The Triumph Of The Sun

“Bacheet, we could fight them here, but I don’t want any shooting. I don’t want to kill anybody.” .

“It is me that I am worried about, Effendi. I don’t want to be killed either,” Bacheet replied. “These are animals, mad animals.”

“They are starving and they have been driven to this.”

“Should I send one of the men with a message to Gordon to bring the soldiers to drive them away?” Bacheet asked hopefully.

Ryder smiled grimly. “Gordon Pasha is not our friend. He values us only for our dhurra and our camels. If you send one of our men out there the mob will tear him to pieces. I think we will be forced to save ourselves without the help of Gordon Pasha.”

“How will we do that?” Bacheet asked simply.

“We must fall back to the main compound. They will not be able to burn that gate. The fire hose will reach it.” He had to raise his voice above the howls and shouts of the crowd in the street outside and the crackle of the flames. “Come! Follow me!” The paint on the inside of the gate was already charring.

He ran back to the inner gate, and gave orders to have the water pump and fire hose rigged. There was a firing platform along the top of the inner wall, and reluctantly Ryder issued Martini-Henry rifles to those who could handle them. Apart from Rebecca and Jock, he had trained only five of his men, including Bacheet. The Arabs took little interest in musketry and showed even less aptitude for it. Rebecca could outshoot most of them. He left the women and Jock in the blockhouse, guarding the loopholes.

From the firing parapet he watched the main gates sag slowly inwards, then crash to the dusty earth in a final burst of sparks and burning fragments. The mob poured through, leaping and pushing each other over the still flaming remnants of the gates. One of the older women lost her footing and fell into the flames. They caught at once in her voluminous robe. The rest of the crowd ignored her agonized shriek, and within seconds she lay still. The smell of her roasting flesh floated sickeningly to where Ryder stood on the parapet of the inner wall.

Once the leaders were inside, they came up short. They were in unfamiliar territory and they looked about curiously. Then they caught sight of the row of heads above the parapet of the inner wall, and the hunting chorus went up again. They charged straight at the inner gate like a pack of savage hounds. Ryder let them get half-way across, then fired into the hard-packed clay in front of the leaders. The bullet kicked up a spray of dust and gravel, then ricocheted away over their heads. It stopped them short, and they milled indecisively.

“Don’t come closer!” he shouted. “I will kill the next one who comes.” Some turned, and started to creep away. Then the harpy hobbled through to the front. She broke once more into her grotesque dance. From somewhere she had armed herself with a cow tail fly switch. She brandished this as she screeched her threats and curses at the men on the parapet.

“You foul and stupid old woman,” Ryder muttered, in frustration and despair, ‘don’t force me to kill you.” He fired at her feet, and when the bullet kicked up dirt under her, she leapt into the air, flapping the black wings of her robe like an ancient crow taking flight. The crowd howled again. She hit the ground and came straight on towards the inner wall. Ryder levered another round into the breech and fired. Again she jumped high, and the men behind her imitated her, laughing. The sound had a deranged, obscene quality that was as menacing as the shouts of rage had been.

“Stop!” Ryder muttered. “Please stop, you old bitch.” He shot again, but now the mob had realized he would not shoot to kill and lost all fear. They came on after the prancing figure in a swarm. They reached the gate and beat against it with the weapons they carried and their bare hands.

“Wood!” shouted the harpy. “Bring more wood!” They ran to fetch it, and came back to pile it against the gate as they had before.

“Get the pump started!” Ryder shouted, and two men seized the handles and swung them up and down. The empty canvas hose, laid out across the yard, swelled and hardened as the pressure built up and a powerful stream of river water spurted from the nozzle. Two men on the parapet pointed it down on to the kindling below. It struck with such force that the pile tumbled over.

“Aim at her.” Ryder pointed out the harpy. The stream hit her full in the chest and knocked her backwards. She struck the ground on her shoulder-blades and rolled. The hose stream followed her. Every time she regained her feet, it knocked her down again. At last she crawled out of range on hands and knees. Ryder turned the hose on the men in the front of the crowd and they scattered. Then they spread out to search the other buildings of the compound, which lay outside the inner fortifications. Within minutes Ryder heard hammering and banging coming from the direction of his warehouses.

“They are smashing down the doors of the ivory storeroom,” Bacheet shouted. “We must stop them.”

“A thousand of them, and ten of us?” Ryder did not have to say more.

“But the ivory and skins?” Bacheet was entitled to a small share of Ryder’s profits, and now at the thought of his losses his face was a pattern of dismay.

“They can have the elephant teeth and the animal skins, rather than my own teeth and skin,” Ryder said. “Anyway, they cannot eat ivory. Perhaps when they find no dhurra in the stores they will lose interest.”

It was a vain hope, and he knew it. It was not long before the men were streaming back, egged on by the wild ululations of the women. They were carrying some of the largest elephant tusks and bundles of sun-dried animal hides. They piled these at the foot of the wall. Their intention was clear. They were building a ramp to scale the wall. Immediately Ryder ordered the men on the hose to direct the stream on to the pile. The tusks and the heavy bales were much more solid than the rubbish they had used in their first attempt and the hose stream made no impression upon them. Then they tried to drive off the men, but although the hose beat down on them most stayed on their feet and placed more tusks on the growing ramp. When one was knocked down, three others rushed forward to take his place. They kept piling up the heavy material until it reached just below the top of the wall. Then they reassembled in the outer courtyard out of range of the fire hose. The black harpy pranced among them.

“You should have hit her harder,” Bacheet muttered darkly, ‘or, better still, you should have put a bullet through that ugly head. It’s still not too late.” He lifted the Martini-Henry and aimed it over the top of the parapet.

“She is in no danger, with you doing the shooting,” Ryder remarked. Despite the hours of instruction he had lavished on Bacheet he was a long way from mastering the art of musketry. Bacheet looked pained at the insult, but he lowered the rifle. “See? The old witch is picking out the best men to climb the walls.”

Bacheet was right. Somehow she had kept hold of the switch even when the hose had hit her squarely. It was secured round her wrist by a loop of rawhide. She was moving among the crowd and marking the ones she chose by slapping them in the face with it. Quickly she picked out thirty or forty of the youngest and strongest. Many were armed with broadswords or axes.

Encouraged by the harpy the women started that dreadful cacophony again. The assault troop brandished their weapons and rushed at the wall. The jet of water from the hose struck the leaders but they linked arms to support each other.

“Let us shoot, Effendi,” Bacheet pleaded. “They are so close even I cannot miss.”

“I would not give odds on that,” Ryder grunted, “But hold your fire. If we kill just one they will go berserk and start a massacre.” He was thinking of the women in the blockhouse. Little else mattered.

Even with the hose playing over them the attackers climbed swiftly to the parapet. Ryder and his men checked them there, swinging at their heads with clubs and staves. They had the advantage of height. At a range of only a few feet the fire hose was almost irresistible, and the long staves kept the attackers from getting close enough to use their swords. But when some lost heart and retreated down the ramp of bales and tusks the harpy was at the bottom to meet them, lashing their faces with the switch and screaming abuse. Three times they fell back and each time she sent them up again.

“They are giving up,” Bacheet panted. “They are losing heart.”

“I hope Allah is listening to you,” Ryder said, and plied his staff, cracking it across the temple of the man in front of him. He rolled down the ramp and lay still at the bottom. Even the harpy’s stinging blows with the switch could not rouse him.

Then a man pushed through the throngs of ululating women. He walked with the rolling long-armed gait of a silver-backed gorilla bull. His head was round, shaven and shiny as a cannonball. His skin was the colour of anthracite and his features were Nubian, with thick lips and a wide, flattened nose. He had stripped to his loincloth and the muscles of his chest bulged under the oiled skin, and writhed like a black silk bag of pythons. “I know this one,” Bacheet croaked huskily. “He is a famous wrestler from Dongola. They call him the Bone Cruncher. He is dangerous.”

The Nubian climbed the ramp with astonishing agility. Ryder ran down the platform to confront him, but he was already at the parapet. He raised himself to his full height, balanced like an ebony colossus.

Ryder placed the butt of the long stave under his arm, like a lance, and ran at him. The sharpened point caught the Nubian in the centre of his chest and snagged in his flesh. Ryder threw his weight behind it, and the Nubian hovered at the point of balance, his arms windmilling, body arched backwards.

Bacheet sprang to Ryder’s side and the two threw their combined weight on the staff. The Nubian went over like an avalanche of black rock. He tumbled into five men behind him, and they tumbled down the steep incline of the ramp in a confused jumble of arms and legs.

The Nubian hit the sunbaked earth on the back of his shaven head and the impact reverberated like the fall of a lightning-blasted mahogany tree. He lay quiescent, mouth agape and thunderous snores echoing up his throat. The harpy jumped on to his chest and lashed at his face.

The Nubian opened his eyes and sat up. He swatted her away with the back of one hand and shoak his head groggily. Then he saw Ryder and Bacheet grinning down at him. He threw back his head, bellowed like a bull buffalo in a pitfall, then groped for his sword, lurched to his feet and charged straight back up the ramp.

“Sweet Mother of God,” said Ryder. “Just look at him come.” He raised the staff again, and as the Nubian reached the top he thrust at him viciously. With a flick of the blade the Nubian lopped two feet off the end. Ryder stabbed at him again with the butt. The Nubian cut again backhanded and left Ryder with a stump no longer than his arm. Ryder hurled it at him. It struck the Nubian in the centre of his sloping forehead. He blinked and roared again, then came over the top of the parapet, hacking wildly.

“Back to the blockhouse!” Ryder yelled, as he ducked under the blade.

Suddenly he realized he was alone on the parapet. The others had anticipated his order and taken themselves off at top speed. He dived down the rickety ladder into the yard and raced for the door. He could hear the Nubian close behind him, and the swish of his sword fanned the short sweaty hairs on the back of his neck.

“Run, Ryder! He’s right behind you,” Saffron shrilled from one of the loopholes. “Shoot him I gave you your gun! Why don’t you shoot?” In theory it was good advice, but if he lost even a second in loosening the flap of his holster the Nubian would take his head off at the shoulders. He found an extra turn of speed and began to catch up with Bacheet and the other Arabs.

“Faster, Ryder, faster!” Saffron yelped. Close behind him he could hear the hoarse breathing. Ahead, the others burst through the blockhouse door.

Rebecca was holding it open for him. Now she levelled the rifle and seemed to aim straight at his head. “I can’t shoot without hitting you,” she cried, and lowered the barrel. “Come on, Ryder, please, come on.” Even in the desperate circumstances, her use of his first name gave him a sweet thrill and added wings to his feet. He flew through the doorway and Rebecca and Saffron slammed it behind him. On the far side the Nubian crashed into it with a force that shivered the frame.

“He’s going to smash it off its hinges.” Rebecca gasped. They heard the Nubian hacking and kicking at it.

“Steel door, steel frame,” Ryder reassured her, and grabbed the rifle Saffron handed him. He opened the breech and checked the load. “We’ll be safe in here.”

He stepped up to the loophole and Rebecca stood close beside him. Through the narrow opening they had a view across the yard to the door of the workshop and in the other direction to the inner gate of the menagerie. The broad sweat-gleaming back of the Nubian appeared in their field of vision. He had abandoned his assault on the blockhouse door. Now he was striding across the yard to the barred inner gates. When he reached them Ryder watched him lift the heavy teak locking bars and toss them aside. Then he stood back and kicked the brass lock off its hinges. As the gates swung open the harpy was first into the yard. The horde poured in behind her.

She headed straight for the blockhouse, and the rest followed her closely. It was a horrific spectacle, as though the gates of hell had burst open and spewed out the legions of the damned and long-dead. Their faces were ravaged by disease and hunger, their eyes too large for their wizened, emaciated heads, their lips and eyelids swollen and inflamed with running ulcers and carbuncles. Starvation and disease emit their own odour as the body devours itself and the skin releases the fluids of decay and dissolution: as they crowded to the loopholes the stench oozed through into the hot, airless interior and filled it with the reek of open sepulchres. It was a miasma that was difficult to breathe. The ruined faces leered and grimaced through the openings. “Food! Where is the food?” They thrust their arms through. Their limbs were thin and gnarled as dead branches. The palms of their hands were as pale as the bellies of dead fish.

“Oh, Jesus, have mercy on us,” Rebecca gasped, and shrank against Ryder, instinctively seeking his protection. He placed one arm round her shoulders. This time she made no effort to pull away from him. “What will happen to us now?”

“Whatever happens, I will stay with you,” he said, and she pressed closer to him.

The harpy was shrieking orders to the mob. “Search all the buildings! We must find where they have hidden the dhurra! Then we will smash the pots in which they have brewed the Devil’s manna. It is evil and an offence in the sight of God. It is this that has brought misfortune upon the city, and visited us with pestilence and disaster. Find where they have hidden the animals. You shall feast on sweet meat this day.” Her shrill voice reached to the depths of their starved bodies. They responded to her with a kind of blind, hypnotic obedience and rushed away from the rifle slits so that Ryder could see out again. He and Rebecca pressed their faces to the same opening, breathing the cleaner air and watching the hordes streaming towards the gates of the menagerie, led by the colossal Nubian and the harpy.

“Well, them bongos of yours ain’t going to be shitting on the decks of my ship again, skipper,” said Jock McCrump lugubriously. Suddenly he remembered his manners and touched the brim of his cap to Rebecca. “If you’ll forgive my Erench, ladies.”

“What are they going to do with them, Jock?” Saffron’s voice was fearful.

“It’s the cooking pot for all of them beasties, dye ken, Miss Saffy?”

Saffron flew at the door and tried to tear open the locking bars. “Lucy! I have to save Lucy and her baby!”

Ryder took her arm gently but firmly, and drew her to his side. “Saffron,” he whispered huskily, ‘there is nothing we can do for Lucy now.”

“Can’t you stop them? Please! Won’t you stop them, Ryder?”

There was no reply he could give her. He held the two girls tightly, Saffron on one side and Rebecca on the other. They clung to him and watched some of the mob crowd the gate that led to the menagerie and try to break in, but it was stout and resisted their efforts. Then the Nubian shouldered them aside. He braced himself against the gate and shook it until it rattled in its frame, but it did not give way. He stepped back, charged and crashed into it with one massive shoulder. The hinges were torn from the frame and the door flew open.

AH, the old keeper, stood in the open doorway with a rusty sword in his hands.

“AH, you old fool.” Ryder groaned and tried to turn the girls away so that they would not see what was about to happen. But they resisted and stared ashen-faced through the loophole.

AH raised the sword above his head. “Begone, all of you! You will not enter here.” His voice was high-pitched and quavering. “I will not allow you to touch my darlings.” He hobbled towards the giant, threatening him with the dented weapon. The Bone Cruncher shot out one thick arm and seized the old man’s sword wrist. He shook it as a terrier shakes a rat, and they heard the bone of the old man’s forearm crack. The rusty sword dropped into the dust at his feet. Using the broken arm as a handle the Bone Cruncher lifted AH’s wriggling body above his head and slammed him into the jamb of the gate with such force that his ribs snapped like dry kindling. He dropped the broken body, and stepped over it. The crowd rushed after him into the menagerie, but as they passed they hacked at Ali’s head with club or sword.

A great roar of greed and hunger went up from within the menagerie as the mob saw the rows of cages and the terrified animals they contained.

“Food! Meat!” screamed the Harpy. “I promised you a feast of fresh red meat. It is here for you.” She rushed at the nearest cage and tore open the door. It was filled with scarlet and grey parrots, a swirling screeching cloud of wings. She leapt in and slashed at them with the whisk, knocking them to the floor of the cage and stamping on them with both horny feet.

The crowd followed her example, breaking open the monkey cages and clubbing the terrified occupants as they bounded around. Then they attacked the stockades and pens of the antelope.

In the blockhouse they could hear what was happening. Above the crash of breaking cages and the uproar of the mob, Saffron was able to identify the terrified voices of her favourite creatures: the shrieks of the parrots and the howls of the monkeys.

“That’s Lucy, my poor darling Lucy,” she sobbed. “They can’t eat her. Tell me they won’t eat Lucy.” Ryder hugged her but could find no words of comfort.

Then there came wild bleating and bellows of pain from the larger animals.

“That’s Victoria, my bongo!” Saffron struggled again. “Let me go! Please, I have to save her.”

The female bongo bounded out through the gates of the menagerie where old Ali’s corpse still lay in the bloody dust. She must have escaped from her pen as the mob tore it down and seemed unhurt.

“Run, Victoria!” Saffron screamed. “Run, my baby.”

A dozen men and women ran after her with spears and swords. The large, strikingly coloured animal saw the open gate ahead of her and swerved towards it, her sleek hide glistening dark chestnut with creamy white stripes, ears pricked forward, eyes filled with terror, huge and dark in her lovely head. She had almost reached the open gate when one of the spearmen checked and swivelled his shoulders, his left hand pointing straight at her, the right cocked back and holding the spear. He swung his weight forward and the spear flew in a high arc, then dropped towards the animal. It struck her just forward of the croup and the spearhead buried itself. The point must have struck the spine, for her paralysed hindquarters dropped, and she stood still on her front legs.

A triumphant howl went up from the hunters and they crowded round the maimed animal. They made no effort to put her out of her misery, but hacked off lumps of her living flesh. The Nubian rushed up and, with a sweep of his sword, opened her belly as if it were a purse. The pale bag of her stomach and the entwined ropes of entrails bulged out through the gash. These were delicacies, and the mob dragged them out of her, and devoured them voraciously. The yellow contents of the uncleaned guts mingled with the blood, and dribbled from their lips and jowls as they chewed.

Rebecca gagged at the sight and turned away her face, but Saffron watched until at last the bongo collapsed and the crowd swarmed over her carcass like a flock of vultures hiding it from view. From the gates of the menagerie others ran out carrying bleeding lumps of meat and the battered carcasses of the birds and monkeys. They tried to escape before the latecomers from the city streets joined in. They were too late, and all across the compound vicious squabbles and fighting broke out. Saffron saw one of the children pounce upon a scrap. He stuffed it into his mouth and tried to swallow it. But the woman who had dropped it set upon him, beating him and pummelled him until he was forced to spit it out. Before she could pick it out of the dust, someone else snatched it and ran out of the gates with the woman chasing after her.

Another group broke down the door of the shed that contained the day’s cooking of green-cake. They gathered up slabs in their shirts, but before they could make off with it the harpy fell upon them. She seemed to have risen above the simple need to find food and ran among them, striking at random with her whisk, screaming, “That is the poison of Shaitan! Throw it on the fire. Throw it into the latrines where it belongs.” Although a few ran off with their booty, the harpy forced most to fling their share into the cooking fires or down the latrine pits.

“She has destroyed it all. What a shameful waste,” Rebecca cried in anguish. “And she is making them smash our cauldrons. Now we shall all starve.”

Ryder watched the harpy helplessly. He saw how dangerous this raving demagogue was, that at any moment she might trigger another explosion of murderous passion and insanity. However, most of the mob had disappeared, and it seemed that the riot must soon die of its own accord.

Even though the damage they had wreaked was punishing, Ryder sought some small comfort in the fact that they were making no effort to take the ivory. It was clearly too heavy to carry far. Most of his other valuable possessions were locked in the strongroom in the blockhouse. Just as soon as the Intrepid this was seaworthy again, he would load what was left of them and be ready for instant flight.

But the harpy was still prowling round the yard, stopping every few minutes to shake her whisk at the blockhouse and scream curses and insults at the white faces she could see watching her from the loopholes. When she paused at the door of the workshop, Ryder was not seriously alarmed. Some of the other looters had gone in there but had soon come out again. There was nothing in there for them to eat, nothing of obvious value for them to carry away. However, the harpy was in the workshop for only a minute, before she rushed out and screamed across the yard for the Nubian wrestler. Like a tame gorilla responding to its trainer, he crossed the yard with his massive rolling gait. She led him into the workshop. When the Nubian came out again he was carrying such a heavy burden that his legs were bowed under its weight.

