by John Wilcox
‘Good God, man!’ he exclaimed. ‘You seem to leave dead bodies behind you wherever you go!’
‘I think that’s a little unfair, sir. I—’
‘Never mind. You’re right, of course. I must inform the people at Thomas Cook in Cairo about this immediately. I don’t suppose he will show up back there or that, given the present situation, we would have the muscle to compel the authorities to arrest him, but at least we can ensure that he never gets employment there again. Now, you had better tell Colonel Covington all about this . . . Ah, no.’ He shot a hard glance at Simon. ‘I’d better tell him. I don’t think he would particularly welcome this news coming from you. Now, where did you say Mrs Covington is staying?’
He scribbled the address on his pad. ‘Right.’ He looked up. ‘No more clerk-chasing. You have more important work to do. The gunboat Shalimar is sailing for Port Said tonight, and I want you and whatsisnumber, Jenkins on it. At Said, take the first boat sailing down the Canal and get off at Ismailia. My intelligence on the landing facilities there is, I hope, more or less adequate now, but I will need to know the size of Arabi’s troops and, most importantly, what you can discover about where he will make his stand in the desert. Both of my forces will be hot on your heels, so you won’t have much time.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Two more things, Fonthill.’
‘Sir?’
Wolseley rose, and Simon realised anew how hard the recurrence of the fever had hit the General, for he was forced to lean on the desk as he moved around it. ‘Sorry about this.’ Wolseley smiled. ‘Getting better every day, though. Sea air has helped, you know. Now, two last points. First, armed bands of desert tribesmen – what d’yer call ’em?’
‘Bedawis.’
‘Those are the fellers. As I told you in London, they are reported to be marauding up and down the Canal banks, and Arabi, of course, is doing nothing to stop ’em. So be careful.’
‘Yes, sir. I have had some experience of them already.’
Wolseley’s eyebrows rose. ‘Have you now? My word, Fonthill, you do sniff out trouble, don’t you? But never mind that. The second point is about secrecy.’ He leaned back against the desk and a mischievous grin lit up his pale face. ‘You’re not formally in the army, my boy, so I can be a touch indiscreet with you, and I know I can trust you. General Hallam, bless him, does not know that it is my intention to withdraw my main force from here and sail for Port Said. I shall even disembark some of my men to fool Arabi – and then load ’em back again. Poor old Hallam thinks he’s going to lead the main attack, but he ain’t, dear cousin.’ His grin widened. ‘He will be on shore planning to open his offensive opposite Arabi at Kafr Dewar when, after I have sailed, he opens my sealed orders telling him that his job is just to create a diversion. I’d give my eye teeth to see his face.’
Wolseley’s grin turned into a guffaw. Simon summoned a sickly smile, but he could not help but be shocked at this deliberate deception of a senior officer and the General’s schoolboyish delight in it. Why could he be told of the feint, but not Wolseley’s deputy, the man who was to play a crucial part in the charade?
Some of his disapproval must have shown, for Wolseley’s jollity immediately disappeared and he grabbed Simon by the arm. ‘This is all to show you, Fonthill, how desperately important it is that my real intention does not leak out. It would be easy for Arabi to block the Canal at many points before I can seal it at both ends. Secrecy must be maintained. It was only fair to tell you, not only because this strategy was originally a concept of yours, but also because you are going to play a vital part in helping me to carry it out. But . . . you must keep the secret. Is this understood?’
‘Of course, sir. Well understood.’
‘Good. Now be off. Don’t worry about Mrs Covington. Alas, I have a large press contingent with me, and if she is fit enough, I shall scoop her up and she can join it. She will be glad to see her husband again, anyway, and I shall make sure that he gets off to see her right away.’
‘Splendid, sir.’ Simon felt a knife twist in his stomach.
‘Ah. One very last thing. You will end up being in the thick of it, so you had better get yourself a couple of Martini-Henry rifles. Here’s a chit. The armourer’s on board. Right?’
‘Right, General.’
They shook hands. ‘God speed, my boy, and good luck.’
