by John Wilcox
She ended the interview, as she had begun it, with a direct question. The British government had bought the Egyptian shares in the Suez Canal and was now the majority shareholder. Would Arabi attempt to regain the Canal by force if present negotiations between the Egyptian government and its Turkish overlords failed?
The big man smiled. Of course not. Except under certain conditions, which were highly unlikely to arise. What conditions? Ah, only if an attack was launched on his country by the foreign powers, Britain and France. Then the smile disappeared. He had just heard that a joint British and French fleet had arrived and anchored off Alexandria. This seemed to him to be a gratuitous attempt to put pressure on the Egyptian government to resist the legitimate demands of the people. He would shortly journey to Alexandria to attempt to defuse any misunderstanding there. But he was certain that there would be no war. He knew that Mr Gladstone, the British Prime Minister, had long argued against any interference by Britain in the domestic affairs of other nations, and he could not believe that such an honest and distinguished statesman would change his policy now. And with that, he held out his hand again – gripping hers more confidently this time – and indicated that the interview was at an end.
Alice took an open carriage back to Shepheards Hotel, and despite the strange noise and colour of Cairo all about her – scenes that would normally have delighted and intrigued her – she sat frowning as she went through her infuriatingly inadequate notes and attempted to digest what Arabi had said. In fact, it seemed he had told her nothing particularly new, nothing that had not been written in dozens of newspapers already and analysed so many times. Yet she had met him and would be able, under her authoritative if anonymous byline, ‘by our Special Correspondent in Cairo’, to give her balanced view of the man by reporting his words and, er, yes, adding just a touch of colour. Then there was that sting in Arabi’s tale: the threat of reprisals against the Canal should there be an invasion. Now that was something he had not said before. She put her pencil to her teeth and looked out on the multicoloured streets of Cairo and grinned. On only her second day in Egypt she had a – what was it the Americans were now calling an exclusive? Ah yes. Scoop. She now had a scoop after all!
Back in the hotel, Alice settled down and wrote her story. Afterwards, she reduced it to cablese, gritting her teeth as she did so because she was not good at this. Then she sat in thought for a moment. What to do next? Stay in Cairo with the rest of the journalistic pack and attempt to keep in touch with events from the centre? Or go to Alexandria? If Arabi was heading there, that was where events would be, not least because the British and French had sent squadrons to intimidate the Egyptians. She frowned. How stupid and typically jingoistic of the British to do this! Palmerston had been dead for years, but his adage of ‘if in doubt, send a gunboat’ lived on. The other reason for heading north was that Alex would almost certainly be the point of entry for Wolseley, if he did invade, and she would be on the spot. Yes, she decided. She would go to Alexandria and leave the other plodding scribblers behind here in Cairo. She added a postcript to Cornford to this effect in her cable.
Waiting for her carriage on the terrace of Shepheards, Alice resolved to go to the offices of Thomas Cook to send her cable. In these troubled times, she would rather trust them than the Egyptian post office. And, of course, she could ask them to arrange her travel north to Alexandria.
At the travel agent’s office, she was served by a rather unctuous little man wearing spectacles and a celluloid collar. He read through her cable first, before counting the words, which she thought odd, but handled it expeditiously enough. He could not help her, however, with the journey north.
‘I am sorry, madam,’ he said, ‘but it is not possible to book railway tickets to Alexandria. Colonel Arabi has forbidden civilian traffic from going to that city until further notice.’
‘How very inconvenient.’ Alice frowned. ‘But there must be some other way to go north. I know that the Nile can only take me as far as Desouk. Can you arrange transport for me by road? I can pay whatever is involved.’
The clerk shook his head. ‘I am afraid not. The company cannot attempt to contravene the Colonel’s orders.’
‘But the man is not the Khedive yet, is he? Is Egypt a police state now?’
The clerk gave a mirthless smile and Alice had the impression that he was rather enjoying being obstructive. ‘I am sorry, madam, but I am afraid that for the time being, the company cannot help you.’
