Progress while an east wind blows

I’ve been hunkered down with my RMLI and Naval Brigade, finally finishing them.

Meanwhile a hoard of Hadendowa and another British infantry company are ready for painting, and I am beginning to think about modelling the Jack Tars hauling the Gatling gun limber, and a screw gun carried by mules or camels.

Top to bottom: The Naval Brigade contingent from HMS Hecla join their chief, Captain Arthur Wilson; the RMLI company from HMS Tyne; Rear Admiral Sir William Hewett VC KCB; war correspondents and great friends Melton Prior and Bennet Burleigh.

Abu Klea 136th anniversary

Coincidentally I’m in the middle of Mike Snook’s chapters about the the battle of Abu Klea.

Beyond the Reach of Empire is a forensic account of the 1885 Nile Expedition, and in particular investigates the responsibility of the officer blamed by Wolsey for its failure.

I am reading this alongside the richly illustrated Go Strong into the Desert (also by Snook), Melton Prior’s Campaigns of a War Correspondent, and In Relief of Gordon, Lord Wolseley’s campaign journal, edited by Adrian Preston.

These are very different texts, offering corroberation, of course, and different perspectives on operations and life and death in the desert, and I would recommended them all.

Abu Klea casts a shadow.

The second anniversary of my blog

Firstly, happy new year. It’s two years since my first post here, and what a couple of years we have all had. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic I have collected some 5,794 page views and six followers, although I cannot imagine that these six are responsible for all those page views. Limits to personal freedom and movement weren’t all bad though, as these circumstances enncouraged downtime focused on my Sudan project.

I thought it time to take stock. I work slowly, seeming to spend a lot of time on research and modelling (the Gatling gun limber model is a very good example of this), and not enough time actually painting miniatures.

All the same, I seem to have got quite a bit done, including a handful of scenic items comprising buildings, a fortification, supplies, barricades, trees, shrubs, and thorn bush.

The Mahdists are ahead in terms of finished miniatures, with a rub comprising a camel mounted band, two bands armed with spears and swords, a band armed with rifles, and a command group. Another rifle-armed band and a brass gun battery are finished (both destined to join the main command group. (I don’t think ‘flags’ as such were a form of organisation deployed by Osman Digna.)

Within a few weeks I should have added another Naval Brigade contingent (from HMS Hecla) and a RMLI company (from HMS Carysfort) to the Empire forces.

My first rub, which I have dubbed the Blue Rub because of the blue accent to the flags.

Mahdist brass gun battery; it’s very likely that the guns were spoils of the disastrous Hicks Pasha expedition.

A second rifle-armed band.

Naval Brigade contingent with Gatling gun battery, deployed by HMS Carysfort. Colonel Fred Burnaby is ready for anything at the front, while Melton Prior sketches at the rear.

Medical Staff Corps Number 3 Field Hospital.

A strong point built to protect the construction of the Suakin to Berber railway … a whole other project waiting in the wings.

Three buildings at this scale seems like plenty … but we shall see.

Melton Prior inspired Hadendowa conversion

A while ago I bought three boxes of Perry Miniatires’ Sudanese tribesmen, so there are quite a lot of plastic figures to assemble. From time-to-time I read complaints about having to assemble these figures, the nature of it being characterised as a chore. I enjoy assembly, actually; it takes me right back to my early teens self assembling Airfix models. I make one or two at a time when I have a spare moment, and day-by day this gets them done at a reasonable rate. Priming and painting is another matter, though.

As I did all those years ago, I like to make things my own with minor adjustments or major conversions. The principal advantage of these hard-ish plastic figures is how easily they lend themselves to conversion. This account of a moment at El Teb in Melton Prior’s memoir Campaigns of a War Correspondent suggested assembling a figure with a throwing stick in one hand and two spears in the other:

One man in particular I noticed. He held spears in the left hand, and he actually flung his boomerang and succeeded in hitting one of our men on the leg before he was killed.

Three easy conversions. The fellow on the left has just drawn his sword. The fellow on the right was inspired by an account by Melton Prior at the second battle of El Teb. He’s left-handed, obviously.

Two Victorian heroes and a Gatling gun battery

I haven’t painted anything smaller than a house for about three years, so it’s taken me a while to get my eye in. It also takes a while to familiarise oneself with the castings and mouldings, guides to uniform and attire, and develop a work flow.

Apart form the Beja riflemen and gun crews I’ve been working on a few British personalities, the British Field Hospital, and the Gatling gun battery. I have a Naval Brigade detachment and RMLI company primed, and have got the base coat on a Hadendowa camel band.

Colonel Frederick Burnaby was almost a metaphor for the British Empire’s might, a giant for his times at 6' 4" and 20 stone, a classic Victorian heroic adventurer. Having trekked solo through a Russian Asian war zone, he made a crossing of the English Channel by balloon, and endevoured to get himself attached to whichever military expedition was going. Famously he took on the Mahdist warriors with a shot gun at the second battle of El Teb.

Here’s a an article about Burnaby, and some details of the shot gun, in Guards Magazine:

Link

Captain Arthur Wilson, RN, of HMS Hecla, was in the thick of it at the second battle of El Teb too, protecting a Naval Brigade gun detachment by holding off the Fuzzy Wuzzys with the hilt of his broken sword, a feat for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

Melton Prior was an artist and war correspondent who covered many of the British Empire’s military adventures. Also always in the thick of it, his detailed sketches appeared in the Illustrated London News. I am reading his memoir at the moment.

Colonel Frederick Burnaby and Captain Arthur Wilson … both need a bit of dust adding to their boots.

Melton Prior sketching. I added reins from foil to his mount, since I plan to repurpose his servant to be an ammunition mule driver.

A Gatling gun limber on the right, showing that the lid was a single piece. A useful photographic confirmation of information I have gathered.

I have added hooks for fine chain to the gun carriages, added the handles to the Broadwell magazines, and prepared the hauling chains for the static and towed limbers.