by John Wilcox
‘Don’t look now,’ said Jenkins, ‘but I think we’re goin’ to be in trouble in a minute. Behind you, on the right, out in the desert.’
Instinctively Simon turned, and putting his hand above his eyes to shade them from the white glare, saw five faraway black figures, mounted on camels. They were shimmering in the heat haze but it was clear that they were approaching fast. They were coming from north of Ismailia, now just a smudge of buildings on the horizon behind them, but linked by the arrow-straight line of railway that ran back to the town and then, to the west, ahead of them, across the desert to Zagazig and distant Cairo. Menacingly, the riders were now fanning out to cut off their retreat to Ismailia, although, in truth, there was no way that Simon and Jenkins on foot could have outdistanced the mounted Arabs.
‘Damn,’ said Simon.
‘Yes, well, with respect, bach sir, I thought it was a bit daft to go marchin’ out into the bleedin’ desert in this ’eat an’ without an ’orse, a camel or a Martini-Henry between us.’
‘I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I wanted to get a feel for the terrain. If Wolseley’s going to march this way – as he will probably have to, because the rail line will almost certainly be cut – then I must know how difficult it will be.’ He shielded his eyes again. ‘What the hell do they want?’
Jenkins sniffed. ‘I’d say they want us. That’s what they want.’
The two men had been in Egypt now for three weeks. They had landed in Alexandria to find that elegant town, with its palm trees and gentle sea breezes, throbbing with sullen but tangible anti-English and anti-French resentment. The streets had been strangely quiet and the few Europeans forced to be out on them hurried along, their heads down, as though they had contracted some strange disease and were anxious not to pass it to the indigenous population. Twice Simon and Jenkins had been spat at in the streets, and Simon had been forced to restrain Jenkins from reacting. He had no wish for them to be the spark that would ignite the tinder keg. They had trudged past the big forts – Ras el Tin, Ada, Pharos and Cobra – that commanded the bay with their old but still serviceable ten-inch Armstrong guns. Egyptian troops in white cotton uniforms were manning these positions, which, though run down, could easily be restored, it seemed to Simon, and pose a big threat to a seaborne invading force. While taking coffee in the fashionable public gardens by the Mahmoudieh Canal, Simon had fallen into conversation with a young Turkish officer of artillery anxious to practise his French, and learned that the Egyptian army was indeed receiving shipments of modern German cannon from the Krupp factory and was distributing them to units throughout the country.
Alexandria, of course, was the obvious point of entry for an invading force, if the forts could be put out of action. Its port and Aboukir Bay had deep anchorages and were near to the British possession of Cyprus, which formed a convenient base in the eastern Mediterranean for imperial troops. But a brief excursion along the railway line south towards Cairo had revealed to Simon several positions of strength where the Egyptians could hold up an invading force and leave them with leisure to sabotage and close the Suez Canal. He and Jenkins therefore had taken passage to Port Said, the northern entrance to the Canal, and boarded a boat sailing south. They had disembarked at Ismailia, situated some fifty miles along the Canal, just where it debouched into Lake Timsah.
The little town was not much more than a village and owed its existence solely to the construction of the Canal. It nestled in an amphitheatre bordered by low sand hills and consisted principally of the houses of M. de Lesseps, the French engineer who had led the construction of the Canal, and other officials, the Khedive’s palace, the railway station and a native quarter with two or three thousand inhabitants. A pleasant, green, well-watered spot, it had hardly existed ten years before and its landing stage was small. But it was the nearest point on the Canal to Cairo, the railway between Alexandria and Suez (from which a branch line broke off to the capital) ran within two miles of it, and the Sweetwater Canal passed along some two hundred yards back from the lake. This canal carried fresh water from the Nile to northeastern Egypt, and whoever controlled this water supply in Cairo controlled the Suez Canal, or at least the towns at its head, its length and its base. As he and Jenkins walked through the sleepy, wide lanes of Ismailia, Simon began to formulate the beginnings of an invasion strategy for Wolseley. A short stroll out into the desert, following the railway line for a way to familiarise himself with marching conditions and the approaches from the west, seemed to Simon all that was necessary to put flesh on the bones of his idea.
