Suakin, 1885/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
LANDING.
The dawn was just breaking on Sunday, the 8th of March, as the barges came alongside to put us ashore. It was a most lovely morning, and the air so clear and bright that one could distinguish every feature in the mountains miles away inland. The sun was just showing itself above the horizon as we landed at one of the piers of Quarantine Island, and even at this early hour gave promise of the heat of the coming day. My company was sent on with a guide to show us where our camping ground was to be. We marched along the field railway for about a mile, leaving the town of Suakin behind us; and as we advanced H.M.S, Dolphin opened fire over our heads at some groups of the enemy five miles away on the desert. We could see the great shells pitch and throw the sand up into the air thirty or forty feet high.
The mounted infantry were also out skirmishing; and the first intimation we had that real work had begun was passing a man lying in a dhoolie, and wounded in both arms.
Turning to the left off the field railway, we marched along parallel with the earthworks of the town and about a mile from them, till at length we were halted on a bare piece of sandy desert—just a sample of the country for miles and miles, except that there was no scrub—and told that we were to start marking out our camp, and that tents would shortly be sent out to us. We accordingly piled arms and let the men take off their kits, as it was uncommonly hot.
We had provided each of our men with a piece of bread and a quarter of a pound of cheese; so this, with a suck from a water-bottle, made an excellent breakfast. We had to wait a long while before our tents made their appearance, and it was ten o'clock before the first string of camels arrived with a part of them. We were all soon at work, though, and in a couple of hours we had transformed our bare patch of sand into a smart camp, all alive with the hum of many voices and the bustle of men getting everything ship-shape.
Our tents were certainly excellent, and were those known in India as "European privates'." These tents are made of a thick white cotton fabric, and are double, so that, I think, no sun could ever get through them. The roof of the tent is supported by two stout bamboo poles standing about six feet apart, and there is a space of a foot or more between the two thicknesses composing it, both of which are again lined, the outer one with a deep maroon-coloured material, and the inner one with a pale yellow. A wooden bar connects the two poles, and forms a useful place for hanging things upon. The walls of the tent are about four feet high, and are made in four pieces. There are thus four doorways to the tent, each having an awning over it, which is fastened to the roof and supported by two bamboo sticks. This awning can be let down and the walls closed in at night if desired. As we had expected to find ourselves under double bell tents of the home pattern, we were agreeably surprised. We were four officers in a tent, so had plenty of room, the inside measuring about eighteen feet by twenty-three. The men were about twenty in a tent.
We arranged our tent in this way—a camp bed in each corner, with our kit-bags and spare bandage along the walls. We drew an ordinary deal barrack table out of store and put this on one side of the pole bar; on the other side was our mess-box, the top of which served for a sideboard. Our swords, belts, and water-bottles we hung on pole straps, and the floor we carpeted with the sacks in which the tent was packed on the march. We had each brought a camp-stool, so these completed our furniture and added materially to our comfort.
About noon some mules arrived, bringing our rations of bouilli beef and biscuit—also some ten-gallon tins of water. This was all very quickly served out and swallowed too. The bouilli beef is the ordinary tinned stuff, and always went by the name of "iron rations," to distinguish it from fresh-meat rations, which we got sometimes twice a week. The biscuit is very nasty, and quite uneatable unless stewed in some way, as it is as hard as steel. We always used to stew our beef and biscuit up together, putting in any fresh vegetables we could get—such as potatoes and onions, and occasionally some pumpkin. This concoction we called "soup;" and precious nasty soup it was too, even when swamped in Worcester sauce, or eaten with chutney or pickles, of which we had brought a plentiful supply. On days when we had no fresh vegetables served out, we had at first each a ration of lime-juice, which was excellent stuff, to my thinking.
In the afternoon I went into the town and had a look round, and much to my delight found one or two houses where all manner of tinned provisions were sold. These were kept by enterprising Englishmen, and a wonderful business they must have done with us soldiers. The best one was Ross's, but there were others which fell little short of this. It was here I discovered some really good white bread, which I promptly bought and carried back to camp in triumph. There was, however, not much use in buying this afterwards, as the ration bread served out to us was very good, though rather bitter, and we always had plenty of it.
