The Guns of El Kebir (Simon Fonthill Series)

by John Wilcox

  ‘We have to be quicker,’ gasped Simon. ‘Ahmed, bring the rifles in case we are attacked, while Jenkins and I carry the boat. Move now.’

  Luckily, the craft was light and easy to carry and the night was at its deepest and darkest. Within fifteen minutes they had found the clump of willows and slipped the boat down between the rocks, tying its prow to a branch so that it lay half hidden. Then they sprinted back to the little square. Only forty minutes left! Simon realised that he had underestimated the time it would take to assemble the boat. Was it his imagination, or was the sky to the east already beginning to lighten?

  ‘Ahmed,’ he gasped. ‘Lead the camels away and tether them out of range of the explosion.’

  ‘I knew you were in love with yours,’ grunted Jenkins, kneeling on the steps leading to the tower door beside Simon as the latter carefully began unwrapping the sticks of dynamite.

  ‘Now,’ said Simon, wiping the perspiration away from his eyes, ‘take these two nails and the hammer and knock them into the mortar between the bricks, one on each side of the wall, facing each other, about five feet up. Try and do it quietly. Close the door behind you.’

  Simon then carefully separated the sticks. In fact, Fraser had given them three packages of five each – ‘Yer may need a few extra to toss behind yer when yer pursued by the hounds of hell on yer way home, laddie’ – and Simon decided to use two packages of six each and save the three remaining sticks for emergencies. He then tied the two packages with string and slipped inside the tower.

  Jenkins had inserted the nails with minimum noise, and first testing to ensure they were secure, Simon then tied the bundles to the nails so that they lay snugly against the wall, facing each other across the spiral staircase in the centre. With even more care, he now produced the detonator caps with their long fuses and secured them to the bundles. Each taking one fuse, the two men then began to unroll them, backing away towards the door – which suddenly sprang open with a crash.

  Turning, they saw a young Egyptian soldier in the doorway, his jaw sagging. Immediately, Jenkins picked up the hammer, but the soldier was quicker. He raised his rifle and cocked it. As he did so, his head shook and he suddenly slumped to the ground, revealing Ahmed behind him, a large rock in his hand.

  ‘I could not shoot him,’ he said. ‘One of my people, you see. Anyway, too noisy, yes?’

  ‘Quite right, Ahmed,’ said Simon. ‘Good work. Is there anyone else about?’

  ‘No, just him. Perhaps he comes to open place up, yes?’

  ‘Quite likely. Quickly now, we have little time left. Can you carry him outside, 352, and tie him up? We have cord left from the boat. Gag him somehow, too. Then we’ll take him away from the tower so that he won’t get hurt by the falling stone. Put him in a chicken coop, or something like that.’

  Simon invested a precious minute in running up the circular steps to the open platform at the top of the tower to look to the east. As far as he could see, the village remained in complete darkness. He could detect nothing of the Egyptian army’s encampment in the distance, although the canal gleamed softly whenever the moon appeared between the clouds. He used its light to check his watch. They had just over half an hour before the sun came up.

  He leaped down the rickety stairs and lifted the legs of the still inert soldier – had his skull been shattered? He hoped not – while Jenkins took the shoulders. They carried him as far away from the tower as time allowed, dumping him beneath the protection of a mud wall in an alleyway. Then they doubled back.

  Simon quickly surveyed the scene. Only the camel droppings and their tiny tent betrayed their presence. The ends of the fuses lay like twin tape worms running down from the door (which Simon had carefully propped open in case a stray wind slammed it shut and extinguished the fuses) and across the steps. He drew a deep breath and took out his matches.

  ‘Right,’ he cried. ‘Three five two, take the rifles; Ahmed, have your Colt ready. Both of you go, NOW!’ He carefully wrapped the three remaining sticks of dynamite in a handkerchief and placed them in a pocket under his burnous. Then he lit the fuses. One fizzed and the flame immediately raced away up the steps. The other spluttered and died. ‘Damn!’ He lit it again and waited until it took firm hold, and then ran after the others.

