The Triumph of the Sun

by Wilbur Smith

  With their cargoes of broken bodies on the decks, the dhows steered back across the river in the first flush of day. As the last pulled out of the bight of the harbour the Gatlings ceased their dreadful clangour. The timid silence of the dawn was marred only by the lamentations of the new widows across the river on the Omdurman bank.

  Penrod stepped back from the Gatling, whose barrels glowed as though they had been heated in a blacksmith’s forge. He looked around him like someone awakening from nightmare. He was not surprised to find Yakub at his side. ‘I saw Osman Atalan in the front rank of the enemy host,’ he told him.

  ‘I saw him also, lord.’

  ‘If he is still on this bank of the river, we must find him,’ Penrod ordered. ‘If he is alive, I want him. If he is dead, his head shall be sent to the Ever Victorious Mahdi. It may discourage him and his Ansar from another attack on the city.’

  Before he left the redoubt Penrod called to Sergeant Khaled, ‘See to our wounded. Get them to the hospital.’ He knew how futile that would be. Both the Egyptian doctors had deserted from Gordon’s regiment months ago, but not before they had stolen and sold all the medical supplies. At the hospital building a few old Arab midwives still treated the wounded with herbs and traditional potions. He had heard that Rebecca Benbrook had tried to teach some of the Sudanese women how to take care of the wounded in a more orthodox fashion, but he knew that she had no medical training. She could do little more than attempt to staunch bleeding, and make sure the wounded had clean boiled water to drink, and extra rations of dhurra and green-cake.

  Before the words were out of his mouth he heard a scream. He glanced in the direction it had come from and saw a woman dressed in black robes bending over a wounded Dervish. The Arab and Nubian women of the city had an instinct for death and loot. The first were arriving even before the crows and the vultures.

  The wounded Dervish wriggled and writhed as the woman prodded him into position with the point of her little dagger. Then, with an expert stroke that started in his throat under the ear and raked forward, she opened both his carotid and jugular arteries and hopped back so the blood would not soak her skirts. Long ago Penrod had learnt not to interfere in this type of business. Arab women were worse than the men, and this one had made no attempt to conceal what she was about. He turned away. ‘Sergeant, I need prisoners for questioning. Save as many as you can.’ Then he jerked his head to Yakub. ‘Come, All-seeing Yakub. Let us seek the Emir Osman Atalan. The last I saw of him, he was on the beach trying to rally his men as they ran for the boats.’

  ‘Wait for me, Pen. I am coming with you.’ Amber had crept out of the dugout.

  Once again he had forgotten her presence. Her hair was in tangled disarray, her blue eyes were underscored with plum-coloured bruises, and her yellow frock was filthy with smoke and dust. The revolver was too big for the hand that held it. ‘Will I never get rid of you? You must go home, Amber,’ he said. ‘This is no place for you, and it never was.’

  ‘The streets are not safe,’ Amber argued. ‘Not all the Dervish got away in the boats. I saw hundreds of them escaping that way.’ She waved the Webley in an indeterminate gesture over her shoulder. ‘They will be waiting to ravish me or cut my throat.’ ‘Ravish’ was one of her new words, although she was uncertain of its meaning.

  ‘Amber, there are corpses and dying men down there. It’s no place for a young lady.’

  ‘I have seen dead men before,’ she said sweetly, ‘and I am not a lady yet, just a little girl. I only feel safe with you.’

  Penrod laughed a little too harshly. He always felt lightheaded and detached from reality when fighting was over.

  ‘Little girl? In stature, perhaps. But you have all the wiles of a fully fledged member of your sex. I am no match for you. Come along, then.’

  They slipped and slid down the bank into the creek. The first rays of the sun were gilding the minarets of the city, and the light improved every minute. Penrod and Yakub moved cautiously among the bullet-torn bodies of the fallen Ansar. Some were still alive, and Yakub leant over one with his dagger poised.

  ‘No!’ Penrod said sharply.

  Yakub looked aggrieved. ‘It would be merciful to help his poor soul through the gates of Paradise.’ But Penrod indicated Amber, and shook his head again even more definitely. Yakub shrugged and moved on.

