dealing with him. As soon as we have them we shall drop in on Effendi Aswat at the tannery.”
At that moment they heard the muffled tramp of feet. Bacheet slipped out through a shell hole in the rear wall to carry out Ryder’s orders. Penrod stubbed out his cigar and wrapped the butt in his handkerchief, then joined Ryder at the empty window. They stayed well back in the shadows so that they were not spotted from the alley. A group of dark, furtive figures moved past the window. The two guards were first: they wore khaki Egyptian uniform with a flowerpot fez. They carried their rifles, bayonets fixed, slung over the shoulder. The porters followed them, bowed under the heavy dhurra sacks. The two armed men of the rear guard followed a short distance behind.
When they had disappeared Penrod remarked, “Now I understand why you would not allow me to bring any of the garrison troops, and why you insisted that we use only your Arabs. Gordon’s Egyptians are in this up to their necks.”
“Deeper than their necks,” Ryder corrected him. Within a short time the unburdened porters and their escorts came hurrying back down the alley towards the tannery. Bacheet appeared again, with the suddenness of the genie from the lamp. “AH Muhammad Acrani, who has a house behind the hospital, has bought all twenty-four sacks of the first delivery,” he reported. They waited for the next delivery to pass the windows. It was after midnight before the heavily laden porters left the tannery for the sixth time and staggered down the alley.
“That will be the last delivery,” Bacheet told Ryder. “In God’s Name, it is time at last to catch the jackal while he is still gobbling up the chickens.”
“In God’s Name,” Ryder agreed.
When they slipped out of the rear of the shelled building, Bacheet’s band was waiting for them in the shadows of the rear wall, armed with broadswords and spears. None carried firearms. Ryder led them quietly down the alley, keeping close to the dark buildings on each side. The silhouette of the tannery rose against the star bright desert sky. It was a three-storeyed building, dark and derelict, that blocked the end of the alleyway.
“Very well, Captain Ballantyne. I think it’s time for you to go and find your man, Yakub.”
While they waited in the ruined building they had discussed the last details of the raid, so now there was no hesitation or misunderstanding. They had agreed that, as this was Ryder’s affair, he would make the decisions and give the orders. However, Yakub was Penrod’s man and would take orders only from him.
Penrod touched Ryder’s shoulder in acknowledgement and moved quickly to the enclosing wall of the tannery’s yard. The gate was closed and locked, but Penrod sheathed his sabre and jumped up to grab a handhold in a crack in the masonry. He pulled himself up with a single lithe movement, swung his legs over the top of the wall and dropped out of sight.
Ryder gave him a few minutes to get clear, then led Bacheet and the rest of the party to the high gate. He knew the layout of the building. Before the siege he had sent almost all of the hides he brought up from Equatoria to be processed by the old German who had owned the factory. The tanner had fled Khartoum with the first exodus of refugees. Ryder knew that the gate led into the loading yard. He tried it, but found it locked from the inside. It was unpainted, dry and cracked. He drew out his knife, whose point sank into the wood as though it were cheese.
“Dry rot,” he grunted. He ran the blade through the narrow gap between the edge of the door and the jamb, and located the staple of the lock on the far side. He “backed off a few paces, lined up, then stepped forward and slammed the flat of his right boot into the door. The screws that held the lock on the far side were ripped from the rotten wood and the gate swung open.
“Quickly now! Follow me.” Across the yard there was a raised loading platform with the main doors of the warehouse leading off it. This was where he had unloaded his bundles of raw hides for curing, and where he had collected the finished product. A broken-down wagon still stood against the platform. The entire place stank of half-cured leather. The glimmer of lamplight showed through slits in the boarded-over ground-floor windows, and beneath the main doors to the warehouse.
Ryder ran up the steps of the loading platform. Rats scurried into their holes as he crossed to the main door. He paused to listen and heard muffled voices through the woodwork. Gently he put his weight on the door, which eased open an inch, and peered through the gap. A
man was leaning against the door frame with his back turned to Ryder. He wore the long dark cassock of a Coptic Christian priest and the hood covered his head. Now he turned quickly and stared at Ryder with astonishment in his eyes.
