nor main body thought of challenging. In an instant a mounted
Baggara dashed past the sentries and ran plump against a corner of the
company bowling over two or three men. Whether it was a deliberate
madcap charge, or the fellow was bolting from the other battalions and
lost his way is never likely to be known. Possibly he did not
anticipate finding British troops three-quarters of a mile from the
river. At any rate he dropped or threw his spear wildly, then,
wheeling about, galloped back into darkness almost before the fact
that he was an enemy had been realised. The men's rifles were
unloaded, so the dervish was not fired upon. And had they been
loaded, under the circumstances even then the officer, as he informed
me, would have hesitated to shoot, lest he should unnecessarily alarm
the whole camp. The spear left behind by the dervish horseman was one
of the lighter barbed-edge kind.

Um Terif camp was not a pleasant location. There was overflowed land
between the troops and the river, and the ground we had to bivouac
upon was rough. On Monday morning, the 29th August, before full dawn,
four squadrons of Egyptian horse and four companies of Tudway's Camel
Corps proceeded on a reconnaissance towards the Kerreri. The
twin-screw gunboat "Melik" also steamed up the river a few miles, but
neither quest resulted in adding much to the information already
possessed as to the Khalifa's intentions and exact whereabouts.
Whether or not we were to have our first battle at Kerreri none knew.
The fact was that during the night there had been a violent
thunderstorm accompanied by wind and rain. Daylight came with a
cessation of rain but the gale blew steadily from the south, raising
quite a sea on the Nile and a fog of sand and dust on land. It was
impossible to see or move any distance with security, and that was no
doubt the cause why the reconnaissances in both instances drew blank.

Formal councils of war were rare events during the campaign. A chat
with his officers, the eliciting of their opinions off-hand and a
watchful pair of eyes in every direction early and late, was enough
for the Sirdar. The delays caused by the storms however were becoming
embarrassing, and it was certain the men's health would suffer if
they were compelled to linger much longer _en route_. Still it was
well to be quite ready before pushing in to attack the Khalifa whose
large army, it was reported, would fight desperately. At a council of
war held o