THE UNIVERSAL QUESTION.

189

hadn't got a chance against all these Egyptian army fellows, and Fair won it by a head, Sparkes second, a bad third.

Enter a Major. Well, Steevens, how are you? Been up long? Have a I see you've got one. Good to see all you fellows coming out again; means business. River's very full to-day, isn't it?

Captain. Risen three feet and an inch since yesterday. The Atbara flood, I suppose.

Atbara; did you see it?

You were at

I. Rather. It came down roaring, hit the Nile, and piled up on end. Brought down trees, beams, dug

outs

Major. Well, now, shall we go in to lunch? You didn't see the First British Brigade field-firing to-day, did you? Nothing will come within 800 yards of that alive. Do you think we shall have a fight?

Enter a Colonel. Good morning, Mr Steevens: have you been up long? Are you being attended to? Yes, now; shall we have a fight? What will he do now? I can't bear to think we aren't going to have a fight. Senior Captain. Fight? wh

Major. If he'd only come out into the open-
Captain. No; he'll stick behind his

Subaltern. Wall: then we shall have

Major. Two days' bombardment; but then, you know

Colonel. Well, I wish we'd another brigade in reserve to stay at

Senior Captain. Another brigade, sir? Why, it makes me sick to see all this preparation against such an enemy. We had 1500 men at Abu Klea, and now we've got 20,000. Fanatics? Look at those men we fought at the Atbara, those miserable scallywags. Do you call these fanatics? Sell their lives? give 'em away. Despise the enemy; yes, I do despise them; I despise them utterly. Rifles are too good for them. Sticks, sir, we ought to take to them-sticks with bladders on the end. Why, the moment we came to their zariba they got up and ran-got up like a white cloud and ran. And then all these preparations and all this force? They're a contemptible enemy a wretched, despicable enemy. Why won't the Sirdar let the gunboats above Shabluka? Because Beatty would take Khartum.

Colonel. Come, come now. But what'll you have to eat now?

General Conversation. Going to the Gymkhana this afternoon. Squat on his hunkers inside his wall... won't sell you a drop of milk, the surly devils, when we're saving their country. . . the houses at Omdurman are outside the wall, you know . . . not a bad notion of jumping, that bay pony . . . street-to-street fighting, we should lose a devil of a lot of men. . . did you hear the Guards cabled to ask what arrangements had been made for ice on the campaign? but then he can't defend his wall; it hasn't got a banquette, and it's twelve feet high . .

...

THE RECRUIT AND THE MIRAGE.

191

gave the recruit their water-bottles to fill at the lake. "Here, Jock," they said, "take mine too." So the wretched man started off with the water-bottles of the whole half-company to fill them at the mirage. have another drink . . . rather; fed up with it; railway fatigues, too, and field-days twice a-week . . . it was their Colonel kept them from coming up, they say: damned fine regiment all the same . . . weakest Government of this century, sir . . . stowasser gaiters go under canvas a couple of days before we start :. ripping sport . . . Colonel (rising). Well, now, will you have a cigarette? Senior Captain. A miracle of mismanagement. Voice of Tommy (outside). Whatcher doin'?

fed up

drink. . .

Second voice. Cancher see? stickin' 'oods on these. 'ere cacolets.

Voice of Tommy. Whatcher doin' that for?

Second voice. Doncher know? To kerry the bleed'n' Grenadier Gawds to Khartum.

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XXIV.

DEPARTURES AND ARRIVALS.

ON the 3rd of August the six Sudanese battalions left Fort Atbara for the point of concentration at Wad Habashi, Most people who saw them start remarked that they would be very glad to hear they had arrived.

You may have seen sardines in tins; but you will never really know how roomy and comfortable a tinned sardine must feel until you have seen blacks packed on one of the Sirdar's steamers. Nothing but the Sirdar's audacity would ever have tried it; nothing but his own peculiar blend of luck and judgment would have carried it through without appalling disaster.

Dressed in nothing but their white Friday shirt and drawers, the men filed on to the boats. Every man carried his blanket, for men from the Equator have tender chests, but it was difficult to see how he was ever to get into it. On each deck of each

A MIRACLE OF TRANSPORT.

193

steamer they squatted, shoulder to shoulder, toe to back, chin to knee. Fast alongside each gunboat were a couple of double-decked roofed barges, brought out in sections from England for this very purpose. Both decks were jammed full of black men till you could not have pushed a walking-stick between them: the upper deck bellied under their weight like a hammock. At the tail of each gunboat floated a gyassa or two gyassas: in them you could have laid your blanket and slept peacefully on the soldiers' heads. Thus in this land of impossibilities a craft not quite so big as a penny steamer started to take 1100 men, cribbed so that they could not stretch arm or leg, 100 miles at rather under a mile an hour.

The untroubled Nile floated down brim-full, thick and brown as Turkish coffee, swift and strong as an ocean. The turbid Atbara came down swishing and rushing, sunk bushes craning their heads above the flood, and green Sodom apples racing along it like bubbles, and flung itself upon the Nile. Against the double streams the steamers-seven in all, bigger and smaller, with over 6000 men-pulled slowly, slowly southward. The faithful women, babies on their hips, screamed one more farewell: their life is a string of farewells, threaded with jewels of victorious return. The huddled heaps of white cotton and black skin began to blend together in the blurring sunlight. They started before breakfast; by lunchtime all but one had vanished round the elbow a

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