the 21st Lancers [The author led a troop in this regiment during the final advance to Omdurman; and it is from this standpoint that the ensuing chapters are to some extent conceived] were ordered up the Nile.  Events now began to move rapidly.  Within three weeks of the arrival of the reinforcements the climax of the war was over; within five weeks the British troops were returning home.  There was no delay at the Atbara encampment.  Even before the whole of the second brigade had arrived, some of its battalions were being despatched to Wad Hamed, the new point of concentration.  This place was a few miles north of Shabluka, and only fifty-eight miles from Omdurman.  It was evident, therefore, that the decisive moment of the three years’ war approached.  The Staff, the British infantry, one squadron, the guns, and the stores were carried south in steamers and barges.  The Egyptian division marched to Wad Hamed by brigades.  The horses of the batteries, the transport animals of the British division (about 1,400 in number), the chargers of the officers, some cattle, and most of the war correspondents were sent along the left bank of the river escorted by two squadrons of the 21st Lancers and two Maxim guns.

All the thirteen squadrons of cavalry remained three days at Wad Hamed.  After the fatigues of the march we were glad to have an opportunity of looking about, of visiting regiments known in other circumstances, and of writing a few letters.  This last was the most important, for it was now known that after leaving Wad Hamed there would be no post or communication with Cairo and Europe until the action had been fought and all was over.  The halt was welcome for another reason.  The camp itself was well worth looking at.  It lay lengthways along the river-bank, and was nearly two miles from end to end.  The Nile secured it from attack towards the east.  On the western and southern sides were strong lines of thorn bushes, staked down and forming a zeriba; and the north face was protected by a deep artificial watercourse which allowed the waters of the river to make a considerable inundation.  From the bank of this work the whole camp could be seen.  Far away to the southward the white tents of the British division; a little nearer rows and rows of grass huts and blanket shelters, the bivouacs of the Egyptian and Soudanese brigades; the Sirdar’s large white tent, with the red flag of Egypt flying from a high staff, on a small eminence; and to the right the grove of palm-trees in which the officers of the Egyptian cavalry had established themselves.  The whole riverside was filled by a forest of masts.  Crowds of gyassas, barges, and steamers were moored closely together; and while looking at the furled sails, the tangled riggings, and the tall funnels it was easy for the spectator to imagine that this was the docks of some populous city in a well-developed and civilised land.