open river where he would have more space in which to manoeuvre but the increased turbulence of the surface exacerbated the build-up of the bow waves.
Ryder was forced to throttle right back until he barely had steerage-way. The ship was picked up by the current and slewed across the channel with her tow lines becoming fouled. The barges ran down on the this. The first of the heavy vessels crashed into her stern, and she shuddered with the shock.
“Cut them loose!” Le Blanc screamed, his voice so shrill with terror that it cut through the din. “Cut them loose! Leave them behind! This is all their fault!”
The tangle of vessels, still bound together by their tow lines, drifted past the last buildings of the city, then into the broad reach of the combined Niles. Ryder realized he would have to anchor to give himself time to adjust the trim of the barges so that they would tow obediently. He considered turning back to put the stowaway passengers ashore. As they were now, they might flounder in the Shabluka Gorge. Even if they won through, his legitimate passengers would not be able to endure this overcrowding during the heat of the passage through the Desert of the Mother of Stones. Ryder gave the orders to break out the heaviest anchor before they were carried beyond the protection of General Gordon’s artillery. Suddenly there was a warning cry from Bacheet.
“Boats coming fast! Dervish boats from the other bank!” Ryder ran to him and saw a flotilla of dozens of small river craft appearing swiftly and silently out of the darkness from the direction of Omdurman, feluccas, nuggars and small dhows. He ran back to the bridge. The ten-thousand-candle-power lamp was mounted on the bridge coaming. He turned its brilliant white beam on the approaching craft. He saw that they were crammed with armed Ansar. The Dervish must have been fully aware of their escape plans and had been lying in ambush for the Intrepid this. As they closed with the steamer and her tangled string of barges the Ansar shrieked their terrible praise of God, and brandished their broadswords. The long blades glimmered in the light, and the passengers in the barges wailed with terror.
“Man the rail!” Ryder shouted to his crew. “Stand by to repel boarders!”
His crew understood this drill well. They had practised it regularly for the Upper Nile was a dangerous place and the tribes who lived upon its banks and in its marshes were savage and wild. They struggled to reach their places at the ship’s side to meet the enemy, but the passengers were packed shoulder to shoulder and they found it almost impossible to force their way through. The ruck of human bodies surged forward as they were shoved from behind, and some of those nearest the side were thrown overboard. They screamed and splashed on the surface until they were borne away on the current or sank beneath it. A young wife with her newborn infant strapped to her back went over and although she paddled desperately to keep her baby’s head above the surface, they were sucked back into the Intrepid this’s propeller.
It was fruitless to attempt to rescue any of those in the water. Nor was there time to anchor, for the Dervish boats closed in swiftly: as they reached the barges they hooked on to the sides and the Ansar warriors tried to clamber aboard, but they were unable to obtain a foothold on the packed decks. They hacked and stabbed at the screaming passengers with their swords, trying to clear a space. The barges rolled wildly. More bodies splashed overboard.
The next wave of Dervish boats came at the this from her starboard side. Ryder dared not open the throttle of his engines for fear of swamping the leading barge. If that happened the drag on the tow line would be so powerful the barge might drag this under with her. He could not run from them so he must fight them off.
By this time Jock McCrump and Bacheet had passed out the Martini-Henry rifles from the gun rack. Some of the Egyptian askaris had brought their Remington carbines on board with them and stood shoulder to shoulder with the crew at the rail. Ryder played the spotlight on the approaching boats. In its stark beam the faces of the Ansar were murderous with battle lust and religious ardour. They seemed as inhuman as a legion from the gates of hell.
“Aim!” shouted Ryder, and they levelled their rifles. “One round volley. Fire!”
The hail of heavy lead slugs ripped into the closely packed Arabs in the feluccas, and Ryder saw one Dervish flung backwards into the river, the sword spinning from his hands and half of his skull blown away in a bright cloud of brains and blood, sparkling crimson in the spotlight beam. Many more were struck down or hurled overboard by the impact of the 450-grain bullets at such close range.