By the time I got back to camp our horses had all come in, and were being picketed in rear of our tents. Some of them looked a bit tucked up after their voyage; but this was not to be wondered at, as they had had a roughish time of it They all pulled round but two, both these having been very bad at sea.
I ought not to omit to mention that during the interval two men arrived in camp, of foreign and uncertain origin, bringing with them something which always appeals at once to the soldier's heart—a barrel, of beer! Having obtained leave to sell to the men, the amount being limited to a pint a man, they very soon came to the end of their barrel, no doubt with a handsome profit to themselves. The cask bore the homely and familiar name of "Bass," but the liquid that issued from the tap would have astonished any member of that excellent firm; it was dark in colour, as thick as pea-soup, and as sweet as treacle—which last, indeed, it rather resembled. But Thomas Atkins is not to be denied; beer is beer to him, and he is not over particular about the taste, more especially when the cask is labelled "Bass," and he is four thousand miles away from home and in the middle of the desert.
Having watered our horses and posted our guard and sentries, we had another turn at the "soup," and then lay down for the night in happy ignorance of any danger. We heard a few shots about eleven o'clock in the direction of the 70th camp, and in the morning were told they had had two men wounded and one killed. This was the first of those memorable night attacks which were afterwards the cause of so much misery to us. I don't think any of us got much sleep after our hard day's work, for the heat was tremendous, and I lay all night with the perspiration pouring off me. The first part of the nights were generally very hot, as the wind which blew in from the sea during the day dropped altogether. Towards morning it became quite cold, and one was glad to get under a blanket
The next morning we were up before light, and out and about getting everything into its place. We generally had a cup of hot coffee or cocoa at half-past five or six o'clock, and then breakfast about eight, when there was more soup for those that liked it; but I am thankful to say we had brought plenty of sardines and potted meats with us, so there was an alternative.
At this time the force was composed as follows: The 70th (East Surrey), who were encamped about half a mile to our left front and close to the Right Water Fort; their camp, like ours, being completely isolated from the rest of the force. To our right front and about a mile away lay the 49th (Berkshire), and behind them were the Royal Marines and a battery of Horse Artillery. Further in rear still was the Headquarter camp, and between us and them lay the Medical Staff camp at "H Redoubt"
The Indian Brigade was on the south side of the town; our camp was all on the north-west side.
The Medical Staff were at this time under single bell tents, and suffered severely from the sun, I never saw fellows more sunburnt in so short a time, for they had only arrived the previous day; and some of them came over to us, complaining bitterly about it, as well they might. One of the newspaper reporters mentioned this in his telegram home, but the press censor struck it out as not the case. Seeing is believing, however, and there were the single bell tents right enough. Even at home in summertime a bell tent is almost unbearable, but under a tropical sun it must have been frightful, and never ought to have been allowed for a moment. They had a few double bell tents, but the sun came through these just as severely as through the single ones.
Our camping-ground was by no means well chosen; it was down in a hollow to begin with, and therefore damp. The sand, so close to the sea as we were, and on so low a level, is full of salt, and in the mornings the floor of the tent was always quite wet. The first night we hung our clothes up in the tent, and the next morning they were all wet through from the moisture rising from the ground. Only one of us was foolish enough to put his clothes on in this state, and suffered by getting a sharp touch of fever. After this we always, when we did undress—which was not often—put our clothes under our air pillows, and thus kept them dry. Another unpleasant fact connected with our camp was, that it was quite close to the Arab burial-ground, and there were some hundreds of graves within sixty yards of our tents. As the Arabs do not bury their dead very far beneath the surface, but rather on the top of the ground, with a covering of stones over the bodies, the atmosphere at nights was unpleasantly loaded with the foulest odours. This, one would have thought, was hardly a healthy spot in a hot climate for even a temporary camp.
