A Prisoner of the Khaleefa/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
PREPARING TO RECEIVE THE GUNBOATS
When I returned to the Saier in November, 1897, it was as a visitor — a distinguished one at that. I was told that I was only to remain there until my quarters in the Beit-el-Mal were ready for occupation, when I was to leave the prison and continue the construction of the powder-and cartridge-machines, to the completion of which the Khaleefa and Yacoub were looking forward with no little interest and anxiety. But once inside the gates of the Saier, Osta Abdallah and Khaleel Hassanein determined to keep me there, and succeeded in doing so. When Awwad-el-Mardi again interested himself on my behalf, these worthies succeeded in persuading Yacoub that Awwad's interest in me was sure evidence of his sympathies with the Government, and their schemes ended by Awwad also being sent into the prison with threats of what would happen to him if he attempted to hold any intercourse with me.
It was possibly a week after entering the prison that Umm es Shole came in to say that she had seen and spoken to Onoor Issa, who had not left Omdurman —
| 1. | Mohammed Sirri, formerly telegraph clerk at Berber. He, with Hassan Bey Hassanein, cut the Khalifa's communications. | 5. | Osman Bey Daali, Commandant of Irregular troops in Sennaar. | 9. | Mohammed Farag, former officer of Dara troops. |
| 2. | Morgan Torjin, Imprisoned for two years for telling the Khaleefs that he insisted on being allowed to smoke tobacco and drink Marissa. | 6. | Hassan Bey Hassanein. | 10. | Rhubrian Baalbal, clerk to Upton. |
| 3. | Khalil Agha Orphali. | 7. | Sheikh Ali Toulba formerly of the Khartoum Medrassa (college). | 11. | Sheikh Tahrer Farrag, Kassala Medrassa (college). |
| 4. | Said Ben Gumaa. | 8. | Ahmed Riad formerly head clerk of Slatin at Dara. He it was who wrote the letters calling Said Gummaa to submit to the Mahdi, and who accompanied Slatin to Zoghal when Dara was surrendered. | 12. | Ahmed Yusef Kandeel, clerk to Wad Nejoumi. |
| 13. | Hassa Bey Abdel Minain, president of the Court of Appeal at Khartoum. |
the same Onoor whose return I had looked for so anxiously during the time of the transfer of the arsenal from Khartoum, when each day bristled with opportunities for successful flight! Fearing that he might play me false, and hand the notes I had given him to the Khaleefa as an earnest of his loyalty to him, I sent off Umm es Shole, and told her to say that I had a few notes to add to the letters which I had given him. Onoor at once suspected my reasons for sending for them, and replied that he was not pleased with my want of confidence in him, that he had a permit to proceed to Suakin for trade, but, having fallen under suspicion, he had so far been prevented from leaving, though he hoped to be able to leave any day. Upon this I again trusted him, and added the following to my notes, sending them out to him as soon as it was written :—
It was not until the end of December that Onoor succeeded in obtaining permission to leave Omdurman; and then hurrying to Suakin, he handed in my notes to the commandant there, returning six months later with his thanks for the information given and money to keep me going. It is passing strange that my trouble in collecting information about the forts, writing to the advancing army, and giving what details I could, should have given those on the way to Omdurman the impression that it was "Neufeld's forts" which were being knocked to pieces. Even my good friend — that King of War Correspondents — Mr. Bennet Burleigh, was good enough to tell me that he believed I had designed and constructed them. They were all the work, from beginning to end, of Youssef Mansour.
At the time I am speaking of, the prison was filled with suspected sympathizers with the Government; the presence of Ibrahim Pasha Fauzi and Awwad-el-Mardi "has already been alluded to. Hogal, who should have accompanied me on the expedition to Kordofan, was also a prisoner; but it was three months before I was able to steal an interview with him — about the time of the anniversary of my capture — and then I learned, at almost the hour of my release, the real history of my capture. Our circle of "Government people" was added to daily; one of the most interesting additions being a party of sixteen or seventeen spies, amongst whom was Worrak from Dongola, Abdaila Mahassi from Derawi, Ajjail from Kassala, and others from Suakin. They had been betrayed by other spies; I have forgotten the names of the traitors, but it is of little moment now, as doubtless the betrayed settled up their accounts on the taking of Omdurman. The betrayer or betrayers were Dongolawi — perhaps the only coterie of thieves on earth who have no honour among themselves.
