During the night heavy rain fell, and all the
country was drenched. The telegraph-wire had been laid along the ground,
as there had been no time to pole it. The sand when dry is a sufficient
insulator, but when wet its non-conductivity is destroyed. Hence all
communications ceased, and those at home who had husbands, sons, brothers,
or friends in the Expeditionary Force were left in an uncertainty as great
as that in which we slept - and far more painful.
The long day had tired everyone. Indeed, the whole fortnight
since the cavalry convoy had started from the Atbara had been a period
of great exertion, and the Lancers, officers and men, were glad to eat a
hasty meal, and forget the fatigues of the day, the hardness of the ground,
and the anticipations of the morrow in deep sleep. The camp was watched by
the infantry, whose labours did not end with the daylight. At two o'clock
in the morning the clouds broke in rain and storm. Great blue flashes of
lightning lit up the wide expanse of sleeping figures, of crowded animals,
and of shelters fluttering in the wind; and from the centre of the camp it
was even possible to see for an instant the continuous line of sentries who
watched throughout the night with ceaseless vigilance. Nor was this all.
Far away, near the Kerreri Hills, the yellow light of a burning village
shot up, unquenched by the rain, and only invisible in the brightest
flashes of the lightning. There was war to the southward.
CHAPTER XIV: THE OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER
The British and Egyptian cavalry, supported by the Camel Corps
and Horse Artillery, trotted out rapidly, and soon interposed a distance
of eight miles between them and the army. As before, the 21st Lancers
were on the left nearest the river, and the Khedivial squadrons curved
backwards in a wide half-moon to protect the right flank. Meanwhile the
gunboat flotilla was seen to be in motion. The white boats began to ascend
the stream leisurely. Yet their array was significant. Hitherto they had
moved at long and indefinite intervals - one following perhaps a mile,
or even two miles, behind the other. Now a regular distance of about 300
yards was observed. The orders of the cavalry were to reconnoitre Omdurman;
of the gunboats to bombard it.
As soon as the squadrons of the 21st Lancers had turned the shoulder of
the steep Kerreri Hills, we saw in the distance a yellow-brown pointed
dome rising above the blurred horizon. It was the Mahdi's Tomb, standing
in the very heart of Omdurman.