  They had reached the canal and begun sprinting along its length when the tower erupted with a bang that momentarily deafened them and a blast that threw them to the ground. Turning his head, Simon saw a sheet of flame rise up from within the tower, and then, almost in slow motion, the building begin to sag and crumple, falling in on itself like a drunkard collapsing to the ground and shedding outwards what seemed to be only a few particles of brick and stone. Within seconds, all that remained was a cloud of dust and smoke rising to the sky, which almost immediately resumed its previous darkness.

  ‘Bloody ’ell,’ said Jenkins. ‘We’ve done it! What a firework!’

  ‘Don’t run now,’ said Simon. ‘Just walk quickly to the boat. Ahmed, if we are challenged, point behind and say that British soldiers have blown up the tower and are still there.’

  Walking along the canal bank, they were aware that the village had come to life. Behind them, they heard shrieks and shouts, then the pounding of feet from the direction of the station. But they saw no one along the towpath and reached the boat among the willows without detection. There, they untied the rope and slipped the little vessel into the water.

  ‘Ahmed and I will paddle,’ Simon whispered. ‘Three five two, you’re the best shot, so you stay in the stern with a rifle. Don’t fire unless I tell you to. Ahmed, if we are challenged, don’t say we are going up the lines with supplies. That’s obviously rubbish, because we’ve got an empty boat. Say that we have been instructed by Fehmy Pasha to patrol the canal and give warning if the English try and steal up this way. Now push off.’

  They paddled hard, and although they were conscious of men rushing along the towpath towards the centre of the village, the darkness protected them. Ahmed and Simon kept their heads down and paddled with long, deep strokes, while Jenkins sat in the stern, his rifle across his lap. But where the hell, thought Simon, was Wolseley’s artillery diversion? Surely the explosion would have been seen from across that flat desert?

  They had left the confines of the village well behind when the inevitable challenge came. Three soldiers loomed out of the darkness on the left bank and shouted something in Arabic. Simon waved his paddle in greeting and Ahmed followed suit, before answering the challenge fluently and with much gesticulation. It did not seem to satisfy the interrogator, however, for he raised his rifle and gestured for them to paddle to the rocks at the side of the canal.

  Jenkins raised his own rifle. ‘No, not yet,’ hissed Simon.

  And then, blessedly, the British bombardment began. With a crump and a flash that lit the sky to the east, the guns of the Royal Horse Artillery commenced firing. To Simon’s surprise, the shells were landing surprisingly close to the canal, and it was clear that Wolseley, or Wilson, his gunner, had deliberately laid down the barrage much further south than Simon had requested. Nevertheless, it proved a blessing to the three men in the coracle, for it immediately sent the guards on the towpath scuttling for cover.

  ‘Paddle like hell,’ whispered Simon. ‘Pay no heed to the shells.’

  They dug in their paddles and made their little craft fairly fly over the water. As they neared the dam, at the southern point of the Egyptian line of fortifications, they realised that the British barrage was gradually ranging to the north – and that the dawn was coming up ahead of them, orange fingers of light throwing the dam into relief.

  ‘Paddle to the right bank,’ gasped Simon. ‘We will never be able to take the boat round. It’s becoming far too light.’

  ‘What do we do with it?’ asked Jenkins.

  ‘Sink it. Use your knife to cut holes in it and push it out.’

  ‘How do we get back to our lines?’

  ‘We walk.’

  ‘Oh, strew
th!’

  ‘What is strewth?’ asked Ahmed, his eyes wide.

  ‘Another time, old chap,’ said Simon. ‘To the right now, quickly. It’s getting light.’

  They clambered out of their frail craft, Simon crawling up ahead on the south bank of the canal, taking care not to knock the dynamite sticks on the rocks, and then carefully raising his head above the edge. In the half-light, all he could see was desert. There seemed to be no buildings of any kind and no patrols on this side of the canal. He looked behind him. Jenkins was pushing the coracle away with his foot, and as he watched, he saw it slide beneath the green water. The others joined him on the lip.

  ‘I don’t know if the Egyptian line extends on this side of the canal,’ he said, ‘but they won’t leave it open-ended, so there will be troops up ahead. That means we’ve got to go as far south into the desert as we can to avoid them, before turning east. Are the water bottles full?’

  Ahmed nodded. ‘I just filled them.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘A bit green, I think.’

