(The writer desires to acknowledge the use he has made of the excellent narrative of events contained in _The Egyptian Campaigns_, by the Hon. Charles Royle.) {221} CHAPTER XXIV THE SOUDAN WAR (_Continued_) II. HOW WE BROUGHT THE BOATS THROUGH THE GREAT GATE In January, 1884, General Gordon was entrusted by the British and Egyptian Governments with the impossible task of evacuating the Soudan and of organising its future internal administration, in the face of a vast horde of armed fanatics. In April, the investment of Khartoum, in which Gordon was shut up, was complete. In May, preparations for war were begun in England and in Egypt. It was not, however, until 8th August that Lord Hartington informed General Stephenson, commanding the British Army of Occupation in Egypt, that measures would be taken to relieve Gordon. During the same month the whale-boats for the Nile route were ordered. On 26th August General Stephenson was informed that Lord Wolseley would command the expedition. In August, while I was staying with the Duke of Fife at Mar Lodge, I was appointed to Lord Wolseley's Staff. I sailed with Lord Wolseley and the rest of his Staff. We arrived at Alexandria on 9th September, 1884, and went on to Cairo, where we lodged in the Palace on the Shoobra Road. Here were Lord Wolseley, General Sir Redvers Buller, Colonel Swaine, Major Wardrop and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, A.D.C. to Buller. Sir Evelyn Wood and Commander Hammill were already up the Nile {222} organising transport and supply. General Sir Herbert Stewart and General Earle were at Wady Halfa. It is not my intention to relate the history of the war, which has been admirably recorded in the various works dealing with the subject; but rather to narrate my personal experiences during the campaign. And the reader will also be left to his own consideration of the contemporary affairs of the great world: the marrying and giving in marriage, losses and gains, desires foiled and ambitions achieved, the shifts and intrigues and gossip of domestic politics, the portentous manoeuvres upon the clouded stage of international drama: all of which, to the sailors and soldiers of the forlorn hope strung along the gigantic reaches of the Nile, toiling and fighting in the desert, went by as though it had never been. It is an old story now; very many of my gallant comrades have passed away; but the record of their courage and endurance remains, and shall remain.