During The River War
He Became, In Spite Of His Hard Severity, The Darling Of The Egyptian Army.
All The
Personal popularity which great success might have brought to the
Sirdar focussed itself on his daring, good-humoured subordinate, and
It
was to Hunter that the soldiers looked whenever there was fighting to be
done. The force now placed under his command for the attack upon Abu Hamed
amounted to about 3,600 men. Until that place was taken all other
operations were delayed. The Sirdar awaited the issue at Merawi.
The railway paused in mid-desert.
The troops composing the 'flying column' concentrated at Kassingar,
a small village a few miles above Merawi, on the right (or Abu Hamed) bank
of the Nile. General Hunter began his march on the 29th of July. The total
distance from Kassingar to Abu Hamed is 146 miles. The greatest secrecy
had been observed in the preparation of the force, but it was known that
as soon as the column actually started the news would be carried to the
enemy. Speed was therefore essential; for if the Dervish garrison in
Abu Hamed were reinforced from Berber, the flying column might not be
strong enough to take the village. On the other hand, the great heat and
the certainty that the troops would have to fight an action at the end of
the march imposed opposite considerations on the commander. To avoid the
sun, the greater part of the distance was covered at night. Yet the
advantage thus gained was to some extent neutralised by the difficulty of
marching over such broken ground in the darkness.
Throughout the whole length of the course of the Nile there is no more
miserable wilderness than the Monassir Desert. The stream of the river is
broken and its channel obstructed by a great confusion of boulders, between
and among which the water rushes in dangerous cataracts. The sandy waste
approaches the very brim, and only a few palm-trees, or here and there a
squalid mud hamlet, reveal the existence of life. The line of advance lay
along the river; but no road relieved the labour of the march. Sometimes
trailing across a broad stretch of white sand, in which the soldiers sank
to their ankles, and which filled their boots with a rasping grit;
sometimes winding over a pass or through a gorge of sharp-cut rocks, which,
even in the moonlight, felt hot with the heat of the previous day - always
in a long, jerky, and interrupted procession of men and camels, often in
single file - the column toiled painfully like the serpent to whom it
was said, 'On thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat.'
The column started at 5.30 in the evening, and by a march of sixteen and
a half miles reached Mushra-el-Obiad at about midnight. Here a convenient
watering-place, not commanded by the opposite bank, and the shade of eight
or ten thorny bushes afforded the first suitable bivouac.
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