  ‘Never mind. Come on. We get as far south as we can before the sun comes up.’

  The flat, gravel-strewn plain on the north side of the canal was not reproduced on the south, where the sand was deeper and swelled into low dunes as far as the eye could see. As they walked, they could hear the crump of the British guns behind them growing less insistent, and then it finally ceased altogether. The sun soon mounted, and its rays brought the perspiration streaming down their faces, inevitably attracting the attention of the sand flies.

  They had been walking for about two hours when Simon consulted his compass and indicated that they should turn left. ‘I’ve no idea whether we have gone far enough to bypass the Egyptian patrols,’ he said, ‘but it’s time we headed for home.’

  ‘Hoo-bloody-ray,’ said Jenkins. ‘Let’s break into a shamblin’ trot, shall we?’

  ‘Shamblin’ . . .?’ began Ahmed.

  ‘Don’t ask, bach. Just don’t ask. I’ll tell you over a beer when we get back.’

  ‘I do not drink alcohol, 352.’

  ‘Then I’ll teach you.’

  They had plodded on for at least another two hours when the Egyptian patrol found them. Simon had just signalled a break for water and a brief rest when four cavalrymen, mounted on tired ponies, appeared over the hill of a dune some two hundred yards away. They immediately unslung their rifles and urged their mounts forward.

  ‘What I say?’ asked Ahmed.

  ‘Too late for talking, I think.’ The words had hardly left Simon’s lips when the first bullet caught Ahmed in the shoulder, spinning him round. A second thudded into the sand at their feet, and two others whistled over their heads. The horsemen were arrogantly overconfident, however, for they did not pause to reload their single-shot Remingtons, but instead followed their leader forward as he unsheathed a long sabre.

  ‘That’s your last mistake, bach,’ murmured Jenkins, sighting down the barrel of his Martini-Henry. His round caught one man squarely in the forehead and sent him plunging to the ground. Simon’s shot took the second in the chest. The two others immediately pulled their horse’s heads round, plunged in their spurs and galloped, as best as the sand would allow, back the way they had come – not, however, before Jenkins’s second shot had taken a third Egyptian in the back, bringing him down just on the brow of the dune.

  ‘See if you can capture those horses,’ shouted Simon as he knelt over the stricken figure of Ahmed. The little man’s face was puckered with pain, and blood was oozing from his shoulder. Simon tore away the fabric surrounding the wound and examined it. The bullet had not gone right through the shoulder and remained inside, too deep, however, for Simon to see it or to try and remove it. He brought his water bottle to Ahmed’s lips and then poured a little on the edge of his esharp and wiped his brow.

  ‘It’s not fatal, Ahmed,’ he reassured, ‘but I don’t think we are going to be able to get that cartridge out until we get back to the British lines. I will try and put some sort of dressing on it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Simon took off his undershirt – the only part of his apparel that seemed dust-free – and tore it into strips. Then he made a pad and carefully placed it over the wound to staunch the bleeding, and with the rest fashioned a crude bandage to keep it in place and protect the wound from the flies.

  ‘Do you think you can stand, old chap?’

  Ahmed nodded, his tongue protruding from dry lips, and somehow stood, his good arm around Simon’s shoulder, his legs trembling beneath him. Simon became aware that Jenkins had returned.

  ‘Sorry, bach sir,’ panted the Welshman. ‘Bloody horses ’ave disappeared from sight completely, see. So too has that last bloke, sod it. The others are all dead, though.’

  ‘Damn,’ said Simon. ‘That means the fellow will bring others down on us, as likely as not. Well, we will just have to make straight for the canal now and hope to pick up a British patrol on the other side. Do you think you can walk, Ahmed?’

  The Egyptian summoned up a wan smile. ‘I try,’ he said. ‘No shimblin’ trot, though.’

  ‘Good man. Lean on me.’

  ‘No,’ said Jenkins. ‘Lean on me, Amen. If it gets difficult, I’ll carry you.’ Ahmed nodded and transferred his good arm to Jenkins’s shoulder. Jenkins grasped his wrist with his own left hand and put his other arm around Ahmed’s waist, and together they set off, Simon leading with the compass and carrying the two rifles.