Back at Shepheards, she immediately singled out Mustapha, the Turk who was the hotel’s urbane concierge. On her arrival two days earlier, Alice had followed her invariable practice of making herself known to this most important member of the hotel’s staff and asking him to look after her as best he could during her stay. She was, she explained, a journalist with the United Kingdom’s greatest newspaper, and it was quite possible that she would need his help. She sugared the conversation with her sweetest smile and a golden sovereign. Now it was time to redeem his pledge of support.
Reproducing the smile, Alice leaned across the reception desk and asked, ‘Mustapha, is it true that you are all-powerful?’
The concierge gave his elegant little bow and with only a flicker of a smile replied, ‘Of course, madam. Everyone considers that to be true, except my wife, of course.’
‘How sad. But now I need your help. I understand that all civilian travel to Alexandria – at least conventional travel – is temporarily suspended by order of Colonel Arabi.’
He inclined his head. ‘I believe that is true, madam.’
‘But Mustapha, I need to go there urgently. Can you arrange for me to do so?’ She slipped three sovereigns across the desktop.
The sovereigns disappeared as if by magic. ‘I will do my best, madam, but you may have to wait a little. Ah, one other point. Do you mind if the travel is, what shall I say, a little uncomfortable?’
‘Not at all. Just get me to Alexandria, Mustapha.’
‘Very well, madam. Thank you, madam.’
But it seemed that Mustapha was indeed all-powerful, for the very next day Alice found herself sitting astride a rather scruffy pony outside the walls of Cairo, waiting to fall into line with a mixed string of load-bearing camels and donkeys heading north towards Alexandria, some hundred and forty miles away. She was the only woman in the caravan, and also the only European. The latter was a source of relief to her rather than concern, for she harboured a worry that her competitors might have resorted to the same device to reach the northern city. But she did not wish to draw attention to herself and had therefore eschewed obviously European clothing for the journey and now wore androgynous pantaloons, the esharp and burnous. If, as seemed likely, they had to pass through the lines of the Egyptian army just south of the city, it was as well to be as inconspicuous as possible. It would be galling to be turned back after coming so far.
The road between the two cities, while unmetalled, of course, was well trammelled and by no means as difficult as crossing the northern desert. The discomfort that Mustapha had referred to, however, quickly proved to be an understatement. The Muslim camel drivers paid virtually no attention to her and she was left to fend for herself. The terrain was a mixture of soft sand and hard gravel, and as the sun beat down on her small beast, she was often forced to dismount and lead him and the swarms of flies that beset them all. Her biggest problem, however, proved to be the donkey that trailed behind carrying her small tent, bedding and other baggage. He quickly proved to have his own agenda, and terrified of being left behind, she was forced to beat him and pull his ears several times a day to persuade him to keep up with the cavalcade.
Nevertheless, the strange rhythm of desert travel began to impose upon her a sense of tranquillity that she had not experienced for some years. For many miles at first the road followed the railway and the Nile itself, and she marvelled at the new birdlife the river introduced to her: ibises, cranes, black kingfishers, hoopoes and white hawks. She glimpsed white lanteen sails,
saw camels pulling primitive ploughs, and, once, a camel and an ox incongruously yoked together, with the half-naked fellah behind struggling to control the unequal pull on the plough. Sometimes they passed a small village and she was able to buy eggs, a chicken or two and native bread made of Indian corn and durra. When the cavalcade camped for the night, she busied herself making her own fire, brewing coffee and cooking the one good meal of the day. If the days were hot, then the nights were often toenumbingly cold, and the panoply of stars revealed after sunset entranced her. She took to rolling herself in her blankets and sleeping out of doors – the desert’s tranquillity allayed any fears – and attempting to identify the main stars that she remembered: Polaris to the north; Sirius, the dog star, to the east, hunting at the heels of Orion; and, if she awoke before dawn, Venus, the morning star.
