"We arrived at Kerreri about 12 noon, and found a village on the river with much open ground to our front and south-west, with a conical hill standing up in the plain about two miles to the south. We settled down to eat in the village, and in about an hour our cavalry sent in to say that the Khalifa's army was on the march from Omdurman towards us in three bodies, a centre and two wings. As soon as we had had our food, we set to work to get our troops into position in a kind of semicircle round the village, and strengthened ourselves with a zariba and trench, where zariba thorns were unprocurable; this we finished by dark, and then sat down to eat and sleep. The night passed quietly. The Khalifa missed a chance of doing us much damage by not attacking at night, but luckily he did not disturb us. "At 3.30 a.m. we stood to our arms, ready for an attack at dawn. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and I had been up most of the time, watching my line and inspecting the patrols, etc. About six in the morning of the 2nd we got intelligence that the Khalifa's army was coming on, and presently they began to pour across the open ground about two miles off, yelling like demons, apparently an endless stream of men and horses. I have never seen anything like it--banners flying all along the line, guns firing, etc. For an hour they kept pouring along in thousands, and suddenly the centre of the mass turned, and came straight for us. I made all my men lie down, so that nothing could be seen of us except our zariba fence. As soon as they got within range, about 2,300 yds., we opened {211} fire with all our guns, rifles, and Maxims, and a hail of lead fell on the army; but they were impervious to any influences of this kind, and kept pressing on and on till we literally mowed them down by hundreds. After about three-quarters of an hour, the ground was strewn with dead and dying, and then, as our fire did not slacken, they began to turn and go, but only at a walk, no running about it. [Sidenote: The great fight]