“Look!” shouted Jock, in consternation. It was a burden that would have taken the strength of five ordinary men, but the Nubian was carrying the main steam pipe from the Intrepid this. Jock had laboured over this piece of machinery for months and now it was ready to reinstall in the steamer.

The harpy screeched towards the blockhouse, “You think to escape the wrath of the Mahdi? You think to run away in your little steamer? We are going to throw this thing into the Nile. When the Mahdi comes, your white and leprous corpses will rot in the streets of Khartoum. Even vultures will not eat them.” She drove the giant Nubian like an ox towards the gates.

“Even he can never carry it to the river!” Ryder exclaimed. But the harpy was now shouting for others to help him. A number were hurrying to his aid.

“I give you my solemn oath that he is taking my steam pipe nowhere,” Jock growled. He swung up the Martini-Henry, and the crash of the shot in the narrow confines of the room numbed their ears. The rifle kicked back, and the sweet stink of black powder smoke stung their nostrils.

The Nubian had reached the gates. He was less than sixty yards from the rifle slit. The heavy lead bullet caught him just behind the ear and angled forward through his brain. In a pink cloud of wet tissue, it burst out through his right eye socket. He collapsed, with the weight of the steam-pipe chest pinning his corpse to the sunbaked clay.

“You killed him,” Ryder exclaimed in disbelief.

“I aimed at him, didn’t I?” Jock said brusquely. “Of course I damn well killed him.” With his calloused thumb he pushed another cartridge into the breech of the rifle. “And I’m going to kill anybody else who touches my engine.”

In the yard there was an abrupt and breathless silence. The rioters had almost forgotten the presence of the white prisoners in the blockhouse. They stared at the huge half-naked corpse in awe.

The harpy was the only one not bereft of the power of movement. She snatched an axe out of the hands of the man nearest to her and rushed at the length of pipe. One of the many duties of a Sudanese woman is to cut the firewood for her household. As the first stroke of the axe clanged against his steam pipe, Jock knew she was an expert. She swung the axe again, and hit exactly the same spot. Jock could see that she was aiming at one of his welds. The metal there would be annealed by the heat of his torch. Already it was buckling. Two or three blows like that and she. would puncture and distort it. It might take days to repair the damage she had already done. If he didn’t do something to stop her she might inflict damage beyond repair.

“We will have no more of that nonsense,” he muttered.

Ryder saw him lift the rifle again. “Don’t shoot!” he shouted. “Jock, don’t shoot her.”

“Too late!” said Jock, without the least note of contrition in his voice, and again the Martini-Henry bucked and bellowed in his hands.

The bullet caught the harpy full in the chest. It picked her off her feet and threw her against the wall. She hung there, her mouth wide open, but the scream was trapped for ever in her throat. Then she slid down the wall, leaving a long bright smear on the whitewash.

The remaining rioters stared in consternation at the bodies of the two ringleaders. Retribution had come swiftly and unexpectedly. When would the next shot crash out, and who would fall? A wail of alarm went up, and they rushed for the gates.

“Keep them on the run!” Ryder had resigned himself to making the most of Jock’s precipitate action. He snatched up his own rifle and fired over the heads of the rioters. Within minutes the yard was empty, except for the harpy and her Nubian.

Ryder opened the blockhouse door cautiously and called to Rebecca, “Keep Saffron in here with you until we know it’s safe for you to come out.” With rifles loaded and held at high port, ready to get off a quick shot, the men swept the compound to make certain no danger still lurked. Jock hurried directly to his steam pipe and knelt beside it. He peered anxiously at the axe marks on the metal, removed the greasy and battered cap from his head and polished the marred surface tenderly, then he replaced his cap and studied the marks again. He sighed with relief. “Ain’t too much damage done.” He picked up the whole pipe as easily as the Nubian had, and carried it lovingly back into his workshop.

Ryder walked over to the two corpses. The harpy was sitting with her back against the wall. Her eyes and her mouth were open and her expression was faintly quizzical. He prodded her with the toe of his boot. She flopped on to her face and lay still. He could have fitted his clenched fist into the deep dark bullet-hole between her shoulder-blades. He did not need to examine the Nubian. His head lay in a puddle of his own brains.

“I don’t approve, but that was not bad shooting, Jock,” he muttered, then called to Bacheet, “Dump them in the river. The crocodiles will take care of them. No need to report this. Gordon Pasha is a busy man. We don’t want to give him more to worry about than he already has.” He waited until Bacheet and his Arabs had dragged the bodies out of the yard and through the gates that led to the canal. Then he went back to the blockhouse and opened the door. “All is safe. You may come out.”

Saffron rushed past him and darted to the menagerie gates. Old AH lay curled beside the gate post. He had been her friend. He had loved the animals as much as she did, and he had taught her how to care for them. She knelt beside his body. In the months since the beginning of the siege she had been exposed to death in many of its most hideous forms, but now she gagged as she looked at her friend’s body. The rioters had battered his head until it was shapeless, no longer recognizable as human.

“Poor AH,” she whispered. “You died for your animals. God will love you for that.” She found his bloodsoaked turban and covered his face. “Go in peace,” she said in Arabic.

She left him and went on into the menagerie. There she stopped again. She gazed around at the devastation and her knees went weak under her. Every cage had been smashed open and every one of the animals was gone. Clouds of blue flies hummed over puddles of their blood that were drying and caking in the desert sun. With an effort, Saffron steeled herself and went on down the rows of empty cages.

“Lucy!” She called as she went, and she imitated the chittering sound that was the monkey’s special recognition call. “Billy! Billy, baby, where are you?” She reached Lucy’s cage. The door had been torn off, and the cage was deserted. She stood before it, grieving. She had been so young when her mother died that she could barely remember it but she knew she had not felt as bereaved as she did now.

“They couldn’t have done this. It’s so cruel.” She knew that if she stood there longer she would start to blubber and her father would be ashamed of her. There was only one other place in the menagerie to search. She went to the feed shed at the far end of the enclosure.

“Lucy!” she called. “Billy, where are you, my baby?” She peered into the gloom.

“Billy!” She made the chittering monkey sound, and a tiny dark shape shot out from behind a pile of straw. With a single bound it landed on her hip, climbed on to her shoulder and chittered softly in reply to her call.

“Billy!” whispered Saffron. “You’re safe!” She sank to the floor and hugged the small furry body to her chest. Despite everything her father had told her, she began to cry and could not stop.

Before sunrise the next rooming, just after the mission bells had sounded the end of curfew, Ryder heard feminine voices in the yard, followed by the slamming of the door to the green-cake shed. He wiped the lather from the blade of his razor on to his wash-rag, and made one last pass from the bulge of his Adam’s apple to the point of his jaw. He examined his clean shaven image in the hand mirror, and grunted with resignation. Despite the kiss of the razor, his jaw was still blue. Not everybody can have whiskers like the pretty soldier-boy. He folded his razor, laid it carefully in the velvet slot in its fitted leather case and closed the lid. Then he left his private quarters in the blockhouse, and went out into the yard.

He glanced at the gate to the menagerie, and felt the surge of fresh anger and grief for the wanton slaughter of his animals. He could not yet bring himself to go into the enclosure. At least Bacheet had removed old Ali’s body and buried it before yesterday’s sunset, in accordance with the law of Islam.

Now Bacheet and his men were collecting tusks from where they were piled against the inner wall, and carrying them back to the warehouse. Ryder called Bacheet to him, and they went to inspect the main gates. There was nothing left of them but a few charred planks. “We will have to abandon everything in the outer stockade,” Ryder decided. “We will move into the inner fortifications. The gates are solid and strong. We can defend them.” He left Bacheet to carry out those orders.

For the last half an hour he had heard the hammering of metal on the anvil coming from Jock’s workshop, but now there was silence. He crossed to the workshop and looked in at the door. Jock McCrump had just lit the blue acetylene flame of his welding torch and was lowering the smoked-glass goggles over his eyes. He looked up at Ryder. “Old vixen could swing an axe like a lumberjack, and she packed a punch like John L. Sullivan his self It’s going to take couple or three days to fix this. Now make yourself scarce.” He bent over the damaged pipe and played the flame on to the gash in the metal.

“In one of our bloody moods today, are we?”

“Ain’t nothing to laugh and dance about. You should have let me shoot her before she did this.”

Ryder chuckled. They had been together a long time and knew each other’s foibles. He left Jock to get on with it and went to the green-cake shed. Nazeera and all three Benbrook sisters were there. They were wearing the working aprons and gloves they had made for themselves, and they were trying to restore order to the devastated kitchen.

“Good morning, Ryder.” Rebecca smiled at him. Ryder was taken aback by the warmth of her greeting and because she was still using his first name.

“Good morning, Miss Benbrook.”

“I would be obliged if in future you would address me by my Christian name. After the way you protected my sister and me yesterday, we need no longer stand on ceremony.”

“What little I could do for you was only my duty.”

“I was particularly pleased that you were so restrained in your use of force. A lesser man might have turned the riot into a massacre. You have the humanity to realize that those poor people had been driven to excess by the terrible dilemma in which they are caught up. However, I would like to express my sympathy for the grievous losses you have suffered.”

Saffron had been listening to her elder sister impatiently. She was not pleased by this new warmth between Rebecca and Ryder. She told me she despised him, but now she’s cooing at him like a dove, she thought. “You should have shot all of them, not just two,” she said sourly. “Then we might have saved Lucy.”

“At least Billy seems none the worse.” Saffron’s severe expression softened and Ryder took immediate advantage. “How are you going to feed him? He isn’t weaned yet,” he enquired solicitously.

“Nazeera has found a woman who lost her new baby from cholera. We’re paying her to feed Billy and he guzzles her milk like a little pig,” Saffron replied.

Rebecca blushed. “I am sure Ryder does not want to hear all the gruesome details,” she told her little sister primly.

“Then he should not have asked,” Saffron replied reasonably. “Anyway, everybody knows how babies are fed, so why are you turning red, Becky?”

Ryder looked around for an avenue of escape, and found one. “Good morning, Amber. You missed all the excitement yesterday.”

But Saffron did not want to relinquish Ryder’s attention to yet another sister. “Don’t mind her,” she said. “She has been grumpy since Captain Ballantyne went away.” Before Amber could protest she went on blithely, “All the Sudanese women have run away. They won’t come back to work here. They have been threatened by bad men in the town who say that we are doing the Devil’s work by making green-cake.”

Ryder looked at Rebecca with concern. “Is this true?”

“I am afraid it is. They were too terrified to come to tell us themselves. But one went to Nazeera. Even then she was taking a grave risk. She says that the Dervish sympathizers in the city have discovered how valuable the green-cake is to our survival, and they are trying to stop us making it. That female creature and the Nubian wrestler who led the riot against you were Mahdists.”

“That explains a great deal.” Ryder nodded. “But what do you plan to do?”

“We will go on alone,” Rebecca replied simply.

“Just the three of you?”

“Four, with Nazeera. She is not afraid. We Benbrooks don’t give up that easily. We have found two cauldrons that were not smashed and our first batch of green-cake will be ready by this evening.”

“Pulping the vegetation is hard work,” he protested.

“In which case you should let us get on with it, Ryder,” Rebecca told him. “Why don’t you go and help Mr. McCrump?”

“A man knows when he is not wanted in the kitchen.” Ryder tipped the brim of his hat and hurried back to the workshop.

A little after noon Jock pushed the welding goggles to the top of his head and smiled for the first time that day. “Well, skipper, that’s about the best I can do. Maybe she’ll hold up without blowing out under pressure and giving us another steam bath. We can only pray to the Almighty.”

They loaded the drive shaft and steam pipe into a Scotch cart and covered them with a tarpaulin to hide them from the eyes of Dervish agents while they moved them through the streets. No draught animals remained in the city. They had all died of starvation or been eaten. Ryder joined Jock, Bacheet and the Arabs in the shafts of the cart and they trundled it down to where the Intrepid this lay at the wharf. By lantern light they worked on in the engine room long after dark. When even Jock was overtaken by exhaustion they stretched out on the this’s steel deck plates and snatched a few hours’ sleep.

They woke again at dawn. The food bag was almost empty, but Ryder ordered Bacheet to dole out a few dates and scraps of smoked fish for breakfast. Then they went back to work in the engine room. In the middle of the morning Saffron and Amber came down to the harbour. They had two small loaves of freshly made green-cake hidden in Saffron’s paintbox.

“We put them there because we did not want anyone to know what we were doing. This is our first batch,” Saffron announced, with pride. She held up her hands, “Look!” Amber followed her example.

Ryder saw the blisters in their palms. “My two heroines.”

There were only a few mouthfuls for each of the men, but it was enough to boost their flagging energy. Saffron and Amber sat with Ryder on the edge of the deck, their legs hanging over the side, and watched him eat. He was touched by the womanly satisfaction that they showed, even at their age, to be feeding a man. They watched each piece go into his mouth just as his mother had so many years ago.

“I am sorry, but that’s all,” Saffron said, as he finished. “We’ll make some more tomorrow.”

“It was delicious,” he replied. “The best batch yet.”

Saffron looked pleased. She pulled her knees up to her chin, and sat hugging her long skinny legs, it makes me sick to think of all those horrible Dervish eating their heads off over there.” She stood up reluctantly and brushed down her skirts. “Come on, Amber. We must get back or Becky will give us the sharp edge of her tongue.”

Long after the twins had gone, and the men were struggling to manoeuvre the long drive shaft into its chocks in the confines of the engine room, Ryder pondered Saffron’s casual remark.

It was mid-afternoon when Jock announced at last that he was cautiously optimistic that this time the engine might perform as God and its makers had intended. He and his crew fired up the boiler, and while they were waiting for a head of steam to build up, Ryder shared one of his last remaining cigars with the Scotsman. They leant together on the bridge rail, both tired and subdued.

Ryder took a long deep draw on the cigar and passed it to Jock. “The Mahdi has a hundred thousand men camped on the other side of the river. Tell me, Jock, how do you suppose he is feeding them?” he asked.

Jock held the smoke in his lungs until his face turned puce. At last he exhaled explosively. “Well, first off they have thousands of head of stock that they’ve plundered,” he said. “But I reckon he must be bringing dhurra downriver from Abyssinia.”

“In dhows?”

“Of course. How else?”

“At night?” Ryder persisted.

“Of course. On a moonlit night you can see the sails. Lot of traffic on the river at night.”

“Jock McCrump, I want you to get this old tub of ours working under a full head of steam by tomorrow evening at the latest. Earlier than that, if you like.”

Jock stared at him suspiciously, and then he grinned. His teeth were as ragged and uneven as those of an ancient tiger shark. “If I didn’t know you better, skipper, I’d think you were up to something.”

There were no clouds in the desert sky to provide a canvas on which the setting sun could paint its setting. The great red orb dropped like a stone below the horizon and almost immediately the night came down upon the heat-drugged land. Ryder waited until he could no longer make out the opposite bank of the river, then gave orders to Bacheet to cast off.

With his engine telegraph at ‘dead slow ahead’, he eased the Intrepid this out through the harbour entrance and into the main stream of the river. As soon as he felt the tug of the current he turned the bows into it and rang down to Jock for ‘half ahead’. They pushed up against the flow of the river and Ryder listened anxiously to the beat of the engine. He could feel the hull quivering under his feet, but there were no rough vibrations. He held her at that speed until they had rounded the first bend of the Blue Nile and a long deep glide of the river lay ahead.

He took a deep breath and rang down for ‘three-quarters ahead’. The this responded with the panache of a toreador parading into the bullring. Ryder let out a long sigh of relief. “Take the wheel, Bacheet. I am going below.”

He slid down the engine-room companionway. Jock was shining the beam of his bulls eye lantern on to the shaft, and Ryder went to stand beside him. They watched it turning in its new bearings. Jock lowered the lantern and in its golden light they studied the outline of the silver column minutely, looking for the tiniest flutter or tremble of distortion. Like a gyroscope, it was spinning so evenly that it seemed to be standing still.

Jock cocked his head. “Listen to her sing, Skipper.” He raised his voice above the hiss and slide of the cylinders. “Sweeter than Lily McTavish!”

“Who in creation is Lily McTavish?”

“Barmaid at the Bull and Bush.”

Ryder let out a roar of laughter. “I never realized what a connoisseur of opera you are, Jock.”

“Can’t really say I know much about it, skipper, but I do know a fine pair of tits when I see ‘em.”

“Can I push the this up to full revolutions?”

“Just like Lily McTavish, I reckon she’s game for anything.”

“I’d like to meet this Lily.”

“Get in the queue behind me, skipper.”

Still laughing Ryder went back to his bridge and took the wheel from Bacheet. When he pushed the telegraph to ‘full ahead’, the this surged forward against the current.

“Twelve knots!” Ryder shouted gleefully. He felt a great weight slip from his shoulders. He was no longer a prisoner in the fever city of Khartoum. Once more all three thousand miles of the Nile belonged to him, his high road to freedom and fortune.

He pulled back the lever of the engine telegraph to ‘half ahead’ and kept on up the river; before he reached the next wide bend he had counted five head of sail, all heavily laden trading dhows coming down from the Abyssinian highlands to Omdurman. He turned across the flow, and ran swiftly back downstream. Then he shouted down the voice tube to the engine room: “Jock, come up here where we can talk.”

They leant on the bridge rail together. “After what happened at the compound yesterday, I am not taking any more chances. The mood of the people is ugly and dangerous. The city is crawling with agents and sympathizers of the Mahdi. They will know by morning that the this is seaworthy again. We must expect an attempt at sabotage. From here on, we must keep an armed guard on board twenty-four hours a day.”

“I was going to do that anyhow.” Jock nodded. “I’ve already moved my bed and duffel back on board, and I’ll be sleeping with a pistol under me mattress. My stokers will be taking turns at guard duties.”

“Excellent, Jock. But apart from that, as soon as it’s light enough I want you to move her from the harbour into the canal and tie her up at the jetty at the back gate of the compound. She’ll be much safer there, and easier to load.”

“You thinking about your ivory?” Jock asked.

“What else?” Ryder smiled. “But also I want to be able to make a run for it if things go wrong again. I’ll be waiting for you to bring the this up the canal at first light.”

‘“hat’s all that din?” Ryder had been woken by Bacheet hammering on the blockhouse door.

“One of the Egyptian officers is here with a message from Gordon Pasha,” Bacheet shouted back.

Ryder’s heart sank. No news from Chinese Gordon was ever good. He reached for his trousers and boots and pulled them on.

The Egyptian had two black eyes and a scabbed, swollen lower lip.

“What happened to you, Captain?” Ryder asked.

“There was a food riot at the arsenal when the general reduced the ration. I was hit in the face by a stone.”

“I’d heard that your troops shot twenty of the rioters.”

“That is not correct,” the officer said hotly. “To restore order, the general was forced to shoot only twelve.”

“How abstemious of him,” Ryder murmured.

“You also had trouble with the rioters, and were forced to shoot,” the captain added.

“Only two, but they killed one of my men first.” Ryder was relieved to have confirmation of the shooting at the arsenal: Gordon was no longer in a position to point the finger at him. “I understand that you have a message for me from Gordon Pasha.”

“The general wishes to see you at Mukran Fort as soon as possible. I am to escort you there. Will you please make ready to leave at once?”

Schoolboy being called to the headmaster’s study, Ryder thought wryly. He took his hat down from the peg on the wall. “Very well. I am ready.”

Gordon was at his usual station on the battlements of the fort. He was standing behind his telescope, peering downriver towards the Shabluka Gorge. Two brilliant coloured flags flew from the flagstaff of the watchtower. The red, white and black of Egypt was surmounted by the red, white and blue of the Union Flag of Great Britain.

