OUR LOSSES AT HASHEEN. 247 The loss was extraordinarily small, considering the fire to which the men had been exposed. The aim of the enemy was very bad, for a storm of bullets swept about the square, the great proportion flying overhead. At three o'clock the force reached the first ridge, where the 70th had now completed the redoubts and seribas. Here a halt was made for lunch, which was served out with great celerity to the troops, in half-companies.

The soldiers were much exhausted after marching and fighting for nine hours and a half under the blazing sun, and a long halt was given them before they started for camp. Leaving the 70th, with two guns and four Gardners, to hold the redoubts, the whole force now set off on their return march, reaching the camp again at about seven in the evening. It is not within our province to discuss either the tactics employed in the Suakim campaign, or the question whether by advancing to attack the Arab horde at successive stages on the route which it was proposed to open through the country and returning to camp after each engagement, any such decisive result was effected as would have been achieved if our forces could have followed the construction of the line of railway and held the positions from which Osman Digma's followers were driven. That a very strong opinion prevailed on the latter point is quite certain; but it had become evident that the desire to inflict a decisive defeat on the enemy and immediately to scatter the Arab forces was regarded as of more immediate importance than the construction of the railway, while it was considered dangerous to advance the force with all necessary supplies of water and rations to a point where it would not be in ready communication with the base at Suakim. The battle of Hasheen had cost the enemy dear, but it had cost us dear also. The loss of Captain Dallison and of Surgeon-major Lane, who was mortally wounded by a shot and died a day or two afterwards in the arms of the chaplain at Suakim, was felt deeply by all the officers; but it was reported next day that there were about twenty-two (officers and men) killed in the engagement and forty-three officers and men wounded. Neither the numbers of those who fell nor the intended plan of action were made known in the camp; indeed as regarded the latter it seemed as though the general was awaiting orders or suggestions from the government, and after events appeared to justify this conclusion. At anyrate there was no delay in making another advance, and the despatch issued by General Graham at a much later date (the 30th of May) gave the key to the operations which had by that time been concluded and the campaign brought to an end. That despatch said: " The secretary of state for war directed me to organize a field force, and to make such transport arrangements as were possible so as to secure first the most pressing object of the campaign, viz. the destruction of the power of Osman Digma.