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CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SOUDAN WAR (Continued)

VI. THE FIGHT AT ABU KLEA

 
"England well may speak with wonder
    Of the small heroic band,
Fearlessly, though parched and weary,
    Toiling 'cross the desert sand;
How they met the foeman's onslaught,
    Firm, undaunted, with a cheer,
Drove ten times or more their number,
    Down the vale of Abu Klea."
 

Songs of the Camel Corps (Serg. H. EAGLE, R.M.C.C.)

Before the square was completely formed on the top of the knoll at the foot of which it had been halted when the thousands of Arabs sprang into view on the left front, the Arabs reappeared on the left rear, about 500 yards distant. They were formed into three phalanxes joined together, the points of the three wedges being headed by emirs or sheikhs, riding with banners. The horsemen came on at a hand-gallop, the masses of footmen keeping up with them. Our skirmishers were racing in for their lives. The last man was overtaken and speared.

At this moment the left rear angle of the square was still unformed. The camels were still struggling into it. Several camels, laden with wounded, had lain down at the foot of the slope and their drivers had fled into the square; and these animals were being dragged in by soldiers. The appalling danger of this open corner was instantly evident. I told the bugler to sound the halt, and having forced my way through the press to the front of the square, and reported the case to Sir Herbert Stewart, who said, "Quite right," I struggled back to the rear.

Then I ordered the crew of the Gardner gun to run it outside the square to the left flank. At the same time, Colonel Burnaby wheeled Number 3 Company (4th and 5th Dragoon Guards) from the rear face to the left flank. Number 4 Company (Scots Greys and Royals) had already wheeled from the rear to the left flank, so that they were just behind me. Five or six paces outside the square we dropped the trail of the gun. So swiftly did these things happen that the leading ranks of the enemy were still 400 yards away.

They were tearing down upon us with a roar like the roar of the sea, an immense surging wave of white-slashed black forms brandishing bright spears and long flashing swords; and all were chanting, as they leaped and ran, the war-song of their faith, "La ilaha ill' Allah Mohammedu rasul Allah"; and the terrible rain of bullets poured into them by the Mounted Infantry and the Guards stayed them not. They wore the loose white robe of the Mahdi's uniform, looped over the left shoulder, and the straw skullcap. These things we heard and saw in a flash, as the formidable wave swept steadily nearer.

I laid the Gardner gun myself to make sure. As I fired, I saw the enemy mown down in rows, dropping like ninepins; but as the men killed were in rear of the front rank, after firing about forty rounds (eight turns of the lever), I lowered the elevation. I was putting in most effective work on the leading ranks and had fired about thirty rounds when the gun jammed. The extraction had pulled the head from a discharged cartridge, leaving the empty cylinder in the barrel. William Rhodes, chief boatswain's mate, and myself immediately set to work to unscrew the feed-plate in order to clear the barrel or to take out its lock. The next moment the enemy were on top of us. The feed-plate dropped on my head, knocking me under the gun and across its trail. Simultaneously a spear was thrust right through poor Rhodes, who was instantly killed at my side. Walter Miller the armourer was speared beside the gun at the same time. I was knocked off the trail of the gun by a blow with the handle of an axe, the blade of which missed me. An Arab thrust at me with his spear, and I caught the blade, cutting my hand, and before he could recover his weapon a bullet dropped him. Struggling to my feet, I was carried bodily backwards by the tremendous impact of the rush, right back upon the front rank of the men of Number 4 Company, who stood like rocks.

I can compare the press to nothing but the crush of a theatre crowd alarmed by a cry of fire. Immediately facing me was an Arab holding a spear over his head, the staff of the weapon being jammed against his back by the pressure behind him. I could draw neither sword nor pistol. The front ranks of our men could not use rifle or bayonet for a few moments. But the pressure, forcing our men backwards up the hill, presently enabled the rear rank, now occupying a position of a few inches higher than the enemy, to fire over the heads of the front rank right into the mass of the Arabs. The bullets whizzed close by my head; and one passed through my helmet. The Arabs fell in heaps, whereupon our front rank, the pressure upon them relaxing, fired, and fought hand to hand with the bayonet, cursing as the rifles jammed and the shoddy bayonets twisted like tin.

