by Wilbur Smith
“What about the Atbara river, sir? At its confluence with the Nile it is almost a thousand yards wide,” said Colonel Sam Adams.
“I have already called for tenders to supply the components for a bridge to be manufactured in sections that can be taken up on the railway trucks. Another call for tenders will soon be going out for the supply of steel-hulled river gunboats. They will be sent up by rail to the clear water above the fifth cataract. There, they will be reassembled and launched.”
The Egyptian officer corps was immediately plunged into a hurly-burly of planning and action.
There was only one respect in which the times and circumstances were not propitious. The delta of Egypt had been the bread basket of the Mediterranean since the time of Julius Caesar and Jesus Christ. For the first time in a hundred years the abundant fertility of its black alluvial soils had failed. The production of wheat and dhurra had fallen short of the needs of the civilian population, let alone those of a great expeditionary army.
“We are short of at least five thousand tons of the flour needed for the primary stage of the campaign,” the quartermaster general told the sirdar. “After the first three months, we will require an additional fifteen hundred tons per month for the duration of hostilities.”
Kitchener frowned. Bread, the staple of any modern army made from wholesome clean grain, and not too much hard biscuit ensured the health of the troops. Now they were telling him that he did not have it.
“Come back tomorrow,” he told his quartermaster.
He went immediately to see Sir Evelyn Baring at the British Agency it would have been political suicide for anybody to call it Government House, but that was what it was. Baring had championed Kitchener’s appointment to commander-in-chief above the claims of better qualified men. Although they were not friends, they thought alike. Baring listened, then said, “I think I know the man who can get your bread for you. He provisioned Gordon in Khartoum during the siege. Most fortuitously, he is in Cairo at this very moment.”
Within two hours a mystified Ryder Courtney found himself under Kitchener’s reptilian stare.
“Can you do it?” Kitchener asked.
Ryder’s business instincts clicked into place. “Yes, I can. However, I will need four per cent commission for myself, General.”
“That is known as profiteering, Mr. Courtney. I can offer you two and a half.”
“That is known as highway robbery, General,” Ryder replied.
Kitchener blinked. He was unaccustomed to being addressed in that fashion.
Ryder went on smoothly, “However, in the name of patriotism I will accept your offer. On the condition that the army provides a suitable home in Cairo for me and my family, in addition to a stipend of two hundred pounds a month to cover my immediate expenses.”
Ryder rode back to Penrod’s riverside home where he and Saffron had been guests since their arrival in Cairo. He was in jubilant mood. Saffron had been agitating: rather than return to Abyssinia, she wanted to remain in this civilized, salubrious city, where she could be close to Amber. When Saffron agitated it was much like living on the slopes of an active volcano. Now her power to persuade was even more formidable than usual as she was pregnant again. Ryder had seen no good commercial sense in setting up business in Egypt, but Herbert Kitchener had just changed that.
Ryder left his horse with the groom in the stables and went down to the lawns above the riverbank. Jane Ballantyne, Amber and Saffron were taking tea in the summer-house. They were rereading and animatedly discussing the letter from Sebastian Hardy, which had arrived on the mail ship from England and had been delivered to Amber’s suite at Shepheard’s Hotel that morning.
Mr. Hardy took great pleasure in informing Miss Amber Benbrook of the recent resuscitation of public interest in her book Slaves of the Mahdi, owing to the prospect of war against the evil Dervish Empire in Omdurman. The amounts paid by Macmillan Publishers in respect of royalties earned over the past three months amounted to 56,483 10s. 6d. In addition, Mr. Hardy begged to inform her and the other beneficiaries that the investments he had made on behalf of the Benbrook family trust had been most favourably affected by the same considerations as the book. He had placed large sums in the common stock of the Vickers Company, which had purchased Mr. Maxim’s patent in his machine-gun. This investment had almost doubled in value. The value of assets of the trust now amounted to a little over three hundred thousand pounds. In addition Macmillan were eager to publish Amber’s new manuscript, provisionally entitled African Dreams and Nightmares.
Ryder strode down the lawns, but the twins were so excited by Mr. Hardy’s good tidings that they were oblivious to his presence until his shadow fell over the tea-table. They looked up. “What is all this laughter and high jinks?” he demanded. “You know I cannot bear to see anybody having so much fun.”
Saffron jumped to her feet, a little ungainly under her maternal burden, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. “You will never guess what,” she whispered in his ear. “You are married to a rich woman.”
“Indeed, I am married to a rich woman who resides permanently in Cairo, in a house paid for by General Kitchener and the Egyptian army.”
She leant back, holding him at arm’s length, and stared at him in astonishment and delight. “If this is another of your atrocious jokes, Ryder Courtney, I will…” She searched for a suitable threat. “I will throw you into the Nile.”
He grinned complacently. “Too early for a swim. Besides, you and I cannot waste precious time. We have to go hunting for our new home.”
He would tell her later that he must leave within days for the United States and Canada to negotiate for the purchase of twenty thousand tons of wheat. It was not the ideal time to break such news to a pregnant wife. At least she will have enough to keep her fully occupied in my absence. He had learnt by hard experience that when she was bored Saffron was more difficult to handle than the entire Dervish army.
