‘Yes.’
‘The Bedouin didn’t try to stop you?’
He sensed her shrug in the gloom. ‘They seemed a little – confused –’
‘I can understand that.’ His voice was grim.
She ignored the interruption. ‘I don’t believe they’re used to a woman who argues with them; I simply told them that they’d got the message wrong. Then –’ she paused, nibbled her lip for a moment ‘– then we arrived in the valley.’
‘And?’
‘And there was a lot of activity.’
‘The slaves? Or the guns?’
‘You know about it then? But how – if you didn’t get my message?’
‘I’ll explain later. Go on.’
‘It was the slaves. They were being driven into the pen as we arrived. Shackled. Men, women and children – children! – shackled like animals! The drivers had whips! It was like something out of Dante’s Inferno! Harry, slavery has been outlawed for a generation!’
‘Which you no doubt explained to el Akad?’ Harry suggested, a little wearily.
‘Well, of course.’
‘And found yourself – an unwilling guest.’
She was silent.
His exasperation boiled over. ‘A situation entirely of your own making! Hannah, in God’s name, I cannot understand why you can’t behave like any other normal, rational woman!’
It was her turn for temper. ‘Why should it be required that you should understand? What has it to do with you?’
‘It appears to have landed me half-way up a cliff in the middle of nowhere with a helpless and recalcitrant woman and half the hounds of the Bedouin camp about to wake up and track –’ He stopped.
‘Recalcitrant I may be,’ she said, crisply. ‘Helpless I’m not. You think the dogs will track us?’
‘It’s a possibility. That’s why we chose a tomb with a defendable entrance.’
‘Well.’ She bent to pick up Abdo’s saddle bag. ‘Much as I’d like to stand talking all night, perhaps we should set ourselves to defending it?’
Harry followed her back along the passage to the entrance. The moon had gone. The sky was black and as dense as velvet; stars glittered and were obscured by the scudding clouds. House and camp below were quiet.
‘How long?’ Hannah asked quietly. ‘How long do you think we have before they discover I’m gone?’
Harry scanned the sky. ‘Pray for dawn,’ he said. ‘Abdo should be back with help by then. And even if they find us –’ he reached into the saddle bag, drew out a pair of pistols, laid them upon the heap of rubble that formed a natural barrier at the entrance ‘ – we should be able to keep them off. For a while, anyway.’ He hoped he sounded more confident than he actually felt.
Apparently he did. ‘That’s all right then,’ Hannah said and settled, in determined silence, to watch the valley below. Much later, she said into the obstinate quiet, a tremor of pain in her voice, ‘Laila knew, I think. About the slaves. And the guns. She did nothing to save me. Nothing.’
Harry opted against the possibly debilitating effect of sympathy. ‘Laila,’ he said, blandly, ‘young as she might be, is a woman. How can you possibly be surprised by anything she does – or does not – do?’ and was rewarded by a snort of anger and a remarkably well-aimed stone.
With the faintest of smiles he settled himself back to his watch.
* * *
The alarm was raised just as the first rose and pearl-grey light of dawn was lifting in the eastern sky, etching the cliffs at the far end of the valley inkily against the pale drifts of colour. The valley below was still in darkness when a sudden shout roused Hannah from half-sleep and made Harry worm forward towards the edge. Within minutes, as the light grew stronger, the compound was ablaze with lanterns and alive with shouting men and barking dogs. At first the action was confused, with men running hither and thither with little apparent purpose. Then came the sound that Harry had most dreaded; the belling of hounds. It had been an odds-on chance that Ayman el Akad, with regular deliveries of slaves to his compound, would have hounds in his stables; it had been those odds that had influenced Harry to agree to Abdo’s plan in the first place. It was by no means inconceivable that Abdo, travelling alone across the desert, could reach Aswan, and help, in a few hours. Hampered by Hannah, however valiant her efforts, there was no doubt that the three of them would have taken much longer, and, with hounds and mounted Bedouin on their trail, probably never reached it at all. Now all that they could hope for was that either the hounds would not find the trail up the cliff face, or that Abdo and the British Army arrived in time, before their hiding place was discovered. Harry narrowed his eyes, searching the path that led to the plateau; if Abdo had worked with his usual alarming efficiency, help could surely not be too far away?
