Nor Could The
Valour Of Fifty-Seven Notable Emirs Sustain The Odds Against Them.
There Was Still Time To Fall Back On Kosheh, Or Even On Suarda - Anywhere
Outside The Sweep Of Their Terrible Enemy's Sword.
They would not budge.
Obstinate and fatuous to the last, they dallied and paltered on the fatal
ground, until sudden, blinding, inevitable catastrophe fell upon them from
all sides at once, and swept them out of existence as a military force.
CHAPTER VI: FIRKET
June 7, 1896
Since the end of 1895 the Dervish force in Firket had been
under the command of the Emir Hammuda, and it was through the indolence
and neglect of this dissipated Arab that the Egyptian army had been able
to make good its position at Akasha without any fighting. Week after week
the convoys had straggled unmolested through the difficult country between
Sarras and the advanced base. No attack had been made upon the brigade at
Akasha. No enterprise was directed against its communications. This fatal
inactivity did not pass unnoticed by Wad Bishara, the Governor of Dongola;
but although he was nominally in supreme command of all the Dervish forces
in the province he had hardly any means of enforcing his authority.
His rebukes and exhortations, however, gradually roused Hammuda, and during
May two or three minor raids were planned and executed, and the Egyptian
position at Akasha was several times reconnoitred.
Bishara remained unsatisfied, and at length, despairing of infusing energy
into Hammuda, he ordered his subordinate Osman Azrak to supersede him.
Osman was a Dervish of very different type. He was a fanatical and devoted
believer in the Mahdi and a loyal follower of the Khalifa. For many years
he had served on the northern frontier of the Dervish Empire, and his name
was well known to the Egyptian Government as the contriver of the most
daring and the most brutal raids. His cruelty to the wretched inhabitants
of the border villages had excluded him from all hope of mercy should he
ever fall into the hands of the enemy. His crafty skill, however,
protected him, and among the Emirs gathered at Firket there was none whose
death would have given greater satisfaction to the military authorities
than the man who was now to replace Hammuda.
Whether Osman Azrak had actually assumed command on the 6th of June
is uncertain. It seems more likely that Hammuda declined to admit his
right, and that the matter still stood in dispute. But in any case Osman
was determined to justify his appointment by his activity, and about
midday he started from the camp at Firket, and, accompanied by a strong
patrol of camel-men, set out to reconnoitre Akasha. Moving cautiously,
he arrived unperceived within sight of the position at about three o'clock
in the afternoon. The columns which were to storm Firket at dawn were then
actually parading. But the clouds of dust which the high wind drove across
or whirled about the camp obscured the view, and the Dervish could
distinguish nothing unusual.
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