Siege of khartoum simon.., p.25
Siege of Khartoum (Simon Fonthill Series), page 25
Abdullah, his face and garments soaked in perspiration, and gasping for breath, leaned heavily on his sword. Immediately Alice slipped the glass back, grasped the butt of the revolver again and turned to face the two remaining Dervishes. Had they seen her? What would they do? At least the odds were more level now.
Their reaction was quite unexpected. They immediately raised their rifles, pointed the barrels to the sky and fired them, shouting something that was quite unintelligible to Alice. But they were grinning. Their eyes were only on Abdullah, and it was clear that they had not seen Alice’s intervention. They cared nothing for the death of their compatriot; they were appreciating the end of a good fight. The rifle firing was a salutation to the victor!
Alice found herself shaking in reaction to the brutality of the end of the duel. For the first time, however, the trace of a grim smile appeared on Abdullah’s face. He nodded to the two Dervishes, who showed no sign of aggression, only approbation, then turned and gave a brief nod of acknowledgement to Alice.
She regarded him in silence, her mouth hanging open. Then, remembering her place, she lowered her head demurely. Something - she could not tell what - was exchanged between Abdullah and the two Dervishes. Then the two men dismounted, removed some decorative armbands from the dead man’s wrists and an amulet from his throat, took up his rifle, plunged his sword deep into the sand so that only the hilt protruded and remounted their camels. One took the halter rein of their former comrade’s camel, uttered a brief word to Abdullah, and then the two rode away to the north, without a glance at Alice.
‘Good God, Abdullah,’ she said. ‘I can’t thank you enough. You were so brave. But tell me: is that all they care about their dead friend? What did they say?’
‘They say “bury him”, that’s all.’
‘How . . . how . . . barbaric!’
‘It is their way. It is the way of the desert. The way of the Mahdi.’
Alice climbed down to go to Abdullah. ‘Ugh!’ She took his hand, slippery with sweat. ‘But thank you again for fighting for me.’ She took out her revolver, which she had never shown him before. ‘I had only this to use and was going to fire if it looked as though you were going to be hurt. But thank God it did not prove necessary.’
The great grin returned at last. ‘You much better with the glass thing, lady,’ he said. ‘Very clever. I think he kill me. I am not as young as I think . . . pah! I thank you, now. We both warriors, eh? Let us shake hands like warriors.’
They shook hands again, and Alice had a brief sense that this perhaps was how Simon and Jenkins would behave at the end of one of their many brushes with death: comradeship and mutual respect acknowledged in a manly handshake. She smiled at the thought.
Abdullah nodded to the body. ‘I do this,’ he said, and he indicated a rock protruding from the sand about a hundred yards away. ‘You sit there, lady, and tell if people come.’
She smiled again. She knew that there was no need to stand watch, for visibility stretched for miles on this flat desert plain and intruders could be detected long before they arrived. But he had given her the watchkeeping role to excuse her from the distasteful task of burying the corpse. He was making her feel useful - not just a helpless woman. Abdullah’s thoughtfulness would not have been out of place in an English vicarage, yet he had just slain his enemy in a primitive fight straight from the pages of a medieval saga. It was another example of the man’s many virtues.
Alice nodded and walked away slowly to perch gratefully on the rock. Her legs, she realised, were still trembling. The duel had been her first experience of brutal violence since the Battle of Tel el Kebir more than two years ago, and then, of course, she had been an observer, well out of harm’s way, not the trophy to be won on the swing of a sword. She shivered, despite the heat. Then she tossed her head back. This would never do! There would almost certainly be much more bloodshed before they rescued Simon. She walked back.
‘Here, let me help,’ she said, kneeling beside Abdullah and joining him in scooping out sand from the hollow he had already made.
They worked together in silence for a while before the tall man adjudged they had gone deep enough. ‘Hard ground now,’ he grunted. ‘No spade, so we just put him in. Allah has his spirit. Body don’t matter.’ He seized the Dervish’s legs, pulled him to the grave and immediately began covering him with sand. Alice turned her head away until the corpse was covered, then she too knelt and, using her hand, pushed sand on to the mound.