  Penrod was looking for Osman Atalan’s green turban. As he ducked out under the stone arch of the tunnel on to the muddy beach, he picked it out: it was on the head of a corpse floating face down in the lap and wash of the wavelets at the edge of the bank. Through the clinging folds of the jibba he saw that the corpse was lean and athletic. There were two bullet-holes in its back. The Gatling had inflicted massive damage – he could have thrust his fist into the holes. A few fingerling Nile perch worried the ragged tatters of raw meat that hung from the wounds. The end of the turban floated free, waving like a tendril of seaweed in the wash of the current. Osman Atalan’s long dark hair was entwined with the cloth.

  Penrod felt his spirits plunge when only moments before he had been intoxicated. He felt cheated and angry. There should have been more to it than this. He had sensed that he and Atalan were caught up together in the ring of destiny. This was no way for it to end. There was no satisfaction in finding his enemy floating like the carcass of a pariah dog in a drainage creek with fish nibbling his flesh.

  Penrod sheathed his sabre and went down on one knee beside the floating body. With a strangely respectful gesture he took the dead man’s arm and rolled the body face up in the shallows. He stared at it in astonishment. This was an older, less noble face, with brutish brows, thick lips and broken teeth stained by the smoke of the hashish pipe.

  ‘Osman Atalan has escaped.’ He spoke aloud in his relief. He was overtaken by a sense of prescience. It was not over yet. Fate had linked him and Atalan, as a serpentine liana binds two great forest trees to each other. There was more to follow, much more. He knew it in his heart.

  There was a soft sound behind him, but it did not alarm him. He thought it was either Yakub or Amber. He went on studying the features of the dead emir, until Amber screamed, ‘Pen! Behind you! Look out!’ She was some way to his right. Even as he turned he knew it was not her he had heard so close behind him. And he knew he was too late. Perhaps, after all, this was where it ended, on this strip of mud beside the great river.

  He completed the turn with his right hand on the hilt of his sabre, rising from his knees, but he knew he could not regain his feet and draw his sword in time. He had only a fleeting glimpse of his assassin. The Dervish had been feigning death: it was one of their tricks. Coiled like a poisonous adder he had waited his moment. Penrod had fallen into the trap: he had turned his back and sheathed his sabre. The Dervish had come to his feet with his broadsword drawn back like a forester about to make the first cut on the trunk of a tree. Now he swung all his wiry frame behind the stroke. He was aiming a few inches above the point of Penrod’s left hip bone.

  Penrod watched the massive silver blade looping towards him, but it seemed that time had slowed. He was like an insect trapped in a bowl of honey, and his movements were sluggish. He realized that the blade would slice through the soft tissue of his midriff, until it struck his spinal column just above the pelvic girdle. That would not stop it. The entire circumference of his body would offer as little resistance as if it were the spongy stem of a banana tree. This single stroke of the blade would bisect him neatly.

  The shot came from his right, a flat blurt of sound, the characteristic report of the Webley .44. Although he was not looking directly at her, Penrod was aware of Amber’s small shape at the periphery of his vision. She was holding the weapon double-handed at the full reach of both her arms, but the heavy recoil threw it high above her head.

  The assassin was a young man with a thin, unkempt beard, his pockmarked skin the colour of toffee. Penrod was staring at his face as the heavy Webley bullet struck him in the left temple and blasted through his skull
just behind the eyes. It distorted his features as though they were an india-rubber mask. His lips twisted and elongated, and his eyelids fluttered like the wings of butterflies. His eyes bulged from their sockets, and the bullet erupted from his right temple in a cloud of bone chips and wet tissue.

  Half-way through the sword stroke his fingers opened nervelessly and the weapon flew from his grip. It spun past Penrod’s hip, missing it by a hand-span, and cartwheeled away to peg point first into the muddy bank. The assassin took a step back before his legs folded and he collapsed.