They had a precious half-hour’s grace before the hounds found the trail and set off, belling, across the compound towards the cliff bottom.
‘Here they come,’ Harry said, unnecessarily.
Hannah, the field glasses to her eyes, said nothing.
‘At least they’re all coming from the same direction – it doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone to go around the other way to cut off our escape to the top of the cliff. They probably don’t realize we’re up here. I’ll get a couple of them before they know we’re here.’
‘Harry –’
‘If worst comes to worst I want you to –’
‘Harry!’
He turned at the urgency of her voice. Her face was the perfect picture of astonishment.
‘What is it?’
In reply she handed him the glasses, and pointed. ‘Over there. Look!’
He swept the opposite ridge, saw in the growing light the figures that flitted from rock to rock, from shadow to shadow, white-robed, dark-robed, some almost naked, all armed to the teeth. And amongst them a tall and unmistakable figure, robed too in white and armed with a long rifle and a curved, glinting blade that glittered barbarously as the first rays of the sun broke across the sky.
As they watched, puzzled and fascinated, the flood of attackers broke cover with a savage, ululating cry. The men below were taken utterly unawares. The group with the hounds broke and ran, back towards the compound, without even glancing upwards to where Harry and Hannah were hidden.
The tribesmen on the hillside, still screaming like demons, swept down upon the valley and its ill-prepared defenders.
‘Well,’ Hannah said, sitting down rather suddenly upon a convenient rock and looking in some surprise at the pistol she had picked up, as if she had no idea how it had come into her hand, ‘whoever Abdo has brought to rescue us –’ bewildered, she shook her bright, tangled head ‘– it certainly isn’t the British Army!’
Chapter Nineteen
It was slaughter. As they watched, wave after wave of yelling tribesmen swept down the hill and into the valley below in a murderous flood that carried all before it. Flesh and blood simply could not withstand such an onslaught. Abdo was everywhere, urging his men on, cutting through the fierce and formidable Bedouin who challenged him with the great curved blade that he wielded with lethal competence. To their credit, the compound’s defenders very soon recovered from their shock and organized themselves into a semblance of brave defence; but they were overwhelmingly outnumbered, and the end was never in doubt. The tribesmen swarmed over the camp and the compound. The air was manic with screams, with the ululating cry of the attackers, the clattering, staccato sound of rifle fire. Bodies lay in heaps or sprawled alone, cut down where they stood, trampled bloodily by attacker and defender alike in desperate advance or even more desperate retreat. At last only the house stood untaken, though ringed around by the enemy, and a comparative quiet fell, broken only by the occasional shot.
In the compound the warehouse doors had been axed. Cases of weapons were dragged into the dawn sunlight, their contents brandished with yells and shouts of triumph by the tribesmen.
‘He’s coming,’ Hannah said quietly. Sh
e was very pale, and had uttered not a word as she watched the brutal action beneath them. ‘There. You see?’ She pointed.
Abdo strode across the compound towards the foot of the cliff. He did not look up.
Harry, very carefully, laid down the revolver he had held in wary precaution all through the past minutes, and slipped from his leather belt two of the slim throwing knives Abdo had encouraged him to master. His face was grim.
Hannah stared. ‘Harry – no!’
Harry ignored her. His eyes were steady and bright with anger as he watched Abdo toil up the path towards them.
Abdo must have known they were watching him, yet he did not stretch his measured stride, nor did he look up; he came calmly, and when he turned the corner of the path and stood before them his dark gaze was level and apparently unperturbed.
‘Bastard,’ Harry said, very quietly. ‘Treacherous bastard.’
Beneath them the screams and yells of the victorious tribesmen were punctuated by rifle fire.
‘Abdo – Laila’s in the house,’ Hannah said, rapidly. ‘You won’t let them harm her?’
His eyes still upon Harry, Abdo shook his head. ‘I’ve given orders.’
‘Orders,’ Harry said savagely, weighing a knife in his hand. ‘These barbarians take orders? From you?’