Simon went ashore with his head buzzing. Alice was to be reunited with Covington, and that sent a little shaft of misery shooting through his brain. She was lost to him, of course, but that did not stop him loving her. Yet . . . best to move on, and now, at least, to get away from Alexandria, which had become synonymous in his mind with violence and depravity. At last he and Jenkins had a clearly defined job to do and one that moved him away from spying and into the desert, where the air was clean and one knew who one’s enemies were. The thought put a spring in his step.
The news was welcomed by Jenkins and, slightly wistfully, by Ahmed. This caused Simon to think about the little hotelier. He had almost certainly experienced more violence in the last few weeks than in the whole of his life up to this point. And the fight would now escalate into a fully fledged war against his own people. Was it fair to involve him further? He put the question to him.
Ahmed listened carefully and hunched his narrow shoulders. ‘Am I not useful no more?’ he asked.
‘Of course you are, Ahmed. We could have done very little over the last few weeks without you. But the real battles will soon start and we could be involved in them. Do you really want to fight your own people? I don’t think it fair to ask you.’
The little man nodded. ‘I don’t think I kill Egyptians no more,’ he said slowly. ‘But I still come with you, if I am useful. I enjoy excitement. Much better than running hotel, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What you say: in for penny, in for shilling, eh?’
Simon grinned. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound. Thank goodness for that. We would be lost without you. Right, let’s pack our things. I am told that the Shalimar sails at six tonight.’
There were tearful farewells with Fatima, into whose hands Simon pressed more money than she had ever received before. Simon decided against writing a note to Alice – whatever he said would have to be stultifyingly formal and therefore quite hypocritical. They shouldered their packs, Simon and Jenkins carrying their new Martini-Henrys at the sling, and set off for the harbour. At the quayside, they had just hailed a boatman to take them out to the gunboat when Simon heard his name called. Striding towards him was Ralph Covington, ramrod straight and resplendent in his new uniform.
‘A word in private with you, Fonthill, if you please.’
Simon’s jaw sagged. Covington was the last person he wished to see at this juncture. He could not deny the guilt he felt about Alice, the bloody man’s wife. Oh, his actions had been chaste enough, but not his thoughts. And he could not deny that he had willingly accompanied her into danger, leading to her being assaulted and very nearly killed. He faced Covington, then, carrying a mixture of resentment, guilt and slow-burning anger. He tried to suppress it.
‘Of course.’ Simon indicated to Jenkins and Ahmed to board the filuka that now drew up to the harbour wall and stepped aside with Covington. ‘Have you been to see Alice?’ he asked. ‘How is she?’
‘She is recovering well.’ Covington’s tone was cool and even. ‘She is up and about and can speak properly again, and she insists on joining the press corps that is travelling with the General. She will join the ship tomorrow.’
‘Good.’
Covington’s face was as though set in stone, but his good eye gleamed. ‘I must thank you for saving her life, Fonthill, and this I do. However,’ the fearsome hook now tapped lightly on Simon’s chest, ‘you were completely responsible for the terrible danger you led her into. I always thought that you were a contemptible cur, and you have proved me to be right once again. How any man could embark upon such an irresponsible caper with a woman in tow, I do not know . . .
’
Simon opened his mouth to speak.
‘Do not interrupt me. I know that Alice is strong-willed, but any man worth his salt would have dissuaded her from partaking in this ridiculously dangerous adventure. You did not, for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend.’
‘It was not like that, Covington. When we began investigating George, we had no idea that he was a dangerous man . . .’
‘Rubbish! This whole city is dangerous. Now listen to me, young man. Wherever you go, it seems to me you attract trouble. In future, you will not, I repeat, you will not have anything to do with my wife. If you do, I will use every means at my disposal to bring you down. Do you understand?’
Simon took a deep breath. ‘I would have thought that over the last six years, you have already used every means at your disposal to bring me down, and have failed. Your threat, therefore, carries no weight with me. You should know that I have not the slightest fear of you, and the contempt in which you seem to hold me is returned a hundredfold. However, Alice is your wife and I promise you that I will not approach her in any way if our paths do cross in the future. But just stay out of my way.’