Of course, we all very soon had the skin burnt off our faces, not only by the direct heat of the sun, but by the refraction from the sand, which is almost as bad. One thing which nearly all of us suffered from was sore lips. Our lower lips would swell up to an enormous size and then break and fester. It was very painful, but when once cured we were not troubled again in this way, A good thick moustache was the best preventative, and I am sure a beard protected one's face a great deal. Some few of us shaved, but nearly all let their hair grow. With all due deference to the remarks in "our only General's" (?) pocket-boot, that it takes as long to clean a beard as to shave one off, I am inclined to think that a beard is by far the best thing on service. If cut once a week and kept short it is no trouble at all to keep clean. Another thing most of us did was to have our hair cut off quite short to the head, but I am not sure that this was a good thing. It was cooler and more easily kept clean, certainly; but in a hot climate a good crop of hair is a protection from the sun, hair being a non-conductor of heat.
Two battalions of the Guards arrived to-day (9th), and marched out to their camping-ground on the side of the field railway just beyond the 49th camp and in the direction of the West Redoubt. The camp of the Guards Brigade was at this time at right angles to the general run of the rest of the camp and in advance of it.
The next day there were more arrivals, and, in fact, all this week there was a constant stream of great transports coming into harbour full of either troops or stores. Gradually the whole of this side of Suakin was turned into one great town of white canvas, and unoccupied ground in the morning was ere night transformed into a scene of busy life. Long strings of camels were to be seen traversing the desert in all directions, bringing up supplies of all sorts to the camp from Quarantine Island. Fatigue parties were marching here and there, or toiling under the burning sun. Mounted orderlies galloped over the plain, and generals and staff officers visited the different detached camps and inspected the fresh arrivals. Down at Quarantine Island there was indeed a busy scene. There men of all nationalities worked night and day like great swarms of bees, unloading the transports as they arrived in quick succession one after the other—at one time full of stores and equipment, at another of forage and fuel; at a third, perhaps full of camels from Berbera or India, when each camel had to be slung up from the hold and swung over the side.
At last Quarantine Island contained something of all sorts—tons of railway plant, camel-saddles in thousands, harness, gigantic cases full of clothing and equipment, mountains of compressed hay, camels, mules, horses, tents, ammunition, and a thousand other things, a list of which would fill a volume. We had to work and toil, to be sure, from daybreak to sunset, in the sweltering heat of that foul harbour, the air filled with dust and the sickening odours from the fœtid swamps around, with the shouts of the niggers as they slaved in a state of nudity, and with the roar of steam and the scrunch and rattle of a hundred donkey-engines!
Those were days not easily to be forgotten; there were stirring times coming, and we all worked cheerily and merrily enough as we looked forward to the day of the general advance, and the chance of a good fight with Osman Digna and his hardy followers.
The most disagreeable part of the work at Quarantine Island was unloading the camels. These long-suffering creatures are by no means sweet at any time, more especially after having been crowded up in the hold of a ship, where red mange has spread among them, and where fleas and ticks have multiplied innumerably. Our camels were from all parts. The finest to look at were those from India. They were much taller than either the Egyptian or the Berbera camels, some of them being nine feet to the top of the hump, and were able to carry heavier loads; but for all this they were nothing like so handy as the Berbera camels with their Aden drivers. We could form these up in lines of twenty and march them abreast, but the Indian camels were generally marched four in a string, one behind the other, and thus it was difficult to close them up so as to occupy as little ground as possible. The camel is a curious sort of beast, and he gives one the impression of being in a chronic condition of low spirits. He grunts and moans in a doleful way when made to lie down or stand up, and at night gives vent to the most awful sounds, something between the roar of a bull and the grunt of a boar. As to his capabilities as a beast of burden, he is, no doubt, admirably suited to the ordinary requirements of desert travelling; but many of us thought we should have done better had we had more mules. The Indian brigade did the greater part of their own transport work with mules during the campaign, and of course we had many hundreds too, chiefly from Cyprus, and driven by natives from that island. Our ammunition column was composed almost entirely of mules. An average camel carries a load of four hundred pounds, and though an Indian camel can carry more than this, it is unadvisable ever to attempt to overload him. We found three hundred pounds quite enough for the little Berbera animals, and also for the Egyptian, some of which last were too small and too young to be of any use, and never ought to have been bought even at a push. Loading a camel is not so easy a thing as it sounds, and though it depends mainly on balance, it depends also greatly upon the position of the load, and the lashing of the load in the celita to the saddle; unless great care is taken, a sore back will ensue, and the camel be rendered useless for some considerable length of time.
