The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
channel ran within 80 yards of the fort. We could only crawl past the
battery, and as we were defenceless against gun-fire, our only chance
was to maintain so overwhelming a fire upon the embrasures as to
demoralise the guns' crews. It was an extreme instance of the
principle that the best defence resides in gun-fire rather than in
armour; for we had no effective armour.
Accordingly, the starboard Gardner and the two brass guns, the 20
soldiers and 14 bluejackets, poured a steady and an accurate fire into
the fort, disregarding the parties of riflemen who were shooting at us
from the bank. There were some 600 or 800 of these, and one gun opened
fire from the side embrasure of the fort. Poor von Koughnet was shot
in the leg, and second-class petty officer Edwin Curnow, number two of
the crew of the starboard Gardner, fell mortally wounded, and died that
evening. But so {298} deadly was the fire we poured into the
embrasures of the fort, that the enemy could not fire the two guns
bearing upon the _Safieh_ while she was bore abeam of them. We passed
the fort, and by the time we had left it about 200 yards astern, our
fire necessarily slackened, as our guns no longer bore upon the battery.
Suddenly a great cloud of steam or smoke rose from the after hatchway.
Instantly the fire of the enemy increased. Chief Engineer Benbow, who
was standing with-me on the quarter-deck, ran to the engine-room. A
Maltese carpenter rushed up to me crying, "All is lost, sare, myself
and my brother, sare! The ship he sink, sare!" and was promptly kicked
out of the way.
I saw the black stokers rushing up from the stoke-hold hatchway. At
the moment it was uncertain whether the ship was on fire or the boiler
injured; but as she still had way upon her I ordered her to be headed
towards the bank, away from the fort, and so gained another few yards.
The carpenter's mate reported that there were three feet of water in
the well, and that the vessel was sinking.
Then she stopped. In the meantime our fire upon the side embrasure of
the fort was continued by the riflemen; and it went on without pause,
lest the enemy should get another shot in. I dropped anchor, and
addressed the men. I told them that the vessel was all right, as she
had only a foot of water under her bottom; that the stores and
ammunition must be got up on deck in case she settled down; that no
relief was possible; but that not a single dervish would come on board
while one of us was alive.
The men were quite cool and jovial.
"It's all right, sir," said one cheerfully. "We'll make it 'ot for the
beggars!"
Mr. Benbow, chief engineer, came to me and reported that the water must
have come from the boiler, because it was hot; and that, as the shot
which had pierced the boiler had entered above the water-line, the
vessel was safe. I then {299} countermanded the order to bring up the
ammunition and stores.
In the meantime the two engine-room artificers, Garland and Woodman,
had been carried up from the engine-room, so terribly scalded that the
flesh of their hands, forearms and faces was hanging in strips, like
the flesh of a boiled chicken. They had been stationed by Mr. Benbow
between the boiler and the ship's side, with orders to insert
shot-plugs if the side was pierced; and in that position were farther
from the exit than the Soudanese stokers, and therefore were more
severely injured. The stokers were badly scalded, two days afterwards,
an odour as of the grave pervading the upper deck, a search discovered
a black stoker under the fortified superstructure. He was hauled out
with a boat-hook, and was then still alive, although his flesh was
peeling from his bones. He had resigned himself to die, as Asiatics
will; and he died.
Considering the situation, I thought that upon the _Safieh_ probably
depended not only the fate of Sir Charles Wilson's party, who were
isolated in a hostile country between the strong force at Wad Habeshi
and the Mahdi's host marching down from Khartoum, and who could not
even rely upon the native soldiers with them, but the fate of the whole
Desert Column; because if we failed to bring away Wilson, and his party
were captured or slain, the enemy would be encouraged to descend upon
the Desert Column at Gubat. I was, of course, at that moment ignorant
of the movements of the Mahdi's army; and could only conjecture that
they were even then marching upon us. As a matter of fact, they were;
but the exact sequence of events did not become known for a long time
afterwards.
I asked Mr. Benbow if he could repair the boiler.
He replied, "I think I can do it."
He added that it was still too hot to examine. The time was then
between nine and ten a.m. Mr. Benbow, assisted by the leading stoker
R.N., who had been stationed on deck as stretcher-bearer, drew the
fires and pumped out the boiler, {300} when he found a hole some three
inches in diameter, round which the plate had bulged inwards, its edges
being torn and jagged.
By the time the examination was completed, it was about eleven o'clock.
Mr. Benbow then set to work to make a new plate with his own hands. He
had brought with him from the depot at Wady Halfa some engineer's
stores: a piece of sheet-iron, and some bolts and nuts; part of the
equipment I had brought from Korti, when General Buller asked me if I
was going to mend camels with them. I remembered his chaff in that
hour.
Mr. Benbow, with no other assistance than that of the leading stoker,
had to cut a plate, 16 inches by 14, drill the holes in it to receive
the bolts, drill holes in the injured boiler plate corresponding to the
first to a fraction, and cut the threads of the screws upon bolts and
nuts. The new plate being too thin to take the pressure, he also had
to bolt an iron bar across it, drilling the holes through the bar,
through the new plate, and through the injured boiler plate.