For a moment, the two men stood glaring at each other. Then, with a last admonitory tap on the chest with his hook, the Colonel turned on his heel and strode away.
‘Hey, what was that all about then?’ asked Jenkins, as Simon climbed aboard the filuka, his cheeks flaming.
‘We were just discussing the price of fish, that’s all.’
Jenkins knew better than to pursue the matter. A puff of the evening breeze filled the lanteen sail and pulled them away from the quayside towards where the Shalimar lay waiting to take them to Port Said and the Suez Canal.
Chapter 12
The three men delayed at Port Said only long enough for Simon to note the situation of the Egyptian barracks there, although he felt sure that this would already be known to Wolseley. They took passage on a small Turkish coaster bound for Hodeida in the Red Sea, and their progression down the milky green waters of the Canal was hot, uncomfortable but uneventful. During the voyage, Simon thrust all thoughts of Alice away as he concentrated on the task ahead.
At Ismailia, they took rooms in the modest hotel where they had stayed before and where the management’s seemingly complete lack of interest in its guests enabled them to don Arab clothing without attracting comment. Simon was depressed to note, once again, the size of the single landing stage, which looked incapable of coping with the disembarkation of an army the size of the British expeditionary force. There was also the potential bottleneck of only one bridge across the Sweetwater Canal just outside the town. He was glad to see, however, that Arabi had not increased the size of the tiny garrison at Ismailia, although some two thousand troops were stationed just outside the town, to the west in the village of Nefisha. The latter, though, was well within heavy guns’ range of the Suez Canal, and Simon felt that it could be taken easily enough under the guns of a ship or two moored there. The question was: had Arabi established a position out in the desert well beyond Nefisha, and if so, how many men did he have there?
Simon realised that this expedition, of course, would have to be planned with more care than their last venture out on foot into the desert. ‘Now, Ahmed,’ he said shortly after their arrival in Ismailia. ‘Do you know the ways of the desert, and can you ride a camel?’
‘Ah. Every fellaheen can ride camel, Simon, but my brother, he knows desert much better than me. I do not find my way well there. Sorry.’
‘Oh, blimey,’ said Jenkins. ‘That makes two of us. Now I know we’re goin’ to get lost.’
Simon shook his head. ‘No we won’t. Not while I have a compass. I presume, Ahmed, that it would be better to hire camels to go west rather than horses?’
‘Of course. Horses no good on sand, and if we go deep in desert there is little water and horses need more water than camels.’
‘Right. Please go and hire three riding camels for us, with a fourth for our baggage. We will also need a small tent. Get what you need for desert travel; 352 and I are already equipped. We will also need food for four or five days. I don’t know for sure how long we shall be out there.’
Jenkins’s nose wrinkled. ‘See if you can get a drop of whisky, Amen, there’s a good chap.’
‘No. No whisky, Ahmed. It will just increase our thirst. Now, at the camel market, see what you can pick up about where Arabi might be establishing lines to fight the British. If he has dug in anywhere, the desert traders should know. We will set off at dawn tomorrow.’
Studying the map, Simon realised that in fact there was little chance of them getting lost, for there were two clear highways linking Ismailia with Cairo: the railway and the Sweetwater Canal. The two meandered parallel and close to each other for roughly half the seventy-five miles between town and city. Then the canal looped to the south-west to Cairo. The railway continued for a further twelve miles before hitting a junction at Zagazig, where a branch line headed due south before meeting the Sweetwater again and following it virtually into Cairo. From what he had heard, the terrain either side of both railway and canal was more or less flat, although it undulated once both were left behind. More importantly, if the canal was not blocked, then it provided drinking water all the way to Cairo. Railway and canal pointed the way to the city for any invading army from the east as clearly as any metalled road.
