The Dash for Khartoum Part 36

"Double that distance if necessary, sheik. It is better not to let them know that we have such a gun here until they get close. It will be better for you to fire."

The sheik levelled his long gun and fired, and the hors.e.m.e.n at once drew up, and after a little consultation two or three of them rode off on each flank so as to make a circuit of this unlooked-for obstacle, while one of the others rode back at full speed to meet the camel train. As soon as it arrived the riders, of whom there were two on each animal, dismounted. The camels were led back to a hollow where they would be safe from any stray bullet, and after a short pause one of the hors.e.m.e.n again advanced and at a rapid pace made a circle round the fort at a distance of two or three hundred yards only. A scattered fire was opened by the defenders, but the speed at which he was riding disconcerted their aim, and having completed the circuit he rode off with a yell of defiance to rejoin the party.

For half an hour no move was made. It was evident that the strength of the position had disconcerted the dervishes, who had expected to gain an almost bloodless victory. As, however, Hamish a.s.sured them that at the very utmost the sheik could put but twenty men in the field, including several boys and old men, it was finally decided to attack, and headed by the hors.e.m.e.n the dervishes started forward at a run, uttering shrill yells as they did so. Edgar had persuaded the chief that it would be useless to open fire until they were within two or three hundred yards, as but few shots would tell, and the men would be discouraged by finding that their fire did not check the advance. The sheik therefore commanded his followers on no account to fire until he gave the order. The dervishes, however, were not sparing of their ammunition, and fired as they ran, the b.a.l.l.s going for the most part wide, although a few whistled over the heads of the defenders and two or three struck the rampart.

"Now I think they are near enough, sheik," Edgar, who had levelled his rifle at one of the hors.e.m.e.n, said. As he spoke he pulled the trigger, and simultaneously with the sharp crack of the piece the Arab threw up his arms and fell from his horse. The sheik and five of his men fired almost at the same moment. Kneeling as closely as they could, there was room for but seven along the face of the fort fronting the enemy, and at Edgar's suggestion the chief had divided the men into three parties, each of which after firing was to fall to the rear and reload, their places being taken by the others in succession. Thus there would always be a reserve and the fire could be kept up without interruption. Volley after volley was fired, Edgar loading quickly enough to repeat his fire with each squad.

So rapidly did the Arabs pa.s.s over the intervening ground that they reached the outside hedge of thorns just as the party who had first fired had again taken their places in front. Five of the dervishes had fallen and several were wounded, but this had not checked their speed for a moment, and under the orders of their leaders they at once fell to work with their swords and knives to destroy the hedge. The work was done far more rapidly than Edgar had thought possible, and they then fell upon the more formidable obstacle piled up against the rocks, attacking it on three sides simultaneously. The defenders now fired independently, each as fast as he could load, Edgar shouting continuously "Steady! steady! take a good aim each time," and the sheik re-echoing his words.

The Arabs, however, were too excited to obey, and the greater part of their shots were thrown away. Several of the dervishes had fallen, but the process of clearing away the hedge proceeded with alarming rapidity.

The work was, however, speedily abandoned at the face where Edgar was stationed, for at each crack of his rifle a dervish fell. Leaving three of the men to defend that face the rest joined the defenders at the sides, the sheik taking the command on one side, Edgar on the other. The fire now became more steady, the sheik enforcing his orders by vigorous blows with the staff of his spear, while Edgar's rifle on his side more than made up for his want of influence with the men.

In their fury several of the dervishes sprang boldly into the midst of the thorns and strove to climb up, but they were met by the spears of the defenders, and not one gained an entrance. It was less than ten minutes after the first shot had been fired when the leader of the dervishes, seeing how fast his men were falling and that they would soon be no stronger than the defenders of the fort, called them off from the attack. As they turned and ran the defenders leapt to their feet with yells of triumph; but the dervishes, turning round, fired several shots.

The sheik received a ball in his shoulder and two of his companions fell dead. The others at once took to their shelter again, and kept up their fire until long after the last of the dervishes was out of range. The moment the retreat began Edgar looked out for his man, of whom he had not hitherto caught a glimpse in the heat of the conflict. He soon caught sight of him, and taking a steady and careful aim with his rifle on a stone, fired, and Hamish fell headlong forward, the ball having struck him fair between the shoulders.

