Kitabı oku: «The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford», sayfa 17
By means of the distribution of work, each section being placed under a responsible officer, progress speedily became three times as fast. Officers and men worked magnificently. I was proud of the old Navy.
The routine for the bluejackets was: Turn out 4.30 a.m., breakfast; walk seven to ten miles through the desert along the river, often having to retrace their steps to help a boat in distress; work all day till sunset, no spell for dinner, which consisted of biscuit; at sunset, walk seven miles back to camp, supper and turn in. The officers walked with the men, giving their camels to the men who suffered from sore feet. Officers and men were burned as black as the natives.
Until my arrival, the nine naval officers and the doctor had been living at the Naval Camp nine miles from Wady Halfa, without a single servant or a cook. They were allowed neither servants nor the money with which to hire natives. But nothing could exceed the kindness and good-will of General Buller, who at once granted all my requests, and if I found it necessary to order first and report afterwards, sanctioned my requisitions.
I had with me in my hut for a time F. H. Pollen, who could dive and swim better than the Dongola men, using like them a blown-up goatskin. The constant immersion brought on an attack of dysentery. I kept him in bed, taking away his clothes so that he could not get up, and doctored him till he recovered.
At this time I acted as doctor to the men under me. Every case of sickness was reported to me at once. If the patient suffered from diarrhoea I exhibited castor oil. A petty officer having been thus treated, said he felt easier. I asked him if he would like another dose, and he said he would like it. The same night he died. I sent his body on a camel to the nearest medical officer, who found seventeen date-stones in his stomach. I had the sorry consolation of knowing that the poor fellow must have died in any event.
On the 17th November, Lord Wolseley, returning from Dongola, arrived suddenly at Wady Halfa, where he remained for twenty-four hours, afterwards returning to Dongola. All we knew was that he had come to press matters forward. History relates how that on the 17th November, Wolseley received a letter from Gordon dated 4th November, in which Gordon wrote: "We can hold out forty days with ease; after that it will be difficult." In reply Wolseley telegraphed from Wady Halfa: "Yours of 4th just received 17th; the first I have had from you. I shall be at Kasr Dongola in four days." Wolseley at the same time informed Lord Hartington that while the news would not affect his plans, it seemed to show that Gordon's relief could not be accomplished without fighting.
Lord Wolseley made no announcement on the subject at the time, merely telling General Buller and myself that we were to stay where we were for the present. Our impression was that Wolseley had abandoned the idea of making a dash across the desert from Korti to Metemmeh.
At that date, 17th November, we had more than 200 boats ready to embark troops at Gernai, from which twenty to thirty boats were being dispatched daily. Nearly 200 boats had already gone, carrying detachments of the Essex, Stafford, and Cornwall Regiments, the Engineers, and Commissariat. About 200 more boats had still to pass the Cataract. I was very pleased with the work and behaviour of the 2nd battalion of the Egyptian Army, which was working the portage. I expressed my satisfaction to them, and gave every man a quarter of a pound of native tobacco, whereupon they declared with one voice that, "if God was willing, they would go to hell with my Excellency."
At about this time I received a private intimation from Lord Wolseley that, when the general advance began, he intended to place me in command of a naval brigade.
By 22nd November, 549 boats had been passed through the Second Cataract, 166 of which had been hauled through the Bab-el-Kebir, the rest portaged. Of the whole number of boats, only three were smashed; and very few received any damage. Accidents were few, although the work was dangerous. On 21st November a voyageur was drowned. Three voyageurs went overboard, and two were saved by catching hold of a rope. The third scorned the rope, relying upon his ability to swim, and was never seen again. Up to that date five men altogether had been drowned, two soldiers, two Canadians, and one native. Later, another native, and he an Esneh swimmer, was drowned. The river was extraordinarily fatal. Not one man who went under upon falling overboard was saved. The natives always used to do their best to keep on the surface.
Lord Wolseley was so good as warmly to commend the work done on the Second Cataract; and Sir Redvers Buller, who at first declared the portage scheme to be impossible of execution, generously expressed his appreciation of its success.
