Meanwhile the concentration of the Egyptian army on the frontier was proceeding.  The reservists obeyed the summons to the colours of their own free will and with gratifying promptness, instead of being tardily dragged from their homes in chains as in the days of Ismail.  All the battalions of the army were brought up to war strength.  Two new battalions of reservists were formed, the 15th and 16th.  The 15th was placed at Assuan and Korosko on the line of communications.  The 16th was despatched to Suakin to release the two battalions in garrison there for service on the Nile.  The 1st Battalion of the North Staffordshire Regiment was moved up the river from Cairo to take the place of the Wady Halfa garrison of six battalions, which had moved on to Sarras and Akasha.  A Maxim battery of four guns was formed from the machine-gun sections of the Staffordshires and Connaught Rangers and hurried south.  The 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Egyptian Battalions from Cairo were passed in a continual succession along the railway and river to the front.  In all this busy and complicated movement of troops the Egyptian War Office worked smoothly, and clearly showed the ability with which it was organised.

The line of communications from Cairo, the permanent base, to the advanced post at Akasha was 825 miles in length.  But of this distance only the section lying south of Assuan could be considered as within the theatre of war.  The ordinary broad-gauge railway ran from Cairo to Balliana, where a river base was established.  From Balliana to Assuan reinforcements and supplies were forwarded by Messrs. Cook’s fleet of steamers, by barges towed by small tugs, and by a number of native sailing craft.  A stretch of seven miles of railway avoids the First Cataract, and joins Assuan and Shellal.  Above Shellal a second flotilla of gunboats, steamers, barges, and Nile boats was collected to ply between Shellal and Halfa.  The military railway ran from Halfa to Sarras.  South of Sarras supplies were forwarded by camels.  To meet the increased demands of transport, 4,500 camels were purchased in Egypt and forwarded in boats to Assuan, whence they marched via Korosko to the front.  The British Government had authorised the construction of the military railway to Akasha, and a special railway battalion was collected at Assuan, through which place sleepers and other material at once began to pass to Sarras.  The strategic railway construction will, however, form the subject of a later chapter, which I shall not anticipate.

By the 1st of April, less than three weeks from the commencement of the advance, the whole line of communications had been organised and was working efficiently, although still crowded with the concentrating troops.

As soon as the 16th Battalion of reservists arrived at Suakin, the IXth Soudanese were conveyed by transports to Kossier, and marched thence across the desert to Kena.  The distance was 120 miles, and the fact that in spite of two heavy thunderstorms—­rare phenomena in Egypt—­it was covered in four days is a notable example of the marching powers of the black soldiers.  It had been determined that the Xth Soudanese should follow at once, but circumstances occurred which detained them on the Red Sea littoral and must draw the attention of the reader thither.