Whatever may have been the excitement and anxiety in other parts of the world concerning the Sirdar's advance, we had our share of both in Omdurman. Strange tales had reached us of offers of assistance sent to the Khaleefa to resist the advance of the troops. Shortly before I left Khartoum, a field-gun had arrived from the south as a present for the Khaleefa; it was accompanied by a limited supply of ammunition — brass cartridges carrying a shell in the same way as the rifle carries its bullet. One of the cartridges was sent to the Khartoum arsenal, to see if others could be made like it. Various tales were told concerning its origin; but as the gun must have been taken at the capture of Omdurman, its real history has no doubt been traced.
It was only when I met in prison Ibrahim Wad Hamza of Berber, and Hamed Wad-el-Malek, that I learned from them what had transpired when the King of Abyssinia sent an envoy to the Khaleefa asking his assistance against the Italians. The envoy had been brought to the Khartoum arsenal to inspect it, but I was not allowed to speak to him. An arrangement had been come to by which the Abyssinians were to open up trade routes from Gallabat, and send in so much coffee and other articles of food monthly, in return for the promised assistance of the Khaleefa in attacking the Italians; but the contributions or tribute was paid for a few months only, as another envoy came with offers of assistance against the advancing armies. He was the bearer of a flag which he asked the Khaleefa to fly, as the troops might not fire at it; the conferences, like all conferences between the Khaleefa and strangers, were held privately, but at the end of the last conference, the Khaleefa gave his reply in the presence of the Emirs and others, Handing back the flag, he said, "My mission is a holy and religious one; I trust to God for help and success; I do not want the help of Christians. If ever I required the help of man, the Mohammedan boy Abbas is nearer and better to me," and with this he waved the envoy and his companions off. The only construction we could place on the concluding sentence, was that the Khaleefa wished every one to understand that, sooner than accept the help of a Christian power, he would surrender to the Khedive, and this meant never, for he was looking forward to the day when he would erect his scaffolds in the Cairo citadel, and haul up the Khedive and "Burrin" (Lord Cromer) as his first victims. To the Soudanese, Lord Cromer, or "Burrin," as they mispronounced Baring, held the same relation to the Khedive as Yacoub did to the Khaleefa.
From the day Mahmoud started until the arrival of the victorious army in Omdurman, I was pestered with questions day and night; the Mahdists wished to know whether the advancing troops belonged to the sheikh who sent the troops for Gordon in 1884; those against Mahdieh wished to know if they belonged to the other sheikh. From the Arabic papers which found their way to Omdurman, the Soudanese had learned that there were two tribes in England, each led by powerful sheikhs; one, the sheikh of 1884, and the other the sheikh who had said that when he started there would be no coming back until he had "broken up" (smashed) Mahdieh. To the Mahdists, it was the troops who "ran away" who were coming again; to the "Government" people it was immaterial which sheikh was in power; British troops were advancing, and that was enough. At night our circle would sift and discuss all the tales we had heard during the day, and although we were filled with hope, anxiety and fear got the better of us on most occasions.
When Mahmoud was sent off, his instructions were to wait at Metemmeh, and do all in his power to harass the troops as they crossed the river; if strong enough to attack them, he was to do so, but if they were stronger, he was to retire gradually to Kerreri, where an old prophecy had foretold that the great battle was to take place. Mahmoud disobeyed these instructions, and crossed to the east bank, upon which the Khaleefa sent him orders not to remain in a zareeba or trenches, but to attack the infidels in the open. Hardly had the excitement caused by Mahmoud's defiance of the Khaleefa's orders died down, when the news came that he had attacked and annihilated the English army. But other news than this followed on its heels; we learned the truth from a band of about thirty-eight blacks wearing the Egyptian uniform. They were dervishes taken at Dongola and Abou Hamad, and drafted into the army. At the Atbara they deserted to the dervishes, but suspected of being spies, they were sent to the Saier. The whole truth came out when Osman Digna came back to Omdurman to report to the Khaleefa.
"What news have you brought me,and how fare the faithful?" inquired Abdullahi. "Master," replied Osman, "I led them to Paradise." Now, Osman had been doing this at every battle for years, and the Khaleefa's patience was exhausted; he wanted victories, and not pilgrimages of his best troops to the next world. ‘Then why did you not go with them?" retorted Abdullahi. "God," replied Osman, "had not ordained it so; He must have more work for me to do; when that work is finished, He will call me." It was well known to the Khaleefa, and every one else in the Soudan, that Osman had an excellent eye for a field of battle, and knew an hour before any one else did, when to make a bolt for it on a losing day. Osman's appearance was quite sufficient to let people understand that all the tales of victory on the side of the dervishes were false, and it was useless for the Khaleefa to try any longer to conceal the truth, but some explanation had to be given for the terrible rout of his army. It was all the doing of an outraged Deity. Mahmoud had disobeyed the orders transmitted through Abdullahi by the Prophet, and this was the result! As other stragglers came in, extraordinary tales were told of enormous steamers with enormous guns which fired "devils" and "lightning"; . this description probably referred to the rockets, which, I gathered, had ricochetted all over Mahmoud's camp, playing terrible havoc.
