And then he remembered. The Sudanese used Pasha for the British too; he had even done it himself in Khartoum, for Gordon. It was how the doomed General Hicks had been known to his Egyptian troops. And there was someone else, someone who had been called that by his fanatical bodyguard.
His heart pounded.
Kitchener Pasha.
He looked up at Charrière. ‘It was Kitchener. I’m sure of it. He was suspicious of me, and must have guessed my role. He idolised Gordon, and couldn’t bear to think of what I might be planning to do.’ He rocked back for a moment, feeling overwhelming relief. For days now he had been nagged by uncertainty, wondering whether Colonel Wilson might have had him followed, or even Wolseley. But Kitchener would have acted alone; in the desert he followed no orders. Mayne remembered Burnaby’s dying warning: don’t trust anyone. Burnaby had been watching and listening during the Korti conference, and would have sensed the depth of Kitchener’s loyalty to Gordon. Mayne shut his eyes for a moment. He felt in control again, and a sudden need to be behind the sights of his rifle, focusing on what he did best.
A huge explosion rent the air, and a shower of light crackled and cascaded down on Khartoum. It was followed by another, and then a distant drumming of gunfire that came through the still dawn air as if it were right next to them, the reports echoing down the river. Mayne saw the city lit up by the explosions, its shattered whitewashed buildings collapsing into the ground like the carapace of some long-dead river monster, and then he turned around and for the first time saw a sliver of dawn above the eastern horizon. He looked at Charrière. It had begun.
They both moved quickly back through the wall and lay down at the embrasure. The distant gunfire had become a continuous crackle to the north-east, somewhere near the junction of the two Niles, and was joined by a distinctive thudding of artillery that sounded like British nine-pounders, the guns that had been mounted on the steamers. They must be coming up through a gauntlet of fire from the Mahdi’s forces on either side of the river. Mayne looked at the pastel orange light that was now spreading over the city, diffused by the smoke of the explosions. If the steamers survived the barrage, they would be rounding the corner of Tutti island in less than half an hour.
They suddenly heard an extraordinary sound, a noise that Mayne realised must be the stomping of feet, the sound they had heard at Abu Klea but magnified here a hundred times, accompanied by thousands of tom-toms and a quarter of a million men shrieking and chanting, screaming death to the unbelievers. A cloud of dust rose over the landward end of the city and he saw thousands of dervishes spilling over the defensive ditch and into the streets. It was like a tidal wave smashing through a coastal town, drowning the streets and tossing everything aside as it surged forward. It was all happening astonishingly quickly; twenty minutes earlier, the city had been dead quiet. He whipped up his telescope and watched the dervishes run screaming towards the palace, in a matter of seconds reaching the residential quarter where the officials lived. He saw a man in a tarboosh and robe hurriedly lead a woman and five children out to the riverbank; he shot them all in the head with a revolver, six rounds, then flung the empty gun at the advancing dervishes, one of whom cleaved his head with a sword, sending the top half spinning off in a spray of blood and brain into the Nile. Seconds later the first dervishes reached the gates of the palace, pressing against them as Mayne had done a mere eight hours before.
He panned the telescope to a point just above the palace that he had spotted when he had lain here looking at the city the afternoon before. He had needed to find a feature he could see with his naked eye, a point of reference he could aim at before dropping the sights to the balcony; it would help to give structure to a scene whose details might be less easily visible this morning but which he had memorised, that he could see as clearly in his mind’s eye as if it were a photograph. He found it now: the conical roof of a mosque that rose behind the palace, just above and to the left of the balcony. He put down the telescope and tried sighting the rifle, placing the cross hairs on the roof and then dropping them infinitesimally below and to the right, where Gordon had said he would be when the Mahdi’s army arrived at the gate.