Gordon straightened up and saw Ryder’s upturned face. “Those flags will be the first thing that the relief force sees when they come up the river. Then they will know that the city is still in our hands, and that we have withstood all the forces of evil and darkness.”

“And all the world will learn, General, what one Englishman alone and almost unaided has been able to achieve. It is a story that will be written large in the annals of Empire.” Ryder had meant it to be ironic, but somehow it did not come out that way. He was forced to admit, however reluctantly, that he admired this terrible little man. He could never feel the slightest affection for him, but he stood in awe of him.

Gordon raised a silver-grey eyebrow beneath which a cold blue eye glinted, acknowledging the barbed compliment from an adversary. “I am informed that you took your steamer out on trial last night, and that it was successful,” he stated crisply.

Ryder nodded cautiously. The old devil misses nothing, he thought. Now he found himself hating the man as strongly as ever.

“I hope that does not mean you are planning to sail away in her before the relief arrives?” Gordon asked.

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“Mr. Courtney, despite your mercenary instincts you have made, perhaps unwittingly, a significant contribution to the defence of my city. Your production of the foul-tasting but nutritious green-cake in itself has been of great assistance. You have other resources at your disposal that might save lives.” Gordon stared at him.

Ryder stared back into the sapphire eyes and replied, “Indeed, General, and I feel I have done as much as I can. However, I have a premonition that you will try to convince me otherwise.”

“I need you to remain in the city. I do not want to be forced to impound your vessel, but I shall not hesitate to do so if you defy me.”

“Ah!” Ryder nodded. “That is a compelling argument. May I suggest a compromise, General?”

“I am a reasonable man,” Gordon inclined his head, ‘and I am always ready to listen to good sense.”

That is not a widely held opinion, Ryder thought, but he replied evenly, “If I am able to deliver equal value, will you allow me to sail from Khartoum whenever I wish, with the cargo and passengers of-my own choice without restriction?”

“Ah, yes. I believe you have become friendly with David Benbrook’s daughters,” Gordon smiled bleakly, ‘and that you have several tons of ivory in your warehouse. Those would be your passengers and cargo, would they not?”

“David Benbrook and the three young ladies will be among those I shall invite to sail with me. I am certain that this would not be in conflict with your sense of chivalry.”

“What do you offer, sir, as your part of the bargain?”

“A minimum of ten tons of dhurra grain enough to feed the populace until the arrival of the relief force and forestall any further rioting. You will pay me twelve shillings a sack, in cash.”

Gordon’s face darkened. “I have always suspected that you had a hidden hoard of grain.”

“I have no secret hoard, but I will risk my ship and my life to obtain it for you. In return I want your word of honour as a gentleman and an officer of the Queen that on delivery to you of ten tons of dhurra you will pay me the agreed price and allow me to sail from Khartoum. I suggest that this is fair, and that you have nothing to lose by agreeing to it.”

Ryder had spread a black tarpaulin over the this’s white superstructure, and coated her hull above the waterline with black river mud. Using long bamboo poles they punted her quietly down the shallow canal to the open river. Under her camouflage she blended so well into the darkness, that even in the brilliant starlight she was almost invisible from any distance over a hundred yards. As she slid into the main current of the river and the long poles could no longer find the bottom, Ryder rang down to Jock in the engine room for ‘half ahead’. He turned upriver and cruised eastwards along the Blue Nile. He was deliberately avoiding the main branch of the White Nile, because the Dervish artillery batteries were all concentrated on the northern approaches. It was plain that by this time they were expecting the arrival of the British gunboats from that direction. However, in making these dispositions they had left the other branches of the river to the east and south unguarded. Until the Dervish realized this mistake the Intrepid this had the run of thousands of miles of river.

All the dhows coming down the Blue Nile would be Abyssinians. Like Ryder, they were just honest, hard-working traders, selling their grain to the highest bidders. Of course, it was to be regretted that their main customer was the Mahdi.

Ryder angled the darkened this across the river. For all the obvious reasons, the captains of the grain dhows were keeping closely to the bank furthest from Khartoum. Ryder and Bacheet stared ahead, watching for the first flash of canvas or the shine of starlight on one of the reed-matting lateen sails. Ryder’s lungs ached with the craving for a good cigar, but his stock was dwindling. Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder, he thought sadly. I might end up smoking black Turkish tobacco in a hookah. How have the mighty descended in the world.

Bacheet touched his arm. “The first little fish swims into our net,” he murmured.

Ryder watched the other vessel materializing on the dark waters, and muttered regretfully, “Small fishing-boat. Riding high in the water. No cargo on board. We will let her go.” He spun the wheel and sheered away from her.

There was a faint hail from the smaller vessel: “In God’s name, what ship are you?”

Bacheet called back: “Go in peace, with blessings of Allah upon you.”

They cruised on. As they rounded the first wide bend of the river, two miles above the city, another hull seemed to spring miraculously out of the night. They were closing so rapidly that Ryder had only seconds to make his decision. It was large dhow, broad-beamed and low in the water. She had only a foot of freeboard. Her bow wave creamed back in the starlight, almost slopping over her bulwarks.

“Heavy with cargo,” Ryder said, with quiet satisfaction. “This one is for us.” He swung in sharply towards the prize, and as they closed there was a cry of alarm from the man at her helm. As the steel hull made heavy contact with the dhow’s timber side, the three heavy grappling hooks shot from the this and clattered on to her deck. They bit and held in the dhow’s bulwarks, locking the two vessels together. With a burst of power and hard left rudder Ryder forced the dhow’s bows to slew across the current, spilling the wind out of her sail so that she wallowed helplessly. Then his men swarmed over the rail.

Before they realized what was happening the crew of the dhow were trussed up securely. Ryder jumped down on to the deck, just as the captain came up from his stern cabin. Ryder recognized him immediately. “Ras Hailu!” he exclaimed, then greeted him in Amharic: “I see you are in good health.”

The Abyssinian started with shock, then recognized Ryder. “Al-Sakhawi! So you have turned pirate.”

“I am no pirate, but you have been dealing with one such. I hear the Mahdi is gouging you on the price of your dhurra.” He took Ras Hailu’s arm. “Come aboard my steamer. Let us drink a little coffee and talk business.”

Jock held the two vessels in midstream while they settled down in the this cabin. After a decent exchange of pleasantries Ryder broached the matter in hand. “How is it that you, a devout Christian and a prince of the house of Menelik, can deal with a fanatic who is conducting a jihad against your Church and your countrymen?”

“I am covered with shame,” Ras Hailu confessed, ‘but, Christian or Muslim, money is still money and a profit is still a profit.”

“What price is the wicked Mahdi paying you?”

Ras Hailu looked pained, but his eyes were shrewd in the lamplight. “Eight shillings a sack, delivered at Omdurman.”

“Christian to Christian, and friend to old friend, what would you charge me if I paid in silver Maria Theresas?”

They both enjoyed the trading for it was in their blood, but time was too short to savour it. Dawn was only hours away. They struck a bargain at nine shillings, which left both men pleased. Jock towed the dhow into a quiet bay off the main river, known as the Lagoon of the Little Fish. Screened by the papyrus reeds, all hands turned out to tranship the cargo of dhurra to the steamer. It took all day, for the dhow was fully laden.

As darkness fell Ryder and Ras Hailu embraced warmly and took leave of each other. The dhow caught the evening breeze and ran up the Blue Nile towards the Abyssinian border. Ryder took the this downriver to Khartoum. She was so deeply laden that they had to tow her from the bank of the canal to her mooring at the rear of the compound.

As soon as curfew ended, Ryder sent Bacheet with a message to General Gordon. Within the hour the general had arrived on the canal bank. He was accompanied by a hundred Egyptian troops, and quickly set up a chain of men to unload the sacks of dhurra. The work went swiftly, and Ryder stood by, counting each one and making notations in his little red book. “By my calculations, General, this is considerably more than the contracted amount.” He cast an eye over the column of figures with the rapidity of a bookkeeper. “Even allowing for ten per cent underweight in the sacks, it’s more in the region of twelve tons than ten.”

Gordon laughed a rare sound, for Chinese Gordon was not given to frivolity, “Surely, Mr. Courtney, you are not suggesting that I should return the excess to the Mahdi, are you?”

“No, sir. I am suggesting that I am entitled to recompense for the overflow,” Ryder replied.

Gordon stopped laughing. “There must be some limit to your avarice, sir.”

“I have rendered unto Caesar,” Gordon frowned at the biblical reference, but Ryder went on unperturbed, ‘and now I would like to keep a ton of the dhurra for my own use. My compound was pillaged by the rioters. My own people are as close to starvation as any in the city. I have a duty to provide for them, as if they were my family. That does not add up to avarice in my book.”

They bargained shrewdly. At last Gordon threw up his hands. “Very well, then. Keep two hundred sacks for yourself and be thankful for my generosity. You can come up to the fort to collect your Judas shekels.” He stamped away towards the arsenal. He wanted to see his precious grain safely behind the walls. But there was another consideration behind his abrupt departure: he did not want Ryder Courtney to see the softening of his expression or the shadow of a smile in his eyes. What a pity to lose a young rascal like that. We should have had him in the army. I could have made him into a firstrate officer, but it’s too late now. He is spoilt by the lure of Mammon.

The train of his thoughts led him on, and he thought of another likely lad. As he reached the gates of the arsenal he paused and looked towards the north.

Ballantyne has been gone fifteen days already. Surely by this time he must have reached Stewart’s encampment at the Wells of Gakdul and given him my message. I know in my heart that God will not allow all my efforts to come to naught. Dear Lord, grant me the strength to hold out just a little longer.

But he was tired to the marrow of his bones.

They had ridden five days in the vast assembly of men and animals. It rolled ponderously northwards across the desert. Penrod Ballantyne swivelled on the saddle of his camel to look back. The dust of their progress reached the horizon and rose to the sky.

Fifty thousand fighting men? he wondered. But we will never know for sure nobody can count them. All the emirs of the southern tribes and all their warriors. What power does this man Muhammad Ahmed wield that he can bring together such a multitude, made up of tribes that for five hundred years have been riven by feud and blood feud?

Then he turned back in the saddle and looked to the north, the direction in which this vast host was riding. Stewart has only two thousand men to oppose them. In all the wars of all the ages did odds such as these ever prevail?

He put aside the thought, and tried to work out how far back Yakub and he were from the vanguard of this mighty cavalcade. Without drawing attention to themselves they had to work their way gradually to the front. It was only from that position that they could break away and make a final dash for the Wells of Gakdul. The Dervish were pacing their camels, not driving them so hard that they would be unfit to take part in the battle ahead. That they were moving so quietly and not rushing into battle reassured Penrod that Stewart must still be encamped there.

They passed slowly through another loose formation of Dervish. These were hard desert tribesmen with swords and shields slung across their backs. Most were mounted on camels, and each led a string of pack camels carrying tents and ammunition cases, cooking pots, food bags and waterskins. Trailing along behind them were the traders and petty merchants of Omdurman, their camels also heavily laden with trade goods and merchandise. After the battle, when the Ansar were rolling in loot, there would be rich profits.

At the head of this formation rode a small group of Ansar on fine Arab steeds, which had been lovingly curried until their hides shone in the sunlight like polished metal. Their long silky manes had been combed out and plaited with coloured ribbons. Their trappings and tack were of painted and beautifully decorated leather. The horsemen sat upon their backs with the panache and studied arrogance of warriors.

“Aggagiers!” Yakub muttered, as they drew closer. “The killers of elephant.”

Penrod drew the tail of his turban closer over his mouth and nose so that only his eyes showed, and edged aside his camel to pass the group at a safe distance. As they drew level with them they saw the horsemen staring across at them. They were animatedly discussing the two strangers.

“Damn Ryder Courtney for his taste in camel flesh.” For the first time since leaving Khartoum, Penrod bemoaned the quality of their mounts. They were magnificent creatures, more befitting a khalifa or a powerful emir than a lowly tribesman. Even in this vast assembly they stood out as thoroughbreds. Yakub urged his camel forward at a faster clip, and Penrod cautioned him sharply: “Gently, fearless Yakub. Their eyes are upon you. When the mice nan the cat pounces.”

Yakub reined in, and they continued at more leisurely pace, but this did not deter the aggagiers. Two broke away from the group and rode across to them.

“They are of the Beja,” Yakub said hoarsely. “They mean us no good.”

“Steady, glib and cunning Yakub. You must deceive them with your ready tongue.”

The leading aggagier came up and reined his bay mare down to a walk. “The blessings of Allah and His Victorious Mahdi upon you, strangers. What is your tribe and who is your emir?”

“May Allah and the Mahdi, grace upon him, always smile upon you,” Yakub responded, in a clear untroubled voice. “I am Hogal al-Kadir of the Jaalin, and we ride under the banner of the Emir Salida.”

“I am al-Noor, of the Beja tribe. My master is the famed Emir Osman Atalan, upon whom be all the blessings of Allah.”

“He is a mighty man, beloved of Allah and the Ever Victorious Mahdi, may he live long and prosper.” Penrod touched his heart and his forehead, “I am Suleimani Iffara, a Persian of Jeddah.” Some Persians had fair hair and pale eyes, and Penrod had adopted that nationality to explain his features. It would also account for the slight nuances and inflections in his speech.

“You are a long way from Jeddah, Suleimani Iffara.” Al-Noor rode closer and stared at him thoughtfully.

“The Divine Mahdi has declared jihad against the Turk and the Frank,” Penrod replied. “All true believers must hearken to his summons and make haste to join up with him, no matter how hard and long the journey.”

“You are welcome to our array, but if you travel under the banner of Emir Salida, you must ride harder to catch up with him.”

“We are solicitous of the camels,” Yakub explained, ‘but on your advice we will move faster.”

“They are indeed magnificent beasts,” al-Noor agreed, but he was staring at Penrod and not at his mount. He could see only his eyes, but they were the eyes of a jinnee and disconcertingly familiar. Yet it would be a deadly offence to order him to unveil his features. “My master Osman Atalan has sent me to enquire if you wish to sell any. He would pay you a good price in gold coin.”

“I have the utmost respect for your mighty master,” Penrod replied, ‘but rather would I sell my firstborn son.”

“I have said before and I say again that they are magnificent creatures. My master will be saddened by your reply.” Al-Noor lifted his reins to turn away, then paused, “There is aught about you, Suleimani Iffara, your eyes or your voice, that is familiar. Have we met before?”

Penrod shrugged. “Perhaps in the mosque of Omdurman.”

“Perhaps,” al-Noor said dubiously, ‘but if I have seen you before I will remember. My memory is good.”

“We go on ahead to find our commander,” Yakub intervened. “May the sons of Islam triumph in the battle that looms ahead.”

Al-Noor turned to him. “I pray that your words may carry to the ear of God. Victory is sweet, but death is the ultimate purpose of life. It is the key to Paradise. If the victory is denied to us, may Allah grant us glorious martyrdom.” He touched his heart in farewell salute. “Go with the blessings of Allah.” He galloped away to rejoin his squadron.

“The Emir Atalan,” Yakub whispered in awe. “We ride in the same company as your most deadly enemy. This is the same as carrying a cobra in your bosom.”

“Al-Noor has granted us permission to leave his banner,” Penrod reminded him. “Let us make all haste to obey.”

They stirred up the camels with the goad, and pushed them into a trot. As they pulled away Penrod looked across at the distant group of aggagiers. Now that he knew what to look for he recognized the elegant figure of Osman Atalan in a bone-white jibba with gaily coloured patches that caught the eye like jewels. On his lovely pale mare he was riding a few lengths ahead of the rest of his band. He was staring at Penrod, and even at that distance his gaze was disturbing.

Behind his master, al-Noor drew his rifle from its boot under his knee and pointed it to the sky. Penrod saw the spurt of blue powder smoke a few seconds before the report reached his ears. He lifted his own rifle and returned this feu du joie. Then they rode on.

They were challenged several times during the rest of the day. The quality of their camels and their obvious haste marked them out even among this huge gathering of animals and men. Each time they asked for the red banner of Emir Salida of the Jaalin, they were told, “He leads the vanguard,” and they were pointed ahead. Penrod pushed on rapidly: ever since the meeting with al-Noor he had felt uneasy.

They paused in their journey only once more. One of the petty traders who followed the armies called to them as they passed. They turned aside to inspect his wares. He had rounds of dhurra bread, roasted in camel’s milk butter and sesame seeds. He showed them also dried dates and apricots, and goat’s milk cheese, whose high aroma started their saliva. They filled their food bags, and Penrod paid the exorbitant prices with Maria Theresa dollars.

When they rode on the merchant watched them until they were well out of earshot, then called his son who handled the pack donkeys. “I know that man well. He marched with Hicks Pasha to El Obeid, at the start of the war of jihad. I sold him a gold inlaid dagger, and he bargained shrewdly. I would never mistake him for another. He is an infidel and a Frankish effendi. His name is Abadan Riji. Go, my son, to the mighty Emir Osman Atalan, and tell him all these things. Tell him that an enemy marches in the ranks of the warriors of Allah.”

The sun was sinking towards the western horizon and the elongated shadows cast by their camels flitted across the orange yellow dunes when at last Penrod made out the streaming red banner of Emir Salida through the dust clouds ahead.

“This is the front rank of the army,” Yakub agreed. He rode close to Penrod’s right hand so that he did not have to raise his voice: other riders were within earshot. “Many of these men are Jaalin. I have recognized two who carry a blood feud against me. They are of the family who drove me out of my tribe, and made me an outcast. If they confront me I will be honour-bound to kill them.”

“Then let us part company with them.”

The Nile was only a mile distant on their left hand. The whole army had been following the course of the river since they had joined it at Berber. At this late hour of the day many other travellers were turning aside to water their animals on the riverbank. They were too intent on their own affairs to remark the presence of the two strangers among them. Nevertheless Penrod contrived to keep well clear of them.

The grazing closer to the riverbank was dense and luscious. The grass reached as high as the knees of their camels. Suddenly there was an explosion of wings from under the front pads of Yakub’s mount, and a covey of quail rocketed into the air. These were the Syrian Blue variety of their breed, larger than the common quail and highly prized for the pot. Yakub swivelled in his saddle and, with a whipping motion of his right hand, threw the heavy camel goad he carried. It cartwheeled through the air and smacked into one of the birds. In a burst of blue, gold and chestnut feathers the quail tumbled to earth.

“Behold! Yakub, the mighty hunter,” he exulted.

The rest of the covey swung across the nose of Penrod’s camel and he made his throw. The goad clipped the head off the leading cock bird, and spun on with almost no deflection. It thumped into a plump young hen and snapped her near wing. She came down heavily and scuttled away through the tall grass.

Penrod jumped from the camel’s back and chased her. She jinked and fluttered up, but he snatched her out of the air. Holding her by the head he flicked his wrist and broke her neck. He retrieved his goad and the cock’s carcass, then ran back to his mount and swung up into the saddle. “Behold! Suleimani Iffara, the humble traveller from Jeddah, who would never boast of his prowess.”

“Then I will not embarrass him by speaking of it,” Yakub agreed ruefully.

So they came down to the river. Hundreds of horses and camels were spread out along the bank, drinking. Others were grazing on the green growth that bordered it. Men were filling their waterskins, and some were bathing in the shallows.

Penrod picked out a spot on the bank that was well away from any of these people. They hobbled the camels and let them drink while they filled the waterskins and cut bundles of fresh grass. They turned the hobbled camels loose to graze, and built a small cooking fire. They roasted the trio of quail, golden brown and oozing fragrant juices. Then Yakub went to the cow camel and milked her into a bowl. He warmed the milk and they washed down with it a round of dhurra bread topped with a slice of the cheese, which reeked more powerfully than the goat that had produced it. They ended the meal with a handful of dates and apricots. It was tastier fare than Penrod had ever enjoyed in the dining room of the Gheziera Club. Afterwards they lay under the stars with their heads close together. “How far are we from the town of Abu Hamed?” Penrod asked.

