Lords of the Nile

by Jonathan Spencer

  ‘Putain!’ called Rossy, ‘Chef! We should be relaxing under the palm trees! I thought we were the elite!’

  Caron nodded, cramming his cocked hat tighter on his head. ‘We are! That is why we have such comfortable seats, mon garçon!’

  ‘I am angry with this wind!’ shouted the giant Pigalle, and moved forward in the heaving boat. He shoved two of the oarsmen away, taking both their oars, roaring as he pulled, battling the depths, the boat surging forward. ‘I like not this holiday!’ The soldiers cheering: Vive le Pig, vive le Pig!

  They rose on peaks and smashed into troughs, rowing for their lives, Plus vite, enfants! Plus vite – faster – and soon they were racing against the swell, against the coming storm, boats colliding and paddles and oars entangling, crushing hands, one boat capsizing.

  The shore and the rocks danced before their eyes in a nauseating rhythm, the sky darkening still further and the wind whipping the waves into bursting spray. Caron wiped the spume from his soaking face and saw Sarah, her boat rising and falling, Jeanne hanging on to the gunwale, Charlotte Dutoit screaming in fright.

  ‘Putain… madness, women in the line of battle…’ Caron waved to their coxswain. ‘Follow our line! Follow the wake!’

  Sarah grabbed at the shoulder of the nearest officer. ‘Can you follow him?’

  He shouted back, ‘Nom du dieu! We do what we can! Now sit still, mademoiselle!’

  She fell back with Jeanne, every wave lifting them and dropping them as deadweights to the hard boards. One of the savants vomited, retching over the side, Charlotte Dutoit howling again, the cavalry sergeant’s wife holding her hand, Hang on dearie, nothing can kill my stupid husband, believe me! I’ve tried! She dropped her small valise and parasol into the waves, clinging to Madame François. Sarah held onto Jeanne, watching Caron, Caron looking back to them, his arm held high, giving her strength.

  As close as they came to landing, the sea threw them back, time and again. ‘Egypt does not want us, Chef!’ called one of Caron’s men, until the boat shuddered and Caron fell against Rossy’s sodden boudin bedroll on his pack as they scraped across submerged rocks with a splintering screech, panicked calls rising up, Rocks, the rocks! Although grounded, they were still forty metres out. Another boat hailed them.

  ‘Come to us! We can take you in!’

  Caron waved his bonnet at them. ‘Away! Get away! Rocks!’ The boat began to grind and splinter underfoot, and he roared into the boat, ‘Out! Out, garçons, and swim! Swim for your lives!’

  The giant Pigalle picked up Caron, put him on his back and stepped out into the water, a Titan oblivious to Poseidon’s wrath, his feet finding firm ground.

  ‘I am standing on Egypt!’ bellowed Pigalle. ‘Egypt is mine! For where I plant my boot, there shall I not be moved!’

  There were cheers from other boats, Vive le Pig, vive le Pig, and they rallied to him as he strode into the sea cutting a wake through the waves, the sea unable to pull him down, Caron high on his shoulders, the water rising up to Pigalle’s waist, then his chest, then his chin, the shoreline rising and dipping with shallows and deeps. Caron launched himself forward, the other Alphas close behind, using their packs as floats until their boots felt the shingle, and they threw themselves ashore, retching, coughing, heaving up the sea. Caron saw the trailing boat, the women at the bows, and he waved to them. ‘Come! Come!’

  Sarah held on to Jeanne. ‘Ready!’

  ‘I do not go if you do not go, Belle!’

  ‘Then we go!’

  The boat leapt, the oarsmen falling back, oars thrashing in mid-air, men toppling out to starboard and calling, M’aidez! Help! They grounded and tipped, the swell crashing onto the occupants, Sarah and Jeanne flying into the water. The Alphas dived back into the sea to get them, Caron striking out for Sarah and Jeanne, an officer from the 85th helping him, Pull them in, mon ami!

  Caron gasped, his long woollen coat dragging him down, soaking, a lead weight – then Sarah’s hands wrapped round him and he pulled, getting to his feet, Rossy and Pigalle in the gloom, hauling in the women and the officer from the 85th half-drowned already. At last Caron fell back to the beach, his charges beside him. They lay spread-eagled in the surf, exhausted, gasping.

  ‘You live,’ he said to Sarah and she nodded, grateful.

