PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION xi® 
have prepared an ambush of rifle-pits, and, whilst my brother 
was marching towards them through the worst and blindest 
bush that the Haud produces, to have advanced and opened fire 
and also made a sudden flank counter-attack by two thousand 
spearmen on the transport. The.bush was so thick that in 
places not more than five men could see each other. 
This Erigo action was a desperately contested affair. I have 
before me an account published in the Daily Mazl, 27th October 
1902, and other accounts. 
Owing apparently to the transport having gone on and over- 
lapped the fighting-line when it halted, the camels were thrown 
into confusion and stampeded, and hand-to-hand fighting ensued. 
The enemy attacked with great courage in the face of fire from 
some two thousand rifles, machine guns, and two seven-pounders, 
Within a belt of twenty to twenty-five yards of the front 
face alone, sixty-two bodies were counted, forty of which were 
recognised as Hadjis and Mullahs. The six leaders of the 
enemy’s force were killed; prisoners reported that, besides a 
large number of spearmen, one hundred and thirty-five Dervish 
riflemen had been killed; and Colonel Swayne relates in one 
published official account that the enemy charged up so close to 
the guns that their clothing was set on fire by the discharges of 
grape-shot. 
Colonel Phillips was killed while rallying his men, and 
Lieutenant Everett wounded while attending him; Captain 
Angus fell while serving his guns in a most determined manner; 
Captain Howard was also wounded. Colonel Cobbe continued 
to serve the guns with only one Somali sergeant, and for this 
and another deed has since received the Victoria Cross. On 
our side the casualties were fifty-six levies and forty-three 
transport spearmen killed, and eighty-four levies and transport 
wounded. 
Colonel Swayne, in two charges led by himself in person, 
finally drove off the enemy, who retired defeated. The force 
then formed zerfba. The enemy had got a lot of the stampeded 
camels, which must have run for miles, and a Maxim, which had 
never come into action, but had been dropped by its carriers in 
the first confusion. 
At 5 p.m. the enemy began to show up again, and Colonel * 
Swayne with three companies went out and drove them off, 
recovering the stampeded camels, though the Maxim could not 
be found. 
