In one portion of this campaign it has been related that for two hours a company of the Seaforths were engaged with a great number of the Dervishes, and as their ammunition had run short, they were compelled to use the bayonet. “Not one shot was fired,” says an eye-witness, “for two hours, and yet the greatest and most serious losses amongst the enemy occurred during the time when the Seaforths were getting in with the bayonet.” At Omdurman, in that great charge of the Dervishes, it became impossible to check them altogether, and so heavy was the fire that the rifles of the Cameron Highlanders became too hot to hold. To avert a repulse the curious spectacle was seen of men carrying and exchanging rifles with the reserve lines behind.
The stand made by the Dervishes has earned the praise of G. W. Steevens, who witnessed it. “Our men,” he says, “were perfect, but the Dervishes were superb—beyond perfection. It was their largest, best, and bravest army that ever fought against us for Mahdism, and it died worthily of the huge empire that Mahdism won and kept so long.” They lost, roughly, 11,000 men killed with 16,000 wounded; and with the battle of Omdurman came the end of the long struggle in the Soudan, and not only that, but the avenging of the death of Gordon.
The losses amongst the two Highland regiments, and indeed the British force as a whole, were trifling for such a hard-fought action.
Whatever else the Highland regiments may have been asked to face before or since—for whirlwind fury and deathless courage, for wild disturbing swiftness and noisy violence, nothing could surpass a Dervish charge.
Troops that can meet that without wavering—front, rear, and flank—need have no qualms for the future exigencies of war.
CHAPTER XXIII CHITRAL AND THE GORDONS AT DARGAI (1895-1898)
Come gather, come gather, ye lads o’ the heather, An’ down thro’ the glen in the pipers’ wake; Baith gentles and commons, gie heed tae the summons, An’ haste tae the muster make. Macpherson’s comin’, Cameron’s comin’, Campbell, MacNeill, an’ the men o’ the island; An’ a’ tae enlist in the Gordons, the best, An’ the brawest o’ lads in the Highlands.
We must now return to the year 1895, to follow one of those little wars that flare up intermittently on the frontiers of our vast Empire, and accompany the Gordons through the campaign that is best known for the dramatic moment at Dargai. Minor campaigns such as these are not of the first importance from the military point of view, nor should the name of a great regiment be associated too closely with a single episode, but they have this value, that they have enabled our soldiers to keep in training for great and laborious campaigns such as the Boer War, already looming dark upon the horizon of history.