  ‘Merci, papa…’

  She fell into his arms and he held her, then she pulled away, ‘Jeanne—’ Their long skirts spread on the surf in a cloud of silk. Caron pulled them both away from the water’s edge and sat a moment, Jeanne’s head cradled in his lap.

  ‘Nom d’un nom… she is younger than my youngest…’ He shook his head sadly. ‘What fool led you to this place, ma fille…?’

  She looked at him. ‘I could not say…’ Sarah thought of poor Charlotte Dutoit, and wondered if she had survived the landing.

  Men wandered everywhere, lost, looking for their NCOs – artillerymen with no guns, cavalrymen with no horses. Most were weak from the voyage, some supported by their fellows, some on their knees, vomiting, others lying or sitting stunned, staring out at the darkening water and the ships and the illusory safety they had left behind. Some had rowed over six miles, the winds still blowing.

  Sarah, Jeanne and Caron peered through the eerie stormlight, the surf bright white, the skies scudding grey, then suddenly filled with luminous cloud. Somewhere inland they heard shots and a scream, then no more, a voice calling ‘Bedouin…’ and a company came running past, a sergeant pointing and calling, ‘There! There! The trees!’

  Caron took stock and gathered the nearest survivors with Sarah and the others, setting any troops he could find on one knee, facing the distant treeline and undergrowth, muskets ready as more and more stumbled ashore. He shook his head, muttering, ‘What a shambles…’

  They heard Bonaparte shouting orders to get the artillery ashore now, with the horses now, or the officers responsible could swim back to Toulon for replacements. ‘Am I to be foiled even now by your incompetence!’

  The sodden figures of Rossy and Pigalle joined them, then Antonnais and St Michel, used to the chaos of the army, from fighting in France, fighting on the Rhine, in Italy, everywhere and anywhere: Egypt seemed no different. They said nothing. Rossy scratched at his unshaven neck then chipped a salute to Sarah. They squatted together, for mutual protection.

  ‘Some Bedouin came in, Chef,’ said Rossy, wriggling a finger in his ear to get the water out. ‘Captured a few officers with some of the women.’ He inspected his cartridge-pouch for leaks, and held up a soggy bag of powder, shaking his head, laughing to himself, then threw it down. ‘No more than five thousand men, Chef,’ he murmured, ‘at most. I hope the enemy are tiny little fellows who cannot shoot.’

  ‘Everyone is tiny to me,’ rumbled Pigalle.

  ‘This is true, mon ami,’ admitted Rossy.

  Caron saw Caffarelli stumping along, his peg-leg sinking into the sand with every step. ‘Putain. Who has wine?’ said Caron. ‘It shall be my last in this place of deserts and demons…’

  A goatskin was passed and Rossy handed it to him. They could all hear Bonaparte’s aide, Colonel Junot, ‘It is very simple,’ called Junot to the army, his words battling the howling wind, ‘if we want to eat, if we want to drink, there is plenty awaiting us – in Alexandria! They will not be prepared! We march with our general! This is the desert! We march, or we die!’

  Caron held out the skin to Sarah and she drank, and handed it on to Jeanne. Caron looked around at the darkening beach. ‘Let us go before the Bedu come back…’ He looked out at the dazed men and women, the capsized boats, the palms thrashing in the wind, then took a swig and spat. It was water, not wine, and there was sand in it.

  ‘Putain,’ he muttered. ‘Welcome to Egypt.’

  * * *

  Abu Bakr Pasha sat in voluminous robes, puffed hose and ballooned turban among cushions of fine cool cotton. As the ruling Ottoman governor, he was the representative of the sultan in Constantinople. Therefore, the Mamluk beys, amirs a
nd sheikhs knew he was not to be trusted by the parliament of the diwan – for the sultan did not look fondly upon the Mamluk. However, Abu Bakr was a very practical man, and knew how to be guided.

  All around him, on varying levels before the arched and pillared windows, sat the diwan assembly, called together at last to face the ‘French emergency’. All of the Mamluk beys of Cairo had come, along with imams and ulema scholars, as well as the elderly Sheikh Abd’allah al-Charkawi of Cairo’s revered Al-Azhar Mosque. Hot breezes wafted through diaphanous curtains, the streets of Cairo below as clamorous as ever.

  ‘The only reason the Frenchmen can have landed,’ raged Murad at Abu Bakr Pasha, ‘is because you and the sultan allowed them to!’

  ‘This is not so,’ retorted Abu Bakr indignantly. ‘Besides,’ he said, in that lofty tone favoured at the court in Constantinople, ‘how can we know for certain they have landed? Could all be nonsense and tittle-tattle.’

