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Updated: June 18, 2025
"Piquets must be withdrawn at dusk, otherwise they might get surrounded and cut off, or, in falling back, would possibly suffer from the defenders of the zereba. "The protection of the zereba against surprise must depend on the vigilance of its sentries and piquets which line the fence, and whose strength will naturally depend on the proximity of the dervishes to the force.
The morning at length dawned, and a sharp fire was maintained for some time from the hills, the pickets being withdrawn into the zereba. Then the enemy advanced in two long lines, with banners flying, five thousand of them, an imposing spectacle, and the English soldiers grasped their weapons, thinking that the struggle had come at last. But not yet was it to be.
We turn once more to the Nubian desert, where, it will be remembered, we left several of our friends, cut off from McNeill's zereba at a critical moment when they were all but overwhelmed by a host of foes.
One or another of the numberless deserted mud villages was usually chosen for headquarters and offices. With these for a nucleus, the battalion or brigade encampment was pitched in front and the quarters were fenced about with cut mimosa thorn-bush, forming a zereba.
Whilst we in the zereba were awaiting, ready and confident of the issue, the oncoming of the enemy, the two regiments of Egyptian cavalry and the Camel Corps, which had advanced on the right to Um Mutragan hills, South Kerreri jebels, like the 21st Lancers at El Surgham on the left were opposing the dervish advance. Their orders were to check the dervish left.
In company with another colleague I rode out from the British lines to join him, curious to see the effect of our fire. At the moment a dervish arose, apparently unwounded, and spear in hand charged the servants, who incontinently bolted back to the zereba. My companion also turned back, but I was yet over 200 yards away, and so rode forward.
For five miles the cavalry was, so to speak, driven from pillar to post by the dervish infantry. When the pursuit had been pressed four miles, and more, north of the zereba, Major Mahan succeeded in clearing the flanks, whereupon the dervishes gave up the chase and sat down to rest.
Some few there were who got by subtler means to within 600 yards of the British front and 200 yards from Maxwell's blacks, there to yield their lives. Among the earliest, if not the first man, wounded in the zereba on 2nd September was Corporal Mackenzie, of "C" Company Seaforth Highlanders. About 6.10 a.m. he was hit in the leg by a ricochet.
At that moment a strong force of the enemy came down with an impetuous rush on that corner of the zereba, and, coming between it and the little knot of combatants, hid them from view. The attack at this point was very determined, and for a few moments the issue seemed doubtful, for although the enemy fell in heaps they came on in such numbers that the defenders were almost overwhelmed.
Wood on riding to revisit the zereba near Kerreri, met a dervish, part of one of whose legs had been blown off by a shell. The man was hobbling along, leaning upon a broken spear handle, making for Omdurman, with his limb burned and roughly tied up. They gave him food and water and passed on meeting others.
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