riverbank.
As he raced towards it Penrod had only a moment to survey the river before him. He saw that the bank was a sheer drop of ten feet and that the water below it was green and deep. It was at least a mile across to the opposite bank and three large islands of reeds and papyrus were floating down in stately procession towards Khartoum in the north. That was all he had time to observe. With Osman and his aggagiers racing up behind them he urged the camel straight to the top of the bank.
“In God’s Name!” shrieked Yakub. “I cannot swim.”
“If you stay here the Dervish women will have your balls,” Penrod reminded him.
“I can swim!” Yakub changed his mind.
“Sensible Yakub!” Penrod grunted, and as the camel hesitated he stabbed hard into its neck with the goad. It leapt outwards so violently that Yakub lost his grip on the Webley as he snatched at a handhold. With a gut- wrenching sensation they dropped to hit the water with a splash as high as the bank above their heads. The aggagiers reined in their horses and milled about on top of the bank, firing down at the two men floundering on the surface.
“Stop!” Osman shouted angrily, and knocked up the barrel of al-Noor’s carbine. His intervention came too late, for a bullet fired by one of the others hit the camel and damaged its spine. The terrified beast swam desperately with its front feet, but its paralysed back legs anchored it so that it turned in small circles, bellowing and hissing with terror. Despite the crippling injury it rode high in the water, buoyed by the inflated waterskins.
“You think you have cheated me yet again,” Osman shouted across the water, ‘but I am Osman Atalan, and your life belongs to me.”
Penrod guessed immediately from the emir’s tone of false bravado that, like most desert Arabs, he could not swim. For all his wild courage on land, he would never expose himself and his beautiful mare to the attack of the jinn and the monstrous Nile crocodiles that infested these waters. He would not follow his enemy over the bank into the swift green river.
For a minute longer Osman wrestled with his chivalrous instincts, his passionate desire for single combat, to avenge himself on his enemy with the sword. Then he gave way to expediency, and made an abrupt, eloquent chopping gesture with his right hand.
“Kill them!” he ordered. At once his aggagiers jumped to the ground and lined the top of the bank. They aimed volley after volley at the group of bobbing heads. Penrod seized Yakub by one arm and dragged him behind the struggling camel, using it as a shield. The current carried them swiftly downstream and the aggagiers followed, running along the bank, and keeping up a hail of carbine fire. All the time the current was carrying them away from the bank and the range was opening. At last a lucky shot struck the camel in the head, and it rolled over like a log in the water.
Penrod drew the dagger from his sash, and cut loose one of the inflated skins from its saddle. “Hold here, brave Yakub,” he gasped, and the terrified Arab seized the tag of rawhide rope. They abandoned the camel’s carcass, and Penrod swam them slowly out across the current towards the middle of the river.
As darkness dropped over them, with the suddenness of the African night, the shape of the Dervish on the bank faded away and only the muzzle flashes of their rifles still showed. Penrod swam with a gentle sidestroke, kicking with both legs, paddling with one hand and towing Yakub with the other by the scruff of his neck. Yakub was clinging to the skin bladder, and shivering like a half-drowned puppy. “There are crocodiles in this cursed river so large they could swallow a buffalo, horns and all.” His teeth chattered and he choked on a mouthful of water.
“Then they would not trouble themselves with a skinny little Jaalin,” Penrod comforted him. A huge dark shape loomed out of the gloom and bore down on them. It was one of the floating islands of papyrus and reeds. He caught a handful of reeds as it drifted by, and dragged himself and Yakub up on to it. The vegetation was so densely matted and intertwined it could have supported a herd of elephants. It undulated softly under their feet as they crawled across it to the side nearest Khartoum. They squatted there, regaining their strength and gazing across at the eastern bank.
Penrod was worried that, on such a moonless night, he might not see the city when they reached it and stared into the darkness until his eyes ached. Suddenly he thought he could make out the ugly square shape of Mukran Fort, but his eyes were playing tricks and, when he stared at it, it dissolved. “After such a journey, it would be the height of stupidity to sail past Khartoum in the night,” he muttered, and then his doubts were dispelled.