  Murad shook a fistful of despatches at him. ‘Of course we know! As they were predicted so to do by the Englishmen!’ He looked about the chamber furiously. ‘We have waited for resolution for hours and still we sit and argue like old women.’

  ‘Not so,’ replied Abu Bakr, ‘we have acted.’

  Murad roared again, for he knew the pasha’s ‘action’ had been to imprison a number of Europeans, including the Austrian Consul Rosetti, who had informed them of the imminent landing. He had also closed the European shops and cafes. ‘Acted! I have called the cavalry and my sanjaqs from across the country! What have you done?’

  ‘I have taken potentially seditious prisoners from the streets,’ said Abu Bakr proudly.

  ‘Execute them!’

  ‘Ransom them!’

  The High Sheikh al-Balad, Ibrahim Bey, sat some distance from the venerable Al-Charkawi, but inclined his head in his direction as if in deference – most knew it was a sham, a cover for his ceaseless feud with Murad. ‘Murad the great warrior seeks to sharpen his sword at the first sign of conflict, without seeking peace…’

  ‘Peace! You? What else must I do?’ demanded Murad. ‘Ignore a foreign army come to invade?’ He rubbed his fingers together at him. ‘And consider how to fill my purse?’

  ‘That is not an argument,’ replied Ibrahim carefully.

  ‘I need no argument.’ Murad held up his powerful hands. ‘I will crush the life out of any infidel who would sully the land of Islam!’

  His pale skin wrinkling across his elderly white face, Al-Charkawi listened, then raised a shaking hand. ‘That,’ he said quietly, ‘is an argument.’

  Abu Bakr nodded. ‘So it is. Do you say they come on crusade again? If so, our sacred duty is clear.’

  Sheikh Al-Jabarti of the Al-Azhar replied to the ancient Al-Charkawi, ‘According to their own hand they are Unbelievers, Sheikh Abd’allah. But neither are they Christian.’ He held up a document for all to see. It was Bonaparte’s proclamation, printed in the holds of the Orient.

  Murad watched him from the centre of the floor. ‘Well? What do you mean? How?’

  Al-Jabarti bowed his head first to the venerable Al-Charkawi and then to the pasha. ‘My lords. We of the mosque are disturbed by this, this miserable notice, which the French have distributed among the people. It declares them to be better Muslims than we, whom they call Mamluk, rather than Egyptian. Thus they seek to divide us.’ He read from the page in his hands, ‘It is a most peculiar proclamation: “I am come to restore your rights, punish your usurpers, and raise the true worship of Muhammad. Tell them that I venerate, more than do the Mamelukes, God, His Prophet, and the Quran. Tell them that all men are equal in the sight of God…” And here,’ he continued, ‘they then disown their Christian heritage: “O, ye Qadis, Sheikhs and Imams; O ye Shurbajiyyah, and men of circumstance, tell your nation that the French are also faithful Muslims, and in confirmation of this invaded Rome and there they destroyed the Papal See, which was always exhorting the Christians to make war with Islam”…’

  Murad called out, ‘How can this be? They are Christian Europeans.’

  ‘Yet here they deposed the Pope-Sultan, their holy father…’ said Al-Charkawi equably. ‘What must this mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ continued Al-Jabarti. ‘They do not understand that in casting down the Pope-Sultan they are not devout at all. They believe this makes them liberators of men’s souls, rather than destroyers. By this note, despite its poor and ambiguous grammar, we see that they are godless heathen materialists, who do not believe in the Hereafter or Resurrection, neither that the world was created by God, but by their flimsy science, and irrelevant aspects of the moon.’ There was derisive laughter. ‘They do not follow the God of Abraham,’ he concluded, ‘They are therefore beyond God’s law and must be resisted.’

  Many of the imams and ulemas bowed as he sat, God be praised, and discussion rippled among the group. A sanjaq of Amir Mustafa al-Bakri spoke.

  ‘The sheikh of the Al-Azhar is correct. A rider brought us one of these firman proclamations. These godless French sent men to the docks of Alexandria before moving west to land, and gave copies into the hands of the common folk, fellahin and such low men. The Awlad ’Ali and others have said they landed at Marabout in a bad gale. Insha’allah they get no further, for the Awlad ’Ali will attack them.’

