His Excellency the Hakimdār, and we only became aware on this day, at 6 o'clock Arabic time, while digging a trench for the zariba, that the aforementioned wretched Fadlallah had entered the fort. We learned that he had been handed over in El Obeid to the wretched Muhammad Ahmad and the other man who was sent with him on that day to scout Khor El Nil. The aforementioned man was executed by Muhammad Ahmad, while he himself was imprisoned for a long time. On the occasion of his swearing on the Quran not to betray, they sent him with the detachment that arrived at Khor El Rhad from El Obeid to fight us. After he was with them for thirteen days, he came to us on this day. Upon inquiring about the circumstances of his arrival, what the wretched ones did to him, and the actions of the wretched Muhammad Ahmad in Kordofan, he narrated in detail what happened to him after he left our side. His Excellency the Hakimdār saw fit to imprison him in chains in light of the clarifications he provided, but... ...what happened to him, to be included in this book, is that after he left with his companion from our camp...

Here the diaries of Abbas Bey, Secretary to the Governor-General of Sudan, stop and end on the first day of November, following the army's arrival at Alouba. Complete mystery shrouds the events of the following four days, which end on the fifth of November, the day the Battle of Shikhan took place. Not a single officer from the expedition survived to write to us about those terrible events. Likewise, little is read about the battle. We find a few accounts of those days in two references. One was written by Wingate Pasha, Sirdar of the Egyptian Army, after the reconquest of Sudan, in his well-known book "Mahdism and the Egyptian Sudan" (1). The second is "Fire and Sword in the Sudan" by Slatin Pasha (2). Both references lack precise topographical investigations of the Battle of Shikhan (3).

(1) Wingate - Mahdism and the Egyptian Sudan P. 85-89. (2) Slatin - Fire and Sword in the Sudan. p. 239-243. (3) Shikhan is located 28 miles northwest of Alouba.