noon
The fire did no material harm , but it seems to have frightened what little courage was left among the officials , and the governor and a hundred and fifty of the townsmen went out and arranged the surrender , although they knew perfectly well that in a very few days help would arrive . There is one thing , the surrender will enable General Graham to choose his own time , and to wait until all the troops are up , instead of pushing forward , as he might otherwise have done , directly he thought he had men enough , to save Tokar . '' In another five minutes the officer had taken his place in the launch and was steaming back into Suakim , and the transport was making her way south . By noon she was anchored off the landing-place , a low beach with a flat country extending behind it . The shore was alive with troops , and numbers of boats were plying backwards and forwards . The work of disembarking the horses began immediately , and the greater part of them were on shore before night . There they found the Black Watch , Gordon Highlanders , Irish Fusiliers , 19th Hussars , and the Mounted Infantry , a corps of one hundred and twenty-six strong .