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Updated: June 10, 2025
When the march past was concluded, there was scarce one of the prisoners who would not gladly have enlisted. On the following day, Gregory again went to the Praying Square. The man he had the morning before seen, at once came up to him. "I have enquired of many who were at El Obeid, my lord," he said.
But you must understand I do not guarantee you any pay; we will put you on rations, and if your commission is made out and confirmed I will do my best to obtain arrears for you; but you must take your chance of all that." Harry said that he quite understood, and only asked to be allowed to accompany the expedition to El Obeid in any capacity.
How soon he might lie, helpless and dying, and watching these loathsome birds of prey swooping towards him! His idea was to keep bearing to the west, which was the direction in which he knew that El Obeid lay, unless indeed he had passed to one side of it, which he did not think probable, or he should most likely have seen it from the mountain-top.
Visits were frequently exchanged, and what with these, and the care of the boy, her time was constantly occupied. She received letters from Gregory, as frequently as possible, after his arrival at Omdurman, and until he set out with the main body, under the general, on the way to El Obeid.
Nominally as a slave, really as a comrade, he fought by Abdullah's side in all the earlier battles of the rebellion. Nor was it until after the capture of El Obeid that he rose suddenly to power and place. The Khalifa was a judge of men.
He fell into a Mahdist ambush at El Obeid, and after a desperate struggle, lasting three days, his force was almost completely annihilated, Hicks being the last to die. Very few of his men escaped to tell the tale of their defeat. To relieve these towns, Baker Pasha, a daring and able British leader, was sent with a force of 3,650 men.
For several months the garrison of Kassala under a gallant Egyptian maintained a desperate resistance, but at last famine forced them to surrender, and they shared the fate of the garrisons of El Obeid, Darfur, Sobat, Tokar, Sinkat, Sennar, and Khartoum. The evacuation of the Soudan was thus completed.
After a month's drilling, they were pronounced to be fit to attack the fanatics of the Sudan. Colonel Hicks was a brave man; urged on by the authorities in Cairo, he shut his eyes to the danger ahead of him, and marched out from Khartoum in the direction of El Obeid at the beginning of September, 1883. Abandoning his communications, he was soon deep in the desolate wastes of Kordofan.
The travellers watered themselves and their camels, and were then treated to dates, pipes, and coffee. They rested thus in the oasis, and benefited, it is to be hoped, by the companionship of their clerical entertainers, till the hottest part of the day was passed, and then, once more mounting their camels, went on their way to El Obeid an easy march for the evening.
"'I know it perfectly, he said, 'having been born in El Obeid. I fought against the Mahdists, till we were starved out; and then, as we all saw that the power of the Mahdi was great, and that Allah was with him, we did not hesitate to accept his terms, and to put on his badges. "In less than an hour, we saw the trees that marked the position of the well; and, in another half hour, reached it.
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