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As their fight and the more important general action happened at the same time, I must defer further description of it for the moment. It was a magnificent spectacle that rose before the Sirdar's army as the dervish columns came sweeping into view, filling the landscape between Surgham and Um Mutragan.
At the critical moment another gun collided with it, and was upset beside the first, so both pieces, with, later on, a third, fell temporarily into the dervishes' hands. They did nothing with them. Colonel Broadwood, on finding the enemy pushing so determinedly, as though they had struck the whole of the Sirdar's army, directed the Camel Corps to retire to the zereba.
The Set were allowed to walk through the Palace gardens, to behold the spot at the head of the grand staircase, where Gordon fell, and to have a glimpse, in the Sirdar's library, of the Khalifa's photograph, taken after death. This was a special favour, and as they knew nothing about the four invitations to the ball, they were satisfied with their day.
These are the letters that I was to hand to you one is from the Sirdar himself, the other is from his chief of the staff, and this letter is from Captain Ewart." The General read the Sirdar's letter first. He then opened that from the chief of the staff. This was the more bulky of the two, and contained several enclosures.
It was about 5 a.m. when the 21st Lancers started forward to undertake their daily task of scouting and covering the left flank of the Sirdar's army.
But to try to gauge the influence of this uncertain force were utterly futile, and it is perhaps wise, and indisputably convenient, to assume that the favourable and adverse chances equate, and then eliminate them both from the calculation. The 'Sirdar's luck' became almost proverbial in the Soudan. As the account progresses numerous instances will suggest themselves.
There has been talk among our neighbours of emulating the Sirdar's enterprise and founding French colleges at Khartoum and Fashoda. But urged by less disinterested motives they may find it necessary instead to devote their funds to the cultivation of the Gallic tongue in Lower and Upper Egypt, rather than in the Soudan.
As these allies and the Sirdar's forces were to march by the river's margin when possible, signalling would be nearly always practicable between them. Telegraphic communication was opened to Wad Hamid from Dakhala by Captain Manifold, R.E., and his sappers almost as soon as the troops got into camp. With much hard work the line had been put upon poles as far south as Nasri.
From these not an ounce of food was issued without the Sirdar's direct sanction. At the subsidiary depot, formed at Wady Halfa, the same rule prevailed. The man who was responsible to no one took all the responsibility; and the system whereby a Chief of the Staff is subjected to the continual bombardment of heads of departments was happily avoided.
We arrived, but the Sirdar evidently had been considering us, he did not appear for the half an hour, so we sat with his staff sipping rakia by the roadside. The lunch was excellent, but the Sirdar's carriage, like every other carriage in Montenegro, was a weird, ancient, rusty arabesquish affair, tied together with wire.
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