‘No thanks.’
Gordon poured himself half a glass, then put it on the table. He peered at Mayne closely. ‘I know the name, but we haven’t met, have we?’
‘No, sir. My speciality is survey, and I’m in the field much of the time. But I took a refresher course at the School of Military Engineering while you were posted at Chatham, and I attended your lectures on the Sudan.’
‘Have you been out here long?’
‘Since July. With General Earle’s staff.’
‘Dragging whaleboats up the Nile? A scheme that would make Sisyphus in Hades glad of his own torment. And before that?’
‘I first came to Egypt in 1882, after our invasion.’
‘Correction,’ said Gordon, picking up a cigarette from a box on his desk and lighting it, sucking in deep and blowing out smoke. ‘Not invasion, but intervention. An intervention to prop up the Ottoman regime in Cairo, against the wishes of the Egyptian army and the Egyptian people, in order to secure our controlling interest in the Suez Canal and keep the investors happy.’ He tapped his cigarette. ‘Have you much desert experience?’
‘I carried out forward reconnaissance for the river column.’
‘Ah. You mean you are an intelligence officer. To whom do you answer?’
‘Lord Wolseley, sir.’
‘Not Baring, in Cairo? Or Colonel Sir Charles Wilson?’
Mayne was taken aback momentarily, too tired to keep up his guard. ‘They both have an interest, inasmuch as they have read my reports.’
‘Wilson is an old friend, though I have found him distant in recent years, but Burnaby works for him and keeps me abreast of affairs.’ He looked at Mayne shrewdly. ‘Apparently there’s a secret complex of rooms under Whitehall. There are operations afoot that even Burnaby is not privy to, and that Wilson only reports to the highest authority. But doubtless you know that.’
Mayne had recovered his poise. ‘Colonel Wilson at this moment is with the steamers that are heading upriver from Metemma towards Khartoum. My mission is to persuade you to leave so that they may take you off to safety when they arrive.’
Gordon leaned his head back, exhaled a deep lungful of smoke towards the ceiling and then looked back at Mayne, a smile on his face. ‘Correction. Your mission is to provide me with agreeable companionship on this night. I have my Sudanese soldiers, whom I love dearly, but there is little conversation to be had. Ever since Colonel Stewart left, I have been starved of friendship. I still weep at the thought of his vile murder when the steamer Abbas was wrecked, for which I hold myself responsible. I have missed his counsel dreadfully.’
‘Kitchener has seen you since then.’
‘Only once, when he came in disguise like you. But he had little time, and our conversation had a very particular course, as I shall tell you shortly.’
‘You know he holds you in the highest regard.’
‘Too high, in my opinion. His desire for revenge may lead him to murderous courses of action that will muddy the waters even further.’
‘Or lead him to glory. There is talk of him as a future sirdar of the Egyptian army, as the one who may lead a force big enough to crush the Mahdi.’
Gordon exhaled again. ‘Glory is nine tenths twaddle, wouldn’t you say?’
Mayne remembered Burnaby’s final moments. ‘For those who seek it, sir, yes. For those upon whom it falls, perhaps it constitutes that remaining one tenth and is a worthy thing.’
‘I believe, then, that Gordon of Khartoum is nine tenths twaddle and one tenth glory.’
Gordon grinned, then took a deep draw on his cigarette, holding the smoke in and exhaling it out of the window. He looked at his cigarette. ‘I do apologise. I’ve spent too much time alone, and have forgotten how to be civil. I should have offered you one of these. I smoke them to overcome the terrible smell of decay from outside.’ He offered Mayne the box from the table. ‘And they help further to suppress my appetite; that is, what taste is left after ingesting the stench outside. Would you care for one?’
Mayne declined, and Gordon put the box back on the table. ‘Perhaps you don’t enjoy the peculiar smell. It’s cherry tobacco, from Morocco. They were given to me as a birthday present by Burnaby, and I’ve become addicted.’