Having shot a little alligator, I skinned it myself. The Arab camel-man in my service, who spoke French, argued with me in that language for a long time that an alligator had no tongue, but fed by suction, like a snipe. As I had cut out the tongue of my little alligator, I knew it had one; but my Arabian naturalist refused to be persuaded.
At this time and afterwards while I was in Egypt, my servant, interpreter and cook was the excellent José Salvatro, a Maltese. If he happened to be absent, I conveyed my instructions to the natives through my French-speaking camel-man, in French. Between my French and his French and his Arabic, I used to wonder how the meaning filtered through; but I have a note in my diary that "it comes all right, the natives are cheery fellows and work capitally with me, and a good smack upon the 'sit-upon' of a lazy one keeps the whole lot going."
Towards the end of November I was living alone in my hut on the Bab-el-Kebir, attended only by a bluejacket and the faithful José, who ceased not from scrubbing and washing, so that I was never a day without clean things, an inestimable comfort in that climate. Here I was haunted by an Arab maniac who dwelt in some indiscoverable antre of the rocks. At night I heard him howling to himself. In the daytime, he ran here and there, his only garment being the dust he cast upon his shaven head, crying upon Allah. He ate sand and offal, a diet which left him hungry, for he would come to my tent for food, which I gave him. He seemed to know me in a vague way. I gave him some calico to cover his nakedness withal, but he tore the stuff into fragments and ate them. One day he rushed into my tent, clawed some mutton-broth out of the cooking-pot with his horrible hands and crammed it boiling hot into his mouth. I was obliged forcibly to eject him lest he should take the whole; but I had no stomach for the rest. My fear was lest he should burst in at night and I should be obliged in self-defence to shoot him. Eventually, José lost patience, seized a huge wood-axe, and chased the maniac for a mile. The poor wretch ran like a hare and vanished into his hole in the rocks.
I made a match with Colonel Brocklehurst, head of the Remount Department, to ride my camel, the bold Bimbashi, against any one of Brocklehurst's camels, for £25. The course was six miles long across the desert, from Peel's Camp at the beginning of the Cataract to Sir Evelyn Wood's flagstaff at Wady Halfa. Brocklehurst's rider was his interpreter, a lean rat of an Arab Sheikh, who was absolutely certain he would win. His camel was the favourite of Wood's mess and was reputed to be the best in Egypt. The betting was fifty to one against me. But I had been riding Bimbashi 30 miles or so a day, and we were both in fine hard condition.
The Sheikh started at a gallop. First his turban, then his goatskin saddle-rug, carried away. Both rider and camel were blowing and perspiring ere they had run three miles. For the first two and a half miles I waited on the Sheikh, then came away and won in a canter half a mile ahead. At the finish the troops lined up and made a course for us. Thus I won my first camel race, owner up. No one was better pleased than my old friend Colonel Brocklehurst.
Bimbashi (according to my journal) covered the six miles in a little over eighteen minutes. That gallant steed had already been ridden the nine miles from my camp to the starting-point; and when I rode him back in the evening, he was so fresh that he ran away with me, grumbling loudly, because he was offended at the sight of a dead donkey lying wrong side up beside the railway.
I invented a saddle for camels, and I believe the pattern is still in use. The saddle-tree is a triangular wooden framework, like the gable of a roof. I covered the wood with oakum and canvas; abolished all buckles, made the girths and stirrups of raw hide thongs, and put the stirrups forward, instead of behind. Count Gleichen, in his interesting book, With the Camel Corps up the Nile, relates how the saddles and equipment served out to the Camel Corps gave the men infinite trouble and discomfort. The unseasoned wood came to pieces, the straps broke, the water-skins and water-bottles leaked; but one instance of the departmental mismanagement which caused our men so much unnecessary suffering.
By the end of November, the river was falling so swiftly that what was smooth water yesterday was to-day a frivolous series of waterfalls with a twist in them. Every alteration in the river involved a new device for haulage, and it would alter at three or four places in a mile, and there were 11 miles of rapids. I was generally able to judge by the look of the water when and where it would change its course during the next few hours. In order to avoid the least delay, new arrangements must be devised beforehand; and my mind was so absorbed in these schemes, that I dreamed of them nightly. By that time I had 1400 men working under me, whose work must be organised, and stations allocated. The Bab-el-Kebir, that formidable rapid, was now a grazing ground for goats.