It seemed to Simon that if the Egyptian leader had taken precautions already to stop an invasion from the Suez Canal, then there were two obvious sites at which to set up his positions, given that he would want to lure the invaders into the desert some way to stretch their lines of communication and let the predations of Egypt’s midsummer climate work their effect on white-skinned troops. The first was some thirty-five miles inland at a place called Kassassin, probably no more than a village, and the second at Tel el Kebir, very little larger according to the map, and about eight miles further west.
Simon pondered over the map, pencil in mouth. ‘If I was Arabi,’ he mused to Jenkins, ‘I’d set up an advance point at Kassassin, to test the waters, so to speak, and my main fortifications at Tel el Kebir, here.’
‘Ah, but you ain’t old Aunt Ada, are you? ’E ain’t as clever as you, is ’e?’
‘Well I don’t know about that, but we must find out pretty quickly, because if I’m right, it’s just possible that Wolseley might want to launch a two-pronged attack, off-loading some of his men twenty miles or so down the Canal from Port Said, at this place, Kantara, here, marching ’em through the desert and taking Arabi from the north, as well as the east.’ He traced his pencil across the map. Then he shook his head. ‘No. No landing facilities there and it would be very difficult to march across the desert and synchronise the attack, even if he could disembark. No. It’s this way or nothing. Depending upon what news Ahmed brings us, that’s the way we go tomorrow.’
Ahmed did bring news. ‘Arabi Pasha has small people at Kassassin,’ he said, ‘and big people at Tel el Kebir. A lot of holes in desert there, guns and trenches, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, you know. But Arabi himself, they say, is still at Alexandria.’
‘Good. That means the General’s bluff is working. Show me the camels.’
Simon’s heart sank when he saw them. In fact, he smelt them before he came upon them. The odiferous beasts were kneeling, with a small boy standing on the doubled foreleg of each camel. The animals were chewing grass that they had already pre-digested, and as the three men approached, they turned their heads and belched, sending green slivers oozing over their loose lips to the ground.
‘Bloody ’ell,’ said Jenkins. ‘I’d forgotten about the smell.’
‘Ah, this is why they good desert horses,’ said Ahmed earnestly. ‘They eat grass and bring it back to chew again. You know how to ride them, yes?’
‘Oh, I’m all right,’ said Jenkins, ‘but you’d better show the Captain again. ’E’s liable to fall off when the thing starts movin’, see.’
‘N
onsense,’ sniffed Simon. ‘I did quite well when we crossed the desert with your brother, Ahmed. But just, er, show me how to mount the thing, there’s a good fellow.’
‘Ah. Is easy. Look.’ Ahmed seized the cantle at the front of the saddle, dug his left knee into the side of the camel and nodded to the camel tender. As the boy stood aside, the beast lurched to its feet and Ahmed pivoted on his left knee and swung his right leg over the saddle. He coiled his left leg around the front cantle of the saddle and gestured with the small stick he had taken from the boy. ‘Ride like this,’ he called, ‘and use stick to give directions. Tap like this on neck to go right and this way to go left, and so on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Tap on back of neck to go down. So.’ The camel slowly collapsed like a concertina and Ahmed alighted. ‘Easy, yes?’
‘Oh, impeccably easy. Right, we will load the pack animal and you pay the boys, Ahmed. I want to be well into the desert before the sun gets too high.’
They set off within the half-hour. Once installed in the curved wooden saddle on top of his swaying but oddly graceful mount, Simon experienced again the lolloping, somnambulistic rhythm of camel riding and, indifferent horseman that he was, almost began to enjoy it. Once clear of Nefisha, the desert was flat and empty, and their only companions were the flies, settling on the wet lips of the camels and hovering around their own faces, forcing them to draw the tails of their esharps across their chins and mouths, so that only their eyes were to be seen. Simon had asked Ahmed to buy cloaks and headdresses of black dyed cotton in the market. They had donned them once out of the town, and now, their Martini-Henrys tucked well out of sight, they presented a passable picture of three desert Bedawi, making their slow passage to Cairo to trade in the capital’s street markets. If stopped, Ahmed was to explain that they came from the deep south, over the Sudan border, and that his two companions spoke a version of Arabic inexplicable to the northerners.