looked unutterable things, but the "Tommy" held a
stoical face and said not a word more till the officer went off to
hunt anew for his men. For all the chaff, every one was glad to see
the Guards, and to speak of them as the Queen's soldiers. Of the
second brigade General Gatacre said that a better body of troops could
not be wished for by any general.

I rode out to several of the brigade field-days, or rather, mornings,
for there was plenty of drilling and field exercises for Lyttelton's
men. The brigade was repeatedly practised in attack formation against
imaginary bodies of dervishes, as well as at assaulting supposed
works. On more than one of these occasions the gallant Colonel of the
Guards, not having his charger up at that date, led his Grenadiers
afoot, and once, at any rate, was mounted on donkey-back.
Particularism gets lost in the desert. In the manoeuvres the troops
were usually led in line, the flanks being supported by two or three
companies in quarter column, and the centre having in rear a few
sections of companies ready to fill gaps. Save for a little noise in
passing orders, the result of a fast-becoming obsolete school of
training, even captious criticism could find no actual fault with
their work. Advancing across wadies and scaling knolls upon the
desert, the troops were instructed to open fire with ball cartridge.
The range given was 500 yards, and the ammunition used was the
tip-filed Lee-Metford bullets. As at the Atbara, without halting, the
line moved slowly on, the front rank firing as at a battue, each man
independently. There were a few section volleys tried, the soldiers
pausing for an instant to deliver their fire. Once or twice also, the
rear rank was closed up, and joined in the fusilade. One effect was to
paralyse the deer and birds within range. I noticed that the tip-filed
bullets did not usually spread, and that their man-stopping quality
was something of a myth. Even the dum-dum does not invariably "set up"
on striking an object. For the Omdurman Campaign a new hollow-nosed
bullet was issued for the Lee-Metfords. So far as I was able to
judge, it generally spread on hitting, and made a deadly wound,
tearing away bone and flesh at the point of exit.

On the 12th of August the 21st Lancers, together with camel and mule
transport animals, were crossed to the west bank in readiness for
marching to Wad Hamid. Saturday, the 13th August, was a very busy day
at Dakhala. On that date th