But it
seemed impossible to believe that they would attack by daylight across the
open ground. Two explanations of their advance and halt presented
themselves. Either they had offered battle in a position where they could
not themselves be attacked until four o'clock in the afternoon, and hoped
that the Sirdar's army, even though victorious, would have to fight a
rear-guard action in the darkness to the river; or they intended to make
a night attack. It was not likely that an experienced commander would
accept battle at so late an hour in the day. If the Dervishes were anxious
to attack, so much the worse for them. But the army would remain strictly
on the defensive--at any rate, until there was plenty of daylight.
The alternative remained--a night attack.
Here lay the great peril which threatened the expedition.
What was to be done with the troops during the hours of darkness? In the
daytime they recked little of their enemy. But at night, when 400 yards
was the extreme range at which their fire could be opened, it was a matter
of grave doubt whether the front could be kept and the attack repelled.
The consequences of the line being penetrated in the darkness were
appalling to think of. The sudden appearance of crowds of figures swarming
to the attack through the gloom; the wild outburst of musketry and
artillery all along the zeriba; the crowds still coming on in spite of the
bullets; the fire getting uncontrolled, and then a great bunching and
crumpling of some part of the front, and mad confusion, in which a
multitude of fierce swordsmen would surge through the gap, cutting and
slashing at every living thing; in which transport animals would stampede
and rush wildly in all directions, upsetting every formation and destroying
all attempts to restore order; in which regiments and brigades would shift
for themselves and fire savagely on all sides, slaying alike friend
and foe; and out of which only a few thousand, perhaps only a few hundred,
demoralised men would escape in barges and steamers to tell the tale
of ruin and defeat.
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