A yell of triumph rose from the Arabs. The traitor who had brought the Mahdists down upon them was punished; the one man who could guide the foe to the wady was killed. As soon as the enemy got out of reach of shot they gathered in consultation. The defenders could see that the discussion was excited and violent; they waved their arms, stamped, and seemed on the point of coming to blows with each other. While they were so engaged the garrison looked out at the field of battle round the fort. No less than fifteen of the a.s.sailants had been killed, while of the defenders but two, the one an old man and the other a boy, had fallen. The sheik begged Edgar to bandage his shoulder; he seemed to feel the pain but little, so delighted was he with the issue of the contest. Edgar soaked a pad of the cotton cloth and laid it on the wound, and then with long strips of the same material bandaged the arm tightly to the side, and with other strips fastened as well as he could the pad in its place.

"They are scattering over the sand-hills," one of the Arabs said just as he had finished, and in a short time a dropping fire was opened at the fort.

The Arabs would have replied, but the sheik said that it was a waste of powder, for their guns would not carry as far as the rifles in the hands of the dervishes, and it was better that they should lie quiet behind their shelter and allow the enemy to throw away their fire.

"What will they do next, do you think, sheik?"

"I do not think they will make another attack, Muley; at any rate not in the daytime. They must know they are not greatly superior to us in force, being now but twenty-five to our eighteen, and no doubt many of them are wounded. They may try to besiege us. They will know that we have a supply of water--we should never have shut ourselves up here without it--but that will fail in time."

"But their own supply will fail," Edgar said. "Probably they have only brought enough with them for what they supposed would be a two days'

march to the wady."

"I should think, Muley, they will send all their camels back to the wells, perhaps with one of their wounded men and another. The wounded man will remain there in charge of them, the other will bring two or three of them out with full water-skins; he can make the journey there and back every two days and can bring enough water for the men and horses. I don't think they will send the horses away. They will do with a small portion of water, and if greatly needed they could start from here at sunset, keeping among the sand-hills until out of sight, reach the wells, drink their fill, and be back in the morning. If they attack at night it will be between the setting of the moon and daybreak."

"I should hardly think they would do that," Edgar said. "We shall soon restore the thorn hedge, and they would scarcely be mad enough to attack us when they know that we have that protection and are almost as strong as they are. If it were not that we do not want them to know the way to the wady I should say that we could venture to sally out and march back, but that would cost us a good many lives, for the hors.e.m.e.n could ride on ahead, dismount, open fire on us from the sand-hills, and be off again on their horses when we went up to attack them. No, I think we cannot do better than follow our original plan. Our water will hold out for a week, and by putting ourselves on short allowance at the end of a day or two if we find that they are determined to wait, we can make it last for nearly a fortnight, and long before that your tribesmen ought to be here, and in that case only the mounted men will escape us. Three of their horses lie dead outside, so there are but five left."

"Ah! if we could but cut them all off," the sheik said in a tone of fury, "then we might be safe for a long time. If any of them get back to tell the tale the Mahdi will send a force next time that there will be no resisting."

Edgar sat thinking for a minute or two.

"I have an idea, sheik," he said at last. "Send off one of your boys as soon as the moon sets, let him go to El Bahr Nile. When your friends arrive he will tell them of the repulse we have given the dervishes, and that there are now but twenty-five of them, several of whom are doubtless wounded. Tell them that if but ten men come to aid us we can defeat them; let the other ten, that is if twenty arrive, start first, and turning off the track make a detour and come down at night upon the wady. There they will find but one man with the camels; but they must not show themselves, but must hide close at hand. Then when the hors.e.m.e.n arrive they must make an ambush, and either shoot them down as they pa.s.s or let them go through to the wells. They are sure to wait there for a few hours, and they can fall upon them there. Let the men be ordered to fire only at the horses; they can deal with the men after they have dismounted. The great thing is to prevent the hors.e.m.e.n getting away."

"Mashallah, Muley, your plan is a grand one. Had you been bred in the desert you could not have better understood our warfare. What a pity it is that you are a Kaffir! You would have been a great sheik had you been a true believer."

"Gordon Pasha was a Kaffir," Edgar replied, "but he was greater than any sheik."

"He was a great man indeed," the sheik said; "he was a very father to the people; there was no withstanding him. We fought against him, for our interest lay with the slave-dealing, but he scattered us like sheep.

