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Updated: June 9, 2025
If the camels had had a couple of days' rest here before starting to go back again, and four or five days' good feeding at Korti before they started up again, it would have made all the difference in the world to them. A camel is not a steam-engine, that can take in fuel and water and be off again an hour after it comes in from a journey." "I don't like these night marches," Skinner said.
"I don't believe it; he did not mind it more than a pin, if he could only kill me at the same time." Here an officer came up and asked Kavanagh how he was; adding, "I have good news for you. We shall reach Korti to-day, and then you will be more comfortable."
We will not follow his footsteps, since he met with no adventures to be compared at all with those he had gone through. And very glad he was of it, for the one thing he now dreaded most was delay. He had not long been at Korti before he saw the very old friend he had been asking after, and soon got an opportunity of speaking to him, busy as he seemed to be. "Don't you know me?" he asked.
Every day troops kept on arriving, and by the 27th of December there were already at Korti a considerable portion of the Sussex, the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, the Essex, Gordon Highlanders, Black Watch, and Staffordshire, all of whom had come up in the whale-boats; a large number of the commissariat, transport, hospital, and engineer train in native boats; the whole of the Guards' Camel Corps, and the greater portion of the Heavy and Light Camel Corps, a hundred men of the Marines, who were provided with camels, and appointed to form part of the Guards' Camel Corps, two squadrons of the 19th Hussars, and the Mounted Infantry.
All being quiet, and peace assured in the Dongola province, the two detached companies of the Warwickshire left Korti and joined their comrades in Es Selim camp. July was a very busy month. The river flotilla and transport service had all to be thoroughly organised for the impending advance. Gunboats received the final touches and completed their armament.
All this time no despatch of any kind had been received from Korti, although a small reinforcement consisting of a company of the Naval Brigade and half a battery of artillery had arrived, and the camels or rather a portion of them, for nearly half had died upon the journey had returned from Gakdul with a supply of stores.
Leaving the Guards and Engineers to garrison the place, the rest of the column marched the same evening on the return journey to Korti, to collect and bring on the remaining troops and stores necessary for continuing the advance to Metemmeh.
He had long since received an answer from Captain Clinton to his letter written as soon as he was well enough to sit up after arriving at Korti, with the news that Edgar had been present with the expedition, and was now a prisoner in the hands of the Arabs. Captain Clinton wrote in great distress himself, and said that his wife was completely prostrated with the news.
Rupert was too weak and ill to fully enter into the question, but he did see that Edgar's position was certainly better under an Arab master than it would have been had he been sent up to Khartoum, and the knowledge that he was alive and was in no immediate danger of his life did much to revive him, and enable him to bear the weary journey down to Korti better than he would otherwise have done.
Unfortunately, the British force that reached the Nile was in a very different condition from that which left Korti in such high spirits. Rapid marching and hard fighting had demanded a heavy penalty, and the death-roll and sick-list were very high; among others, Lord Charles Beresford himself was on the latter.
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