At all points the troops broke into the enclosure. Behind the
stockade there ran a treble trench. The whole interior was honeycombed
with pits and holes. From these there now sprang thousands of Dervishes,
desperately endeavouring to show a front to the attack. Second-Lieutenant
Gore, a young officer fresh from Sandburst, was shot dead between the thorn
fence and the stockade. Other officers in the Lincoln and the Warwickshire
regiments sustained severe wounds. Many soldiers were killed and wounded
in the narrow space. These losses were general throughout the assaulting
brigades. In the five minutes which were occupied in the passage of the
obstruction about four hundred casualties occurred. The attack continued.
The British brigade had struck the extremity of the north front of
the zeriba, and thus took the whole of the eastern face in enfilade,
sweeping it with their terrible musketry from end to end, and strewing
the ground with corpses. Although, owing to the lines of advance having
converged, there was not room for more than half the force to deploy,
the brigades pushed on. The conduct of the attack passed to the company
commanders. All these officers kept their heads, and brought their
companies up into the general line as the front gradually widened and
gaps appeared. So the whole force--companies, battalions, even brigades--
mixed up together and formed in one dense, ragged, but triumphant line,
marched on unchecked towards the river bed, driving their enemies in
hopeless confusion before them.
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