Yes, Gordon was a great man though, as you say, he was a Kaffir;" and the sheik sat in silence, meditating upon what seemed to him an inscrutable problem.

While the conversation had been going on, the bullets of the enemy continued to whistle round the zareba.

"I will try and put a stop to that," Edgar said; "we have a rifle here as much better than theirs, as theirs are superior to the guns of your tribesmen."

The nearest hill was some four or five hundred yards away, and on this several of the Arabs could be seen. Sure that they were nearly out of gun-shot, they took but little pains to conceal themselves. Edgar rested his rifle on a stone and took a steady aim at three of them who were sitting together. He fired. A yell of dismay came across the air; two of the figures leapt to their feet and ran back. A moment later four or five others who had been firing from among the bushes also dashed away, while a triumphant yell rose from the zareba.

"That is one enemy the less," Edgar said, "and I don't think the others will trouble us much in future. They must know that they can be doing us no harm, and now they discover they are not going to have it all their own way we shall not hear much more of them."

Shots were indeed fired occasionally from the bushes and eminences, but the discharges were far apart, and seemed to be intended rather to show the defenders of the zareba that they were surrounded than for any other purpose. The day pa.s.sed without any further event. As soon as the sun had fairly set the defenders sallied out and repaired the hedge. The enemy probably guessed that they were so employed, and kept up a much heavier fire than they had done during the day. Edgar, lying in the zareba, replied, steadily firing at the flashes, and after a time the firing of the enemy slackened, and the defenders, when they had completed the hedge, re-entered the zareba through a very narrow gap that had been left for the purpose, carrying with them one of their number whose leg had been broken just above the ankle by one of the enemy's bullets. Under the sheik's instructions some rough splints were made to keep the bone in its proper position, and bandages were then applied.

Four sentries were posted, one at each corner of the fort, and the rest of the garrison lay down to sleep. Twice during the night they sprang to their feet at the discharge of the gun of one of the sentries, but as no movement of the enemy followed they soon lay down again, supposing that either the alarm had been a false one, and that the sentry had fired at some low bush, or that, if he had really seen a man, the latter had made off as soon as he had discovered that the garrison were awake and vigilant. As soon as the moon set the sheik despatched one of the young men to the wady. His instructions were to crawl carefully, taking advantage of every bush until he deemed himself well beyond any of the enemy who might be watching, and then to start at full speed. If he were fired at, he was, if the enemy were still in front of him, to run back to the zareba; if they were behind him, to press forward at full speed.

For an hour after he had left the garrison listened anxiously. They were all under arms now, lest the enemy should try and attack during the darkness. No sounds, however, broke the stillness of the plain, and they were at last a.s.sured that their messenger had got safely through. For four days the blockade continued, an occasional exchange of shots being kept up. The dervishes, however, since they had learnt the range of Edgar's rifle, seldom showed themselves, but crept among the rocks and bushes, fired a shot, and then crawled off again to repeat the operation fifty or a hundred yards away. When the hedge had been repaired on the night after the fight the defenders buried their own dead in the sand a short distance off, and had dragged the bodies of their fallen enemies fifty yards away, as, had the siege lasted many days, the fort would have otherwise become uninhabitable.

In the morning one of the Arabs had yelled to the besiegers that the bodies were lying fifty yards away in front of the fort, and that four of them were free to come and carry them away or bury them as they chose. The invitation pa.s.sed unregarded, but during the next night the bodies were all removed. The sentries were ordered not to fire if they heard any noise in that direction, for, as Edgar pointed out to the sheik, it was important that the bodies should be carried away. The next day several of the Arabs went out and raised heaps of sand over the horses that still lay just outside the hedge.

The fourth night after his departure the messenger returned with the news that the tribesmen, eighteen in number, had arrived in the afternoon. They would carry out the sheik's orders. They were mounting fresh camels just as he started. Nine of them would hide among the sand-hills two or three miles away, and would there remain for twenty-four hours so as to give time for the others to get up to the wells. The sheik commanding the party had suggested that soon after daybreak the defenders of the fort should sally out and advance in the direction where the dervishes' camp was situated, as if intending to make an attack. This would bring in all the enemy who might be scattered among the sand-hills near the zareba. As soon as the engagement began he, with his men, would fall upon the rear of the dervishes.

"Do you think that that is a good plan, Muley?"

"I think so, sheik. You see, if we merely wanted to defeat them one would not wish them to rally into one body; but as our great object is to prevent any from returning, it is much better to do as the sheik suggests and let them get all together."