He looked at the palace gate again, at the horde of dervishes that must by now number in the thousands, filling the streets and alleyways, with more of them pressing in every second. And then he saw Gordon on the balcony above the compound, exactly where he had said he would be. Mayne had expected it, but it still sent a shudder through him. Gordon was wearing dress uniform with a red tunic, his sword in one hand and Mayne’s revolver in the other. Mayne felt a sudden surge of something like pride: an officer of the Royal Engineers was not going to go down without a fight. He fervently hoped that Gordon would have the chance to dish out some death before he was taken down. Then the gates collapsed in a crescendo of noise and the dervishes stormed over the soldiers who had been in the courtyard, reaching the bottom of the stairs and beginning to clamber up them. The soldiers in the upper-floor windows were firing as fast as they could reload, more steadfast than Mayne had expected, given the certainty of death. And then he saw Gordon in action too, laying about him with his sword, firing the revolver point-blank at dervishes coming up the stairs, kicking them back into the mass below, shouting orders to his Sudanese riflemen shooting from the windows beside him.
Mayne whispered under his breath: please God finish him now. A single bullet, a single spear; there were enough of them flying around. But still Gordon was there, untouched, standing with his feet planted apart facing across the river, facing Mayne. The dervishes had fallen back in a wide arc below the stairs in front of him, their spears raised, standing their ground even while the remaining Sudanese soldiers still fired into them, until they too went silent, their ammunition presumably expended. Then Mayne saw why the dervishes had stopped: two emirs on horseback had ridden through the throng, and stopped below the balcony. They seemed to be reading something to Gordon, talking to him. Mayne felt himself stop breathing. They were trying to take him alive.
He was going to have to do it.
He put down the telescope and raised the rifle, cocking it and setting the trigger. He peered down the sights, finding the mosque, dropping infinitesimally below and to the right until he found his mark. He could no longer see detail, but he was aiming at what he knew was there, a tiny splash of red, drawing his mind towards it as if he were looking through the telescope.
His throat was dry, and his stomach felt cavernous. He realised that he was shivering, that he had not registered the cold. But it was more than that. He had suddenly lost focus. This had never happened to him before. He knew that it was Gordon, that he should never have gone to see him, should never have allowed himself to know his target as a human being. And they had got it all wrong: Gordon was no messiah, nor a martyr in waiting. He was a man who had come back to Khartoum to find something, and who would not leave until he had discovered it. The Gordon he had been sent to kill was a fantasy in the minds of others. When he returned he would tell them, and that false Gordon would be extinguished, and his mission would be done.
Charrière had picked up the telescope. ‘He’s in full view,’ he said urgently. ‘The steamers are coming. Take the shot now.’
Mayne felt himself tighten up again. They were hunters, and he had the deer in his sights, just like the first time as boys when Charrière had talked him through it, settled his nerves. He closed his eyes for a split second, sending himself back to that day beside the lake in the forest, then opened them, seeing nothing but the tunnel of the sights and the target beyond. And then in his mind’s eye he saw Gordon as he should be, Gordon as he might be right now, never allowing himself to be taken prisoner, lifting his revolver and firing his last round at the emir, then charging down the stairs with his sword raised, hacking and stabbing until he was cut down.
He touched the trigger. The rifle jumped, there was a crack and the report echoed down the Nile. He dropped it, and pushed away from the wall, sitting up on h
is knees and shutting his eyes. He slowly exhaled, feeling as if he would never need to breathe again. He felt the thirst he had first felt in the desert with Shaytan, the thirst that felt like dust in the throat, only this time he did not want to quench it; he wanted the desert to be part of him. He began to breathe again, shallow breaths, barely perceptible, and he opened his eyes. On the horizon over Omdurman to the west he saw the strip of orange widen, wavering and shimmering between sand and sky. Gordon had been right: the sun would shine today. The noise that he had somehow blocked out since aiming the rifle suddenly came back in full force, a din of shrieking and musketry and claps of artillery fire. The city was heaving with dervishes, and he could no longer see the steps of the palace. He looked down the Nile; the steamers had not yet appeared. He and Charrière would be able to leave before Colonel Wilson arrived, before anyone on the boats saw him and his rifle. It had all gone according to plan.