  With his right hand on the hilt of his half-drawn sabre Penrod turned to stare in amazement at Amber. She dropped the revolver and burst into sobs. He went to her and picked up the Webley, thrust it into the holster on his belt and buckled the flap. Amber was sobbing as though her heart was breaking. She was shivering and her lips were quivering wildly as she tried to tell him something. He placed one arm round her shoulders and the other behind her knees and lifted her as though she were an infant. She clung to him with both thin arms round his neck.

  ‘That is absolutely enough for one day,’ he said gently. ‘This time I shall take you home myself.’

  Gordon was waiting for him in the Gatling redoubt as he came up the bank. ‘A fair night’s work, Ballantyne. The Mahdi will think once or twice before he comes again, and the populace will be much heartened.’ He lit a cigarette and his hand was steady. ‘We will throw the Dervish dead into the river, a floating warning to their comrades. Perhaps some may even be carried down through the gorge to our troops coming upriver. They will know that we are holding out. It may encourage them to a little more haste.’ Now he glanced at Amber, who was still weeping silently. Her whole body shook with sobs, but the only sounds were small gulps of breath. ‘I will take command here. You may escort the young lady back to her family.’

  Penrod carried Amber into the street. She was still weeping. ‘Cry if it makes you feel better,’ he whispered to her, ‘but, by God, you are as brave a little thing as any man I have known.’ She stopped weeping but her grip tightened round his neck.

  By the time he handed her over to Rebecca and Nazeera Amber had cried herself to sleep. They had to prise her arms from round Penrod’s neck.

  General Gordon used their little victory to counter the numbing despair of the civilian inhabitants of the city. He gathered up the corpses of the enemy, two hundred and sixteen, laid them out in rows on the harbour quay and invited the populace to view them. The women spat upon them, and the men kicked them and shouted abuse, calling down the curse of Allah and condemning them to the fires and torments of hell. They shouted with glee as the corpses were thrown into the river, where the crocodiles snapped at them and dragged them below the surface.

  Gordon posted official bulletins in every square and souk of the city, announcing that the British relief columns were now in full march for the city and would almost certainly arrive within days. He also gave them the joyous tidings that the Dervish were so disheartened by their devastating defeat and the approach of the British columns that vast numbers were deserting the black flag of the Mahdi and marching into the desert to return to their tribal homelands. It was true that there was a large movement of Dervish troops on the enemy bank, but Gordon knew that they were being sent northwards in battle array to oppose the British relief columns.

  More welcome bulletins announced that General Gordon had declared a double ration of dhurra from the stock he was holding in the arsenal. The same bulletin informed the people that the remaining stocks of grain were more than sufficient to feed the city until the arrival of the relief column. It assured them that when the steamers docked in the harbour they would offload thousands of sacks of grain.

  That night Gordon lit bonfires on the maidan. The band played until midnight, and the night sky was lit up again by rockets and coloured flares.

  Early the following morning he called a more sombre meeting in his headquarters. There were only two other participants: David Benbrook and Penrod Ballantyne.

  Gordon looked at Penrod first. ‘You have drawn up the latest inventory of the grain stocks?’

  ‘It did not take long, sir. At ten o’clock last night there were four thousand nine hundred and sixty sacks remaining. Yesterday’s issue of double rations expended five hundred and sixty-two. At the present rate of consumption, we have sufficient dhurra for another fifteen days.’

  ‘In three days I will be forced to halve the ration again,’ Gordon said, ‘but this is not the time to tell the people.’

  David looked shocked. ‘But, General, surely the relief column will be here in two weeks. Your own bulletins gave that assurance.’

  ‘I have to protect the people from the truth,’ Gordon replied.

  ‘What, then, is the truth?’ David demanded.

  Gordon contemplated the ash on his cigarette before he replied. ‘The truth, sir? The truth is not a monolith cast in iron. It is like a cloud in the sky, constantly changing shape. From every direction that one views it, it offers a different aspect.’

  ‘That description has great literary value, I have no doubt, but in this situation it is of little help.’ David smiled bleakly. ‘When can we expect the relief column to reach us?’

  ‘The information I am about to disclose to you must not go beyond the four walls of this room.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Six Dervish were taken prisoner at the harbour.’

  ‘I thought there would have been more.’ David frowned.