Until, that was, these grim riders materialised out of the desert to cut off their retreat back to the town.
Simon unslung his field glasses and focused on the nearest of the riders. From the blur a face emerged, swathed in black to shield it from dust, so that only the dark eyes and the nose emerged. ‘Blast,’ breathed Simon. ‘Bedawis!’
‘What, like those gents we ’ad trouble with crossing the desert a year or so ago?’
‘The very same. Desert bandits.’ He swung the glasses to take in the other riders. ‘Except that these chaps aren’t carrying old muskets. It looks as though they’ve got reasonably decent rifles.’
He put down the binoculars and looked around. The desert was flat and completely barren, with not even the short scrubby ‘devil plant’ bushes to break the monotony of sand and gravel until it merged with the deep blue of the horizon. The twin railway lines ran straight ahead and back towards Ismailia, like black scars across the soft ochre of the desert, and there was no sign of another living thing.
When going ashore at Ismailia, Simon had been warned of the armed bands that increasingly were coming out of the desert to take pickings from passengers unwise enough to stretch their legs on the banks of the Canal; ships were often forced, because of the one-way system of the Canal, to moor at the gares or stations cut into the canal sides while priority traffic came through. There was a strong contingent of Egyptian troops stationed at Ismailia, but perhaps because of the general air of tension that hung over the country, it seemed reluctant to leave its billet in the town. As a result, the Bedawis were becoming increasingly bold. Simon cursed his own arrogance. Jenkins was right. How stupid to walk out into the desert with only two Colt pistols for protection!
The Arabs were now some quarter of a mile away and had slowed the trot of their camels to an insolent walk. They had spread out into a crescent and rode with the stocks of their rifles pressed into their thighs, the barrels pointing skywards. Simon pointed along the railway line, where, about a hundred yards away, a small linesman’s shed hunched by the side of the track.
‘We’ll wait for them there,’ he said. ‘It’s not much cover but it will have to do. Do you have your Colt?’
Jenkins nodded and drew from the band of his trousers a long, silver-barrelled, pearl-handled revolver. It looked more like an ornament than a weapon, but its barrel size indicated that it carried a man-stopping .45 slug. A pair of these American handguns had been given to them in the Transvaal. They would be needed now. ‘Glad to get it out,’ he said. ‘It’s been stickin’ in me, like, since we began this daft stroll. What’s the plan, then?’
Simon withdrew the Colt’s twin, inspected its six chambers to ensure that each one carried a cartridge and tucked it back inside his shirt. ‘Put it away inside your shirt,’ he said. ‘I will try and talk us out of this, so only shoot if I do.’
‘Good job we’ve got these little babies, then, isn’t it?’ said Jenkins companionably as they strode towards the hut. ‘Though I’d rather ’ave me rifle and a lunger. I’m not sure, look you, that I can ’it anythin’ with this.’
They reached the hut and found its low door only closed on a latch. Inside were a couple of shovels and a huge oneended spanner, presumably used for adjusting the bolts attaching the rails to the timber sleepers. Simon tossed a shovel to Jenkins and took up the spanner. ‘We’ve got to have a reason for being out here, so we’ll say we’re line workers. God kno
ws we look filthy enough.’
Indeed they did. Each wore thin cotton trousers tucked into large boots. Their shirts were of light flannel and were now deeply stained with perspiration and covered in dust. Tied around their necks were equally stained cotton handkerchiefs, and they had both elected to wear wide-brimmed South African-type slouch hats, rather than English pith helmets. While Jenkins dug to clear sand away from the sleepers, Simon made a great show of tightening the bolts. As the riders drew near, the pair leaned on their tools and waited for them.
Simon held up a hand in greeting: ‘As-salaam alaykum.’
The five riders gently urged their camels forward until they faced Simon and Jenkins in a semicircle. Five pairs of black eyes stared down at them and the rifles stayed braced against their haunches. There was no traditional response to the greeting; no one spoke. A black crane, foraging abortively far from the waters of Lake Timsah, wheeled high overhead. The breathing of the camels and the buzzing of a distant fly hardly broke the silence.
‘Not very sociable, like, are they, bach?’ murmured Jenkins.
