Mohawks on the Nile. Carl Benn

       “The First Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment pushing forward at the Hannik Cataract.” Canadian voyageurs are manning the bow and tiller, as indicated by their tweed trousers in contrast to the tropical uniforms of the soldiers.

      Perhaps because of the nature of the river transport service, where watercraft were spread over long distances, the Mohawks, at least those in Louis Jackson’s gang, normally came under the command of British rather than Canadian officers. For much of their time piloting the whalers, the Mohawks concentrated their efforts south of the Second Cataract, between Gemai and the Dal Cataract (the upper end of which was at Sarkamatto), as was the case in the middle of November when most voyageurs served on that part of the river. During the earlier period of their work, they travelled long distances, with crews sailing the boats all the way from Gemai to Sarkamatto (with some then being sent farther upriver in smoother water, with only one voyageur accompanying every five vessels because the soldier crews had gained enough familiarity with the boats to manage the watercraft themselves for much of the time). From Sarkamatto, most of the members of the Canadian contingent at first returned north to Gemai to bring more whalers upriver. However, that practice caused delays when soldiers had to wait for them at Gemai, so the army introduced a new system to speed movement by stationing detachments of voyageurs at seven stretches of the river in fixed camps where the poor conditions on those portions of the Nile required their particular skills, thus concentrating the voyageurs’ talents where they were needed most. Louis Jackson’s gang, for instance, worked in and around the treacherous waters of the Dal Cataract from late December 1884 until the middle of January 1885. These camps, typically garrisoned by Egyptian soldiers, served as depots and resting places for British troops as they made their way upriver. The decision to post boatmen along the waterway made navigation easier because individual crews could monitor daily changes better in smaller and more familiar stretches of water and because it allowed two or more voyageurs to serve each boat where the rough waters dictated that extra care be taken. This arrangement, with its fixed camps for subgroups within the Canadian contingent, also was more comfortable for the men than earlier, when they had to move longer distances — a practice that had generated some complaint among them.²⁵

      Sometimes the Nile offered smooth sailing and sportsmanlike challenges, providing welcomed relief from the hard toil that the Mohawks and other members of the expedition endured. Jackson recalled that the river presented them with “plenty of dodging and crossing the stream to get the side of the river with the lesser current,” and, combined with “the boats being such good travellers and answering their helms so well with a stiff breeze,” he and his men found themselves “in a genuine boatman’s paradise.”²⁶ A British officer who enjoyed good sailing was Captain Willoughby Verner of the Rifle Brigade. He recorded that “great emulation was shown by many of the boats’ crews to outstrip their comrades, and various degrees of nautical skill were displayed in booming out the lug sails and hoisting the awning [designed to protect the crews from the sun] as spinnakers,” which, the voyageurs probably found as exhilarating as the troops they piloted on their mission.²⁷

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      In mid-November 1884, a twelve-day-old message from Major-General Charles Gordon in Khartoum got through Mahdist lines to reach Lord Wolseley as he advanced upriver. Gordon reported that he could hold out for forty days — until about the middle of December — but after that it would be “difficult.”²⁸ At that moment, the relief expedition still had a long way to go. As of November 28, only one boat (piloted by Henry Prince) had passed through the Third Cataract, which was over eleven hundred kilometres away from Khartoum. As it was, Wolseley did not expect to be able to concentrate his forces at Korti, almost nine hundred kilometres from the Sudanese capital by water, for the next stage of the campaign until the end of the year. Wolseley faced numerous challenges, ranging from a shortage of coal for steamers (which had halted the transport of troops and supplies farther downriver from Aswan to Wadi Halfa in late October and early November), to the modest staff organization available to him, to the inevitable collisions between personalities and imbalances of talents that mark any large enterprise. Various other factors on the river itself compounded his problems, such as the annual fall in the Nile’s water level that increasingly made travel difficult and the smaller number of highly skilled men from Canada than he had expected would be available to him. As much as possible, the expedition’s officers minimized the impact of these setbacks. For instance, when the coal shortage stopped troop movements from the north, officers in Sudan loaded dozens of otherwise idle vessels with extra foodstuff to send upriver to replace the rations being consumed in order to replenish supplies in preparation for future operations. Concerned with the lack of progress, Colonel William Butler sought permission to speed up travel by reducing the cargoes carried by the boats by about a third, and received permission to lessen the precious quantities of stores by one-sixth.²⁹ Anxiety over Gordon’s fate was a serious strain on British staff officers who thought, at best, a force moving upriver could not reach Khartoum until sometime in February 1885. As it was, the first British troops had not arrived in Korti below the Fourth Cataract until December 10 (where Wolseley established his headquarters on December 16, 1884), making it possible to save some time by sending part of the force — the Desert Column — overland to avoid the immense bend in the Nile.

      Despite these problems, Wolseley reported optimistically that, “The English boats have up to this point fulfilled all my expectations” and that “the men are in excellent health, fit for any trial of strength, as a result of the constant manual labour.”³⁰ Yet, some of the watercraft had been destroyed in the harsh waters of the Nile, the soldiers’ uniforms were ragged in the extreme, and some men no longer had boots to wear after all their rough work.³¹ Amidst the hardships and anxieties of the campaign, Wolseley’s force celebrated Christmas as best it could even though necessity required officers and men to work that day. Like everyone else, the members of the Canadian contingent enjoyed a double issue of rations and boiled up some of their bully beef, hardtack, and vegetables into a stew they called “a fog.” Reflecting on the day, their colonel missed the snow of a typical Canadian Christmas — a sentiment likely felt by many of those under him as they commemorated that symbolic moment and all its associated memories in a part of the world so very different from the places where they had celebrated the Nativity throughout their lives. The voyageurs most likely joined in the general merrymaking, singing, and exchange of greetings that occurred along the river wherever the men of the Gordon Relief Expedition camped that night on their journey towards Khartoum.³²

      Late in December, General Wolseley divided his force at Korti in two. He sent one of his subordinates in command of the Desert Column, with many of the men being mounted on camels, 265 kilometres across the inhospitable landscape between Korti and Metemma, a river town 185 kilometres north of Khartoum, thus cutting almost 430 kilometres off the famous bend in the river. Yet, he risked disaster