The enemy wavered and broke away, some retreating, but the greater number turning to the rear face of the square, carrying some of the Naval Brigade with them. The rest of my men manned the gun and opened fire on the retreating enemy. But by the time the gun was in action the retreating dervishes had hidden themselves in a nullah, and the main body of the enemy had burst into the gap left by the camels in the rear face. My men joined in the furious hand-to-hand fighting all among the jam of men and camels. The ranks of the front face of the square had turned about face and were firing inwards. Poor Burnaby (who was "not in luck to-day") was thrown from his horse, and was killed by a sword cut in the neck as he lay on the ground.

Fighting next to me in the square was "Bloody-minded Piggot" – Captain C. P. Piggot of the 21st Hussars – using a shot-gun charged with buck-shot. The Arabs were crawling and twisting under the camels and in and out the legs of the men, whom they tried to stab in the back, and Piggot was loading and firing, and the bluejackets kept calling to him, "Here's another joker, sir!" I saw the bald head of an Arab emerging from a pile of bodies, and as Piggot fired I saw the bald crown riddled like the rose of a watering-pot.

One mounted sheikh, at least, won right into the square, where the bodies of himself and his horse were found afterwards.

Numbers 4 and 5 Company, who had withstood the first rush until they were pressed back upon the mass of camels, were still fighting in front when they were attacked in rear. There, the left wing of the Heavy Camel Regiment – Scots Greys, Royals, and 5th Dragoon Guards – did desperate hand-to-hand fighting in the square, while the right wing and the Royal Sussex by their steady fire kept off the rest of the enemy. The stress endured only a few minutes. Every Arab inside the square was slain. The camels, which had made the weak corner of the square, afterwards saved it by presenting a solid, irremovable obstacle to the enemy.

As the enemy retired, Sir Herbert Stewart gave the word, and our men cheered again and again, and the retreating Arabs turned and shook their fists at us.

Their desperate courage was marvellous. I saw a boy of some twelve years of age, who had been shot through the stomach, walk slowly up through a storm of bullets and thrust his spear at one of our men. I saw several Arabs writhe from out a pile of dead and wounded, and charge some eighty yards under fire towards us, and one of them ran right up to the bayonets and flung himself upon them and was killed. I saw an Arab, who was wounded in the legs, sit up, and hurl his spear at a passing soldier. As the soldier stopped to load his rifle, the Arab tried to reach another spear, and failing, caught up stones and cast them at his foe; and then, when the soldier presented his rifle and took a deliberate aim, the Arab sat perfectly still looking down the barrel, till the bullet killed him.

Surgeon-General Sir Arthur W. May tells me of an instance of the spirit of the men. A huge able seaman, nicknamed Jumbo, who was one of the gun's crew when it was run outside the square, was thrown upon his face by the charge; and apparently every Arab who went past or over him, had a dig at the prostrate seaman.

After the action, with the help of able seaman Laker, I carried him to the doctor. He was a mass of blood, which soaked my tunic. I tried to wash it afterwards with sand. He must have weighed about sixteen stone. Quite recently, at Stornoway, where he is chief petty officer of the Coast-guard, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Laker, and we recalled the salving of poor Jumbo.

He had seventeen wounds, spear-thrusts, and sword-cuts. Upon visiting him in the Field Hospital a few days later, Surgeon May, intending to console the patient, said:

"You will be able to be sent back with the next convoy of wounded, after all."

"Sent back?" returned Jumbo indignantly. "I haven't done with the beggars yet!"

He recovered, but not in time to gratify his ardour.

The square was moved some 50 yards from the field of battle and was formed anew. I went to try to find any wounded men of my Brigade. Having brought in two, I was starting for a third time, when someone shouted, "Look out, Charlie!" and I turned about to see an Arab charging at me with a spear. I ran to meet him, sword in hand, parried his spear, then held my sword rigid at arm's length. He ran right up the blade to the hilt, against which his body struck with so great force that he fell backward.

I picked up a man who was shot through the back, and put him upon a camel upon which was a wounded Arab. Presently I heard my man singing out; and I found his thumb was being chewed off by the Arab, whom I hauled off the camel and of whom I disposed in another way.