On the fall of Dongola, a Mograbin (from Tunis, or Algiers), named Nowraani, had offered his services to Yacoub, as a maker of torpedoes, and with these he said he could blow up every boat on the Nile. His offer at the time was refused, as the Khaleefa said that it was his intention to capture all these boats for himself; he did not wish them to be destroyed. But the tales which came in about them after the Atbara fight, showed that something must be done to secure them. Abdallah and Hassanein undertook to make a "boom" of chains across the Sabalooka (Shabluka) pass, and for this purpose almost every scrap of chain in Omdurman was collected. Their plan, as described to me, was as follows: the chains were to be laid across the stream, their ends made fast to posts on the opposite banks of the Nile. To prevent them from sinking to the bed of the stream, a series of large wooden buoys had been made, and these were to be fixed at intervals along the boom. It had been calculated that the buoys would, with the weight of the chains, be sunk just below the surface of the water, and also keep the chains in a series of loops; these loops were intended to entangle the paddles and propellers of the gunboats, and, while so entangled, Mansour's picked men were to shoot every one on board, and then, releasing the boats, bring them on to Omdurman. That was the arrangement.
Employed in the arsenal at the time was a man named Mohammad Burrai — a Government sympathizer, and a bitter enemy of Mansour and the others; he was entrusted with the attaching of the buoys at the fixed points in the boom. A few days after the boom was sent down the river, and, while I was "practising" the healing art at the gates of the prison, I received an interesting patient; it was Burrai, his head so wrapped up in cloths as to make him unrecognizable. He told me first of the arrangements made for the boom, and how he had succeeded in destroying it. The chains had been laid over the sterns of boats anchored in the Nile from bank to bank, and Burrai had fixed the buoys to them, but instead of making the buoys fast at these points, he merely slipped the rings round the boom so that the buoys could run from one end to the other. The word was given to slip the boom off the boats. The buoys with the force of the current were carried to the centre of the boom, and, with the resistance offered by them to the stream, the cables snapped and were lost. Burrai's object in coming to me will be divined; having been employed on the construction of the boom, he might, when the English arrived, be shot as a Mahdist, and he wished to tell me, as a "Government man," what he had done, so that I could speak up for him. This I promised to do.
There were no more chains left with which to make another boom, but those terrible boats must be stopped from coming to Omdurman, and Nowraani was sent for to explain his project again. He proposed to take two large tubular boilers, then lying at Khartoum, cut them in two, fill them with powder, seal up the open ends, and fire them by electricity as the boats passed over them. Sirri, the former telegraph-clerk at Berber, was asked to design the electrical apparatus, but he pleaded ignorance of such things. I was next sent to, to give my opinion as to the feasibility of Nowraani's plan. It was explained to me that each half of the boilers would contain thirty cantars (a ton and a half) of gunpowder; then it was mines, and not torpedoes, the man wished to make; however, the name "torpedo" was always used. I replied that I had heard, as Nowraani said, of torpedoes being used in the sea for the destruction of great ships, but had never heard of them being used in rivers, and I doubted his ability to make them. The Khaleefa was not satisfied with my answer, and sent word that he believed I could assist in the making of them, but would not. To this, again, I said I should be only too pleased to help Nowraani in his work, but what he proposed to do was very dangerous and risky. I said I felt sure that the only result would be an explosion while the torpedoes were being made, and that, while I did not mind being killed myself, I would not like to meet Allah responsible for the lives of others. Perhaps I made a mistake in putting forward religious scruples, for the Khaleefa never believed in my conversion; he took it for granted that I refused to help, and told the Saier to load me with an extra chain and bar.
Nowraani insisted that his plans were feasible, and a small experimental "torpedo" was ordered to be made; Mansour, Hassanein, and Abdallah superintended the work, which was carried out in almost absolute secrecy. When finished, the mine was taken over to the Blue Nile, made fast under a boat, and exploded. The result was most satisfactory — the boat being blown to matchwood, and a large column of mud and water thrown into the air, which was more impressive, evidently, than the destruction of the boat.
