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So closed the unexpected Atbara campaign in March last. Thereafter, as the Khalifa showed no intention of inviting fresh disaster by sending down another army to attack, the Sirdar despatched his troops into summer rest-camps. Dry and shady spots were selected by the banks of the Nile between Berber and Dakhala.
It was a most picturesque scene for a camp, but an unwholesome place for all that. It was given out that the column was to rest a day at Magawiya, as the place was a wood and food supply depôt. During the course of the evening the sternwheeler "Kaibur" came in, and a sick officer, Lieutenant Russell, and about a score or more of men were sent back upon her to Dakhala, or Atbara camp.
I struck my tent at Dakhala on the 15th of August, packed my gear, and during the course of the day crossed over to the west bank with my servants, horses, camels and other belongings.
The distance was about 140 miles by water from Dakhala, but it took the gunboats and their tows over three days to get there, for the craft were deeply ladened with men and stores. The soupy whirling Nile flood washed the decks of the steamers almost from stem to stern. It was little short of the rarest good fortune there was no accident by the way. Everybody turned out to see the brigades off.
Bursting into the Nile the sea of soup seemed to push its way in a well-defined stream nearly across the 1200-yards broad bosom of the Father of Waters. The first half of the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade arrived on the 2nd of August at Dakhala, during a blustering dust-storm.
Ten days from London to the junction of the Atbara with the Nile: so far from England and yet so near. By-and-by, no doubt, the Brindisi mail, speeding in connection with the Khartoum express, will make the run in seven or eight days. From England to Port Said is now but a matter of four days by the new Peninsular and Oriental service. It took me six days from Cairo to reach Dakhala.
On our way up we passed Wauchope's brigade encamped at Es Selim and Darmali. Colonel Macdonald's 1st and Colonel Maxwell's 2nd Khedivial Brigades started to march from Berber to Dakhala about that time, the end of July. Many of the British soldiers, so as not to sleep upon the ground, had built for themselves benches of mud or sun-dried bricks, whereon they spread their blankets.
By the end of July the Egyptian cavalry nine squadrons under Colonel Broadwood, with the camel corps under Major Tudway, the horse artillery and one or two batteries, had been ferried across from Dakhala to the west bank. On the 4th of August the whole of the mounted force named, about 2000 strong, started to march along the bank to Wad Habeshi.
The utmost energy was put forth, after the defeat of Mahmoud, by the Director of Railways, Major Girouard, R.E., to get the track completed to Dakhala, the junction of the Atbara with the Nile. Not only the railroad battalion, which was nearly 3000 strong, but every available Khedivial soldier, laboured in some way or other at the task.
They were quartered in a cool and cleanly camp by the Atbara, to the south-east of the fortified lines. The 21st Lancers also arrived at Dakhala in due course. Major Williams' Field Battery, the 32nd R.A. of 15-pounders; Major Elmslie's 37th R.A., with the new 50-pounder Howitzers firing Lyddite shells; and Lieut.
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