Shortly after passing the town a large Dervish camp was seen in a valley, and this, they afterwards found, was occupied by the force that had returned from Berber. A heavy fire of shell and shrapnel was opened upon it, and it was speedily destroyed. The gun-boats then went up as high as the sixth cataract. The country was found to be absolutely deserted, neither a peasant nor a Dervish being visible. Having thus accomplished the object of their reconnaissance, the flotilla returned, exchanged fire with the Metemmeh batteries, and then kept on their way down to Berber.
CHAPTER XI
A PRISONER
RATHER than remain unoccupied on board the gun-boat, Gregory went to Colonel Wingate's head-quarters and said that he should be very glad if he would allow him, while the flotilla remained at Berber, to assist in interrogating the fugitives who arrived from the south, and the spies employed to gain early information of the intentions and movements of the enemy. The position of the Dervishes at Metemmeh was becoming critical. The Khalifa was desirous that Mahmud should return with his force to Omdurman, there to take part in the battle in which, as he was convinced, the invaders would be annihilated. Mahmud, who was of an eager and impetuous disposition, was anxious to take the offensive at once, and either to march upon Merawi and Dongola, or to drive the British out of Berber.
There could be no doubt that his view was a more sagacious one than that of his father, and that the best tactics to be adopted were to harass the British advance, fall upon their convoys, cut their communications, and so oblige them to fall back for want of supplies. The Khalifa's mistake was similar to that made by Theodore in Abyssinia and Koffee Kalkalli in Ashanti. Had either of these leaders adopted the system of harassing the invaders from the moment they left the coast, it would have been next to impossible for the latter to arrive at their destination. But each allowed them to march on unmolested until within striking distance, then hazarded everything on the fortune of a single battle, and lost. Mahmud made no movement in obedience to the Khalifa's orders to retire to Omdurman, and the latter thereupon refused to send any further supplies to him, and Mahmud's army was therefore obliged to rely upon raids and plunder for subsistence.
These raids were carried out with great boldness, and villages situated within a few miles of Berber were attacked. The Dervishes, however, met with a much warmer reception than they had expected, for rifles and ammunition had been served out freely to the villagers; and these, knowing the fate that awaited them were the Dervishes victorious, offered so obstinate a resistance that the latter fell back discomfited. Early in January the Sirdar learned that the Khalifa had changed his mind, and had sent peremptory orders to Mahmud to advance and drive the British out of Berber and destroy the railway. Mahmud had now been joined by Osman Digna with five thousand men; and as the Egyptian troops, well as they had fought, had never yet been opposed to so formidable a force as that which Mahmud commanded, the Sirdar telegraphed to England for white troops. His request was at once complied with. The Warwickshires, Lincolnshires, and Cameron Highlanders were ordered to proceed from Cairo and Alexandria to the front, and the Seaforth Highlanders at Malta and the Northumberland Fusiliers at Gibraltar were also dispatched without delay. Major-general Gatacre was appointed to the command of the brigade.
At the end of the third week in January the three regiments from Lower Egypt had arrived at Wady Haifa, and the Seaforths at Assouan. At the beginning of February the British brigade was carried by railway to Abu Dis. Here they remained until the 26th, when they marched to Berber, and then to a camp ten miles north of the Atbara, where they arrived on the 4th of March, having covered a hundred and forty-four miles in six days and a half, a great feat in such a climate. Mahmud had made no movement until the 10th of February, when he began to cross the Nile to Shendy. This movement had not been expected by the Sirdar, and was hailed by him with satisfaction. Had Mahmud remained at Metemmeh he could, aided by the forts, his artillery, and the walled town, have offered a very formidable resistance. Had he marched along the banks of the Nile he would have been exposed to the fire of the gun-boats, but these could not have arrested his course. The country round Berber was favourable to the action of his cavalry, and if defeated he could have fallen back unmolested through Metemmeh on Omdurman; but by crossing the river he practically cut himself off from the Dervish base, and now had only a desert behind him, for we had taken over Kassala from the Italians, and the Egyptian battalion there and a large force of friendly Arabs would prevent him from retiring up the banks of the Atbara.
Mahmud's plan was to march along the Nile to Aliab, then to cross the desert to Hudi at an angle of the river whence a direct march of twenty-five miles would take him to Berber, and in this way he would avoid our strong position at the junction of the Atbara and the Nile. It would have been easy for the gun-boats to prevent Mahmud from crossing the Nile, but the Sirdar was glad to allow him to do so. The movement afforded him time to concentrate his force and to get up large supplies. For each day the distance that these could be transported by the railway had increased, and he saw that when the time for fighting came the victory would be a decisive one, and that few indeed of Mahmud's men would ever be able to make their way to Omdurman and swell the Khalifa's force there.
On one occasion, however, the gun-boats went up to watch what was going on, and take advantage of any opportunity that might offer to destroy some of Mahmud's boats, and thus render the work of his getting his force over slower and more difficult.
An entrenchment had been thrown up at the point where the Dervishes crossed, and this had been manned by two hundred and fifty riflemen. The Zafir steamed up close to the bank and opened fire with her Maxims. Another gun-boat sank one large craft and captured two others, and the troops landed and, covered by the fire of the guns, captured a fourth which had grounded in shallow water. A smaller boat was half-way across the river when the gun-boats arrived. It was seen that there were several women on board, and as the capture would have been of no value, no regard was paid to it. As it would have been as dangerous to return as to keep on, the boatmen plied their hardest to get across, but the stream carried them down near the Zafir. The boat was quite unnoticed, all eyes being intent upon the shore. She was passing about thirty yards astern of the gun-boat when a badly-aimed shell from a Dervish battery struck her, and she sank almost instantly.
Gregory, who was superintending the working of the Maxim nearest the stern, looked round at the sound of the explosion. Several of the occupants had evidently been killed, but two or three of the boatmen started to swim to shore. Only two of the women came to the surface, struggling wildly and screaming for help. With scarcely a thought of what he was doing, Gregory unclasped his sword-belt, dropped his pistol, and sprang overboard. One of the women had sunk before he reached them, the other was on the point of doing so when he caught her by the arm. She at once clung to him, and he had hard work to disengage her arm from his neck; then, after turning her so that her face was above water, he looked round. The gun-boat was already a hundred yards away. Her wheel was revolving, so as to keep her in her place facing the redoubt, and the stream was driving him fast away from her. Within ten yards of him was a black head, and a moment later Zaki was beside him. He had been working at Gregory's Maxim, and had suddenly missed his master.