by Wilbur Smith
Sir Evelyn Baring’s secretary came in. ‘The consul general will see you now.’
Penrod had been standing to preserve the pristine appearance of his uniform – creases at the elbows, down the back of his tunic and at the knees of his breeches were unsightly. He replaced the tall busby on his head, glancing in the mirror to make certain it was centred low on his eyebrows with the chain across the chin, then marched through the carved doors into the inner office.
Sir Evelyn Baring was seated at his desk, reading from a sheaf of despatches in front of him. Penrod came to attention and saluted. Baring beckoned him in without glancing at him. The secretary closed the door.
Sir Evelyn Baring was officially the agent of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government in Egypt, and her consul general in Cairo with plenipotentiary powers. In truth he was the viceroy, who ruled the ruler of Egypt. Since the Khedive had been saved from the mobs of rebellion by the British Army and the fleet of the Royal Navy in Alexandria harbour, Egypt had become, in all but name, a British protectorate.
The Khedive Tawfig Pasha was a weak youth and no match for a man like Baring and the mighty Empire he represented. He had been forced to abdicate all his powers, and in return the British had given him and his people the peace and prosperity they had not known since the age of Pharaoh Ptolemy. Sir Evelyn Baring possessed one of the most brilliant minds in the colonial service. The Prime Minister, William Gladstone, and his cabinet were aware of and highly appreciative of his qualities. However, towards his underlings, his manner was patronizing and condescending. Behind his back they called him ‘Sir Over Bearing’.
Now he ignored Penrod as he went on with his reading, making notes in the margins with a gold pen. At last he stood up from his desk, and left Penrod standing while he went to the windows that overlooked the river to Giza and the stark silhouettes of the three mighty pyramids on the far bank.
That damned idiot, Baring mused to himself. He has got us into this pretty pickle of rotten fish. From the outset he had opposed the appointment of Chinese Gordon. He had wanted to send Sam Baker, but Gladstone and Lord Hartington, the Secretary of War, had overruled him. It is in Gordon’s nature to provoke conflict. The Sudan was to be abandoned. His job was to bring our people out of that doomed land, not to confront the Mad Mahdi and his Dervishes. I warned Gladstone of precisely this, Gordon is trying to dictate terms and force the Prime Minister and the cabinet to send an army to reoccupy the Sudan. If it were not for the unfortunate citizens that he has incarcerated with him, and for the honour of the Empire, we should let Chinese Gordon stew in his own juice.
As Baring turned away from the window and the contemplation of those immemorial monuments across the Nile, his eye fell on a copy of The Times of London that lay on the table beside his favourite armchair. He frowned more deeply. And then we have also to take into account the uninformed and sentimental opinions of the sweating masses, so readily manipulated by those petty potentates of the press.
He could almost recite the leading article from memory: ‘We know that General Gordon is surrounded by hostile tribes and cut off from communication with Cairo and London. Under these circumstances the House has the right to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are going to do anything to relieve him. Are they going to remain indifferent to the fate of the one man on whom they have counted to extricate them from their dilemmas, to leave him to shift for himself, and make not a single effort on his behalf?’ was what Lord Randolph Churchill had said to the Commons, as reported on 16 March 1885. Damned demagogue! Baring thought now, and looked up at the Hussar captain. ‘Ballantyne, I want you to go back to Khartoum.’ He spoke directly to Penrod for the first time since he had entered the room.
‘Of course, sir. I can leave within the hour,’ Penrod responded. He knew that the one word the master of Egypt liked to hear above all others was ‘yes’.
Baring allowed himself a wintry smile, an extraordinary mark of his approval. His intelligence system was wide-reaching and pervasive. Its roots burrowed into every level of Egyptian society, from the highest levels of the government and the military to the forbidden councils of the mullahs in their mosques and the bishops in their cathedrals and Coptic monasteries. He had his agents in the palaces of the Khedive and the harems of the pashas, in the souks, bazaars and brothels of the greatest cities and the meanest villages.
