THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1950.
The Churchill Story: 4th Instalment YOUNG LANCER FACES
ECOND
THE DERVISHES
LIEUTENANT
CHILL, not quite 24 and the veteran of three cam- paigns-three more than the great bulk of his fellow officers-fought for two months to join Kitchener's Sudan Force, which was to break for ever the Dervish power.
It accounted for 40 Der-
By Colin Frame vishes killed. Among them lay
rifles. He rode between them as they fired. And as: the smoke cleared he had a rapid sensation that he was unhurt.
The trooper who rode at his heels was killed at this spot.
"I
Surrounded
my pony
as
CHECKED
the ground began to fall he fought for three away beneath his feet. * minutes in what was the last
orthodox
.
Then
in
cavalry charge British military history-clash and glitter, horse and man, sabre and lance; the tense and blood-tingling attack of the 21st Lancers at Omdurman.
Kitchener's "No"
was
IT. Kitchener himselt who put up a stern de- fence against Churchill's wish to take part in the campaign,
*
Even to the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, who inter ceded on the young man's behalf, Kitchener said, "No."*"*
he
a
He was clearly not-although did not say so-prepared 10 bave serving within continent of him an uppish and youthful subaltern who dared to criticise his superiors in the Press.
But.
by one of those War Office loopholes known in the last war as "the old boy net," Churchill succeeded in joining the Lancers, provided that he travelled at his own expense and no charge fell on Army funds if he was wounded or killed.
Wangling
be
The
clever animal dropped like a cat four or five feet down on to the sandy bed of the watercourse, and in this sandy bed I found myself sur- rounded by what seemed to be dozens of men.
were
the unrecognisable bodies of 20 Lancers.
Out of 310 officers and men who took part nearly a quarter were killed or wound- ed in the two or three minutes the charge lasted-not to men- tion 120 horses.
But it was a gallant episode. something The Lancers faced like 3,000 Dervishes in that watercourse.
Omdurman fell and nothing battle which led to like the its fall will ever be seen again.
It was, as Churchill wrote many years later, "the last link in the long chain of those spectacular conflicts whose vivid
and majestic splendour has done so much to invest war with glamour." any
"They
not thickly at this point packed enough for me to experience actual, collision with them.
After Omdurman the chemist and the engineer took over the "Whereas Grenfell's troop, conduct of battles and, where next But one on my left, was horse and spear had sláin their brought
to a complete stand- thousands, machine gun and still and suffered very heavy bomb were to slay their tens of losses, we seemed to push our thousands. It was at this mili- Churchill way through as one has some-tary crossroads that times seen mounted policemen decided to leave the Army.
But it was not the thought break up a crowd,
"In less time than it takes to relate my pony had scrambled up the other side of the ditch. I looked round."
He
was once more trotting on the open desert with Der- vishes running haphazardly here and there.
One man
a
to the ground before him and flung himself on Churchill, true to the cavalry belief that a
charge would stun and always
scatter in- fantry, thought the Dervish
making was
terrified SUCH Wangling, by influence obeisance.
Then
he
saw the man's is, of course, much to
gleaming sword swinging back deplored, but Britons, Who
to hamstring his pony. thrill to a stirring tale, have
**I had room and time reason to be grateful that the
to turn my pony out enough last time the battle trumpets sounded The Charge a slight, of his reach and leaning over on the off side. I fired two red-headed officer. on a grey Arab polo pony, master of shots into him at about three military art and
of English yards.
describe there to prose, was
that he would be out of firing
range that led him, in his book
on "The River War," to single
out the great Kitchener for some criticism of the way he had fought his campaign.
This book has become a classic military history. It en- shrines the last great battle where infantry were drawn up standing rather than in holes in in drill förmation and fought
the earth.
It is redolent with the smell of harness, alive with the jingle of spurs and clash of steel It marks the end of an age.
One other young man has given a description of Omdur- man. He was a sailor and watched it all from a gunboat on the Nile.
"I straightened myself in H the scene and the sensation. the saddle and saw before e another figure with uplifted
Here he is then, command- ing a troop of 25 men, and he has newly decided, because of his shoulder injury, to return his sword to its scabbard and draw his Mauser pistol.
sword.
"I raised my pistol and fired, So close were we that the pistol itself struck him. Man and sword disappeared below and behind me.
"Plum Duff”
"like
EDITORS PRESS SERVICE, ING.~ÑUEVA YORK
-1856-
SALO.
"It was bump, bump, all the way home.”
FOR THE BUSINESSMAN
AUSTERITY AS USUAL IN UK
London, Dec. 14. The suspension of Marshall aid will not mean any new restrictions on the British economy.
However, it will mean no relaxation of con- trols already in effect, economic observers said to- day.
The Chancellor of the Exche- quer, Mr Hugh Gaitskell, told the nation in a radio broadcast on Wednesday night:
the be
"The rearmament programime is in sight, and we shall have to do without a lot which we might otherwise have had." Observers believed that overall situation would austerity as usual.
This would mean five year to wait for a new car, the highest taxes in the world, 3/6d for a pack of cigarettes and the ra- tioning of meat, sweets, butter, $885, bacon sugar, cheese and some other items. United Press.
