They had been marching and fighting for four days and three nights without sleep, and with very little food and water, and had lost a tenth of their number. That night we in the zeriba also slept. I remember very little about it, except that Lieutenant Charles Crutchley, Adjutant of the Guards' Camel Regiment, woke me twice and asked me for water. He made no complaint of any kind, and I did not know that he had been hit early in the day and that he had a bullet in his leg. General Crutchley, who was so kind as to {278} write to me in reply to my request that he would tell me what he remembers of the affair, says: "I remember lying on a stretcher that night, and people knocking against my leg, and that my revolver was stolen, I believe by one of the camel boys." Crutchley was carried down to the river by my bluejackets next day, and was taken into hospital. As I remember the occasion, he left the decision as to whether or not his leg should be amputated, to me. At any rate, the surgeon had no doubt as to the necessity of the operation, at which I was present. With his finger he flicked out of the wound pieces of bone like splinters of bamboo. The leg was buried, and was afterwards exhumed in order to extract the bullet from it. I think I remember that Crutchley, seeing it being carried across to the hospital, asked whose leg it was. He was carried upon a litter back to Korti, and the shaking of that terrible march made necessary a second operation, which was successful. Sir Charles Wilson's force, having bivouacked that night beside the Nile, were up at daybreak; took possession of the empty village of mud huts, called Abu Kru, but always known as Gubat, which stood on the gravel ridge sloping to the Nile, 780 yards from the river; and placed the wounded in Gubat under a guard. The force then returned to our zeriba. When we saw that gallant little array come marching over the distant hill-top, and through the scrub towards us, we cheered again and again. Hearty were our greetings. Our comrades, who had marched without breakfast, were speedily provided with a plentiful meal of bully-beef and tea. Then we all set to work to dismantle the zeriba, to collect the stores of which it was constructed and to sort them out, to mend the broken saddles, and load up the wretched camels, who had been knee-lashed and unable to move for twenty-four hours. About a hundred camels were dead, having been shot as they lay. As there were not enough camels to carry all the stores, a part of these were {279} left under an increased garrison inside the redoubt upon the knoll in rear of the zeriba, Major T. Davison in command. At midday we buried the dead, over whom I read the service, Sir Charles Wilson being present as chief mourner. The last of the wounded to be moved was Sir Herbert Stewart, so that he should be spared as much discomfort as possible. He was doing fairly well, and we then hoped that he would recover.