With Kitchener in the Soudan: A Story of Atbara and Omdurman

"'So be it,' he said. 'It is your will, not mine.'

"Khatim came to me afterwards, and advised me to stay, but I said that it might be years before I had another chance to escape; and that, whatever risk there was, I would prefer running it.

"'Then we shall see you no more,' he said, 'for Khartoum will assuredly fall, and you will be killed.'

"'If you were a prisoner in the hands of the white soldiers, Emir,' I said, 'I am sure that you would run any risk, if there was a chance of getting home again. So it is with me. I have a wife and child, in Cairo. Her heart must be sick with pain, at the thought of my death. I will risk anything to get back as soon as possible. If I reach Khartoum, and it is afterwards captured, I can disguise myself and appear as I now am, hide for a while, and then find out where Abu is and join him again. But perhaps, when he sees that no further resistance can be made, General Gordon will embark on one of his steamers and go down the river, knowing that it would be better for the people of the town that the Mahdi should enter without opposition; in which case you would scarcely do harm to the peaceful portion of the population, or to the troops who had laid down their arms.'

"'Very well,' the Emir said. 'Abu has told me that he has tried to dissuade you, but that you will go. We owe you a great debt of gratitude, for all that you have done for us, and therefore I will not try to dissuade you. I trust Allah will protect you.'

"And so we started the next morning. I rode by the side of Abu, and as all knew that I was the hakim who had taken off his arm, none wondered. The journey was made without any incident worth recording. Abu did not hurry. We made a long march between each of the wells, and then halted for a day. So we journeyed, until we made our last halt before arriving at Omdurman.

"'You are still determined to go?' Abu said to me.

"'I shall leave tonight, my friend.'

"'I shall not forget all that you have told me about your people, hakim. Should any white man fall into my hands, I will spare him for your sake. These are evil times, and I regret all that has passed. I believe that the Mahdi is a prophet; but I fear that, in many things, he has misunderstood the visions and orders he received. I see that evil rather than good has fallen upon the land, and that though we loved not the rule of the Egyptians, we were all better off under it than we are now. We pass through ruined villages, and see the skeletons of many people. We know that where the waterwheels formerly spread the water from the rivers over the fields, is now a desert; and that, except the fighting men, the people perish from hunger.

"'All this is bad. I see that, if we enter Egypt, we shall be like a flight of locusts. We shall eat up the country and leave a desert behind us. Surely this cannot be according to the wishes of Allah, who is all merciful. You have taught me much in your talks with me, and I do not see things as I used to. So much do I feel it, that in my heart I could almost wish that your countrymen should come here, and establish peace and order.

"'The Mohamedans of India, you tell me, are well content with their rulers. Men may exercise their religion and their customs, without hindrance. They know that the strong cannot prey upon the weak, and each man reaps what he has sown, in peace. You tell me that India was like the Soudan before you went there–that there were great conquerors, constant wars, and the peasants starved while the robbers grew rich; and that, under your rule, peace and contentment were restored. I would that it could be so here. But it seems, to me, impossible that we should be conquered by people so far away.'

"'I hope that it will be so, Abu; and I think that if the great and good white general, Governor Gordon, is murdered at Khartoum, the people of my country will never rest until his death has been avenged.'

"'You had better take your horse,' he said. 'If you were to go on foot, it would be seen that there was a horse without a rider, and there would be a search for you; but if you and your horse are missing, it will be supposed that you have ridden on to Omdurman to give notice of our coming, and none will think more of the matter.'

"As soon as the camp was asleep, I said goodbye to Abu; and took my horse by the reins and led him into the desert, half a mile away. Then I mounted, and rode fast. The stars were guide enough, and in three hours I reached the Nile. I took off the horse's saddle and bridle, and left him to himself. Then I crept out and cut a bundle of rushes, and swam into the stream with them.

"After floating down the river for an hour, I saw the light of a few fires on the right bank, and guessed that this was a Dervish force, beleaguering Khartoum from that side. I drifted on for another hour, drawing closer and closer to the shore, until I could see walls and forts; then I stripped off my Dervish frock, and swam ashore.

"I had, during the time we had been on the journey, abstained from staining my skin under my garments, in order that I might be recognized as a white man, as soon as I bared my arms.

