by Wilbur Smith
Penrod open the Bible carefully. The sheet of rice paper was still intact, flattened by the pressure, and it seemed that the ink had not run further. Gordon handed him a large magnifying glass. “Your eyes, and your understanding of Arabic, are probably better than mine.”
Penrod carried the Bible across to the table below the window where the light was better. He pored over it, and after a moment began to read aloud the tiny flowing script: ‘“I, Abdullah Sayid, son of Fahl,
Emir of the Baggara, greet the Victorious Mahdi who is the light of my eyes, and call down upon him the blessing of Allah and his other Prophet, who is also named Muhammad.”
“Standard salutation,” Gordon grunted.
Penrod went on: ‘“True to the orders of the Victorious Mahdi, I stand guard upon the Nile at Abu Hamed, and my scouts watch all the roads from the north. The infidel Frank and the despicable Turk approach on two separate routes. The Frankish steamers have this day passed through the cataract at Korti.”
Gordon slammed the flat of his hand on the desk. “Praise God! This is the first hard intelligence I have had in six weeks. If Wolseley’s steamers have arrived at Korti they should reach Abu Hamed before the end of Ramadan.”
“Sir!” Penrod agreed, though he was not so sure.
“Go on, man. Go on!”
“A trifle difficult here. The ink has run badly. I think it says, “The camel regiments of the Franks are still encamped at the Wells of Gakdul, where they have been now for twenty-eight days.”
“Twenty-eight days? What on earth does Stewart think he is playing at?” Gordon demanded. “If only he had some gumption, he would make a bold dash for it. He could reach us within ten days.”
That is Chinese Gordon’s own style the bold dash and the grand gesture, Penrod thought, but he kept his expression neutral. “Stewart is also a death-or-glory lad, but he has to bring up his supplies before he can make the final charge to the city.”
Gordon jumped up again, and flicked the butt of his cigarette through the open window. “With two thousand of Stewart’s first-line British troops I could hold the city until the desert freezes over, but still he shilly-shallies at Gakdul.” He spun on his heel and faced Penrod again. “Go on, Ballantyne, what else is there?”
“Not much, sir.” He stooped over the tattered scrap of paper. “In the name of the Victorious Mahdi, and with the blessing of Allah, we will meet the infidel at Abu Hamed and destroy him.” Penrod looked up. “That’s all. It seems that Sayid ran out of space.”
“Very little for our comfort,” Gordon observed, ‘and the Nile is falling.”
“With a brace of Ryder Courtney’s fast camels Yakub and I could be at the Wells of Gakdul in three days,” Penrod said. “I could take Stewart your message.”
“You do not escape me so easily, Ballantyne.” Gordon laughed ironically, a short bark of sound. “Not yet awhile. We will continue to follow the progress of the relief columns by intercepting the pigeons.”
“The Dervish might accept one or two missing birds as prey of the falcons,” Penrod demurred, ‘but we must not frighten them off by killing every one as it arrives.”
“Of course, you have a point. But I must have news. I want you to shoot every fourth pigeon that comes in.”
Muhammad Ahmed, the Victorious Mahdi, walked in the cool of the evening along the bank of the great river. He was attended by his khalifa and his five most trusted emirs. As he walked he recited the nine-and-ninety beautiful names of Allah and his entourage murmured the response after each was enunciated.
“Al-Ghafur, the concealer of faults.”
“God is great!”
“Al-Wall, the friend of the righteous.”
“Praise be to God!”
“Al-Qawi, the strong.”
“May his word triumph.”
They reached the tomb of the saint al-Rabb, and the Mahdi took his seat in the shade of the tree that spread its branches over it. When his warlords were assembled, he called upon each to report his order of battle, and give an account of the troops that he commanded. One after another they knelt before him and described their array. Then the Mahdi knew he had seventy thousand men gathered before the walls of Khartoum; another twenty-five thousand had gone two hundred miles north to Abu Hamed on the bend of the river to await the approach of the two British forces. These Ansar were of the finest, their religious ardour and their devotion to the jihad against the infidel at its fiercest. The Mahdi knew that no infidel army could prevail against them.