‘I fear I have some bad news for you, sir. The worst. A week ago, near the wells of Abu Klea, there was a fight between the dervishes and the desert column.’
‘I know of it. My Sudanese spies were there. A hell of a fight, by all accounts.’ Gordon paused, suddenly looking crestfallen. ‘They talk of a great bear of a man, fighting with the strength of twenty, finally being brought down by a dervish spear.’ He sat down dejectedly, letting his cigarette burn between his fingers. ‘Fred Burnaby?’
‘Your account tallies, sir. I saw him myself. He died as a soldier.’
‘You mean he died in great pain, with fearful wounds. I’ve been around glorious deaths in battle all my life. I know what it’s like.’
‘Before we left Korti, he passed on his best wishes to you. As did General Buller. They all did.’
‘Burnaby’s I accept, with sad pleasure. The others’ are hollow words. How many more men must die in this futile campaign? It is a campaign for the satisfaction of those who are running it, not for the purpose of relieving Khartoum. That is the sad lesson of war, one that we learn through bitter experience. The game of war has become as self-perpetuating for us as it has become for the army of the jihad, fuelled by the bloodlust of the warrior, where the fight and the holy crusade becomes an end in itself.’
‘Have you felt it, sir? That attraction?’
‘I am not a crusader, Mayne. I am not here to fight Islam. The Mahdi may not convert me to his cause, but I find little in Islam that would dissuade me from it, were I of a doctrinaire bent, and much to commend it. Yet I am regarded as a Christian warrior, and the evangelists hang on my every word.’ He picked up a thin volume from the table. ‘Reflections in Palestine, by Major General Charles Gordon,’ he said, and tossed it contemptuously back. ‘I went to Jerusalem three years ago with the perfectly sound intention of following up Wilson’s work there to identify the site of the crucifixion. My aim was to debunk all of those who have let their faith carry them forward into making spurious claims, and cloud their reason. And then my erstwhile friends go and publish a book without my sanction made up from the musings about religion I happened to have written in my notebooks while I was there. It reads like the worst sort of mysticism.’
‘I do not believe it tarnishes your reputation, sir.’
‘Speaking of my reputation, there is something I would like you to do.’ Gordon went over and sat down at his desk, then opened a folder and took out a sheet of paper. He quickly read it through, and then glanced up at Mayne. With his pale face and watery eyes he looked feverish, but he spoke clearly, with controlled passion. ‘There were many who believed that my cause in the Sudan was the abolition of slavery, and many who were dismayed when I allowed it to continue under my jurisdiction. Some thought that was the beginning of my decline; that I had become seduced by the trappings of despotism, removing myself from the decencies of British behaviour. Some even clamoured for my rescue in order to pluck me from the moral vacuum that I supposedly inhabited. My decline, Major Mayne, I can assure you, has been brought on by constant anxiety over the arrival of relief, and I am worn to a shadow by the food question.’
He put one hand to his brow, shutting his eyes for a moment, and then lifted the lid on a small brass inkpot and dipped a quill pen into it, raising it and touching it lightly to the side of the inkpot to let the excess ink drain out. ‘Anyone who knows this country should be perfectly aware that such a law could not be enacted definitively without so radically altering the way of life here that it would require us to occupy the Sudan as a province, to control every aspect of it and to create a new society and new economy. It is only now, on the eve of an extinction brought about by lack of British resolve, when all institutions in the Sudan have ceased to exist
, that I can sign a law mandating the destruction of slavery. It is too late for the people of Khartoum, but I can only hope that those slaves who have been put in the front ranks of the Mahdi’s army will come to know of it, and will hereafter cease to obey their masters, who they will have seen slinking in the background, cowards both as fighters and as arbiters of human justice.’
He took the pen and held it poised to write. ‘The eighteenth of December was the anniversary of one of the most momentous events of our time, the proclaiming in 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln of the abolition of slavery in the United States. I drafted this document on that day, and it has been languishing since then as I have waited for a witness whom those who judge me will find credible. Will you be such a witness?’