The bodies of most of my men who were killed were found some 25 yards from the place at which we had worked the gun. Here were the bodies of my poor comrades, Lieutenants Alfred Pigott and R. E. de Lisle. Pigott had been promoted to commander, but he never knew it. De Lisle had his whole face cut clean off. Captain C. P. Piggot (not to be confused with the naval officer, Commander Alfred Pigott), who fought like a Paladin in the square, and who knew not fear, died some years afterwards in England. (I took him on my coach to Lord's; he was so weak that he could not get upon it without the help of a footman, and he looked dreadfully ill. He told me that the doctor had given him three weeks to live; but he was dead in three days.)

Eight of the Naval Brigade were killed and seven were wounded, out of 40 who went into action. Every man of the Brigade handling the gun outside the square was killed, excepting myself.

I observed that the rows of bullets from the Gardner gun, which was rifle calibre .45-inch, with five barrels, had cut off heads and tops of heads as though sliced horizontally with a knife.

The official account gives the loss of the enemy at 1100 in the vicinity of the square.

Nearly half the British rifles jammed, owing to the use of leaf cartridges. The Remington rifles used by the Mahdi's soldiers had solid drawn cartridges which did not jam. During the action of Abu Klea the officers were almost entirely employed in clearing jammed rifles passed back to them by the men. The British bayonets and cutlasses bent and twisted, the result of a combination of knavery and laziness on the part of those who were trusted to supply the soldier with weapons upon which his life depends. The bayonets were blunt, because no one had thought of sharpening them. The spears of the Arabs were sharp like razors. The cutlasses of the Naval Brigade were specially sharpened.

I noticed that when a soldier was killed, a bluejacket always endeavoured to secure his bayonet; and that when a sailor was killed, a soldier always tried to take his hat, preferring it to the Army helmet.

The official report of Sir Charles Wilson states the total number of the enemy to have been from 9000 to 11,000, consisting of men from Berber, Metemmeh, Kordofan, and 1000 men of the Mahdi's army. Of the total number, it was estimated that 5000 or 6000 attacked. The British numbered something over 1200 men; but, these being in square, the weight of the attack fell upon no more than about 300 men. There were 342 men of the Royal Artillery on the front face of the square; 235 men on the left flank, reinforced when the charge came by some of the Naval Brigade and a company from the rear face; 300 men and the Naval Brigade, between 40 and 50 strong, on the rear face; and 307 men on the right flank. The centre was a solid mass of camels. This thin framework of men, forced back upon the camels, resisted the tremendous impact of thousands of frenzied fanatics who knew not fear, and whom nothing stopped but death.

I cannot better describe the result than by quoting the words of Colonel the Hon. Reginald Talbot, 1st Life Guards, who commanded the Heavy Camel Regiment at Abu Klea (Nineteenth Century, Jan. 1886):

"It was an Inkerman on a small scale – a soldiers' battle; strength, determination, steadiness, and unflinching courage alone could have stemmed the onslaught."

It was a soldiers' battle, because the attack was sudden; it came before the square was formed; and in the stress and tumult orders were useless.

CHAPTER XXIX
THE SOUDAN WAR (Continued)

VII. THE FIGHT TO REACH THE RIVER

 
"We had beat the foe at Abu Klea, and now had marched all night,
Parching with thirst, each longed to see the first faint streak of light,
For all expected with the dawn to see the river flow.
'Twas there all right, but in our path stood thousands of the foe;
We halted, and a barricade of biscuit boxes made,
And swift their deadly bullets flew round that frail barricade,
And many a gallant fellow dropped before the welcome cry,
'Form square' was heard, 'we must advance, and reach the Nile or die.'"
 

Songs of the Camel Corps (Sergeant H. EAGLE, R.M.C.C.)

By the time the wounded were picked up, the dead counted, and their weapons destroyed, and the square was ready to start, it was half-past three in the afternoon. There was no food, and hardly any water. The soldiers suffered dreadfully from thirst; their tongues were so swollen as to cause intense pain, their lips black, their mouths covered with white mucus. Several men fainted. Luckily I had put a skin of water upon a camel just before the action, so that the men of the Naval Brigade all had a drink, and there was a little water over for the wounded. The sailors persisted in smoking; they said it did them good; so I let them.