"I lay down till it was broad daylight, and then walked up to the foot of a redoubt. There were shouts of surprise from the black soldiers there, as I approached. I shouted to them, in Arabic, that I was an Englishman; and two or three of them at once ran down the slope, and aided me to climb it. I was taken, at my request, to General Gordon, who was surprised, indeed, when I told him that I was a survivor of Hicks's force, and had been living nine months at El Obeid.

"'You are heartily welcome, sir,' he said; 'but I fear that you have come into an even greater danger than you have left, for our position here is well-nigh desperate. For months I have been praying for aid from England, and my last news was that it was just setting out, so I fear there is no hope that it will reach me in time. The government of England will have to answer, before God, for their desertion of me, and of the poor people here, whom they sent me to protect from the Mahdi.

"'For myself, I am content. I have done my duty as far as lay in my power, but I had a right to rely upon receiving support from those who sent me. I am in the hands of God. But for the many thousands who trusted in me, and remained here, I feel very deeply.

"'Now the first thing is to provide you with clothes. I am expecting Colonel Stewart here, every minute, and he will see that you are made comfortable.'

"'I shall be glad to place myself at your disposal, sir,' I said. 'I speak Arabic fluently, and shall be ready to perform any service of which I may be capable.'

"'I thank you,' he said, 'and will avail myself of your offer, if I see any occasion; but at present, we have rather to suffer than to do. We have occasional fights, but of late the attacks have been feeble, and I think that the Mahdi depends upon hunger rather than force to obtain possession of this town.

"This evening, I will ask you to tell me your story. Colonel Stewart will show you a room. There is only one other white man–Mr. Power–here. We live together as one family, of which you will now be a member.'

"I felt strange when I came to put on my European clothes. Mr. Power, who tells me he has been here for some years, as correspondent of the Times, has this afternoon taken me round the defences, and into the workshops. I think the place can resist any attacks, if the troops remain faithful; but of this there is a doubt. A good many of the Soudanese have already been sent away. As Gordon said at dinner this evening, if he had but a score of English officers, he would be perfectly confident that he could resist any enemy save starvation.

"September 12th:

"It has been settled that Colonel Stewart and Mr. Power are to go down the river in the Abbas, and I am to go with them. The General proposed it to me. I said that I could not think of leaving him here by himself, so he said kindly:

"'I thank you, Mr. Hilliard, but you could do no good here, and would only be throwing away your life. We can hold on to the end of the year, though the pinch will be very severe; but I think we can make the stores last, till then. But by the end of December our last crust will have been eaten, and the end will have come. It will be a satisfaction to me to know that I have done my best, and fail only because of the miserable delays and hesitation of government.'

"So it is settled that I am going. The gunboats are to escort us for some distance. Were it not for Gordon, I should feel delighted at the prospect. It is horrible to leave him–one of the noblest Englishmen!–alone to his fate. My only consolation is that if I remained I could not avert it, but should only be a sharer in it.

"September 18th:

"We left Khartoum on the 14th, and came down without any serious trouble until this morning, when the boat struck on a rock in the cataract, opposite a village called Hebbeh. A hole has been knocked in her bottom, and there is not a shadow of hope of getting her off. Numbers of the natives have gathered on the shore. I have advised that we should disregard their invitations to land, but that, as there would be no animosity against the black crew, they would be safe; and that we three whites should take the ship's boat, and four of the crew, put provisions for a week on board, and make our way down the river. Colonel Stewart, however, feels convinced that the people can be trusted, and that we had better land and place ourselves under the protection of the sheik. He does not know the Arabs as well as I do.

"However, as he has determined to go ashore, I can do nothing. I consider it unlikely, in the extreme, that there will be any additions to this journal. If, at any time in the future, this should fall into the hands of any of my countrymen, I pray that they will send it down to my dear wife, Mrs. Hilliard, whom, I pray, God may bless and comfort, care of the Manager of the Bank, Cairo."

Chapter 20: A Momentous Communication

Gregory had, after finishing the record, sat without moving until the dinner hour. It was a relief to him to know that his father had not spent the last years of his life as he had feared, as a miserable slave–ill treated, reviled, insulted, perhaps chained and beaten by some brutal taskmaster; but had been in a position where, save that he was an exile, kept from his home and wife, his lot had not been unbearable. He knew more of him than he had ever known before. It was as a husband that his mother had always spoken of him; but here he saw that he was daring, full of resource, quick to grasp any opportunity, hopeful and yet patient, longing eagerly to rejoin his wife, and yet content to wait until the chances should be all in his favour. He was unaffectedly glad thus to know him; to be able, in future, to think of him as one of whom he would have been proud; who would assuredly have won his way to distinction.

