Part 22 (2/2)
It was soon known that there was to be no delay at Gakdul, and orders were issued that the start was to be made on the 13th; the intervening day being devoted to seeing to the arms and ammunition, issuing stores, and replenis.h.i.+ng the water supply. The water-skins were extremely defective, leaking freely, the only exception being the india-rubber bags with which the sailors had been supplied. Every effort was made during the halt to sew up holes and stop leaks, but with poor success.
Each man carried on his camel one of these skins in addition to his water-bottle. Strict orders were given that upon the march he was to rely upon the latter alone; the supply in the skins being for general purposes, such as cooking and making tea.
During the halt Edgar applied himself steadily to the work of repairing the water-skins. The camp of the Heavies joined that of the Guards, and he felt that his danger of being recognized by Easton or Skinner was great; but sitting with a group of others sewing, with his face shaded by his helmet, the risk was very much less than if standing up or moving about the camp. At two o'clock in the afternoon the force paraded and moved off in columns of companies. The Heavy Camel Corps led, the Guards followed, the baggage and stores were in the centre, and the Mounted Infantry in the rear.
Many of the camels had to be left behind, and those that remained were only sufficient to carry the absolutely necessary stores, the rations for the men, and a quant.i.ty of corn that would suffice but to give two feeds of eight pounds each to the animals, who were, therefore, obliged to depend almost entirely on such sustenance as they could pluck from the mimosa shrubs and the dry yellow gra.s.s. The men carried a hundred and seventy rounds each. There were a hundred rounds per gun for the artillery, but only a thousand rounds were brought for the Gardner gun, a quant.i.ty sufficient but for five minutes' work when in action.
The journey was over a gravelly plain, and the halt was made at six o'clock in the evening. Fires were lit of the shrubs and dry gra.s.s; the camels were unloaded and fed, and were ranged in such order that in case of attack the troops could form square at the angles of the ma.s.s, and thus support each other and protect the convoy.
At three in the morning the trumpets and bugles sounded. The fires were soon blazing again, and at half-past four breakfast had been eaten, the camels loaded, and the column on its march again. At ten o'clock there was a halt for two hours for dinner and a short rest; and it was not until just as they were going to start that the rear-guard arrived, having been delayed by the breaking down of numbers of the camels, many of which had fallen dead as they walked, while others incapable of movement had to be left behind to take their chance of recovering sufficiently to browse upon the bushes and make their way back to the wells. As the loads of those that fell had to be distributed among their already exhausted companions the prospect was far from cheerful.
Starting at twelve, the column pa.s.sed a conical hill known as Gebel El Nur an hour later, and entered a broad valley covered with gra.s.s and trees twenty feet high, and where, doubtless, water could be obtained had the force been provided with little Abyssinian pumps. At five o'clock the column halted, and as the ground was sandy pa.s.sed a more comfortable night than the one before. Every one was in good spirits.
The men found the journeys by day far less fatiguing than those at night, and were able to obtain refres.h.i.+ng sleep in the cool night air.
Before daybreak they again started over a gravelly plain, hoping to reach the wells of Abu Klea that evening. They halted at eleven in a valley flanked by hills. The track, according to the maps, lay over a steep hill in front and then along a pa.s.s between two hills, the wells lying some three miles beyond the pa.s.s. Dinner was cooked, and as soon as they had finished their meal the Hussars started for the wells, as their horses had had no water since leaving Gakdul. The rest of the force were stretched upon the ground taking it quietly when two of the Hussars returned at full gallop with a message to the general, and the order was immediately issued for the men to fall in and for the officers to examine their arms and ammunition. Then the news spread through the force that the enemy had been discovered in large numbers upon the hill, and were evidently prepared to bar the way to the wells.
The change effected by the news was wonderful. It had been generally supposed that Metemmeh would be reached without fighting, all the spies agreeing in saying that there was no force of the enemy near the line of march. In a moment fatigue and thirst were forgotten, and the quiet was exchanged for bustle and animation. Men laughed and joked with each other in the highest spirits, and all prepared for the fray with the most absolute confidence as to the result. As the troops fell in the general with his staff galloped ahead to some rising ground, and with their field-gla.s.ses reconnoitred the hills surrounding the pa.s.s, upon which numbers of white-robed Arabs could be made out.