  ‘There were.’ Gordon shrugged. David knew better than to pursue the subject. This was the Orient where different standards prevailed. Interrogation under torture fell within those standards. ‘The six prisoners were questioned by my Sergeant Khaled. We obtained much useful intelligence, none of it reassuring. The steamers of the River Division seem to have been delayed at Korti.’

  ‘Good Lord! They should have been at Abu Hamed by now,’ David exclaimed. ‘What on earth is holding them back?’

  ‘We do not know, and speculation is vain.’

  ‘What of the Desert Division under Stewart?’

  ‘Here it is the same sad story. Stewart is still encamped at the Wells of Gakdul,’ Gordon told him.

  ‘It does not seem possible that either of those divisions can reach us before the end of the month,’ David mused, then looked at the others hopefully for a denial. Neither man responded.

  Gordon broke the silence. ‘What is the state of the river, Ballantyne?’

  ‘Yesterday it fell five inches,’ Penrod replied. ‘Each day the pace of the ebb is accelerating.’

  ‘Can one apply the word “ebb” to falling river waters?’ David asked, as if to make light of the serious implications.

  Gordon ignored the frivolous question. ‘The prisoners had other information to give us. The Mahdi has ordered another twenty-five thousand of his élite fighting men northwards to reinforce his army. There are now fifty thousand Dervish gathered at Abu Hamed.’ He paused, as though reluctant to continue. ‘Stewart has two thousand. That means he is outnumbered twenty-five to one. The Dervish know exactly what route he must follow to reach the river. They will choose their ground with care before they attack.’

  ‘Stewart is a fine officer.’ David tried to sound confident.

  ‘One of the best,’ Gordon agreed. ‘But twenty-five to one is long odds.’

  ‘In God’s Name we must warn Stewart of the danger.’

  ‘Yes, that is what I intend.’ Gordon looked across at Penrod. ‘I am sending Captain Ballantyne to the Wells of Gakdul to warn him and guide him through.’

  ‘How do you intend that he make the journey, General? As far as I am aware, there are no camels in the city. They have all been eaten. There is only one steamer, Ryder Courtney’s Intrepid Ibis, but the engine is still out of commission. It is highly unlikely that a dhow will get through the Dervish lines.’

  Gordon gave a chilly smile. ‘I have discovered that Mr Courtney is the owner of a fine herd of at l
east twenty racing camels. He has been prudent enough not to keep them in the city where I might have found them, but has sent them out into the desert, to a tiny oasis two days’ travel to the south. They are grazing there under the care of some of his people.’

  David chuckled. ‘Ryder Courtney has more arrows to his bow than a monkey has fleas.’

  ‘For somebody who recently queried my use of the language, that is as magnificently garbled an image as you are like to come across in a year of searching.’ Penrod smiled with him.

  ‘When taxed with the question of the camels, he at first denied ownership.’ Gordon was not smiling. ‘Then he denied that he had any intention of concealing them from me, and said that it was simply a matter of the availability of grazing for the beasts. I immediately commandeered them. If he had been honest with me from the beginning I might have considered compensation.’

  ‘He may not comply with your orders,’ David said. ‘Ryder Courtney is a man of independent spirit.’

  ‘And of avaricious instinct,’ Gordon agreed. ‘But in this case he would be unwise in the extreme to gainsay me. Even under martial law one would hesitate to shoot a subject of the Queen, but he has several warehouses full of ivory and a large menagerie of exotic but edible animals.’ Gordon looked smug. ‘My persuasive logic has prevailed. Courtney has sent word to his herdsmen at the oasis to bring the camels in, and I expect them to be at our disposal by the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘I had no idea of the gravity of the situation,’ David murmured. ‘Had I done so I would have prevented my daughter arranging a celebration of your victory at the harbour. She has planned a soirée for tomorrow evening. Unfortunately our kitchens can no longer provide elaborate dinners. However, there will be piano recitals and singing. If you think this inappropriate, General, I shall ask Rebecca to cancel the evening.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Gordon shook his head. ‘Although I shall not attend, Miss Benbrook’s festivities will keep up pretences and spirits. She must go ahead, by all means.’