Metammeh, news came of the fall of Khartoum. An officer who was with
him when the blow fell has recorded that he never saw French so
profoundly moved as he was on the receipt of these black tidings. With
Khartoum fallen the mission of the flying column was ended. Its
position indeed had become extremely precarious. The problem before
the authorities was now not how to relieve Khartoum, but how to
relieve the Relieving Expedition.

It cannot be said that they solved it very successfully. Buller was
sent up to Gubat to take command. With him he brought only the Royal
Irish and West Kent Regiments to reinforce the column. And his
instructions were to seize Metammeh and march on Berber!

[Page Heading: HIS FIRST RETREAT]

Once on the scene, however, Buller soon saw the hopelessness of the
situation. Considering that the fall of Khartoum had released a host
of the Mahdi's followers, the storming of Metammeh was now a doubly
difficult enterprise; an attack on Berber would have been simply
suicidal. Buller accordingly determined on a retreat.

On February 13 he evacuated Gubat. On March 1 his advance guard had
reached Korti. In this retreat the 19th Hussars again did splendid
work. For days on end the column was submitted to that unceasing
pelting of bullets which Buller characterised in one of his laconic
dispatches as "annoying." But Barrow, the Hussars' chief, was a master
of the art of reconnoitring. Time and again he and his men were able
to deceive the enemy as to the direction of the column's march. It was
then that French had his first experience in "masterly retreat."