the camels were so numerous, their numbers had been reduced to
the bare requirements of that small mobile column, which alone could
hope to achieve the enterprise.
At 10 o'clock a.m. on the 9th, we halted for four hours in a valley of
grass and mimosa trees; marched till sunset and came to another grassy
valley and bivouacked. On the 10th we started before daylight, and
reached the wells of El Howeiyat at noon, very thirsty, and drank muddy
water and breakfasted; marched on until long after dark over rough
ground, the men very thirsty, the camels slipping and falling all over
the place, and at length bivouacked. Starting again before daylight on
the 11th, we came to the wooded valley set among granite hills, where
are the wells of Abu Halfa, men and animals suffering greatly from
thirst. The wells consisted of a muddy pond and a few small pools of
bitter water. More holes were dug, and the watering went on all the
afternoon and all night.
Next morning, 12th January, we loaded up at daylight, and marched
across the plain lying beneath the range of yellow hills, broken by
black rocks, called Jebel Jelif; entered a grassy and wide valley,
ending in a wall of rock; turned {255} the corner of the wall, and came
into a narrower valley, full of large round stones, and closed in at
the upper end by precipices, riven into clefts, within which were the
pools of Jakdul. We beheld roads cleared of stones, and the
sign-boards of a camp, and the forts of the garrison, and stone walls
crowning the hills, one high on the left, two high on the right hand.
In ten days the little detachment of Guards, Royal Marines and
Engineers under Major Dorward, R.E., had performed an incredible amount
of work: road-making, wall-building, laying-out, canal-digging and
reservoir-making. All was ready for Sir Herbert Stewart's force, which
took up its quarters at once.
That evening the Guards gave an excellent dinner to the Staff,
substituting fresh gazelle and sand-grouse for bully-beef. All night
the men were drawing water from the upper pool of the wells, in which
was the best water, by the light of lanterns.
The next day, 13th January, all were hard at work watering the camels
and preparing for the advance on the morrow. The camels were already
suffering severely: some thirty had dropped dead on the way; and owing
to the impossibility of obtaining enough animals to carry the requisite
grain, they were growing thin. It will be observed that the whole
progress of the expedition depended upon camels as the sole means of
transport.
When a camel falls from exhaustion, it rolls over upon its side, and is
unable to rise. But it is not going to die unless it stretches its
head back; and it has still a store of latent energy; for a beast will
seldom of its own accord go on to the last. It may sound cruel; but in
that expedition it was a case of a man's life or a camel's suffering.
When I came across a fallen camel, I had it hove upright with a
gun-pole, loaded men upon it, and so got them over another thirty or
forty miles. By the exercise of care and forethought, I succeeded in
bringing back from the expedition more camels, in the proportion of
those in my control, than others, much to the interest of my old friend
Sir Redvers {256} Buller. He asked me how it was done; and I told him
that I superintended the feeding of the camels myself. If a camel was
exhausted, I treated it as I would treat a tired hunter, which, after a
long day, refuses its food. I gave the exhausted camels food by
handfuls, putting them upon a piece of cloth or canvas, instead of
throwing the whole ration upon the ground at once.
Major Kitchener (now Lord Kitchener of Khartoum), who was dwelling in a
cave in the hillside, reported that Khashm-el-Mus Bey, Malik (King) of
the Shagiyeh tribe, was at Shendi with three of Gordon's steamers. (He
was actually at Nasri Island.) Lieutenant E. J.
Montagu-Stuart-Wortley, King's Royal Rifles, joined the column for
service with Sir Charles Wilson in Khartoum. Little did we anticipate
in what his plucky service would consist. Colonel Burnaby came in with
a supply of grain, most of which was left at Jakdul, as the camels
which had brought it were needed to carry stores for the Column. There
were 800 Commissariat camels, carrying provisions for 1500 men for a
month, the first instalment of the depot it was intended to form at
Metemmeh, as the base camp from which to advance upon Khartoum.
With Burnaby came Captain Gascoigne, who had special knowledge of the
Eastern Soudan, and who afterwards went up to Khartoum with Sir Charles
Wilson.
