Details Soon Followed In The Shape Of The Wounded,
Who In Twos And Threes Began To Make Their Way Between
The battalions,
all covered with blood and many displaying most terrible injuries -
faces cut to rags, bowels protruding, fishhook spears
Still stuck in their
bodies - realistic pictures from the darker side of war. Thus absorbed,
the soldiers hardly noticed the growing musketry fire from the peak.
But suddenly the bang of a field-gun set all eyes looking backward.
A battery had unlimbered in the plain between the zeriba and the ridge,
and was beginning to shell the summit of the hill. The report of the guns
seemed to be the signal for the whole battle to reopen. From far away to
the right rear there came the sound of loud and continuous infantry firing,
and immediately Gatacre halted his division.
Almost before the British had topped the crest of the ridge, before the
battery had opened from the plain, while Colonel Sloggett was still
spurring across the dangerous ground between the river and the army,
the Sirdar knew that his enemy was again upon him. Looking back from the
slopes of Surgham, he saw that MacDonald, instead of continuing his march
in echelon, had halted and deployed. The veteran brigadier had seen the
Dervish formations on the ridge to the west of Surgham, realised that he
was about to be attacked, and, resolving to anticipate the enemy,
immediately brought his three batteries into action at 1,200 yards,
Five minutes later the whole of the Khalifa's reserve, 15,000 strong,
led by Yakub with the Black Flag, the bodyguard and 'all the glories' of
the Dervish Empire, surged into view from behind the hill and advanced on
the solitary brigade with the vigour of the first attack and thrice its
chances of success.
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