THE PASSAGE OF THE NILE BOOM (Part 2)

 

 But what are those?  Coming into view Adrian saw two strange little wooden towers, one each side of the narrow passage.  He had never seen the like before.

 

Caught in the crossfire, raked by machine gun and rifle fire from three sides, the Dervishes continued their attack. Their leader falls at the head of his troops causing a momentary faltering.  Then on they rushed again.

Over by the oasis things were hotting up.  Gerald Ridd’s force was clearing the houses and became involved in some hand-to-hand fighting.  The pioneer was called forward to break into the long mud brick hut.  He was making good progress when a deafening explosion blew out the walls of the hut burying three of the attackers.

The critically wounded battery commander detonated the Mahdist magazine.  He knew he was dieing, he could hear the pioneer’s axe beating a hole in the wall and he was the only man left alive in the ammunition room.  The rest were been slain in the fight.

Over by the tower the crew of the Suleiman Bey saw the boom across the Nile and the engines were put into hurried reverse.  The vessels followed suit and the Cleopatra nearly collided with the gunboat.  From the bridge Captain Adrian Ryce-Pepper saw an armed dhow sailing out from behind the headland.  

It opened fire with its bow gun and rifles immediately driving the gunboat’s crew into cover.  All that is except the crews of the 12 pdr in the bow and the 57mm Hotchkiss Rotary Cannon on the aft upper deck.

The first burst from the 57mm Hotchkiss Rotary Cannon forced the riflemen to cover and Adrian’s second shot struck the dhow’s bow chaser destroying it and killing the crew.  

The duel between the two vessels continued, the dhow taking severe punishment and the Suleiman Bey’s crew suffering from the combined fire of the dhow and the tower.

The dervish attack had, meanwhile, been crushed but not before they had reached the very muzzle of the Gatling.   Binky did, later, admit over a cognac that things were so sticky that he been forced to reload his revolver himself while his bearer reloaded the rifle. The ditch in front of Binky’s position was full of dervish dead.  Indeed it was the ditch that prevented the last four dervishes from closing right in.

The unequal struggle between the ironclad Suleiman Bey and the dhow was nearing its end.  All the guns on the dhow were now out of action and a fierce fire was burning in the gun deck.  Not a man stirred aboard her as the gunboat’s Gatling, 12 pdr and 57mm HRC blasted away.  The gunboat closed in for the kill.  As the dhow drifted down stream a huge belch of flame erupted from behind the tower and a huge shell detonated by the 12 pdr bow gun killing two of the crew and blowing Adrian and the gun layer off their feet.  The gun was wrecked. 

    

The “Breath of Allah” scores a direct hit on the bow 12 pdr.

The combined fire of the Gatling and the 57mm HRC eventually silence the 64 pdr gun called the “Breath of Allah” but not before the Suleiman Bey had taken several more hits. 

As the land parties closed in a fierce gun battle for the tower took place, casualties were very heavy on both sides.  

During the fighting Gerald Ridd, at the fore as usual, was struck down by a well-placed shot from the tower. Hassan, ever faithful ran over to help and shielded his body with his own.  Another shot struck him down and fell across Gerald’s body.  

Suddenly, there was no rifle fire from the tower.  The attackers ceased fire.  All was strangely quiet.  As the smoke and dust cleared, Binky surveyed the scene from the palm grove.  Adrian could see no movement at all. 

The Mahdist flag was down!

Was it all over?  

Harry Penhaligan took a small detachment cautiously towards the tower.  There was no sign of life at all.  At about the same time a party of Egyptian infantry went forward to open the boom.  They found the machinery destroyed and the pioneer had to chop his way through with his axe.

Now that he was close to the door of the tower Harry Penhaligan decided to burst in.  He did so with his sergeant.  The emir was waiting for this.  He emptied his revolver at the two men silhouetted against the sky.  The sergeant fell dead and Harry was thrown back by the impact of two heavy bullets.  The Emir drew his scimitar called upon Allah and whirling the bright blade about his head charged out of the tower.  He hardly got any distance before Gatling and rifle bullets ripped through him.  It was amazing how far he managed to charge before he died.

 

The Suleiman Bey sailed past the tower to protect the Cleopatra as she came in to embark the landing parties.  The way was now clear to Cairo.

Post script.

Gerald Ridd survived the action only slightly damaged.  The force of the bullet was deflected by the hard metal image of Nekhebet that Hassan had given him.  Hassan had always insisted that Gerald wore it in his helmet.  Gerald is left with a scar across his head and the occasional headache.

The Emir’s first pistol bullet took Harry in the shoulder spinning him as threw him backwards, the second one took him in the thigh passing straight through.  He suffered a broken collarbone and a loss of blood.  The wound in his thigh will slow him down for some time to come.

Hassan was shot through left lower arm muscle, scoring the bone and leaving him with a recurring pain and a weakness in his left wrist control.

The losses on both sides had been heavy. 

The emir and his entire following were dead or fled, the smoothbore and the Krupp were beyond repair and the 64 pdr was destroyed and the remains of all three rolled into the Nile.  With more time Binky would have liked to keep the 64 pdr as a souvenir.  “Look dashed impressive outside the family country seat!”  

The Egyptian Rifles had lost 3 soldiers, the line infantry lost 9 soldiers and two sergeants dead and wounded and the gunboat lost 3 embarked infantry, two gunners and two crew.  All the small arms were collected as the boom and the tower were blown up. 

Later in the day the burnt out wreck of the dhow was passed.

During the clearing up Binky inspected the tower and found, in the storeroom, the controversial (and unbearably pompous) archaeologist, Dr Hiram Pulleine-Legge, his nephew and two assistants one of whom was a colleague of Hassan’s, Ali bin Derr, whose rescue overjoyed the injured man. 

Adrian was stretching his legs ashore and had a look at where the Emir had made his last charge.  As some weapons were cleared away he caught sight of a medallion and picked it up.  The Emir also had a jewelled dagger sheath in belt the dagger itself was missing.

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