by Wilbur Smith
Then a remarkable transformation took place. The dark wall of the zareba came to life. It was not made of thorn bush but of men, tens of thousands of Dervish warriors. Behind them another vast mass appeared over the low ridge in the centre of the plain. Like an infestation of locusts, they swarmed forward. Around and between their divisions individual horsemen rode back and forth, and squadrons of their wild cavalry swirled. Hundreds of banners waved above their ranks, and myriad spearheads glittered. Even at this distance Penrod could hear the booming of the war drums and the braying of the ombeyas.
Through his binoculars he searched the front ranks of this massive concentration of the enemy, and in the centre he picked out the distinctive scarlet and black war banner of Osman Atalan. “So my enemy has come,” he whispered, reverting instinctively to Arabic.
Beside him, Sergeant Yakub grinned evilly and rolled his one eye. “Kismet,“I he said. “This has been written!”
Then their attention was diverted from the awe-inspiring spectacle of the Dervish advance to the river on their left. The flotilla of gunboats, with a crash of cannon, engaged the Dervish forts on both banks, which guarded the river approaches to the city. The Dervish guns responded, and the thunder of artillery echoed from the hills. But the fire from the gunboats was fast and deadly accurate. The embrasures of the forts were smashed to rubble and the guns behind them blown off their mountings. The Maxim guns scoured the rifle trenches on each side of the forts, and slaughtered the Dervish in them.
The British and Egyptian cavalry withdrew slowly ahead of the advancing Dervish army. In the meantime Kitchener’s main army came marching up along the riverbank, and laagered around the tiny abandoned fishing village of Eigeiga. In this defensive position they awaited the first assault of the Dervish.
Suddenly the mass of advancing Dervish halted. They fired their rifles into the air, a salute and a challenge, but instead of coming on to the attack they lay down on the earth. By now it was late in the afternoon, and it was soon evident that they would not mount their main attack that day.
The flotilla of gunboats had reduced all the Dervish forts, and shelled the tomb of the Mahdi, destroying the dome. Now they dropped back down the current and anchored opposite the army zareba. Night fell.
At the rear of the Dervish army, Osman Atalan sat with the Khalifat Abdullahi at the small campfire in front of his tent. They were discussing the day’s actions and skirmishes, and planning for the morrow. Suddenly, from the centre of the river, a huge cyclopean eye of brilliant light swept over them. Abdallahi sprang to his feet and shouted, “What is this magic?”
“Exalted Abdullahi, the infidel are watching us.” “Pull down my tent!” Abdullahi screamed. “They will see it.” He covered his eyes with both hands, lest the light blind him, and threw himself on to the ground. He feared no man, but this was witchcraft.
Four miles apart the two great armies passed the hours of darkness in fitful slumber and constant vigilance, impatiently awaiting the dawn. At half past four in the morning the bugles of the river camp sounded the reveille. The drums and fifes joined in. The infantrymen and gunners stood to arms and the cavalry mounted up.
Before sunrise the cavalry patrols trotted forward. Because there had been no night attack they suspected that the Dervish had crept away during the hours of darkness, and that the hillside would be deserted. At the head of three troops of his camels, Penrod reached the crest of the slope in front of the zareba and looked down the back slope towards the city and Surgham Hill. Even in the dim light he could see that the dome of the Mahdi’s tomb had been shot away by the gunboats. He searched the plain below him, and saw that it was covered with dark patches and streaks. Then the light strengthened with the swiftness of the African dawn.
Far from having absconded, the entire might of the Dervish army lay before him. It began to roll forward on a solid front almost five miles wide. Spear points shimmered above the ranks, and the Dervish cavalry galloped before and about the slowly moving masses of men. Then the war drums began to beat, the ivory ombeyas blared, and the Dervish to cheer. The uproar was almost deafening.
As yet the Dervish masses were hidden from the main Egyptian army on the river, and the gunboats anchored behind them. However, the tumult carried to them. The attack developed swiftly. The Dervish legions were well disciplined and moved with purpose and determination. The British and Egyptian cavalry dropped back before them.
