All through the early months of the summer the preparations for the final advance were steadily¹ proceeding². A second British brigade was ordered to the Soudan. A new battery of Howitzer artillery³—the 37th—firing enormous shells charged with lyddite, was despatched from England. Two large 40-pounder guns were sent from Cairo. Another British Maxim⁴ battery of four guns was formed in Cairo from men of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Three new screw gunboats of the largest size and most formidable pattern had been passed over the indefatigable⁵ railway in sections, and were now launched on the clear waterway south of the Atbara encampment; and last, but not least, the 21st Lancers [The author led a troop in this regiment⁶ 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 climax⁷ 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 battalions⁸ 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 infantry¹⁰, one squadron, the guns, and the stores were carried south in steamers and barges¹¹. 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.

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