Pharaoh (Jack Howard 7) (32 page)

‘Then it is for archaeologists of the future.’

Gordon wrapped the journal in waxed brown paper, and tied it up with string from his desk. He passed it to Mayne, who reached into his tunic pocket and took out the folded paper containing Gordon’s edict abolishing slavery, and then slipped it under the paper and into the journal. Gordon took another drag on his cigarette, and tapped the package. ‘Have no fear: I’ve learned my lesson from
Reflections in Palestine
. This book contains no mystical ramblings, no musings about God. It’s the journal of a commanding Royal Engineer, full of facts and figures. But that’s what it’s been about, Mayne, when all is said and done. It is facts and figures that would have kept Khartoum alive, yet it is facts and figures, minutely calculated by Wolseley – daily average distances up the Nile, ideal tonnages of whaleboats – that have inhibited our rescue and will lead to the city’s destruction.’

‘I will see to it that it reaches Howard.’

‘One last request.’ He pointed to Mayne’s holster. ‘I wonder whether I might have a look at your revolver?’

‘Certainly.’ Mayne unholstered his pistol and passed it to him. ‘Webley Government model, .455 calibre. The latest improvements, bought this year. The best revolver yet available for campaign service, in my opinion.’

Gordon inspected it appreciatively, spinning the cylinder and breaking it open, careful not to eject the cartridges. ‘My problem is this.’ He took out his own revolver and placed it on the table. ‘Webley-Pryse, in .450 calibre. Perfectly serviceable, but lacks punch. I don’t think it would put down a dervish coming at me with forty thousand angels egging him on. If I’d had time to visit my agent in Piccadilly before coming out here, I’d have bought one of yours.’

Mayne took out the box of cartridges from his belt, handed them to Gordon and picked up the Webley-Pryse. ‘A straight swap. Your need is greater than mine. I just wish I could help you with a sword.’

‘I’m most grateful, Mayne. And not to worry.’ Gordon reached behind the desk and pulled out a Pattern 1856 Royal Engineers officer’s sword. He unsheathed it halfway, revealing the blade, immaculately polished and oiled. ‘When I was a cadet at the Royal Military Academy, a fearsome old quartermaster sergeant taught us swordplay, a man by the name of Cannings. Probably long gone by the time you were there.’

‘Quartermaster Sergeant
Major
Cannings, sir. Probably still there now. We all thought he was old enough to have been at Waterloo.’

‘
Gentlemen
,’ he would say. ‘
These ’ere swords is not for display
.’

‘And then he’d proceed to split a melon in half with it.’

Gordon suddenly gave Mayne a steely look, all humour gone. ‘Well, I intend to do Cannings proud. Only this time it won’t be melons. There will be people out there among my staff shooting themselves rather than be caught by the dervishes, and there will be others who will go over to the Mahdi. But if I get half a chance, I’m going down fighting. Soldier first, engineer second. You remember?’

‘Impossible to forget, sir.’

‘Will you see to that, Mayne? Will you give me that half-chance?’

Before Mayne could think of a reply, Gordon had walked over to the sideboard to pick up his brandy glass and take another cigarette from the box. He lit it and took a deep lungful, and then downed the glass in one, exhaling with satisfaction and pouring himself another. He took it and stood in front of Mayne, the pallor in his cheeks tinged with colour, then raised the glass and the cigarette. ‘And you need have no final qualms that I might go over to the Mahdi. He has banned alcohol and tobacco. I still need my creature comforts.’ Mayne thought he detected a twinkle in those brilliant blue eyes, a brief spark in a face haunted by what he had been obliged to oversee during the past weeks and months, and by what lay ahead.

Mayne held out a hand. ‘I must go. It will be light in a few hours.’

‘Of course. And thank you for coming. It has been
most
agreeable. I fear I’ve rambled, but I am a man not used to company, especially that of a fellow sapper with such congenial shared interests.’ They shook hands, and Gordon led him to the door. ‘And look after that diary. If there’s anything to be salvaged from this sorry mess, it’s in there.’

Mayne began to walk down the corridor. There was a chill in the air; the warmth of early evening had gone. He felt like a priest walking away from a condemned man’s cell for the last time, but it was worse than that; he was more like an executioner having sized up his victim. He felt nauseous, but perhaps because of lack of food and the terrible stench, and he was suddenly light headed, and blinked hard. His mind was reeling from what he had heard. He had to keep up his strength for what was to come next.

