animals carried nothing but their saddles. Between them the exhausted camels carried all the remaining water and equipment as well as the two riders. One collapsed after three more gruelling hours. Penrod shot it. He and Yakub drank as much of the water from its skins as their bellies would hold. Then they shared the rest between their two strong beasts.
They pushed on at the same pace, but within another ten miles the remaining two weaker beasts went down in quick succession. Half-way up the slip-face of a low dune one fell as though shot through the brain, and half an hour later the other groaned and its back legs gave way. It knelt to die and closed the thick double rows of lashes over its swimming eyes. Penrod stood over it with the Webley in his hand. “Thank you, old girl. I hope your next journey is less arduous.” And he put her out of her misery.
They allowed the surviving camels to drink what they could of the water, then drank themselves. What remained they loaded up. The two camels were strong and willing. Yakub stood beside them, and studied the terrain that lay ahead, the outline of the dunes and the shape of the distant hills. “Eight hours to the river,” he estimated.
“If my backside lasts that long,” Penrod lamented, as he climbed into the saddle. He ached in every nerve and muscle, and his eyeballs felt raw and abraded by the sand and the glare of sunlight. He abandoned himself to the pacing gait of the beast under him, the legs on each side swinging in unison, so that he pitched and rolled in the saddle. The desolate landscape fell away behind them, and the dunes and bare hills were so monotonously similar that at times he had the illusion they were making no progress but repeating the same journey endlessly.
Still clinging to the saddle, he slipped into a dark, leaden sleep. He slid sideways and almost fell off, but Yakub rode up alongside him and shook him awake. He lifted his head guiltily, and looked at the height of the sun. They had been riding for only two hours.
“Six more to go.” He felt lightheaded, and knew that at any moment sleep would overtake him again. He slipped to the ground and ran beside his camels’ head until the sweat stung his eyes. Then he mounted up again and followed Yakub through the shimmering wasteland. Twice more he had to dismount and run to keep himself awake. Then he felt the camel under him change its pace. At the same time Yakub shouted, “They have smelt the river.”
Penrod pushed up alongside his camel. “How far?”
“An hour, perhaps a little longer, before it will be safe for us to turn eastwards and head straight towards the river.”
The hour passed slowly, but the camels paced on steadily until they saw another low ridge of blue shale appear out of the heat haze ahead. To Penrod it seemed identical to hundreds of others they had passed since they had crossed the loop, but Yakub laughed and pointed at it: “This place I know!” He turned his camel’s head and the beast quickened its pace. The sun was half-way towards the western horizon, and their shadows flitted ahead over the barren earth.
They came up over the ridge, and Penrod stared ahead eagerly for a glimpse of greenery. The wasteland was unrelieved and unrelenting. Yakub was undismayed, and shook his lank curls in the hot wind, as the camels ran on across the plain.
Ahead another low shale bank seemed to rise no more than head high above the level ground. Yakub brandished his goad and leered across at Penrod with a satanic squint. “Place your trust in Yakub, the master of the sands. Brave Yakub sees the land as a vulture from on high. Wise Yakub knows the secret places and the hidden pathways.”
“If he is wrong brave Yakub will have need of a new neck, for I will break the one on which he balances his thick skull,” Penrod called back.
Yakub cackled and pushed his mount into a cumbersome gallop. He reached the top of the bank fifty paces ahead of Penrod, stopped and pointed ahead dramatically.
On the horizon they saw a line of palm trees stretched across the landscape, but it was difficult to judge the distance in the flat, uncertain light. The bunches of palm fronds on each long hole reminded Penrod of the ornate hairstyles of the Hadendowa warriors. He estimated that it was under two miles to the nearest grove.
“Get the camels down,” he ordered, and jumped to the ground. Surprisingly he felt strong and alert. At first sight of the Nile the weariness of the journey seemed to have left him. They took the camels behind the ridge and couched them out of sight from the river plain.
“In which direction lies Khartoum?” Penrod asked.
Without hesitation Yakub pointed to the left. “You can see the smoke from the cooking fires of Omdurman.”
It was so faint on the horizon that Penrod had taken it for dust or river haze, but now he saw that Yakub was right. “So we are at least five miles upstream of Khartoum,” he observed. They had reached the precise position he had aimed for.
He went forward cautiously and squatted on the high ground with the field-glasses. He saw at once that he had overestimated the distance to the riverbank. It was probably closer to one mile than two. There was no cover on the river plain, which was flat and featureless. It seemed that there was some cultivation under the palm trees, for he made out a line of darker green below the untidy fronds. “Probably dhurra fields,” he muttered, ‘but no sign of a village.” Again he checked the height of the sun. Two hours until dark. Should we make a run for the river before sunset, or wait for darkness? He felt impatience building in him, but he held it in check. While he considered the choice he kept the binoculars to his eyes. The riverbank could be far beyond the first trees of the grove, or it might be right there at the edge.
Movement caught his eye and he concentrated on it. A faint shading of pale dust was rising from among the palms. It was moving from left to right, in the opposite direction of Omdurman. Perhaps it was a caravan, he thought, following the road along the riverbank. But then he realized it was moving too fast. Riders, he decided, camels or horsemen. Suddenly the dust cloud stopped moving, hung for a few minutes at the same point, then gradually settled. They have halted in the grove, right between us and the riverbank. Whoever they were they had made the decision for him. Now he had no alternative but to wait for darkness. He went back to where Yakub sat with the camels. “Mounted men on the riverbank. We’ll have to wait for darkness when we can sneak past them.”
“How many?”
“I’m not certain. A large band. Judging by the dust there are maybe twenty or so.” There was little water left in the skins, no more than a few gallons. With the river in sight they could afford to be profligate so they drank their fill. By this time it was slimy with green algae and had taken on the taste of the crudely tanned leather, but Penrod drank it with relish. What they could not consume they gave to the camels.
Then they inflated the empty skins. This was a laborious job: they held each skin between their knees and blew into the nozzle, holding it closed between breaths by clamping a hand over the opening. When each skin was full and tight they stoppered it. Then they strapped them to the backs of the kneeling camels. All was ready for the river crossing, and Yakub looked at Penrod. “Yakub the tireless will keep watch while you rest. I will wake you at the setting of the sun.”
Penrod opened his mouth to refuse the offer, then recognized the sense of it. The elation was wearing off, and he realized that, without sleep, he was nearly at the end of his tether. He knew, too, that Yakub was almost indefatigable. He handed him the field-glasses without protest, stretched out on the shady side of his camel, wrapped his scarf round his head and was almost instantly asleep.
“Effendi.” Yakub shook him awake. His voice was a hoarse whisper. With a single glance at his face Penrod knew that there was trouble.
Yakub’s squint was hideous, one eye fixed on Penrod’s face but the other roved and rolled.
As Penrod sat up his right hand closed on the butt of the Webley. “What is it?”
“Riders! Behind us.” Yakub pointed back along the way they had come. Far out on the sun-seared plain a tight bunch of horsemen was coming on fast. “They are on our tracks.”
Penrod snatched the field-glasses from him and stared back at them. They wore the jibba. He counted nine. They were covering the ground at a canter. The leaders were leaning forward in their saddles to watch the ground ahead.
“They were waiting for us,” said Yakub. “It was the pigeon that warned them.”
“Yes! The pigeon.” Penrod leapt to his feet. He took a last glance at the height of the sun. It was squatting wearily on the horizon and little daylight remained. The camels were ready to run, eager for water, and lunged to
