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distanced herself from this expedition all along. She has said that if it is to avenge her brother, then she does not wish him avenged and she is certain he would most strongly have notwished it himself. She says she knows the Mahdi had not wished General Gordon dead but rather had wanted him alive so that he could exchange him for the freedom ofUrabi Pasha, the exiled leader of the Egyptian uprising of 1882. She tells anyone who will listen that her brother was among the first to come forward when Mr Blunt set up the fund to defray the expenses for the defence ofUrabi, and that he had said, ‘Here’s the money, I’ll wagerUrabi pays it back himself in a couple of years.’
    Each day now brings fresh horrors and Edward sickens so that I cannot bring myself to leave the house, nor do I wish it but content myself while he sleeps with a turn about the garden — the garden in which all things appear so brown and bare and dead that it would seem impossible that May will come and all will be in leaf again — and yet, today, I spotted the cheery white of the first snowdrops: the usual five, faithful to their usual place at the base of the old plum tree — and I was filled with a kind of melancholy hope —
    Sweet Mary, Mother of God, I pray for my husband’s soul as I pray for the souls of all the men who were joined in that terrible event —
    The papers are full of it: an army of 7,000 British and 20,000 Egyptian soldiers loses 48 men and kills 11,000 of the Dervishes and wounds 16,000 in the space of six hours.
    Winston Churchill promises to publish a book that tells how General Kitchener ordered all the wounded killed and how he (Churchill) had seen the 21st Lancers spearing the wounded where they lay and leaning with their whole weight on their lances to pierce through the clothes of the dying men and how Kitchener let the British and Egyptian soldiers loose upon the town for three days of rape and pillage.
    The Honourable Algernon Bourke, Lady Caroline’s kinsman, tells Sir Charles a heavy ‘butchers bill’ was ordered for that day and communications with London were cut on a pretext so that no tempering word might find its way to the General.
    Oh, I do so completely fear for my husband now, for if it is true and if he took part in those terrible deeds, he who puts honour above all else and truly thought that in embarking on this expedition he embarked on a brave and honourable task, I cannot now see how he can put it behind him — most particularly when he is so ill in body and at the mercy of the fever which burns him up for hours and leaves him, when it does, limp and so weakened that he can barely take the water that we put to his lips.
    Edward Winterbourne died on 20 March 1899.
    He had stood on the plain of Umm Durman and the thought that had hovered around him inAtbara, in Sawakin, in the officers’ mess — the thought that he had for weeks held at bay — rose out of the dust of the battlefield and hurled itself full in his face in its blinding light. And once that thought had revealed itself and taken hold, the fanatical dervishes transformed themselves in front of his eyes into men — men, with their sorry encampments, with their ragtag followers of women and children and goats, with their months of hunger upon their bodies, and their foolish spears and rifles in their hands, and their tattered banners fluttering above their heads. Men impassioned by an idea of freedom and justice in their own land. But still they planted their standard and still they rushed forward with their spears and it was too late, too late to do anything but stand and fire.
    I
have told Sir Charles that I believe that in his heart Edward was just and honourable to the end. And that I believe that, at the end, he stood closer to his father in his convictions than he was able to say. I trust this may — in time — provide him with some comfort.

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    I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
    Walt Whitman

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