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From these troops there was organised in the second week in April, with all due ceremony, a 'Suakin Field Force. The plan of campaign was simple. Colonel Lloyd was to march out from Suakin and effect a junction with the 'Tokar Column' at Khor Wintri, where the Erkowit road enters the hills.
However that may be, the slumbers of those who were not kept awake by the pain of wounds or by duty the night after El Teb were not disturbed, and next day the main body, after a guard had been left at the wells, went on to Tokar. "Do you think they will fight?" asked Green of one of his seniors during a short halt. "Sure to," replied the other.
The others were either besieged, like Sennar, Tokar, and Sinkat, or cut off from the north, as in the case of the Equatorial Province, by the area of rebellion. The capital of the Soudan was, however, as yet unmolested; and as its Egyptian population exceeded the aggregate of the provincial towns, the first task of the Egyptian Government was obvious. Mr.
Then we go on to Tokar, and we shall see if they make another fight there." "Thank you, sir," said the sergeant; "I understand quite enough now." A puff of smoke from the bushes; another; twenty. But no bullets came, the enemy firing from too long a distance. It was like a peaceable field day with blank cartridge burning.
Berber, Dongola, and Tokar had shared the same fate; and the Anglo-Egyptian army, leaving the Sudan to its fate, had fallen back to Wady Haifa, at which the southern frontier of Egypt was fixed, and which became a barrier against which the tide of Mahdism was to rush in vain.
On March 21st the Sirdar left Cairo for Wady Haifa, taking with him a British regiment, the 1st Staffordshire, to join the Egyptians already at the front; Indian troops having taken the place of the Egyptian garrisons of Tokar and Suakin.
They were accompanied by the greater portion of the population of Tokar, who were to be conveyed in the ships up to Suakim. The cavalry had found that the Arabs had left the camp at Debbah before they arrived.
The Hadendoa tribe, infuriated by oppression and misgovernment, had joined the rebellion under the leadership of the celebrated, and perhaps immortal, Osman Digna. The Egyptian garrisons of Tokar and Sinkat were beleaguered and hard pressed. Her Majesty's Government disclaimed all responsibility.
Already they had overpowered and slaughtered two Egyptian forces; and on February 22 news reached Cairo of the fall of Tokar before the valiant swordsmen of Osman Digna. But this was far away from the Nile and did not endanger Gordon. British troops were landed at Suakim for the protection of that port, but this step implied no change of policy respecting the Sudan.
General Baker's force had marched to the relief of Tokar, but on the way had been attacked by the natives and utterly defeated, half the force being killed; and the whole would have been annihilated had they not reached the sea-shore, where the guns of the vessels which had brought them down from Suakim checked the pursuit of the enemy. Sinkat had fallen.
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