I shifted my quarters from the Bab to Wady Halfa, as the difficulties were now all at that end of the Cataract. Peel and Colbourne, in command respectively of the next two reaches, found no day too long and no work too hard.
In order to supervise the whole length of the operations as quickly as possible, I kept one camel, Ballyhooly, at the Bab; the big white donkey County Waterford half-way there; and Bimbashi the bold and Beelzebub at Wady Halfa. Bimbashi could trot 16 miles in the hour. A Bedouin Sheikh offered me £3$ for him. As I had bought him for £24 I concluded that his vender had stolen him. I won more than his price in the race with Colonel Brocklehurst's Sheikh. While at Wady Halfa I rode him six miles out in the heavy sand against Sir Evelyn Wood and his A.D.C., who rode horses, and Bimbashi beat the horses fair and square.
Lord Wolseley sent me a telegram ordering me to form a naval brigade of 100 men and 10 officers. But as the bluejackets were of inestimable service in getting the remainder of the boats through the Cataract, and fitting them out at Gemai, where the soldiers embarked, he desired to keep them where they were as long as possible. On 27th November, we hoped to get all the boats through during the next five days. Up to that date – the last for which I have a note – 687 boats had been passed through the Cataract, with a loss of 4 only; about 27 men of all sorts had been drowned; and 337 boats had left Gemai with troops and stores.
On 6th December the last boat was passed through. On the same day, Sir Evelyn Wood and Sir Redvers Buller received a telegram reporting a block of boats at Ambigol and Dal Cataract; and I was ordered there at a moment's notice.
On 27th September I had arrived at Wady Halfa; on 10th October I schemed the portage; and for eight weeks since that date I had been continuously hard at work passing the boats through the Second Cataract; which the Arabs call "the belly of stone."
CHAPTER XXV
THE SOUDAN WAR (Continued)
III. UP THE CATARACTS AND ACROSS THE DESERT
"To Assiout, in a cloud of dust
We came, and it made us smile,
To see each other's features, till
We washed them in the Nile.
From there, by boat, to Assouan
We came, and every night
Made fast, for the boatmen wouldn't steam
Excepting in daylight."
Songs of the Camel Corps (Sergt. H. EAGLE, R.M.C.C.)
On the 6th December, 1884, Peel and Colbourne, my two gallant comrades who had done so splendid a work upon the Second Cataract, quitted the Belly of Stone, embarking in two boats manned by Kroomen. The names of these big black men were Africa, Ginger Red, Bottled Beer, Sampson, Two Glasses and Been-Very-Ill-Twice; and when they were excited, as they nearly always were, they took to the English tongue, and kept us laughing for a week. When the wind was fair and we sailed up against the rapids, the Kroo boys were terribly anxious, knowing that if the wind failed we should slide all the way back again.
By this time the whole expedition was moving up river. The conduct of the soldiers was magnificent, achieving wonderful results. Of the sailors, accustomed to the work, and knowing the shortest way of doing things, one expected much – and got even more. It was hard enough for the seamen. Although they, the soldiers, knew nothing of boats, they worked like heroes. And the navigation of the Nile from Gemai to Dal enforced hard continuous toil from dawn to dark day after day. The voyageurs did splendid service; the expedition could not have advanced so rapidly without them; and although they knew nothing of sails, being acute adventurous fellows they soon picked up enough knowledge to carry them through.
An officer of cavalry in charge of a convoy of stores on the river worked by Dongola men, describing his adventures with what he called his "peasant crews," pathetically observed: "You know, I know nothing whatever about a boat, or what it ought to do, and I am not ashamed to tell you that the whole time I am sweating with terror. And every night when I go to bed I dream of whirlpools and boiling rapids and then I dream that I am drowned."
But his visions of the night affected neither his nerve nor his indomitable energy.