The ground shook to the thunder of hoofs. Eight horsemen raced each other down the long green field. The spectators shrieked and roared. The atmosphere was feverish and electric. Once again the Nile Cup and the honour of the Army polo team were at stake.
The white ball rolled over the uneven turf. Colonel Adams overhauled it swiftly, and leant low out of the saddle, mallet poised. His bay mare was as adept as her rider. She turned in neatly behind the bouncing ball, placing him in the perfect position to make the crossing shot. Mallet and ball met with a crisp thwack, and the ball sailed in a high arc over the heads of the opposing team, dropping directly in the path of Penrod’s charging grey gelding. Penrod picked it up on the first bounce after it struck earth. He tapped it ahead, and his nimble pony chased after it, like a whippet behind a rabbit. Tap and tap again the ball skipped towards the goalposts at the far end of the field. The other riders pursued the grey, their heels hammering into the ribs of their mounts, shouting and pumping the reins for greater speed, but they were unable to catch Penrod. He ran the ball between the posts, and the umpires waved their flags to signal a goal and the end of the match. Once again, the army had retained the Nile Cup against all comers.
Penrod rode back to the pony lines. Under her parasol, Amber was waiting for him. She watched him with pride and devotion. He was marvellously handsome and tanned, although there were crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes from squinting into the desert glare. His body was lean and hard, tempered by years of hard riding and still harder fighting. He was no longer a youth, but a man approaching his prime. He swung one booted leg over the pony’s withers and dropped to the ground, landing like a cat. The grey trotted on to meet his grooms: he could smell the bucket of water and the bag of dhurra meal they had ready for him.
Amber ran to Penrod, and threw herself against his chest. “I am so proud of you.”
“Then let’s get married,” Penrod said, and kissed her.
She made the kiss endure, but when at last she must relinquish his lips, she laughed at him. “We are getting mar
ried, you silly old thing, or have you forgotten?”
“I mean now. Immediately. At once. Not next year. We’ve waited far too long.”
She stared at him. “You jest!” she accused him.
“Never been more serious in my life. In ten days I am away again into the desert. We have a spot of business to take care of in Omdurman. Let us be married before I go.”
They were swept up in the feverish madness of war when custom and convention no longer counted. Amber did not hesitate. “Yes!” she said, and kissed him again. She had Saffron and Jane to help her with the arrangements. “Yes! Oh, yes, please!”
Every pew in the cathedral was filled. They held the reception at the Gheziera Club. Sir Evelyn Baring placed the Agency houseboat at their disposal for the honeymoon.
They cruised upriver as far as Giza. In the evening they drank champagne and danced on the deck, while before them rose the silhouette of the pyramids backlit by the sunset. Later, in the great stern cabin on the wide bed with green silk covers, Penrod led her gently along enchanted pathways to a mountain peak of whose existence she had only dreamed. He was a wonderful guide, patient and skilled, and experienced, oh, so very experienced.
Penrod left Amber in the care of Saffron and Jane, and took the steamer south to Aswan and Wadi Haifa to rejoin his regiment. He found Yakub waiting for him at the river landing, wearing his new khaki uniform with panache. He stamped his feet as he saluted, his grin was infectious, and one eye rolled sideways. Yakub, the outcast, had a home at last. He wore the chevrons of a sergeant on the sleeve of the uniform of the Camel Corps of the Egyptian army. His turban had been replaced with a peaked cap and neck flap. He was still becoming accustomed to breeches and puttees rather than a long galabiyya so his stance was slightly bowlegged. “Effendi, the peerless and faithful Sergeant Yakub looks upon your face with the same awe and devotion that the moon feels towards the sun.”
“My bags are in the cabin, O faithful and peerless one.”
They rode southwards on one of the flat-bed track-laying bogies of the new railway. The smoke from the engine stack blew back over them. The soot darkened Penrod’s tanned skin and even Yakub turned a deeper brown while dust and sparks stung their eyes. At last the locomotive reached the railhead, and came to a hissing halt with clouds of steam billowing from her brakes.
The railway line had already been driven sixty-five miles into Dervish territory. Penrod’s regiment was waiting for him and his orders were to scout the few small villages along the intended line of rail, then sweep the terrain ahead for the first sign of the Dervish cavalry, which they knew must already be on its way northwards to dispute the right of way.
Penrod found it good to breathe the hot, dry air of the desert again, and to have a camel under him. The excitement of the chase and the battle ahead made his nerves sing like copper telegraph lines in the wind. The sensation of being young, strong and alive was intoxicating.
They reached the village at the wells of Wadi Atira. Penrod opened the ranks of his squadron and they encircled the cluster of mud buildings, which were deserted and falling into ruins. There was one chilling reminder of the Dervish occupation: at the entrance to the village stood a makeshift but obviously effective gallows, made from telegraph poles that the army had abandoned when it withdrew after the fall of Khartoum. The skeletons of the souls who had perished upon it had been cleaned and polished by the abrasive, dust-laden wind. They still wore their chains.
