that Miss Amber Benbrook has consented to become my wife, and in so doing she has made me the happiest man in creation.”
A little later Colonel Sam Adams was smoking a quiet cigarette on the darkened terrace when he overheard the conversation of two young subalterns who had imbibed copious quantities of champagne.
“They say she has made herself a flash hundred thousand iron men from the book. Happiest man in creation? Ballantyne has that great gong stuck on his chest, pips on his shoulders, his own battalion, and to top it all the lucky blighter has dug himself a gold mine with his pork shovel. Why shouldn’t he be happy?”
“Lieutenant Stuttaford.” A cold, familiar voice spoke from the shadows close at hand.
Pale with shock, Stuttaford came unsteadily to attention. “Colonel Adams, sir!”
“Kindly present yourself at my office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
By noon the next day Lieutenant Stuttaford, still suffering from a vile hangover, found himself packing for immediate departure to the desert outpost at Suakiri”, one of the most desolate and dreary postings in the Empire.
The Egyptian army has always been considered a music-hall turn, the Gilbert and Sullivan opera of the Nile. The standing army at home, and those in the Indian Service snigger when they speak our name,” Penrod told the other members of the party. He and Ryder lolled against the transom of the felucca. Jane Ballantyne, Saffron and Amber sat on gaily-coloured cushions on the deck. They were sailing upstream in the hired felucca to climb to the summit of the pyramid of Cheops at Giza, and afterwards to picnic in the shadow of the Sphinx.
“How vulgar and silly of them.” Amber came immediately to his defence.
“In all truth they had good reason at one time,” Penrod admitted, ‘but that was the old army, in the bad old days. Now the men are paid. The officers do not steal their rations, and turn tail and run at the first shot. The men are not beaten when they fall sick, but are sent to the doctor and the hospital. All of you must come to the review on Monday. You will see some parading and drilling that will astonish you.”
“My father was a colonel in the Black Watch, as you know, Penrod,” said Jane. “I cannot claim to be a great expert, but I have read something of military affairs. Papa saw to that. As soon as we knew that we were coming to Cairo, Amber and I read every book about Egypt on the shelves of the library at Clercastle, as well as Sir Alfred Mimer’s excellent England in Egypt. Nowhere have I heard it suggested that the Egyptian fellahin are good soldierly material.”
“What you say is true. It was always unlikely that the rich and fertile delta, with its enervating climate, would produce warriors. The fellahin may be cruel and callous, but they are not fierce and bloodthirsty. On the other hand, they are stoic and strong. They meet pain and hardship with indifference. Theirs is a kind of docile courage that we more warlike peoples can only admire. They are obedient and honest, quick to learn and, above all, strong. What they lack in nerve they make up for in muscle.”
“Pen darling, that is all well and good about the Egyptians but tell us about your Arabs,” Amber interjected.
“Ah, but you know them well, my heart.” Penrod smiled tenderly at her. “If the Egyptian fellahin are mastiffs, then the Arabs are Jack Russell terriers. They are intelligent and quick. They are venal and excitable. They do not lend themselves willingly to discipline. You can never trust them entirely, but their courage is daunting. At Abu Klea they came against the square as if they gloried in death. If they give you their loyalty, and they seldom do, it is a link of steel that binds them to you. War is their way of life. They are warriors, and I respect them. Some I have learnt to love. Yakub is one of those.”
“Nazeera is another,” Amber agreed.
“Oh, I wonder what has become of her, and of our dear sister Rebecca.” Saffron shook her head sorrowfully. “I dream of her most nights. Is there nobody in Military Intelligence who can discover this for us?”
“Believe me, I have tried diligently to find news of Rebecca. However, the Sudan is closed off from the world, as though in a steel casket. It slumbers in its own nightmare. Would that one day we have the will and the way to end the horror and set her people free. Rebecca is the first of those we would liberate.”
Rebecca sat with the other wives in the cloister of the inner courtyard of the palace of Ostnan Atalan. It was the cool of the evening and Osman was demonstrating to his followers the courage of his blue-eyed son. For many months Rebecca had known that her son faced this ordeal. She covered her face with her veil so that none of the other women would know of her fear.
Only three months previously Ahmed Habib abd Atalan had been circumcised. Rebecca had wept as she dressed his mutilated penis, but Nazeera had rebuked her: “Ahmed is a man now. Be proud for him, al-Jamal. Your tears will unman him.”
Now Ahmed stood before his father, trying to be brave. His head was bare and his fists were clenched at his side.
“Open your eyes, my son.” Osman’s voice crackled. He tossed his sword into the air and it spun like a cartwheel before the hilt dropped back into his hand. “Open your eyes. I want Allah and all the world to know that you are a man. I want you to show me, your father, your courage.”
Ahmed opened his eyes. They were no longer milky, but a dark blue like the African sky when storm clouds gather. His lower lip quivered and tiny droplets of perspiration de wed the upper. Osman flourished the long blade and cut at the side of his head with such force that the steel hummed in the air. The stroke could have bisected a grown man at the trunk. It swept past Ahmed’s temple. His unruly coppery hair fluttered in the wind of its passage. The watching aggagiers growled with admiration. Ahmed swayed on his feet.
“You are my son,” Osman whispered. “Hold fast!” He stroked the tip of his son’s ear with the flat of the blade. Ahmed shrank away from the cool touch of steel.
“Do not move,” Osman warned him, “Or I will cut it off.”
Ahmed leant forward and vomited on the ground at his feet.
An expression of contempt and shame crossed Osman’s face, and was smoothed away immediately. “Go back to your mother,” he said softly.
Ahmed tried to choke back his sobs. “I do not feel well,” he murmured hopelessly, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
Osman stepped back and glared at him. “Go and sit with the women,” he ordered.
Ahmed ran to his mother and buried his face in Rebecca’s skirt.
A tense silence held the watchers. Nobody spoke and nobody moved.
They were barely able to draw breath. Osman was turning away when a small, delicate figure rose to her feet from among the ranks of seated women. Rebecca tried to hold her back, but Kahruba pushed away her hand and went to her father. He grounded the point of his blade and watched her stop in front of him. He studied her face, then demanded ominously, “What disrespect is this? Why do you pester me so?”
“My father, I want to show you and Allah my courage,” said the child. She removed her head cloth and shook out her tawny hair.
“Go back to your mother. This is no childish game.”
“Exalted father, I do not wish to play games.” She looked straight into his eyes.
He raised the sword and stepped towards her, like a leopard stalking a gazelle. She stood her ground. Suddenly he cut, forehanded, at her face. The blade flashed inches from her eyes. She blinked, but stood like a statue.
He cut again, backhanded. A curl dropped from the loose mop of her hair, and floated to the ground at her bare feet. Behind her Rebecca cried out, “Oh, my darling!”
Kahruba ignored her, and held her father’s eyes steadfastly.
“You provoke me,” he said, and slowly traced the outline of her body with the blade. Never further than a finger’s breadth from her flesh, the scalpel-sharp edge moved up from the outside of one knee, over her thigh, round the curve of her hip, along her arm and shoulder to the side of her neck. He touched her and she closed her eyes, then opened them as she felt the steel on her cheek. It moved up over the top of her head and down again to her other knee. She did not flinch.
Osman narrowed his eyes and brought the blade back along the same route, but faster, and then again, even faster. The steel dissolved into a silver blur. It danced in front of the child’s eyes like a dragonfly. It hummed and whispered in her ears as it passed close to her tender skin. Rebecca was weeping silently, and Nazeera held her hand hard, but she, too, was close to tears. “Do not make a sound,” she whispered. “If Kahruba moves, she is dead.”
