He Started From Shendi With A Force Which Has Been Estimated
At 19,000 Souls, But Which Included Many Women And Children, And May Have
Actually Numbered 12,000 Fighting Men, Each And All Supplied With A Month's
Rations And About Ninety Rounds Of Ammunition.
The Sirdar immediately
ordered the Anglo-Egyptian army, with the exception of the cavalry and
Lewis's Egyptian brigade - which, with three squadrons, held the fort at the
confluence - to concentrate at Kunur.
Broadwood, with the remaining five
squadrons, marched thither on the 16th; and the whole cavalry force,
with the Camel Corps in support, on the three subsequent days reconnoitred
twenty miles up the Nile and the Atbara.
Meanwhile the concentration was proceeding apace. The two Soudanese
brigades, formed into a division under command of Major-General Hunter,
with the artillery, reached Kunur on the night of the 15th. The British
brigade - the Lincolns, the Warwicks, and the Camerons - marched thither
from Dabeika. The Seaforth Highlanders, who on the 13th were still at Wady
Halfa, were swiftly railed across the desert to Geneinetti. Thence the
first half-battalion were brought to Kunur in steamers. The second wing -
since the need was urgent and the steamers few - were jolted across the
desert from Railhead on camels, an experience for which neither their
training nor their clothes had prepared them. By the 16th the whole force
was concentrated at Kunur, and on the following day they were reviewed by
the Sirdar. The first three days at Kunur were days of eager expectation.
Rumour was king. The Dervish army had crossed the Atbara at Hudi, and was
within ten miles of the camp. Mahmud was already making a flank march
through the desert to Berber. A battle was imminent. A collision must take
place in a few hours. Officers with field-glasses scanned the sandy horizon
for the first signs of the enemy. But the skyline remained unbroken, except
by the wheeling dust devils, and gradually the excitement abated, and the
British brigade began to regret all the useful articles they had
scrupulously left behind them at Dabeika, when they marched in a hurry
and the lightest possible order to Kunur.
On the 19th of March the gunboats reported that the Dervishes were leaving
the Nile, and Mahmud's flanking movement became apparent. The next day the
whole force at Kunur marched across the desert angle between the rivers to
Hudi. The appearance of the army would have been formidable. The cavalry,
the Camel Corps, and the Horse Artillery covered the front and right flank;
the infantry, with the British on the right, moved in line of brigade
masses; the transport followed. All was, however, shrouded in a fearful
dust-storm. The distance, ten miles, was accomplished in five hours,
and the army reached Hudi in time to construct a strong zeriba before
the night. Here they were joined from Atbara fort by Lewis's brigade of
Egyptians - with the exception of the 15th Battalion, which was left as
garrison - and the troops at the Sirdar's disposal were thus raised to
14,000 men of all arms.
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