During the whole time he was below in the stifling hot engine-room at
work upon a task demanding at once great exertion and the utmost
nicety, the fire from the fort never ceased. Bullets pattered
continually upon the hull, some of them piercing it, and striking the
wounded men who lay below. At any moment another shell might burst
into the engine-room. But Mr. Benbow went on with his work.
On deck, we continued to maintain a steady fire, hour after hour, upon
the fort. It was our only chance. The slightest cessation, and they
would bring their gun to bear on us. The range was between 200 and 300
yards. As we hung at anchor, the fort bore almost directly astern. It
was therefore necessary to alter the position of our guns. A rough
platform was built aft, upon which one of the Gardners was mounted, and
where it was admirably served all day by Acting-Lieutenant Walter
Ingram. Lieutenant Colin Keppel, in order to have room inside the
narrow wood-protected casemate astern to train his brass howitzer,
sawed off its {301} trail. The result was that after each discharge
the gun leaped into the air and fell upon its back. After laying the
gun, and before firing, Keppel removed the sight to prevent its being
injured, and put it in his pocket. Keppel and Mr. James Webber served
the gun all day, firing 150 rounds. The casemate itself was
strengthened to take the shock of the gun by buttressing it with a
stout strut of timber. At every discharge the whole crazy vessel shook
and trembled; her plates started; and her bows opened. The fire from
the Gardner and the rifle-fire, directed upon the side embrasure of the
fort, were so accurate and incessant that the gunners of the enemy
never had a chance, either to get their gun to bear or to remove it to
another position. The few shots they fired travelled about 100 yards
to the right of the steamer.
Meantime, Mr. Benbow, down below, went on with his work.
The noise of the engagement was so deafening and continuous that we did
not hear the three shots fired upon Mernat Island, the signal arranged
by Sir Charles Wilson with Stuart-Wortley to show that the party was
safe; and we were so busy that we did not see the flags hoisted upon
the wreck of the _Bordein_ with the same object. At that time Sir
Charles Wilson's party were themselves engaged with the enemy, who were
firing upon them from the bank. Sir Charles Wilson was able to make
out that the _Safieh_ was at anchor and was heavily engaged. He then
thought that we had the two steamers, the _Tewfikiyeh_ as well as the
_Safieh_, that one had been injured, and that the _Safieh_ was covering
her from the fire of the fort. He immediately broke up his zeriba,
embarked the wounded, some of the natives, the guns, ammunition and
stores, and a small guard of the Royal Sussex, in the _nuggar_, and
sent it down stream under the command of Captain Gascoigne. The
embarkation was carried into execution under fire. Sir Charles then
landed the rest of his force on the right bank (Wad Habeshi and the
enemy were on the left bank) in his remaining small {302} boat, a
felucca. The whole party then marched down the right bank to a point
opposite to the _Safieh_, Captain Gascoigne taking down the _nuggar_
and the felucca. "As we got nearer," writes Sir Charles, "we could
make out the white ensign flying bravely in the breeze, a pleasant
sight for hard-pressed Britishers."
Upon the arrival of his force, it immediately opened fire upon the
fort. I signalled to Sir Charles, informing him of the condition of
affairs, and suggesting that he should move to a place lower down,
where I would pick him up on the morrow. The _Safieh_ lying some 500
yards from the bank, and Sir Charles having a difficulty in replying to
my signals, Captain Gascoigne volunteered to go aboard. He took a
native crew in the felucca and pulled across under a hot fire from the
fort, which did not discompose him in the least. There was never a
cooler man under fire than Gascoigne. He brought with him the two
engine-room artificers of the Naval Brigade who had accompanied Sir
Charles Wilson, and who at once went below to help Mr. Benbow to repair
the boiler.
Captain Gascoigne returned with a message from myself to Sir Charles
Wilson suggesting that, in order to divert the attention of the enemy
from the _Safieh_, he should continue to maintain a fire upon the fort
with a part of his force, while the rest proceeded farther down to form
a zeriba at a spot suitable for embarkation; and that the women, sick
and wounded should proceed in the _nuggar_ during the night to the same
place, to which I would bring the steamer on the following morning.
Captain Gascoigne rejoined Sir Charles Wilson without casualty.
Sir Charles then sent Captain Trafford forward with the Royal Sussex,
Khashm-el-Mus and most of the Soudanese, while Sir Charles himself
remained with 30 men and one gun. They maintained a steady and a
useful fire until sunset, when they marched after the rest of the party.
Meantime, Mr. Benbow, down below, went on with his work.
{303}
It was about two o'clock when the artificers joined him, so that he had
already been toiling single-handed, except for the leading stoker, for
three hours. After another three hours, at five o'clock, the plate and
bar were made, the holes drilled in them and in the boiler, and the
threads cut upon the bolts and nuts. But the boiler was still so hot,
that it was impossible for a man to be in it, and the plate could not
be fixed, because it was necessary to pass the bolts through the plates
from inside the boiler. Mr. Benbow pumped cold water into the boiler
and out again once or twice; but by 6 o'clock the heat was still too
great for a white man to endure. We smeared a negro boy with tallow,
and I promised him a reward if he would go into the boiler. He was