bend in the canal and came round it she screamed at the top of her voice, “Wait for me! I am coming. Wait for me, Ryder!” The this was two hundred yards ahead. She was puffing away down the channel towards the open river. Saffron summoned every last ounce of strength, and raced after it. The little steamer was not yet under full power, but was easing her way carefully down the shallow, winding canal. With this last burst of speed Saffron began to overhaul it.
“Wait! Ryder, wait!” In the glowing sparks from the smoke stack she could just make out Ryder’s dark figure in the angle of his bridge, but he was looking ahead. The pumping steam cylinders drowned her voice.
“Ryder!” she screamed. “Oh, please, look round.” Then she saved her breath and ran with all her heart. Ahead of her the this reached the entrance to the river, and increased her speed, pulling out into the stream of the Nile current. Saffron came up short on the edge of the bank. She cried out again, danced up and down and waved both hands over her head. The this drew away rapidly into the softly swirling banks of silver mist that hung low on the water. Saffron dropped her arms and stood still. Nazeera came up beside her and the two hugged each other in despair. Suddenly a rifle shot rang out on the towpath behind them. They spun round and saw four Dervish running towards them. One halted and levelled his rifle. He fired another shot. The bullet kicked dust from the towpath at their feet and ricocheted across the river. Saffron turned back towards the rapidly departing shape of the this.
The rifle shot had alerted Ryder and he was staring back at them. Saffron was lifted on a new wave of hope: she shrieked again and waved her arms. Then Ryder was bringing the little steamer round in a tight circle, and heading towards them. She looked back at the Dervish. All four were running towards her in a bunch. She saw at once that they would be upon her before the this could reach the entrance to the canal.
“Come!” she called to Nazeera. “We must swim.”
“No!” Nazeera shook her head. “Al-Sakhawi will take care of you. I must go back to look after my other girls.” Saffron would have argued, even though the pursuers were closing in swiftly, but Nazeera forestalled her protests and ducked off the towpath. She disappeared into the swamp reeds that grew along the verge.
“Nazeera!” Saffron shouted after her, but the yells of the Dervish were louder still. She pulled off her shoes, tucked up her skirts and ran to the edge of the canal. She drew a deep breath and dived in. When her head broke the surface she launched out towards the approaching steamer in a determined dog-paddle.
“Good girl!” She heard Ryder’s voice and kicked wildly with both legs, pulling at the water with her cupped hands. Behind her she heard another shot and a bullet kicked up a fountain that showered her head and ran into her eyes.
“Come on, Saffy.” Ryder was leaning over the side of the steamer, ready to grab her. “Keep swimming.” At last she felt the current catch her and push her faster. Then she saw his face above her and reached up to him.
“Got you!” Ryder said. With a single heave he plucked her out of the river, as though she was a drowning kitten, and swung her up on to the deck. Then he shouted to Bacheet, “Take her out again.”
Bacheet spun the wheel and the deck canted over into the turn. Once more they headed out into midstream. The Dervish was still firing at them from the towpath, but swiftly the river mist closed around them, and although the bullets still splashed about them or pinged off the steel superstructure the man had lost sight of them. At last the gunfire petered out.
What happened to you, Saffy?” Ryder carried her down the deck to the cabin. “Where are the others? Where are Rebecca and Amber, and your father?”
She tried to stop herself blubbering at his questions and put her arms round his neck, “It’s just too horrid to say, Ryder. Terrible things have happened. The very worst things ever.”
He sat her on his bunk in the cabin. Her distress touched him and he wanted to give her a few moments to recover. He handed her a dry but grubby towel. “Very well. We’ll get you tidied up first. Then you can tell me about it.” He pulled a faded blue shirt off the clothes-line above the bunk. “Hang your dress up there. Put this shirt on when you’re dry, and come to the bridge. We can talk up there.”
The tails of his shirt reached below her knees. It served well enough as a loose shift. She found one of Ryder’s neckties in the drawer under the bunk, and tied it round her waist as a belt. She used his tortoiseshell comb to tidy her damp hair, then twisted it into a single pigtail. A few minutes later, she went up to the bridge. Her eyes were pink and swollen with grief. “They have killed my father,” she said hopelessly, and ran to Ryder.
