The Starving Inhabitants Had Been Lured From Their Holes And
Corners By The Outward Passage Of The Troops, And Hoped To Snatch Some Food
From The Field Of Battle.
Disappointed, they now approached the camps at
night in twos and threes, making piteous entreaties for any kind of
nourishment.
Their appeals were perforce unregarded; not an ounce
of spare food remained.
Towards the end of the journey the camels, terribly strained by their
privation of water, began to die, and it was evident that the force would
have no time to spare. One young camel, though not apparently exhausted,
refused to proceed, and even when a fire was lighted round him remained
stubborn and motionless; so that, after being terribly scorched, he had
to be shot. Others fell and died all along the route. Their deaths brought
some relief to the starving inhabitants. For as each animal was left behind,
the officers, looking back, might see first one, then another furtive
figure emerge from the bush and pounce on the body like a vulture;
and in many cases before life was extinct the famished natives
were devouring the flesh.
On the 5th of February the column reached Kohi, and the Kordofan
Field Force, having overcome many difficulties and suffered many hardships,
was broken up, unsuccessful through no fault of its commander,
its officers, or its men.
For nearly a year no further operations were undertaken against
the Khalifa, and he remained all through the spring and summer of 1899
supreme in Kordofan, reorganising his adherents and plundering the country
- a chronic danger to the new Government, a curse to the local inhabitants,
and a most serious element of unrest. The barren and almost waterless
regions into which he had withdrawn presented very difficult obstacles to
any military expedition, and although powerful forces were still
concentrated at Khartoum, the dry season and the uncertain whereabouts
of the enemy prevented action. But towards the end of August trustworthy
information was received by the Intelligence Department, through the agency
of friendly tribesmen, that the Khalifa, with all his army, was encamped
at Jebel Gedir - that same mountain in Southern Kordofan to which nearly
twenty years before he and the Mahdi had retreated after the flight from
Abba Island. Here among old memories which his presence revived he became
at once a centre of fanaticism. Night after night he slept upon
the Mahdi's stone; and day after day tales of his dreams were carried
by secret emissaries not only throughout the Western Soudan, but into the
Ghezira and even to Khartoum. And now, his position being definite and his
action highly dangerous, it was decided to move against him.
On the 13th of October the first Soudanese battalion was despatched
in steamers from Khartoum, and by the 19th a force of some 7,000 men,
well equipped with camel transport, was concentrated at Kaka, a village on
the White Nile not far north of Fashoda. The distance from here to Jebel
Gedir was about eighty miles, and as for the first fifty no water existed;
the whole supply had to be carried in tanks.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 237 of 248
Words from 122098 to 122617
of 127807