The Column left Jakdul at 2 o'clock p.m. on 14th January, and marched
for three hours. It was generally supposed that we might be attacked
between Jakdul and Metemmeh, a distance of between 70 and 80 miles;
although the only intelligence we had was Major Kitchener's report that
3000 men under the Mahdi's Emir were at Metemmeh. We did not know that
the occupation of Jakdul by Sir Herbert Stewart on the 2nd of January,
had moved the Mahdi to determine upon the destruction of the Desert
Column between Jakdul and Metemmeh. The news of the occupation of
Jakdul had travelled with extraordinary swiftness. It was known on the
4th January, or two {257} days after the event, in Berber, nearly 90
miles from Jakdul as the crow flies; and on that day the Emir of Berber
dispatched his men to reinforce the Emir of Metemmeh. If the news were
known in Berber and Metemmeh it must have run through the whole
surrounding area of desert. The ten days occupied by the Column in
returning to Korti and returning again to Jakdul, gave the enemy the
time they needed to concentrate in front of us. Moreover, Omdurman had
fallen during the second week in January, setting free a number of the
Mahdi's soldiers. But of these things we were ignorant when we pushed
out of Jakdul. We picked up a Remington rifle, and saw some
horse-tracks, and that was all.
During the second night out from Jakdul (the 15th-16th) the camels were
knee-lashed and dispositions were made in case of attack, but nothing
happened. It was the last night's rest we were to have for some time.
On the morning of the 16th we started as usual in the dark. When the
light came, we saw the hills of Abu Klea in the distance, and after
marching nearly to them, halted for breakfast, In the meantime
Lieutenant-Colonel Barrow, with his squadron of the 19th Hussars, had
gone ahead to occupy the wells of Abu Klea. About 11 a.m. Barrow
returned to report that there was a large force of the enemy between us
and the wells. The column was then lying in a shallow valley, whence
the track led uphill over rough ground towards a pass cleft in the
range of hills, beyond which were the wells.
The Column fell in and mounted at once. Through glasses we could
clearly distinguish innumerable white-robed figures of Arabs, relieved
upon the black cliffs dominating the pass, leaping and gesticulating.
Here and there were puffs of smoke, followed after an interval by a
faint report; but the range was too far, and no bullet arrived. Nearer
hand, were swiftly jerking the isolated flags of the signallers,
communicating from the advanced scouts to the main body. The Naval
Brigade with the {258} Mounted Infantry, which were on the left of the
Column, were ordered to ascend the hill on the left of the line of
advance, to guard the flank of the Column.
We dragged up the Gardner gun, placed it in position, and built a
breastwork of loose stones. By the time we had finished, it was about
4 o'clock. Beyond and beneath us, a line of green and white flags was
strung across the valley, fluttering above the scrub, and these, with a
large tent, denoted the headquarters of the enemy.
The rest of the Column were hurriedly building a zeriba in the valley.
As the twilight fell, a party of the enemy crept to the summit of the
hill on the right flank, opposite to our fort, and dropped bullets at
long range into the Column below, which replied with a couple of screw
guns. As the darkness thickened, there arose that maddening noise of
tom-toms, whose hollow and menacing beat, endlessly and pitilessly
repeated, haunts those who have heard it to the last day of their
lives. Swelling and falling, it sounds now hard at hand, and again far
away. That night, we lay behind the breastwork, sleepless and very
cold; and the deadly throbbing of the drums filled the air, mingled
with the murmur of many voices and the rustle as of many feet, and
punctuated with the sullen crack of rifles, now firing singly, now in a
volley, and the whine of bullets. At intervals, thinking the enemy
were upon us, we stood to arms.
When at last the day broke, there were thousands of white-robed figures
clustering nearer upon the hills, and the bullets thickened, so that,
chilled as we were, rather than attempt to warm ourselves by exercise
we were fain to lie behind the breastwork. The Naval Brigade had no
casualties.
Our detachment was speedily called in, so that we had no time for
breakfast, which was being hastily eaten under fire by the rest of the
Column. All we had was a biscuit and a drink of water. We took up our
position on the right front. Sir Herbert Stewart waited for a time in
case the {259} enemy should attack. Major Gough, commanding the
Mounted Infantry, was knocked senseless by a bullet graze; Major
Dickson of the Royals was shot through the knee; Lieutenant Lyall of
the Royal Artillery was hit in the back.
Sir Herbert Stewart and Colonel Burnaby were riding about on high