At daybreak on the morning of the 6th the whole army broke camp at
Abadar and marched to the deserted village of Umdabia, where they
bivouacked close by a convenient pool of the Atbara and seven miles nearer
the Dervish camp.
CHAPTER XII: THE BATTLE OF THE ATBARA
April 8, 1898
In the evening of Thursday, the 7th of April, the army at Umdabia
paraded for the attack on Mahmud's zeriba. The camp lay in the scrub which
grows by the banks of the Atbara, as by those of the Nile, and in order to
profit by the open, level ground the four infantry brigades moved by
parallel routes into the desert, and then formed facing south-east
in column of brigade squares, the British brigade leading. The mounted
forces, with four batteries of artillery, waited in camp until two o'clock
the next morning, and did not break their march. The distance from the
river bank to the open plain was perhaps a mile and a half, and the whole
infantry force had cleared the scrub by six o'clock. The sun was setting,
and the red glow, brightening the sandy hillocks, made the western horizon
indefinite, so that it was hard to tell where the desert ended and the sky
began. A few gazelle, intercepted on their way to the water by the
unexpected movement of troops, trotted slowly away in the distance -
white spots on the rosy-brown of the sand - and on the great plain 12,000
infantry, conscious of their strength and eager to encounter the enemy,
were beautifully arranged in four solid masses.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 301 of 476
Words from 80154 to 80427
of 127807