Gordon had remained at the door, watching him; now he spoke again. ‘And Edward?’

Mayne stopped, and turned around. ‘Sir?’

‘Godspeed, Edward.’

Mayne heard the words, and then he heard his own voice, disembodied and wavering, as if he were watching himself on a distant stage.

‘Godspeed to you too, sir.’

24

Mayne slid off the reed boat into the water and pushed it towards the bank of the creek, feeling his feet sink into the ooze as he clung to the stern. The water was cool and dark, and he tried not to think of the horrors he had seen floating in it off Khartoum or of what might lurk in its depths. The level of the Nile had fallen at least two feet since he had left the creek the evening before, and the plank he had laid on the bank was now just out of reach. With a final effort he hauled the boat as far as he could out of the water and used it as a support, holding on to it as he struggled up the muddy bank. He stopped for a moment, panting hard, and wondered what it would be like to fall backwards into the water, to kick off from the bank and let the river take him; whether he would be mired in the horror of this place or whether the current would find him and take him past Khartoum and the cataracts and out into the sparkling clarity of the sea, away from here for ever. He felt himself sinking, and snapped back to reality. He heaved his legs up, then squelched and sucked through the mud until he reached the plank and pulled himself up. He was dripping with ooze, but he no longer cared. All that mattered to him now was to get back to Charrière and set up his rifle before the break of dawn.

He remembered his conversation with Gordon, and patted the journal in his upper tunic pocket. Something had been nagging at him, and then he remembered: it was the empty square in the centre of the drawing Gordon had shown him, where the ancient sculpture had been missing a piece. Gordon had said that he and his companions had searched everywhere for clues to its appearance, in ruins from the time of Akhenaten across the desert. And then Mayne remembered the slab he had taken from the wall in the crocodile temple, the one that he had given Tanner to pass on to Corporal Jones for safe keeping. It had lines radiating from the edge where it had formed part of the Aten symbol, but it also had shapes on one corner, obscured under slime. He cursed himself for remembering too late to tell Gordon: it might even have persuaded him that there was a shred of reason left for staying alive, for coming across the river with him. But there was nothing to be done about it now. It was too late.

A few minutes later he was back at the edge of the mud-brick enclosure surrounding the fort. There was still enough moonlight to see a reflection off the fetid pool inside, its surface stilled by the cold. Charrière had been busy; the embrasures and crumbled openings in the wall had been filled with clumps of thorny mimosa bush, concealing the interior from prying eyes. Mayne whistled quietly, knowing that Charrière would have seen his wake as he paddled across the river, then peered over the wall and pushed aside a branch of mimosa, making his way inside. Charrière lay awake beside the embrasure overlooking the river, wrapped up in his grey army blanket, his face swathed in his Arab headdress. Beside him Mayne could see the khaki wrap containing his rifle. He crawled alongside, slipping down the edge of the muddy crater that led to the pool, seeing Charrière watching him. Mayne knew he did not need to say anything. He had come alone, without Gordon.

He took his telescope from on top of the bag and rolled in front of the embrasure, training it on the palace. Gordon’s light was still on, and he looked up to the roof where Gordon had positioned his own telescope. For a split second he saw movement, a flash as the distant lens caught a hint of moonlight on the surface of the river, and then it was gone. But it was enough to show that Gordon had been watching him, following his progress past Tutti island and the dervish sentries, seeing that he had made it back to the fort. Both men now knew that the die was cast.

Mayne lowered his telescope and looked at the island, sensing movement there too, and could just make out the palm trees swaying on the shore. He felt a prickle of wind on his neck, and then he saw another gust. It was barely perceptible, but it was as if there were some great beast slumbering under the river, building up its strength for dawn. Somewhere out there were a quarter of a million men of the Mahdi’s army, on the island, along the far shore of the White Nile. The thought of it made him feel light headed, as if all those men were sucking the oxygen from the air. Oxygen seemed in short supply here, like water in the desert, essentials of life that had been cut off from Khartoum weeks ago and were now dwindling by the hour.