Abdullah stood, wiping his hands. ‘We go now, I think?’ he asked.
‘Yes please.’
They mounted and rode away. Alice looked back. Apart from the disturbed sand, there was no evidence that a man had lost his life in a fight over a woman. Suddenly she felt sick. This was, indeed, a barbaric country. She took several deep breaths and then urged her camel forward so that she rode alongside Abdullah.
‘Did those two men say where they were heading and why they were making their journey?’ she asked.
‘Yes. They go north to fight the infidel.’
‘Ah. Does that mean that a Dervish army is being formed to attack the British column, do you think?’
‘I do not know. Perhaps.’ They rode on in their customary companionable silence.
Two days later, Alice’s presumption was confirmed when, far ahead of them, they saw a great sand cloud. It signified many men on the march, and as they neared it, they realised that it was far too wide for them to track around it. Nevertheless, Abdullah pulled his camel’s head to the west to avoid penetrating the moving mass at its middle. Soon they were able to pick out the black and then green and white flags of the Mahdi in the van, and the sun glinted on a thousand spear points. It was, reflected Alice, as though she had been transported back in time and was seeing the advance of Saladin’s army against the Crusaders.
‘Burkha,’ grunted Abdullah, and Alice donned the black headdress once again, her mouth dry as they neared the vast mass.
This time, however, there seemed no menace. An army on the move it certainly was, but a peculiar sort of army in that it included many families among the armed men: women riding lead camels and towing loads behind them, and young children urging thin-flanked cattle to keep up the pace. It was like a small nation on passage, its very domesticity robbing it of much of its threat. Alice immediately felt relief, although she kept her head well down and her eyelashes lowered as she dutifully followed Abdullah’s camel as it threaded its way through the throng. The Sudanese raised his hand in greeting now and then, and exchanged a few words as they passed through, but the pair were completely unchallenged. They were of no interest. This moving mass had other things on its mind.
It took them about half an hour to pass through the army, and Alice was able to remove her burkha and pull alongside Abdullah. ‘Who on earth were they, and where were they going?’ she asked.
‘Going north to fight. You were right. They go to fight Wolseley Pasha.’
A terrible thought struck Alice. ‘Oh God! Does this mean that Khartoum has fallen?’
‘No. I ask and they say infidel pig is still fighting.’ Abdullah’s wraparound grin reappeared. ‘It take more than slaver like Mahdi to kill Gordon Pasha. He go on fighting till he drop.’
Alice nodded. ‘Yes, but I wonder for how much longer.’ A further thought struck her. ‘If this number of men are going north, they must be assembling a big army to fight Lord Wolseley. It could be difficult for us to get through them when we return with . . . with our three men.’
The tall Sudanese remained silent for a moment, his head nodding in time with the camel’s plod. ‘Yes. I think about that,’ he said eventually.
The next day they heard firing in the distance, only the dull boom of cannon at first and then, as they approached nearer, the lighter rattle of musketry.
‘Omdurman,’ grunted Abdullah. ‘We camp soon. Not safe to go too near.’
Alice consulted her old and much creased map, purchased in Cairo, it seemed several lifetimes ago. It did not show Omdurman, of course, because Gordon had built the fort long after it was printed, but Abdullah had marked roughly where it was: on the west bank of the White Nile, just south of the junction of the two Niles and some four miles away from Khartoum itself. She frowned. Now came the moment of truth, of course. Would it be possible to find out if the three prisoners were still alive, get them out of the Mahdi’s camp without detection and then take them the three hundred and fifty miles or more over the desert, through Dervish territory and the massing army in the north to the safety of the British lines? But which British lines? Where would Wolseley’s desert column be by the time they reached that northern loop of the Nile? She grinned despite herself. It all sounded bloody hopeless. Then her chin thrust forward. Hopeless? Never! If Simon was still alive, they would rescue him and take him and his companions to safety - or die in the attempt.