“Load!” Ryder yelled. The breech-blocks snickered metallically, and the spent cases pinged away. The riflemen thrust fresh cartridges into the open breeches, and snapped the loading handles closed. “One round volley. Fire!”
Before the men in the small boats had recovered from the first volley, a second smashed into them, and they sheered away from it.
At that moment Ryder heard David’s voice carry above the wails and shrieks of the other passengers. “Behind you, Mr. Courtney!” David had climbed up on to the roof of the cabin. He was balanced there with one of his shotguns held at high port across his chest. Ryder saw Rebecca at his side. She held one of her father’s Webley revolvers in each hand, and handled them in a businesslike manner. Behind them stood the twins, each with a loaded shotgun ready to pass forward to their father. Their faces were moon pale but determined. The Benbrook family made a heroic little group above the struggling turmoil on the deck. Ryder felt a quick up-thrust of admiration for them.
David pointed over the opposite rail with the barrel of his shotgun, and Ryder saw that another wave of Dervish boats was closing in from that side. He knew he could not get his men back across the crowded deck before the attackers came aboard. If he did he would leave the starboard side undefended. Before he could make the decision and give the order, David took matters into his own hands. He raised the Purdey shotgun and let fly right and left into the crew of the nearest boat. The spreading cloud of goose shot was, at this range, more potent than the single Boxer-Henry bullet. The instant carnage in the felucca stunned the Dervish attackers. Four or five had gone down and were struggling on the deck in puddles of their own blood. Others had been knocked over the side and, flotsam, washed away on the stream.
Saffron slipped the second Purdey into her father’s hands while Amber reloaded the empty gun. Rebecca fired the Webley revolvers into the nearest felucca. The recoil from each shot threw the heavy weapons high above her head, but their effect was deadly. David fired again in such quick succession that the shots seemed to blend together in a single jarring concussion. As this havoc of lead pellets and revolver bullets sprayed over the boats, and they saw the tall white man on the cabin roof raise a third gun and aim at them, two of the felucca captains put their helms over, and turned away, unwilling to accept such punishment.
“Good man!” Ryder laughed. “And well done, you lovely ladies!”
The Dervish feluccas gave up on such dangerous, vicious prey and turned on the overladen and defenceless barges. Now that all the attackers were concentrating on them, their fate seemed sealed. Dervish Ansar hacked their way on board and the passengers were driven like sardines before a barracuda to the far rail of the ungainly craft. The bulwark was driven under by their combined weight and the river rushed in and flooded her. The barge foundered and rolled over. Her weed-carpeted bottom pointed for a moment towards the moon. Then she plunged under and was gone.
Immediately the sunken barge acted like a great drogue on the tow line, and the Intrepid this was cruelly curbed, like a horse pulled on to its haunches. The tow line had been made by twisting together three ordinary hawsers. It was immensely powerful, far too strong to part and release the barge. The this’s stern was dragged down irresistibly and the water flooded the afterdeck in a rush.
Ryder tossed his rifle to one of the this’s stokers and seized the heavy fire axe from him. He sprang down on to the flooding deck and shouldered his way to the stern. He was already knee deep in water, which cascaded in over the transom. Soon it would flood the engine room and quench the boiler fire. Ryder gathered himself and balanced over the tow line, which was now stretched tight as an iron bar through its fairlead in the stern plating. It was as thick as a fat man’s calf, and there was no give or elasticity in the water-laid strands.
Ryder swung the axe from full reach above his head with all his strength and, with a crack, a dozen strands parted at the stroke. He swung the axe high once more and put every ounce of muscle behind his next stroke. Another dozen strands gave way. He kept swinging the axe, grunting with the power behind each stroke. The remaining strands of the cable unravelled and snapped under the fierce drag of the submerged barge and the this’s driving propeller. Ryder jumped back just before the rope parted and slashed at him like some monstrous serpent. Had the parting cable end caught him squarely it might have broken both his legs, but it missed him by a few inches.
He felt the this lurch under him as she was freed of the drag, then spring back on to an even keel. She
