Note 255 — Chapter XII · THE FIRST BATTALION. 1884-1885. THE NILE EXPEDITION.

The junior ranks of the British army are so used to receiving their rations with regularity on active service that they appear to think the Army Service Corps can feed them as the ravens fed Elijah. They do not realise the enormous amount of thought and calculation which have been lavished on the subject for months before the opening of a campaign. It is not within the scope of a regimental history to describe in detail the process by which Lord Wolseley succeeded in feeding his column in a country the principal products of which are water and sand. Those who wish to study the subject will find full information in Colvile’s ‘History of the Soudan Campaign,’ and Butler’s ‘Campaign of the Cataracts.’