“Ah, Effendi Aswat,” Ryder greeted him, as he lifted the ironwood club. “Do you have any dhurra for sale?” He swung the club with the power of his wide shoulders behind it, aiming at the cloaked head. It should have cracked on the priest’s skull, but the down stroke crashed into the top frame of the door above Ryder’s head with a force that numbed his wrist. The club flew from his grip and struck the cloaked figure a glancing blow on the shoulder that sent him reeling backwards with a howl of pain.
“To arms! Stand to arms! The enemy is on us!” the priest shouted, as he raced away across the open floor of the warehouse.
Ryder wasted a few moments retrieving his club from where it had rolled against the wall. As he straightened he glanced around the cavernous warehouse. It was lit by a dozen or more oil lamps hanging from the railing of the catwalk that ran round the high walls, just below the roof beams. In the dim light he saw that Bacheet had underestimated the strength of the opposition: at least twenty other men were scattered around the warehouse. Some were slaves, naked except for turbans and loincloths, but others wore the khaki uniforms and red fez of the Egyptian garrison troops. All had frozen in the attitude in which the priest’s cry had caught them.
The slaves were stacking mountainous heaps of sacks in the centre of the warehouse and the floury smell of ripe dhurra blended with the ancient reek of raw hide and tannin. An Egyptian lieutenant and three or four non- commissioned officers were overseeing their efforts. It took them all some moments to gather their wits. They stared, aghast, at Ryder as he advanced on them brandishing his club. Then, with warlike shouts, Bacheet and his Arabs burst in through the main doors.
The Egyptian non-commissioned officers came to life and rushed to where their rifles were stacked against the far wall. Their lieutenant pulled his revolver from its holster and loosed off a shot before Bacheet and his gang were upon them, swinging swords and thrusting spears. The shouting, hacking, cursing melee surged back and forth across the warehouse floor. One of the slaves threw himself at Ryder’s feet and clung to his knees, screaming for mercy. Impatiently Ryder tried to kick him away, but he clung like a monkey to a fruit tree.
At the far end of the long building Aswat was getting away. With the robes of his cassock billowing behind him, he jumped over a pile of loose dhurra sacks and darted to the foot of one of the vertical steel ladders that led up to the overhead catwalk. As he started to climb, his skirts flapped around his legs, hampering his movements. Despite this handicap, he climbed with agility. All the while he kept up cries of encouragement and exhortation to his men: “Kill them! Let none escape! Kill them all!”
Ryder tapped the clinging slave across the temple with the club, and he released his grip and crumpled to the floor. Ryder jumped over his inert body and ran to the foot of the ladder. He stuffed the club under his belt and leapt on to the first rungs, following the priest and gaining on him rapidly. He saw that beneath the skirts of his cassock the fugitive wore polished riding boots and spurs, and that his legs were clad in khaki riding breeches.
The priest reached the catwalk, and clung to the handrail, heaving for breath. He peered back down the ladder. His voice shrilled with panic when he saw Ryder coming up fast behind him. “Stop him! Shoot him down like a dog!” But his men were too occupied with their own problems to take any notice. He struggled with the skirts of his cassock, trying to hoist them high enough to reach the sidearm that bulged on his hip, but he could not free it. Now Ryder was almost on him and Aswat abandoned the effort. Instead he snatched one of the oil lamps that hung from the handrail. He lifted it high over his head. “Stop! In God’s Name, I warn you! I will burn you alive.”
The hood of the cassock fell off to reveal the khaki tunic of the Egyptian Army, with the epaulettes and scarlet tabs of a major on the shoulders. His curls were dark and wavy, lustrous with pomade. Ryder caught a whiff of a pungent eau-de-Cologne. “Major Faroque. What a pleasant surprise,” Ryder said cheerfully.
Al-Faroque’s expression was frantic. “I warned you!” he screamed. With both hands he hurled the lamp at Ryder, who flattened himself against the rungs of the ladder. As the lamp flew past his shoulder, it spun a meteor’s tail of burning oil through the air behind it. It struck the steel ladder near the bottom and exploded, spraying a sheet of fire over the closest stack of dhurra sacks. Rivulets of flickering blue flames poured over the under dry sacks, which caught swiftly and burned as brightly as candles.
“Don’t come near me!” al-Faroque yelled down at Ryder. “I warn you. Don’t He grabbed the second lamp off its hook, but Ryder was ready for it and pulled the club from his belt. The major threw with all his strength, sobbing