  ‘But it must be remembered,’ continued Al-Jabarti, ‘as it is stated by this man, this Bonaparte, what may follow. Here in his first article, that all the villages within three hours of where the French pass must surrender, and raise the French flag.’ He held up his hands. ‘Where must we acquire such flags I know not… Second, that any villages that resist shall be burnt down, and that the sheikh of each village must seal up all property, houses and possessions belonging to the Mamluks.’ He waved the note about, flabbergasted. ‘It would seem they do not understand what is Mamluk or not, nor whom they are liberating, truly – yet still they demand we stay in our sealed houses and fly their flag while they invade.’ He shook his head. ‘It seems they come to loot as well, and to praise a god they do not believe in while doing so.’

  There was a rippling murmur and shaking of heads at this and Ibrahim Bey took his moment. ‘Then it is true. They come seeking gold and wealth, as does any army,’ he said. ‘We should pay them and let them be gone.’

  ‘Would that be possible?’ asked Abu Bakr Pasha. ‘It could be but a trifle compared to occupation and war.’

  ‘It is a European army,’ retorted Murad, ‘unlike any before, with no talk of their prophet. They come for conquest, not bribery!’

  The arguments continued. Outside the chamber, in a broad arched passage of polished white stone, Hazzard and Cook waited while Masoud listened carefully at the doorway, relaying as much as he could. Izzam and Alahum stood close by, as still as the Mamluk sentries. ‘Murad Bey is angry with them all, especially Ibrahim…’

  Hazzard joined him. ‘Which one is Ibrahim?’

  Masoud pointed him out from behind the cover of a linen curtain in the arched doorway. ‘That one. If Murad is a lion, then Ibrahim is a cobra.’

  Hazzard looked. It was not an inaccurate description. Ibrahim was lean and poised, a white turban with long headdress hanging beneath, much like the Mamluk they had encountered in the desert. A thin face, he thought, handsome, a fine line of black beard and moustache as if drawn with a pen, a man of wealth and status. He sat very still, only his eyes moving until he spoke in anger, then his head snapped forward to strike. Hazzard preferred the energy of Murad the lion.

  ‘If they’ve landed,’ said Cook, ‘then we’re too bloody late anyway…’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Hazzard. ‘They’ll need a fortified position and Bonaparte would know better than to keep his back to the sea for long. He’ll march inland to Alexandria as soon as he can, ready or not. We could catch him in the open with enough cavalry.’

  ‘Then why can’t this lot move their flamin’ arses into their flamin’ saddles…’ muttered Cook, peering through the doorway.

  Masoud put a fi
nger to his lips. ‘All decisions are taken by the diwan. They must be in agreement and the Ottoman Pasha must consent. It is the way of things. But Murad and Ibrahim hate each other – Murad once turned a cannon on his house it is said, and fired it from across the city…’

  Cook turned away. ‘Barmy as a ruddy rajah…’

  They had been housed and fed, though virtually kept prisoner in their rooms, Izzam and Alahum sleeping at their chamber door, and waited yet another day for the diwan to assemble, Hazzard maddened with frustration. Hammer had gone to the Delta to spy out the coasts and ports, leaving Masoud behind as Hazzard’s interpreter – the young Alexandrian spent most of his time calming the impatient Englishman.

  There was a shout inside and they could hear Ibrahim and Murad, ‘Then I shall go.’

  And Ibrahim answering, ‘And when you have massed your cavalry, Murad, what then after your victory? Take power once again?’

  They heard movement and a Mamluk appeared, holding one of the curtains aside. They moved away across the cool stone corridor, waiting. Eventually Al-Jabarti emerged, his small form dwarfed by the palatial arch high above him. The Mamluk guards bowed as he passed and he joined Hazzard and Cook.

  ‘I thank you again, Mr Hazar,’ said Al-Jabarti in halting English. Masoud translated between them. ‘This is proving difficult for the diwan.’

  ‘As you said, Sheikh,’ replied Hazzard. ‘But when will they take action? They have hours, not days.’

  ‘The diwan is always divided, power split between the great beys. Not just Ibrahim, but Osman, Hassan, Muhammad al-Elfi and Qasim Bey and more. But Murad commands the high-caste cavalry and is the most powerful.’

  Another man, dressed much like Al-Jabarti in white robes and similar headdress, emerged from the chamber and joined them. He bowed to Al-Jabarti and looked to Hazzard and Cook. ‘I am Sharif Nazir,’ he said in flawless English, ‘brother of Ali Qarim Sheikh, in whose name you rode from beyond Gizeh.’