Our daily routine along the river began at 4.30: all hands turn out, make up tent (if there were one), breakfast, and start, sailing or tracking or rowing according to the state of the river. But whether you sailed or tracked or rowed, before long the river changed and you must row instead of track, or sail instead of row. Then you would come to a difficult place, and you would heave the cargo on shore, and get the empty boat up a fall or a heavy rush of water, and portage the cargo on to the boat. So on to midday, when an hour was allowed for dinner; then at it again, sailing, tracking, rowing, in and out cargo, till sundown. Then haul into the bank and eat bully beef without vegetables. After supper, roll in a blanket and sleep on the soft sand the profound and delicious slumber of weary men.
Occasionally a boat would strike a rock; or at rare intervals an accident would happen, and part of a crew would be lost, and the boat's gear swept away; or a hole would be knocked in the boat, when she would be emptied of gear and cargo, hauled up, and patched. Under these circumstances, the boats often made no more than three or four miles' advance in a day. Overloaded as were many of the boats, they served their purpose admirably well.
At the big Cataracts were stationed working parties, which emptied the boats of gear and cargo, portaged them overland, and hauled the boats through the rapids.
So we struggled up the broad and rushing river from Gemai to Dal, sailing and towing and rowing, capsized and righting again. And one night a sandstorm waltzed out of the desert and blew away our tent and with it knives, forks, slippers, lamp, candles, matches and everything. And the next morning Peel dropped his knife, and in trying to save it he upset our whole breakfast of sardines and coffee into Colbourne's boots. And half my kit was stolen, and I was reduced to one broken pair of boots, and the natives stole my tooth powder and baked bread with it. And we had boils all over us like the man in the Bible, because every little scratch was poisoned by the innumerable flies of Egypt. But we were so busy that nothing mattered.
Fighting every mile of the great river pouring down from Khartoum, we on the Cataracts had no news of Gordon. All we knew was that there was need to hurry, hurry all the way. At such times as the mail from home arrived upon a dyspeptic camel, we got scraps of news of home affairs. People who knew much more than Lord Wolseley, were saying he ought to have taken the Souakim-Berber route instead of the Nile route. I said then, as I say now, he had no choice. At this time of crisis, when the Navy was dangerously inadequate, one political party was screaming denunciations against "legislation by panic." Encouraging to sailors and soldiers sweating on service! But we knew what to expect. I observe that in a private letter written in December, 1884, from the banks of the Nile, at the end of a long day's work with the boats, I said, "Both sides are equally to blame for the defective state of the Navy. Tell – and – not to be unpatriotic and make the Navy a party question, or they will not do half the good they might."
We came to Ambigol to find the boats had been cleared by Alleyne of the Artillery. I was able to improve the organisation there, and to give help along the river I was in time to save three boats. At Dal, I laid lines along the centre of the two and a half miles rapid, so that in calm weather the boats could haul themselves through.
In the meantime, the Naval Brigade of which Lord Wolseley had ordered me to take command, had been selected, at my request, by Captain Boardman.
On 19th December, my first division came to Dal. Up they came, all together in line ahead, under all possible sail, using the boat awnings as spinnakers. They had sailed up the rapids where the other boats were tracking; and the soldiers cheered them as they went by. There was not a scratch on any boat, nor a drop of water in any of them. Every cargo was complete in detail, including machine guns, ammunition, oil and stores. Had I not a right to be proud of the seamen? I put an officer at the helm of each boat, and told them to follow me through Dal Cataract; and led them through, so that the same night the boats were reloaded with the gear and cargo which had been portaged, and were going on. The passage of Dal Cataract usually occupied three days.
I sent on the first division, and stayed at Dal to await the arrival of the second, in order to get all my men together. As it happened, I did not see it until it reached Korti. On 21st December it had left Sarras, bringing oil and stores to be used in the Nile steamers of which I was to take charge. For by this time I had been informed of Lord Wolseley's intention to send the Naval Brigade with the Camel Corps to make a dash across the Bayuda Desert to Metemmeh. The Naval Brigade was then to attack Khartoum in Gordon's steamers, while the Camel Corps attacked it by land.
So I remained yet a little while at Dal, helping the boats through the Cataract, and camping in the sand. I found a baby scorpion two and a half inches long in my handkerchief. The officer whose tent was next to mine, shared it with a sand-rat, which used to fill his slippers with dhura grains every night, and which jumped on and off my knee when I breakfasted with my friend. Actually there came two or three days when I had nothing to do; and when I could take a hot bath in peace, with the luxury of a cake of carbolic soap, and sit in my little canvas chair, which was, however, speedily stolen.