  It was a horrific journey. By now it was midday and the temperature, Simon estimated, was well into the nineties. They were forced to stop every thirty minutes to rest Ahmed and to take sips of water. Simon noticed that the exertion had caused the wound to bleed again, but there was nothing for it but to plod on. He did contemplate digging some sort of shelter in the sand and waiting until dark, but there was no wind to cover the footmarks behind them, which would surely lead pursuers directly to them. Their only hope was that they could reach the canal before they were overtaken. How they would cross it he did not know, but the north side would be a better bet for meeting a British patrol, because that comprised the no-man’s-land between the two armies. He spelled Jenkins in assisting Ahmed, but it was clear that the Egyptian was getting weaker and was now staggering along half conscious.

  ‘Right,’ said Jenkins, ‘time to carry the little chap.’

  ‘No, you won’t be able to get far in this sun.’

  ‘Piggyback’s the answer. Look.’ Jenkins disrobed and took off his shirt. As Simon supported Ahmed, he wrapped the body of the shirt around the Egyptian’s bottom and then tied the ends of the sleeves around his own waist. ‘Now,’ he said to Simon, ‘lift ’im up. Amen, look you, ’ang on round me neck with your good arm. That’s the way.’

  There was a shout of pain as Jenkins hoisted his burden. ‘Now, bach sir, tighten these bloody shirtsleeves. That’s the way. Why, I can carry the little feller back to Rhyl like this! You all right, Amen?’ But the Egyptian was now virtually unconscious and could make no reply.

  How long it took them to reach the canal, Simon never knew. The strength and stamina displayed by the Welshman – not tall himself but a wide-shouldered giant next to the tiny and slim Ahmed – was prodigious. Perspiration pouring down his face so that he could hardly see, shrouded in flies but with no hand to spare to knock them away, he strode on, snorting through his mouth like a camel. Simon had never admired his comrade more.

  Eventually they reached the canal. Jenkins lowered his burden to the sand with care and then collapsed at Ahmed’s side. Simon limped down to the water to refill their bottles and to wet their handkerchiefs to bring a little relief to their sweating faces and necks. As he did so, a flutter of movement on the far side of the canal caught his eye.

  ‘A British patrol,’ he shouted. ‘Mounted infantry. Thank God!’ Jenkins gave his face-splitting grin, and even Ahmed summoned up a faint smile. Simon tottered to his feet and waved his arms. ‘Hallooo,’ he hailed. ‘This way. We’re British!’

>   As he watched, he saw the officer leading the patrol hold up his hand and level his field glasses. Then the man turned and issued some sort of command. His men remained stationary, but the officer turned his horse and slowly walked it towards the canal, looking through his binoculars at Simon from time to time.

  ‘Blimey, ’e’s takin’ ’is time,’ muttered Jenkins.

  It was at least five minutes before the officer arrived on the far side of the canal and dismounted. ‘Good afternoon,’ said Major Smith-Denbigh.

  Simon gulped. ‘Thank God you’ve come,’ he said. ‘We’re all in. We’ve blown up the tower in el Kebir and we’ve got Egyptian cavalry on our heels. We’ve also got a chap with a shattered shoulder. Can you help us across? A couple of horses will do it’

  A smile spread across Smith-Denbigh’s face. ‘Ah, bless my soul, if it isn’t the head of military intelligence for the whole of Egypt – and, goodness me, he’s got the Khedive’s favourite nephew with him. Well I never!’

  Simon frowned. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘We’re done in. Goodness knows how long we’ve walked carrying a wounded man. For God’s sake, get us across.’

  ‘Well now.’ The Major carefully extracted a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. ‘If I remember rightly, Fonthill, you made me eat dirt. Now you must do the same. As far as I am concerned, my dear fellow, I have never seen you and,’ he gestured with his handkerchief behind him, ‘I will make quite sure that my men have never seen you either. Just three bloody Arabs trying to sell me something or other. So fuck off, Fonthill. I am quite happy for the vultures to have you.’

  Leisurely, he put his foot into the stirrup and mounted his horse, then turned it and spurred it into a trot. An awful silence fell on the trio. They watched as Smith-Denbigh rejoined his troop and led it away into the heat haze.