Penrod was nothing but a tiny tadpole in the festering swamp of intrigue in whose waters Sir Evelyn Baring set his lines and into which he cast his net. However, recently he had become quite fond of the lad. Behind the good looks and dandified appearance, Baring had detected a bright, quick mind and an attention to duty that reminded him of himself at the same age. Penrod Ballantyne’s family connections were solid. His elder brother was a baronet and had large estates on the Scottish Borders. He himself had a significant income from a family trust, and the purple ribbon on his chest bore ample witness to his courage. Moreover, the young dog had shown a natural aptitude for intelligence work. Indeed, he was gradually and subtly making himself valuable – not indispensable, for nobody was that, but valuable. The only possible weakness that Baring had so far detected in him he carried in his trousers.
‘I will give you no written message, for the usual reasons,’ he said.
‘Naturally, sir.’
‘There is one message for General Gordon, and another for David Benbrook, the British consul. The messages are not to be confused. It may seem to you that they are contradictory, but pray do not let that trouble you.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Penrod divined that Baring trusted Benbrook well enough because he lacked brilliance. Just as he trusted Chinese Gordon not at all because of his brilliance.
‘This is what you are to convey to them.’ Baring spoke for half an hour without consulting any slip of paper, barely pausing to draw breath. ‘Have you got that, Ballantyne?’
‘I have, sir.’
One of the fellow’s assets is his appearance, Baring thought. No one can readily believe that behind those whiskers and those wonderfully pleasing features is a mind that can assimilate such a lengthy, complicated message at the first recital, then deliver it accurately a month later. ‘Very well,’ he said flatly. ‘But you must impress on General Gordon that Her Majesty’s Government has no intention whatsoever of reconquering the Sudan. The British Army now making its way up the Nile is in no way an expeditionary force. It is not an army of reoccupation. It is a rescue column of minimal strength. The objective of the desert column is to insert a small body of regular first-line troops into Khartoum to bolster the defences of the city long enough for us to evacuate all our people. Once this has been achieved we intend to abandon the city to the Dervish and come away.’
‘I understand, sir.’
‘As soon as you have delivered your messages to Benbrook and Gordon you are to return northwards and join Stewart’s relief column. You will act as guide, lead him across the bight of the Nile to where Gordon’s own steamers are waiting at Metemma to take them upriver. You will attempt to keep in contact with me. The usual codes, mind.’
‘Of course, Sir Evelyn.’
‘Very well, then. Major Adams of General Wolseley’s staff is waiting for you on the second floor. I understand that you are acquainted with him.’
‘I am, sir.’ Of course Baring knew that Penrod had won his VC by rescuing Samuel Adams from the bloody battlefield of El Obeid.
‘Adams will give you a more detailed briefing, and provide you with the passes and requisitions you will need. You can catch the Cook’s steamer this evening and be in Assouan by Tuesday noon. From there you are on your own. How long to Khartoum, Ballantyne? You have made the journey many times before.’
‘It depends on conditions in the Desert of the Mother of Stones. If the wells are holding I can cut the great S-bend of the river and reach Khartoum in twenty-one days, sir,’ Penrod answered crisply. ‘Twenty-six at the outside.’
Baring nodded. ‘Make it twenty rather than twenty-six. Let y
ourself out.’ Baring dismissed him, without offering to shake hands. He was lost in his despatches again before Penrod reached the door. It was not important to Baring that people liked him. Only that they did their job.
Colonel Sam Adams was delighted to see Penrod again. He was walking with only a single stick now. ‘The sawbones tells me I’ll be playing polo again by Christmas.’ Neither mentioned the long ride back from the battlefield of El Obeid. All that needed to be said on that subject had been said long ago, but Adams glanced admiringly at the bronze cross on Penrod’s chest.
