by Wilbur Smith
Amber’s birthday ball was held at Shepheard’s Hotel. The band of the new Egyptian army played until dawn. White-robed waiters served silver trays of brimming champagne glasses. Every commissioned officer of the army from the rank of ensign upwards, a hundred and fifteen in all, had accepted the invitation to attend. Their smart new dress uniforms made a handsome foil to the ball gowns of the ladies. Even the sirdar and Sir Evelyn Baring made a brief appearance, and each danced a Vienna waltz with Amber. They both left early, aware that their presence had an inhibiting effect on the festivities.
Ryder and Saffron had made the long circuitous journey down from the highlands of Abyssinia, across the desert by camel, up the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal to Alexandria to be there. Saffron’s evening dress caused a mild sensation, even in this glittering company. She was two months pregnant, but of course that was not yet apparent.
At the beginning of the evening, after he had collected Amber and his sister-in-law Jane from the suite they were sharing on the top floor of the hotel, Penrod filled in Amber’s dance card. He reserved fifteen of her twenty dances. She was a little peeved that he had been so restrained. At the stroke of midnight the band broke into a rousing rendition of “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’. The guests applauded wildly. The champagne flowed like the Nile, and everybody was in jovial, expansive mood.
Penrod climbed the bandstand with Amber on his arm. The band welcomed them with a long drumroll, and Penrod held up his hands for silence. He was only partially successful in achieving it while he proposed the birthday toast. They drank it with gusto, and Ryder Courtney burst into “When You Were Sweet Sixteen’. The band and the rest of the guests picked up the tune. Amber blushed and clung to Penrod’s arm.
At the end of the song he quietened them again. “I have another announcement to make. Thank you!” The uproar subsided to a buzz of interest. “My lords, ladies, and fellow officers, who fall into neither of the first two categories!” They hooted, and again he had to bring them to order. “It gives me ineffable pleasure to inform you that Miss Amber Benbrook has consented to become my wife, and in so doing she has made me the happiest man in creation.”
A little later Colonel Sam Adams was smoking a quiet cigarette on the darkened terrace when he overheard the conversation of two young subalterns who had imbibed copious quantities of champagne.
“They say she has made herself a flash hundred thousand iron men from the book. Happiest man in creation? Ballantyne has that great gong stuck on his chest, pips on his shoulders, his own battalion, and to top it all the lucky blighter has dug himself a gold mine with his pork shovel. Why shouldn’t he be happy?”
“Lieutenant Stuttaford.” A cold, familiar voice spoke from the shadows close at hand.
Pale with shock, Stuttaford came unsteadily to attention. “Colonel Adams, sir!”
“Kindly present yourself at my office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
By noon the next day Lieutenant Stuttaford, still suffering from a vile hangover, found himself packing for immediate departure to the desert outpost at Suakiri”, one of the most desolate and dreary postings in the Empire.
The Egyptian army has always been considered a music-hall turn, the Gilbert and Sullivan opera of the Nile. The standing army at home, and those in the Indian Service snigger when they speak our name,” Penrod told the other members of the party. He and Ryder lolled against the transom of the felucca. Jane Ballantyne, Saffron and Amber sat on gaily-coloured cushions on the deck. They were sailing upstream in the hired felucca to climb to the summit of the pyramid of Cheops at Giza, and afterwards to picnic in the shadow of the Sphinx.
“How vulgar and silly of them.” Amber came immediately to his defence.
“In all truth they had good reason at one time,” Penrod admitted, ‘but that was the old army, in the bad old days. Now the men are paid. The officers do not steal their rations, and turn tail and run at the first shot. The men are not beaten when they fall sick, but are sent to the doctor and the hospital. All of you must come to the review on Monday. You will see some parading and drilling that will astonish you.”
“My father was a colonel in the Black Watch, as you know, Penrod,” said Jane. “I cannot claim to be a great expert, but I have read something of military affairs. Papa saw to that. As soon as we knew that we were coming to Cairo, Amber and I read every book about Egypt on the shelves of the library at Clercastle, as well as Sir Alfred Mimer’s excellent England in Egypt. Nowhere have I heard it suggested that the Egyptian fellahin are good soldierly material.”