That evening, they camped in a little hollow some one and a half miles to the north-west of Omdurman, well within the sound of the guns and, from the top of a rock fringing the hollow, just within sight of the black mass that was the Mahdi’s camp set around the fort.
They sat by a small fire of dried camel dung and munched cooked durra and sun-dried goat’s meat as they discussed tactics. When their journey had begun, Alice had been the undoubted leader, the employer giving directions to her guide. As they had ridden further south, however, Abdullah had gradually assumed command, without in any way challenging Alice’s overall responsibility for their mission.
He outlined the geography of the Dervish camp with the end of his camel switch in the sand. The fort was set back a little way from the banks of the White Nile, with rough fortifications running down from it to the river. Bulging outwards from Omdurman itself, the Mahdi’s encampment lay mainly to the west and south of the fort, and almost exactly in the centre of it, he marked with a cross, were the series of zariba-enclosed compounds where the shackled prisoners were kept.
‘I go in to try and find them,’ he said.
‘But you don’t know them. I must come with you.’
He shook his head. ‘No. Too dangerous. You don’t speak Arabic. If you found as English, then we all lose our heads. No. You stay here. I find them somehow.’
Alice put her face in her hands momentarily. ‘Abdullah, listen. You might well be recognised as the man who was suspected of escaping from Khartoum. What happens then?’
He shrugged. ‘Many more people come to camp since then. Many new faces. I don’t act suspicious. You tell me what your people look like. I remember that slave boys usually look after people in chains, if people can pay. I find slave boy. He take me to them for few coins. But . . .’ he frowned, ‘how we get them out of chains? Very difficult, I think.’
Alice rose to her feet and went to her saddle bag and reached inside. ‘Here,’ she said, unwrapping a piece of oiled cloth. ‘Here are two hacksaws - the sort that can cut through steel - two files, and a pair of pliers that a strong man could use to prise open links in a chain, once they have been cut through.’ She put them on the ground by the fire. ‘But Abdullah, these are very precious. We must be absolutely sure that you give them to the right prisoners.’
The big man weighed the pliers in his hand. ‘Good. It may take me one, two or three visits to find these people. Yes, we must be sure. You must give me something at first that shows who you are, so they trust me. Then I must have something they give me to show who they are. Do you have something?’
She delved once more into her bag. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘take this. But whoever you give it to must be able to tell you who it belongs to. The answer must be “Alice”. Then you can give him the saw and the other things. Is that clear?’
‘Oh yes, lady. Very clear.’ He tucked the little bundle under his shirt. ‘I go tomorrow. But what you do if Dervish come here?’
Alice took a deep breath. ‘Yes. That’s difficult. But, Abdullah, I do speak a little Arabic . . .’ She paused, still embarrassed that she had kept this from him in the early days.
‘Ah, good.’ He nodded, seemingly quite unoffended. ‘Then you say that you from the south - Equatoria, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you don’t talk good Sudan Arabic, but your husband gone to buy food. You both on way back home. Can you say that?’
‘I think so - in very bad Arabic, but I don’t suppose that matters?’
‘No, good thing. Now we sleep. I go in early in morning. Good night, lady.’
‘Good night, Abdullah. And thank you.’
Chapter 13
Mustapha stayed curled up in the back of their shelter for two days, while Fonthill and Jenkins worked in the fields. Simon had abjured him to remain there, and as far as the two could see, he did so, for on their return on both nights the boy was half asleep and remained subdued and mainly silent as they set about cooking their meal and feeding him a little.
Then, on the morning of the third day after his rescue, he stirred before the others and began lighting a fire, putting a pot of water on it to boil (Simon had decided that to avoid the risk of contracting infection, they should boil all their drinking water).
‘Ah,’ said Jenkins, peering over his blanket. ‘Feelin’ better then, lad?’
‘Yes thank you. I go today to steal bleedin’ saw and files. I not get caught this time.’
‘No,’ snapped Fonthill. ‘You are not to go near the smiths. Do you understand?’
