over them. “Make certain that your swords are sharp and all your wives are with child before we cross the river.”
The old fisherman, the uncle of Yakub, has given the signal. A handful of sulphur in the flames of his cooking fire, and the puff of yellow smoke that Yakub was watching for,” Penrod reported to the Chinese Gordon.
“Can we trust this fellow, Yakub? To me he seems an evil rogue.”
“I have trusted him often in the most dire circumstances and I am still alive, General.” Penrod kept his anger under control, but with difficulty.
“Has he been able to warn us when the Dervish will attack if they do?”
“No, sir, we don’t know that,” Penrod admitted, ‘but I expect they will use the new moon.”
While Gordon consulted his almanac for the moon phases, David Benbrook, the third man in the room, gave his appraisal of the chances of success. “He is a brave man, this uncle of Yakub. I know him well. He has been in my service ever since I arrived in Khartoum. His information has always been reliable.” David was sitting in a chair by the window. These days, he and the general spent much time together. They were unlikely companions, but as Gordon’s tribulations increased he seemed to find solace with his own kind.
Without seeming to do so Penrod studied Gordon’s face while he spoke to David. Even in repose, a nerve fluttered in his right eyelid. This was only a visible sign of how finely stretched Gordon was. One of the other deeper and more significant indications was in his behaviour: the brutal excesses of inhumanity. It seemed to Penrod that these were becoming more savage each day, as though by the kurbash, the firing squad and the noose he could delay the fall of the city. Even he must now see that our struggle is drawing towards the end, and the populace is beyond hope or caring. Does he believe that he can compel them to their duty by convincing them that the consequences of their disobedience will be far worse than anything that the Mahdi can do to them? Penrod studied Gordon’s face as the general spoke to David Benbrook. At least Benbrook is a man of humanity, he thought. His influence on Gordon can only be for the good.
He put aside such considerations when Gordon stood up and addressed him abruptly. “Let us go down to the harbour and inspect your preparations to meet this imminent attack, Ballantyne.”
Penrod knew it was unwise for Gordon Pasha to show himself on the walls where the attack was expected: too many spies were watching his every move, and the Dervish were too shrewd not to suspect that he was preparing something for their discomfort. However, he knew it was even more unwise to gainsay the little man.
But Penrod need not have concerned himself: Gordon was too sly an old fox to lead the hounds to the entrance of his earth. Before they left the palace, Gordon removed his distinctive fez and replaced it with a grubby turban, the tail of which concealed half of his face, then covered his uniform with a stained, nondescript galabiyya. From a distance he looked like any humble citizen of Khartoum.
Even when they reached the harbour Gordon did not show himself on the parapets. However, he was meticulous and painstaking in his inspection of Penrod’s preparations. He peered through every embrasure that pierced the walls of the derelict buildings that overlooked the noisome sewerage-clogged creek. He stood behind a Gatling and traversed the gleaming multiple barrels from side to side. He was dissatisfied with the dead area directly under the muzzles. He climbed out of the Gatling’s nest into the ooze of the creek and placed himself in the line of fire, then moved closer to the redoubt.
“Keep the gun trained on me,” he ordered.
The gunner kept depressing his aim until he shook his head with exasperation. “You are too close, General. It can no longer bear.”
“Captain Ballantyne, if they reach this point the Dervish will be under the gun.” Gordon looked pleased that he had caught Penrod out.
Penrod realized it was no excuse that Gordon overloaded him with responsibilities: he had been negligent, and he rebuked himself silently. Such an elementary oversight is almost as bad as starving the gun for ammunition, he thought bitterly. He ordered the engineers to tear down the wall of sandbags and rebuild it with a lower sill.
“Where have you placed the second Gatling?” Gordon demanded. He had Penrod on the defensive now, and was pushing his advantage.
“It is still in the redoubt in front of the hospital. That is the other -obvious weak point in our perimeter. I dare not leave that gap undefended, and place all our bets on the attack striking us here. The Dervish may even mount two simultaneous strikes at both positions.”
“They will strike here,” Gordon said, with finality.
“I agree that is the highest probability. So I have built another machine-gun nest over there, where it can cover the beach and enfilade both banks of the creek. As soon as the attack develops and the enemy is committed, I can rush the second gun across from the hospital to this side. Equally, if we are mistaken and they strike at the hospital I can move this gun over to cover that position.”
“How long will it take to move the guns.” Gordon demanded.
“I estimate about ten minutes.”
“No estimates, Ballantyne. Run an exercise and time it.”
On the first attempt the gun-crew encountered a pile of fallen masonry in the alley behind the harbour. They had to clear it before they could bring the heavy carriage through. The second attempt was more successful: it took twelve minutes to run it through the streets and re site it in the prepared nest to cover the beach and the banks of the creek.
“It will be in darkness,” Gordon pointed out. “The crew must be able to do it with their eyes closed.”
Penrod kept them practising the manoeuvre late into the night. They cleared all obstacles and shell damage from the streets and alleys, and filled in the potholes and gutters. Penrod designed new gun tackles so that twenty men at a time could pull it.
By the morning of the second day they had cut the transit time down to seven and a half minutes. All this had to be done in darkness after curfew. If the Dervish learnt that they were practising moving the Gatlings from one point to another on the perimeter they would suspect a trap. Penrod was not sure that they knew of the existence of the two guns: while in the arsenal they had been stored away from prying eyes, and had probably been forgotten. In any event the Dervish had a deep scorn for firearms. It was unlikely they had ever seen the Gatlings in action so they could not guess at their destructive potential. Until now he had been careful to exercise the gun-crew where they were not under observation from the enemy bank of the Nile. They only fired the weapons into the empty desert on the southern perimeter of the city. When they were not in use he kept them covered with tarpaulins.
“With your permission, General, I intend to take up permanent quarters here at the harbour. I want to be on the spot when the enemy launch their attack. As things stand at present, it might all be over during the time it would take me to get here from the palace.”
“Good,” Gordon agreed. “But if the Dervish spies discover that you have set up permanent headquarters here at the harbour our plan will be compromised.”
“I have thought about that, General, and I believe I will be able to conceal my whereabouts without causing suspicion.”
They enlisted the co-operation of David Benbrook in concealing from everybody, including the Benbrook sisters and consular staff, that he had moved only as far as the harbour. The story was put about that Penrod had secretly left the city, sent on a mission by General Gordon to carry a message to the British relief column at the Wells of Gakdul.
Penrod found his new quarters a far call from the luxury of his suite in the palace. He set up his angareb in a tiny dugout in the back wall of the Gatling emplacement. He had no mosquito net, and spent most of the night swatting the insects: at dusk they rose in clouds from the creek. Previously the palace’s paltry food supplies had been augmented by the ingenuity of the Benbrook sisters, Nazeera, the kitchen staff and, of course, by David Benbrook’s marksmanship. In his new headquarters Penrod shared the same rations as his men. Gordon had been forced to reduce the issue of dhurra to below starvation level, and hunger was now a constant spectral companion. Yakub was able to scrounge a few dried fish heads and skeletons from his uncle’s house and these went into the stew pot that Penrod shared with his gunners. Some of the Egyptians were eating the pith of the palm trees and boiling the leather thongs of their angarebs. Much as he had once disparaged the taste of it, Penrod now sorely missed the rations of green-cake that the Benbrook sisters had regularly brought home from the compound of Ryder Courtney.
Penrod could not afford to be seen in the city, so he had to confine himself strictly to the harbour. This self-
