The army were now dependent for their existence on the
partly finished railway, from the head of which supplies were conveyed
by an elaborate system of camel transport. Every week the line grew,
Railhead moved forward, and the strain upon the pack animals diminished.
But the problem of feeding the field army without interfering with the
railway construction was one of extraordinary intricacy and difficulty.
The carrying capacity of the line was strictly limited. The worn-out
engines frequently broke down. On many occasions only three were in
working order, and the other five undergoing 'heavy repairs' which might
secure them another short span of usefulness. Three times the construction
had to be suspended to allow the army to be revictualled. Every difficulty
was, however, overcome. By the beginning of May the line to Kenna was
finished, and the whole of the Railway Battalion, its subalterns and its
director, turned their attention to a greater enterprise.
In the first week in December the Sirdar returned from England with
instructions or permission to continue the advance towards Khartoum,
and the momentous question of the route to be followed arose. It may at
first seem that the plain course was to continue to work along the Nile,
connecting its navigable reaches by sections of railway. But from Merawi
to Abu Hamed the river is broken by continual cataracts, and the broken
ground of both banks made a railway nearly an impossibility.
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