The Dervish front ranks, waving hundreds of huge coloured banners and beating the drums, topped the rise. Below them they saw the waiting infidel army. They did not hesitate, but fired their rifles into the air in challenge and rushed down the slope. The sirdar let them come, waiting until they were exposed on the open hillside. The ranges were accurately known to his gunners, and to the captains of the gunboats. However, it was not the British who opened the conflict. The Dervish had brought up a few ancient Krupps field cannon and their shells burst in front of the British zareba.
Immediately the gunboats and field batteries returned fire. The sky above the advancing Dervish masses was pocked with bursting puffs of shrapnel, like cotton pods opening in the sun. The sea of waving banners toppled and fell, like grass blown down by a whirlwind. Then they rose again as the men coming up behind the fallen lifted them high and charged forward.
The cavalry cleared the field to give the guns full play. The Dervish came on, but their ranks thinned steadily and they left the hillside thickly strewn with tiny inert figures. Then the Dervish were in range of the rifles and the Maxims. The slaughter mounted. The rifles grew so hot that they had to be exchanged with those of the reserve companies in the rear. The Maxims boiled away all the water in their reservoirs and were refilled from the water bottles of their crews.
The frontal attack had been planned, by Osman and Abdullahi, to allow their main forces to hook round the flanks and crush in to the sides of the infidel line. The men being massacred by the guns on the open ground were brave, but they were not the elite of the Dervish army. This was coming up behind the ridge.
Penrod had retired on to the flank, and was ready to deal with the survivors of the first charge when they tried to escape, when suddenly he was confronted by thousands of fresh enemy cavalry coming at him from over the crest of the ridge at close range. He must fly with his troops, and try to reach the safety of the lines before they were wiped out. They raced away but the Dervish and their excited clamour were close upon them. One of the gunboats, playing nursemaid, had been watching this dangerous situation develop. It dropped back down the river, and just as it seemed that Penrod’s troops must be overtaken by overwhelming numbers of cavalry, it opened up with the deadly Maxims. The range was short and the results stunning. The Dervish cavalry fell in tangled masses, and their rear ranks pulled up and turned back. Penrod led his squadrons into the shelter of the zareba.
Now the sirdar could leave the zareba and begin the final assault towards the city. The Dervish were in full retreat and the way was open. The lines of cavalry, bayonets and guns crossed the ridge and moved down towards the shattered tomb of the Mahdi.
But the Dervish were not beaten. As the British lines neared Surgham Hill and the sandy ridge they found that Osman Atalan and the Khalifat had concealed the flower of their army in this fold of ground. Twenty-five thousand aggagiers and desert warriors burst out from ambush, and poured down on the British.
The fighting was terrible. The gunboats on the river could take no part in it. The British lancers were surprised by the close proximity of Osman’s lurking aggagiers and were forced to charge straight at them. Savage, undisciplined infantry could not withstand the charge of British lancers, but these were horsemen. They ran forward to press the muzzles of their rifles against the flanks of the British horses, then fired; they hamstrung others with the long blades, they dragged the riders from their saddles.
The lancers suffered terrible casualties. Al-Noor killed three men. This short but bloody action was only a tiny cameo in the main battle th
at raged across the plain and around Surgham Hill.
The British and the Egyptians fought superbly. The brigades manoeuvred with parade-ground precision to meet every fresh charge. The officers directed their fire with cool expertise. The Maxims came up to exacerbate the slaughter. But the Dervish courage was inhuman. The fires of fanaticism were unquenchable. They charged and were shot down in tangled heaps, but immediately fresh hordes of jibba-bright figures sprang up, seemingly from the ground, and ran upon the guns and bayonets and died. From the gunsmoke that hung over their mangled corpses fresh figures charged forward.
And the Maxims sang the chorus.
By noon it was over, Abdullahi had fled the field, leaving almost half his army dead upon it. The British and the Egyptians had lost forty-eight men, almost half of whom were lancers who had died in the fatal two minutes of that brave but senseless charge.
