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He has been in the Dublin Fusiliers, and a lieutenant in Weatherby's Horse, enlisted in the 5th Lancers, and rose from private to staff-sergeant, and ten months later would have had his commission. He served with distinction in the Soudan and Zululand, and has three medals with four clasps. He was present at El Teb, and at the disaster at Tamai, when McNeill's zareeba was broken.
"The Arabs won't meet you this time, I expect, and you have had your walk for nothing. I expect that they see that the sun will lick us single-handed, and they need not take the trouble." "What makes you say that?" "Well, at El Teb, you know, they kept their women and boys with them, and these carried hatchets to kill our wounded with after the fight."
All this is time wasted. I have my work cut out for me. What more is there to tell?" "What you have left untold," said the Tracer, with the slightest ring of authority in his quiet voice. And, as though he had added "Obey!" the younger man sank back in his chair, his hands contracting nervously. "I went back to El Teb," he said; "I walked like a dreaming man.
But neither victory was bloodless. El Teb cost 24 officers and 168 men; Tamai, 13 officers and 208 men. The effect of these operations was the dispersal of Osman Digna's gathering. That astute man, not for the first or last time, made a good retreat. Ten thousand men had thus been killed in the space of three months in the Eastern Soudan.
As the boat quarters the falling stream like a puzzled hound, all the old names spurt up again under the paddle-wheels 'Hicks' army Val Baker El Teb Tokar Tamai Tamanieb and Osman Digna! Her head swings round for another slant: 'We cannot land English or Indian troops: if consulted, recommend abandonment of the Soudan within certain limits. That was my Lord Granville chirruping to the advisers of His Highness the Khedive, and the sentence comes back as crisp as when it first shocked one in '84.
The slight impression which two brilliant but costly victories, those of El Teb and Tamai, made on the warlike tribes at the back of Suakim certainly showed the need of caution in pushing a force into the Sudan when the fierce heats of summer were coming on . The first hint of any change of policy was made by Gordon in his despatch of Feb. 26, to Sir E. Baring.
Two of them, Tefen and Befen, followed behind me, two of them, Mestet and Mestetef, went one on each side of me, and three, Petet, Thetet, and Maatet, prepared the way for me. And their leader brought me to Pa-Sui, the town of the Sacred Sandals, at the head of the district of the Papyrus Swamps. When I arrived at Teb I came to a quarter of the town where women dwelt.
On the 4th of August the gunboats El Teb and Tamai approached the Fourth Cataract to ascend to the Abu Hamed-Berber reach of the river. Major David was in charge of the operation. Two hundred men of the 7th Egyptians were towed in barges to assist in hauling the steamers in the difficult places.
Four of these vessels the Tamai, El Teb, the Metemma, and the Abu Klea; and three steamers the Kaibar, Dal, and Akasha, which it was proposed to arm had, since 1885, patrolled the river from Assuan to Wady Halfa, and assisted in protecting the frontier from Dervish raids. All seven were now collected at the foot of the Second Cataract, and awaited the rise of the river to attempt the passage.
Anxiety may be diminished, but is not banished, by a calculation of probabilities, and the military spirit and capacity exhibited by the Mahdi's forces under Osman Digma in the fighting with General Graham's well-equipped British force at Teb and Tamanieb revealed the greatness of the peril with which Gordon had to deal at Khartoum where he had only the inadequate and untrustworthy garrison described by Colonel de Coetlogon.
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