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Updated: June 26, 2025
Meanwhile the gunboats, under Commander Keppel, which had shelled the dervish advanced camp near Kerreri on 31st August, proceeded at daylight on 1st September, towing the Howitzer Battery to the right bank, whence, in conjunction with the Irregulars under Major Stuart Wortley, their advance south was continued.
The ground sloped gently up from the river; so that it seemed as if the landward ends of the Surgham and Kerreri ridges curved in towards each other, enclosing what lay between. Beyond the long swell of sand which formed the western wall of this spacious amphitheatre the black shapes of the distant hills rose in misty confusion.
Kerreri, which the Arabs pronounce with a prolonged Doric or Northumbrian roll of the r's, as though there were at least a dozen of them in the word, is upon the margin of a belt of rough gravel, stone, and low detached hills that extend to the southward, to Omdurman and beyond.
On the 31st of August the "Melik" kept abreast of the cavalry acting as a screen. At noon of the same day the "Sultan" and the "Melik" and "Nazir" were sent to shell the dervish tents and tukals seen to the east of Kerreri village. The enemy were found in some force, about 3500 strong. Eight or ten shrapnel were fired into their zerebaed camp.
The range was short; the effect tremendous. The terrible machine, floating gracefully on the waters a beautiful white devil wreathed itself in smoke. The river slopes of the Kerreri Hills, crowded with the advancing thousands, sprang up into clouds of dust and splinters of rock. The charging Dervishes sank down in tangled heaps. The masses in rear paused, irresolute. It was too hot even for them.
Then, while they were yet dispersed on the plain, with no zeriba to protect them, the chosen warriors of the True Religion would abandon all concealment, and hasten in their thousands to the utter destruction of the accursed the Khalifa with 15,000 falling upon them from behind Surgham; Ali-Wad-Helu and all that remained of Osman's army assailing them from Kerreri.
The Dervishes were disposed in three long lines, stretching from within two thousand yards of the Nile out into the desert, being careful to get, as they believed, beyond the range of the four gunboats that steamed quietly up. After a short march the force halted near the river, two miles north of Kerreri.
And with bitter rage and mortification he perceived that, although the banners were now gathering under the Kerreri Hills, Ali and Osman were too late, and the attacks which should have been simultaneous would only be consecutive. The effect of Broadwood's cavalry action upon the extreme right was now becoming apparent. Regrets and fury were alike futile.
They reached Jebel Surgham a few minutes later and relieved Captain Baring's squadron, which at once rode away and joined the remaining squadrons of Egyptian cavalry on South Kerreri hill, whither Colonel Broadwood had by that time gone with his troopers.
The northern extremity the gorge of the redan, as it were gaped open towards Kerreri; and from Kerreri there now began to come, like the first warning drops before a storm of rain, small straggling parties of Dervish cavalry.
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