an casualties on the Atbara included 20 officers and
539 men killed or wounded. The Dervish loss was officially estimated at
40 Emirs and 3,000 dervishes killed. No statistics as to their wounded
are forthcoming.

. . . . . . . . . .

As the battle of the Atbara had been decisive, the whole Expeditionary
Force went into summer quarters. The Egyptian army was distributed
into three principal garrisons--four battalions at Atbara camp, six
battalions and the cavalry at Berber, three battalions at Abadia.
The artillery and transport were proportionately divided. The British
brigade encamped with two battalions at Darmali and two at the village
of Selim, about a mile and a half distant.

For the final phase of the campaign three new gunboats had been ordered
from England. These were now sent in sections over the Desert Railway.
Special arrangements were made to admit of the clumsy loads passing
trains on the ordinary sidings. As usual, the contrivances of the
railway subalterns were attended with success. Sir H. Kitchener himself
proceeded to Abadia to accelerate by his personal activity and ingenuity
the construction of the vessels on which so much depended. Here during
the heat of the summer he remained, nursing his gunboats, maturing
his plans, and waiting only for the rise of the river to complete the
downfall of his foes.

CHAPTER XIII: THE GRAND ADVANCE

All through the early months of the summer the preparations for the
final advance were steadily proceeding. A second British brigade
was ordered to the Soudan. A new battery of Howitzer artillery--the
37th--firing enormous shells charged with lyddite, was despatched from
England. Two large 40-pounder guns were sent from Cairo. Another British
Maxim 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 indefatigable 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 regiment 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 climax of
the war was over; within five weeks the British troops were returning
home. Ther