From downstream there came the crash of artillery fire. He leapt to his feet and peered through the papyrus stems. He saw the brilliant orange muzzle flashes of cannon demarcating the Omdurman side of the river. Seconds later the shells burst on the east bank and illuminated Khartoum’s waterfront. This time there was no mistaking the stark outline of Mukran Fort and, beyond it, the consular palace. He smiled grimly as he remembered the nightly artillery bombardment by the Dervish gunner, whom David Benbrook had dubbed the Bedlam Bedouin. “At least he has not run out of ammunition yet,” he said, and explained to Yakub what they had to do.
“We are safe here,” Yakub demurred. “If we stay here the river will push us in time to the bank and we can walk ashore like men, not swim like iguanas.”
“That will not happen until you reach the Shabluka Gorge, where this raft will surely be destroyed. You know well that the gorge is the lair of all the most evil river djinni.”
Yakub thought about that for a few minutes, then announced, “Brave Yakub fears no jinnee, but he will swim with you to the city to watch over you.”
The skin bladder had leaked half its air, and they blew it tight again while they waited for the raft to reach the most advantageous point. By then the moon had risen, and although the Dervish bombardment had petered out, they could make out the city skyline clearly, and even see a few small cooking fires. They slipped into the water. Yakub was becoming more courageous by the minute and Penrod showed him how to kick with his legs and help to drive the bladder across the current.
After a laborious swim Penrod felt the bottom under his feet. He let the bladder go and dragged Yakub ashore. “Fearless Yakub defies all the crocodiles and jinn of this little stream.” Yakub posed boldly on the bank and made an obscene gesture towards the Nile.
“Yakub should close his fearless mouth,” Penrod advised, ‘before one of the Egyptian sentries puts a bullet in his defiant backside.” He wanted to get into the city secretly. Apart from the danger of being shot by the guards, any contact with the troops would result in him being taken immediately to General Gordon. His orders from Sir Evelyn Baring were to deliver his message to Benbrook first, and only then to report to Gordon.
Penrod had spent months in Khartoum before and after the disaster of El Obeid, so he was intimately aware of the layout of the de fences and fortifications, which were concentrated along the riverfront. Keeping well outside the walls and the canal, he worked his way swiftly around the southern outskirts. When he was almost opposite the domed roof of the French consulate, he approached the canal bank. Once he was certain that it was clear, they waded across, the water only chin deep.
When they reached the other side they lay up in the palm grove to wait for the patrol to pass. Penrod whiffed the smoke of Turkish tobacco before he saw them. They sauntered past along the footpath, rifles trailing, the sergeant smoking. It was behaviour typical of the slovenly Egyptian troops.
As soon as they were gone he dropped into the drainage ditch that led to the outer city wall. The ooze stank of raw sewerage, but they crawled through the tunnel, past the back wall of the French consulate and into the old town. Penrod was perturbed at how easily they had got through. Gordon’s de fences must be stretched to breaking point. At the beginning of the siege he had commanded seven thousand Egyptians, but that number must have been much reduced by the attrition of disease and desertion.
They hurried through the deserted alleys, stepping round the bloated carcasses of men and animals. Even the appetite of the crows and vultures was inadequate to the task of devouring such an abundance. The stench of a city under siege assailed his nostrils, death and putrefaction. He had heard it called the cholera bouquet.
Penrod paused to pull his pocket watch from its pouch and held it to his ear. It had not survived the dousing in the river. He looked at the moon, judged that it was well after midnight, and hurried on unchallenged through the deserted streets. When they reached the gates of the consular palace there was still lamplight in a few windows. The sentry at the front gate was asleep, curled like a dog in his box. His rifle was propped against the wall, and Penrod took charge of it before he kicked him awake. It took some time and a great deal of argument with the sergeant of the guard, but despite his appearance and the smell of sewerage that wafted from his robes Penrod was able at last to convince him that he was a British officer.