The wells of Abu Klea lay some three miles ahead. The Cavalry, the horses weak, emaciated, and tormented by thirst, were sent on to reconnoitre. The square followed slowly. So short-handed was the Naval Brigade that I had to clap on to the drag-ropes myself. We hauled the gun through the sand and across nullahs and over rocks till about 5.30 p.m., when we came to the wells, which were small pools in the soil, and which, when they were emptied, slowly filled again. The water was yellow and of the consistency of cream; but it was cool, sweet, and delicious.

Three hundred volunteers from the Heavy Camel Regiment, the Guards' Camel Regiment, and the Mounted Infantry left the wells soon after sunset to march the six weary miles back again to fetch the camels and commissariat. They marched and worked all night; yet their lot was better than ours; for they got food and could keep warm. As for ourselves, we lay down where we were, without food or blankets, and suffered the coldest night in my remembrance. It is suggested to me by a friend who has seen much active service in many wars, that, owing probably to the exhaustion of the nerves, men are far more susceptible to cold after a battle. He himself recalls the night after Magersfontein as the coldest he ever experienced. At any rate, we were cold to the marrow that night of 17th-18th January; cold and bruised and very hungry, the most of us having had no food for twenty-four hours. I must here record my admiration of the medical staff, who worked hard all night, doing their utmost for the sick and wounded.

I sat on an ammunition box and shivered. The wound upon my finger, where the Arab's spear had cut it, though slight, was disproportionately painful. Lieutenant Douglas Dawson (of the Coldstream Guards) came to me and asked me if I had any tobacco. I told him that my tobacco, together with my field-glasses, had departed into the desert with my steed County Waterford, which had run away. Dawson had six cigarettes, of which he gave me three. I would cheerfully have given a year's income for them, as I told him. We agreed that it was hard to have to die without knowing who had won the Derby.

At about seven o'clock next morning (18th January) the convoy returned with the rest of the camels and the commissariat. We had our first meal for some thirty-six hours. Then we went to work to build a fort in which to leave the wounded, and to prepare for the march to the river, some 25 miles distant. A burying party went back to the field of Abu Klea and interred our dead. Some prisoners captured by the convoy on its way back to the camp, reported that Omdurman had fallen; but the information was not made generally known. I did not hear it until we reached Metemmeh.

Sir Herbert Stewart then determined to reach the Nile before next morning. A small detachment of the Royal Sussex was left to guard the wounded. The column marched about 3.30 p.m. It was a desperate venture, for the men had had no sleep for two nights, had fought a battle in between, had suffered agonies of thirst and the exhaustion of hunger. But Sir Herbert Stewart had learned from the prisoners that the enemy who had fought at Abu Klea were no more than the advanced guard of the main body, which would probably come out from Metemmeh to meet us, and that the fall of Omdurman had released a number of the Mahdi's army; and the general wished to reach the river before fighting again. He hoped to be upon the Nile before daylight. In any event, the enterprise of the Desert Column was a forlorn hope; and by this time we all knew it.

Cameron, war correspondent of The Standard, came to me with a very grave face. He was not alarmed for his own safety, for he was a most gallant man; but he feared for the Column.

"Lord Charles," he said, "have you any influence with General Stewart? If so, for God's sake implore him not to go on without reinforcements. I know these people and he does not."

The next time I saw poor Cameron was upon the following day, when he was lying with a bullet-hole in his forehead, dead.

The Column was guided by Ali Loda, a friendly desert freebooter who had been captured during the first march to Jakdul. He was accompanied by Captain Verner and Colonel Barrow. Half the force marched on foot, in case of attack; the mounted men each leading a camel. The commissariat camels were tied in threes, nose to tail, the leading camel being ridden by a native driver. Although both men and camels were tired out, they went bravely along the track leading across a wide plain, with grass and scrub in the distance. By the time it was dark, we had come to the long savas grass, and the tracks, hitherto plain to see in the brilliant starlight, became obscured. Then began the confusion. By this time men and camels were utterly exhausted. There was no moon, but no lights were allowed, and all orders were to be given in a whisper. The camels, weary and famished, lagged and tumbled down; their riders went to sleep and fell off; the leading camels fell behind; and the rear camels, most of them riderless, straggled up to the front. The formation was totally disordered. In the darkness the confusion speedily became inextricable. When there was a halt to wait for stragglers, the men lay down and dropped asleep. About this time the Column blundered into a wood of acacia trees armed with long sharp thorns. There ought to have been no such wood; indeed, Count Gleichen avers that no one ever found it afterwards.