Penrod moved forward past Tanjore where the desolation was similar. The old British fort at Akasha, relic of the Gordon relief expedition, was in ruins. The storerooms had been used by the Dervish as execution chambers: desiccated human carcasses lay in abandoned attitudes on a dusty floor, which was thick with the droppings of lizards and the shed skins of vipers and scorpions.
Penrod converted Akasha into an entrenched camp, a base from which the Camel Corps could sally out. He left two of his squadrons to hold the camp, and with the remainder of his regiment he pressed on into the Desert of the Mother of Stones to search for the Dervish.
While he scoured the land along the Nile, behind him the railhead reached Akasha and his rudimentary camp was transformed into an impregnable fortress and staging station, guarded by artillery and Maxim machine-gun detachments.
As Penrod’s camels approached Firket, a few Bedouin galloped towards them, waving their arms and shouting that they were friendly. They reported to Penrod that, only hours before, they had been pursued by a marauding party of Dervish cavalry, and although they had escaped, five of their comrades had been overtaken and massacred. He sent a troop of his camels forward to scout the caravan route that led through a narrow boulder-strewn defile towards Firket five miles ahead. No sooner had they entered the defile than the troop commander found himself confronted by at least two hundred and fifty Dervish horsemen, supported closely by almost two thousand spearmen.
Trapped in the defile, the commander wheeled his men round in an attempt to extricate them and bring them back to the support of Penrod’s main force. Before they could complete the manoeuvre the Dervish horses charged. Immediately both sides became entangled in wildest confusion, and covered by a dense fog of brown dust thrown up by the hoofs of the horses and the pads of the camels. In the tumult all words of command were drowned.
From the mouth of the defile Penrod saw that disaster was about to engulf his embattled squadron. “Forward!” he shouted, and drew his sabre. “Charge! Go straight at them!” With three troops of camels behind him, he crashed into the struggling mass of men and beasts. With his left hand he fired his Webley, and hacked with his sabre at the jibbd’clad figures half hidden in the swirling curtains of dust.
For minutes the outcome hung in the balance, then the Dervish broke and scattered back behind the shields of their spearmen. They left eighteen of their dead lying on the sand and retreated towards Firket. Penrod sensed they were trying to lead him into a trap, and let them go.
Instead he turned aside and climbed Firket mountain. From the towering heights he glassed the town below, and saw immediately that his instinct had been true. He had found the main body of the Dervish army. It was massed among the mud-brick buildings, and the cavalry lines extended as far as the banks of the Nile a mile beyond the city.
“At a rough estimate three thousand horse, and only Allah knows how many spears,” he said grimly.
Osman Atalan arrived at Firket two weeks after the skirmish with the Egyptian Camel Corps. He had travelled fast, covering the distance from Omdurman in only fourteen days. He was accompanied by ten of his trusted aggagiers.
Since the first word on the British advance, and the commencement of the work on the railway line from Wadi Haifa, Firket had been under the command of the Emir Hammuda. Osman listened to the report of this indolent and careless man. He was appalled. “He cares only for what lies between the buttocks of his pretty boys,” he told al-Noor. “We must go forward ourselves to find the enemy and discover what they are planning.”
They came no closer to the village of Akasha than five miles before they were attacked by elements of the Camel Corps, and driven off with the loss of two good men. They made a wide circle round the village, and the next day captured two Bedouin coming from the direction of the village. Osman’s aggagiers stripped and searched them. They found foreign cigarettes and tins of toffees with a picture of the English queen painted on the lids.
The aggagiers held down the Bedouin and sliced off the soles of their feet. Then they forced them to walk over the baking stones. This induced them to talk freely. They described the huge build-up of infidel troops and equipment at Firket.
Osman realized that this was the forward base from which the main infidel attack on Firket would be launched. He circled back through the Mother of Stones towards the Nile, coming in ten miles to the north of Akasha. He was searching for the railway line from Wadi Haifa that the Bedouin had reported. The railway had been in the forefront of his mind since al-Jamal had described it to
him.
When he came upon it, it seemed innocuous, twin silver threads lying on the burning sands. He left al-Noor and the rest of his band on the crest of the dunes and rode down alone to inspect it. He dismounted, and warily approached the shining rails. They were fastened by fish-plates to heavy teak sleepers. He kicked the rail: it was solid and immovable. He knelt beside it and tried to lever out one of the iron bolts with the point of his dagger. The blade snapped in two.
He stood up and hurled away the hilt. “Accursed thing of Shaitan! This is not an honourable way to make war.”
Even in his scorn and anger he became aware of a sound that trembled in the desert air, a distant susurration, like the breath of a sleeping giant. Osman stood upright on al-Buq’s saddle, and gazed northwards along the line of rail. He saw a tiny feather of smoke on the horizon. As he watched, it drew closer, so rapidly that he was taken by surprise, the alien shape seeming to swell before his eyes as it rushed towards him. He knew that this was the land steamer of which al-Jamal had told him.
He swung al-Buq’s head round and urged him into a gallop. He had a quarter of a mile to cover before he reached the foot of the dune. The machine was coming on apace. He looked ahead to the crest of the dune and saw his aggagiers on the skyline. They had dismounted and were holding their horses, allowing them to rest.