Suddenly the wind was knocked out of him and he was held in a vicelike grip from behind, his neck pinned back and his right arm pushed up in a half-nelson. He struggled, kicking his legs, but his arm was pushed up further. He felt the breath against his neck, and then saw that the forearm around his neck was brawny and scarred, wearing a braided bracelet. He relaxed, and let himself fall back against the man holding him: it was Charrière. ‘Do you remember how we used to wrestle as boys?’ he said. ‘You always won.’
‘That was when you were my adopted brother, Kahniekahake.’
‘And now?’
‘You have earned that name again today, Eagle Eye. And now you will join our ancestors. Your spirit will fly like a swift arrow towards the sun.’
The grip tightened. His arm was pushed up further and pinned hard against Charrière’s chest, allowing him to release his right arm. Mayne heard the sound of a blade being drawn, and he felt a hard flatness against his own chest. He felt numb, too exhausted for games. ‘What are you doing?’
‘My job.’
Mayne tried to struggle. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nobody must know. The final words Wilson spoke to me.’
‘That’s what he told me. And nobody will know. Especially if we leave now, before the steamers arrive.’
‘They are two days downstream. I didn’t see them last night. The gunfire we heard was a small Sudanese garrison in the fort of Omdurman under siege.’
Mayne shut his eyes: this was real. He should have expected it. Wilson would arrive too late. Gordon would be dead, killed by the forces of the Mahdi. Wolseley would withdraw honourably, British prestige saved. People would for ever remember the glorious battle of Abu Klea; Gordon would become a saint.
And nobody would ever know the truth.
He swallowed hard. ‘And why not you? If you know, how can you live too?’
‘Nobody believes an Indian. Especially one living the rest of his life alone on a lake in a forest.’
‘Why?’ Mayne said, suddenly too tired for it all. ‘Why do it?’
‘General Wolseley was always good to my people. And Wilson came to me after my wife and child had died.’
‘Wolseley? Was he in on this?’
‘It was he who presented the plan to Wilson. You were the right man for the job. But even you they could not trust to talk one day.’
Mayne shut his eyes. He realised how little he knew, and how this theatre of war was in reality a play of personalities, twisting and encircling each other like weeds in a current, using history as their stage just as the pharaohs had once used the Nile. There were a few good men: Fred Burnaby was one; General Charles Gordon was another. And there were some who once drawn in would never be allowed to leave, whose price for believing that their cause amounted to something greater was to be left forever as detritus of war.
What he would not tell Charrière was that he had been given the same mission. It was why he had tried to persuade Wolseley to let Charrière go home with the other voyageurs. His revolver, the one he had exchanged with Gordon, was meant to be used against Charrière: it was to be at a time of his choosing, at some place on the return journey where Charrière had ceased to be of use to him. Neither of them was meant to come out of the desert alive.
He could not see Charrière, would never see him now. But he remembered the cold dark eyes, the eyes of a hunter, like his own. He should have known it would end this way. It could only end this way.
‘The bowstring has been released, Charrière. The arrow that will take your spirit is already flying. Soon it will pass between us and you will see the sun.’
He felt himself lifted bodily, felt his gorge rise, a tightness below his chest. He gasped, and then remembered something. ‘My tunic pocket,’ he said, his breathing short. ‘Gordon’s diary, his drawings. Captain John Howard, School of Military Engineering. Will you send it to him?’ He felt the feeling go from his limbs, and his voice weaken. ‘My servant, Corporal Jones … 8th Railway Company. Tell Howard to find him. He’s got something of mine. An artefact. Will you do that for me?’
‘I will do that for you.’
‘And Charrière my blood brother…’
‘What is it?’
Mayne could barely whisper it. ‘When you get to our lake in the forest, watch out for strangers coming on the water. They will try to silence you too. Trust nobody.’