In this state of affairs, the Column lost in the dark in an unknown country, utterly worn out, and inextricably tangled upon itself, I made the Naval Brigade unspan and gave them tea. Then we struggled on, hour after hour. As for silence, the noise might have been heard and probably was heard at Metemmeh. An immense multitudinous murmur went up from the unhappy mob of swearing men and roaring, squealing, grumbling camels. A longer or more exhausting nightmare I never suffered.

Daylight came at last. It was about 6 o'clock on the morning of 19th January. The least we had hoped was to have come within sight of the Nile. But when the Column halted there was no Nile; only a long gravel slope rising before us, set with scattered trees rising from the eternal savas grass and low scrub. Captain Verner went ahead to reconnoitre, and the Column toiled on up the ridge. Then, at last, upon reaching the top at about 7 o'clock, we beheld the wide valley, and the Nile flowing between broad belts of green, and on the left, the roofs of a chain of villages, and the walled town of Metemmeh. Beyond, upon the farther bank, clustered the huts of the village of Shendi. But we had not yet come to the river. And moving out from Metemmeh were crowds of the enemy, moving out to cut us off from the blessed water. Once more, the whole air was throbbed with the boding war-drums.

Sir Herbert Stewart determined to give the men breakfast and then to attack. As usual, a zeriba must first be constructed and the force put in laager. The Column was halted upon the top of the rising ground, in a space some 300 yards square, surrounded by a sea of thin scrub, in which the enemy could find cover. A parapet, square in plan, and about two feet six inches high, was constructed of saddles and biscuit boxes and anything else which would serve the purpose. The camels were pushed inside it, and knee-lashed, and in the centre was placed the hospital. During the progress of the work the enemy, concealed in the scrub, crept nearer and opened fire.

The men breakfasted in a rain of bullets. So wearied were they, that some fell asleep over their food, bullets singing all about them. Many of the men got no food at all. I saw two men shot while they slept. One Dervish in particular sniped the Naval Brigade all breakfast-time. I subsequently discovered him in the bush, lying dead, a bullet through his head, in a litter of about 200 spent cartridges. One of my men was shot, and a spoke was knocked out of the wheel of the Gardner gun. A soldier was shot through the stomach, and was carried screaming to the doctors, who gave him laudanum.

The situation was far from encouraging. During the night – the third without sleep – the men had marched for 14 hours, covering 19 miles, and losing some hundred camels. We were still four miles from the river, and between the river and our exhausted force were thousands of raging Dervishes. We were caught in a trap.

Seventy yards from our left flank was a little hill. In order to prevent its capture by the enemy, 30 Guardsmen were told off to occupy it. Volunteers carried saddles and boxes across the bullet-swept space and built a small breastwork with them. Several men were knocked over. In the meantime a company was extended along the ridge some 50 yards beyond the zeriba to check the enemy's fire; but they had nothing at which to aim except the puffs of smoke rising above the scrub. The Naval Brigade had no better luck with the Gardner gun, placed outside the zeriba near the left angle of the front.

At some time between 9 and 10 o'clock Sir Herbert Stewart was hit in the groin and severely wounded. The knowledge of this disaster was concealed from the men as long as possible. Then followed a terrible interval, which lasted for hours. Under that pitiless fire, exposed to an invisible enemy, men and camels were being hit every minute. All this time the heat was intense. There we lay in the blazing sun, helpless, the rattle of rifles all around us, the thin high note of the bullets singing overheard, or ending with a thud close at hand; men crying out suddenly, or groaning; camels lying motionless and silent, blood trickling from their wounds; and no one seemed to know what we were going to do. Of all things, the most trying to a soldier is to lie still under fire without being able to reply. It is true that there was volley firing in reply to the enemy, but they were invisible.

The command had naturally devolved upon Colonel Sir Charles Wilson, R.E., head of the Intelligence Department. It was clear to me that unless we marched against the enemy at once, we were done. I dispatched a written message to Sir Charles Wilson. The messenger was killed. I sent a second message by Sub-Lieutenant E. L. Munro, R.N., who was struck by a bullet which wounded him in seven places.