The "torpedoes" were ordered immediately, and men were kept working night and day for their completion; the boilers were cut in two, plates fitted to the open ends, wires and "strings," as it was described to me, fitted to mechanism in the interior, and in maybe a fortnight's time I learned that four big and one small torpedo were fastened to gyassas ready to be lowered into the stream, while others were being made. Again I received a visit from Burrai; he had
to assist in the laying of the mines, and wanted to know from me how they might be rendered useless. From his description of the wires and lines running in pairs, I came to the conclusion that electricity was to be the medium for their explosion, especially as Burrai's instructions were to take charge of these lines, pay them out as the torpedoes sank, and make the free ends of the line fast to posts, which had been fixed on the land just south of Khor Shamba. I told him that if either wire or string of the pairs of lines was broken, the torpedoes could not be fired, and suggested his giving a hard tug to one of the lines as soon as the "barrel" as he called the mines, was lowered to the bed of the stream.
What happened we know; how it happened we never shall. Burrai was seen on the Ismailia, which towed down the stone-laden gyassas with the torpedoes; the gyassas were to have a hole knocked in them, and the boat and torpedoes allowed to sink gradually. One torpedo had been lowered, and an explosion immediately followed. The boats with Nowraani and between thirty and forty men were blown to atoms; the Ismailia was blown in two — the stern floating a few yards down stream and sinking. Burrai was picked out of the water with the whole of the flesh of the calf of his left leg blown clear away, and also the flesh from his ribs on the left side. He lingered for seven days, asking repeatedly for me; but all that I was allowed to do was to send him carbolic acid for his wounds — I was not allowed to go and see him. To all inquiries as to how the accident happened he could, or would, only say that all he did was to pull in the slack of the lines, to prevent their becoming entangled.
Sorry as I am for poor Burrai's death, I cannot consider that I am in any way to blame for it; I can only think that some system of fuse, or detonator, had been fixed to the "torpedoes," and that the very action which I had suggested to render them useless had exploded them. About the time that the mines exploded, Onoor returned, or, at least, I received the news of his return, by receiving the letter and money he had brought from Suakin. Every one with leanings towards the Government was now coming to me in prison under one pretext or another, to give me information as to all that was going on; it was to their interest to do so, as to the end I was looked upon as an official. Owing to this, I was able to send out to Onoor slips of paper giving as nearly correct details as possible of the number of various arms possessed by the dervishes, the stock of ammunition, and the Khaleefa's plans as far as they were known. In one of my notes I informed the army of the explosion of the "torpedoes," and the existence of two other mines ready to be sent off, with details concerning the forts. I asked Onoor to get away with these as quickly as possible, and he promised to do so. I do not know who he handed these notes to, or whether he handed them over himself; he replies to my inquiries by writing me from Omdurman saying that he was arrested on the Nile by Osman Digna, but whether coming or going from the army it is impossible to say. My own opinion is that Onoor, not knowing how the day would go, remained in Omdurman the whole time. If the English won, his life was safe as a well-known spy; if the dervishes won, he was among his own people, and could take credit for having contributed towards the victory. He was not the only one in the Soudan who debated chances and probabilities as did Hassib Gabou, and Hogal when Gabou talked him over on April 1, 1887.
No sooner had my "latest intelligence" been sent off by Onoor, than an arsenal carpenter, Mohammad Ragheb, came to me on the subject of the remaining torpedoes. He had been ordered to assist in the laying of them, and was particularly anxious to learn from me how he might render them useless, and no less anxious that I should make a mental note of the fact so that I could say a "good word" for him if ever he was accused of trying to impede the advance of the "Government." Associated with him was a no particular friend of mine — Ali Baati, and others; but there was no mistaking their earnest desire and real anxiety to circumvent all the schemes of Mansour, Hassanein, and Abdallah in favour of the Government troops.
Ragheb could give me no more information as to the firing medium of the mines than could Burrai; all he could tell me was that the "barrels" had the wires wrapped two or three times round them to prevent their being pulled or dragged in removal. I suggested first that he should chip away any cement which he thought filled any hole or crevice; this would allow of the water penetrating. Next I suggested that he should, as the boats carrying the mines went down the river, try and "snip" any or all of the wires running round the "barrel," but cutting the wires in different places, so that the trick would not be discovered. Ragheb must have succeeded, for neither of the mines exploded, although Mansour had appointed people to fire them as the gunboats passed.
It is impossible for me, away from the spot where association would bring to memory the incidents of those stirring times, to remember the names of all who came to me asking what they might do to evidence, before the arrival of the troops, their loyalty to the Government, and. it must not be forgotten that they were running risks in fighting Mahdieh. It is but right that I should record the one or two striking examples which occur to me, especially in the face of my oftexpressed opinion that there are one or two released captives, who should not even be allowed the formality of a drum-head court-martial.