With his spread fingers Yakub indicated a segment of the sky.

“Two hours.” Penrod translated the angle to time. “Abu Hamed is where we must leave the river and cut across the bight to the Wells of Gakdul.”

“Two days’ travel from Abu Hamed.”

“Once we pass the vanguard of the Dervish, we will be able to travel at better speed.”

“It will be great pity to kill the camels.” Yakub rose up on one elbow and watched them grazing nearby. He whistled softly and the cream-coloured cow wandered over to him, stepping short against her hobble. He fed her one of the rounds of dhurra cake and stroked her ear as she crunched it up.

“O compassionate Yakub, you will cut a man’s throat as happily as you break wind, but you grieve for a beast who was born to die?” Penrod rolled on to his back and spread his arms like a crucifix. “You stand the first watch. I will take the second. We will rest until the moon is at its zenith. Then we will go on.” He closed his eyes and began almost at once to snore softly.

When Yakub woke him, the midnight chill had already soaked through his woollen cloak and he looked to the sky. It was time. Yakub was ready. They stood up and, without a word, went to the camels, loosened the hobbles and mounted up.

The watch fires of the sleeping army guided them. The smoke lay in a dense fog along the wadis, and concealed their movements. The pads of the camels made no sound, and they had secured their baggage with great care so that it neither creaked nor clattered. None of the sentries challenged them as they passed each encampment.

Within the two hours that Yakub had predicted they passed the village of Abu Hamed. They kept well clear, but their scent roused the village dogs, whose petulant yapping faded as they left the river and struck out along the ancient caravan route that crossed the great bight of the Nile. By the time dawn broke they had left the Dervish army far behind.

In the middle of the next afternoon they couched the camels in the lengthening shadow of a small volcanic hillock and fed them on the fodder they had cut on the riverbank. Despite the severity of the march the camels ate hungrily. The two men examined them at rest but found no ominous swellings on their limbs or shale cuts on their pads.

“They have travelled well, but the hard marches lie ahead.”

Penrod took the first watch and climbed to the top of the hillock so that he could overlook their back trail. He panned his telescope over the south horizon in the direction of Abu Hamed, but could pick out no dust cloud or any other sign of pursuit. He built a knee-high wall of loose volcanic rocks to screen himself in this exposed position, and settled comfortably behind it. For the first time since they had left the Nile he felt easier. He waited for the cool of the evening, and before the sun reached the horizon he sat up and once more glassed the southern horizon.

It was only a yellow feather of dust, small and ephemeral, showing almost coyly for a few minutes, then dissipating and fading away as though it were merely an illusion, a trick of the heated air. Then it materialized again, and hovered in the heat, like a tiny yellow bird. “On the caravan road, fairly on our tracks, the dust rises over soft ground and subsides again when the trail crosses shale or lava beds.” He explained to himself the intermittent appearance of the dust cloud “It seems that al-Noor’s memory has returned at last. Yet these cannot be horsemen. There is no water. Camels are the only animals that can survive out here. There are no camels in the Dervish army that can run us down. Our mounts are the swiftest and finest.”

He stared through the lens of his telescope but could make out nothing under the dust. Still too far off, he thought. They must be all of seven or eight miles away. He ran down the hill. Yakub saw him coming and could tell from his haste that trouble was afoot. He had the camels saddled and loaded before Penrod reached them. Penrod jumped into his saddle and his mount lurched up, groaning and spitting. He turned her head northwards, and urged her into trot.

Yakub rode up alongside him. “What have you seen?”

“Dust on our back trail Camels.”

“How can you tell that?”

“What horse can survive so far from water?”

“When the aggagiers are in hot pursuit of either elephant or men, they use both their camels and their horses. At the beginning of the hunt they ride the camels, and also use them to carry the water. That is how they save the horses until they have their quarry in sight. Then they change to them for the final chase. You have seen the quality of their horses. No camel can run against them.” He looked back over his shoulder. “If those are the aggagiers of Osman Atalan, they will have us in sight by dawn tomorrow.”

They rode on through the night. Penrod gave no thought to conserving the water in the skins. A little before midnight they stopped just long enough to give each animal two bucketfuls of water. Penrod stretched out on the ground” and used an inverted milk bowl as a sounding board to pick up the reverberation of distant hoofs. When he placed his ear against it, he could hear nothing. He did not allow this to lull him into complacency. Only when they sighted the pursuers at dawn would they know how far they were trailing behind them. They wasted no time and padded on through the desolation and the hissing silence of the desert.

As the first soft light of dawn gave definition to the landscape Penrod halted again. Once again he was prodigal with the remaining water, and ordered Yakub to give each of the camels two more buckets and the remainder of the fodder.

“At this rate, we will have emptied the skins by this evening,” Yakub grumbled.

“By this evening we will either have reached the Wells of Gakdul, or we will be dead. Let them drink and eat. It will lighten their load, and give strength to their legs.”

He walked back a hundred yards and once again used the milk bowl as a sounding cup. For a few minutes he heard nothing, and grunted with relief. But some deep instinct made him linger. Then he heard it, a tremble of air within his eardrum, so faint it might been a trick of the dawn breeze sweeping over the rocks. He wetted his forefinger and held it up. There was no wind.

He lowered his head to the bowl, cupped his hands round his ear and closed his eyes. Silence at first. He took a deep breath and held it. At the outer reaches of his hearing there was a susurration, like fine sand agitated gently in a dried gourd, or the breathing of a beloved woman sleeping at his side in the watches of the night. Even in this fraught situation an image of Rebecca flared in his memory, so young and lovely in the bed beside him, her hair spread over them both like cloth of gold. He thrust away the picture, stood up and went back to the camels. “They are behind us,” he said quietly.

“How far?” Yakub asked.

“We will be able to see them clearly in the first rays of the sun.” They both glanced into the east. The sun cast a nimbus around a distant hilltop, as though it were the rugged head of an ancient saint.

“And they will see us just as clearly.” Yakub’s voice was husky and he cleared his throat.

“How far to the Wells of Gakdul?” Penrod asked.

“More than half a day’s ride,” Yakub answered. “Too far. On those horses they will catch us long before we reach the wells.”

“What terrain lies ahead? Is there a place for us to take cover where we might evade them?”

“We approach the Tirbi Kebir.” Yakub pointed ahead. “There is good reason why it is called the Great Graveyard.” This was one of the most formidable obstacles along the entire crossing of the bight. It was a salt pan twenty miles across. The surface was level as a sheet of frosted glass, unmarred by a single ripple or undulation, other than the broad indentation of the caravan road. Both its verges were outlined by the skeletons of the men and camels who, over the centuries, had perished along the way. The noon sunlight reflecting off the diamond white salt crystals lit the noonday sky with a glare that could be seen from many leagues in every direction. A camel standing in the centre of this great white place could be clearly recognized from the perimeter. The unrelenting sunlight, reflected and magnified by the shining surface, could roast man and beast like a slow fire.

“There is no other way forward. We must go on.” They put the camels to the crossing. Refreshed by the copious draughts of water and the fodder they had eaten they paced out strongly. As the daylight strengthened, the sky ahead became incandescent, like a metal shield raised to white heat in the forge of Vulcan. Abruptly they left the area of dunes and undulated gravel hills, and rode out on to the pan. With theatrical timing the sun soared out above the eastern hills and struck into their faces with its stinging lash. Penrod could feel it sucking the moisture from his skin and frying the contents of his skull. He groped in his saddlebag and brought out a piece of curved ivory into which he had carved horizontal eye slits so narrow that they blocked out most of the reflected glare. He had copied this from an illustration in the book of Arctic travel by Clavering and Sabine that depicted a native Eskimo of Greenland wearing such a contrivance, carved from whalebone, to ward off snow blindness.

Under the goads, the camels broke into the gait that the Arabs called ‘drinking the wind’, a long striding trot that sent the miles swiftly behind them. With every few strides either Penrod or Yakub swivelled round and stared back into the shimmering glare.

When the enemy came it was with shocking suddenness. At one moment the pan behind them was bare and white with not the least sign upon it of man or beast. At the next the Dervish column poured out from among the gravel hills and rode on to the white expanse. The weird play of sunlight created an illusion of perspective and foreshortened distances. Although they were still several miles away, they seemed so close that Penrod fancied he could make out the features of each individual.

As Yakub had predicted they were riding camels, pack camels: the aggagiers sat up in front of the huge balloon-like waterskins. Each rider led his horse behind him on “a long rein. Osman Atalan was on the leading camel. The folds of his green turban covered his lower face, but his seat in the saddle was unmistakable, head held high and shoulders proud. Beside him rode al-Noor. Bunched up behind the leading pair Penrod counted six more aggagiers. Both sides spotted each other in the same instant. If the pursuers shouted it was too far for the sound to reach him.

Without undue haste the aggagiers dismounted from their camels. Two men were acting as camel-handlers and they gathered up the reins. Osman and each of his men led out a horse and watered it. Then the aggagiers tightened the girths and swung up into the saddle. This changeover took only the time that a Red Sea diver might hold his breath when he goes down to fill his net with pearl oysters from the deep coral reef. Then the horsemen bunched up and came across the shimmering salt surface at an alarming pace.

Penrod and Yakub leant forward in their saddles and, with thrusting movements of their hips, urged their mounts to the top of their speed. The camels reached out in a long-legged gallop. For a mile and then another the two bands raced on, neither gaining nor faltering. Then Hulu Mayya, Osman’s cream-coloured mare, broke from the pack. She came on with her mane and long golden tail floating in the wind, a pale wraith against the dazzling plain of salt.

Penrod saw almost at once that no camel could hold off this horse over any distance, and he knew the tactics Osman would adopt: he would ride up behind them and hamstring their camels on the run. Penrod tried to conjure up a plan to counter this. He could not rely on a lucky bullet to bring down the mare. Perhaps instead he should let her come close, then turn back unexpectedly, taking Osman by surprise, and use his camel’s height and weight to rush down on the mare. He might be able to force a collision that would inflict such injury on her that she would be out of the race. In truth, he knew that such a plan was futile: the mare was not only fleet but nimble; Osman was probably the most skilled horseman in all the Dervish ranks. Between them they would make a mockery of any clumsy charge he could mount. If by some remote chance he succeeded in crippling the mare, the rest of the Beja aggagiers would be upon them in the next instant, their long blades bared.

The tail of the green turban had blown clear of Osman’s face and now he was so close that Penrod could make out his features clearly. The crisp curls of his beard were smoothed back by the wind of the mare’s run. His gaze was locked on Penrod’s face.

“Abadan Riji!” Osman called. “This is our moment. It is written.”

Penrod drew the Martini-Henry carbine from its boot under his knee, and half turned in the saddle. He could not make the full turn and face his enemy to mount the rifle to his shoulder, without throwing his camel off balance. He swung up the rifle with his right hand, as though it was a pistol and tried to settle his aim. The camel lurched and jerked under him, and the rifle barrel made wild and unpredictable circles. At the full reach of his right arm the muscles strained and tired swiftly. He could hold his aim no longer, and fired. The recoil jarred his wrist and the trigger guard smashed back into his fingers. His aim was so wild that he did not mark the flight or strike of the bullet. Osman’s replying laughter was natural and easy. He was so close now that his voice carried over the sound of hoofs and the rush of the wind.

“Put up your gun. We are warriors of the blade, you and I.” His mare came on apace, now so close that Penrod could see the white froth flying from the snaffle between her jaws. The scabbard of Osman’s broadsword was trapped under his left knee. He reached down and drew out the blade, then held up its shining length for Penrod to see. “This is a man’s weapon.”

Penrod felt the strong temptation to respond to his challenge and take him on with the sword. But he knew that more was at stake than pride and honour. The fate of an army of his countrymen, the city of Khartoum and all within the walls Rebecca Benbrook too hung on the outcome of this race. Duty dictated that he must eschew any heroics. He ejected the empty case from the breech of his rifle, and took another round from his bandolier to replace it. He locked the breech-block but before he could turn back to fire again at Osman Yakub called to him in urgent tones. He glanced at him, and saw that he was pointing ahead, standing high in the saddle, waving his arms above his head, screaming in wild excitement.

Penrod followed the direction of his finger and his heart bounded. Out of the white glare of the salt pan ahead a squadron of mounted men appeared, their camels racing towards him on a converging track. There was no mistaking that their intentions were warlike. How many? he wondered. In the clouds of white dust it was impossible to guess but they came on, rank upon rank. A hundred, if not more, he realized, but who were they? Not Arabs! That’s certain. Hope stirred. None of them wore the jibba, and their faces were un bearded

They rushed towards each other, and Penrod saw the khaki of their tunics and the distinctive shape of their pith helmets. “British!” he exulted. “Scouts from Stewart’s Camel Corps.”

Penrod swivelled in the saddle and looked back. Osman was standing tall in his stirrups, peering at the approaching ranks. Behind him his aggagiers had reined down from the charge and were milling in confusion. Penrod looked ahead again and saw that the commander of the Camel Corps had ordered a halt. His men were dismounting and couching their camels to form the classic square. It was done with precision. The camels knelt in an unbroken wall, and behind each crouched the rider, with rifle and bayonet presented across his animal’s back. The white faces, although tinted by the sun, were clean shaven and calm. Penrod felt a breathtaking surge of pride. These men were his comrades, the flowering of the finest army on earth.

He ripped the turban from his head to show them his face, then waved the cloth over his head. “Hold your fire!” he yelled. “British! I am British!” He saw the officer standing behind the first rank of troopers, with drawn sword, step forward and give him long, hard scrutiny. Now he was only a hundred and fifty paces from the square. “I am a British officer!”

The other man made an unmistakable gesture with his sword, and

Penrod heard his order repeated by the sergeants and non-commissioned officers: “Hold your fire! Steady, the guards! Hold your fire.”

Penrod looked back again, and saw that Osman was close behind him. Although his aggagiers were still in confusion, he was charging alone into the face of a British square.

Again Penrod raised the carbine and aimed at Osman’s mare. He knew that this was the one thing that might turn him aside. Now they were no more than three lengths apart, and even from the unstable back of a galloping camel Penrod’s carbine was a deadly menace. Nevertheless, if he had aimed at the man, Osman would not have been daunted by it. But by this time Penrod had learnt enough about him to know that he would not push the mare into the muzzle of the rifle.

Osman reined back, his face furrowed with rage. “I was wrong about you, coward,” he shouted.

Penrod felt his own rage flare. “There will be another time,” he promised.

“I pray God that it is so.” Within sixty yards of the British square Osman turned. He brought the mare down to a trot and rode away to rejoin his aggagiers.

The square opened to let in Penrod, Yakub following. He rode up to the officer and slid to the ground.

“Good morning, Major.” He saluted, and Kenwick stared at him in astonishment.

“Ballantyne, you do turn up in odd places. You might have got yourself shot.”

“Your arrival was at a most appropriate moment.”

“I noticed you were having a spot of bother. What in the name of the Devil are you doing out here in the middle of the blue?”

“I have despatches from General Gordon for General Stewart.”

“Then you are in luck. We are the advance guard. General Stewart is with the main body of the relief column, not more than an hour behind us.” He looked out over the camels and the kneeling men at the front of his square. “But first things first. Who was the Dervish bounder chasing after you?”

“One of their emirs. Fellow called Osman Atalan, head of the Beja tribe.”

“My solemn oath! I’ve heard of him. He’s a nasty piece of work, by all accounts. We had better deal with him.” He strode away towards the front of the square. “Sergeant Major! Shoot that fellow.”

“Sir!” The sergeant major was a burly figure with a magnificent pair of moustaches. He picked out two of the his best marksmen. “Webb and Rogers, shoot that Dervish.”

The two troopers leant across the backs of their couched camels and took aim. “In your own time!” the sergeant major told them.

Penrod found he was holding his breath. He had told Kenwick of Osman’s position and rank to discourage just such an order. He had vaguely hoped that some chivalrous instinct might have dissuaded Kenwick from shooting down an emir. At Waterloo, Wellington would never have ordered his sharpshooters to make Bonaparte their target.

One of the troopers fired but Osman was riding steadily away and the range was already over five hundred yards. The bullet must have passed close for the mare swished her tail as though to drive off a tsetse fly. But Osman Atalan did not deign even to look back. Instead he deliberately slowed his horse to a walk. The second trooper fired and this time they saw dust fly. Again the bullet had missed by very little. Osman continued to walk the mare away. Each marksman fired two more shots at him. By then he was out of range.

“Cease firing, Sergeant Major,” Kenwick snapped. Then, in an aside to Penrod, “Damned fellow has the luck of the fox,” he was smiling thinly, ‘but you have to admire his cool performance.”

“We will almost certainly be treated to other virtuoso performances in the near future,” Penrod agreed.

Kenwick glanced at him, sensing the note of censure in his tone. “A sporting sentiment, Ballantyne. However, I do believe that one should not accord too much respect to the enemy. We must bear in mind that we are here to kill them.”

And vice versa. But Penrod did not say it aloud.

In the distance they watched Osman Atalan join up with his aggagiers and ride away southwards towards Abu Hamed.

“Now,” said Kenwick, “General Stewart will probably be pleased to see you.”

“And vice versa, sir.” This time Penrod voiced the thought.

Kenwick scribbled a note in his despatch book, tore out the page and handed it to him. “If you wander around the countryside dressed like that, it’s likely you’ll be shot as a spy. I shall send young Stapleton back with you. Please inform General Stewart that we’re making good progress and, apart from this Atalan fellow, we have made no other contact with the enemy.”

“Major, please do not be lulled into believing that happy state of affairs will persist much longer. For the last several days I have been riding in company with a vast concourse of the Dervish. All of them are coming this way.”

“How large a force?” Kenwick asked.

“Difficult to say for certain, sir. Too many to count. However, I would estimate somewhere between thirty and fifty thousand.”

Kenwick rubbed his hands with glee. “So, all in all, you might say that we are in for an interesting few days.”

“You might indeed, sir.”

Kenwick called over a young ensign, the lowest rank of commissioned officer. “Stapleton, go back with Captain Ballantyne, and see him through the lines. Don’t get him or yourself shot.”

Percival Stapleton gazed at Penrod with awe. He was not much more than seventeen, fresh-faced and eager as a puppy. The two rode back, with Yakub, along the ancient caravan road. For the first few miles Percy was struck dumb with hero-worship. Captain Ballantyne was a holder of the Victoria Cross, and to have the honour of riding with him was the pinnacle of his sixteen months of military experience. Over the next mile he summoned up his courage and addressed a few respectful remarks and questions to him. He was highly gratified when Penrod responded in a friendly fashion, and Percy became relaxed and chatty. Penrod recognized him as a prime source of information, encouraged him to speak freely, and quickly picked up most of the regimental gossip from him. This was highly coloured by Percy’s pride in the regiment, and his almost delirious anticipation of going into action for the first time.

“Everybody knows that General Stewart is a fine soldier, one of the best in the entire army,” the youngster informed him importantly. “All the men under his command have been drawn from the first-line regiments of guards and fusiliers. I am with the Second Grenadiers.” He sounded as though he could hardly believe his good fortune.

“Is that why General Gordon has been waiting so long in Khartoum for your arrival?” Penrod needled the boy with surgical skill.

Percy bridled. “The delay is not the general’s fault. Every man in the column is as keen as mustard, and spoiling for a fight.” Penrod lifted an eyebrow, and the boy rushed on hotly: “Because of the haste with which the politicians in London forced us to leave Wadi Haifa, we were obliged to wait at Gakdul for the reinforcements to reach us. We were less than a thousand strong and the camels were sick and weak from paucity of fodder. We were in no fit state to meet the enemy.”

“What is the position now?”

“The reinforcements arrived only two days ago from Wadi Haifa. They brought up fodder, fresh camels and the provisions we were lacking. The general ordered the advance at once. Now we have men enough to do the job,” he said, with the sublime confidence of the very young.

“How many is enough?” Penrod asked.