Charrière held him tightly. He suddenly felt terribly cold. He would need to drink and to eat, to shake off the chill. He would go to the wells of Jakdul. An oasis in the desert. Nobody would find him there.
He convulsed, and coughed blood. He saw his blood pool on sand, become the desert. Then all he could see was an enclosing constriction, a narrowing tunnel. He relaxed, knowing what it was. He was looking down the sights of his rifle, excluding all else, seeing only his target, utterly focused. It had always felt good.
Then he saw it: a flash of light, burning like the sun, searing down the walls of the tunnel like outstretched arms, reaching out to envelop him.
He knew what Gordon had seen.
Then nothing.
25
Cornwall, England, present day
Jack sat in his study in the old family house at the IMU campus in Cornwall and stared at the portraits of his ancestors on the walls, feeling as listless as at any time in the forty-eight hours since he and Costas had been forcibly evicted from Sudan. A few hours ago he had received more bad news, that Hiebermeyer and his team had been escorted across the border into Egypt from their site at Semna, apparently also under orders from al’Ahmed. The only consolation was that the finds from the site, including the golden sceptre, had been taken secretly by Aysha’s cousin to the Khartoum museum, where they had been placed in the vault. One day it might be possible to return to the Sudan, but for the time being it was a closed shop. Jack looked at the two old envelopes he had taken from Seaquest II, the one from Lieutenant Tanner and the other from Corporal Jones, and wondered where the contents had gone. He had taken a jolt, but he was not going to give up on this trail. He needed time, maybe a few days away. He knew he should pick up the phone and call Maria. And he knew he needed sleep.
Rebecca knocked and came into the room, bringing him a cup of coffee. ‘You should drink this. And you need to get away for a day or two. Then you’ll see everything in perspective. As Uncle Costas says, everyone takes a few knocks down the road, and what’s a risk without bombing out from time to time. It’s all part of life’s rich tapestry. Anyway, everyone knows that working in the Sudan is a game of chance, with this kind of thing likely to happen whatever you do. And you did nothing wrong. You went to the site in good faith believing you had a permit, and you were trashed by one of the trickiest customers in the Middle East.’
‘I let Maurice and Aysha down. They should never have had to leave the site at Semna the way they did. It was virtually a one-hour evacuation.’
Rebecca shook her head. ‘Maurice called me because you’re not picking up when he calls. They’d already made the decision to leave. They’d had bandits show up at night, a
nd Aysha’s cousin, the guy acting as their guard, had become really afraid. Aysha said that as soon as she realised that, she knew she had to get out. There was no way they were going to stay there with the baby. And anyway, the Egyptians are topping up Lake Nasser again, so the whole site’s going to be inundated in a couple of months.’
Jack picked up a small object from his desk, the greenstone scarab he had found inside the crocodile temple, and stared at the cartouche on the base. He wondered who had lost it there, and when. It had been with him since he had borrowed it from the Sudan, and now he felt he wanted to return it, not to a museum but back to the shimmering sand inside the temple where it could then spend another eternity.
‘You know the Muslim tribesmen of the Sudan pick up old scarabs and use them as good-luck charms,’ Rebecca said. ‘They wrap prayers around them and put them in little bags around their necks. That thing seems so close to Akhenaten, a scarab of his wife Nefertiti, but it might have been lost in there a lot more recently and have a completely different significance. It’s what you told me about artefacts that survive between different eras and cultures taking on new meanings.’
Jack put down the scarab and stared at it. ‘I also told you I didn’t believe in good-luck charms.’
‘You said you believed in yourself.’
Jack took a deep breath. ‘Okay. I’ll talk to Maurice. But I still feel I have to make it up to him somehow. Something big in Egypt.’
‘Dad, you found him a pharaoh’s golden sceptre. And not just any pharaoh, but his favourite, Akhenaten. That takes some beating.’
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