The day pa.s.sed as usual, and the next morning shortly before sunrise the defenders of the fort issued out. The a.s.sailants were on the watch, and from four or five different points round the zareba shots were fired.

Taking advantage of every bush the Arabs advanced slowly under the direction of their sheik. The dervishes, believing that the garrison must have been driven from their defences by thirst, and that they were now in their power, rapidly gathered their force and advanced to meet their opponents. At first they did so carelessly, but they were checked by the fall of one of their leaders by a ball from Edgar's rifle. They then advanced a little more cautiously. Edgar kept close to the sheik.

"They will make a rush soon," he said; "tell the men not to fire till they rise to their feet."

"Where are the others?" the sheik growled; "if they do not come we shall be outnumbered."

"Not by much, sheik; one or two of their men are certainly away with the camels, and we shall drop two or three more of them at least when they make their rush; the others are sure to be up directly. There, look!

There they are on the top of the sand-hills the dervishes have been firing from."

The enemy had now approached to within a hundred yards, and were just preparing for a rush when a shout of welcome broke from the party in front of them and was at once echoed from the rear. The dervishes sprang to their feet in surprise and alarm, but one of their leaders exclaimed, "There are but a few of them! Slay these in front first, then we will destroy those in our rear!"

With a yell of defiance the dervishes dashed forward. The sheik's party poured in a volley as they did so, and then grasping their spears sprang to their feet, Edgar alone remaining p.r.o.ne, and firing four more shots as the dervishes traversed the intervening s.p.a.ce. There was little disparity of numbers when the parties met. The sheik had, at Edgar's suggestion, ordered his men to form in a compact group with their spears pointing outward, as the great point was to withstand the rush until their friends came up. But the dervishes recklessly threw themselves upon the spears, and in a moment all were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight. Edgar, feeling that with a clubbed rifle he should have no chance against the spears and swords of the Arabs, kept between the sheik and two of his most trusted followers, and loading as quickly as he could throw out and drop in the cartridges, brought down four men who rushed one after another upon them.

It seemed an age to him, but it was scarce more than a minute after the combatants had closed that, with a shout, the ten new-comers arrived on the scene. Edgar dropped a fresh cartridge into his rifle and stood quiet; he had no wish to join in the slaughter. The dervishes fought desperately, and none asked for quarter, and in two or three minutes the combat was over and all had fallen, save three or four men who had extricated themselves from the fight and dashed off at the top of their speed, quickly pursued by the exultant victors. To Edgar's surprise they did not run in the direction of the sand-hill behind which he had thought their camp was made, but bore away to the south.

Pursuers and pursued were soon out of sight, and Edgar turned to see how his companions had fared. Three of them had been killed and six of the others had received spear-thrusts or sword-cuts more or less severe.

"It would have gone hard with us, sheik, if our friends had not come up."

"We should have beaten them," the sheik said. "That gun of yours would have turned the scale. Had it not been for that they would have been too strong for us, for they were all fighting men in their prime, and five or six of my men were no match for them in a hand-to-hand fight.

Mashallah! it has been a great day; it will be talked of long in our tribe, how, with but twenty men, and many of these not at their best, we withstood forty dervishes, and so beat them that when a reinforcement of eight men came to us we destroyed them altogether."

"Four may have got away," Edgar said; "they must have left their horses in the direction in which they fled. I suppose they feared that some of us might crawl out and hamstring them did they picket them near their camp. When I first saw our friends on the hill my first thought was that we had done wrong not to bid them secure the horses before they attacked. Now I see that they could not have found them; and it was well you sent no such orders, for had you done so they might have lost time looking for them and have arrived late."

For half an hour those unwounded of the party were occupied in bandaging up the wounds of the others. At the end of that time the men who had pursued the fugitives had arrived.

"Have you caught them?" the sheik asked as they approached.

"We overtook two and killed them, but the others reached the horses. A man was waiting there in charge of them, and the three rode off leading the fourth horse; but never fear, our men will catch them at the next wells."

The bodies of the fallen dervishes had been examined, and it was found that among the fallen were all the leaders, these being distinguishable by their gay garments from the others, who simply wore the long white s.h.i.+rt that formed, with a coloured straw skull-cap, the uniform of the Mahdi's men. The two men who had escaped belonged to the rank and file.