Simon tried again. ‘Good morning,’ he said.
Eventually the central figure in the quintet loosened the esharp, the black cloth around his mouth, and spoke. ‘English? French?’ he asked.
Simon shook his head. ‘Neither. Americans.’ Jenkins looked at him sharply. ‘We are railway engineers. Here to maintain the line.’ He held up the spanner to indicate the work.
The Bedawi spoke in Arabic to his fellows, presumably translating. One of them indicated Simon and replied derisively. The first man eased his camel forward and gestured to Simon with the barrel of his rifle. Simon noticed that it was an American Remington and had a brief moment to wonder how a desert wanderer would find such a modern weapon before the man spoke again. ‘Baksheesh,’ he said, pointing to Simon’s midriff with the barrel of the gun. ‘Money. Your money.’
Simon looked the Arab firmly in the eye. ‘We have no money,’ he said. Then he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out an assortment of Egyptian coins. ‘Only this change. You can have this, but we have no big money. We are workers, not rich tourists. Here.’ He offered the coins. ‘Take it. It’s all we have.’
The Arab leaned down, took the coins, examined them and then with a curse hurled them away into the sand. ‘Dollars,’ he shouted. ‘Dollars, pounds, pounds.’ And he pushed the muzzle of his rifle into Simon’s chest.
‘Careful, bach,’ murmured Jenkins.
Holding the Bedawi’s gaze, Simon reached inside his shirt with his right hand, as though to produce his wallet, while with his left he held the rifle barrel and gently moved it away. From the corner of his eye he noticed that the other Arabs were watching intently, although their rifles remained pointing skywards. Jenkins’s hand had moved to his own shirt button.
Without hurrying, Simon withdrew the big Colt, clicked back the hammer with his thumb and pointed it directly at the Arab’s chest. ‘I said,’ he murmured, ‘no money. No money.’ He sensed, rather than saw, that Jenkins had also produced his revolver.
The tableau remained perfectly still for a moment, the crescent of Bedawis, their rifles couched on their hips, looking down on the two Europeans, who stood defiantly, revolvers raised. Simon, perspiration now pouring down his face, kept his eyes locked on those of the Arab leader, watching for the slightest flicker of intent. His brain told him that at the first aggressive move he could kill perhaps two of the bandits, and Jenkins could certainly do the same. That would leave one Arab with a chance of levelling his rifle and firing. Who would he select . . .?
The stalemate was eventually broken when the central Bedawi slowly lifted his rifle and, still holding Simon’s gaze, nodded and smiled. He gave a brief command, and one by one the Arabs wheeled their camels and loped away, leaving only the leader. Without a word, he turned his beast’s head and followed the others.
‘Bloody ’ell,’ breathed Jenkins. ‘That was a close call an’ all. I thought we was done for.’
‘So did I.’ Simon took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow. ‘Five against two are not odds I fancy. Nor Remington rifles against hand guns. I wouldn’t want—’
A bullet slapped into the side of the hut at his elbow. He looked up. With a shriek, the Arabs had manoeuvred their camels into their crescent formation and were now thundering down on the two men, splitting two and three to take them from either side, firing from their saddles as they came.
‘Kneel!’ shouted Simon. Both men went down on one knee to make a smaller target and, crouching back to back, levelled their Colts. Through Simon’s mind flashed the thought that they only had twelve rounds between them and that every bullet must count. He just had time to marvel at the skill of the Arabs as they dropped the reins of their galloping camels, firing their rifles from the shoulder as they came.
Their skill as riders, however, was not matched by their marksmanship, and none of the bullets from the Remingtons found their mark. Simon released two shots as the three Arabs on his side galloped by, but as far as he could see, they too missed. Not so Jenkins. After the charge had passed and the Bedawis wheeled round to form up, Simon realised that one of the Arabs on the Welshman’s side lay coiled on the sand, his camel loping away disconsolately.
‘In the shed now, 352,’ gasped Simon. ‘It will give us a bit of cover. Use the shovel to make loopholes. Let’s hope they charge again. At least it gives us a chance.’
Using shovel and spanner, the two men smashed holes in opposite sides of the shed and waited for the next charge. It did not come, however. In its place came a volley of rifle shots that crashed into the roof of the shed.