The brush of wind made him think of his rifle, of the effect on a bullet flying across the river. He wiped his muddy hands on Charrière’s blanket, knelt up and unwrapped the bag, revealing the teakwood case inside. He unbolted the lid and opened it up. Everything looked pristine, unaffected by the jostling it had undergone over the past two weeks. Seeing the rifle quickened his pulse, excited him; he stroked his finger along the octagonal flats of the barrel and touched the forestock, smelling the gun oil. He used a small screwdriver to loosen the clamps that held the components rigidly in place, taking out the barrel and receiver and then the removable buttstock, and assembling them along with the breechblock. When he had finished, he tested the action, lowering the loading lever to drop the block and reveal the breech, drawing back the hammer, pulling the rear set-trigger and feathering his finger over the main trigger, knowing that the slightest pressure at full cock would bring the hammer down on the firing pin. He eased the hammer back to the half-cock safe position, opened the ammunition box in the case and took out one of the long brass cartridges; each contained ninety grains of the finest powder, hand loaded for him by his gunsmith in London, enough to propel the .50 calibre bullet out of the muzzle at over eighteen hundred feet per second. He carefully inspected it, then dropped the loading lever to open the breech, pushed the cartridge inside and closed the lever again, causing the block to rise into place behind the breech and the action to lock.

He lay forward and pushed the barrel of the rifle out of the embrasure in the wall, careful to avoid any mud or debris getting near the muzzle. He eased the butt into his right shoulder, flipped up the rear sight and then looked through it, shutting his left eye as he always did when aiming, seeing the cross-hairs of the front sight through the eyepiece aperture. He checked the elevation on the rear sight, six hundred and fifty metres, the nearest the setting would allow to the estimate he had made from the map measurements provided by Kitchener and the distance that Gordon himself had calculated, with a minute upwards adjustment that Mayne had made when he test-fired the rifle over a measured distance near the Nile south of Korti. He looked up from the sights, wetted the forefinger of his left hand and held it in the air, sensing nothing; the wind had gone. He eased the butt from his shoulder and propped it on his bag, leaving the rifle balanced on the embrasure. He was ready.

He lay on his back, looking around. The air seemed preternaturally still, unnervingly so. Somewhere in the distance he heard the cry of a tropical bird, a harsh, grating sound, perhaps what counted in this place as the dawn chorus; but the sky was still dark. He realised that the brickworks to the left had gone quiet, the place where the wounded cow had blindly circled round and round, groaning and wheezing. He saw that Charrière was cleaning his hunting knife, wiping congealed blood off the blade and leaving streaks of darkness on his blanket. Mayne gestured towards the brickworks. ‘You’ve been busy.’

Charrière said nothing, but finished cleaning his knife and laid it down on the edge of the blanket, its blade gleaming dully. It was a knife that Mayne himself had used years before to butcher deer, and one that Charrière’s ancestors had blooded through generations of hunting and war; its worn bone handle and the point of the blade, shaped through countless resharpenings and honings, seemed so perfectly fitted to Charrière that it had become an extension of himself, just as Mayne felt with his rifle. Charrière stared intently for a few moments at the rear of the fort, as if scanning for something, then turned to Mayne, his eyes unfathomable in the gloom. ‘The cow dropped dead. Something big came up and dragged it down into the river.’

‘A crocodile?’

‘I only saw marks on the ground. I was not here.’

Mayne looked at the knife, and thought again. ‘Our pursuers?’

‘I found three of them asleep in the desert.’

Mayne stared at him. ‘Identity?’

‘They were Sudanese, but each with different tattoos, from different tribes. They had English tobacco, and Martini-Henry rifles. I did not linger.’

Mayne thought hard, wondering who they might be. ‘Did you travel far?’

‘I took your rifle case on my back. I crossed the river at the point north of Khartoum where the White Nile joins the Blue Nile. I went far down the river, for several miles. I saw the steamers.’

‘You
saw
them?’ Mayne exclaimed, alarmed. ‘You’re sure they’re the ones? They shouldn’t be that close to us yet.’

‘I saw the turrets with gun emplacements, and the armour plating the sailors have built around the edges. They were anchored, but getting up steam. The soldiers had been ashore foraging for wood, chopping up water-lifting devices for fuel. The Nile is falling at a rate of three feet a day. They must have seen the mudflats, and decided to press on.’

‘That means they could be here very soon.’

‘They could be here shortly after dawn.’

Mayne thought hard, his mind racing. It was essential that he complete his mission before the steamers hove into view. He must be gone before any of the British soldiers or sailors saw him. He turned again to Charrière. ‘Did you see anything else?’