Penrod composed a cipher telegraph to the intelligence officer with the vanguard of the Desert Column that was assembling at Wadi Halfa eight hundred miles up the Nile. Adams’s adjutant took it to the telegraphist on the ground floor and returned with the confirmation that it had been sent and received. Then Colonel Adams invited Penrod to lunch at Shepheard’s Hotel, but Penrod begged a prior engagement. As soon as he had his travel papers he left. A groom had his charger at the gate and it was less than half an hour’s ride along the riverbank to the Gheziera Club.
Lady Agatha was waiting for him on the Ladies’ Veranda. She was just twenty and the youngest daughter of a duke. Viscount Wolseley, the commander-in-chief of the British Army in Egypt, was her godfather. She had an income of twenty thousand a year. Added to this, she was blonde, petite and exquisite, but an enormous handful for any man.
‘I would rather have the French clap than Lady Agatha,’ Penrod had recently overheard a wag remark at the Shepheard’s bar, and had been undecided whether to laugh or call the fellow outside. In the end he had bought him a drink.
‘You are late, Penrod.’ She was reclining in a cane chair and pouted as he came up the steps from the garden. He kissed her hand, then glanced at the clock over the garden entrance to the dining room. She saw the gesture. ‘Ten minutes can be an eternity.’
‘Duty, I am afraid, my lovely. Queen and country.’
‘How utterly boring. Get me a glass of champagne.’ Penrod looked up, and a waiter in a long white galabiyya and tasselled fez appeared as miraculously as a genie from the lamp.
When the wine came, Agatha sipped it. ‘Grace Everington is getting married on Saturday,’ she said.
‘A mite sudden?’
‘No, actually, just in time. Before it begins to show.’
‘I hope she enjoyed the chase.’
‘She tells me no, not at all, but her father is being beastly and says she must go through with it. Family honour. It is to be quiet and discreet, of course, but I have an invitation for you. You may escort me. It might be fun to watch her making an ass of herself, and of him.’
‘I am sorry to say it, but by then I shall be far away.’
Agatha sat up straight. ‘Oh, God! No! Not again. Not so soon.’
Penrod shrugged. ‘I was given no choice.’
‘When are you leaving?’
‘In three hours’ time.’
‘Where are they sending you?’
‘You know better than to ask.’
‘You can’t go, Pen. The reception at the Austrian embassy is tomorrow evening. I have a new dress.’ He shrugged again. ‘When will you come back?’
‘That is blowing in the wind.’
‘Three hours,’ she said, and stood up. The movement attracted the gaze of every man on the veranda. ‘Come!’ she commanded.
‘Lunch?’ he asked.
‘I think not.’ Her family kept a permanent suite at Shepheard’s, and Penrod rode beside her open gharry. As the door to the suite closed she pounced on him, like a kitten on a ball of wool, lithe, playful and earnest all at once. He picked her up easily and carried her through to the bedroom.
‘Be quick!’ she ordered. ‘But not too quick.’
‘I am an officer of the Queen, and an order is an order.’
Later, she watched him as he dressed again while she lay stretched full length, languid and replete, inviting his appraisal. ‘You won’t find better than this, Penrod Ballantyne.’ She cupped her hands under her breasts. They were pale and large in comparison to her girlish waist. She squeezed out her nipples, and he paused to watch her. ‘You see? You do like it. When will you marry me?’
‘Ah! May we apply ourselves to that question at some later date?’
‘You are an utter beast.’ She combed her fingers through the mist of strawberry curls at the base of her belly. ‘Should I pluck myself here? The Arab girls do.’
‘Your information on that subject is probably more accurate than mine.’
‘I heard that you like Arab girls.’
‘Sometimes you are amusing, Lady Agatha. At other times you are not. Sometimes you behave like a lady, and at others not at all.’ He slung his dolman over his shoulder and adjusted the chain as he turned to the door.
