“After their victory, the infidel is lulled. Gordon Pasha is not as vigilant as he was before,” al-Noor whispered.
“We have discovered the beach on which we can land. We can return to Omdurman now to make our preparations,” Osman agreed. He gave a quiet command to the boatman, and they headed back across the river.
When Osman and al-Noor reached his double storeyed house in the south quarter, which lay between the Beit el Mai, the treasury, and the slave market, dawn was breaking and a dozen of his aggagiers were sitting in the courtyard being fed by the house slaves a breakfast of honey-roasted lamb and dhurra cakes with steaming pots of syrupy black Abyssinian coffee. “Noble lord, we arrived at dusk last night,” they told him.
“What kept you so long on the road?” he asked.
“We do not ride horses like al-Buq, who is the prince of all horses.”
“You are welcome.” Osman embraced them. “I have more work for your blades. We must retrieve the honour that was stripped from us by the infidel on the plains of Abu Klea.”
David Benbrook insisted that he should host a victory party to celebrate the battle of Abu Klea, and the imminent arrival of the relief column in the city. Because of the paucity of food and drink, Rebecca decided on an al fresco dinner, rather than a formal display of silver and crystal in the dining room. They sat on folding canvas campaign chairs on the terrace overlooking the maid an and listened to the military band, joining in with the better-known choruses. In the intervals, while the band regained their breath, they toasted the Queen, General Wolseley and, for the benefit of Consul Le Blanc, King Leopold.
After much inner communication with his conscience, David decided to bring up from the cellars the single case of Krug champagne that he had been hoarding all these months. “A little premature perhaps, but once they arrive we will probably be too busy to think about it.”
This was the first time that General Gordon had accepted one of Rebecca’s invitations to dinner and entertainment. He wore an immaculate dress uniform with a red fez. His boots were polished to a high gloss and the Egyptian Star of Ishmael glinted on his breast. He was in a relaxed, expansive mood, although Rebecca noticed the nervous tic below his eye. He nibbled a minute portion of the food on offer: green-cake, dhurra bread and cold roast bird of indeterminate species, which had been gunned down by the host. He chain-smoked his Turkish cigarettes, even when he stood to make a short speech. He assured the company that the steamers crammed with British troops were racing even at that hour up against the rapids of the Shabluka
Gorge and that he confidently expected them to reach the city by the following evening. He commended the other guests and the entire populace, of every colour and nationality, for their heroic resistance and sacrifice, and gave thanks to Almighty God that their efforts had not been in vain. Then he thanked the consul and his daughters for their hospitality and took his leave. The mood of the remaining guests was at once much lighter.
The twins were given special dispensation to delay their bedtime until midnight, and were allowed a sherry glass of the precious champagne. Saffron quaffed hers like a sailor on shore leave, but Amber took a minute sip and made a face. When Rebecca was looking the other way, she poured the rest into her twin’s glass, much to Saffron’s glee.
Amber was becoming increasingly quiet and wan as the evening progressed. She took no part in the singing, which Rebecca thought odd. Amber had a sweet, true voice and loved to sing. She refused when David asked her to dance the polka with him. “You are so quiet and subdued. Are you feeling unwell, my darling?”
“A little, Daddy, but I do love you so much.”
“Would you like to go up to bed? I will give you a dose of salts. That will fix it.”
“Oh, no. Goodness me, no! It is not that bad.” Amber forced a smile, and David looked worried but did not pursue the matter. He went off to dance with Saffron instead.
Consul Le Blanc also noticed Amber’s unusual behaviour. He came to sit beside her, held her hand in an avuncular manner and launched into a long, complicated joke, about a German, an Englishman and an Irishman. When he reached the climax he doubled over with laughter and tears ran down his pink cheeks. Although she saw nothing funny in the story Amber laughed dutifully, but then stood up and went to Rebecca, who was dancing with Ryder Courtney. Amber whispered in her elder sister’s ear, and Rebecca left Ryder, took the younger girl’s hand and hurried indoors with her. David saw them leave and he and Saffron followed. When they reached the foot of the staircase, Rebecca and Amber were on the first landing above them.
