He Might Have Filled The
Numerous Houses With The Infantry, Making Them Join The Buildings With
Hasty Entrenchments, And So Enclose A Little Space In Which To Squeeze
Cavalry, Transport, And Guns.
Instead he formed his army in a long thin
curve, resting on the river and enclosing a wide area of ground, about
which baggage and animals were scattered in open order and luxurious
accommodation.
His line was but two deep; and only two companies per
battalion and one Egyptian brigade (Collinson's) were in reserve. He thus
obtained the greatest possible development of fire, and waited, prepared
if necessary to stake everything on the arms of precision, but hoping
with fervour that he would not be compelled to gamble by night.
The night was, however, undisturbed; and the moonlit camp,
with its anxious generals, its weary soldiers, its fearful machinery of
destruction, all strewn along the bank of the great river, remained plunged
in silence, as if brooding over the chances of the morrow and the failures
of the past. And hardly four miles away another army - twice as numerous,
equally confident, equally brave - were waiting impatiently for the morning
and the final settlement of the long quarrel.
CHAPTER XV: THE BATTLE OF OMDURMAN
SEPTEMBER 2, 1898
The bugles all over the camp by the river began to sound at half-past four.
The cavalry trumpets and the drums and fifes of the British division joined
the chorus, and everyone awoke amid a confusion of merry or defiant notes.
Then it grew gradually lighter, and the cavalry mounted their horses,
the infantry stood to their arms, and the gunners went to their batteries;
while the sun, rising over the Nile, revealed the wide plain, the dark
rocky hills, and the waiting army.
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