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A PRIVATE BATTLE.

BY PERCY MACHELL, C.M.G.

AFTER passing the ten happiest years of my life in the Egyptian Army, the last four of which had been spent in command of the 12th Sudanese Battalion, which I had helped, as second in command, to raise in 1888, I was recalled at the end of 1895 to duty with the British Army, and sadly said good-bye to my beloved Blacks.

On arriving at Cairo from the frontier, I was told by Lord Kitchener, then Sir Herbert Kitchener, the Sirdar, that the Inspector-Generalship of the Coastguard Department was about to became vacant, and that he was authorised to ask me if I would be prepared to accept this post. I asked for time, and a bad time it was. I was intensely keen about the Army, which I had never dreamed of leaving, but the prospect of a company in a regiment at home, after commanding as fine a battalion as any one could wish to see, was not attractive.

From all I could gather, the long-hoped-for advance upon the Sudan, which had given such a point to our labours ever since the death of General Gordon and the evacuation of Dongola, appeared to be quite remote. Lord Kitchener could not help me to decide. "There is the appointment," he said. "I am desired to offer it to you or to one other man, and I

give you the refusal. You will have a show of your own, and will be allowed to count your ten years' service in the Egyptian Army towards an Egyptian pension. If, however, you decide to return to your British regiment, I will get you back as soon as you have qualified by being a year away.'

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"When will the advance take place?"

"I have no idea; it is impossible to say."

I was at the parting of the ways. If I refused this excellent offer, I went back to garrison life at home,-the advance might never come off, and my heart sank at the prospect of a station in Ireland on narrow means. If I accepted, I should have to retire from the Army within a few months. For several days I thought and thought, until finally, with much misgiving, I decided to accept.

The Deputy Inspector-General, to whose post I was first gazetted, had died suddenly, and the Inspector-General was about to retire on account of health, so I was completely absorbed in my new life, and not unhappy, when one night, in the early spring of 1896, at a ball at Kasr El Nil, the rumour ran that orders had suddenly been received for an advance upon the dervish positions at Akasha and

Firket, and perhaps as far as Dongola.

I had not yet retired from the British Army, and I at once volunteered. But, the Ministry not unnaturally refusing to let me go, I said I would resign my civil appointment and return to the Army.

The answer to this was that, if I insisted upon resigning, I should not be allowed to join the expedition, and must return to England.

So my soldiering was over; I sent in my papers, and endeavoured to forget. 1896 saw Dongola reoccupied, and 1897 was devoted to the railway and to preparations for the final advance.

In April 1898 Mahmud was defeated at the battle of the Atbara, and the summer had to be got through before the Sirdar could devote his attention to the Khalifa and Khartum.

An invitation at this juncture from my old friend Captain M'Murdo, formerly A.D.C. to Lord Kitchener, and now Director of the Repression of Slavery Department, to accompany him on a journey to Kassala, where a number of his agents were stationed, was joyfully received. After eighteen months' civil work nothing could be more attractive than the prospect of a return for a time to the old life with all its delightful uncertainties, and, with three months' leave and the Sirdar's permission, I was off.

Leaving Suez on the 2nd May in the steam-cruiser Abbas, of my department, we

called at Kosseir and Roweya, arriving at Suakin six days later.

A week was spent here, and then, sending our camel escort overland, we proceeded to Trinkitat, and thence to El Teb, where we found our camels awaiting us.

We arrived at Tokar on the 16th May, and it was interesting to myself to revisit this desolate place where, six years earlier, in the palmy days of Osman Digna, I had spent twelve busy months as Governor and Commandant. Osman Digna used to keep us moving then, but now this part of the country was clear, and the garrison consisted of a few companies of infantry under a native officer.

Leaving Tokar next day, marching S.S.E., between the Khor Baraka and the Red Sea, we travelled for one long day over the familiar flat Tokar plain, until we came upon a beautiful upland district teeming with gazelle, ariel, and bustard, where I had never previously been able to penetrate. Magnificent pasturage on all sides, and sheep, goats, and cattle in great abundance. Next day we made a steep ascent and traversed a difficult "akaba," the Gudmat Pass, from which we had a splendid view of the country we had left behind before we dropped down the other side on to a barren rocky waste. Two days after leaving Gudmat, we came across the tracks of some "oryx" (Leucoryx) which we followed, and one of these fine antelope was secured early

next morning. We saw five more later, but failed to get a shot.

Ariel, gazelle, and guineafowl here were plentiful, and our larder was well supplied each day. Khor Anseba, with its thickly wooded banks, was crossed some thirty-five miles west of its junction with the Baraka, and here the amount of bird-life was truly marvellous. Partridges, sand-grouse, doves, kingfishers, green parrots, rose-breasted shrike, and hosts of others we had never seen before, made a veritable ornithologist's paradise.

We were now in Italian territory, but the lack of population afforded no opportunity of availing ourselves of a quaintly worded Arabic permit M'Murdo had obtained from the Italian Minister at Cairo. This introduced to "The illustrious Emirs and virtuous and generous sheikhs the British Officer, illustrious Captain M'Murdo, accompanied by a number of Emirs, suite and ghafirs." The document desired them to "show us kindness and attention," assuring them that "whatever was done would be far from being in proportion to our rank."

After leaving the Anseba the country varied considerably. Sometimes we toiled through rocky passes, and again we travelled over rich pastureland, along the dry beds of streams and through dense thickets which sheltered the timid Kudu throughout the day. Two of these were accounted for, and it was sad to leave and to have to push

on just as we began to locate them and learn something of their ways.

