The picture--true or false--flamed before the eyes of all the leaders
that night; but, whatever their thoughts may have been, their tactics were
bold. Whatever advice was given, whatever opinions were expressed, the
responsibility was Sir Herbert Kitchener's. Upon his shoulders lay the
burden, and the decision that was taken must be attributed solely to him.
He might have formed the army into a solid mass of men and animals,
arranged the infantry four deep all round the perimeter, and dug as big a
ditch or built as high a zeriba as time allowed. He might have filled the
numerous houses with the infantry, making them join the buildings with
hasty entrenchments, and so enclose a little space in which to squeeze
cavalry, transport, and guns. Instead he formed his army in a long thin
curve, resting on the river and enclosing a wide area of ground, about
which baggage and animals were scattered in open order and luxurious
accommodation. His line was but two deep; and only two companies per
battalion and one Egyptian brigade (Collinson's) were in reserve. He thus
obtained the greatest possible development of fire, and waited, prepared
if necessary to stake everything on the arms of precision, but hoping
with fervour that he would not be compelled to gamble by night.
The night was, however, undisturbed; and the moonlit camp,
with its anxious generals, its weary soldiers, its fearful machinery of
destruction, all strewn along the bank of the great river, remained plunged
in silence, as if brooding over the chances of the morrow and the failures
of the past.
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