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On our way back we picked up six of Osman Digna's Hadendowas. They said Osman was riding with the Khalifa, showing him the tracks and bypaths, with all of which he was familiar. We heard that neither Osman nor the Khalifa was wounded, and that Sheikh Ed Din was likewise untouched."
He imitated the tones of their voice and twisted and contorted his face and body to resemble the originals. Nothing was sacred from that mimic any more than from a sapper. He showed us Osman Digna's little ways, and gave ghastly imitations of trials, mutilations and executions by hanging in the Mahdist camps.
"He was within the square of the Second Brigade on the edge of the great gulley when Osman Digna's men sprang out of the earth and broke through. I was in that square, too. I saw Castleton killed." "I am glad," said Ethne. She spoke quite simply and distinctly. The first feather had been brought back by Captain Willoughby. It was just possible that Colonel Trench might bring back the second.
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.
The Berkshire Regiment had done its work in gallant style up the steep slopes of Dihilbat, had cleared the summit of Osman Digna's men, and followed them with a raking fire as they retreated wildly into the mimosa bushes on the plain.
These measures had a tranquillising effect, and order reigned in Suakin until the return of the Field Force, when their victory was celebrated with appropriate festivities. It was announced that as a result of the successful operations the Dervish enterprise against the Tokai Delta had collapsed, and that Osman Digna's power was for ever broken.
After the reception near the centre of the town the Sirdar proceeded with part of Colonel Maxwell's brigade along the west side of the big wall. Osman Digna's house was passed on the way. We got as far as the south-west corner into full view of the Mahdi's tomb, which was about 400 yards to the east. In the same direction and equidistant was the Khalifa's house.
He liked them; he could enter into their hatred of the old Turkish rule, he could understand their fanaticism, and their pretence of fanaticism under the compulsion of Osman Digna's hordes. "Yes, I shall come back," he said, "and in three months' time. For one thing, we know every Englishman in Egypt, too, knows that this can't be the end. I want to be here when the work's taken in hand again.
They had horses and camels, and upon the best of them they decamped. Several of the notorious Osman Digna's tribal retainers were caught. These wretched Hadendowas were, I was told, glad to be permitted subsequently to return to their own country. Over 300 Abyssinians were amongst our prisoners. They had volunteered or been coerced into joining the dervish ranks.
You know how Osman Digna's tribes on the Red Sea have been defeated, not by the superior courage of our men, but by our superior arms. And so it will be here. It may be many years before it comes about, but if you insist on war, that is what will come. "'Then, when we have taken the Soudan, there will come peace, and the peasant will till his soil in safety.
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