"Sorry Jenkins? More fighting? Gracious me" said Eager looking up from his writing desk.  

The engineers of the Naval Brigade, led by Lieutenant Orlando Trenchant anxiously watched for the arrival of the steamer while keeping a weather eye on the ferocious looking tribesmen of Ibn-Hadh. 

At around 11 o'clock, just as the sun was starting to do its worse, a dust cloud could be seen to the South.   The Field Force and the civilian inhabitants of Mahaba were marching north towards Kheris.   As yet not a single dervish could be seen.

Unknown to the engineers in Kheris, a drama had been enacted at Mahaba.   Sir Garnett Humber had been struck down with an intestinal disease and was forced to take to his bed.   The two company commanders, Captains Keen and Eager were now the ranking officers.   Eager was senior by two months and became the new commander of the Mahaba Field Force.   Humber was loaded onto a donkey cart, the British flag was lowered from the mast and the Mahaba Garrison marched out into the desert.

Suddenly the first dervish units started appearing from the East, converging with great speed on the Mahaba column.   As Commissary "Tufty" Hamilton urged the civilians down the road, Keen's platoon provided a forward screen while Eager's platoon and the Nordenfeldt gun brought up the rear.

Seeing this, the small force of Naval engineers under Lieutenant Trenchant sallied forth from Kheris to assist. 

Carefully deploying his troops to protect the slow civilian advance Eager's troops fought off the first piecemeal attacks.   Unfortunately a large body of dervishes supported by an ancient cannon appeared along the Bughris road.   Captain Keen formed up the thin red line that was the remains of "A" Company of the 85th to screen the civilians at all costs.

Despite "Tufty" Hamilton's exhortations the civilians continued to move painfully slowly.   Both Eager in the rear and Keen in the centre were subject to increasingly ferocious dervish attacks which were wearing down meagre force.   Eager was struck down by shrapnel from a cannon shell which killed Sergeant Baker, but he continued to co-ordinate the retreat, using his trusty parasol as a crutch.

Finally the steamship "Brighton Belle" arrived at Kheris.   Sergeant Pithy wasted no time in getting his naval troops ashore to support the retreat but was unable to bring the deck mounted machine gun to bear because of the mass of civilians in the way.

The dervishes, led personally by Amir Ali-Bashi made a ferocious attack on the now rather threadbare thin red line of Captain Keen.   Despite enfilading fire from Trenchant's naval contingent, they charged home.   The hand to hand fighting was ferocious and the melee hung in the balance.   Ali-Bashi carved his way through the redcoats, but Keen seeing this stepped forwards.   Parrying Ali-Bashi's disembowelling stroke with his sabre, with a riposte straight out of the military manual he cut down the Amir.   Ali-Bashi may have been immune to bullets, but not it seemed, cold steel.   The dervish army wavered but, with their leader a martyr to the cause of liberation, their attacks were renewed with increased ferocity.

Things were now desperate.   Eager's Nordenfeldt crew were caught by charging Fuzzy-Wuzzies as their gun jammed and they were overun and cut down.   The Hadendowa towed away the gun in triumph.   Keen's men were finally overwhelmed by dervishes and they fell where they had stood, the gallant Captain fighting to the last.   Eager was now unable to carry the wounded, there were so many, and ordered Keen's body to be abandoned in the last push for Kheris.

The civilians were now on the dockside starting to load onto the steamship when suddenly they found themselves confronted by Ourugha swordsmen, demanding their surrender.   Ourugha riflemen on the tops of building started pouring fire into the retreating British soldiers and the crew of the steamship.   Ibn-Hadh, his enemy dead, had decided to redeem himself in the eyes of his countrymen (or take cynical advantage of the weakness of the British depending on your point of view).

The situation looked bleak for Eager, but gritting his teeth his men back to back he turned his rifles on the Ourugha.   Sheik Al-Bazaar, new commander of the Balagashi ordered his battered forces to reform and slowed their advance in order to see what would happen.   A volley from the naval contingent cooled Ibn-Hadh's ardour somewhat and a hasty truce was negotiated.   The British would hand over their rifles to Ibn-Hadh as they boarded the steamship.   Ibn-Hadh hastily sent a messenger to Al-Bazaar to get him to stop the attack.   Al-Bazaar, his objectives achieved, agreed.   Stacking their rifles, the remnants of the Mahaba Field Force boarded the "Brighton Belle" for the long journey downriver to Gohar.   The Ourughas celebrated the acquisition of their new weaponry while outside the walls of Kheris the Balagashi hordes spoke of the liberation of the whole of Sudistan.   But Ali-Bashi was dead as, it was found later, was Sir Garnett Humber, his throat cut as he lay on his donkey cart.   The old rivals were gone, but the British retreat, although expertly handled by Captain Eager, despite his wounds, could serve only to fan the flames of insurrection...