Creeping Forward Through The High Doura, They Were Able To Get
Within 300 Yards Of The Enclosures.
But the intervening space had been
carefully cleared of cover, and was swept by the musketry of the defenders.
All attempts to cross this ground - even the most determined rushes -
proved vain.
While some made hopeless charges towards the walls, others
crowded into a few straw shelters and mud huts which the troops had not
found opportunity to remove, and thence maintained a ragged fire.
After an hour's heavy fusillade the attack weakened, and presently ceased
altogether. At ten o'clock, however, strong reinforcements having come up,
the Dervishes made a second attempt. They were again repulsed, and at a
quarter to eleven, after losing more than 500 men in killed and wounded,
Ahmed Fedil admitted his defeat and retired to a clump of palm-trees two
miles to the west of the town. The casualties among the defenders were five
men killed, one British officer (Captain Dwyer) and thirteen men wounded.
The Dervishes remained for two days in the palm grove, and their leader
repeatedly endeavoured to induce them to renew the attack. But although
they closely surrounded the enclosures, and maintained a dropping fire,
they refused to knock their heads against brick walls a third time;
and on the 1st of October Ahmed Fedil was forced to retire to a more
convenient camp eight miles to the southward. Here for the next three weeks
he remained, savage and sulky; and the Kassala column were content to keep
to their defences.
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