Mayne stared at the document, then at Gordon. He remembered his mission, and Charrière waiting on the opposite shore. What Gordon was asking him to do now seemed unreal, impossible to digest. He swallowed hard, and nodded. ‘Of course, sir.’
‘I will tell you this. If Abraham Lincoln had been in my position today, or Lord Palmerston, who abolished slavery in the British Empire, they would not have left Khartoum or this life without proclaiming the emancipation of the slaves of the Sudan. As God is my witness, and Major Edward Mayne, a commissioned officer of Her Majesty’s Army in the Corps of Royal Engineers, I hereby bring this statute into law.’ He scratched his name on the paper and passed the pen to Mayne, who turned the paper to face him, leaned over and signed. Gordon blotted the signatures with his handkerchief, blew on the paper and held it to dry for a few moments, then folded it into a small square and passed it to Mayne. ‘Everything left in this room will be destroyed when the dervishes arrive. Have this, so that some may know of my final act.’
Mayne took the paper, holding it for a moment hesitantly. He had already entered a netherworld where the execution of his mission would prevent him from openly contacting Wolseley ever again, and a document like this would not be believed unless it were passed on by authoritative hands. He put the thought from his mind, and slipped it inside his tunic pocket. Gordon stood up, came round to the front of the desk and put a hand on his shoulder, guiding him towards the open doorway with a view over the balcony. It was the dead of night, a heavy, overwhelming darkness that blocked out all the stars, allowing only a hint of moonlight to penetrate. Dawn was at least eight hours away, but the same thought was on both of their minds. Gordon gestured towards the river. ‘When it is time, I will tell my Sudanese guards to escort you to the steps leading down to the landing stage, so that you do not have to go out through the gates.’
Mayne suddenly remembered something. ‘The corporal at the gate. I believe he has gone over to the Mahdi.’
‘Indeed. But he has served a purpose, as the other guards tell me what he preaches. Doubtless you have heard that forty thousand angels will descend upon this place tomorrow.’
‘I believe those were his words.’
‘It’s from him that I ascertained with certainty that the Mahdi is attacking tomorrow. The man’s treachery is of little consequence now, but I have ordered my bodyguard to do away with him during the night. It means that when they fight to the death tomorrow, as they surely shall, they’ll know that they have a unity of purpose. They will fight and die as a band of brothers.’
Mayne could just make out his reed boat pulled up on the shore, beside the three posts with their macabre festoonings that looked so much like an image of the crosses bearing the three thieves on the hill of Calvary. He thought of asking, and then stopped himself. There was nothing untoward about executing miscreants in a place like this; it was part of Gordon’s job, and the Mahdi doubtless did the same on the opposite bank to those who had dissatisfied him.
Gordon followed Mayne’s gaze and then turned to him, his face spectral in the reflection from the river. ‘I would say this to the world. I stay here because I believe Jesus of Nazareth would have done as I do and not forsaken these people. But I am no messiah. I fear death as would any other man; even when it stares you in the face as it has done me for so long now, let me tell you, it is not something you welcome gladly. I do not want to die a lingering death with the Mahdi’s men goading me as the Romans did Christ with their spears. I want to die as a soldier, not like a martyr, and like all soldiers I would say that when it comes, I would like it to be clean and quick. Can you see to that for me?’
Mayne did not know what to say. Gordon walked across to the rifle on the stand by the window, leaning down and peering over the sights. ‘I’ve amused myself by taking pot shots at the dervishes on Tutti island. But our batch of ammunition is faulty; some of the cartridges have been overloaded with powder. The excess gas blowing back from the breech nearly blinded me a few weeks ago. It’s the reason I took to sleeping during the day. Even the hazy daylight in this place makes my eyes water uncontrollably.’
‘General Wolseley and his staff think you deliberately stand on your balcony at night in order to taunt the dervishes, and also to impress your own soldiers with your inviolability. The press have got hold of the notion, and there is even an illustration in a publication of the evangelical movement showing you on the balcony with your arms raised, illuminated by the sun, the people of Khartoum below eating the food that has poured from your hands, the bullets and shells of the Mahdi whizzing by you harmlessly.’