“Where are you going?” David called after them. “Is anything the matter?”
Still holding hands Rebecca and Amber turned to face him. Suddenly Amber groaned and doubled over. With an explosive rush of gas and liquid, her bowels started to empty. It poured out of her like a yellow waterfall, and went on and on, forming a deep, spreading puddle at her feet.
David was the first to recover his wits. “Cholera!” he said.
At that dread word Saffron thrust the fingers of both hands into her mouth and screamed.
“Stop that!” Rebecca ordered, but her own voice was almost a scream. She tried to lift Amber, but the yellow discharge was still spurting out of her and splattered down the front of Rebecca’s long satin evening dress.
Ryder had heard Saffron scream and ran in from the terrace. He took in the scene almost instantly. He dashed back to where they had dined and swept the heavy damask cloth off the long table, sending silver candlesticks and table ornaments crashing to the floor. He raced up the stairs.
Amber was still voiding copiously. It seemed impossible that such a small body could contain so much liquid. It was running down the staircase in a rivulet. Ryder shook out the damask like a cape, and enfolded her in it, lifted her as though she were a doll and ran with her up the stairs.
“Please put me down, Ryder,” Amber begged. “I will dirty your lovely new suit. I cannot stop myself. I am so ashamed.”
“You are a brave girl. There is nothing to be ashamed of,” Ryder told her. Rebecca was at his side. “Where is the bathroom?” he asked her.
“This way.” She ran ahead and threw open the door.
Ryder carried Amber in and laid her in the galvanized bath. “Get her soiled clothes off her and sponge her down with cool water,” he ordered. “She is burning up. Then force her to drink. Weak warm tea. Gallons of it. She must keep drinking. She has to replace every drop of the fluid she has lost.” He looked at David and Saffron in the doorway. “Call Nazeera to help you. She knows about this disease. I must go back to the this to fetch my medical chest. While I am gone, you must keep her drinking.”
Ryder raced through the streets. He was fortunate that for this one night General Gordon had relaxed the curfew so that all the populace might celebrate the relief of the city.
Bacheet had stowed the medical chest in its usual place under his bunk in the main cabin of the this. He rummaged through it swiftly, searching for what he needed to staunch Amber’s diarrhoea and replace the mineral salts that she had lost. He knew he had little time. Cholera is a swift killer. “The Death of the Dog,” they called it. It could kill a robust adult in hours, and Amber was a child. Already her body had been stripped of fluid. Soon every muscle and sinew would scream for liquid, terrible cramps would twist her, and she would die a desiccated husk.
For a dreadful moment he thought that the vital packets of dirty white powder were missing, then remembered that he had moved them to the lockers in the galley for safety. In the cholera-torn city they were worth more than diamonds. The powder was packed in a woven-sisal bag. There was enough to treat five or six cases. He had bought it at a usurious price from the abbot of a Coptic monastery deep in the gorge of the Blue Nile. The abbot had told him that the chalky powder was mined by his monks from a secret deposit tucked away in the mountains. Not only did it have a powerful binding effect on the bowels, it was also close in character and composition to those minerals purged from the human body by the disease. Ryder had been sceptical until Bacheet had been struck down with cholera, and Ryder had pulled him through with liberal doses of the powder.
He stuffed everything he needed in to an empty dhurra sack and ran back to the consulate. When he climbed the stairs to the bathroom he found that Amber was still in the bath. She was naked, and Rebecca and Nazeera were sponging her from the basin of warm soapy water that Saffron held. David hovered ineffectually in the background holding a tin mug of warm black tea. The stench of vomit and faeces still hung heavily in the room, but Ryder was careful not to show disgust.
“Has she vomited?”
“Yes,” replied David, ‘but only some of this tea. I don’t think she has anything else inside her.”
“How much has she drunk?” Ryder demanded, as he snatched the mug from the other man’s hand and
