The General marched the greater part of the way on foot, and made use of his spare horses to mount footsore men. When questioned on this point, he gave the following reply in a letter: "With regard to my doing our long march on foot, it was nothing to me; troops necessarily march slowly, and it is pleasanter and less fatiguing (not to speak of its being a better example) for me to walk all the way. I always had my horse with me, and I constantly had to get on to go to the head of the column, or the tail, to see if all was going right, and this made a nice change." The distance from Railhead to El Hassa, just {197} short of Berber, was sixty-five to seventy miles, and this journey was accomplished between 10 p.m. on Saturday and 11 p.m. on Tuesday--seventy-three hours. Another fifteen miles on Thursday completed the march to Dabeika. This concentration had its effect on the enemy, who gave up any idea of attacking the Sirdar on the Nile, and the camp was unmolested for the next three weeks. Some critics have on this account made out that Gatacre overtaxed his troops in bringing them along at an unnecessary pace in such a climate; but surely the measure of the necessity for rapidity lies in the danger which this junction averted rather than in the security which it brought about. Moreover, it was the Sirdar on the spot who decided and gave orders: the General carried them out. At the time he wrote of it as a race between himself and Mahmoud. {198} CHAPTER XIII 1898 ATBARA AND OMDURMAN [Sidenote: Combined force]