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Then followed the building of the wonderful Wady Halfa direct desert railway towards Abu Hamid, Berber, and Dakhala at the mouth of the Atbara. It was the 1897 campaign which put all these places into the Sirdar's hands.
Of wounded dervishes over 9000 were treated by the British and Egyptian Army Medical Staffs, although the doctors' hands were busy enough for two days with our own sick and wounded. Within twenty-four hours after the Sirdar's entry Omdurman began to assume the signs of orderly government. Thousands of the prisoners as well as the natives were set to work to clean up the place.
Here they were joined from Atbara fort by Lewis's brigade of Egyptians with the exception of the 15th Battalion, which was left as garrison and the troops at the Sirdar's disposal were thus raised to 14,000 men of all arms. British Brigade: MAJOR-GENERAL GATACRE Egyptian Infantry Division: MAJOR-GENERAL HUNTER
The friendlies also had the luck to capture a dervish sailing boat laden with grain. That evening at sunset, a few Baggara horsemen and footmen were seen upon the nearest hills watching the Sirdar's camp. It was at Um Terif that the army, with all its equipment, was for the first time got together within the confines of the same encampment.
Either they had offered battle in a position where they could not themselves be attacked until four o'clock in the afternoon, and hoped that the Sirdar's army, even though victorious, would have to fight a rear-guard action in the darkness to the river; or they intended to make a night attack. It was not likely that an experienced commander would accept battle at so late an hour in the day.
The Sirdar's orders had been that these were to be placed on the hospital barges, and that the field hospitals were to follow the transport. But the moving of wounded men is a painful and delicate affair, and by a stupid and grievous mistake the three regular hospital barges, duly prepared for the reception of the wounded, had been towed across to the right bank.
But the enemy's horse came out in strength, supported by footmen, and threatened them, so Broadwood's men had to fall back. Four of the Sirdar's gunboats, which had meanwhile steamed ahead, were briskly battering the Mahdist riverside forts. These works, like those abandoned to us at Shabluka Cataract and Kerreri, were strong, well-built earthen bastions, with flanking curtains.
You promised to trust me without understanding. To-morrow night, at the Sirdar's ball, you will understand. I've arranged with Lord Ernest that you and Mrs. Jones and Mrs. East and he shall write your names in the book at the Palace. Then you will all receive invitations for the ball; you four only, of the party." "And you will be there?"
Very quickly the Sirdar sent small bodies of troops up stream to occupy suitable positions for wood-cutting and forming advance camps. In that way the river pass at the Sixth Cataract was seized without the long anticipated fight for that difficult bit of country. The Nile highway was at length in the Sirdar's undisputed possession up to within thirty miles of Omdurman.
The Sirdar's camp was in the form of a semicircle, with about one mile of the Nile for its diameter. On the left, and extending close down to the lines, was a small hill, Gabel Surgham; and on the right, some way off, the rising ground of Kerrin. The camp was protected by a zareba and trench, with spaces at intervals, and all along the river were the flotilla of gunboats.
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