Gordon went to the open window and stared out over the river, lighting another cigarette and inhaling deeply. ‘I keep a telescope on the roof, in full view of the dervishes, I own you that. I used it to look out for the relief force, but I gave up on that long ago.’ He snorted. ‘But as for the proposition that I have become immortal, what tosh. What utter tosh. What kind of a man do they think I am?’
‘Some think you are a saint, sir, and others that you have become unhinged.’
‘A saint. Well, those poor wretches outside the gate believe I have barak, the life force, as some too believe of the Mahdi. But it’s just that we are both providers, and whether you offer food to the starving or a cause to the directionless, from their position at your feet you can appear very much larger than you really are. As for unhinged.’ Gordon paused, and took another drag. ‘Enraged, frustrated, enfeebled, exhausted, yes, but unhinged? I ask any of them to take my place and survive a siege of three hundred and thirty days, days of false promises, of a relief force that was never going to arrive. All they had to do was send a hundred soldiers and two steamers; that would have been enough to take off all of my staff and their families. I told Wolseley as much; I sent endless messages. In their absurd concoction of my character, they decided that I did not want to be rescued. And since then, the Mahdi’s army has increased many fold, making those hundred men of my plea an absurd proposition.’
He picked up a sheet from a pile on the desk. ‘There are forty thousand people in this city. Forty thousand starving wretches, most of them slaves for whom the only day of liberation in their lives is this one. They may see me as their saviour, yes, but it is because I give them food. That is what I spend my time doing here. I calculate the figures, and I work out how much is left; I give them just enough to stay alive. I keep the hospital running so that the few Arab doctors may relieve the sufferings of those diseased people who are not bound to perish. I own that what I am doing is merely giving sustenance to a dying man. The Mahdi will arrive, and these people will be slaughtered. I can do nothing about that, but I cannot leave them while I am still able to give them food. I cannot leave. If that is unhinged, then so be it.’
Gordon dropped the sheet, letting it flutter to the floor, and put his hands up to his face, covering his eyes. Then he ran them through his hair and let them drop to his sides. He looked pale, almost luminous, and suddenly fragile, and Mayne realised for the first time how emaciated he was. This was a man who chain-smoked to keep his appetite down, who had made it his task to distribute scant supplies of biscuit among forty thousand starving people, to make them last as long as possible. Mayne thought of the tedious hours they
had spent in the School of Military Engineering learning about the economics of garrison management. This was hardly what the instructors would have had in mind, but Gordon was doing the job as he had been trained to do it.
Mayne pointed to the carefully laid-out jibba on the floor. ‘There are some who believe you have been influenced to convert to the cause of the Mahdi.’
Gordon passed his hand over his face, and then replied with an edge to his voice, as if trying to restrain himself. ‘It is true that I have a considerable correspondence with my friend Muhammad Ahmad. He is from a family of boatbuilders, you know, and he and I have a considerable shared interest in the technology of Nile watercraft.’ He gave a wry smile, and then went over to the desk and picked up another sheaf of papers, taking one and reading from it. ‘“In the name of God the merciful and compassionate, the Destroyer of him who is obstinate against his religion, blessings and peace be upon our Lord Mahomed and his successors, who have established the foundations and solid pillars of our faith.”’ He put the letter down. ‘It goes on in the same vein. My Sudanese clerk translates them for me. They invariably end with the Mahdi offering me sanctuary and an exalted place beside him if I see his particular version of the light. He cites the case of my friend and his prisoner von Slatin, pretending to believe that von Slatin’s conversion to Islam was not just an act of desperation to encourage his Sudanese troops before their final battle, and an act of expediency to save his life when he was captured. And he mentions our mutual interest in the prophet Isaiah, as if I would believe that Isaiah from on high would be instructing me to join a holy war and destroy all those who are obstinate against my religion.’
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