papyrus, which hid the this from curious eyes on the shore.
As soon as they had made everything onboard shipshape, he called Bacheet to the engine room where they could talk without being overheard by the rest of the crew. He wasted no time but put it to Bacheet straight and unadorned.
“Do you think you would be able to go back among the Dervish and discover what has become of al-Jamal and al-Zahra without arousing the suspicions of the Ansar?”
Bacheet pursed his lips and puffed out his cheeks, which made him look like a ground squirrel. “I am as they are. Why should they suspect me?”
“Are you willing to do it?”
“I am not a coward, but neither am I a rash man. Why would I be willing to do something as stupid as that? No, al-Sakhawi. I would not be willing. I would be extremely reluctant.” He tugged unhappily at his beard. “I will leave at once.”
“Good,” Ryder said. “I will wait for you here, unless I am discovered, in which case I will wait for you at the confluence of the Sarwad river. You will go into the city and, if necessary, cross to Omdurman. When you have news for me, you will return to give it to me here.”
Bacheet sighed theatrically and went to his own tiny berth in the forecastle. When he emerged he was dressed in a Dervish jibba. Ryder refrained from asking where he had obtained it. Bacheet dropped over the side of the this and waded to dry ground. He set off along the bank towards Khartoum.
On the waterfront Nazeera mingled unobtrusively with the milling crowds. There were as many Dervish women as men in the throng, and she was no different from them in her black ankle-length robes and the head cloth covering half of her face. The other women had come across from Omdurman as soon as they had heard that the city had been taken. They had come for the excitement of the triumphal celebrations, the loot, and for the thrill of the executions and torture that must surely follow the victory. The wealthy citizens of Khartoum would be forced to reveal the hiding-places of their valuables, their gold, jewellery and coin. Obtaining information was a skill that the Dervish women had learnt from their own mothers and honed to a high art.
Nazeera was part of the jostling, cavorting, ululating river of humanity that flowed along the corniche above the river. Ahead the crowd parted to allow a line of chained Egyptian soldiers through. They had been stripped of their tunics, then beaten until their bare backs looked as though they had been savaged by angry lions. The blood from the whip weals soaked their breeches and dripped down their legs. As they shuffled past on their way to the beach, the women rushed forward to beat them again with any weapon that came to hand. The Dervish guards chuckled indulgently at the women’s antics, and when a prisoner fell under the blows they prodded him to his feet again with a sword point.
Although Nazeera was desperate to find where her charges had been taken, she was trapped in the mass of women. She could see down on to the beach where lines of rickety gallows of roughly trimmed poles were being hastily erected. Those that had been completed were already buckling under the weight of the bodies that dangled from them, and more captives were being dragged forward with nooses round their necks. In groups they were prodded by the executioners on to’ the angarebs placed as steps beneath the gallows. When the nooses had been fastened to the crosspiece the angareb was pulled away and the victims were left swinging and kicking in the air.
This was slow work, and further along the beach another gang of executioners was hastening the business with the sword. They forced their victims to kneel in long lines with their hands tied behind their backs, their necks stretched forward. Then two headsmen started at opposite ends of the line and moved slowly towards each other, lopping off heads as they went. The watchers shouted as each head fell into the mud. When one of the executioners, his sword-arm tiring from the work, missed his stroke and only partially severed his victim’s neck they clapped and hooted derisively.
At last Nazeera extricated herself from the press of bodies and made her way towards the British consular palace. The gates were open and unguarded. She slipped through them into the grounds. The palace was extensively damaged, window-panes smashed and doors torn off. Most of the furniture had been thrown out of the upper-floor windows. She went stealthily to the front terrace, and found more devastation. Terrified that she might run into a looter she crept in through the french windows and made her way through the wreckage to David Benbrook’s study. Papers and documents were strewn across the room.
However, the oak panelling on the walls was intact. She went quickly to one panel and pressed the hidden spring built into the carving of the architrave. With a soft click it jumped back to reveal the door of the large safe. Her father had allowed Rebecca to keep her jewellery there, and Rebecca had taught Nazeera how to tumble the combination so that she could fetch and return the pieces she needed. The combination numbers were Rebecca’s birthdate. Now Nazeera fed them into the lock, turned the handle and swung open the door.
On the top shelf lay David’s leather bound journal. The lower shelves were filled with family valuables, including the jewellery that Rebecca had inherited from her mother. It was all packed into matching red-leather wallets. There were also a number of canvas money-bags, which held over a hundred pounds in gold and silver coins. It was too dangerous to carry all of this with her. Nazeera returned all of the jewellery and most of the cash to the safe, then relocked the door and closed the secret panel. This would be her secret bank when she needed money. She placed a few small coins in her sleeve pocket for immediate use, then lifted her robe and strapped a canvas bag with more round her waist, then smoothed her shapeless skirts over it.
She left the study and climbed the stairs to the second floor. She went to Rebecca’s bedroom, and stopped involuntarily in the doorway as she saw the extent of the damage. The looters had smashed every stick of furniture, and scattered books and clothing across the floor. She went in and searched through the mess.
She was almost in despair when at last she spotted the sisal bag lying under the overturned bed. The drawstring had burst open and much of the cholera remedy had spilled out. Nazeera squatted, scooped it up and poured it back into the bag. When she had salvaged as much as she could, she knotted the drawstring securely and tied it round her neck so that it hung down inside her robe. She gathered up a few other feminine trifles that might be useful and hid them about her person.
She went back downstairs, and stole out of the palace. She left the gardens through the small gate at the end of the terrace and lost herself in the Dervish victory celebrations. It did not take her long to discover where the women prisoners had been taken: the news was being shouted in the streets and people were flocking to the Customs House. Many had climbed up the walls and were clustered at the windows to peer in at the captives. Nazeera tucked up her skirts and scrambled up one of the buttresses until she reached the highest row of barred windows. She elbowed two small urchins out of her way. When they protested she unleashed a torrent of abuse that sent them scampering off. Then she gripped the bars and pressed her face to the square opening.
It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the dim light inside. The Egyptian women prisoners were the wives and daughters of Gordon Pasha’s officers, who were probably now lying headless on the river beach or dangling from the gallows. The women were squatting in miserable groups, with their children huddled around them. Many were spattered with the dried blood of their murdered menfolk. Among them were a few white women, the nuns from the Catholic mission, an Austrian lady doctor, the wives of the few Occidental traders and travellers who had been trapped in the city.
Then Nazeera’s heart bounded: she had spotted Rebecca sitting on the stone floor with her back against the wall and Amber on her lap. She was bedraggled and filthy with dust and soot. Her hair was lank and matted with sweat. Her father’s blood had dried in black stains down the front of her yellow skirt. Her feet were bare and dusty, scratched and bruised. She sat aloof from the others, trying to fight off the waves of despair that threatened to overwhelm her. Nazeera recognized the stoic expression that concealed her courageous spirit, and was proud of her.
“Jamal!” Nazeera called to her, but her voice did not carry. The other women and their brats were making a fearful racket. They were weeping and wailing for their murdered menfolk, praying aloud for succour, entreating their captors for mercy. Above all else they were calling for water.
“Water! In the Name of Allah, give us water. Our children are dying. Give us water!”
“Jamal, my beautiful one!” Nazeera screamed to her, but Rebecca did not look up. She went on rocking Amber in her arms.
Nazeera broke a chip of plaster from the rotten windowsill, and threw it down through the bars. It struck the ground just short of where Rebecca was sitting, but skidded across the stone flags and hit her ankle. She lifted her head and looked around.
