|
| ||
|
The Ourugha people of Southern Sudistan, under their enlightened leader Sheik Ali Ibn Haddh decided, after the defeat of the Amir of Balagash at the Wadi Rank, to embrace the modern world and British values. Colonel Sir Garnett Humber offered the Ourughas support in the form of engineers to supervise well digging and some training and weapons for their soldiers. A small team of engineers was dispatched to the Ourugha homelands around Kheris, just up the Nile and this was followed by a supply train taking building equipment, engineering supplies and a small number of obsolete Remington rifles. The supplies were accompanied by Captain Eager and "B" Company of the 85th Borsetshires.  
Unfortunately for the convoy, the Amir of the Balagashi rebels knew about the convoy and ambushed them on the banks of the Nile. Captain Eager took cover in a deserted river station at Pardoo, dispatched one platoon for help from the Mahaba Field Force and awaited the dawn and the dervish attack.  As the sun rose, the lead elements of the Field Force could be seen approaching from the south. The dervishes immediately launched a mass attack on the garrison.  On the British right the cavalry under Captain Fitzdashing became entangled with some dervish skirmishers entangled in the palm groves. In the ensuing skirmish, Fitzdashing was killed.  On the British left, Colonel Humber, annoyed by the dervish riflemen on the rocky hills, deployed his entire force, including him machine gun to defeat them. Meanwhile, half the dervish army led by Sheik Kemal-Yocki was involved in the assault on Pardoo Station, the relief force causing them little distraction. The fighting was savage and desperate...  Captain Eager faced of a succession of dervish assaults, finally falling wounded, leaving command to Sergeant Josiah Baker. In the face of the garrison's increasing desperation, Humber formed his lead platoon into a square to see off a dervish charge... ...only to be severely damaged by a flanking unit of riflemen, who also managed to cause another platoon to fall back !!! Finally, Humber managed to deploy his machine gun against the dervishes assaulting Pardoo Station, but by that time it was all over and the garrison had exhausted the dervish attackers, Amir Kemal-Yocki finally falling in hand to hand combat. Amir Al-Bashi, led his remaining men in a brave but futile charge on the machine gun, his chieftens falling around him but the Amir was miraculously unscathed. The dervish army melted back into the desert.  Although the British had undoubtably scored a victory the garrison had not so much been relieved as been allowed to fight its battle without the distraction of dervish reinforcements. Humber's cautious approach actually resulted in severe casualties for the relief force from the expertly positioned dervish skirmishers. The Mahaba Field Force was now in the dangerous position of being potentially too weak to hold Mahaba against a concerted dervish assault. And Amir Al-Bashi, now clearly immune to machine gun fire, was determined to exploit any British weakness...     
| ||
|
|