“What you say is true. It was always unlikely that the rich and fertile delta, with its enervating climate, would produce warriors. The fellahin may be cruel and callous, but they are not fierce and bloodthirsty. On the other hand, they are stoic and strong. They meet pain and hardship with indifference. Theirs is a kind of docile courage that we more warlike peoples can only admire. They are obedient and honest, quick to learn and, above all, strong. What they lack in nerve they make up for in muscle.”
“Pen darling, that is all well and good about the Egyptians but tell us about your Arabs,” Amber interjected.
“Ah, but you know them well, my heart.” Penrod smiled tenderly at her. “If the Egyptian fellahin are mastiffs, then the Arabs are Jack Russell terriers. They are intelligent and quick. They are venal and excitable. They do not lend themselves willingly to discipline. You can never trust them entirely, but their courage is daunting. At Abu Klea they came against the square as if they gloried in death. If they give you their loyalty, and they seldom do, it is a link of steel that binds them to you. War is their way of life. They are warriors, and I respect them. Some I have learnt to love. Yakub is one of those.”
“Nazeera is another,” Amber agreed.
“Oh, I wonder what has become of her, and of our dear sister Rebecca.” Saffron shook her head sorrowfully. “I dream of her most nights. Is there nobody in Military Intelligence who can discover this for us?”
“Believe me, I have tried diligently to find news of Rebecca. However, the Sudan is closed off from the world, as though in a steel casket. It slumbers in its own nightmare. Would that one day we have the will and the way to end the horror and set her people free. Rebecca is the first of those we would liberate.”
Rebecca sat with the other wives in the cloister of the inner courtyard of the palace of Ostnan Atalan. It was the cool of the evening and Osman was demonstrating to his followers the courage of his blue-eyed son. For many months Rebecca had known that her son faced this ordeal. She covered her face with her veil so that none of the other women would know of her fear.
Only three months previously Ahmed Habib abd Atalan had been circumcised. Rebecca had wept as she dressed his mutilated penis, but Nazeera had rebuked her: “Ahmed is a man now. Be proud for him, al-Jamal. Your tears will unman him.”
Now Ahmed stood before his father, trying to be brave. His head was bare and his fists were clenched at his side.
“Open your eyes, my son.” Osman’s voice crackled. He tossed his sword into the air and it spun like a cartwheel before the hilt dropped back into his hand. “Open your eyes. I want Allah and all the world to know that you are a man. I want you to show me, your father, your courage.”
Ahmed opened his eyes. They were no longer milky, but a dark blue like the African sky when storm clouds gather. His lower lip quivered and tiny droplets of perspiration de wed the upper. Osman flourished the long blade and cut at the side of his head with such force that the steel hummed in the air. The stroke could have bisected a grown man at the trunk. It swept past Ahmed’s temple. His unruly coppery hair fluttered in the wind of its passage. The watching aggagiers growled with admiration. Ahmed swayed on his feet.
“You are my son,” Osman whispered. “Hold fast!” He stroked the tip of his son’s ear with the flat of the blade. Ahmed shrank away from the cool touch of steel.
“Do not move,” Osman warned him, “Or I will cut it off.”
Ahmed leant forward and vomited on the ground at his feet.
An expression of contempt and shame crossed Osman’s face, and was smoothed away immediately. “Go back to your mother,” he said softly.
Ahmed tried to choke back his sobs. “I do not feel well,” he murmured hopelessly, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
Osman stepped back and glared at him. “Go and sit with the women,” he ordered.
Ahmed ran to his mother and buried his face in Rebecca’s skirt.
A tense silence held the watchers. Nobody spoke and nobody moved.
They were barely able to draw breath. Osman was turning away when a small, delicate figure rose to her feet from among the ranks of seated women. Rebecca tried to hold her back, but Kahruba pushed away her hand and went to her father. He grounded the point of his blade and watched her stop in front of him. He studied her face, then demanded ominously, “What disrespect is this? Why do you pester me so?”