“Almost two thousand.”

“Do you know how many Dervish there are?” Penrod asked, with interest.

“Oh, quite a few, I shouldn’t wonder. But we are British, don’t you see?”

“Of course we are!” Penrod smiled. “There is nothing else to say, is there?”

They topped the next rise and on the stony plain ahead appeared the main body. It was advancing in a compact square formation, with the pack camels in the centre. There appeared to be many more than two thousand. They came on at a good steady rate, and it was clear that they were under firm command.

With young Percy in uniform to smooth the way, the pickets let them into the marching square. A party of mounted staff officers was coming up behind the front rank. Penrod recognized General Stewart. He had seen him at Wadi Haifa, but had not been presented to him. He was a handsome man, stiff-backed and tall in the saddle, exuding an air of confidence and command. Penrod knew the man at his side rather better: he was Major Hardinge, the Camel Corps senior intelligence officer. He pointed at Penrod and spoke a few words to the general. Stewart glanced in Penrod’s direction and nodded.

Hardinge rode over. “Ah, Ballantyne, the traditional bad penny.”

“Penny now worth at least a shilling, sir. I have despatches from General Gordon in Khartoum.”

“Have you, my goodness? That’s a guinea’s worth. Come along. General Stewart will be pleased to see you.” They rode back to join the staff.

General Stewart motioned to Penrod to fall in alongside his own camel. Penrod saluted. “Captain Penrod Ballantyne, 10th Hussars, with despatches from General Gordon in Khartoum.”

“Gordon is still alive?”

“Very much so, sir.”

Stewart was studying him keenly. “Good to have your confirmation. You can hand over the despatches to Hardinge.”

“Sir, General Gordon would not commit anything to paper in case it fell into the hands of the Mahdi. I have only a verbal report.”

“Then you had best give that to me directly. Hardinge can take notes. Go ahead.”

“My first duty, sir, is to inform you of the enemy order of battle, as we are aware of it.”

Stewart listened intently, leaning forward in the saddle. His features were lean and suntanned, his gaze steady and intelligent. He did not interrupt Penrod while he reported the condition of the defenders in Khartoum. Penrod ended the first part of his report succinctly: “General Gordon estimates that he can hold out for another thirty days. However, the food supplies have been reduced to well below survival level. The level of the Nile is falling rapidly, exposing the de fences He asked me to emphasize to you, sir, that every day that passes renders his position more precarious.”

Stewart made no effort to explain the delays he had encountered. He was a man of direct action, not one who made excuses. “I understand,” he said simply. “Go on, please.”

“General Gordon will fly the flags of Egypt and Great Britain from the tower of Mukran Fort, day and night, while the city is still being defended. With a telescope the flags can be seen from as far downstream as the heights of the Shabluka Gorge.”

“I hope shortly to verify that for myself.” Stewart nodded. Although he listened to Penrod with attention, his eyes were constantly busy, watching over the orderly formation of his square as it moved steadily southwards.

“My journey from the city brought me through the midst of the enemy formations. I can give you my own estimate of their dispositions, if you consider that might be of use, General.”

“I am listening.”

“The commander of the Dervish vanguard is the Emir Salida, of the Jaalin tribe. He has probably fifteen thousand warriors under his red banner. The Jaalin are the northernmost tribe of the Sudan. Salida is a man in his late sixties, but he has a formidable reputation. The commander of the centre is the Emir Osman Atalan of the Beja.” Stewart narrowed his eyes at the name. Obviously he had heard it before. “Osman has brought approximately twenty thousand of his own men from the siege of Khartoum. They have Martini-Henry rifles, captured from the Egyptians, and a great store of ammunition. As I am sure you are well aware, sir, the Dervish prefer to get to close quarters and use the sword.”

“Guns?”

“Although they have Nordenfelts, Krupps and plentiful supplies of ammunition in Omdurman, I have seen none being brought north with this wing of their army.”

“I know you’re an old hand at Arab fighting, Ballantyne, where will they meet us, do you suppose?”

“I believe that they will want to deny you the water, sir,” Penrod replied. In the desert everything came down sooner or later to that. “The next water is at the Wells of Abu Klea. It is sparse and brackish,

but they will try to prevent you using it. The approach to the wells is through a rocky defile. I would guess that they will offer battle there, probably as you debouch from the narrow way.”

Hardinge had the map ready. Stewart took it and spread it on the front of his saddle. Penrod pressed close enough to read it with him.

“Point out to me the spot where you think they may attack,” Stewart ordered.

When Penrod did so Stewart studied it for a short while. “I had planned to bivouac tonight on the north side of Tirbi Kebir.” He placed his finger on the spot. “However, in the light of this new information it may be better to force march today, and reach the head of the defile before dark. This will place us in a flexible position in the morning.”

Penrod made no comment. His opinion had not been asked. Stewart rolled the map. “Thank you, Captain. I think you will be most useful with the vanguard under Major Kenwick. Will you ride forward again and place yourself under his command?”

Penrod saluted, and as he rode off Stewart called after him, “Before you join Kenwick, go back and see the quartermaster. Get yourself a decent uniform. From here you look like a bloody Dervish yourself. Somebody is going to take a pot at you.”

In the early-morning light, Osman Atalan and Salida sat at the top of the burnt-out hills of Abu Klea. From this vantage-point they overlooked a deep defile. They were seated on a fine woollen carpet, laid on the edge of the dragon’s back ridge of black basalt rock. An almost identical ridge of the same dark rock faced them across the pass. At its narrowest point it was some four hundred paces across.

The Emir Salida of the Jaalin had known Osman since he was a stripling of seventeen. At that age Osman had ridden into Jaalin territory from the east with his father’s raiding party. They had killed six of Salida’s warriors and driven off sixty-five of his finest camels. Osman had killed his first man on that long-ago raid. The Beja had also abducted twelve Jaalin girls and young women, but these in Salida’s eyes were insignificant against the loss of his camels. In the twelve years since then their blood feud had run red and rank across the desert.

Only since the Divine Mahdi, may he ever triumph over his foes, had called all the tribes of the Sudan to unite in the holy jihad against the infidel had Osman and Salida sat at the same campfire and shared the same pipe. In jihad all personal feuds were suspended. They were united by a common enemy.

A slave girl set the hookah between them. With silver tongs she lifted a live coal from the clay fire pot and placed it carefully on top of the black tobacco packed into the bowl of the pipe. She sucked on the ivory mouthpiece until the smoke was flowing freely. She coughed prettily on the powerful fumes, and passed the mouthpiece to Salida, a mark of respect for his years. The water in the tall glass jar bubbled blue as he drew the smoke through it, held it in his lungs and passed the mouthpiece to Osman. The Mahdi had forbidden the use of tobacco but he was in Omdurman, and Omdurman was far away. They smoked contentedly, discussing their battle plans. When there remained only ash in the pipe bowl, they knelt and prostrated themselves in the ritual of morning prayers.

Then the girl lit another pipe, and at frequent intervals one of their sheikhs came up the ridge to report to them on the enemy movements and the disposition of their own regiments.

“In God’s Name, the squadron of Sheikh Harun is in position,” reported one.

Salida looked at Osman from under hooded, sun-freckled eyelids. “Harun is a fine fighting man. He has two thousand under him. I have placed him in the wadi where the buzzard perched yesterday evening. From there he will be able to rake the enemy rear when they come out on to the plain.”

A short while later another junior sheikh came up the steep slope. “In the Name of God and the Victorious Mahdi, the infidels have sent forward their scouts. A patrol of six soldiers rode through the pass as far as the mouth. They gazed through their long glasses at the palm grove of the wells, then rode back. As you ordered, mighty Emir, we let them go unhindered.”

An hour after sunrise the final report came in, and all the Dervish forces were in the positions allotted to them.

“What of the infidel?” Salida asked, in his rusty high-pitched voice.

“They have not yet broken camp.” The messenger pointed to the head of the long defile. Salida offered his elbow to Osman, and his erstwhile enemy helped the old man to his feet. His joints were lumpy with arthritis, but once in the saddle he could ride and ply the sword like a young warrior. Careful not to show a silhouette against the early-morning sky, Osman led him solicitously to the edge of the cliff and they looked down.

The infidel camp was in full view less than two miles away. The previous evening the soldiers had thrown up a zareba of stones and thorn bush around the perimeter. As always the camp was in the shape of a square. They had placed a Nordenfelt gun at each of the four corners, so it could throw down enfilading fire on the outer walls of the stockade.

“What machines are those?” Salida had never fought the Franks. The Turks he knew well for he had slaughtered them in their hundreds with his own hands. But these big, red-faced men were a different breed. He knew nothing of their ways.

“Those are rifles, which fire very fast. They can lay down fields of dead men, like grass under the scythe, until they grow hot and jam. It is necessary to feed them corpses to stop up their mouths.”

Salida cackled with laughter. “We will feed them well today.” He made a wide gesture, “The feast is ready. We await the honoured guests.”

The hills, valleys and narrow gullies appeared barren and deserted, but in truth they were alive with tens of thousands of men and horses, sitting on their shields, waiting with the patience of the hunter.

“What are the infidels doing now?” Salida asked curiously as his attention went back to the enemy camp.

“They are preparing for our attack.”

“They know that we are here, waiting for them?” al-Salida enquired. “How do they know that?”

“We had a spy in our ranks. A ferenghi officer. A clever, crafty infidel. He speaks our sweet mother tongue, and passes readily as a son of the Prophet. From Berber he rode northwards with our array. Doubtless, he has counted our heads, divined our intentions and gone into the infidel camp.”

“What is his name? How do you know so much about him?”

“His name is Abadan Riji. He gave me the wound at El Obeid that almost carried me to my grave. “He is my blood enemy.”

“Then why have you not killed him?” Salida asked, in a reasonable tone.

“He is slippery as a river eel. Twice he has wriggled through my fingers,” Osman said, ‘but that was yesterday. Today is today, and we shall count the dead at the setting of this sun.”

“The infidel may not offer us battle this day,” Salida demurred.

“Look!” He passed Salida his telescope. The old man held it the wrong way round and peered through the large lens. Though he could see nothing but a vacant blue sky, he looked wise. Osman knew that he understood little of these infidel toys, so to spare him embarrassment he described the scene in the British camp for him.

“See how the quartermasters are passing down the ranks handing out extra ammunition.”

“By God, you are right,” Salida said, and the telescope wavered several degrees in the wrong direction.

“See how they are bringing in the Nordenfelts.”

“In the saintly name of the Mahdi, you are right.” Salida bumped his eyebrow on the brass frame of the telescope, and lowered it to rub the spot.

“See how the infidel mounts up, and you can hear the bugles sound the advance.”

Salida looked up and, without the hindrance of the lens, saw the enemy clearly for the first time, “By the holy name of the Mahdi, you are right!” said he. “Here he comes in full array.”

They watched the British break camp and ride out. Their orderly ranks immediately assumed the dreaded square formation. They moved deliberately into the mouth of the defile, and no gaps appeared in their lines. Their discipline and precision were chilling, even to men of Osman’s and Salida’s temperament.

“For them there is no turning back. They must win through to the water or perish as other armies have done, swallowed by the desert.”

“I will not leave them for the desert,” declared Salida. “We will destroy them with the sword.” He turned to Osman. “Embrace me, my beloved enemy,” he said softly, ‘for I am old and tired. Today seems a good day to die.”

Osman hugged him and kissed his withered cheeks. “When you die, may it be with your sword in your hand.” They parted and moved down the back slope of the ridge to where the lance-bearers held their horses.

Penrod looked up at the stark black cliffs that rose on each side of them. They were barren as ash heaps from the pit of hell. As they moved into the gut of the defile the cliffs compressed and deformed their formations. But no gaps appeared in the sides of the square. Carefully Penrod scanned the cliffs. There was no sign of life, but he knew this was an illusion. He glanced across at Yakub. “Osman Atalan is here,” he said.

“Yes, Abadan Riji.” Yakub smiled and his right eye rolled out of kilter. “He is here. There is the sweet perfume of death in the air.” He drew a deep breath. “I love it even more than the smell of fresh quimmy.”

“Only you, lascivious and bloodthirsty Yakub, could combine love and battle in the same thought.”

“But, Effendi, they are one and the same.”

They moved on down the narrow defile. Fear and excitement coursed like intoxicating wine through Penrod’s veins. He looked around at the bluff, honest faces that surrounded him and was proud to ride in their company. The quiet orders and responses were given in the familiar accents of home, so diverse that they might have been different languages: the sounds of the Scottish Highlands and the West Country, of Wales and the Emerald Isle, of York and Kent, of the Geordies, the Cockney, and the elegant drawl of Eton and Harrow.

“They will be waiting for us on the far side of this pass,” Yakub said. “Osman and Salida will want to work their cavalry in the open ground.”

“Salida is the emir of your tribe so you understand his mind well,” said Penrod.

“He was my emir, and I rode in his raiding parties with him and ate at his fire. Until the day his eldest son ravished my little sister and I took the dagger to them both, for it was she who enticed him. Now there is blood between me and Salida. If he does not kill me first, one day I will kill him.”

“Ah, patient and vengeful Yakub, this may be that day.”

They rode on through the narrow neck of the pass and the sides opened like the jaws of a monster on each side of them. Still there was no sign of life on the dead, seared hills, not a bird or a gazelle. The bugle sounded the halt, and the distorted square came to a jerky stop.

The sergeants rode down the ranks to redress them. “Close up on the right!”

“Keep your spacing in the ranks.”

“Wheel into line on the left.”

Within minutes the integrity of the square was restored. The corners were at meticulous right angles and the spacings were precise. The lines of bayonets glittered in the relentless sunlight, and the faces of the waiting men were ruddy with sweat, but not one unhooked a water-bottle from his webbing. In this thirsty wilderness, to drink without orders was a court-martial offence. From the back of his camel Penrod surveyed the ground ahead. Beyond the funnel of hills it opened into a broad, level plain. The earth was carpeted with white quartz pebbles and studded with low, sun-blackened salt scrub. At the far end of this bleak expanse stood a tiny clump of palm trees that seemed to have fossilized with age.

Good cavalry country, Penrod thought, and turned his full attention back to the trap of hills on either hand. Still they were devoid of all life, yet seemed charged with menace. They quivered in the heat mirage like hunting hounds brought up short by the scent of the quarry, waiting only the slip to send them away in full tongue.

The cliffs were riven by gullies and wadi mouths, by rocky salients and deep re-entrants. Some were choked with rock and scree, others coated with sand like the floor of a bullring. Yakub giggled softly and indicated the nearest of these with the point of his camel goad. There was no need for him to speak. The tracks of a thousand horses dimpled the surface of the sand. They were so fresh that the edge of each hoof print was crisply defined and the low angle of the sun defined it with bold blue shadow.

Penrod raised his eyes to the serrated tops of the hills. They were sharp as the fangs of an ancient crocodile against the eggshell blue sky. Then something moved among the rocks and Penrod’s eye pounced upon it. It was a tiny speck and the movement was no more striking than that of a flea crawling in the belly fur of a black cat.

He brought his small telescope out of the leather saddlebag and focused on it, then saw the head of a single man peering down on them. He wore a black turban and his beard was black, blending well with the rock around him. It was too far to recognize his features but the man turned his head, perhaps to give an order to those behind him. Another head appeared beside his, and then another, until the skyline was lined with human heads like beads on a string.

Penrod lowered the glass and opened his mouth to shout a warning, but at that moment the air throbbed with the gut-jarring beat of the Dervish war drums. The echoes rebounded off the facing cliffs, and now the host of the Mahdi appeared, with miraculous suddenness, upon all the ledges, galleries and crests of the pass. The central figure stood clear upon the utmost pinnacle. His jibba sparkled white in the sun, and his turban was dark emerald green. He lifted his rifle with one hand and pointed it at the sky. The grey gunsmoke spurted high into the air like the breath of a breaching sperm whale, and the sound of the gunshot followed seconds later. A mighty shout went up from the serried Dervish ranks: “La il aha ill allah There is but one God!”

The echoes shouted back: “God! God! God!”

The bugle in the centre of the British square sang on a wild, urgent note, and the troops reacted with smooth, practised precision. Down went the camels, kneeling in orderly lines, forming at once the outer ramparts of this living fortress. The baggage animals and their handlers moved back and couched in a dense mass in the centre. They were the inner keep. Swiftly the gunners unloaded the Nordenfelt machine-guns from the pack-camels and staggered with them to the four corners, from where they could lay down enfilading fire along the front of each wall of the square. General Stewart and his staff stood in a group just within the front wall. The runners knelt close at hand, ready to race to any corner of the square with the general’s orders.

A deadly silence fell upon this assembly of warriors. The Dervish ranks stared down upon them, and time seemed frozen. Then a single

Dervish horseman rode out from the stony mouth of the main wadi. At extreme rifle range, he stopped, facing the square. He raised the curved ivory war clarion, the ombeya, and its clear, deep voice resounded along the cliff.

From the mouth of every wadi and combe poured the Dervish host, rank upon rank, thousand upon thousand, camels and horses. They kept coming, wheeling into loose squadrons, facing the little square. Few man were dressed or armed in the same way: lance and spear, axe and round leather targe, rifle, jezail and the dreadful broadsword were poised. The drums started again, a slow rhythmic beat and the Dervish ranks started forward.

“Wait for ‘em, lads.” The sergeants strolled down behind the front wall of the square.

“Hold your fire, boys.”

“No hurry. There’s enough for everybody.” The voices were calm, almost jocular.

The drums beat faster and the Dervish lines broke into a trot, the Ansar in the front beginning to jostle each other to be first into the square. Faster still, and the dense, savage masses seemed to fill the valley floor. Drums crescendoed and hoofs thundered. The dust rose in a choking miasma. The war cries were shrill.

“Steady, boys, steady!” Calm English voices, responding to the pagan shrieks.

“Hold your fire, chaps!” Penrod recognized Percy Stapleton’s clear, boyish voice as he called to his platoon. He was having great difficulty restraining his eagerness. “Steady, the Blues!”

The scamp thinks it’s the Boat race. Penrod smiled to himself. The drums pounded feverishly, and the ombeyas squealed and sobbed. Like the flood from a burst dam, the Dervish cavalry came straight at the British square.

“Get ready! Rolling volleys, lads,” called the sergeants.

“By the book now, my boys. Remember your drills.”

“Rolling volleys! Make each shot tell.”

Penrod was watching a sheikh on a rangy ginger camel. He had forced his way well ahead of the front rank of the charge. His mouth was wide open as he screamed, and there was a black gap in the line of his front teeth. He was a hundred yards from the face of the square, then seventy, then fifty, and coming on at a wild gallop.

The bugle rang out sweet and high.

“Rolling volleys. Front rank, fire!”

There was that brief pause, characteristic of highly trained troops, as each man steadied his aim. Penrod picked out the gap-toothed sheikh.

The volley crashed out, astonishing the ear. The front rank of the charge shuddered to the shock. Penrod’s man took the heavy bullet squarely in the chest, and flipped backwards from his high saddle. His camel slewed round and crashed into the two horses coming up behind it, bringing one down heavily.

“Second rank, rolling volleys. Fire.” Again the rifles crashed out. The bullets struck flesh with the sound of wet clay slung against a brick wall. The Dervish charge wavered, and lost impetus.

“Third rank, rolling volleys,” sang out the sergeants. “Fire!” The bullets churned the Dervish into confusion. Riderless animals milled and shied. Bearded warriors swore and struggled to break clear. Corpses and wounded men were trampled and kicked beneath the hoofs. At that moment the Nordenfelts added their spiteful chatter to the uproar. Their fire hosed down the line. Like a barracuda driving through a shoal of pilchards, it split them into small, isolated groups.

“Front rank, rolling volleys. Fire!” The orders were repeated. The troopers reloaded, aimed and fired, with the oiled precision of rows of bobbins on a carding machine. The charge stalled, broke, and the survivors streamed towards the cliffs. But before they reached them the drums called to them and the ombeyas sang: “Go back! For Allah and the Mahdi, go back into the battle!”