The boy hung his head and nodded.
‘And bleeding is a swear word and you are not to use it unless your skin is cut and you are really bleeding. Do you understand that?’
‘Yes, master.’
‘Good.’ Fonthill threw aside his blanket and muttered to Jenkins, ‘You really must be careful with your language in front of the boy. You set a bad example.’
The Welshman rolled his eyes. ‘Well pardon me, Reverend. I ’ad forgotten this was the vicarage tea party. Bloody ’ell, bach sir. This ain’t exactly the place to start teachin’ ’im manners, now is it?’
‘Yes it is. We have to rise above all this . . . this . . . mess and maintain our standards. If the boy is to live in England he must learn to speak and behave properly, and he might as well start now.’
Jenkins’s eyes once again sought the heavens, but he said nothing.
The three drank water and ate a little of the previous day’s ever-present durra before Fonthill and Jenkins rose to join the chain gang assembling at the entrance to their enclosure. Simon gave last-minute instructions to Mustapha.
‘Do not go near the smiths’ enclosure. If you feel strong enough, by all means see if you can find us something to eat to go with this damn . . . this boring durra. Take the knife but keep it hidden, and above all, don’t get into trouble. Is that clear?’ ‘Yes, master.’
The crack of a whip summoned them and they left the boy sullenly washing their gourds.
They returned at the end of the day to find that Mustapha had obeyed Simon’s instructions, for at least he had managed to buy fresh fruit, a little rice and some tea. That evening the boy gently washed the aching backs of the two men and then they sat around their little fire companionably and ate well, finishing with cups of hot mint tea. For the first time since their capture, Fonthill began to feel grains of hope begin to percolate in his mind. As their shadows flickered high against the back wall of their shelter, he pondered aloud.
‘We cannot make any attempt at escape until we all regain our strength,’ he said. ‘And, of course, we cannot get out of here carrying all this ironmongery. But time is not on our side. We shall go mad if we accept the situation and just wait for Wolseley to come and rescue us, and anyway, it is our duty to try and get to him and tell him how little time he has if he is to relieve Gordon.’
Jenkins nodded. ‘So . . . ?’
‘Working in the fields is not doing us any harm at the moment; in fact, it is probably doing us good, in that it is helping us to rebuild our bodies. If Mustapha can continue to buy us good food, then in, say, a couple of weeks we should be able to do something to get out of here.’
‘How?’
Fonthill rubbed his face with his hand and stared unseeingly into Mustapha’s wide eyes. ‘With Mustapha’s help, we build up a stock of food for travelling, then, somehow, we create a diversion, steal a hacksaw from one of the smiths - we do that, not Mustapha - cut off these damned chains, take three camels and we’re off.’
‘Blimey. Just like that?’
‘Can you think of a better way?’
‘No. But what sort of diversion?’
‘Start a fire.’
A slow smile of appreciation stole over Jenkins’s face. ‘Ah. Yes. I see.’
They had already seen several coils of heavy black smoke rising from the camp on either side of them, accompanied by shouts, screams and the banging of drums. Yesterday Slatin had visited them and solemnly warned them of the dangers of fire. He had explained that the whole camp, with its many tinder-dry pieces of timber and fabric tents, was vulnerable, and the Khalifa had announced a sentence of death on anyone guilty of starting a fire by carelessness.
‘Better be careful, though, bach sir.’
Fonthill nodded. ‘Absolutely. We must make a reconnaissance first to see if any of the smiths has a saw or suitable file in use. Then while one of us starts the fire nearby, the other steals the implement in the subsequent chaos.’
‘I do that,’ volunteered Mustapha.
‘No,’ said Simon. ‘You might be recognised from the last time. The whole idea is dangerous and we must be absolutely sure of what we are doing. But do it we will.’
Three heads nodded solemnly, and somehow they all felt better. It was a plan, of a sort, and any action was better than sitting there, like the other prisoners, aimlessly waiting for their shackles to be removed and existing on vague hope alone.