If tracing the stars did not bring on sleep, then she would lie wide-eyed, her thoughts tumbling about like garments in a washtub. She tried to focus on Ralph, her husband, her committed partner in life. Would he have sailed by now? She had left him waiting for Wolseley’s call, practising shooting with his revolver and sabre sweeps from the saddle as he attempted to control the horse with his hook. At least he would be happier now, knowing that he would be called and that he could resume the life he loved. And perhaps it would take his mind off the nagging urgency of producing an heir. And Simon . . . Ah, Simon! No, no, she would not go down that route.
Alice had managed to establish a friendship of a kind with a camel driver who could speak some English. It was he, about three-quarters of the way along the route, who told her of rumours that the English ships had fired on Alexandria and that the town was ablaze. The news shattered whatever peace of mind she had managed to acquire on the journey and set her brain seething with frustration. Here was the biggest news story in Africa and, although only a few miles from it, she could not report it. She was like a fly caught in amber, out on this seemingly endless road, condemned to travel at a snail’s pace, away from the action. But there was little she could do about it, for although the road seemed well marked, there were deviations that tempted the ignorant and she dreaded getting lost. In any case, there was little hope that her pony and lethargic donkey could be made to travel faster. She must master her impatience.
Three days later, the party began to meet patrols of Egyptian soldiers, and then passed through fortified lines of some sophistication: trenches and gun emplacements backed by rows of tents. Keeping her head down and her fair hair well tucked away behind the esharp, Alice made surreptitious notes. This was a large and seemingly formidable army, straddling the main route to Cairo at Kafr Dewar, just before the road followed the narrow isthmus across Lake Mareotis to the coast and then swung to the west and Alexandria, fifteen miles away. If Arabi had abandoned the city itself, then this was obviously where he was preparing to make his stand. It was, she could see, a strong position indeed.
As they crossed the lake via the isthmus, she could make out distant traces of smoke still rising from the west and she somehow managed to prod and cajole her mule to make her way towards the head of the convoy. There she met her English-speaking friend.
‘Are Egyptian troops still in Alexandria?’ she asked.
‘No, missy. Soldiers come back to here and by railway.’
‘But is there fighting in the city?’
‘I do not know, miss.’
She frowned. If the Egyptian soldiers had gone, surely British sailors and marines would have been landed to keep the peace and to extinguish the fires? Why, then, was smoke still curling up? She decided to give up the questioning and allowed her pony to fall back a little, although maintaining her new position at the head of the column. She really must be patient.
The caravan reached the walls of the city as dusk was beginning to fall and wound its way through the native quarter at the edge of the town. Alice left it there and made her way towards the harbour. It was then she saw the results of the bombardment and the fires that had followed it. She sat on her pony and looked around in awe.
The seaward side of the city looked as though an earthquake had torn it apart. Smoke still rose from the piles of rubble and blackened timber that lined the thoroughfares and marked where substantial houses had once stood. It seemed as though the shells and the conflagrations had followed no consistent pattern, for untouched buildings stood between the demolished houses. Following the little map Mustapha had given her, she made her way towards the European quarter. It was here that the damage was worst. It was clear that fire had been the greatest destroyer here, for the skeletons of the houses remained standing but the walls were smoke-blackened and the remains of the doors lay splintered where they had been thrown. Remnants of furniture were scattered in driveways and on the pavement, and Alice wrote ‘looters’ in her notebook. More horrifying were the red stains that still marked the roadway and showed where bodies had lain.
Darkness was now descending, and it was with great relief that Alice met a party of blue jackets under the command of a young midshipman who looked all of fifteen years of age.
‘Good evening,’ she called down from her pony, and pulled off her esharp so that her fair hair tumbled down. ‘Can you tell me if the Victoria Hotel is still standing?’
