AFTERMATH

More than a fortnight passed after Professor Palmer’s departure without the British military authorities receiving any authentic news of him and his party. On 23rd August the Admiralty in London telegraphed Alexandria and offered the services of Colonel Charles Warren to deal with the Bedouin. Warren had previously volunteered for active service in the Egyptian campaign and had reported on the Bedouin situation in respect of the security of the Suez canal. He had expected to carry out a mission similar to Palmer’s and had only heard of the Professor’s involvement, which had been kept very secret, on 12th August.

Now the British authorities in Alexandria immediately asked for Colonel Warren to be sent from London. Warren and his party arrived at Al-Isma'iliyah on 1st September and he was put in charge of a mission to find Palmer’s party.

It was not, however, until 22nd October that Warren’s expedition, augmented by 370 Bedouin and 200 camels, set off into the desert from Ayun Mûsa. The native Bedouin were very obstructive but with descriptions from some of Palmer’s camel drivers and from prisoners taken en route, Warren arrived at the murder site on 24th October. Lieutenant A.E. Haynes of the Royal Engineers, a twenty-one year old who accompanied Warren, takes up the story:

We continued our march down the right bank of Wadi Sadr, which here follows a somewhat tortuous course, different from the way we had come up the day before. On leaving Abu Rigem, the valley began to narrow, with ledges shelving in on either side. The sides got steeper and steeper, until there was merely a camel-track along the ledge, with precipices above and below us – on our right to the cliffs above, on our left to the gully below. The gully was about twenty feet broad and fifty deep, with pools of water in places at the bottom; and the edges at the top so rounded off that it was with difficulty we could see down to the bottom. On we went till we reached a spot six miles below Abu Rigem, where the ledge broadened out, making a cave in a re-entering angle, in the middle of which , in a cistern formed out of limestone-rock by the dripping of water from the roof above, was a pellucid pool of water. Salâmi tells us that the bodies were beneath us in the gully; but as we could see nothing of them from above, and we had had a long fast, we retired to the cave to lunch before commencing what we inferred would be a lugubrious and sickening task.

While we were lunching, shouts were heard from below. Ascertaining their cause, we found Mohammed Shedîd and our scouts had arrived at the same spot as we had, they having come up the gully from some miles below – and this without any guide, though they had professed all the while to know nothing about the country or murder. Leaving Burton and Mosalli with the Bedouin to look after the ropes at the top, Colonel Warren and I were next lowered to the bottom of the gully, which was here forty-seven feet deep, and from ten to twenty feet wide, with precipitous sides. Below, we found the remains of our unfortunate countrymen – a skull, jaw-bone, numerous ribs and broken bones, much gnawed by wild beasts; a truss of a very small man, supposed to be Professor Palmer; two socks marked W.G. (W. Gill), with the feet still in them; and parts of socks and drawers marked H.C. and H. Charrington: also a pair of duck-trousers, with buttons marked with the name of a Bombay tailor; these latter were in such a condition that we burnt them. The bones were much scattered over the bed of the gully, where were pools of water and clumps of reeds; and on the ledge, and on the side of the gully, there were traces of blood, showing that one or more of the party must have been killed or wounded above. Never could a better place have been chosen for the concealment of the tragedy: after the first rain all trace of it would have been washed away from the gully beneath; and even on the sides and above on the ledge, where the marks of the blood were, the rocks would have been washed clean, for there was here the bed of a little torrent that, after the rain, courses down the side of the ravine and traverses the ledge from the above-mentioned cave to the gully.

The remains of the bodies were carefully collected and placed in a case, provided for the purpose, for removal to England; and after sketching the gully we were drawn up again and started off on the return journey to camp, where we arrived at sunset and found all correct.

Three months later, on 23rd January 1883, Colonel Warren and his party revisited the murder scene with Lieutenant Charrington’s brother and sister. Warren read the Anglican funeral service and three volleys of ball-cartridge were fired into the air as a mark of respect for the dead. Miss Charrington selected a prominent flat-topped hill to the north of the wadi as a memorial site. On it was erected a cairn, 17 feet in diameter and 13 feet high. An oak cross was mounted upon it, bearing an inscription to the memory of the three Englishmen. Then the cross and cairn were consecrated.

Colonel Warren was concerned lest the Bedouin desecrate the memorial. He wrote:

It so happened that at that time a cheery old Bedouin fell very ill, and was left near our camp by his comrades to take his chance. This man we brought into a tent and tended, and, on his turning the corner, he expressed great gratitude to us all, especially to Miss Charrington, who had been very kind to him. In conversation with him I stated my anxiety to get the cairn and cross made taboo to the Bedouin, and the matter evidently very much dwelt on his mind, as during the night he had a vivid dream concerning it. He related to the Bedouin and to us that he had seen the Star Smaiyeh come down from heaven and gather up all the souls of the murdered ones into his bosom and carry them up to the cairn and deposit them there, and subsequently carry them back to the Wadi. This made the spot taboo to the Bedouin, and the dream was given out through the desert and the place was not molested.

A week or two later Warren began arranging the trial of the murder suspects. A Turkish commission at Tanta, 40 miles north of Cairo, examined the case for five days and referred it to the Court Martial at Alexandria. Five of the prisoners were sentenced to death, eight others to imprisonment. Those suffering capital punishment were executed at Zagazig (As-Zaqazig), between Cairo and Alexandria, in the presence of a Sheikh and two Bedouin from every tribe in Lower Egypt. Meter abu Sofieh, who betrayed the Palmer party, escaped retribution by dying in hospital at Suez.

