The gunboat deployed by General Kitchener at the Battle of Omdurman may soon sail again, more than a century after it blasted its way up the Nile to crush rebellion in Sudan.

For the past 20 years, the 145ft Melik has been slowly rusting on the muddy bank of the Blue Nile at Khartoum. But after years of being lobbied for its preservation the Sudanese authorities have now agreed in principle to the establishment of a joint Anglo- Sudanese charity whose task will be to restore the ancient battleship.

The Melik Society, a British-based group that has campaigned for twelve years to save the boat, is hopeful that they will shortly be able to begin restoration. “There is no reason why the Melik should not be fully restored and able to go back in the water,” says Anthony Harvey, secretary of the Melik Society.

In some ways, the Melik is an unlikely symbol of Anglo-Sudanese co-operation. The gunboat was a Victorian weapon of high technology and fearsome power, intended to terrorise the Sudanese rebels and to kill as many as possible. Built in Chiswick in 1896, then shipped in pieces to Egypt, it was taken by rail across the Nubian Desert and reassembled at Abadieh on the Nile. From there it led a flotilla of heavily armed gunboats, a vital element in Kitchener’s reconquest of Khartoum in 1898.

In the course of the engagement, the 21st Lancers mounted one of the last cavalry charges in history, earning three Victoria Crosses. But the battle was essentially won by modern military methods and brutal firepower, including the Melik’s ferocious battery of guns. The Ansar, with their chain-mail armour and crocodile-skin shields, were no match for the Maxim guns, which could fire 500 rounds a minute.

In 1926, the Melik was moored to the riverbank at Khartoum and became the clubhouse for the Blue Nile Sailing Club. From her deck, refurbished as a comfortable bar, expatriates would gather to drink pink gins and watch the sailing races on the Nile. She emerged briefly from retirement in 1938 to play a starring role in the Alexander Korda film ’The Four Feathers’.

www.melik.org.uk

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The Melik in service
The river gunboat Melik in a lull between operations.

The Melik on screen
The Melik stars in the 1939 film, ’The Four Feathers’.