Omdurman: 1898 by William Wright

Author:William Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752478876
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2012-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

22. A stylised illustration of the Battle of the Atbara which gives some idea of its fierceness.

The silence seemed ominous to Lieutenant Meiklejohn of the Warwicks: ‘Then we moved up a gentle rise, at the top of which we found ourselves looking down on the zariba some 300 yards from us. Still no sound.’ Gatacre allowed his men a few seconds rest as they fired a volley. This was met, at last, by a return volley from Mahmud’s riflemen. Thousands of bullets whizzed slightly overhead of the troops. Lieutenant Cox, leading some of the Lincolns, took a bullet through his helmet just as a sergeant got hit mortally in the mouth. The fire grew intense; Private Southall, with Meiklejohn, was badly wounded in the shoulder but saluted with his hand and asked that he might fall out. Men fell everywhere as the Egyptian advance was reduced to a series of short spurts. The artillery had recommenced firing and the noise of shell fire, rifles and Maxims bludgeoned the senses.

Reaching the zariba Meiklejohn thought it ‘a miserable affair’, just branches of tangled thornbush about four feet high and a few feet thick. With sword in his right hand and revolver in the left he took a running jump at it and fell sprawling inside, while Captain Findlay of the Camerons was shot dead close by. Some men used their blankets wrapped around hands to push back the thorns. A dervish charged at Gatacre who, totally unfazed, told his orderly, ‘Give him the bayonet, lad.’ The flag-waving Wyeth had been mortally wounded so Gatacre’s ADC was pressed into service to hold the Union standard high as the general strode purposefully into the dervish camp.

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