He caught her up and hugged her hard. “It can’t be true. Are you sure, Saffy?”
“I saw it. They cut off his head, just like they did to General Gordon.
Then they took Rebecca and Amber away.” She fought back another sob. “Oh, I hate them. Why are they so cruel?”
Ryder lifted her up and sat her on the coaming of the engine-room hatch. He kept one arm round her. “Tell me everything, Saffy, every detail.”
Jock McCrump heard her voice and came up from the boiler room. He and Ryder listened in silence to her account. By the time she had finished, the top rim of the sun was showing above the horizon, and the river mist was burning off. The city was slowly revealed in all its stark detail. Ryder counted eight burning buildings, including the Belgian consulate. Thick smoke drifted across the river.
Then he turned his telescope on the square silhouette of Mukran Fort. The flags had been pulled down and the flagstaff was as bare as a gallows. Slowly he panned his lens across the rest of the city. Crowds of the faithful were dancing through the streets, and crowding the corniche in their brightly patched jib has There were outbursts of gunfire, black powder smoke spurting into the air, salvoes of feude joie from the victors. Many were carrying bundles of loot. Others were rounding up the survivors of the attack. Ryder picked out small groups of women prisoners being herded towards the Customs House.
“What colour dress was Rebecca wearing?” he asked Saffron, without lowering the glass. He did not wish to look upon her anguish.
“Blue bodice, with yellow skirts.” Although he stared until his eye ached, he could not pick out a blue and yellow dress, or a head of golden hair among the captive women. But they were far off, and the smoke from the burning buildings and the dust from all the wild activity ashore confused the scene.
“Where will they take the women, Bacheet?” he demanded.
“They will pen them up like heifers in the cattle market until first the Mahdi, then the khalifa and the emirs have time to look them over and take their pick.”
“Rebecca and Amber?” he asked. “What will happen to them?”
“With their yellow hair and white skin they are a great prize,” Bacheet answered. “They will certainly be selected by the Mahdi. They will go to him as prime concubines.”
Ryder lowered the telescope. He felt sick. He thought of Rebecca, whom he loved and had hoped to make his wife, reduced to a plaything for that murderous fanatic. The thought was too painful to bear, and he forced it to the back of his mind. Instead he thought of sweet little Amber, whom he had nursed and saved from cholera. He had a vivid image of her pale childish body, the same body he had massaged back to life, being mounted and violated, sweet flesh torn and alien seed flooding her immature loins. He felt vomit rising to the back of his throat.
“Take us in closer to the shore,” he ordered Bacheet. “I must see where they are so I can plan a rescue.”
“Only Allah can save them now,” said Bacheet softly. Saffron overheard, and fresh tears oozed down her cheeks.
“Damn you, Bacheet, do as I say,” Ryder snarled.
Bacheet turned across the current and they eased in towards the city waterfront. At first they attracted little attention from the shore. The Dervish were too preoccupied with the sack of the city. An occasional shot was fired in their direction, but that was all. They steamed downstream as far as the confluence of the two great rivers, then turned back, cruising in close to the Khartoum waterfront. Suddenly there was the boom of a cannon shot, and a Krupps shell burst the surface ahead of the bows. The spray flew back across the deck. Ryder saw the gun smoke on the harbour wall. The Dervish had turned the captured guns on them. Another Krupps in the redoubt below the maid an came into action and the shell screeched over the bridge and burst in the middle of the river.
“We are not doing much good here, except giving them artillery practice.” Ryder glanced at Bacheet. “Turn back into midstream and head on upriver. We’ll find a quiet place to anchor until we can gather more news and find out what they have done with Rebecca and Amber. Then I can plan more sensibly for their rescue.”
For miles up the Blue Nile both banks were deserted. Ryder headed for the Lagoon of the Little Fish in which he had trans hipped the cargo of dhurra from Ras Hailu’s dhow, When he reached it he anchored in a stand of