‘Yes.’ Abdo, Hannah suddenly saw, was unarmed; or at least he had laid aside the wicked blade with which he had carved such havoc in the compound below, and the long rifle was no longer in evidence.
‘You’re a thief and a liar,’ Harry said, and the knife lifted a little. ‘You are a betrayer of trust.’
Dark lids veiled dark eyes for a moment, but then the gaze was steady again. ‘I came back for you,’ Abdo said mildly. He did not add, ‘And saved your skin a second time,’ though the words hung between them, unacknowledged.
There were more shouts from below. The door of the second warehouse had been broken down; lines of men and women, still chained, were emerging, blinking and bewildered into the sun.
Harry’s smile was bitter. ‘No, you didn’t. You came back for the guns. And for them.’ He indicated with a contemptuous nod of his head the line of pathetic, shambling captives below.
‘That’s true, too.’
Harry had had time to add two and two together to produce a clear and devastating four. ‘You’re a Mahdist,’ he said.
Abdo bowed his head once, and proudly.
‘You pretended friendship, and allegiance. You’re a traitor, I say.’
‘Not to my own people. Captain, listen to me.’ Suddenly the old Abdo was there – warm, magnetic, persuasive. ‘This is my country – the British – the Europeans! – have no right to be here. The British don’t even want to be here – you know it! Are we at the gates of London? Of Paris? Do we overrun the fields and the cities of England? No. All we ask is to be left alone in our own country and, if you refuse us that, we reserve the right to fight for our traditions, our religion and our freedom.’
‘With treachery?’ Harry’s voice was fierce. ‘A man fights in the field, with gun and with sword, and lives or dies by his belief.’ He pointed the knife, his hand steady as rock.
‘But what of guns and cannon ranged against knives and swords?’ Abdo’s defence was swift and fluent. ‘How are my people to stand against rifles and field guns with nothing but bows and arrows and spears? Where is the valour in that, Captain? Where is the certainty, except of death? If they were your people – what would you do, Captain?’
Harry was silent.
‘I have done what had to be done. You wanted to find the guns to prevent them from reaching my people; I wished only to ensure that they did, and if possible without further payment in flesh. Our roads ran parallel; the directions opposite. But we met, did we not? Somewhere along the roads – we met.’
‘And you saved my life. Why don’t you say it?’
‘I would not,’ Abdo said, simply.
‘Why?’ Harry asked. ‘Why did you save me?’
Abdo shook his head. ‘Captain Sherwood, you look for things too sharply defined, too black and white. All is not evil, or good. All is not right, or wrong.’
‘It is your own people who operate the slave trade.’ Hannah’s quiet voice surprised them both, intent as they were upon one another. ‘It is your own people who sell their sons and their daughters into captivity. It is the Arabs who are exchanging guns for captives. The Europeans outlawed slavery long ago.’
‘And now turn a convenient blind eye to its existence,’ Abdo said, bitterly.
Harry moved a little, restlessly. Beneath them there was a swift burst of rifle fire, then silence. ‘If the British had known el Akad was running French guns in exchange for slaves, they would have stopped him,’ he said.
Abdo lifted his head. ‘For the guns, Captain,’ he said softly. ‘Not for the slaves. They have known for months that Ayman el Akad was involved in the slave trade. They counted it –’ he paused wryly ‘– a native matter.’
‘As – as Hannah points out – it is. That still doesn’t excuse treachery.’ Harry was dogged, the knife was still held at the ready.
‘Neither,’ Hannah said, watching him, ‘does it explain why Abdo is here. Not, I assume, to hand us over to his bloodthirsty compatriots?’
Abdo shook his head.
‘It would be easier,’ Hannah suggested.
‘Don’t give him ideas,’ Harry said.
‘If I had wished you killed you would be dead by now.’ The words were matter-of-fact.
It was self-evidently the truth. Harry gritted his teeth.
‘And if you had wished me dead,’ Abdo continued, his eyes on the knife Harry still held poised in his hand, ‘you would, I think, have used that by now?’
‘Are you sure of that?’ Harry challenged him savagely.
