Yet he needed Slatin.
He was alone. He had no one in whose military capacity he could put the
slightest confidence. Again and again in the Journals he expresses his
want of trustworthy subordinates. He could not be everywhere, he said.
'Nearly every order has to be repeated two or three times. I am weary
of my life.' 'What one has felt so much here is the want of men
like Gessi, or Messadaglia, or Slatin, but I have no one to whom
I could entrust expeditions. . . . .'
This was the man who would have employed Zubehr and bowed to expediency.
But Zubehr had never 'denied his Lord.'
The actual defence of Khartoum is within the province of the Journals,
nor shall I attempt a chronological account. After the 1Oth of September,
when General Gordon sent Colonel Stewart and Messrs. Power and Herbin
down the river in the ill-fated Abbas steamer, he was altogether alone.
Many men have bowed to the weight of responsibility. Gordon's
responsibility was undivided. There was no one to whom he could talk
as an equal. There was no one to whom he could--as to a trusty
subordinate--reveal his doubts. To some minds the exercise of power
is pleasant, but few sensations are more painful than responsibility
without control. The General could not supervise the defence. The officers
robbed the soldiers of their rations. The sentries slumbered at their
posts. The townspeople bewailed their misfortunes, and all ranks and
classes intrigued with the enemy in the hope of securing safety when the
town should fall.
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