Penrod was among the first men into the city of Omdurman. There were still small pockets of resistance among the pestilential hovels and stinking slums, but he ignored them and, with a troop of his men, rode to the palace of Osman Atalan. He dismounted in the courtyard. The buildings were deserted. He strode into them with his bared sabre in his hand, calling her name: “Rebecca! Where are you?” His voice echoed through the empty rooms.
Suddenly he heard a furtive movement behind him, and whirled round just in time to deflect the dagger that had been aimed between his shoulder-blades. He flicked back his blade, catching his assailant as he struck again, slicing open his wrist to the bone. The Arab screamed and the dagger fell from his hand. With the point of the sabre to his throat Penrod pinned him to the wall behind him. He recognized him as one of Osman Atalan’s aggagiers. “Where are they?” Penrod demanded. “Where are al-Jamal and Nazeera?” Clutching his wrist, the blood from his severed artery pumping sullenly, the Arab spat at him.
“Effendi.” Yakub spoke from behind Penrod’s shoulder. “Leave this one to me. He will speak to me.”
Penrod nodded. “I will wait with the camels. Do not be long.”
“The remorseless Yakub will waste little time.”
Twice Penrod heard the captured Arab scream, the second time weaker than the first, but at last Yakub came out. “The oasis of Gedda,” he said, and wiped the blade of his dagger on his camel’s neck.
The oasis of Gedda lay in a basin of chalk hills. There was no surface water, only a single deep well with a coping of limestone. It was surrounded by a grove of date palms. The dome of the saint’s tomb was separated from the taller dome of the mosque and the flat-roofed quarters of the mullahs.
As Penrod’s troop rode in from the desert they saw a group of children playing among the palm trees, small, barefooted boys and girls in long, grubby robes. A copper-haired boy pursued the others, and they squealed with laughter and scattered before him. As soon as they saw the camel troop approaching they froze into silence and stared with huge dark eyes. Then the eldest boy turned and ran back towards the mosque. The others followed him. After they had disappeared the oasis seemed silent and deserted.
Penrod rode forward, and heard a horse whinny. The animal was standing behind the angle of the side wall. It was knee-haltered and had been feeding on a pile of cut fodder. It was a dark-coloured stallion. “Al-Buq!”
He reined in well short of the front doors of the mosque, jumped down and threw the reins to Yakub. Then he unsheathed his sabre and walked forward slowly. The doors were wide open and the interior of the mosque was impenetrably dark in contrast to the bright sunlight without.
“Osman Atalan!” Penrod shouted, and the echoes from the hills mocked him. The silence persisted.
Then he saw dim movement in the gloom of the building’s interior. Osman Atalan stepped out into the sunlight. His fierce and cruel features were inscrutable. He carried the long blade in his right hand, but he had no shield. “I have come for you,” Penrod said.
“Yes,” Osman answered. Penrod saw the glint of silver threads in his beard. But his gaze was dark and unwavering. “I expected you. I knew that you would come.”
“Nine years,” said Penrod.
“Too long,” Osman replied, ‘but now it is time.” He came down the steps, and Penrod retreated ten paces to give him space to fight. They circled each other, a graceful minuet. Lightly they touched blades and the steel rang like fine crystal.
They circled again, watching each other’s eyes, looking for any weakness that might have developed in the years since they had last fought. They found none. Osman moved like a cobra, tensed and poised for the strike. Penrod was his mongoose, quick and fluid.
They crossed and turned, and then as if at a signal, leapt at each other. Their blades slithered together. They broke apart, circled and came together again. The silver blades blurred, glittered and clattered against each other. Penrod drove in hard, forcing Osman on to his back foot, keeping the pressure on him, the blades dancing. Osman stepped back, and then counter-attacked, just as furiously. Penrod gave ground to him, leading him on, making him buy each inch.
Penrod watched him carefully, then cut hard at his head. Osman blocked. Their blades were locked together. Now they both stood solidly and all their weight was on their sword wrists. Tiny beads of sweat popped out on their foreheads. They stared into each other’s eyes and pushed. Penrod felt the sponginess in Osman’s grip. To test him he broke the lock and jumped back.