The Hussars speedily reported that there was a considerable force in the pa.s.s below. With the fighting men in front and the baggage behind, the troops moved slowly forward up the hill in front, and finally took up their position on a piece of flat ground whence they could see down the pa.s.s by which the Arabs expected the advance would be made. On the side of the hills commanding it they had thrown up small stone walls from which to fire. On the hilltops out of range large numbers of Arabs could be seen in constant motion, gesticulating and waving their arms. It was now four o'clock in the afternoon, and the general decided that as the real force of the enemy was unknown it would be imprudent to attempt to force the pa.s.sage with only an hour and a half of daylight before him, consequently a halt for the night was ordered.
A strong detachment of Mounted Infantry and sailors with their Gardner ascended a hill on the other side of the pa.s.s and set to work to build a small fort and mount the gun there. A company from each of the camel regiments extended to cover the front. The camels were all made to kneel, their legs being lashed at the knee so that they could not rise.
This done, the whole of the troops were set to work to build a wall.
There were, however, but few loose stones lying about, and though officers and men alike worked hard the wall in front was but two feet high when the sun went down. A hedge of th.o.r.n.y bushes and wire was raised to protect the flanks as much as possible.
As twilight fell a number of the enemy took possession of the top of a hill some twelve hundred yards away on the right and opened fire, to which the three guns of the artillery replied with shrapnel-sh.e.l.l. The guns ceased firing when darkness came on, but the enemy kept up an occasional fire all night. A drink of lime-juice and water was served out to all the men, who then lay down, with their arms in readiness to repel an attack, by the little wall. All night the enemy kept on beating tom-toms and occasionally yelling, approaching at times comparatively close to the position. Knowing, however, that the sentries were out in front, the men for the most part slept quietly in spite of the noise and firing. As the Arabs could fire only at random but two men were hit during the night.
In the morning it was found that the number of the enemy on the hilltops had largely increased during the night, and the bullets now flew incessantly round and over the inclosure. Lying under such shelter as the wall afforded, the men ate their breakfast of the tinned meat and biscuits they carried in their haversacks.
”I must admit, Skinner,” Easton said to his comrade, who had come across from his own company to have a chat with him, ”that this is more unpleasant than I had expected. This lying here listening to the angry hiss of the bullets is certainly trying; at least I own that I feel it so.”
”It is nasty,” Skinner agreed. ”I sha'n't mind it as soon as we go at the beggars, but this doing nothing is, as you say, trying. I wish they would make up their minds and come out to us, or if they cannot get up their pluck enough to do it, that we should sally out and attack them.”
”You may be sure we shall before long, Skinner. They know well enough that we cannot stop here, but must move on to the water sooner or later; and knowing that, they would be fools if they were to give up their strong position to attack us here. At any rate I would rather be lying behind this wall than moving about as the general and his staff are doing. Major d.i.c.kson has just been shot through the knee, I hear. There!
Look! there is another officer down. I wonder who he is. I do hope they won't pot Clinton.”
A few minutes later an officer pa.s.sing by told them that Major Gough of the Mounted Infantry had been knocked senseless by a bullet which had grazed his forehead, and that an officer of the artillery had been hit in the back.
”What do you think of it, sergeant?” Edgar asked, as he and Sergeant Bowen were eating their breakfast together under shelter of the wall.
”I think that it is going to be a hot job, lad. If they had attacked us out in the plain we should have made short work of them, but it is a different thing altogether among these hills. The beggars can run three feet to our one, and if we were to climb one of these hills to attack them, they would be on the top of the next before we got there. I see nothing for it but to move straight for the wells, and let them do their worst as we go. It would be all right if we hadn't this tremendous train of camels; but if they come pouring down while we are on the march we shall have difficulty in protecting them all.”
”I wish Rupert were lying here with us,” Edgar said, looking anxiously at his brother, whose figure he could perceive among those near the general. ”It is horrid lying here in safety while he is exposed to their bullets.”
”We must all take our chances,” the sergeant said. ”Maybe presently you will be in more danger than he is.”
Half an hour later orders were issued that the men were to prepare for action, and it became known among the officers that the general had determined to leave a small garrison to protect the baggage and camels in the zareba, and to push forward with the rest of the force and capture the wells, and then send back and fetch in the camels and baggage. But the movement was delayed until ten o'clock in hopes that the enemy would attack. As they did not do so, orders were given, and the square formed up. The Guards' Camel Corps formed half the front of the square, and the right flank. The Mounted Infantry filled up the other half of the front, and half the left flank. The rest of the left flank and the rear were formed by the Heavy Camel Corps and the Naval Brigade; the hundred men of the Suss.e.x taking the right rear corner between them and the Guards, while the Naval Brigade with their Gardner gun were in the centre of the rear line, between the troop of the 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards and that of the 1st and 2d Life Guards and Blues.
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