For Fortune and Glory: A Story of the Soudan WarHough, Lewis
History
For Fortune and Glory: A Story of the Soudan War
Hough, Lewis
Great Britain -- History, Military -- 19th century -- Fiction; Sudan -- History -- 1881-1899 -- Fiction
But they were not disturbed, and rested till noon on the 12th, when
dinner was eaten, and after it, at 1 p.m., they started once more to
find the foe. As you draw cover after cover to find a fox, so in the
desert you try watering-places when you are seeking game of any kind,
quadruped or biped. And thus information was obtained that Osman Digna
had a camp where all his forces were massed at Tamai, a valley well
supplied with the precious fluid, nine miles from the zereba.
Once more was theory knocked over by experience. If there is one thing
upon which most people feel quite confident about with regard to Egypt
and the surrounding country, it is that the atmosphere is always
perfectly clear, so that objects are only hidden from the eye by
intervening high ground or the curve of the earth. For, as you probably
know, anything on a (so called) level surface like the sea may be
visible if the atmosphere allows it for ten miles, to a man on the same
plane the shore say; but beyond that distance it gets so far round the
globe we inhabit as to be hidden. Of course the taller it is the longer
the top of it can be seen, as you will often perceive a ship's top masts
after the hull and lower spars have vanished.
Or, on the other hand, the higher the ground you stand on the further
round the earth's curve you can see; so that a man living on the top of
a high mountain has a longer day than one on a flat, since the sun rises
earlier and sets later for him.
But it was neither high ground nor the dip of the horizon which bounded
the view of those quitting the zereba, but a thick, grey, British haze,
which swallowed up everything a thousand yards in front, and out of
which the Arab hosts might pour at any moment. The order of advance was
different on this occasion, two squares instead of one being formed, the
right under General Buller, and the left being commanded by General
Davis. The guns were dragged with ropes by men of the Naval Brigade--a
tug of war with a vengeance. The haze being so thick would have made it
difficult to go straight for the enemy's position had the information
been as uncertain as was sometimes the case, but happily it had been
ascertained that if they took a south-west course they could not go far
wrong, and the compass came to their aid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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