The Mahdi smiled at Osman Atalan. “Tell me what we know of the enemy,” he ordered.
“O Mighty and Victorious Lord, beloved of God and the other Prophet, know you that each day Abdullah Sayid, Emir of the Baggara, sends a pigeon from his camp at Abu Klea on the bend of the Nile. Some of the birds do not reach my lofts, for there are birds of prey and other hazards along their flight path, but most come to my hand.”
The Mahdi nodded. “Speak to me, Osman Atalan. Tell us what news of the enemy movements these birds bring us.”
“Sayid reports that the infidel steamers, seven in number, have passed through the last cataract below Korti, and now that the worst of their voyage is behind them, they come on apace. They are travelling almost five times faster than they did below the cataract. They carry many men and great guns.”
“God shall deliver them to my hand, and they shall be destroyed,” said the Mahdi.
“God is great!” Osman Atalan agreed. “The second infidel column has reached the Wells at Gakdul. There they have stopped. We do not know why this is. I believe that there is not sufficient good fodder to feed the camels for the heavy work they must do. They wait at Gakdul for more supplies to be brought up from Wadi Haifa.”
“How many infidel troops are at Gakdul?”
“Divine One, Sayid has counted more than one thousand Franks, and about the same number of camel drivers, guides and servants.”
“Are these Franks mad?” the Mahdi demanded. “How can they dream to prevail against my one hundred thousand Ansar?”
“It may be that they are waiting at Gakdul for reinforcements to join them,” Osman suggested delicately.
“These infidels shall be destroyed also. No mortal man can prevail against the will of God. All these things God has told me.”
“Allah is all seeing and all knowing.”
“Know you that on many nights Allah has come to me as an eagle of flame. He has told me many grave secrets that are too powerful for the common man to hear,” he said, in his soft mellifluous voice, and they bowed before him.
“Blessed is the Mahdi, for he alone hears and understands the word of Allah,” chanted Khalifa Abdullahi.
“Allah has told me that before the infidel and the Frank and the Turk can be driven for ever from the Sudan and the earthly kingdom of Allah and Islam, my enemy Gordon Pasha must be destroyed. Allah has told me that Gordon Pasha is the black angel, Satan, in the guise of a man.”
“May he be ever accursed, and never look upon the face of God,” they cried.
“Allah, the All Wise, has told me that the noble warrior of Islam who cuts the head of Gordon Pasha from his trunk, like some bitter and evil fruit, and brings it to me, and lays it at my feet, shall ever be blessed and that there shall be prepared for him a place in Paradise at God’s right hand. He will also be given power and riches in this world of the flesh.”
“God is merciful! God is great!” they chanted.
“Allah has spoken to me, and he has told me the name of my servant who shall bring the head of the infidel to me,” quoth the Mahdi solemnly, and they prostrated themselves before him.
“Let the man be me!”
“If it be me, I shall want no other honour in this life or hereafter.” The Mahdi held up his hands and they fell silent. “Osman Atalan of the Beja, draw closer to me,” he said. On his hands and knees Osman crawled to his feet. “Allah has told me that you are that man.”
Tears of joy streamed down the emir’s
cheeks. He bowed his head over the Mahdi’s feet and washed the dust from them with his tears.
Then he unwrapped his turban and, with the locks of his long dark hair, he dried the feet of the Chosen Prophet of God.
The Nile is falling,” said Osman Atalan, ‘and God and the Mahdi have prepared a task for us.” His aggagiers drew closer to the campfire and watched his face by the light of the flames. “They have chosen us above all the warriors of Allah. We are blessed beyond all other men, for we have been given the wondrous chance to die for the glory of Allah and his Mahdi.”
“Let us seize Allah’s bounteous gift. Command us, Great Lord,” his aggagiers pleaded.
He studied their fierce expressions with pride. These were not men, but man-eating lions. “Our sacred task is to bring to the Divine Mahdi the head of Gordon Pasha, for omnipotent and mighty Allah has decreed that when we achieve this the infidel will be driven from this land for ever, and that Islam will prevail throughout all the world.”