My poor servant José was suddenly taken with so sharp an attack of fever that he was stricken helpless and could hardly lift a cup to his lips. His pulse was going like a machine gun. He was too ill to be moved on mule-back to the hospital, which was eight miles distant; and I had to doctor him myself. I gave him castor-oil, deprived him of all food for twenty-four hours, gave him five grains of quinine every two hours, and plenty of lime-juice to drink; and he was soon well again.
Lord Avonmore, Lieutenant-Colonel J. Alleyne, Captain Burnaby and myself subscribed to a Christmas dinner of extraordinary charm, eaten with the Guards. The menu was: – soup made of bully beef, onions, rice and boiled biscuit, fish from the Nile, stewed bully beef and chicken à la as-if-they-had-been-trained-for-long-distance-races-for-a-year, entremet of biscuit and jam. Rum to drink.
I should have missed that feast, and should have been on the way to Korti post-haste several days before Christmas, had it not been that a telegram sent by Lord Wolseley to me had been delayed in transmission. On 27th December I received an urgent telegram from General Buller, asking where I was and what I was doing. A week previously Lord Wolseley had telegraphed instructions that I was to proceed to Korti with all speed to arrive with the first division of the Naval Brigade. Having received no orders, I was waiting for the second division so that I might see that it was complete and satisfactory. (It arrived at Dal the day after I left that place in obedience to General Buller's orders.)
From Dal to Korti, as the crow flies, is some 200 miles to the southward; following up the river, which, with many windings, flows north from Korti, the distance is more than half as much again. I was already (by no fault of mine) a week behind; my instructions were to proceed by the shortest possible route by the quickest possible means, camels or steam pinnace; and immediately I received General Buller's telegram I dashed off to the Commissariat. Here I obtained four camels to carry José, myself and my kit to the nearest point at which I could catch a steam pinnace on the river. Also, by riding the first stage of the journey, I could avoid two wide bends of the Nile. The camels were but baggage animals; they all had sore backs; and I could get no proper saddle. I strapped my rug on the wooden framework. We started the same evening at seven o'clock.
The night had fallen when we left behind us the stir of the armed camp and plunged into the deep stillness of the desert. The brilliant moonlight sharply illumined the low rocky hills, and the withered scrub, near and far; the hard gravelly track stretched plainly before us; and the camels went noiselessly forward on their great padded feet. So, hour after hour. It was one o'clock upon the following morning (21st December) when we rode into a dark and silent village. Lighting upon an empty hut, we crawled into it, cooked a little supper, and went to sleep.
Before daylight we were awakened by the noise of voices crying and quarrelling; and there were two black negresses upbraiding us, and beyond them was a group of agitated natives. It appeared that we were desecrating the village mosque. Having soothed the inhabitants, we started. That day we rode from 6 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. with a halt of an hour and a half at midday, travelling 40 miles in twelve hours, good going for baggage camels with sore backs. By that time I was getting sore, too. We slept that night at Absarat, started the next morning (29th December) at 8.30, and rode to Abu Fatmeh, arriving at 4 p.m. Starting next morning at nine o'clock, we arrived at Kaibur at 5 p.m. Here, to my intense relief, we picked up Colville and his steam pinnace, in which we instantly embarked for Korti.
During the last three days and a half we had been thirty-two hours in the saddle (which, strictly speaking, my camel had not) and a part of my anatomy was quite worn away. I lay down in the pinnace and hoped to become healed.
We did not know it; but the same evening, General Sir Herbert Stewart's Desert Column left Korti upon the great forced march of the forlorn hope.
The pinnace, whose furnaces were burning wood, most of which was wet and green, pounded slowly up river until we met the steamer Nassifara, into which I transferred myself. Blissful was the rest in that steamer after my two months' tremendous toil getting the boats through the Bab-el-Kebir and the long ride across the desert. So I lay in the steamer and lived on the height of diet, fresh meat, milk, butter and eggs, till my tunic hardly held me. I did not then know why Lord Wolseley had sent for me in so great a hurry.
