Most Of The Officers Who Had Served Long In The
Egyptian Army Understood The Question.
They waited the decision
in suspense.
The Sirdar and the Consul-General unhesitatingly faced the responsibility
together. On the 3rd of September General Hunter received orders to occupy
Berber. He started at once with 350 men of the IXth Soudanese on board
the gunboats Tamai, Zafir, Naser, and Fateh. Shortly after daybreak on the
5th the Egyptian flag was hoisted over the town. Having disembarked the
infantry detachment, the flotilla steamed south to try to harass the
retreating Emir. They succeeded; for on the next day they caught him,
moving along the bank in considerable disorder, and, opening a heavy fire,
soon drove the mixed crowd of fugitives, horse and foot, away from the
river into the desert. The gunboats then returned to Berber, towing a dozen
captured grain-boats. Meanwhile the Sirdar had started for the front
himself. Riding swiftly with a small escort across the desert from Merawi,
he crossed the Nile at the Baggara Cataract and reached Berber on the 10th
of September. Having inspected the immediate arrangements for defence,
he withdrew to Abu Hamed, and there busily prepared to meet the
developments which he well knew might follow at once, and must follow
in the course of a few months.
CHAPTER X: BERBER
The town of Berber stands at a little distance from the Nile,
on the right bank of a channel which is full only when the river is in
flood.
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