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Marching through Awamra, Haloosen, and Mesalamia, Colonel Lewis reached Karkoj on the 7th of November, almost at the same time that Ahmed Fedil arrived on the Dinder. For the next six weeks the movements of the two forces resembled a game of hide-and-seek.
He did not, however, believe that steamers could navigate the higher reaches of the rivers, and in the hopes of finding a safe crossing-place he directed his march so as to strike the Blue Nile south of Karkoj. Moving leisurely, and with frequent delays to pillage the inhabitants, he arrived on the Dinder, twenty-five miles to the east of Karkoj, on the 7th of November.
As soon as the position of the Dervish Emir was definitely known, Colonel Lewis moved his force, which had been strengthened by detachments of the Xth Soudanese, from Karkoj to Rosaires. Here he remained for several days, with but little hope of obstructing the enemy's passage of the river.
On the 7th of November, following the Blue Nile up, he reached Karkoj, but a short distance below the point at which the navigation of the river ceased.
Of the four hundred and sixty men, ten had died and four hundred and twenty were reported unfit for duty, a month after their arrival at Karkoj; while of the thirty white officers on the Blue Nile, only two escaped an attack of fever. At the end of the month, Colonel Lewis was joined by the Darfur Sheik and three hundred and fifty of his men.
Colonel Lewis, perplexed by false and vague information, remained halted at Karkoj, despatched vain reconnaissances in the hopes of obtaining reliable news, revolved deep schemes to cut off the raiding parties, or patrolled the river in the gunboats. And meanwhile sickness fell upon his force. The malarial fever, which is everywhere prevalent on the Blue Nile in the autumn, was now at its height.
During the end of November the Sheikh Bakr, who had deserted the Dervishes after their retreat from Gedaref, arrived at Karkoj with 350 irregulars. He claimed to have defeated his former chief many times, and produced a sack of heads as evidence of his success.
Gregory, whose exertions in the fight, and the march through the scrub from Karkoj, had brought on a slight return of fever, went down in the gunboat, with the wounded, to Omdurman. Zaki was with him, but as a patient. He had been hit through the leg, while charging forward with the Soudanese. At Omdurman, Gregory fell into regular work again.
They arrived at Karkoj on the 14th of December, and learned that the little garrison at Rosaires had been attacked by the Dervishes.
One after another every British officer was stricken down and lay burning but helpless beneath the palm-leaf shelters or tottered on to the friendly steamers that bore the worst cases north. Of the 460 men who composed the force, ten had died and 420 were reported unfit for duty within a month of their arrival at Karkoj.
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