“My father, I want to show you and Allah my courage,” said the child. She removed her head cloth and shook out her tawny hair.
“Go back to your mother. This is no childish game.”
“Exalted father, I do not wish to play games.” She looked straight into his eyes.
He raised the sword and stepped towards her, like a leopard stalking a gazelle. She stood her ground. Suddenly he cut, forehanded, at her face. The blade flashed inches from her eyes. She blinked, but stood like a statue.
He cut again, backhanded. A curl dropped from the loose mop of her hair, and floated to the ground at her bare feet. Behind her Rebecca cried out, “Oh, my darling!”
Kahruba ignored her, and held her father’s eyes steadfastly.
“You provoke me,” he said, and slowly traced the outline of her body with the blade. Never further than a finger’s breadth from her flesh, the scalpel-sharp edge moved up from the outside of one knee, over her thigh, round the curve of her hip, along her arm and shoulder to the side of her neck. He touched her and she closed her eyes, then opened them as she felt the steel on her cheek. It moved up over the top of her head and down again to her other knee. She did not flinch.
Osman narrowed his eyes and brought the blade back along the same route, but faster, and then again, even faster. The steel dissolved into a silver blur. It danced in front of the child’s eyes like a dragonfly. It hummed and whispered in her ears as it passed close to her tender skin. Rebecca was weeping silently, and Nazeera held her hand hard, but she, too, was close to tears. “Do not make a sound,” she whispered. “If Kahruba moves, she is dead.”
The dancing blade held Kahruba in a cage of light. Then, abruptly, it stopped, pointing at her right eye from the distance of an inch. The point advanced slowly, until it touched her lower lashes. The child blinked but did not pull away.
“Enough!” said Osman, and stepped back. He threw the sword to al-Noor, who snatched it out of the air. Then Osman stooped and picked up his daughter. He held her close to his chest, and looked around at their taut expressions. “In this one, at least, my blood has bred true,” he told them. Then he tossed her high in the air, caught her as she fell back and carried her to Rebecca. “Breed me another like this one,” he ordered, ‘but, wife, this time make certain it is a boy.”
Later that evening Rebecca lay sprawled on his angareb. She still felt devastated by the events of the day and by the controlled fury of his lovemaking, which had ended only minutes before. She had watched her daughter come close to death under the dancing silver blade, while she herself seemed to have come even closer.
She was stark naked, a vessel overflowing with his fresh seed, aching pleasurably where he had been deep inside her. The lovemaking had rendered her ha from unclean in the eyes of God. She should cover herself, or go immediately to bathe and cleanse her body, but she felt languorous and wanton. She opened her eyes and found that he had come back from the bedroom window and was standing over her. He was still half erect, his glans glistening with the juices of her body. As she studied him she felt herself becoming aroused once more. She knew, with sure feminine instinct, that he had just impregnated her again, and that she would be forced to many months of abstinence until she was delivered of the infant. She wanted him, but saw that now his seed was spent his restless mind had moved on to other concerns.
“There is aught that troubles you, my husband.” She sat up and covered herself with the light bed cloth
“We spoke once of the steamer that runs on land, that travels on ribbons of steel,” he said.
“I recall that, my lord, but it was many years ago.”
“I wish to discuss this machine again. What was the name you gave it?”
“Railway engine,” she enunciated slowly and clearly.
He imitated her, but he lisped and garbled the sounds. He saw in her eyes that he had not succeeded. “It is too difficult, this language of yours.” He shook his head angrily, hating to fail in anything he attempted. “I shall call it the land steamer.”
“I shall understand what you mean. It is a better name than mine, more powerful and descriptive.” At times he was like a small boy and must be jollied along.
“How many men can travel upon this machine. Ten? Twenty? Surely not fifty?” he asked hopefully.
“If the land over which it passes is levelled it can carry many hundreds of men, perhaps as many as a thousand, perhaps many thousands.”
Osman looked alarmed. “How far can this thing travel?”
“To the end of its lines.”