Al-Noor asked: “Shall we wait for the time of Low Nile, so that we may find a firm foothold on the city shore and a passage through the walls?”
“Every day we delay, the forces of Satan march down upon us from the north. Already their steamers laden with men and guns sweep up the river. Yes, the river is still high, but God has made clear a road for us.” Osman clapped his hands. An old man limped into the firelight and knelt before him. “Have no fear, Beloved of God. No harm shall come to you. Tell these men what you know.”
“I was born and I have lived all my life in the City of the Elephant’s Trunk, Khartoum. But since the Victorious Mahdi has invested the city and laid siege, the curse of Allah has been laid upon the city. Those infidels and Turks who have thought to resist his wisdom and his truth have been made to suffer as no men before them. Their empty bellies cling to their backbones, their children are eaten up by the cholera, the vultures gorge on their rotting corpses, the fathers club the birds and eat them half cooked while their crops bulge with the flesh of their own children.” The aggagiers moved restlessly as they listened to this recital.
What an abomination to eat the flesh of the bird that had devoured your children. “Those who are not too weak of starvation flee the doomed city, and the de fences are every day denuded and weakened. I am one of those who has flown. But, like you, I wish to see the infidel banished for ever from the Sudan, and the son of all evil, Gordon Pasha, destroyed. Only then may I return in the peace of the Mahdi to my home.”
“Let Allah accomplish this,” they murmured. The man was old and frail but they admired his spirit.
“The Turks who fight for Gordon Pasha are so reduced in number by disease, starvation and desertion that the infidel can no longer guard the city walls. In their place Gordon Pasha has placed men of straw, mere scarecrows, to frighten off the timid among you.”
“What is this talk of straw men?” Hassan Ben Nader demanded. “Is it true?”
“It is true,” Osman confirmed. “I have sailed close to the harbour mouth in this brave old man’s dhow. There is a place in the de fences where a creek runs into the river through a stone gateway. This is the main outflow from the city sewers. Gordon Pasha has manned the gateway and the walls on either side with dummy soldiers to replace those who have died or run away. Only their heads show above the parapets. At intervals a few old women move them so that from this bank they seemed to live. There is none to resist our onslaught. With one rush we can be through the gap. Then the city and all those within will be ours.”
“There will be great stores of gold and jewels,” al-Noor mused.
“There are women in the city, hundreds of women. As his wives, concubines and slaves, the Turkjias chosen the most beautiful women of the Sudan and all the surrounding lands. For each of us there will be a dozen women at least.” Hassan Ben Nader’s eyes gleamed in the firelight. “The women of the Franks have hair like yellow silk and their skin is like rich cream.”
“Speak not of gold and slaves. We fight for the glory of Allah and the Mahdi.” Osman reprimanded them for their greed. “After that we fight for our own honour and a place in Paradise.”
“When will we attack these straw men?” Al-Noor laughed with excitement. “I have sat too long with my harem, and I am growing fat. It is time to fight again.”
“Three nights from now it will be the dark of the moon, and in the night we will cross the river. At first we will land two hundred men on the beach there is no space for more. When we have forced the breach a thousand more will follow us, and after them a thousand more. By dawn I will stand on the parapets of Mukran Fort with the head of
Gordon Pasha in my hands, and the prophecy will be fulfilled.” Osman stood up and made a sign of blessing over them. “Make certain that your swords are sharp and all your wives are with child before we cross the river.”
The old fisherman, the uncle of Yakub, has given the signal. A handful of sulphur in the flames of his cooking fire, and the puff of yellow smoke that Yakub was watching for,” Penrod reported to the Chinese Gordon.
“Can we trust this fellow, Yakub? To me he seems an evil rogue.”
“I have trusted him often in the most dire circumstances and I am still alive, General.” Penrod kept his anger under control, but with difficulty.
“Has he been able to warn us when the Dervish will attack if they do?”
“No, sir, we don’t know that,” Penrod admitted, ‘but I expect they will use the new moon.”