On the 5th June we crossed the Khor Baraka, five miles south of its junction with the Hambul, and spent part of the night in a pit overlooking a water-hole, in the hope of getting a shot at a lion, which was reported to be in the neighbourhood. Next day we saw more Kudu, and, passing under the Gadein Mountains, we camped at Sabderat Wells, an Italian outpost eighteen miles from Kassala. Kassala was sighted early next morning, and we arrived about 9 A.M.

We stayed here for ten days, and the time passed all too fast among our old friends, both English and Sudanese. I made the acquaintance at Kassala of Sid Ali El Morghani, still quite a boy, but already displaying great natural dignity, and revered by all as the representative of a family directly descended from the Prophet.

It was Sid Ali's father, the great Sid Hassan El Morghani, who was so specially respected on account of the accepted belief in his ability to penetrate the mysteries of the future. In 1892, when I was at Tokar, some of his prophecies had been related to me. Fifteen years before that he had preached that evil days were in store for the Sudan. "El marah illi towlid," he warned them, "ma takhodhash." (Take not to thyself a wife who will bear thee children), "for a crisis is looming over the future of the Sudan, when those who stand

by the Government must fly, and they will be lucky if they escape with their lives."

The flame of insurrection would not first appear in the Sudan, but the fire would be kindled in Egypt, after which the whole Sudan would rise, and the people would not be appeased until the land had been deluged in blood and entire tribes had disappeared.

The work of reconquest and re-establishment of order would fall upon the Ingliz, who, after suppressing the revolt in Egypt and gradually having arranged the affairs of that country, would rule the Turk and the Sudanese together. The idea of the Turk being ruled by any one was received with special incredulity, and, on his being pressed to explain who these mighty Ingliz were, he said they were a people from the North, tall of stature, and white.

The English would place the Sudan on a footing it had never known before, and he used to say that the land at Kassala, between El Khatmia and Gebel Um Karam, would ultimately be sold at a guinea

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It will not yet have been forgotten that the great fight of the 2nd September 1898 came off exactly where the Morghani had predicted, and a special correspondent actually described the field as being “white with 'jibbah' - clad corpses, like a meadow dotted with snow-drifts."

I had obtained permission from the Sirdar to go to Kassala, but to return by the way we had come would have been dull. On the other hand, the prospect of pushing across to the Nile, through a country in which no white man had set his foot for at least sixteen years, was singularly attractive.

All correspondence with the river proceeded via Suakin and the Red Sea, Suez, and Cairo, and direct communication was supposed to be impossible; but the Commandant, who had formerly served with me as second in command in the 12th Sudanese, being good enough to doubt whether his jurisdiction extended to people like ourselves, we decided to take the risk and strike across by the Atbara to the Nile.

On the afternoon of the 19th of June, escorted by the celebrated Sheikh Omar Abu Sinn of the Shukhriya, Abd El Kader Pasha of the Halenga, my old henchman, Ahmed Awad of the Gadein, Mahomed Bey Musa, "Sheikh of Sheikhs" of the Hadendowa, Mustapha Hamed, and others, we started from Kassala, twelve of us in all, including servants, en route for the Atbara, which we struck at 8.45 A.M. on the

21st. The Sheikhs only accompanied us for the first march, and we arrived at Goz Regeb the following day, with out incident and with not much sport. Only four sandgrouse, one goose, and a sight of some wild donkeys, since leaving Kassala.

On the 24th we marched at 4 A.M., and halted to bivouac at Mishreb, thirty miles south of Adarama on the right bank of the Atbara, at 9 A.M.

Some very fresh tracks of Arabs coming to and returning from the river were observed, and we supposed that they were those of Hadendowas and Bisharin who were perhaps beginning to resume their usual avocations.

About noon, feeling restless, I borrowed M'Murdo's LeeMetford sporting repeatingrifle, which I was anxious to try, and started out for a couple of hours with my orderly, Shawish Nimr Ali of the Coastguard, to see if I could pick up an ariel.

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At about 1.20 P.M., working east, and then making a cast towards the river without seeing any game, we came out upon the bank at a point about one mile north of our camp.

We stood for a moment facing the stream, when suddenly I heard the snapping of twigs close by, and, looking round, I saw a number of men with rifles advancing rapidly towards us through the trees.

The growth at this spot had evidently been very thick, but the brushwood had all been burned, and nothing remained

but a dense overgrowth, which effectively kept out the light from an underlying network of charred trunks and branches.

In among these obstacles the riflemen came leaping along, holding their weapons in front of them, and not uttering a sound.

I immediately supposed, seeing that they had no coloured patches on their "jibbas," that they were a party of our "friendlies" (Banda) from Adarama.

My orderly, however, who had been a dervish himself, shouted, "These are not Banda, but dervishes; let us get off the top." And, as he spoke, they all fired point - blank at us, at a distance of from ten to twenty yards. With a single jump to our rear we found ourselves on a ledge of the riverbank which served as a parapet, and, with only our heads and shoulders exposed, our rifles being luckily already loaded, and my magazine filled, we opened fire.

I took a steady aim at the leading dervish, who fell not ten yards away, and was at once dragged off by his comrades. As he collapsed another became prominent, and was similarly dealt with; likewise a third, and then a fourth, each falling falling forward and being carried to the rear by his friends.

I was busy for a few seconds taking each of my assailants in turn, and the smoke of their fusilade made it difficult for me to see more than the man who became for the moment number one. Shawish Nimr,

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