The young man’s jaw dropped and one of the sailors gave a low whistle. Desert dust still covered Alice, her pony and her donkey, and until she removed her headdress she had looked like a desert trader coming in from the interior to take advantage of the disruption of commercial life in Alexandria to set up a stall amidst the rubble. The transformation brought about by her drawing room voice, the flaxen hair now around her shoulders and the white teeth flashing against the gold of her tan was charismatic.
‘Sorry, er, madam,’ he said, belatedly saluting her and blushing. ‘I don’t think so. Most of the hotels have been stormed by the looters and set afire.’ His voice sounded as though it had only just broken. He cast a puzzled eye over the pack strapped to the back of her donkey and to the tent, with its poles, lashed to its side. ‘Are you looking for accommodation, then, madam?’
‘Well, I am very much afraid that is so, if my hotel has burned down.’ She gave him her best smile. ‘I would be so grateful if you could help in any way. It looks to me as though Alexandria is not the safest of places just now to spend a night out in the open. Do you patrol through the night?’
‘No, miss, er, madam. We haven’t got the men to do that.’ He put a finger to his mouth. ‘Perhaps if I took you to the Anglo-Egyptian Bank . . . It is still standing and I know that some people who have lost their homes are sleeping there. Would that help?’
‘That would be most kind. Thank you very much, but first tell me, what is your ship?’
‘The Invincible, the flagship.’ He sounded proud.
‘Ah, splendid. So Admiral Seymour is flying his flag from her?’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘Then perhaps you would be so kind, on your return, to give the Admiral this card.’ Alice fumbled in the cloth bag hanging from her saddle pommel and extracted a pencil. She scribbled on the back of a card and handed it to the young man. ‘Perhaps you would explain how we have met and that I have ridden overland from Cairo to interview him.’ She hoped the Admiral was susceptible to flattery. ‘I will take a boat out to the flagship tomorrow at nine o’clock in the hope that he can grant me a few moments. Will you tell him that?’
‘Oh yes, mi – madam.’
Surrounded by her new bodyguard of grinning blue jackets, Alice was escorted to the bank, where she bade farewell to her rescuer and was met by a tall, grey-bearded man in soiled white ducks who welcomed her gravely. There was not too much room, he explained, but if she had her own bedroll they could surely find a corner for her on the first floor, and her pony and donkey could be tethered safely at the front, for an all-night watch was being kept in case the mob returned, although the threat now seemed remote, since the sailors had landed and begun putting out the fires and patrolling the streets.
Much as she had been looking forward to a hot bath, a soft bed and a hotel meal, Alice was delighted to join the little community in the bank. She looked round with interest and sympathy at the tattered remnants of the original defenders. They now numbered a little over a dozen; many, she learned, had been able to return to their homes, but those that were left were virtually homeless and were in the process of arranging to leave Alexandria. Alice shared out what remained of her food and, more importantly, her bottle of cognac, and set about picking up invaluable details about the attack on the bank during the terrible hours following the bombardment.
The bearded man, who, it seemed, had become de facto leader of the group following the defection three days earlier of the bank manager, took her through the stages of the ultimatum, the opening of the bombardment and their shelter in the seeming security within the bank’s stone walls, the attack by the mob and the defence through the night. It was riveting material for Alice and began to compensate her for the fact that she had not been present herself.
‘Of course,’ said the bearded man, ‘we would have been lost without those three fellows.’
‘Oh,’ Alice paused, her pencil poised, ‘who were they?’
‘Never did find out. Mysterious lot. All dressed very convincingly as Arabs but they were really two Englishmen and a little Egyptian. Actually, it was only one Englishman, because the other was Welsh.’ The man blew out his cheeks. ‘Gad, they were fighters, the three of them! The English chappie organised the defence completely. Gave us backbone, got the women boiling water so that we could tip it down on the Arabs. And the little Welshman – strong as a bull, he was, and a crack shot. My word, they were splendid chaps. Even the Egyptian was swingin’ about with a sword. Saved us, I’ll tell you. Put the guts back into us.’