“But surely it cannot cross a great river like the Atbara? It must stop there.”
“It can, my lord.”
“I do not believe it. The Atbara is deep and wide. How is that possible?”
“They have men they call engineers who have the skills to build a bridge over it.”
“The Atbara? They cannot build over a river so wide.” He was trying desperately to convince himself. “Where will they find tree trunks long and strong enough to span the Atbara?”
“They will make the bridge of steel, like the rails it runs upon. Like the blade of your sword,” Rebecca explained. “But why do you ask these questions, my husband?”
“My spies in the north have sent a message that these God-cursed Englishmen have begun to lay these steel ribbons from Wadi Haifa south across the great bight of the river, towards Metemma and the Atbara.” Then, suddenly, his temper flared. “They are devils, these infidel tribesmen of yours,” he shouted.
“They are no longer my tribesmen, exalted husband. Now I am of your tribe and no other.”
His anger subsided as suddenly as it had arisen.
“I am leaving at dawn tomorrow to go to the north and see this monstrosity with my own eyes,” he told her.
She dropped her eyes sadly: she would be alone again. Without him she was incomplete.
The year 1895 dawned and events were put in train that would change the history and face of Africa. British South Africa’s conquests were consolidated under the new nation of Rhodesia, and almost immediately the predatory men who had brought it into existence attacked the Boer nation of the Transvaal, their neighbours to the south. It was a puny invasion under Dr. Starr Jamieson that was immediately dubbed the Jamieson Raid. They had been promised support by their countrymen on the Witwatersrand gold fields which never materialized, and the tiny band of aggressors capitulated to the Boers without firing a shot. However, the raid presaged the conflict between Boer and Briton that, only a few years later, would cost hundreds of thousands of lives, before the Transvaal and its fabulously rich gold fields came under the sway of Empire.
In England the Liberal Party of Gladstone and Lord Rosebery was ousted by a Conservative and Unionist administration under the Marquess of Salisbury. In opposition they had always been vociferously opposed to Gladstone’s Egyptian policies. Now they had a massive majority in the House of Commons, and were in a position to change the direction of affairs in that crucial corner of the African continent.
By the beginning of 1896 Britain was ready to act. It needed only a spark to set off the conflagration. On 2 March, at the battle of Adowa, the Abyssinians inflicted a crushing defeat on Italy. Another European power had been thrashed by an African kingdom. This sent a clarion call to all colonial possessions. Almost immediately the gloomy forebodings of rebellion were fulfilled. The Dervish Khalifat Abdullahi threatened Kassala and raided Wadi Haifa. Reports reached Cairo of the gathering of a great Dervish army in Omdurman. Added to this, the French made covert hostile moves towards British possessions in Africa, especially in southern Sudan.
Thus a number of concurrent events had cast Great Britain in the role of far-seeing saviour of the world from anarchy, the avenger of Khartoum and Gordon, the protector of the Egyptian state. The honour and pride of the Empire must be preserved.
The order went out from London to General Kitchener. He was to recapture the Sudan. He was to do it swiftly and, above all, cheaply. The attempts to rescue Gordon and destroy the Mahdi had cost Britain thirteen million pounds: defeat is always more costly than victory. Kitchener was allowed a little over one million pounds to succeed in the job that, thirteen years before, had been botched.
Kitchener summoned his senior officers and told them the momentous news. They were ecstatic. This was the culmination of years of gruelling training and desert skirmishes, and the laurels were at last within their reach. “There will be more sweat and blisters than glory,” the sirdar cautioned them. Never one to seek popularity, he preferred to be feared rather than liked. “From the twenty-second to the sixteenth parallel of north latitude we are faced with waterless desert. We will go to capture the Nile, but we cannot use that river as a means of access. The cataracts stand in our way. The only route open to us is the railway we will build to carry us overland into battle. We can use the river only in the final stage of our advance.” He regarded them with his cold misanthropic stare. “There are no mountains to cross, the desert is level and good going. It will not be a matter so much of engineering technique as of hard work. We will not rely on private contractors. Our own engineers will do the job.”