‘I walked through the Mahdi’s camp. I passed thousands of them, asleep on the desert floor. They have their spears beside them, polished and sharpened. Less than an hour from now this place will light up, in more ways than one. The artillery are positioned to blast at the main gates of the city. The main force will come over the river from the west, and others will attack the landward defences to the east. Khartoum will be overrun within minutes. The Ansar will be at the gates of the palace at dawn.’

Mayne thought for a moment. ‘Our pursuers. You said you found three in the desert. There were four when we saw them behind us at Abu Klea.’

‘He’s here.’

‘What do you mean,
here
?’

‘Don’t look.’ Charrière lowered his voice. ‘He followed us here yesterday evening. He’s an Ababda tribesman; he was their tracker and he’s good. He returned to their camp in the night and saw his companions with their throats cut, and now he’s come back here. He will make his move soon.’

‘Where is he?’ Mayne whispered.

‘I’ve been watching him while you’ve been loading your rifle. He’s been making his way around the wall to the entrance where you came in. When I laid those mimosa branches in the gaps after you left last night, I made it so that I can see out through them, but he will not be able to see in without looking over them. Don’t move. He’s there now.’

In a single lightning movement Charrière tossed off his blanket, picked up his knife and threw it past Mayne, the blade swishing through the air so fast he could barely see it. There was a shriek from behind the wall, and Charrière bounded forward, followed by Mayne. Charrière pushed through the branches and reached the man, pulling the knife out of his chest and preparing to lunge again. Mayne grabbed his arm and stopped him. ‘Let me question him first.’

The man had a grey robe but no headdress, and a wickedly curved knife lay by his side. He had the three slashed marks on his cheeks of the Ababda tribe. He was a warrior, but his eyes were full of fear, and the red stain from his chest was spreading over his robe, the blood pooling on the ground below. Mayne knelt down close to his head. ‘Who sent you?’ he snarled.

The man gargled, spitting out blood and foaming at the mouth, his eyes wide, his skin turning grey. He gave a death rattle, and his head slumped backwards. He had said something, two words, but Mayne had only heard the second clearly:
Pasha
, the Ottoman word for general. It could be any number of Arab leaders who sported that title; the Ottomans and their minions were masters of intrigue, and any of them could have spies and secret missions in the desert. But how could these men have known to follow Mayne and Charrière from Korti? Who else could have wanted them dead before they reached Gordon?

And then he remembered. The Sudanese used
Pasha
for the British too; he had even done it himself in Khartoum, for Gordon. It was how the doomed General Hicks had been known to his Egyptian troops. And there was someone else, someone who had been called that by his fanatical bodyguard.

His heart pounded.

Kitchener Pasha
.

He looked up at Charrière. ‘It was Kitchener. I’m sure of it. He was suspicious of me, and must have guessed my role. He idolised Gordon, and couldn’t bear to think of what I might be planning to do.’ He rocked back for a moment, feeling overwhelming relief. For days now he had been nagged by uncertainty, wondering whether Colonel Wilson might have had him followed, or even Wolseley. But Kitchener would have acted alone; in the desert he followed no orders. Mayne remembered Burnaby’s dying warning:
don’t trust anyone
. Burnaby had been watching and listening during the Korti conference, and would have sensed the depth of Kitchener’s loyalty to Gordon. Mayne shut his eyes for a moment. He felt in control again, and a sudden need to be behind the sights of his rifle, focusing on what he did best.

A huge explosion rent the air, and a shower of light crackled and cascaded down on Khartoum. It was followed by another, and then a distant drumming of gunfire that came through the still dawn air as if it were right next to them, the reports echoing down the river. Mayne saw the city lit up by the explosions, its shattered whitewashed buildings collapsing into the ground like the carapace of some long-dead river monster, and then he turned around and for the first time saw a sliver of dawn above the eastern horizon. He looked at Charrière. It had begun.

They both moved quickly back through the wall and lay down at the embrasure. The distant gunfire had become a continuous crackle to the north-east, somewhere near the junction of the two Niles, and was joined by a distinctive thudding of artillery that sounded like British nine-pounders, the guns that had been mounted on the steamers. They must be coming up through a gauntlet of fire from the Mahdi’s forces on either side of the river. Mayne looked at the pastel orange light that was now spreading over the city, diffused by the smoke of the explosions. If the steamers survived the barrage, they would be rounding the corner of Tutti island in less than half an hour.