“Perhaps Allah has not yet forsaken us. Perhaps He will help me to reach the city ahead of these unpredictable men,” he murmured.
He went down from the tower to where the remnants of his division were waiting for him on the outskirts of the village. The horses and camels were already saddled and loaded, and al-Noor held his new steed. It was a big black stallion, the strongest animal in his string. Osman stroked the white blaze on his forehead. His name was al- Buq, the War Trumpet.
“You are without vice, Buq,” he whispered, ‘but you could never match Hulu Mayya.” He looked back up the dunes to where she had fallen. The vultures and the crows still circled over the ridge. Will there ever be another animal as noble as she? he wondered, and the black tide of his anger flooded the depths of his being. Abadan Riji, you have much to atone for.
He swung up into the saddle and raised his clenched right fist. “In the Name of Allah, we ride for Omdurman!” he cried, and his aggagiers thundered after him.
Khartoum lay in a torpor of despair, weak with plague and deprivation. The girls’ voices were in penetrating contrast to the brooding silence around them.
“There’s one coming.” Saffron sang out.
“I know. I saw it long ago,” Amber chanted.
“That’s a lie. You never did!”
“I didV
“Stop that squabbling, you two little harridans,” David Benbrook ordered sternly, ‘and point it out to me.” Their young eyes were sharper than his.
“Over there, Daddy. Straight above Tutti Island.”
“Just to the left of that little cloud.”
“Ah, Yes. Of course,” David said, slipped the butt of the shotgun under his right armpit and turned to line up with the approaching bird. “I was just testing you.”
“You were not!”
“Tut, tut. A little more respect, please, my angel.”
Nazeera heard their voices. She was on her way back to the kitchen carrying a pitcher of water that she had drawn from the well in the stableyard. She had been going to boil and filter it, but the voices distracted her. She set the pitcher on the table beside the front door next to the cluster of glasses on the silver tray, crossed to the window of the dining room and looked out over the terrace. The consul stood in the middle of the brown, burnt-out lawn. He was staring up into the sky. There was nothing unusual in this behaviour. For many weeks now he had spent each afternoon on the terrace watching for any bird to come within range of his shotgun. She turned back to the kitchen, but absentmindedly left the pitcher of unboiled water on the table with the glasses. Behind her she heard the thud of the gun and more excited squeals from the twins. She smiled fondly and closed the kitchen door behind her.
“You got him, Daddy!”
“Oh, clever paterfamilias!” This was Saffron’s latest addition to her vocabulary.
The pigeon tumbled in the air as the pellets plucked a burst of feathers from its chest. It fluttered down and crashed into the top branches of the tamarind tree above the palace bedrooms. It stuck there, thirty feet above the ground. The twins raced each other to the base of the tree and clambered up it, arguing and pushing each other.
“Be careful, you little demons!” David called anxiously. “You’re going to hurt yourselves.”
Saffron reached the bird first. She was the tomboy. She balanced on the branch and stuffed the warm body into the front of her bodice and started down again.
“You are always so overbearing,” Amber accused her.
Saffron accepted the compliment without protest and jumped the last few feet to the ground. She ran to her father. “It’s got a note!” she shrilled. “It’s got a note just like the others.”
“Goodness gracious me, so it has,” David agreed. “Aren’t we lucky? Let’s see what the gentlemen across the river have to say for themselves.” The twins danced after him as he carried the dead pigeon into the hall. He propped the shotgun against the wall and fumbled in his coat pocket for his pince’nez and clipped it on to the end of his nose. Then with his penknife he cut the thread that held the tiny roll of paper, and spread it carefully on the table beside the pitcher and the glasses. His lips moved silently as he deciphered the Arabic script, and slowly his benign expression changed. It became alert and businesslike.
“This is the most wonderful news. The relief column has smashed up the Dervish army in the north. Now they will be here within days. I must take this note across to the general right away,” he told the twins. “Go in and ask Nazeera to pour your bath now. I will be a while, but I will come to your room to say goodnight.” He clapped his hat on to his head and set out down the terrace towards Gordon’s headquarters.
Saffron snatched up the shotgun before Amber could reach it. She held it tantalizingly, like another trophy under her sister’s nose.
“That’s not fair, Saffy. You always do everything.”
“Don’t be a baby.”
“I’m not a baby.”
“You are a baby, and you’re sulking again.”
Saffron carried the shotgun across the lobby and into her father’s-gunroom. Amber watched her go with her clenched fists on her hips. Her face was flushed and her hair was sticking to her forehead with perspiration. She saw the pitcher on the side table where Nazeera had left it. With an angry flourish she poured herself a glass of water, drank it and pulled a face. “It tastes funny,” she complained. “And I’m not a baby and I’m not sulking. I’m just a bit cross, that’s all.”
Ryder Courtney knew that his stay in Khartoum was drawing to an end. Even if the relief column arrived before the city fell, and was able to evacuate them all safely, the city would belong to the Dervish. He was clearing out the compound, ready to pull out at the first opportunity. Rebecca had volunteered to help him draw up an inventory and bills of lading for everything that was being loaded on board the Intrepid this.
Ryder had become increasingly aware of the emotional turmoil she was going through. The uncertainty was wearing away at everyone’s nerves, as conditions in the city deteriorated. The menace of the great army of the Dervish besiegers seemed to grow as the will of the trapped population declined and the relief column did not arrive. It had been ten months since the city had been invested by the Mahdi. A long time to live under the threat of horrible death.
Ryder knew how the responsibility of caring for her little sisters weighed upon Rebecca Her father was little help in this regard: he was amiable and affectionate but, like the twins, he relied on her with almost childlike faith. None of the Sudanese women had returned to work since the mob attack on the compound. The running of the little green-cake kitchen had devolved almost entirely upon Rebecca. The twins were willing helpers, but the grinding labour was beyond their strength and endurance. Ryder’s admiration and affection for her were enhanced as he watched her struggle to take care of her family. He considered once again the fact at barely eighteen she had been saddled with this heavy load of responsibility. He understood how alone and isolated she felt, and tried to give her the help she needed. However, he was aware that his ill-considered unrestrained behaviour had damaged her trust in him. He had to be careful not to frighten her again, yet he longed to take her in his arms, comfort and shield her. He felt that since Penrod Ballantyne had left Khartoum he had made good progress in repairing their damaged relationship: she seemed so much easier in his company. Their conversations were more relaxed and she did not avoid him so obviously as before.
They were in the blockhouse, sitting at his desk across from each other. They were counting the piles of silver dollars into heaps of fifty, then wrapping them into rolls of parchment and packing them into wooden coffee chests, preparatory to taking them on board the this. From the corner of his eye Ryder watched her brush back a strand of that beautiful silken hair. His heart ached as he noticed the calluses on her hands, and the little lines of worry and hardship at the corners of her eyes. A complexion like hers was more suited to the pleasant climes of England than to scorching sunlight and burning desert airs. When this is over, I could sell up here, and take her back to England, he thought.
She looked up suddenly and caught his eyes upon her. “What would we do without you, Ryder?” she said.
He was astonished by the words and the tone in which they were spoken. “My dear Rebecca, you would do well in any circumstances. I claim no credit for your strength and resolve.”
