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Updated: June 25, 2025
"I ask your pardon, sir," said a sergeant to Strachan, as they tramped through the sand, "but do you happen to know what we are going to fight about? Not that it matters, only it gives an interest like to the business." "Oh, yes, sergeant," said Tom. "We are going to relieve Tokar." "So I thought, sir. But then, you see, Tokar, they say, has fallen."
Two mounted men, who volunteered for the perilous duty, were sent to make their way through this savage cordon, and try to find either the remainder of the cavalry or the Tokar Column. Both were hunted down and killed. The rest of the force continued in hourly expectation of an attack. Their suspense was aggravated towards midnight, when the Dervishes began to approach the zeriba.
The troops bivouacked outside Tokar, where nothing further occurred of any interest, and shortly afterwards they tramped back to the wells at El Teb, and so to Trinkitat, where they were re-embarked as quickly as might be, and steamed round to Suakim, which now became the base of operations.
The next evening the force returned from Tokar, and Edgar and the other troopers who were well enough to go outside the hospital tent to see them come in were amused at their appearance, for they had before starting armed themselves with spears taken from the fallen Arabs; for the fight on the previous day had shown them that their swords were of little avail against the tactics of the Arabs in throwing themselves flat upon the ground, and that spears were much better suited for warfare against savages.
As the boat quarters the falling stream like a puzzled hound, all the old names spurt up again under the paddle-wheels 'Hicks' army Val Baker El Teb Tokar Tamai Tamanieb and Osman Digna! Her head swings round for another slant: 'We cannot land English or Indian troops: if consulted, recommend abandonment of the Soudan within certain limits. That was my Lord Granville chirruping to the advisers of His Highness the Khedive, and the sentence comes back as crisp as when it first shocked one in '84.
Its function is to deprive the Arabs of a base in the fertile delta of the Tokar river. The fort is strong, defended by artillery, and requires for its garrison an entire battalion of infantry. No description of Suakin would be complete without some allusion to the man to whom it owes its fame. Osman Digna had been for many years a most successful and enterprising Arab slave dealer.
Edgar could judge of the general position, for though he had not been as far as Tokar he could tell pretty well the line they should take to come down upon Trinkitat. As soon as they were fairly out of the valley the camels were put to their full speed, and in four hours the sea shining in the bright moonlight lay before them. Crossing a shallow lagoon they were upon the sandy beach.
Slatin surrendered on 23rd December 1883; Lupton Bey, commander in the Bahr Gazelle, about the same time, and these successes were enhanced and extended by those achieved by Osman Digma in the Eastern Soudan, where, early in February 1884, while Gordon was on his way to Khartoum, that leader inflicted on Baker Pasha at Tokar a defeat scarcely less crushing than that of Shekan.
There is one thing, the surrender will enable General Graham to choose his own time, and to wait until all the troops are up, instead of pushing forward, as he might otherwise have done, directly he thought he had men enough, to save Tokar." In another five minutes the officer had taken his place in the launch and was steaming back into Suakim, and the transport was making her way south.
For, in the meantime, events had been taking place in the Eastern Sudan, in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea port of Suakin, which were to have a decisive effect upon the prospects of Khartoum. General Baker, the brother of Sir Samuel Baker, attempting to relieve the beleaguered garrisons of Sinkat and Tokar, had rashly attacked the forces of Osman Digna, had been defeated, and obliged to retire.
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