Consumption Of
Rubber
said it looked plum duff; brown currants scattered about in a good deal of suet."
Washington, Dec. 14. This sailor was Beatty, due The Commerce Department to become
that the youngest ad-reported today
United miral in the Royal Navy,
States manufacturers consumed For all the contrast in their 118,997 long tons of new rubber descriptions of an epic, both in October, compared with the Churchill, poised on the brink September figure of 10,831. "On my left ten yards away of a political career, and Consumption during the first was an Arab horseman in a Beatty, due to become the 10 months of 1950 had been
tunic coloured
and dashing darling of the sea, were 1,048,558 tons,
percent steel helmet with chain-mail to find their paths crossing more than the same period in
once more battles in the deadlier 1949. THEN I saw immediately "I fired at him. He turned of the 1914-18 war,
before me, and now only aside. I pulled my horse into the length of a polo a walk and looked around ground away, the Tow of again... crouching blue figures firing "Where was my troop? frantically, wreathed in smoke. Where were
This is his story as he told it in "My Early Life."
half
The Charge
good line.
bright
-
hangings.
the other troops
"On my right and left my of the squadron? Within a neighbouring troops made a hundred yards of me I could Immediately be- not see a single officer or man hind was a long dancing row I looked at the Dervish mass of lances couched for the charge. We were going at fast but steady gallop. There was too much trampling and rifle fire to hear any bullets,
ล
"After this glance to the right and left and at my troop I looked again towards the' enemy.
"I saw two or three riflemen crouching and aiming their rifles at me from the fringe of
it.
"The scene appeared to be The transformed. suddenly blue-black men were still flring, but behind them there now came into view a depres- like a shallow sunken
and crowded
sion
road.
"This was
Sudden Fear
Heat
for
time
the first morning I experi- sudden sensation of
I felt myself absolutely
enced a fear. alone.
"I thought these riflemen would
hit me and the rest devour me like wolves.. I crouched over the saddle, spurred my horse into a gal-
>
crammed with men rising up lop and drew clear of the from the ground where they melee.
were hidden.
"Bright flags appeared as if by magic and I saw arriving from nowhere Emirs on horse- back among and round the mase of the enemy.
The Dervishes appeared to be ten or twelve deep at the thickest, a grey mass gleaming steel, filling the dry He had no time to feel he said. He was too busy keeping his troops in Straight ahead of him were with levelled
Dervishes
Two
or
three hundred yards away I found my troop. all ready faced about and partly formed up.
The first words Churchill is reported to have said after this historic affray were to his
"Did sergeant.
you
enjoy yourself?" he asked.
Gallant Episode OR all the element of pic- turesqueness and pageantry about the first and last charge at Omdurman it was militarily Tot a success.
STANDARD BRIDGE
By M. Harrison-Gray Dealer South. Love all
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27.7
Total consumption of natural rubber was 67,868 tons in Octo- ber. Consumption of natural latex was 5,431 tons. Imports of natural rubber amounted to 78,351 tons in October, in-
tons cluding 5,161
of latex, compared with 61,148 tons in September, including 5,117 tons of latex.-United Press.
S'pore Rubber
Confused
London, Dec, 14.
Britain's
Shortage
Of
Cotton
London, Dec. 14.
Mr Harold Wilson, President of the Board of Trade, said today that he was not satisfied was getting an that Britain' adequate share of the United States cotton crop.
Supplies so far allocated to Britain were only one-third of her imports from the United States in the year ended last June, he told the House of Commons.
He was trying to get as much cotton as possible from other sources, including the British. colonies, but he hoped that re- presentations he had made, the importance of which the Prime in Minister had underlined. Washington, would result in a fuller appreciation of Britain's needs,' he said.
Mr Wilson told a questioner that the British allocation had been 235,000 bales compared with Japan's 693,000 bales and that he was fully aware of the anxiety in the Lancashire cot- ton mills.-Reuter.
Thai-Japanese
Trade Talks
Tokyo, Dec. 14, Thailand and Japan will start
The Singapore rubber market | a trade conference here on Fri- · continued in a state of some day, General MacArthur's confusion, according to reports Headquarters announced today. of the con- reaching rubber merchants in The London. The market was work-ference is to review the trade ing on a skeleton basis, and which has been effected under dealings were few,
The riots had made it impos sible to obtain the
necessary shipping documents and ship ments. were held up. Number 1 spot closed on Thursday 21⁄2 cents higher than Wednesday's close, according to Lewis and Peat, rubber merditants of London--United Press,
New York Metals
purpose
the existing trade agreement between the two countries, to explore possibilities for facili tating trade in the future under the agreement, and to negotiate a new trade plan for the calen dar year of 1951--Reuter.
Nickel Price Up
London, Dec. 14.
The Mond Nickel Company, New York, Dec, 14. has raised its price for nickel Prices in the metal market | in the United Kingdom to here closed unchanged with the 2406 per ton, compared with
£386 following exceptions:-
usly Wolfram
340 to
Der
Tin, Grade A (9.80 percent or was higher) New York, per lb 189; shilli Scrap Steel, FOB. per ton CIE (no. 1 heavy emelting) 30-Unit- with ed Press,
nominal
rts, compared illings
United Press.