Fresh squadrons streamed out from the rocks to swell their depleted ranks. They massed, shouted to God, and came again, tearing across the trampled field where so many of their comrades already lay. Charging in to break the British square.

But a British square does not break. The sergeants called the timing of those regular rolling volleys. The barrels or the Nordenfelt machine-guns began to glow like horseshoes in the blacksmith’s forge.

Osman Atalan had told Salida, “It is necessary to feed them corpses to stop up their mouths.”

The Nordenfelts gorged on human flesh, choked on it and one after another jammed. As their staccato chatter ceased so the Dervish cavalry pressed closer, right on to the thicket of bright bayonets. Still the volleys crashed into them. They struggled forward and were chopped down, until even their courage and resolve were exhausted. At last they shrank away and rode back to the cliffs.

Salida looked down on the unbroken square from the heights. “These are not men,” he said, ‘they are jinn. How does a man kill a devil?”

“With courage and the sword,” replied Rufaar, his eldest surviving son. Two other sons older than him had been killed in raids and tribal warfare, and one had died in a feud over a woman. That death was still to be avenged.

Rufaar was thirty-three, a child of the warrior blood. With his own sword he had killed fifty men and more. He was as his father had been at the same age: his ferocity was unquenchable. Three of his younger brothers stood behind him. They were of the same brood, and in their veins also Salida’s blood ran true.

“Let me lead the next charge, revered father,” Rufaar pleaded. “Let me shatter these pig-eaters. Let me cauterize this festering sore in the heart of Islam.”

Salida looked upon him, and he was pleasing to a father’s eye. “Nay!” He shook his head. The single word of denial cut deeper than any enemy blade ever had. Rufaar winced with the pain of it. He went down on one knee and kissed his father’s dusty foot. “I ask no other boon but this. Let me lead the charge.”

“Nay!” Salida denied him a second time, and Rufaar’s expression darkened. “I will not let you lead, but you may ride at my right hand.” Rufaar’s face cleared. He jumped to his feet and embraced his sire.

“What of us?” His other three sons joined the chorus. “What of us, beloved father?”

“You puppies may ride behind us.” Salida glowered at them to hide his affection. “Perchance Rufaar and I may throw you some scraps from the feast. Now fetch my camel.”

tret cher-bearer!” The call came from a half-dozen points around the outer wall of the square, where troopers had been hit by random Dervish fire. Quickly the wounded were carried into the centre and the gaps were closed. The doctors operated amid the dust and flies, sleeves rolled to the elbow, blood clotting swiftly in the heat.

The wounded who could still stand came back in their bandages to take their places in the square once more.

“Water-boys!” The shout went around the little square. The boys scurried about with the skins and spilled water into the empty felt-covered bottles.

“Ammunition here!” The quartermasters moved along the sides of the square, doling out the cardboard packets.

The gunners struggled to clear the blockages of the machine-guns. They splashed precious water over the barrels to cool them. It boiled off in clouds of hissing steam, and the metal crackled and pinged. But the actions were locked solidly, and though they hammered and heaved they would not budge.

Suddenly in the midst of all this frantic activity the bugle rang out again. “Stand to!” shouted the sergeants.

“They are coming back.” The Dervish cavalry rode out from the fastness of the hills. Like a great wave building up beyond the surf, they lined up again along the foot of the hills, facing the square.

“There is your enemy.” Penrod murmured to Yakub. The red banner waved in the centre of the line, carried by two Dervish striplings.

“Yes.” Yakub nodded. “That is Salida in the blue turban. The mangy jackal beside him is his son, Rufaar. I must kill him also. Those are some of his other brats carrying his flag. There will be no honour in killing them, no more than popping fleas between the fingernails, but it must be done.”

“Then we still have much work to do.” Penrod smiled as he broke open another paper box of cartridges and filled the loops of his bandolier.

“Salida is a clever old jackal,” Yakub murmured. “By the sweet breath of the Prophet, he learns quickly. He saw how we broke their first charges. Look! He has hardened his centre.”

Penrod saw what he meant. Salida had changed his formation. His line was not evenly distributed. The flanks were only two ranks deep, but in his centre Salida had formed a hammer, a solid knot of six closely packed ranks.

On the other side of the square General Sir Herbert Stewart studied the emir through the lens. “He appears very old and frail.”

“He is old, but not frail, sir.” Hardinge assured him. “With only fifty men, he led the charge that broke up Valentine Baker’s Egyptians at Suakin. That was less than two years ago. The old dog still has teeth.” “Then we shall have to draw them for him,” Stewart murmured. “Here he comes, sir.” “Here he comes indeed,” Stewart agreed.

The Dervish ranks rolled forward, the horses trotting and the camels pacing steadily, the men upon their backs brandishing their weapons and chanting their war cries. The dust storm trailed behind them. They crossed the half-way line, and broke into a canter. The lines bunched up like a clenching fist. Ahead the ground was littered with their own dead. They lay thickly as cherry blossom beneath the windblown trees of an orchard. Their harlequin jib has bore fresher, darker stains than the decorative patches, and the blue flies rose in a cloud as the thunder of the charge shook the earth. The hoofs of the front rank trampled the corpses, scattering the bloody heaps into fresh confusion, and they came on without check.

In the centre Salida leant forward in the saddle of his grey camel. His rifle was still in its boot beneath his knee, but he handled the heavy broadsword as lightly as if it were a toy. He shouted no war cry, reserving his scant breath for the main business. His expression was ecstatic; the rheum from his bloodshot eyes ran down his cheeks into his silver-grey beard. He was an obvious target for the rifles that lay ahead. The first volley crashed into them, and men and animals were shot down. But Salida and his sons rode on untouched. Men pushed forward from the rear ranks to fill the gaps, and they were just in time to receive the next volley, and the next. But Salida rode on.

On the left flank a Nordenfelt machine-gun opened up, slicing through the front of the Dervish charge with bullets. Then, almost immediately, it jammed again -and fell silent. But the Martini-Henrys crashed out in unison, keeping their terrible unhurried beat. Camels bellowed as they were hit and went down. Horses plunged, reared and fell backwards, crushing their riders. But in Salida’s centre new men rode forward, keeping up the impetus of the charge. Salida reached the point twenty feet in front of the wall of the square where each of the previous charges had failed and floundered. Rufaar’s knee touched his own, his other sons backed him almost as closely. Although three ranks of the Dervish centre had been shot away, brave men still poured forward to give the hammer weight as it swung towards the frail wall of the square.

“This time we will break these dogs.” Rufaar laughed.

But the British line never breaks. Now it gave a little, as a blade of Damascus steel will bend, but it did not shatter. A wave striking the solid coral reef, they washed over the front rank. Khaki-clad figures fell under the swinging blades, and the Dervish fired down into them from the backs of the camels. But gradually Salida’s hammer lost its momentum. It slowed and stalled and at last spent its weight and fury against the second rank of the little square. The big men in sweat-soaked khaki tunics held them, then hurled them back.

The Dervish cavalry turned and streamed away towards the cliffs.

Salida was reeling on the saddle. A bayonet thrust had gone in deep above his hip bone. He might have fallen, but Rufaar reached across and, with one arm around his shoulders, steadied him and led him back to the shelter of the wadi. “You are sore wounded, Father.” He tried to lift him to earth.

“The battle has only just begun.” Salida struck away his son’s hands. “Help me bind up this little cut, then we will ride back and finish the task that God and the Mahdi have set us.”

With his own long blue turban they bound up the old man’s wound, so tightly that the flow of blood was stopped; and the bandages stiffened his back so that he could sit tall in the saddle once again.

“Start the drums,” said Salida. “Sound the ombeya. We are going back.”

Osman Atalan rode up on Sweet Water, Hulu Mayya. His Beja division had been waiting in reserve, ready to ride in and exploit when Salida and his Jaalin forced the breach. “Revered and warlike Emir, you have done more than any man before you. Now let me take in my Beja to finish the work you have begun so well.”

“I will force the opening,” Salida told him firmly. “You can follow after me, as we agreed.”

Osman looked into that haughty face, and saw that there was no merit in argument. If they delayed here another minute the day was lost. The British wall had almost broken. If they struck again in the same place before it could recover, perhaps they could carry it away.

“Ride then, noble Emir. I will follow close behind you.”

The entire Dervish army, two full divisions, poured out from the hills and advanced upon the little cluster of men on the open plain. In the van rode the emaciated figure in a bloody jibba, bareheaded, his grey hair covering his shoulders. His eyes glittered feverishly, like those of a saint or a madman.

Gentlemen,” Stewart addressed his staff, ‘we will move our station across to meet these fine fellows. I had not expected them to pound away at our rear wall like this. However, it seems that they are coming back for more of the same.”

They moved off in a group, just as Hardinge rode up to report. “The Dervish did some damage with that last charge, sir. We suffered fifty-five casualties all told. Three officers killed Elliot, Cartwright and Johnson. Another two were wounded.” “Ammunition?”

“Still in good supply, but all four of the Nordenfelts are out of action.” “Damned rubbish. I asked for Gatlings. What about the water?” “Running low, sir. We must reach the wells before nightfall.” “That is my intention.” Stewart pointed at the massed Dervish cavalry, drawn up along the foot of the hills. “It looks as though they are about to attack with everything they have. A last desperate throw of the dice. I want you to pass the order to the three other walls to have the quarter columns standing in reserve. Just in case these fellows get inside.” “Oh, they’ll never get in, sir.”

“Of course they won’t, but see to the quarter columns nevertheless.” During the battle the Dervish had hammered away at the northern wall of the square. The men in the other three walls had received only the very first charge. Since then they had taken little part. They were restless and frustrated. Now, ia the face of this new threat, the sergeants strode down the ranks detailing the quarter columns. If the enemy broke one wall, the square must not be allowed to collapse in upon itself. The other three walls must stand firm, while every fourth man, the quarter columns, rushed to stop the gap and shore up the broken wall. Before they were ready the war drums began their frenetic rhythm, and the ombeyas brayed and blared. The Dervish cavalry rolled forward yet again.

With no troops under his direct command Penrod had time enough to squint up at the height of the sun through slitted lids. It’s after noon, he thought, amazed. We have been in play for three hours and more.

Beside him Yakub was fretting: “If Salida does not come to me, someone else will kill him first.”

“That will never do, gentle Yakub.” Penrod lifted his helmet, swabbed his brow with his kerchief and settled the helmet again at a rakish angle. Then he looked ahead as the rumble of hoofs and the babble of

Arab voices swelled into the deafening overture of battle. They swept up to the threshold of the square.

“First rank, rolling volleys. Fire.” The sergeants began their chant and at regular intervals the massed gunfire thundered out. The ranks of cavalry shuddered and shook as the volleys raked them, and their advance slowed under the dreadful punishment, but they came on and on, struggling over the last few yards until they struck the wall for the second time. Like raging bulls the two sides locked horns, swayed and pushed, thrust and hacked.

The British gave a little, then heaved themselves back. The white soldiers were adept with the bayonet. These weapons were longer reaching and quicker to recover than the swinging broadswords. For the second time that day Salida’s division began to crumple. The soldiers plied the bayonets at close quarters, and some went down under the heavy crusader blades, but the rest tightened their grip and the Dervish gave ground more rapidly.

Then Osman Atalan rode in at the head of his fresh reserves. He came up behind Salida, and threw his full weight into the balance. His Beja were an avalanche and nothing could stand before them.

“They are in!” Along the British ranks a terrible shout went up. The unthinkable had happened. A British square had broken. The Dervish poured in exultantly. They drove back the khaki line and chaos descended on the dense maul and ruck of struggling men. Isolated British soldiers dropped and died under the Dervish blades, and were trampled beneath the hoofs.

“There is but one God!” the aggagiers shouted, as they killed and killed again.

The troopers of the shattered north wall were swiftly broken up into tiny groups of three and four men under the weight of Osman Atalan’s aggagiers. As they were pushed back, Penrod ran forward to meet them, and gathered some of the strays to his own command. “Form on me, lads. Back to back, shoulder to shoulder,” he shouted.

They recognized his authority and presence, and fought their way to him. As they came together they hardened into a cohesive whole, a prickly hedgehog of bayonets in the fluid fury of the fight.

Other officers were rallying the scattered troopers. Hardinge had gathered up a dozen, and the two bands melded. They were no longer a pair of tiny hedgehogs, but a fierce porcupine rattling steel quills.

An Arab on a tall black camel smashed into them, and before they could cut him down, he had lanced Hardinge through the belly. Hardinge dropped his sword and seized the lance shaft in both hands.

The Arab still had hold of the butt. With a single heave Hardinge plucked him off his saddle. They fell in a tangle together. Penrod snatched up the sword Hardinge had dropped and rammed the point between the Dervish’s shoulder-blades. Hardinge tried to rise, but the lance tip was deep in his guts. He tried to pull it out, but the barb held. He sank down again, bowed his head and closed his eyes, clutching the shaft with both hands.

Penrod stood over him to protect him and his troopers closed the gaps on either hand. It was good to have a fine sabre in his hand again. The blade had wonderful balance and temper: it came to life in Penrod’s hand. Another Dervish rushed at him, swinging overhand with the broadsword. Penrod caught the heavy blade high in the natural line, and deflected it past his shoulder. It sliced open Penrod’s sleeve but did not break the skin beneath. Before the Dervish could recover Penrod killed him with a thrust through the throat. He had a moment to glance round: his little group was standing firm. Their bayonet blades were dulled, and their arms black with clotted Arab blood. “Forward, lads,” Penrod called to them. “Close the breach!”

“Come on, boys. Let’s see these fellows off!” a familiar voice piped at Penrod’s elbow. Percy Stapleton was beside him. He had lost his helmet and his curly hair was dark with dust and sweat, but he was grinning like a demented ape as he cut and thrust at another Dervish then hit him cleanly in the chest. Penrod saw at once that Percy was a practised natural swordsman. When a Dervish swung low at his knees, Percy jumped lightly over the blade and cut the Arab across the side of the neck, half severing it. The man dropped his broadsword and tried to grab at his throat with both hsthds. Percy killed him with a quick thrust.

“Well done, sir.” Penrod was mildly impressed.

“You are too kind, sir.” Percy flicked his hair out of his eyes, and they both looked round for another opponent.

But, quite suddenly, the Dervish charge ran out of momentum. It slowed and hesitated, heaved forward again, then ran up against the mass of couched camels of the British baggage train, and stopped dead. The two opposing sides clinched and leant against each other like exhausted boxers in the tenth round, too weary to throw another punch.

“Quarter columns, forward!” General Stewart took command of his reserves at this crucial moment when all hung in such fine balance. They wheeled in behind him. Sword in hand, he stalked ahead on long legs like a marabou stork. He led them round the bulwark of kneeling baggage camels and they took the stranded Dervish in their left flank. The scattered and exhausted bands of British troopers saw them coming,

took new heart and hurled themselves back into the fray. The ruptured square began to contract, and repair the tear in its outer fabric.

Osman Atalan, with the sure instinct of the warrior, recognized the moment when the battle was lost. He turned his mare back, then he and his aggagiers fought themselves clear before the jaws of the trap could close on them. They galloped away to the safety of the hills and left Salida and his sons enmeshed in the British square.

Salida was still sitting high on his camel. But the wound above his hip had burst open again and blood was streaming down his legs. His face was yellow as the mud of a sulphur spring and the sword had fallen from his trembling hand. Rufaar sat up behind him and, with an arm round his waist, held him upright, despite the camel’s terrified plunges. Salida was dazed by the lethargy of his wounds, and the shock of watching his younger sons die under the British bayonets He looked for them in childlike bewilderment, but their broken bodies were lost under the trampling hoofs.

Yakub saw an opening in the Dervish ranks as they turned to meet Stewart’s reserves. “I have private affairs to attend to, Effendi,” he called to Penrod, but Penrod and Percy Stapleton had found three more maddened Dervish to deal with and did not notice as he slipped away.

As Yakub ran up behind Salida’s camel he scooped up a broadsword from the hand of a dead Arab. The animal was kicking and plunging, but Yakub dodged the flying hoofs, which might have delivered a killing blow. With a powerful double-handed swipe he cut through the tendons in one of the beast’s hind legs. It bellowed and lurched forward on three legs, but he ran after it and hacked through the other hamstring. The camel collapsed on to its hindquarters. Salida and Rufaar were hurled violently from its back. Rufaar kept hold of his father and tried to break his fall as they struck the ground at Yakub’s feet.

Rufaar looked up and recognized him. “Yakub bin Affar!” he said, and the bitter hatred of the blood feud roughened his voice. But he was holding his father with both hands and unable to defend himself.

“Mine enemy!” Yakub acknowledged, and killed him. He left the broadsword buried to the hilt in his chest, and drew his dagger. He caught a handful of Salida’s silver beard and pulled his head back, exposing his throat. He did not hack at the windpipe, but drew the razor edge of the dagger across the side of the watt led throat. It sliced through the carotid artery under Salida’s ear, and Yakub made no effort to avoid the jet of bright blood that spurted over his hands and arms.

“She is avenged,” he whispered as he daubed the blood on his forehead. He would not utter his sister’s name for she had been a whore, and many good men had died because of her. He let go of Salida’s beard and let his face flop into the dust. He left him lying beside his son and ran back to Penrod’s side.

The breach in the British square closed on the Dervish like the mouth of sea anemone on a small fish that had swum into its tentacles. The Dervish asked no quarter. Martyrdom was the way to eternal life, and they welcomed it. Stewart’s men knew that they would not surrender. Like a poisonous serpent with a broken back, they would strike at any hand extended to them, no matter how compassionately.

Relentlessly the soldiers plied the bayonet and the sword, but it was dangerous, bloody work, for each Dervish had to be surrounded and cut down. While there was life in them they fought on. The slaughter went on through the afternoon, raging at first, then gradually subsiding.

Even when it seemed to be over, it was not. Among the mounds of corpses individual Ansar were feigning death, poised to leap on any unwary victim. They lost a half-dozen more men to these furtive assassins before General Stewart ordered the advance. They gathered up their own casualties, and there were many. They took with them ninety-four wounded and seventy-four British corpses, wrapped in their own blankets, as they marched away towards the palm grove at the limit of the plain that marked the Wells of Abu Klea.

Among the palms they threw up a zareba, and buried their dead, laying them gently in rows in the shallow communal grave dug hastily in the sandy earth. It was evening before Penrod could go to find Hardinge in the hospital bivouac. “I have come to return your sword, sir.” He proffered the beautiful weapon.

“Thank you, Ballantyne,” Hardinge whispered weakly. “It was a gift from my wife.” His face was as pale as candle wax They had moved his stretcher close to the fire, because he had complained of the cold. He reached out painfully and touched the blade, as if in farewell. “However, I doubt I shall have much further use for it. Keep it for me, and use it as you did today.”

“I will not accept that, sir. You will march with us into Khartoum,” Penrod assured him, but Hardinge sagged back on to the stretcher.

“I think not,” he murmured. He was right: he was dead before daybreak.

The rest of the men were too exhausted to move on. Although he was haunted by thoughts of the great and lonely man waiting for them in Khartoum, Stewart could not drive them on in their present state. He gave them that night and most of the next morning to recover. They rested until noon in the scanty shade of the palm grove around the wells. The water was filthy, almost as salty as seawater. They boiled it with black tea and the last of the sugar.

In the enervating heat of midday Stewart dared delay no longer. He gave the order to continue the march. They loaded the seriously wounded on to the camels, and when the bugler sounded the advance they toiled away across the burning land. They marched on through the rest of that day, then on again through the night. They had covered twenty-three miles before sunrise, and then they stopped. They could go no further. They were utterly exhausted. There remained only a few cupfuls of water for each man. The camels were all played out: even though they could smell the river ahead, they could not go on. The wounded were in desperate straits. Stewart knew he would lose most of them unless he could bring them to the water. He sent a runner to summon Penrod. “Ballantyne, I have need of your local knowledge again. How far is it to the river?”