As their blades disengaged Osman had a fleeting opening and tried for it, thrusting at Penrod’s right elbow to disable his sword arm, but it was one of his old tricks and Penrod was ready for it. It seemed to him that Osman was slow. He hit the long blade and pirouetted clear.
Not slow. He changed his mind as they circled again. Just not as fast as he used to be. But, then, am I?
He feinted at Osman’s face, then leant back, not making it obvious that he was inviting the riposte. Osman almost caught him. His counter-stroke came like thunder. Penrod just managed to turn it. Osman was at full extension, and there was the lag again, his old bad habit, slow on the recovery. Penrod hit him.
It was a glancing blow that skidded along Osman’s ribcage under his arm. The point sliced down to the bone, but did not find the gap between the ribs. They circled again. Osman was bleeding profusely. The blood loss must weaken him swiftly, and the damaged muscles would soon stiffen. He was running out of time and threw everything into the attack. He came with all his weight and skill. His blade turned to dancing light. It was cut and thrust high in the line of defence, then cross and go backhanded for the thigh, then at the head. He kept it up relentlessly, never breaking, never giving Penrod a chance to come on to his front foot, forcing him on to the defensive.
He cut Penrod high in the left shoulder. It was a light wound, and Osman was losing blood more heavily. Each fresh attack was less fiery, each recovery after the thrust just a little slower. Penrod let him expend himself, holding him off and waiting his moment. He watched Osman’s eyes.
During the entire bout Osman had not gone for Penrod’s hip. Penrod knew from experience that it was his favourite and most deadly stroke with which he had crippled innumerable enemies. At last Penrod offered it to him, turning his lower body into Osman’s natural line.
Osman went for the opening, and once he was committed Penrod turned back so the razor edge slit the cloth of his jodhpurs but did not break the skin. Osman was fully extended and could not recover quickly enough.
Penrod hit him. His thrust split the sternum at the base of Osman’s ribs and went on to transfix him cleanly as a fish on a skewer. Penrod felt his steel grate on his opponent’s spinal column.
Osman froze, and Penrod stepped in close. He seized his opponent’s sword wrist to prevent a last thrust. Their faces were only inches apart. Penrod’s eyes were hard and cold. Osman’s were dark with bitter rage, but slowly they became opaque as stones. The sword dropped from his hand. His legs buckled, but Penrod held his weight on the sabre. Osman opened his lips to speak, but a snake of dark blood trickled from the corner o
f his mouth and crawled down his chin.
Penrod relaxed his wrist and let him slide off the blade. He fell at Penrod’s feet, and lay still upon his back with his arms spread wide.
As Penrod stepped back a woman screamed. He looked up. He became aware for the first time of the small group of Arab women and children huddled in the doorway of the mosque. He recognized the little ones as those who had run to hide as he rode up. But he knew none of the women.
“Nazeera!” It was Yakub’s voice. He saw one of the women react, and then he recognized her. Nazeera held two children against her legs. One was the ugly copper-haired boy, and the other an exquisite little girl, a few years younger than the boy. Both children were weeping and trying to break out of Nazeera’s grip, but she held them fast.
Then an Arab women left the group and came slowly down the steps towards him. She moved like a sleep-walker, and her eyes were fastened on the dead man at his feet. There was something dreadfully familiar about her. Instinctively Penrod backed away, still staring at her in fascination. Then he exclaimed, “Rebecca!”
“No,” the stranger replied in English. “Rebecca died long ago.” Her face was a pitiful travesty of that of the lovely young woman he had once known. She knelt beside Osman and picked up his sword. Then she looked up into Penrod’s face. Her eyes were old and hopeless. “Look after my children,” she said. “You owe me that at least, Penrod Ballantyne.”
Before he understood what she intended and could move to prevent her, she reversed the sword. She placed the pommel on the hard ground and the point under her bottom ribs and fell forward upon it with all her weight. The length of the blade disappeared into her body, and she collapsed on top of Osman Atalan.
The children screamed, broke from Nazeera’s grip, rushed down the steps and threw themselves on to the bodies of their parents. They wailed and shrieked. It was a dreadful sound that cut to the core of Penrod’s being.