In The Meanwhile The Men Of The New Railway Battalion Were
Being Trained; The Plant Was Steadily Accumulating; Engines, Rolling Stock,
And Material Of All Sorts Had Arrived From England.
From the growing
workshops at Wady Halfa the continual clatter and clang of hammers and the
black smoke of manufacture rose to the African sky.
The malodorous incense
of civilisation was offered to the startled gods of Egypt. All this was
preparation; nor was it until the 8th of May that track-laying into the
desert was begun in earnest. The whole of the construction gangs and
railroad staff were brought from Kerma to Wady Halfa, and the daring
pioneers of modern war started on their long march through the wilderness,
dragging their railway behind them - safe and sure road which infantry,
cavalry, guns, and gunboats might follow with speed and convenience.
It is scarcely within the power of words to describe the savage
desolation of the regions into which the line and its constructors plunged.
A smooth ocean of bright-coloured sand spread far and wide to distant
horizons. The tropical sun beat with senseless perseverance upon the level
surface until it could scarcely be touched with a naked hand, and the filmy
air glittered and shimmered as over a furnace. Here and there huge masses
of crumbling rock rose from the plain, like islands of cinders in a sea
of fire. Alone in this vast expanse stood Railhead - a canvas town of 2,500
inhabitants, complete with station, stores, post-office, telegraph-office,
and canteen, and only connected with the living world of men and ideas
by two parallel iron streaks, three feet six inches apart, growing dim and
narrower in a long perspective until they were twisted and blurred by the
mirage and vanished in the indefinite distance.
Every morning in the remote nothingness there appeared a black speck
growing larger and clearer, until with a whistle and a welcome clatter,
amid the aching silence of ages, the 'material' train arrived, carrying
its own water and 2,500 yards of rails, sleepers, and accessories. At noon
came another speck, developing in a similar manner into a supply train,
also carrying its own water, food and water for the half-battalion of the
escort and the 2,000 artificers and platelayers, and the letters,
newspapers, sausages, jam, whisky, soda-water, and cigarettes which enable
the Briton to conquer the world without discomfort. And presently the empty
trains would depart, reversing the process of their arrival, and vanishing
gradually along a line which appeared at last to turn up into the air
and run at a tangent into an unreal world.
The life of the strange and lonely town was characterised by a
machine-like regularity, born perhaps of the iron road from which it
derived its nourishment. Daily at three o'clock in the morning the
'camp-engine' started with the 'bank parties.' With the dawn the 'material'
train arrived, the platelaying gangs swarmed over it like clusters of
flies, and were carried to the extreme limit of the track. Every man knew
his task, and knew, too, that he would return to camp when it was finished,
and not before. Forthwith they set busily to work without the necessity of
an order. A hundred yards of material was unloaded. The sleepers were
arranged in a long succession. The rails were spiked to every alternate
sleeper, and then the great 80-ton engine moved cautiously forward along
the unballasted track, like an elephant trying a doubtful bridge.
The operation was repeated continually through the hours of the burning
day. Behind the train there followed other gangs of platelayers, who
completed the spiking and ballasting process; and when the sun sank
beneath the sands of the western horizon, and the engine pushed the empty
trucks and the weary men home to the Railhead camp, it came back over a
finished and permanent line. There was a brief interval while the
camp-fires twinkled in the waste, like the lights of a liner in mid-ocean,
while the officers and men chatted over their evening meal, and then the
darkness and silence of the desert was unbroken till morning brought
the glare and toil of another long day.
So, week in, week out, the work went on. Every few days saw a further
advance into the wilderness. The scene changed and remained unaltered -
'another, yet the same.' As Wady Halfa became more remote and Abu Hamed
grew near, an element of danger, the more appalling since it was peculiar,
was added to the strange conditions under which the inhabitants of
Railhead lived. What if the Dervishes should cut the line behind them?
They had three days' reserve of water. After that, unless the obstruction
were removed and traffic restored, all must wither and die in the sand,
and only their bones and their cooking-pots would attest the folly
of their undertaking.
By the 20th of July a hundred and thirty miles of line had been finished,
and it became too dangerous to advance further until Abu Hamed had been
cleared of the Dervish force. They were still a hundred miles away, but
camels travel fast and far, and the resources of the enemy were uncertain.
It appeared that progress would be checked, but on the 7th of August
General Hunter, marching from Merawi along the river bank, attacked and
took Abu Hamed - an operation which will be described hereafter. Work was
at once resumed with renewed energy. The pace of construction now became
remarkable. As much as 5,300 yards of track was surveyed, embanked,
and laid in a single day. On the 1st of November Abu Hamed was reached,
and by the banks of the Nile the men who had fought their way across the
desert joined hands with those who had fought their way along the river.
The strain and hardship had not, however, been without effect on the
constructors. Two of the Engineer subalterns - Polwhele and Cator - out of
the eight concerned in the laying of the Dongola and the Desert railways
had died.
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