The Highlanders were some hundred and fifty yards from the Egyptian entrenchments, which were 6 feet high and 4 feet deep. Suddenly through the long night silence a bugle rang out, and with a cheer the Highland Brigade broke into a charge. Some 200 men fell before they reached the parapet, the losses being increased before they scaled the entrenchments. Alison had written that he never saw men fight more steadily than the Egyptian soldiers, they rallied every foot of the way. “At this time,” he says, “it was a noble sight to see the Gordon and Cameron Highlanders—now mingled together in the confusion of the fight, their young officers leading with waving swords, their pipes screaming, and that proud smile on the lips and that bright gleam in the eyes of the men which you see only in the hour of successful battle.”
It is said Donald Cameron of the Camerons was “the first man to mount the trenches, and the second man to fall.” A minute, and whole companies of men were swarming and pouring like waves of the sea over the Egyptian defences, and rushing down upon their defenders. Although taken by surprise the enemy made a stubborn fight, but after half an hour’s fierce conflict the battle of Tel-el-Kebir was over, and the morning sun rose to pour its rays down upon the flying Egyptian army. Without delay Sir Garnet Wolseley pushed forward the cavalry to advance upon Cairo. Thus Arabi was prevented either from arresting the retreat or sacking the city, and realising that there was no further hope in resistance to the British arms he surrendered his sword, and the rebellion was over.
It had been a swift action, but it would be wrong either to underrate the discipline and bravery of the Egyptian troops or to imagine that it was an easy victory. As General Hamley has written in the _Nineteenth Century_: “The Scottish people may be satisfied with the bearing of those who represented them in the land of the Pharaohs. No doubt any very good troops, feeling that they were willing, would have accomplished the final advance; but what appear to me exceptional are: First, the order and discipline which marked that march by night through the desert; and, secondly, the readiness with which the men sprang forward to storm the works. The influence of the march had been altogether of a depressing kind—the dead silence, the deep gloom, the funereal pace, the unknown obstacles, and enemy. They did not know what was in front, but neither did they stop to consider. There was not the slightest sign that the enemy was surprised—none of the clamour, shouts, or random firing which would have attended a sudden call to arms. Even very good troops at the end of that march might have paused when suddenly greeted by that burst of fire, and none but exceptionally good ones could have accomplished the feats I have mentioned.”