“We are very close, sir, about four miles. You will be able to see it from the next ridge.”

“Four miles,” Stewart mused. He looked back over the exhausted British formation. Four miles might as well have been a hundred for all the hope he had of getting them there. He was about to speak again, but Penrod interrupted him.

“Look ahead, sir.”

Upon the ridge of higher ground that lay between them and the river a small band of fifty or so Dervish had appeared. All the officers reached for their telescopes. Through the lens Penrod at once recognized the banner of Osman Atalan. Then in the centre of the band he picked out his tall lean figure on the back of the cream-coloured mare.

“Not too many of them,” said Sir Charles Wilson, Stewart’s secondin-command, but his tone was dubious. “We should be able to brush them aside without too much trouble. I don’t think they will have the temerity to come at us again, not after the lesson we gave them at the wells.”

Penrod was about to contradict him. He wanted to point out that Atalan was a clever tactician: he had pulled his men out of the lost battle at Abu Klea before they were utterly destroyed. During the previous day and night, his scouts must have shadowed the battered British square, waiting for this moment when they had used up all their strength and endurance and their camels were finished. With an effort Penrod bit back the words.

“You wanted to say something, Ballantyne?” Stewart had not lowered his telescope but he had been aware of Penrod’s reaction.

“That is Osman Atalan himself on the cream horse. I think there are more than just that one troop. He got off comparatively lightly at Abu Klea. His divisions are almost intact.”

“You are probably right,” Stewart agreed.

“There is dust on the right,” Penrod pointed out. All the telescopes turned in that direction, and another group of several hundred more Dervish cavalry appeared upon the ridge. Then there was more dust further to the left. Swiftly the numbers of the enemy swelled from fifty to thousands. Their sullen squadrons stood squarely across the road to the Nile.

Stewart lowered his telescope and snapped it shut. He looked directly at Sir Charles Wilson. “I propose to laager the baggage and the wounded here in a zareba, and leave five hundred able-bodied men to protect them. Then with a flying column of eight or nine hundred of the fittest men we shall make a run for the river.”

“The camels are done in, sir,” Wilson cut in quickly. “They will never make it.”

“I am aware of that,” said Stewart, crisply. Privately he had come to think of his secondin-command as a man who could smell the dung in a bed of roses. “We will leave the camels here with the wounded and proceed on foot.” He ignored the shocked expressions of his staff and looked at Penrod, “How long would it take you lead us to the river, Ballantyne?”

“Without the wounded and the baggage I can have you there in two hours, sir,” Penrod answered, with all the confidence he did not feel.

“Very well. The company commanders will select their strongest and fittest men. We will march in forty minutes’ time, at fifteen hundred hours precisely.”

What kind of men are these?” al-Noor asked with wonder, as they sat on their horses and watched the depleted British square form up and march out of the zareba. “They have no animals and no water and still they come on. In God’s Holy Name, what kind of men are they?”

“They are descendants of the men who fought our ancestor Saladin, Righteous of the Faith, eight hundred years ago before Jerusalem,” Osman Atalan replied, “They are men of the Red Cross, like the crusaders of old. But they are only men. Look upon them now and remember the battle of Hattin.”

“We must always remember Hattin,” agreed his aggagiers. “At Hattin Saladin trapped an exhausted, thirst-crazed army of these men and destroyed it at a single blow. So great were the losses he inflicted upon the infidel that he tore from their bloody hands the entire kingdom of Jerusalem, which they had stolen from the faithful and held for eighty-eight years.” Osman Atalan rose in his stirrups and pointed the blade of his broadsword at the band of marching men, so tiny and insignificant on the stony grey plain. “This is our field of Hattin. Before the setting of the sun we will destroy this army. Not one will reach the river alive. For the glory of Allah and his Mahdi!”

His aggagiers drew their swords. “The victory belongs to God and his Mahdi,” they cried.

As the slow-moving British square climbed the gentle slope towards them the Dervish disappeared behind the ridge. The British toiled on. Every few hundred yards they halted to preserve the order of the wavering ranks and bring in their stragglers. They could not leave them for the Dervish and the castrating knife. Then they started again. In one of the pauses Stewart sent for Penrod. “What lies beyond the ridge? Describe the ground ahead,” he ordered.

“From the ridge we should overlook the town of Metemma on the near bank,” Penrod assured him. “There is an intervening strip of heavy scrub and dunes about half a mile wide, then the steep bank of the Nile.”

“Please, God, from the ridge let us also see Gordon’s steamers moored against the bank and waiting to take us up to Khartoum.” As Stewart said it the ridge ahead was transformed. The entire length was sown with bright white puffs of powder gunsmoke, like a cotton field with ripe pods bursting open in the hot sunlight. The Boxer-Henry bullets began to whip around them, ploughing up the red earth and whining off the white quartz rocks.

“Should we not return their fire, sir?” Wilson asked. “Clear that ridge before we move on?”

“No time for that. We must keep stepping out,” Stewart snapped. “Pass the word for my piper.”

General Sir Herbert Stewart’s personal piper, like his master, was a Highlander. His tartan was the hunting Stewart and he wore his glengarry at a jaunty angle, the ribbons dangling down his back.

“Give us a good marching tune,” Stewart ordered.

“The Road to the Isles”, sir?”

“You know my favourites, don’t you, young Patrick Duffy?”

The piper marched twenty paces ahead of the front wall of the square, his kilt swinging and his pipes skirling the wild, outlandish music that inflames the warlike passions of all men who hear it. The bullets still whipped around them. Every few minutes a man was hit and went down. His comrades lifted him and carried him forward. The Dervish snipers retreated before the resolute advance until at last the ridge was silent and deserted. The square marched on towards it.

Suddenly the drums hidden behind the ridge began a deep bass beat that made the air tremble. Then the ground seemed to tremble in sympathy. To the rumbling thunder of hoofs, the Beja cavalry swept over the skyline ahead.

The square halted and tightened its formation, and the horde of horsemen rode into the first blast of gunfire and reeled back. The second and third volleys decimated them and they turned and galloped away.

The soldiers picked up their wounded comrades and started forward again. The next Beja charge thundered over the skyline. The drums thudded and ombeyas shrieked. The British laid down their wounded and dead, and formed up in the impenetrable walls. The charge broke against them and, like a retreating wave, fell back. The weary march resumed. They passed over the fallen Dervish, and to forestall the treacherous suicidal attack of the warriors feigning death, they bayoneted the living and dead bodies as they stepped over them.

At last, the front rank came out on the skyline. A hoarse cheer issued from their parched throats and they grinned with cracked, bleeding lips. Before them lay the broad sweep of the Nile. The surface of the river splintered the sunlight into myriad bright reflections like spinning silver coins. There, against the far bank, lay the pretty little steamers of Gordon’s flotilla, waiting to take them upriver to Khartoum.

Some of the men sank to their knees, but their comrades hauled them to their feet and held them erect. Penrod heard a youngster croak, “Water! Sweet God, water!” But his voice was gagged by his swollen purple tongue.

The corporal who supported him answered, “The bottles are dry, but there is all the water you can drink down there. Brace up, lad! We’re going down to fetch it. Ain’t no blackamoor going to stop us either.”

“No stopping, lads,” the sergeant major called to them. “Not until you wash off the stink of your sweat in yon wee stream.”

Those who were still able to laughed, and with a new lift in their weary stride they started down towards the Nile. Ahead stood an undulating series of low dunes, the last barrier before the river. The sands were multi-hued: cinnamon and chestnut, puce and chocolate. The hollows between them were thick with thorn scrub and saltbush.

Beyond the dunes, along the riverbank, lay the labyrinthine native town of Metemma. The narrow winding alleys, huts and hovels pressed right up to the water’s edge. It was silent and deserted as a necropolis.

“The town is a trap, sir.” Penrod offered his opinion diffidently. “You can be certain that it is teeming with Dervish. If the men get into those alleys they will be cut to shreds.”

“Quite right, Ballantyne,” Stewart grunted. “Make for the open stretch on the bank below the town.” The Dervish harassing fire still spurted and smoked from the tops of the dunes and from among the thick scrub in the hollows below them. Stewart took one step forward, then spun round as a heavy bullet thudded into him. He went down in a broken heap. Penrod knelt beside him and saw that the bullet had struck him in the groin, shattering the large joint of the femur. Shards of bone stuck out of the churned flesh, and blood bubbled over them. It was a wound that no man could survive.

Stewart sat up and thrust his clenched fist into the gaping hole in his flesh. “I am hit,” he called urgently to Sir Charles Wilson. “Take command, and keep the regiment pushing hard for the river. Let nothing stand in your way. Drive for the river with everything you have got.”

Penrod tried to lift him and carry him forward. “Damn you, Ballantyne. Do your job, man. Let me lie. Take them on. You must help Wilson to get them to the river.”

Penrod stood up and two burly troopers rushed to the general.

“Good luck, sir!” Penrod said, and left him. He hurried to catch up with the front rank and lead them down into the dunes.

It did not seem that a squadron of cavalry could conceal itself in that low scrub, but as they came off the ridge, the bush ahead came alive with horses and figures in speckled jib has Within seconds the two sides were once more locked in savage, bloody conflict. Every time the soldiers drove them back with those flailing volleys, they reassembled and charged again. Now some of the white men in the front rank of the mangled British square were dropping, not from their wounds but from heat exhaustion and that terrible thirst. The men on each side hoisted them up again and pushed them forward.

The sweat dried in salt-ringed patches on their tunics; their bodies could no longer sweat. They reeled like drunks and dragged their rifles with the last of their strength. Penrod’s vision wavered and darkened with cloudy shapes. He blinked eyes to clear his eyes, and each step was a monumental labour.

Just when it seemed that mortal man could endure no longer, the dense scrub ahead rustled and shook and out came the horsemen yet again. Riding at the head of the charge was the familiar figure in the green turban. The coat of the cream-coloured mare under him was dulled with sweat, her long mane matted and tangled. Osman Atalan recognized Penrod in the front rank of the square, turned the mare with his knees and rode straight at him.

Penrod tried to steady himself for his legs were rubbery under him. His light cavalry carbine seemed to have been transmuted to lead. It needed a painful effort to lift it to his shoulder. Even though they were still separated by fifty paces the image of his enemy, Osman Atalan, seemed to fill the field of his distorted vision. He fired. The sound seemed muted, and everything around him moved with dreamlike slowness. He watched his bullet strike the mare high in the forehead above the level of her magnificent dark eyes. She flung her head back and went down, struck the earth and rolled in a cloud of sand with her legs kicking spasmodically. She came to rest with her neck twisted back under her body.

With feline grace, Osman kicked his feet from the stirrups as she fell and sprang from her back to land lightly in balance. He stood and. glared at Penrod with an expression of deadly hatred. Penrod tried to reload the rifle, but his fingers were numb and slow, and Osman held his eyes with a mesmeric spell. Osman stooped and picked up his broadsword from where he had dropped it. He ran towards Penrod. At last Penrod managed to guide the cartridge into the open breech and closed the block. He lifted the weapon and his aim wavered. He tried desperately to steady it, and when, for an instant, the bead of the foresight lay on Osman’s chest he fired. He saw the bullet graze the emir’s sword arm, and leave a bloody line across the muscle of his biceps, but Osman neither flinched nor lost his grip on the hilt of the broadsword. He came on steadily. Other troopers on either side of Penrod turned their rifles on him. Bullets kicked up sand or snapped through the scrub around him. But Osman’s life seemed charmed.

“Kill that man!” shouted Wilson, his tone strident and nervous.

The rest of the Arab horsemen had seen their emir go down and their ranks broke up. One of his aggagiers swerved towards Osman’s isolated figure. “I am coming, master.”

“Let me be, Noor. It is not yet finished,” Osman shouted back.

“It is enough for this day. We will fight again.” Without slowing his mount al-Noor leant out of the saddle, linked arms with him and swung him up behind his saddle.

As he was carried away into the dense scrub, Osman glared back at Penrod. “It is not finished. In God’s Name, this is not the end.” Then he was gone. The rest of the Dervish cavalry disappeared as swiftly, and an eerie silence fell over the field. Some of the exhausted men in the British line sank to the earth again, their legs no longer able to support them, but the cries of the sergeants roused them: “On your feet, boys. There is the river in front of you!”

Stewart’s piper puffed up his bag and “Scotland the Brave’ shrilled on the desert air. The men shouldered their weapons, picked up their dead and the square moved forward yet again. Staggering along in the front rank, Penrod licked the salt and dried blood from his cracked lips, and the last few drops of his sweat burned his bloodshot eyes as he searched the scrub ahead for the next wave of savage horsemen.

But the Dervish had gone, blown away like smoke. The British came out on to the high bank of the Nile, and waved and shouted to the steamers across the river. They were pretty as model boats floating on the Serpentine on a bright Sunday morning in London Town.

They had won through. They had reached the river, and a hundred and fifty miles to the south in Khartoum, General Charles Gordon still endured.

Osman Atalan waited in the village of Metemma for shattered divisions of his Jaalin allies to reassemble, for their sheikhs to come to him and place themselves under his command. But their own emir, Salida, and all his sons were dead. So brave when he led them, they were now like children without a father. Allah had deserted them. The cause was lost. They disappeared back into their desert fastnesses. Osman waited in vain.

At first light the next morning he called for the master of the pigeons. “Bring me three of your fastest and swiftest birds,” he ordered. With his own hand he wrote out his message for the Mahdi in triplicate, one copy to be carried by each bird. If falcons or other misfortune struck one or even two, the vital message would still reach the holy man in Omdurman.

“To the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmed, may Allah protect and cherish him. You are the light of our eyes, and the breath of our bodies. My shame and sadness is a great rock in my belly, for know you that the infidel has prevailed in battle against us. Emir Salida is dead, and his division destroyed. The infidel has reached the Nile at Metemma. I am returning in all haste with my division to Omdurman. Pray for us, Holy and Mighty Mahdi.”

The pigeon-master tied the folded messages to the legs of the birds, replaced them in their basket and carried them to the riverbank. Osman went ahead of him. The pigeon-master handed the birds to him one at a time. Before he launched them, Osman held each in his cupped hands and blessed it. “Fly swiftly and straight, little friend. May Allah protect you.” He tossed the bird into the air, and it rose on the clatter of wings, circled the little village of Metemma, then picked up its bearings and shot away on rapid wingbeats into the south. He let each pigeon get well clear before he sent away the next, lest they should form a flock that would attract the attention of the predators.

When they were gone he walked back to the village and climbed the mud dome of the mosque. From the top balcony of the prayer tower, whence the muezzin called the faithful to their devotions, he had a full view of both banks of the river. The cluster of small white steamers was still anchored downstream in the Pool of the Crocodiles. They were beyond his reach, for he had no artillery with which to attack them. Instead he turned his attention to the British camp. With the naked eye he could make out the men within the walls of their hastily constructed zareba. They had not yet made any effort to begin loading the steamers with either men or equipment. He wondered at their curious lethargy. It was much at variance with the energy and urgency they had displayed until now. If their goal was still to reach and relieve Khartoum as swiftly as possible they should have left their wounded on the riverbank, embarked their fighting men and sailed southwards without an hour’s delay.

“Perhaps Allah has not yet forsaken us. Perhaps He will help me to reach the city ahead of these unpredictable men,” he murmured.

He went down from the tower to where the remnants of his division were waiting for him on the outskirts of the village. The horses and camels were already saddled and loaded, and al-Noor held his new steed. It was a big black stallion, the strongest animal in his string. Osman stroked the white blaze on his forehead. His name was al-Buq, the War Trumpet.

“You are without vice, Buq,” he whispered, ‘but you could never match Hulu Mayya.” He looked back up the dunes to where she had fallen. The vultures and the crows still circled over the ridge. Will there ever be another animal as noble as she? he wondered, and the black tide of his anger flooded the depths of his being. Abadan Riji, you have much to atone for.

He swung up into the saddle and raised his clenched right fist. “In the Name of Allah, we ride for Omdurman!” he cried, and his aggagiers thundered after him.

Khartoum lay in a torpor of despair, weak with plague and deprivation. The girls’ voices were in penetrating contrast to the brooding silence around them.

“There’s one coming.” Saffron sang out.

“I know. I saw it long ago,” Amber chanted.

“That’s a lie. You never did!”

“I didV

“Stop that squabbling, you two little harridans,” David Benbrook ordered sternly, ‘and point it out to me.” Their young eyes were sharper than his.

“Over there, Daddy. Straight above Tutti Island.”

“Just to the left of that little cloud.”

“Ah, Yes. Of course,” David said, slipped the butt of the shotgun under his right armpit and turned to line up with the approaching bird. “I was just testing you.”

“You were not!”

“Tut, tut. A little more respect, please, my angel.”

Nazeera heard their voices. She was on her way back to the kitchen carrying a pitcher of water that she had drawn from the well in the stableyard. She had been going to boil and filter it, but the voices distracted her. She set the pitcher on the table beside the front door next to the cluster of glasses on the silver tray, crossed to the window of the dining room and looked out over the terrace. The consul stood in the middle of the brown, burnt-out lawn. He was staring up into the sky. There was nothing unusual in this behaviour. For many weeks now he had spent each afternoon on the terrace watching for any bird to come within range of his shotgun. She turned back to the kitchen, but absentmindedly left the pitcher of unboiled water on the table with the glasses. Behind her she heard the thud of the gun and more excited squeals from the twins. She smiled fondly and closed the kitchen door behind her.

“You got him, Daddy!”

“Oh, clever paterfamilias!” This was Saffron’s latest addition to her vocabulary.

The pigeon tumbled in the air as the pellets plucked a burst of feathers from its chest. It fluttered down and crashed into the top branches of the tamarind tree above the palace bedrooms. It stuck there, thirty feet above the ground. The twins raced each other to the base of the tree and clambered up it, arguing and pushing each other.

“Be careful, you little demons!” David called anxiously. “You’re going to hurt yourselves.”

Saffron reached the bird first. She was the tomboy. She balanced on the branch and stuffed the warm body into the front of her bodice and started down again.

“You are always so overbearing,” Amber accused her.

Saffron accepted the compliment without protest and jumped the last few feet to the ground. She ran to her father. “It’s got a note!” she shrilled. “It’s got a note just like the others.”

“Goodness gracious me, so it has,” David agreed. “Aren’t we lucky? Let’s see what the gentlemen across the river have to say for themselves.” The twins danced after him as he carried the dead pigeon into the hall. He propped the shotgun against the wall and fumbled in his coat pocket for his pince’nez and clipped it on to the end of his nose. Then with his penknife he cut the thread that held the tiny roll of paper, and spread it carefully on the table beside the pitcher and the glasses. His lips moved silently as he deciphered the Arabic script, and slowly his benign expression changed. It became alert and businesslike.

“This is the most wonderful news. The relief column has smashed up the Dervish army in the north. Now they will be here within days. I must take this note across to the general right away,” he told the twins. “Go in and ask Nazeera to pour your bath now. I will be a while, but I will come to your room to say goodnight.” He clapped his hat on to his head and set out down the terrace towards Gordon’s headquarters.

Saffron snatched up the shotgun before Amber could reach it. She held it tantalizingly, like another trophy under her sister’s nose.

“That’s not fair, Saffy. You always do everything.”

“Don’t be a baby.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“You are a baby, and you’re sulking again.”

Saffron carried the shotgun across the lobby and into her father’s-gunroom. Amber watched her go with her clenched fists on her hips. Her face was flushed and her hair was sticking to her forehead with perspiration. She saw the pitcher on the side table where Nazeera had left it. With an angry flourish she poured herself a glass of water, drank it and pulled a face. “It tastes funny,” she complained. “And I’m not a baby and I’m not sulking. I’m just a bit cross, that’s all.”