Abdo spread his empty hands. ‘One can never be sure of anything. Now, I must go. You remember where we left your horse?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘There are two there, waiting; better horses than that crow-bait of yours. Wait until we are gone, then leave. It will take you some time to reach Aswan, but you will be safe, I promise you. There will be no-one to follow you.’
‘Laila –’ Hannah began.
‘Will be safe. I promise.’
‘I’ll turn out the garrison,’ Harry said. ‘The minute I get to Aswan. Colonel Standish must have alerted the posts all along the river after my wire from Luxor –’ He stopped.
Abdo was shaking his head. ‘I sent no wire from Luxor, Captain. I could not risk the Colonel recalling us.’
‘So – the reply? Was a fake?’
The other man nodded.
‘So. It doesn’t matter anyway. The Lancers are at Aswan. They’ll be on your trail as soon as we get to them.’
Abdo shrugged. ‘Do as you will. They won’t find us. The Nubian desert is a very big place, Captain Sherwood.’
‘You forget one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I still have this.’ Harry moved his hand a little and the knife glinted in the light.
‘Use it, Captain. If you’re going to.’
Hannah held her breath.
‘Bastard!’ Harry said, and the knife flew, gleaming, to bury itself in the sand at Abdo’s feet. Harry turned sharply, to contemplate the compound below. The captives, released from their chains, milled uncertainly, lifting defensive hands, almost as afraid of their fierce saviours as they had been of their captors. ‘Look at them!’ he said, savagely. ‘Animals! They’re like animals! Why? Why do you care? What have they to do with you?’
Abdo moved to stand beside him. ‘They are my brothers, Captain Sherwood,’ he said. ‘They are my brothers, and yours. Isn’t that true? And should the strong stand aside while their weaker brethren are enslaved?’
Harry spun, eyes blazing in denial; but before he could speak there came the sudden and unmistakable crackle of rifle fire followed by the shrill call of a trumpet, not from the valley
below but from the plateau over the opposite ridge. They all stilled, turning their heads towards the sound, like animals at the approach of hunters.
‘Wh- what was that?’ Hannah asked, unnecessarily.
Abdo had already gone, leaping down the narrow track, surefooted and swift, calling as he went.
Most of his men stood, confused, looking towards the source of the sound.
‘There! Look!’ Harry pointed. ‘The Lancers! It’s the bloody Lancers, God bless their shining buttons! How the hell did they get here?’ The column had stopped on the edge of the plateau, their khaki uniforms and sun helmets making them all but invisible to the Dervishes below. Hannah saw the officer’s arm raised. The trumpet shrilled again.
Hannah looked down to where Abdo, armed again with sword and rifle, was trying to organize his men, sending them with gesture and with shouted orders flying for cover. The slaves, some of them still chained, were huddled together, keening in fear. With a sweep of his arm Abdo sent men to shepherd them to safety in the grove of palms at the foot of the cliff. She heard sharp, businesslike orders, saw the men on the far ridge dismount and take aim at the milling tribesmen below; Abdo and his men were caught in the same trap that he had himself had sprung on el Akad and his Bedouin.
‘Stop them! Harry, can’t you stop them?’ she cried urgently.
Harry shook his head.
‘Fire!’
In the first withering volley men dropped like stones, as they ran for cover behind the mud walls of the compound. Hannah saw Abdo, tall and white-robed, a clear target, calmly directing his men. Again and again the long rifles of the Lancers spoke, and fresh blood spilled upon old in the compound below. The sun was high now, mercilessly bright and hot. Abdo was covering the confused retreat of the slaves, walking backwards, coolly aiming and firing up at the almost unseen enemy on the clifftop.
The Lancers were moving forward, inching down the hillside, each rank covered by disciplined fire from the next. Abdo retreated further, step by grim step.
Hannah was watching Abdo when the bullet took him. Harry turned at her sudden cry, his arm going about her as her hands flew to her mouth. Below them, Abdo staggered a couple of steps, dropped to one knee, his hands spread against the gaping wound in his chest. Bright blood spattered the white robe; and again, as a second bullet took him from behind and blasted him to the ground.
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