‘Damn,’ cried Simon, ‘they’re going to stay out of range and outshoot us, the clever bastards. They’re firing high. Make smaller holes further down. We’ll lie on our stomachs and hold our fire.’
‘’Alf a mo’, said Jenkins, crashing his shovel into the wall of the shed at his feet, ‘why are we supposed to be Americans?’
‘Thought it might help a bit, since everybody here seems to hate the French and the English.’
‘Well, now we know they ’ate the Americans too. This is not a sociable place at all, is it?’
Simon wriggled forward on his stomach and squinted through the hole he had made at ground level. At first he saw nothing, then a stab of flame and a crack as a bullet crashed its way through the thin planking of the hut above his head marked the Arabs’ position, some two hundred yards away. They had tethered their camels and now lay prone, using the hut almost as target practice. They were safe enough, for they were out of the effective range of the Colts.
‘We can’t just lie here,’ said Simon. ‘These walls are no protection at all and the shed will soon be riddled like a pepperpot. They will adjust their aim lower and hit us sooner than later. Somehow we have to lure them within range.’
‘Yes, but ’ow? I’ve only got four rounds left.’
‘So have I. We shall have to pretend that we are hit. After the next shot, let out a shout.’
Immediately four bullets cracked through the flimsy frame of the hut above their heads and they both let out cries of anguish – Jenkins’s worthy of a lead part at the Haymarket Theatre in London. Three more shots followed, this time hissing just above them as they burrowed into the soft sand that formed the floor of the hut.
‘I can’t see them at all now,’ whispered Simon. ‘Can you?’
‘No. ’Ang on – yes, two of ’em are startin’ to wriggle forward. Shall I give a bit of a moan?’
‘Yes, but not too theatrical. You’re not playing in Little Nell.’
Jenkins’s groan contained all the passion of the Welsh valleys and a musicality that he could never summon to carry a tune. ‘Ah,’ he murmured, ‘it’s workin’. They’ve both got to their feet an’ they’re walkin’ towards us now.’
‘Wait a minute,’ whispered Simon. ‘I can see the other two on my side now. They’re lying back to cover the pair walking in. They’re clever
devils. They really do seem to want us. Hold your fire, 352. Don’t shoot unless you’re sure you will hit.’
‘Right you are, bach sir. Come on, my lovelies. Just a bit closer, there’s good little Arabs . . .’
Jenkins held his fire for what seemed an eternity to Simon before the baking hot interior of the hut suddenly exploded with two cracks from the long-barrelled Colt. ‘Damn,’ shouted the little Welshman. ‘Got one but missed the other perisher. Blast these peashooters. ’E’s runnin’ back now, out of range.’
Immediately two more bullets whistled through the hut close to their heads as the Bedawis lying back opened fire.
‘Out of here now, before they reload,’ shouted Simon. ‘Out behind the shed. Come on.’
He crashed open the door and hurled himself to the back of the shed, putting the little building between himself and the Arabs. Jenkins followed, thumping into the sand beside him.
‘What now then, bach sir? I’m buggered if I know what we do next.’
‘Nor do I. We’ve got six rounds between us. But they’re down from five to three. These thieves are usually cowards who run when they’re opposed. I can’t see them hanging about much longer. Cartridges are precious to them, too . . . Hey, what’s that?’
Faraway, from the west, came a sound completely alien to the desert. Indistinct, it sounded almost musical on the still, heavy air. If it was a bird, it was giving a cry neither of the two had ever heard before: a distant poop poop.
‘’Ere, bless you, bach,’ exclaimed Jenkins, peeping around the corner of the hut, ‘it’s a bloody train, that’s what it is. Must be the ten twenty from Aberystwyth, late as bloody usual.’
Simon ventured his head around the corner of the hut. Far away, down the track to the west, he could see a black dot with a white smudge of smoke above it, gradually getting larger as he watched. ‘A train it is,’ he shouted. ‘And the Arabs are going – they probably think there are soldiers on board.’
The two now stood, revolvers in hand, and watched as the three Bedawis mounted their camels. Instead of riding away, however, they came trotting towards the hut.