For their part in the Palmer search expedition, Colonel Warren, Lieutenant Burton and Lieutenant Haynes were decorated by the British and the Turks. Captain William Gill was posthumously awarded the Egyptian medal and Khédive’s star.

The fragmentary and indistinguishable remains of the five murdered men, including Khalil Attik and Bâkhor Hassûn, were sent back to England from Alexandria on the transport ship Nepaul. It docked at Portsmouth on 31st March 1883, where the remains were placed in a lead inner coffin, encased in a black-painted outer coffin of panelled English oak with a white cross on it. Verger Green of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London noted in his diary for Wednesday 4th April 1883:

The remains of the late Professor Palmer, Captain Gill and Lieutenant Charrington (murdered in Arabia when on service for the Government) were brought to the cathedral early this morning (4.15 a.m.) from Portsmouth and deposited in the crypt. They were buried on Friday April 6th, at 12 noon.

The funeral service was attended by William Gill’s mother, his sister Frances and brother Robert, by mourners of Professor Palmer and Lieutenant Charrington and by many notables from the Royal Engineers and the admiralty, including Lord Northbrook (First Lord of the Admiralty). The Royal Engineers Journal described the event thus:

The mourners having assembled in the crypt opposite the grille leading to the room in which the coffin was placed, were formed into a procession, the remaining visitors lining either side of the crypt as far as the chancel chapel. The coffin, covered with a Union Jack for a pall, was met at the grille by the Dean and Chapter and the choir; the dean read the opening lines of the impressive burial service of the Church of England as the coffin, led by the clergy, and followed by the long train of mourners, was slowly moved to a catafalque in front of the altar table, where the mourners, as they passed to their seats, placed on it the wreaths they had brought with them. The lesson was here impressively read by Canon Liddon. The procession was then reformed, the dean, clergy, and choristers leading the way to the grave where the coffin was borne, followed by the mourners.

The service at the grave was conducted by the Dean of St. Paul’s, and the choir sang the hymns ‘Thy will be done’ and ‘Jesus lives!’ which brought the service to a close.

Memorial tablet in St Paul's Cathedral, London (from an illustration in 'The River of Golden Sand')

A few days before the funeral, The Royal Engineers Journalreported:

We understand that the public memorial to the late Captain W.J. Gill, R.E., is to take the form of a Scholarship at Brighton College, (where he was educated) for the sons of officers in the army in reduced circumstances, the nomination to such Scholarship to rest with the authorities at the War Office and India Office.

And at half-past twelve in the afternoon of Thursday 15th November 1883, a memorial service took place at the college. General Sir Lintorn Simmons of the Royal Engineers unveiled a white marble tablet, surmounted by the Gill heraldic emblems, and with an inscribed inner tablet of black marble. After the service, the guests were entertained by the President and Council of the college at a luncheon in the College Hall. Various relics of William Gill’s career were displayed, including his sword, military medals and the medals awarded to him by the Royal and French geographical societies. Copies of his book The River of Golden Sand were also displayed, a shorter single-volume edition being published soon after. The new edition was condensed by Edward Colborne Baber and edited by Colonel Henry Yule.

Memorial unveiling at Brighton College

More than a year earlier, on 29th October 1882, Colonel Fred Burnaby of the Royal Horse Guards wrote to The Times in praise of the late Captain Gill. He said:

In the age in which we live, men like this unfortunate officer are seldom seen. Unfortunate officer. Yet why should I have written those words? He died not in battle, it is true, but was slain after having been employed upon the most dangerous duty which he could perform – that of cutting a telegraph wire in a hostile country. Certain death would naturally be the lot of anyone if discovered. He knew full well his risk, but danger to him was nothing new. He played his life as he had played it on many other occasions. This time was once too often. He died as he would have wished, for England.

Of fine weather friends there are enough and to spare; but friends such as Captain Gill, whose first thought was for others and how best to lend them a helping hand, are few and far between. Only accident made us aware of his numerous acts of generosity, and many people who have been aided by him will feel acutely the death of their benefactor. His good deeds were done secretly – his right hand did not know what his left gave away in charity. The poor have lost a friend, the profession to which he belonged has been deprived of one of its brightest ornaments.

Rochester Cathedral, being near the Royal Engineer’s nearby headquarters in Brompton Barracks, contains many memorials to notable members of the corps. William Gill was commemorated by a stained glass window in the south quire transept, depicting Joshua and the Angel before Jericho, and by a brass memorial plaque.

His obituary in The Royal Engineers Journal concluded with this poem:

England Expects Every Man To Do His Duty

Alas! For the sorrowful tidings,
Flash’d back from the far distant strand
Alas! For the three gallant spirits,
Gone home from that sun-stricken land.

Daring scholar, and high-courag’d soldier,
And sailor true hearted and brave,
We mourn you the dauntless and noble,
Ye faithful to death and the grave.

Spurning danger ’mid traitor-Egyptians,
Sheikh robbers and Bedouin bands,
Single-handed these chivalrous brothers
Press forward – their lives in their hands.

For England had spoken and claim’d them,
And gladly they rose at her cry,
And cheerily welcomed her summons
‘Be ready to do or to die.’

Strong life, with its visions of greatness,
Ne’er drew them from duty aside,
Stern death had no terrors to taint them,
Their duty was death – and they died!

They heard not the thanks of the nation,
Nor bravos that shivered the air,
Nor silver tongued orators lauding
Great deeds in which they had a share.

They sought not for gain or for guerdon,
For honours, or mention, or praise,
Nor jostled for fame as men jostle
In scheming and self-seeking days.

Then welcome your conquering Wolseley,
And crown him and feast as you will,
But spare just one thought for such heroes
As Charrington, Palmer and Gill.

Justitia