Many people labour under the idea that a camel can and will, with comparative comfort to himself, go for a considerable length of time without water. That he can do so I do not wish for one moment to deny, but that he does so only with a corresponding loss of power was apparent to us all at Suakin.
General Gordon has stated that in his experience camels have lived without water for as long a period as nine days; there is, however, no doubt that when in hard work and hot weather camels should, whenever it is possible, be watered twice a day. Seven to eight gallons a day is a fair allowance for them, but this may be greatly increased with advantage.
Many of our camels were driven with the ordinary nose-rope and nose-peg, but I think this unnecessarily cruel, and though it is a check on refractory animals, I see no reason why an ordinary running nose-band should not be amply sufficient. Some of our camels were vicious, but not many of them; a few were kickers. The bite of a camel is very severe, and their kick, even with their soft feet, is quite sufficient to break a man's leg. When you see a camel open his mouth and give vent to a loud gurgling sound, a large red-coloured inflated bag as big as a good-sized melon appearing at the same time from his throat, my advice would be, to those who are strangers to camels, to stand off! A well-bred camel may be known by the fineness of his coat and the smallness of his hind feet.
The camels from India came accompanied by native drivers, and a certain number of transport officers from the Indian Transport Staff. These drivers were a mixed lot, and for the most part understood their business well. They worked well enough under officers who could speak to them in good round Hindustani, but one would have to be a linguist indeed to speak to each different class of drivers in his own language. There were among them natives from all parts of India—Punjabees, Sidiboys, Bengalees, Scindees, Pathans, Hindoos, and sundry others.
The Aden drivers, Soumalis, with the camels from Berbers, were hardy fellows, and of course well used to the climate, caring as little for the sun as the Arabs themselves. You would see them going along with their camels during the hottest hours of the day with no covering to their shaven heads, and no garments except the white cloth round their waists.
It was curious to count up the number of different languages one heard spoken in and, about Suakin at this time. Besides English, French, Portuguese, and Italian, there were amongst others the following; Turkish, Arabic, Somali, Greek, Armenian, Hindustani, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Mahrathi, and Fukhtu.
There was another native Indian corps—the Bhisti corps, water-carriers, composed mostly of Punjabee Mussulmans and Punjabee Hindoos. These were capital fellows to work, and did good service.
We often used to talk, as we looked round on all these vast preparations and this great concourse of men of all sorts and conditions, on the enormous outlay of money that was being spent without stint, on the toil and sickness and death around us, and we used to wonder then what it was all for. We knew that, being soldiers, we went where we were told, and did what we were told when we got there, but beyond this I do not believe there was a man in the whole of this magnificent force who could have given you any intelligible reason for which we were fighting, if indeed his ingenuity enabled him to give you any reason at all.
And yet there we were, a picked force, armed with every scientific means to effect our end—everything, from an air balloon, with its gas compressed and brought all the way from Chatham, to mule batteries of screw-guns, Gardners, and rockets, and to rifles of the most perfect pattern and greatest rapidity of fire. And all this to war against what? A foe worthy of our steel? Yes, undoubtedly yes. Armed? Yes; but with spears of the rudest make, with swords of the days of the Crusaders, with shields of crocodile skin, and with a certain number of Remington rifles which they scarce knew how to use. A foe fighting with all the wild pluck and determination of their race, and supported by a fanaticism which turned them into men who courted death for two reasons—first, because it transferred them to a happier land; and secondly, because they preferred it a thousand times to a life which might show them their freedom gone, their land wrested from them, and their race decimated.