226 WITH KITCHENEK IH THE SOUDAN been won. Some ten thousand of the Khalifa’s best troops had been killed or wounded. In the British division one officer and one man had been killed, and three officers and sixty-five men wounded. The latter were atonce placed on board the hospital barges; fresh ammunition was served out, and half an hour after the last shot was fired the army prepared to march on Omdurman.

It was most important that they should arrive at the town before Ed Din’s Dervishes should reach it, for unless they could do so, the loss that would be incurred in capturing it would be vastly greater than that which had been suffered in the battle. At nine o’clock the start was made. The troops advanced in brigades, Lyttleton led on the left, Wauchope was on his right. Maxwell somewhat in the rear, while still more to the right came Lewis, and farther out on the plain Macdonald. They formdd roughly half a semicircle. Lyttleton, followed by Wauchope, was to march between the river and Surgham Hill, Maxwell was to cross, over the hill, while Lewis and Macdonald were to keep farther out to the right. Collinson’s Egyptian brigade was to guard the stores and materials left behind.

The 21st Lancers scouted ahead of the British brigades to discover if any foe were lurking behind Surgham Hill. When about half a milfe south of the hill they saw a small party of Dervish cavalry and some infantry, who were hiding in what looked like a shallow water-course. The four squadrons rode forward at a gallop. A sharp musketry fire opened upon them, but without hesitation they dashed headlong at the Dervishes, when they found that, instead of a hundred and fifty foemen as they had supposed, some fifteen hundred Dervishes were lying concealed in the water-course. It was too late to draw rein, and with a cheer the cavalry rode down into the midst of the foe. There was a wild, fierce fight, lance against spear, sabre against sword, the butt-end of a rifie or che deadly knife. Some cut their way through unscathed; others were surrounded and cut off. Splendid feats