Ryder Courtney knew that his stay in Khartoum was drawing to an end. Even if the relief column arrived before the city fell, and was able to evacuate them all safely, the city would belong to the Dervish. He was clearing out the compound, ready to pull out at the first opportunity. Rebecca had volunteered to help him draw up an inventory and bills of lading for everything that was being loaded on board the Intrepid this.

Ryder had become increasingly aware of the emotional turmoil she was going through. The uncertainty was wearing away at everyone’s nerves, as conditions in the city deteriorated. The menace of the great army of the Dervish besiegers seemed to grow as the will of the trapped population declined and the relief column did not arrive. It had been ten months since the city had been invested by the Mahdi. A long time to live under the threat of horrible death.

Ryder knew how the responsibility of caring for her little sisters weighed upon Rebecca Her father was little help in this regard: he was amiable and affectionate but, like the twins, he relied on her with almost childlike faith. None of the Sudanese women had returned to work since the mob attack on the compound. The running of the little green-cake kitchen had devolved almost entirely upon Rebecca. The twins were willing helpers, but the grinding labour was beyond their strength and endurance. Ryder’s admiration and affection for her were enhanced as he watched her struggle to take care of her family. He considered once again the fact at barely eighteen she had been saddled with this heavy load of responsibility. He understood how alone and isolated she felt, and tried to give her the help she needed. However, he was aware that his ill-considered unrestrained behaviour had damaged her trust in him. He had to be careful not to frighten her again, yet he longed to take her in his arms, comfort and shield her. He felt that since Penrod Ballantyne had left Khartoum he had made good progress in repairing their damaged relationship: she seemed so much easier in his company. Their conversations were more relaxed and she did not avoid him so obviously as before.

They were in the blockhouse, sitting at his desk across from each other. They were counting the piles of silver dollars into heaps of fifty, then wrapping them into rolls of parchment and packing them into wooden coffee chests, preparatory to taking them on board the this. From the corner of his eye Ryder watched her brush back a strand of that beautiful silken hair. His heart ached as he noticed the calluses on her hands, and the little lines of worry and hardship at the corners of her eyes. A complexion like hers was more suited to the pleasant climes of England than to scorching sunlight and burning desert airs. When this is over, I could sell up here, and take her back to England, he thought.

She looked up suddenly and caught his eyes upon her. “What would we do without you, Ryder?” she said.

He was astonished by the words and the tone in which they were spoken. “My dear Rebecca, you would do well in any circumstances. I claim no credit for your strength and resolve.”

“I have been unkind to you.” She ignored his denial. “I behaved like a little girl. You of all people I should have treated more kindly. Without you we might long ago have perished.”

“You are being kind to me now. That makes up for everything,” he said.

“The green-cake is just one of your valuable gifts to my family. I do not think it an exaggeration to say that with it you have saved our lives. We are healthy and strong in the midst of starvation and death. I can never repay you for that.”

“Your friendship is all the payment I could ask for.”

She smiled at him and the worry lines were smoothed away. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, but he bit back the words. She reached across the desk, spilling a stack of silver coins, and took his hand. “You are a good friend and a good man, Ryder Courtney.”

For the first time she studied his face quite openly. He is not as beautiful as Penrod is, she thought, but he has a strong, honest face. It’s a face one could see every day and not grow tired of. He would never leave me, as Penrod has. There would be no native girls hiding in a back room. He is a man of substance, not ostentation or pretence. There would always be bread on his table. He is a rock of a man and he would shelter his woman. The hand holding hers was powerful and competent, hardened with work. His bare arm reaching towards her was like the pillar of a house. His shoulders under the cloth of his shirt were broad and square. He was a man, not a boy.

Then, suddenly, she remembered where they were. Her smile crumpled. The precariousness of their lives rushed back upon her. What would happen if Ryder sailed away in the this and left her and the twins here? What would happen to them when the Mahdi and his murderous army stormed into the city? She knew what they did to the women they captured. Tears swamped her eyes and clung to her lashes. “Oh, Ryder, what will become of us all? Are we all going to die in this awful place? Dead before we have lived?” She knew in her woman’s heart that there was only one certain way that she could bind a man like him to herself for ever. Was she ready to take that step?

“No, Rebecca, you have been so brave and strong for so long. Don’t give up now.” He stood up and moved quickly round the desk.

She looked up at him as he stood over her, and the tears ran down her cheeks. “Hold me, Ryder. Hold me!” she pleaded.

“I do not want to give you offence again.” He hesitated.

“I was a child then, a mindless girl. Now I am a woman. Hold me like a woman.”

He lifted her to her feet and took her gently in his arms. “Be strong!” he said.

“Help me,” she answered and pressed close to him. She buried her face against his chest and inhaled his scent. Her terrors and doubt seemed to recede into insignificance. She felt safe. She felt his strength flowing into her, and clung to him with quiet desperation. Then, slowly, she was aware of a new, pleasant sensation that seemed to emanate from the centre of her being. It was not the divine and consuming madness that Penrod Ballantyne had evoked. It was, rather, a warming glow. This man she could trust. She was safe in his arms. It would be easy to do what she had contemplated.

This is something I must do not only for myself but for my family. Silently she made the decision, then said aloud, “Kiss me, Ryder.” She lifted her face to him “Kiss me as you did before.”

“Rebecca, my darling Becky, are you sure what you are about?”

“If you can speak only to ask daft questions,” she smiled at him, ‘then speak not at all. Just kiss me.”

His mouth was hot and his breath mingled with hers. Her lips were soft and she felt his tongue slip between them. Once that had frightened and confused her, but now she revelled in the taste of him. I will take him as my man, she thought. I reject the other. I take Ryder Courtney. With that level-headed decision she let her emotions take control. She slipped the leash on all restraint as she felt something clench deep in her belly. It was a sensation so powerful that it reached the edge of pain. She felt it throbbing inside her.

It is my womb, she realized, with amazement. He has roused the centre of my womanhood. She pushed her hips hard against his, trying to ease the pain or aggravate it, she was not certain which. The last time Ryder had embraced her she had not understood what she had felt swelling and hardening. Now she knew. This time she was not afraid. She even had a secret name for that man’s thing. She called it a tam my after the tamarind tree outside her bedroom, which Penrod had climbed that first night.

His tam my is singing to my quimmy, she thought, and my quimmy likes the tune. Her mother, the emancipated Sarah Isabel Benbrook, had taught her the quaint word. “This might be the last day of our lives. Do not waste it,” she breathed. “Let us take this moment, hold it and never let go.” But he was diffident. She had to take his hands and place them on her breasts. Her nipples seemed to swell and burn with his touch.

She twisted the fingers of one hand into the hair at the back of his head to pull it down, and with the other hand she opened the hooks down the front of her bodice. She freed one of her breasts and as it popped out she pressed it into his mouth. She cried out with the sweet pain of his teeth on her tender flesh. Her essence welled inside her and overflowed.

She was overcome with a desperate sense of urgency. “Quickly -please, Ryder. I am dying. Do not let me die. Save me.” She knew she was babbling nonsense, but she did not care. She clasped both her arms round his neck and tried to climb up his body. He reached behind her, took a double handful of the hem of her skirt and lifted it up round her waist. She wore nothing beneath it, and her buttocks were pale and round as a pair of ostrich eggs in the gloom of the shuttered room. He cupped them in his hands and lifted her.

She locked her thighs round his hips, and felt him burrowing into the silken nest of curls at the fork of her legs. “Quickly! I cannot live another moment without you inside me.” She pressed down hard, screwing up her eyes with the effort, and felt all her resistance to him give way. She dug her fingernails into his back and pushed down again. Then nothing else in the world mattered: all her worries and fears dissolved as he glided in, impaling her deeply. She felt her womb open to welcome him. She thrust against him with a kind of barely controlled desperation. She felt his legs begin to tremble, and stared into his face as it contorted in ecstatic agony. She felt his legs juddering beneath them, and she thrust harder and faster. He opened his mouth and when he cried out, her voice echoed his. They locked each other in a fierce paroxysm that seemed as if it would bind them together through eternity, but at last their voices sank into silence, and the rigid muscles of his legs relaxed. He sank to the floor on his knees, but she clung to him desperately, clenching herself round him so that he could not slip out and leave her empty.

He seemed to return at last from a faraway place, and stared at her with an expression of awe and wonder. “Now you are my woman?” It was half-way between a question and a declaration.

She smiled at him tenderly. He was still deep inside her. She felt marvellously powerful, deliciously lascivious and wanton. She tightened her loins, and gripped hard. She had not realized she was capable of such a trick. He gasped and his eyes flew wide. “Yes,” she agreed, ‘and you are my man. I will hold you like this for ever, and never let you go-‘

“I am your willing captive,” he said. She kissed his lips.

When she broke off to draw breath he went on, “Will you do me the great honour of becoming my wife? We do not want to shock the world, do we?”

Suddenly it was all happening very swiftly. Although this had been her intention, she could not think of a response both demure and yet binding upon him. While she considered it there was a loud knock on the blockhouse door. She pushed him away and hurriedly stuffed her breasts back into her bodice, looking anxiously towards the door. “It is locked,” he reminded her in a whisper. With hundreds of pounds in coin lying on his desk, he had taken no chances. Now he raised his voice: “Who is it?”

“It is I, Bacheet. I have brought a news bulletin from Gordon Pasha.”

“That is not important enough to worry me when I am busy,” Ryder retorted. Gordon issued his bulletins almost daily. They were designed to comfort the populace of the city and to bolster their will to resist. Thus his compositions were subject to wide literary licence, and were often separated from the truth by a considerable distance.

“This one is important, Effendi.” Bacheet’s tone was excited. “Good news. Very good news.”

“Push it under the door,” Ryder ordered.

He stood up and lifted Rebecca to her feet. They both adjusted their clothing: he buttoned the front of his breeches and she straightened her skirts. Then Ryder went to the door and picked up the crudely printed bulletin. He scanned it, then brought it to her.

DERVISH ARMY ROUTED.

THE ROAD TO KHARTOUM IS OPEN.

BRITISH RELIEF COLUMN WILL ARRIVE WITHIN DAYS.

She read it twice, the first time swiftly, the second deliberately. At last she looked up at him. “Do you think it is the truth this time?”

“It will be a cruel hoax if it is not. But Chinese Gordon is not renowned for his restraint or his consideration for the delicate feelings of others.”

Rebecca pretended to reread the bulletin, but her mind was racing. If the relief column was truly on its way, was the need for a permanent relationship with Ryder Courtney really so pressing? As his wife she would be doomed to spend the rest of her days in this wild, savage land. Would she ever again see the green fields of England and have the society of civilized people? Was there any desperate urgency to marry a man who was pleasant and would care for her, but whom she did not love?

“True or not,” Ryder went on, ‘we shall find out very soon. One way or the other you will still be my fiancee. There is a full head of steam in the this’s boiler and her hold is loaded with every stick of cargo it can carry He broke off and studied her face quizzically. “What is it, my darling? Is something worrying you?”

“I have not yet replied to your question,” she said softly.

“Oh, if that is all, then I shall repeat it and hope for your formal response,” he said. “Will you, Rebecca Helen Benbrook, take me, Ryder Courtney, to be your lawful wedded husband?”

“In all truth, I do not know,” she said, and he stared at her, appalled. “Please give me a little time to think about it. It is a momentous decision and not one I can rush into.”

In this pivotal moment on which so much depended, a thought suddenly occurred to her: If the relief column arrives the day after tomorrow, will Penrod Ballantyne be with them? Then she thought, It is of no account, one way or the other, for he no longer means anything to me. I made a mistake in trusting him, but now he can go back to his Arab girls and his philandering ways for all I care. But she found herself unconvinced by this, and the image of Penrod persisted in her mind long after she had left Ryder’s compound and was on her way back to the consular palace.

It took Sir Charles Wilson several days to bring in all his wounded, the baggage and the camel string. In the meantime he fortified the camp on the riverbank below Metemma, siting the Nordenfelt machine-guns to cover all the approaches, and he raised the walls of the zareba to a height of six feet.

On the third day after the battle the chief regimental surgeon reported to him that General Stewart’s wound had developed gangrene. Wilson hurried down to the hospital tent. The rotten sweet smell of necrotic flesh was nauseating in the heat. He found Stewart lying in a bath of his own sweat under a mosquito net over which the huge hairy blue flies crawled, searching for some point of entry to reach the irresistible odour of the wound. It was covered with a field dressing, heavily stained with a custard-yellow discharge.

“I have managed to remove the bullet,” the surgeon assured Wilson, then lowered his voice to a whisper that the stricken man could not hear: “The gangrene has a firm hold, sir. There is little or no hope, I am afraid.”

Stewart was delirious and mistook Wilson for General Gordon as he stooped over the camp bed. “Thank God we were in time, Gordon. There were times when I feared we would be too late. I offer you my congratulations for your courage and fortitude, which saved Khartoum. Yours is an achievement of which Her Majesty and every citizen of the British Empire will be justly proud.”

“I am Charles Wilson, not Charles Gordon, sir,” Wilson corrected him.

Stewart stared at him in astonishment, then reached through the mosquito net and seized his hand. “Oh, well done, Charles! I knew I could trust you to do your duty. Where is Gordon? Ask him to come to me at once. I want to congratulate him myself.”

Wilson freed his hand and stood back from the bed. He turned to the surgeon. “Are you sedating him sufficiently? It will do him no good to become so agitated.”

“I am administering ten grains of laudanum every two hours. But there is little pain in the site of a wound once the gangrene takes hold.”

“I will place him on the first steamer that departs downriver for Aswan. That will probably be in two or three days’ time.”

“Two or three days?” Stewart had only picked up the last few sentences. “Why are you sending Gordon down to Aswan, and why two or three days? Answer me that.”

“The steamers will set off for Khartoum imminently, General. We have run into unforeseen but unavoidable obstacles.”

“Gordon? But where is Gordon?”

“We must hope he is still holding out in Khartoum, sir, but we have had no news of him.”

Stewart looked around the tent with a wild, bewildered expression. “Is this not Khartoum? Where are we? How long have we been here?”

“This is Metemma, sir,” the surgeon intervened gently. “You have been here four days.”

“Four days!” Stewart’s voice rose to a shout. “Four days! You have thrown away the sacrifice made by my poor lads. Why did you not push on with all speed to Khartoum, instead of sitting here?

“He is delirious,” Wilson snapped at the surgeon. “Give him another dose of laudanum.”

“I am not delirious!” Stewart shouted “If you don’t set out for Khartoum immediately, I will see you court-martial led and shot for dereliction of your duty and cowardice in the face of the enemy, sir.” He choked and fell back, spent and muttering, on his pillows. He closed his eyes and was quiet.

“Poor fellow.” Wilson shook his head with deep regret. “Completely out of his head and hallucinating. No appreciation of the situation. Look after him and make him comfortable.”

He acknowledged the doctor’s salute, and ducked out through the fly of the tent. He blinked in the bright sunlight, then scowled as he realized that a small group of officers was standing rigidly to attention nearby. They had certainly heard every word that had been spoken. Their expressions left no doubt of that.

“Have you gentlemen nothing better to do than laze about here?” Wilson demanded. They avoided his eyes as they saluted and walked away.

Only one stood his ground. Penrod Ballantyne was the junior officer in the group. His behaviour was impudent. He was walking the tightrope across the lethal chasm of insubordination. Wilson glowered at him. “What are you about, Captain?” he demanded.

“I wondered if I might speak to you, sir.”

“What is it, then?”

“The camels are fully recovered. Plenty of water and good feed. With your permission I could be in Khartoum within twenty-four hours.”

“To what purpose, Captain? Are you proposing a one-man liberation of the city?” Wilson allowed his scowl to change to an amused smirk -an expression that was no great improvement, Penrod thought.

“My purpose would be to take your despatches to General Gordon, and inform him of your intentions, sir. The city is sore pressed and at the limit of its endurance. There are English women and children within the wails. It can be only days before they fall into the clutches of the Mahdi. I was hoping I might be allowed to assure General Gordon that you have his plight and that of the populace in mind.”

“You disapprove of my conduct of the campaign, do you? By the way, what is your name, sir?” Of course Wilson knew his name: this was a calculated insult.

“Penrod Ballantyne, 10th Hussars, sir. And no, sir, I would not presume to remark on your conduct of the campaign. I was merely offering, for your consideration, my local knowledge of the situation.”

“I shall be sure to call upon you if I feel in need of your vast wisdom. I will mention your subordinate conduct in the despatches I shall write at the conclusion of the campaign. You are to remain in this camp. I shall not detach you on any independent mission. I shall not include you in the force that I shall lead to the relief of Khartoum. At the first opportunity you will be sent back to Cairo. You will take no further part in this campaign. Do I make myself clear, Captain?”

“Abundantly clear, sir.” Penrod saluted.

Wilson did not return his salute as he stamped away.

Over the days that followed, Wilson spent most of his time in his headquarters tent, busying himself with his despatches. He ordered an inventory of the remaining stores and ammunition. He inspected the fortifications of the zareba. He drilled the men. He visited the wounded daily, but General Stewart was no longer conscious. The steamers waited at their moorings with full heads of steam in their boilers. A mood of indecision and uncertainty descended on the regiment. Nobody knew what the next step would be, or when it would be taken. Sir Charles Wilson issued no orders of consequence.

On the evening of the third day Penrod went down to the camel lines and found Yakub. While he made a pretence of inspecting the animals, he whispered, “Have the camels ready and the waterskins filled. The password for the sentries when you leave the zareba will be Waterloo. I will meet you at midnight by the little mosque on the far side of Metemma village.” Yakub looked at him askance. “We have been ordered to take messages to Gordon Pasha.”

Yakub was at the rendezvous, and they set out southwards at a rate that would take them beyond pursuit by dawn.

Two days to Khartoum, Penrod thought grimly, and my career in ruins. Wilson will throw me to the lions. I hope Rebecca Benbrook appreciates my efforts on her behalf.

Osman Atalan, riding hard with a small group of his aggagiers, left the main body of his cavalry many leagues behind. He climbed up through the gut of the Shabluka Gorge. On the heights, he reined in al-Buq and leapt on to the saddle. Balancing easily on the restless horse, he trained his telescope on the City of the Elephant’s Trunk, Khartoum, which lay on the horizon. “What do you see, master?” Al-Noor asked anxiously. “The flags of the infidel and the Turk are flying on the tower of Fort Mukran. The enemy of God, Gordon Pasha, still prevails in Khartoum,” said Osman, and the words were bitter as the juice of the aloe on his tongue. He dropped back onto the saddle and his sandal led feet found the stirrups. He gave the stallion a cut across the rump with the kurbash, and al-Buq jumped forward. They rode on southwards.

When they reached the Kerreri Hills they met the first exodus of women and old men from Omdurman. The refugees did not recognize Osman with his black head cloth and unfamiliar mount, and an old man called to him as he cantered by, “Turn back, stranger! The city ii lost. The infidel has triumphed in a mighty battle at Abu Klea. Salida, Osman Atalan and all their armies have been slain.”

“Reverend old father, tell us what has become of the Divine and Victorious Muhammad, the Mahdi, the successor of Allah’s Prophet.”

“He is the light of our eyes, but he has given the order for all his followers to leave Omdurman before the Turks and the infidels arrive. The Mahdi, may Allah continue to love and cherish him, will move into the desert with all his array. They say he purposes to march back to El Obeid.”

Osman threw back the head cloth that covered his face. “See me, old man! Do you know who I am?”

The man stared at him, then let out a wail and fell to his knees. “Forgive me, mighty Emir, that I pronounced you dead.”

“My army follows close behind me. We ride for Omdurman. The jihad continues! We will fight the infidel wherever we meet him. Tell this to all you meet upon the road.” Osman thumped his heels into al-Buq’s flanks and galloped on.