Shortly afterwards I received a message from Sir Charles Wilson informing me that he was about to march against the enemy. I was ordered to remain in command of the zeriba, with Colonel Barrow.

Before forming square, Sir Charles Wilson ordered the breastwork surrounding the hospital and that defending the little knoll occupied by the Guards in our rear, to be strengthened into redoubts, in case of attack. The ammunition boxes must be shifted from the inside of the main zeriba, and carried across and among the baggage and the packed and helpless camels, a slow, laborious and dangerous business performed under fire. Men and officers worked with a will; yet it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon before they had done. Just then St. Leger Herbert, private secretary to Sir Herbert Stewart and correspondent of The Morning Post, was shot through the head.

The square was composed of half the Heavy Camel Regiment, Guards, Mounted Infantry, Royal Sussex, Royal Engineers, and some dismounted Hussars. Sir Charles Wilson placed it under the executive command of Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. E. E. Boscawen. The square was formed up in rear of the zeriba at 2.30 and marched at 3 o'clock. The men were cool, alert, and perfectly determined. The British soldier had shut his mouth. He was going to get to the river, enemy or no enemy, or die. By this time the enemy were plainly visible in full force in front, horse and foot gathering behind a line of green and white banners. The moment the square moved beyond the redoubt, it received a heavy fire. Several men were hit, and were carried back to the zeriba by our men, while the square moved forward at quick march. It made a zig-zag course in order to take advantage of the clear patches of ground among the scrub; lying down and firing, and again advancing.

The Naval Brigade mounted the Gardner gun in the angle of the redoubt, and, together with the Royal Artillery and two of their screw-guns under Captain Norton, maintained a steady fire at the three distinct masses of the enemy. Two of these were hovering in front of the advancing square, upon the landward slope of the hill rising between us and the river; the third threatened the zeriba. In all of these we dropped shells, paying particular attention to the body menacing the zeriba. When the shells burst in their midst, the dervishes scattered like a flock of starlings.

In the zeriba were the most of the Hussars, whose horses were worn out, the Royal Artillery, half the Heavy Camel Regiment, half the Royal Engineers, what was left of the Naval Brigade, and the wounded in the hospital. Some 2000 camels were knee-lashed outside and all round the larger zeriba, forming a valuable breastwork.

All we could do was to work our guns. As the square went on, the enemy, moving in large masses, shifted their position, and as they moved, we dropped shells among them. We judged their numbers to be greater than at Abu Klea. Would the square of only 900 men ever get through? If ever a little British army looked like walking to certain death, it was that thin square of infantry.

Presently it disappeared from view. Soon afterwards we heard the steady roll of volley firing, and we knew that the enemy were charging the square. Then, silence. Whether the enemy had been driven back, or the square annihilated, we did not know. What we did know was that if the square had been defeated, the zeriba would very soon be attacked in overwhelming force. But as the moments passed the strain of suspense slackened; for, as the fire of the enemy directed upon the zeriba diminished and soon ceased altogether, the presumption was that the square had been victorious and had got through to the river.

What had happened was that the Arabs, charging downhill at the left front angle of the square, had been met by concentrated rifle fire, our men aiming low at a range of 400 yards, steady as on parade. Once more the British soldier proved that no troops in the world can face his musketry. The front ranks of the charging thousands were lying dead in heaps; the rear ranks fled over the hills; and the square went on, unmolested, very slowly, because the men were tired out, and so came to the river.

Count Gleichen, who marched with the square, recounting his experiences (in his With the Camel Corps up the Nile), writes: "Soon in the growing dusk a silver streak was visible here and there in amongst the green belt, but it was still a couple of miles off… Our pace could not exceed a slow march. The sun went down, and the twilight became almost darkness; … a two-days-old crescent was shining in the sky, and its feeble light guided us through the gravel hills right to the brink of the Nile. The men were as wild with joy as their exhausted condition would allow. The wounded were held up for one look at the gleaming river, and then hurried to the banks. Still, perfect discipline was observed. Not a man left his place in the ranks until his company was marched up to take its fill… A chain of sentries was established on the slopes overlooking the square, and in two minutes the force was fast asleep." Sir Charles Wilson (From Korti to Khartoum) adds: "The men were so exhausted that when they came up from their drink at the river they fell down like logs…"