She flew off the bed like a wounded leopard, and he only just had time to turn and defend himself. She went for his eyes with her sharp, pearly talons. But he seized her wrists. She tried to bite his face, small white teeth clicking together an inch from his nose. He bent her backwards so she could not reach. She kneed at his groin, but he caught the blow on his thigh and turned her round. She was helpless in the circle of his arms with her back to his chest. She pressed her firm round buttocks into him, felt him swelling and hardening, and gave a breathless but triumphant little laugh. She stopped struggling, sank to her knees and lifted high the twin half-moons of her buttocks. She wriggled her thighs apart so that the nest of pink curls peeked out between them. ‘I hate you!’ she said.
He dropped down behind her, still booted and spurred, his sabre belted at his side. He ripped open the front of his breeches, and she screamed involuntarily as he transfixed her. When he stood up again she collapsed and lay panting at his feet. ‘How do you always know what I want you to do? How do you always know what to say, and when to say it? That terrible name you called me a moment ago was like chilli powder on a sweet mango – it took my breath away. How do you know these things?’
‘Some might call it genius, but I am too modest to agree.’
She looked up at him. Her hair was tangled and her cheeks were flushed rosily. ‘Call me that again.’
‘No matter how richly you deserve it, once is enough for now.’ He went to the door.
‘When will you come back?’
‘Perhaps soon, perhaps never.’
‘You beast. I hate you. I truly hate you.’ But he was gone.
Three days later Penrod stepped off the fast steamer at the Assouan jetty. He was wearing tropical khaki uniform without decorations or regimentals. He had exchanged the busby for a pith helmet with a wide brim. There were at least another fifty soldiers and officers within sight who were dressed almost identically, so he excited no attention. A ragged porter in a filthy turban seized his kit-bag and ran ahead of him into the maze of streets of the old town. Striding out on long legs Penrod kept him in sight.
When they reached the gate in a nondescript mud wall at the end of the narrow, twisted alley, Penrod tossed the porter a piastre and retrieved his bag. He tugged the bell cord and listened to the familiar chimes. After a while there were footsteps beyond the gate, soft and faltering, and a voice quavered, ‘Who is it that calls? There is nothing here for we are poor widows and deserted by God.’
‘Open this gate, you houri of Paradise,’ Penrod replied, ‘and swiftly, before I kick it down.’
There was a moment’s stunned silence, broken at last by a wild cackle of laughter and a fumbling at the bolts. Then they were shot back and the gate creaked open. An ancient head, like a turtle’s but partly covered with a widow’s veil peered round the jamb. The gaping grin exposed two crooked teeth widely separated by an expanse of pink gum. ‘Effendi!’ The old woman squealed, and her entire face puckered with wrinkles. ‘Lord of a thousand virtues.’
Penrod embraced her.
‘You are shameless,’ she protested with delight. ‘You threaten my virtue.’
‘I am fifty years too late to pluck
that fruit.’ He let her go. ‘Where is your mistress?’
Old Liala glanced significantly across the courtyard. In the centre of the garden a fountain splashed into a pool in which Nile perch circled tranquilly. Around its border stood statues of the pharaohs: Seti, Thutmose and great Rameses, lifted from their tombs by grave-robbers back in the mists of time. It never failed to amaze him that such treasures were displayed in so humble a setting.
Penrod strode across the courtyard. His heart beat faster. He had not realized until that moment how much he had been looking forward to seeing her again. When he reached the beaded curtain that covered the doorway he paused to regain his composure, then jerked it aside and stepped through. At first she was merely a dim, ethereal presence, but then his eyes adjusted and her shape emerged from the cool gloom. She was slim as a lily stem, but her robe was shot with gold thread, and there was gold at her wrists and ankles. As she came towards him, her bare henna-painted feet made no sound on the tiles. She stopped in front of him and made obeisance, touching her fingertips to her lips and her heart.
‘Master!’ she whispered. ‘Master of my heart.’ Then she hung her head and waited in silence.
He lifted the veil and studied her face. ‘You are beautiful, Bakhita,’ he told her, and the smile that blossomed over her features enhanced that beauty a hundredfold. She lifted her chin and looked at him, and her eyes glowed so that they seemed to light the dimmest recesses of the room.