A deadly silence fell upon this assembly of warriors. The Dervish ranks stared down upon them, and time seemed frozen. Then a single
Dervish horseman rode out from the stony mouth of the main wadi. At extreme rifle range, he stopped, facing the square. He raised the curved ivory war clarion, the ombeya, and its clear, deep voice resounded along the cliff.
From the mouth of every wadi and combe poured the Dervish host, rank upon rank, thousand upon thousand, camels and horses. They kept coming, wheeling into loose squadrons, facing the little square. Few man were dressed or armed in the same way: lance and spear, axe and round leather targe, rifle, jezail and the dreadful broadsword were poised. The drums started again, a slow rhythmic beat and the Dervish ranks started forward.
“Wait for ‘em, lads.” The sergeants strolled down behind the front wall of the square.
“Hold your fire, boys.”
“No hurry. There’s enough for everybody.” The voices were calm, almost jocular.
The drums beat faster and the Dervish lines broke into a trot, the Ansar in the front beginning to jostle each other to be first into the square. Faster still, and the dense, savage masses seemed to fill the valley floor. Drums crescendoed and hoofs thundered. The dust rose in a choking miasma. The war cries were shrill.
“Steady, boys, steady!” Calm English voices, responding to the pagan shrieks.
“Hold your fire, chaps!” Penrod recognized Percy Stapleton’s clear, boyish voice as he called to his platoon. He was having great difficulty restraining his eagerness. “Steady, the Blues!”
The scamp thinks it’s the Boat race. Penrod smiled to himself. The drums pounded feverishly, and the ombeyas squealed and sobbed. Like the flood from a burst dam, the Dervish cavalry came straight at the British square.
“Get ready! Rolling volleys, lads,” called the sergeants.
“By the book now, my boys. Remember your drills.”
“Rolling volleys! Make each shot tell.”
Penrod was watching a sheikh on a rangy ginger camel. He had forced his way well ahead of the front rank of the charge. His mouth was wide open as he screamed, and there was a black gap in the line of his front teeth. He was a hundred yards from the face of the square, then seventy, then fifty, and coming on at a wild gallop.
The bugle rang out sweet and high.
“Rolling volleys. Front rank, fire!”
There was that brief pause, characteristic of highly trained troops, as each man steadied his aim. Penrod picked out the gap-toothed sheikh.
The volley crashed out, astonishing the ear. The front rank of the charge shuddered to the shock. Penrod’s man took the heavy bullet squarely in the chest, and flipped backwards from his high saddle. His camel slewed round and crashed into the two horses coming up behind it, bringing one down heavily.
“Second rank, rolling volleys. Fire.” Again the rifles crashed out. The bullets struck flesh with the sound of wet clay slung against a brick wall. The Dervish charge wavered, and lost impetus.
“Third rank, rolling volleys,” sang out the sergeants. “Fire!” The bullets churned the Dervish into confusion. Riderless animals milled and shied. Bearded warriors swore and struggled to break clear. Corpses and wounded men were trampled and kicked beneath the hoofs. At that moment the Nordenfelts added their spiteful chatter to the uproar. Their fire hosed down the line. Like a barracuda driving through a shoal of pilchards, it split them into small, isolated groups.
“Front rank, rolling volleys. Fire!” The orders were repeated. The troopers reloaded, aimed and fired, with the oiled precision of rows of bobbins on a carding machine. The charge stalled, broke, and the survivors streamed towards the cliffs. But before they reached them the drums called to them and the ombeyas sang: “Go back! For Allah and the Mahdi, go back into the battle!”
Fresh squadrons streamed out from the rocks to swell their depleted ranks. They massed, shouted to God, and came again, tearing across the trampled field where so many of their comrades already lay. Charging in to break the British square.
But a British square does not break. The sergeants called the timing of those regular rolling volleys. The barrels or the Nordenfelt machine-guns began to glow like horseshoes in the blacksmith’s forge.
Osman Atalan had told Salida, “It is necessary to feed them corpses to stop up their mouths.”
The Nordenfelts gorged on human flesh, choked on it and one after another jammed. As their staccato chatter ceased so the Dervish cavalry pressed closer, right on to the thicket of bright bayonets. Still the volleys crashed into them. They struggled forward and were chopped down, until even their courage and resolve were exhausted. At last they shrank away and rode back to the cliffs.
Salida looked down on the unbroken square from the heights. “These are not men,” he said, ‘they are jinn. How does a man kill a devil?”
“With courage and the sword,” replied Rufaar, his eldest surviving son. Two other sons older than him had been killed in raids and tribal warfare, and one had died in a feud over a woman. That death was still to be avenged.
Rufaar was thirty-three, a child of the warrior blood. With his own sword he had killed fifty men and more. He was as his father had been at the same age: his ferocity was unquenchable. Three of his younger brothers stood behind him. They were of the same brood, and in their veins also Salida’s blood ran true.
“Let me lead the next charge, revered father,” Rufaar pleaded. “Let me shatter these pig-eaters. Let me cauterize this festering sore in the heart of Islam.”
Salida looked upon him, and he was pleasing to a father’s eye. “Nay!” He shook his head. The single word of denial cut deeper than any enemy blade ever had. Rufaar winced with the pain of it. He went down on one knee and kissed his father’s dusty foot. “I ask no other boon but this. Let me lead the charge.”
“Nay!” Salida denied him a second time, and Rufaar’s expression darkened. “I will not let you lead, but you may ride at my right hand.” Rufaar’s face cleared. He jumped to his feet and embraced his sire.
“What of us?” His other three sons joined the chorus. “What of us, beloved father?”
“You puppies may ride behind us.” Salida glowered at them to hide his affection. “Perchance Rufaar and I may throw you some scraps from the feast. Now fetch my camel.”
tret cher-bearer!” The call came from a half-dozen points around the outer wall of the square, where troopers had been hit by random Dervish fire. Quickly the wounded were carried into the centre and the gaps were closed. The doctors operated amid the dust and flies, sleeves rolled to the elbow, blood clotting swiftly in the heat.
The wounded who could still stand came back in their bandages to take their places in the square once more.
“Water-boys!” The shout went around the little square. The boys scurried about with the skins and spilled water into the empty felt-covered bottles.
“Ammunition here!” The quartermasters moved along the sides of the square, doling out the cardboard packets.
The gunners struggled to clear the blockages of the machine-guns. They splashed precious water over the barrels to cool them. It boiled off in clouds of hissing steam, and the metal crackled and pinged. But the actions were locked solidly, and though they hammered and heaved they would not budge.
Suddenly in the midst of all this frantic activity the bugle rang out again. “Stand to!” shouted the sergeants.
“They are coming back.” The Dervish cavalry rode out from the fastness of the hills. Like a great wave building up beyond the surf, they lined up again along the foot of the hills, facing the square.
“There is your enemy.” Penrod murmured to Yakub. The red banner waved in the centre of the line, carried by two Dervish striplings.
“Yes.” Yakub nodded. “That is Salida in the blue turban. The mangy jackal beside him is his son, Rufaar. I must kill him also. Those are some of his other brats carrying his flag. There will be no honour in killing them, no more than popping fleas between the fingernails, but it must be done.”
“Then we still have much work to do.” Penrod smiled as he broke open another paper box of cartridges and filled the loops of his bandolier.
“Salida is a clever old jackal,” Yakub murmured. “By the sweet breath of the Prophet, he learns quickly. He saw how we broke their first charges. Look! He has hardened his centre.”