It was not so that he had before thought of him. His mother had said that he was of good family, and that it was on account of his marriage with her that he had quarrelled with his relations. It had always seemed strange to him that he should have been content to take, as she had told him, an altogether subordinate position in a mercantile house in Alexandria. She had accounted for his knowledge of Arabic by the fact that he had been, for two years, exploring the temples and tombs of Egypt with a learned professor; but surely, as a man of good family, he could have found something to do in England, instead of coming out to take so humble a post in Egypt.

Gregory knew nothing of the difficulty that a young man in England has, in obtaining an appointment of any kind, or of fighting his way single handed. Influence went for much in Egypt, and it seemed to him that, even if his father had quarrelled with his own people, there must have been many ways open to him of maintaining himself honourably. Therefore he had always thought that, although he might have been all that his mother described him–the tenderest and most loving of husbands, a gentleman, and estimable in all respects–his father must have been wanting in energy and ambition, deficient in the qualities that would fit him to fight his own battle, and content to gain a mere competence, instead of struggling hard to make his way up the ladder. He had accounted for his going up as interpreter, with Hicks Pasha, by the fact that his work with the contractor was at an end, and that he saw no other opening for himself.

He now understood how mistaken he had been, in his estimate of his father's character; and wondered, even more than before, why he should have taken that humble post at Alexandria. His mother had certainly told him, again and again, that he had done so simply because the doctors had said that she could not live in England; but surely, in all the wide empire of England, there must be innumerable posts that a gentleman could obtain. Perhaps he should understand it better, some day. At present, it seemed unaccountable to him. He felt sure that, had he lived, his father would have made a name for himself; and that it was in that hope, and not of the pay that he would receive as an interpreter, that he had gone up with Hicks; and that, had he not died at that little village by the Nile, he would assuredly have done so, for the narrative he had left behind him would in itself, if published, have shown what stuff there was in him.

It was hard that fate should have snatched him away, just when it had seemed that his trials were over, that he was on the point of being reunited to his wife. Still, it was a consolation to know he had died suddenly, as one falls in battle; not as a slave, worn out by grief and suffering.

As he left his hut, he said to Zaki:

"I shall not want you again this evening; but mind, we must be on the move at daylight."

"You did not say whether we were to take the horses, Master; but I suppose you will do so?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that we are going to have camels. They are to be put on board for us, tonight. They are fast camels and, as the distance from the point where we shall land to the Atbara will not be more than seventy or eighty miles, we shall be able to do it in a day."

"That will be very good, master. Camels are much better than horses, for the desert. I have got everything else ready."

After dinner was over, the party broke up quickly, as many of the officers had preparations to make. Gregory went off to the tent of the officer with whom he was best acquainted in the Soudanese regiment.

"I thought that I would come and have a chat with you, if you happened to be in."

"I shall be very glad, but I bar Fashoda. One is quite sick of the name."

"No, it was not Fashoda that I was going to talk to you about. I want to ask you something about England. I know really nothing about it, for I was born in Alexandria, shortly after my parents came out from England.

"Is it easy for anyone who has been well educated, and who is a gentleman, to get employment there? I mean some sort of appointment, say, in India or the West Indies."

"Easy! My dear Hilliard, the camel in the eye of a needle is a joke to it. If a fellow is eighteen, and has had a first-rate education and a good private coach, that is, a tutor, he may pass through his examination either for the army, or the civil service, or the Indian service. There are about five hundred go up to each examination, and seventy or eighty at the outside get in. The other four hundred or so are chucked. Some examinations are for fellows under nineteen, others are open for a year or two longer. Suppose, finally, you don't get in; that is to say, when you are two-and-twenty, your chance of getting any appointment, whatever, in the public service is at an end."

"Then interest has nothing to do with it?"

"Well, yes. There are a few berths in the Foreign Office, for example, in which a man has to get a nomination before going in for the exam; but of course the age limit tells there, as well as in any other."