While Gordon consulted his almanac for the moon phases, David Benbrook, the third man in the room, gave his appraisal of the chances of success. “He is a brave man, this uncle of Yakub. I know him well. He has been in my service ever since I arrived in Khartoum. His information has always been reliable.” David was sitting in a chair by the window. These days, he and the general spent much time together. They were unlikely companions, but as Gordon’s tribulations increased he seemed to find solace with his own kind.
Without seeming to do so Penrod studied Gordon’s face while he spoke to David. Even in repose, a nerve fluttered in his right eyelid. This was only a visible sign of how finely stretched Gordon was. One of the other deeper and more significant indications was in his behaviour: the brutal excesses of inhumanity. It seemed to Penrod that these were becoming more savage each day, as though by the kurbash, the firing squad and the noose he could delay the fall of the city. Even he must now see that our struggle is drawing towards the end, and the populace is beyond hope or caring. Does he believe that he can compel them to their duty by convincing them that the consequences of their disobedience will be far worse than anything that the Mahdi can do to them? Penrod studied Gordon’s face as the general spoke to David Benbrook. At least Benbrook is a man of humanity, he thought. His influence on Gordon can only be for the good.
He put aside such considerations when Gordon stood up and addressed him abruptly. “Let us go down to the harbour and inspect your preparations to meet this imminent attack, Ballantyne.”
Penrod knew it was unwise for Gordon Pasha to show himself on the walls where the attack was expected: too many spies were watching his every move, and the Dervish were too shrewd not to suspect that he was preparing something for their discomfort. However, he knew it was even more unwise to gainsay the little man.
But Penrod need not have concerned himself: Gordon was too sly an old fox to lead the hounds to the entrance of his earth. Before they left the palace, Gordon removed his distinctive fez and replaced it with a grubby turban, the tail of which concealed half of his face, then covered his uniform with a stained, nondescript galabiyya. From a distance he looked like any humble citizen of Khartoum.
Even when they reached the harbour Gordon did not show himself on the parapets. However, he was meticulous and painstaking in his inspection of Penrod’s preparations. He peered through every embrasure that pierced the walls of the derelict buildings that overlooked the noisome sewerage-clogged creek. He stood behind a Gatling and traversed the gleaming mu
ltiple barrels from side to side. He was dissatisfied with the dead area directly under the muzzles. He climbed out of the Gatling’s nest into the ooze of the creek and placed himself in the line of fire, then moved closer to the redoubt.
“Keep the gun trained on me,” he ordered.
The gunner kept depressing his aim until he shook his head with exasperation. “You are too close, General. It can no longer bear.”
“Captain Ballantyne, if they reach this point the Dervish will be under the gun.” Gordon looked pleased that he had caught Penrod out.
Penrod realized it was no excuse that Gordon overloaded him with responsibilities: he had been negligent, and he rebuked himself silently. Such an elementary oversight is almost as bad as starving the gun for ammunition, he thought bitterly. He ordered the engineers to tear down the wall of sandbags and rebuild it with a lower sill.
“Where have you placed the second Gatling?” Gordon demanded. He had Penrod on the defensive now, and was pushing his advantage.
“It is still in the redoubt in front of the hospital. That is the other -obvious weak point in our perimeter. I dare not leave that gap undefended, and place all our bets on the attack striking us here. The Dervish may even mount two simultaneous strikes at both positions.”
“They will strike here,” Gordon said, with finality.
“I agree that is the highest probability. So I have built another machine-gun nest over there, where it can cover the beach and enfilade both banks of the creek. As soon as the attack develops and the enemy is committed, I can rush the second gun across from the hospital to this side. Equally, if we are mistaken and they strike at the hospital I can move this gun over to cover that position.”
“How long will it take to move the guns.” Gordon demanded.
“I estimate about ten minutes.”
“No estimates, Ballantyne. Run an exercise and time it.”
On the first attempt the gun-crew encountered a pile of fallen masonry in the alley behind the harbour. They had to clear it before they could bring the heavy carriage through. The second attempt was more successful: it took twelve minutes to run it through the streets and re site it in the prepared nest to cover the beach and the banks of the creek.