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One of the chiefs of the Mahdi, named Osman Digma, was threatening the port of Suakim, on the Red Sea, and had besieged the Egyptian garrisons in the towns of Sinkat and Tokar. Admiral Hewett was ordered to protect Suakim, and with the Ranger, Sphinx, Euryalus, and Decoy took his station off that town.
Baker's force was conveyed down the coast to Trinkatat; Admiral Hewett with some of the ships going down with him. The force was landed and marched towards Tokar; on the way it was attacked by the tribesmen who had embraced the cause of Osman Digma.
For this purpose a man of extraordinary energy and influence was ready to their hand in Osman Digma, a slave-dealer of Souakim, who might truly be called the Zebehr of the Eastern Soudan. This man hastened to Souakim as the delegate of the Mahdi, from whom he brought special proclamations, calling on the tribes to rise for a Holy War.
It was found filled with property of all kinds; for the Arabs had removed nothing, making perfectly sure that they should be able to repel the English advance. Bags of money, bundles of clothing, Korans, great quantities of grain, and plunder of all kinds were found in the huts. Osman Digma himself had taken no part whatever in the fight.
The village was burnt and the ammunition blown up. The next day the force started on its return march, after burning and destroying Osman's camp and the three adjoining villages. No attempt was made to pursue Osman Digma or his Arabs.
They had lost, too, a great many of their best fighting men in the battles with the Kaffirs, but no doubt when Osman Digma announced that the favourable time had arrived, all would again join him in order to have their share of the plunder of Suakim.
Slatin surrendered on 23rd December 1883; Lupton Bey, commander in the Bahr Gazelle, about the same time, and these successes were enhanced and extended by those achieved by Osman Digma in the Eastern Soudan, where, early in February 1884, while Gordon was on his way to Khartoum, that leader inflicted on Baker Pasha at Tokar a defeat scarcely less crushing than that of Shekan.
Difficult as it had been all along, it was rendered still more difficult by the decisive defeat of Baker Pasha and an Egyptian force of 4000 men at Tokar, near Souakim. This victory was won by Osman Digma, who had been sent by the Mahdi to rouse up the Eastern Soudan at the time of the threatened Hicks expedition.
The first step of Admiral Hewett and General Graham on their arrival at Suakim was to issue a proclamation calling upon all the tribesmen to leave Osman Digma and to come in and make their submission, promising protection and pardon to all who surrendered. This proclamation was backed by a letter by the Sheik Morghani, who was held in the highest estimation for his holiness.
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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