Lords of the Nile

by Jonathan Spencer

  ‘Yessir.’

  Hazzard indicated the next. ‘And him?’

  ‘That’ll be Fie, sir.’

  Hazzard looked down the line at the remaining two. ‘Don’t tell me. Fo and Fum…?’

  ‘Sir. Well…’ Cook shrugged. ‘Works for them.’

  * * *

  At dawn the next day the Embabeh camp was jarred into action – Murad’s fighting retreat had been beaten back. A cry went up and riders came galloping through the camp, squadrons of Murad’s cavalry returning. Most had gone further west towards Murad’s lands at Giza, but some had come to the capital. Hazzard saw the first of the wounded come in, slung over saddles, dragged on litters by other riders. He knew there would be many more.

  The horses kicked up dust and sand as they came to a halt and the wounded were carried to shade under the trees, filling adjacent farmyards, physicians from the city attending them. Their battle-lines now clogged with wounded and retreating cavalry, Hazzard knew they would stand no chance if the French came hard behind them.

  One of the Beni Qassim rushed over, and Masoud translated. ‘Hazar-effendi,’ he said with concern, ‘Ali Qarim Sheikh…’

  The Bedouin led them to the tent where Ali Qarim had been taken. He was lying on a couch, servants rushing about him, removing his shattered armour and robes. The black veil was gone, his half-burnt and blackened face now twisted with pain. Nazir looked down at his brother, who stared as if dead, murmuring, ‘Selim… Selim—’

  ‘Have you any brandy?’ Hazzard demanded of Nazir.

  ‘Spirits? Of course not,’ he retorted, ‘only the physicians are perm—’

  ‘Find some!’

  ‘Sir,’ said Cook and offered him a hipflask. ‘Tastes like saddle-rub anyways…’

  ‘No!’ said Nazir, holding his hand away. ‘It is forbidden—’

  Hazzard pushed him off. ‘Forbidden by Man, Sharif, not God.’ He trickled some onto Ali Qarim’s lips and he coughed, gasping, his tightening hand taking a fistful of Hazzard’s robes. ‘Sheikh, you are wounded.’ The frustration of the language was too much and Nazir simply stared down at him, shocked at seeing his brother in such a state. Hazzard snapped at him, ‘Nazir! Masoud, come on!’

  Masoud translated Hazzard’s words, crouching beside Ali Qarim. ‘He says, I am no jihadi, a holy warrior,’ reported Masoud. ‘He says he has not the courage for it.’

  ‘Christ…’

  Ali Qarim whispered again and Masoud mouthed the words as he spoke, then relayed them. ‘He says you spoke the truth, effendi. Spikes, moving castles of men, rising from the sands, with muskets like a boiling cauldron… The golden sultans stood fierce in the centre… and their guns poured fire upon us.’

  Hazzard nodded, recalling Shubra Khit, the squares, the cavalry riding in and out, the endless volleys. Nazir listened to his brother.

  ‘They steal, says the sheikh… food from the houses… daughters from the families… killing all, even children…’

  Ali Qarim whispered something to him. Nazir looked at Masoud, confused. ‘Weapons… of the fellahin, says the sheikh…? What does he mean?’

  ‘Arms?’ suggested Hazzard. ‘Give them arms?’

  Ali Qarim put a hand on Masoud’s arm and repeated it.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Masoud, ‘he says to arm the people, the people of Cairo…’

  Nazir added, ‘…Or they will suffer greatly.’

  Nazir protested to Ali Qarim in rapid Arabic, but the sheikh gave a dismissive reply. Nazir rose from the bedside. ‘See your influence, Hazar-effendi. To arm the peasants! More blasphemies and madness…’

  The sheikh sighed and his eyes closed. The servants began to cut his robes away just as a trio of doctors in the white turban and robes of the Al-Azhar entered.

  ‘Will he live?’ asked Cook.

  ‘I know not, Kuq,’ said Nazir. ‘His fate is written. It is the will of Allah.’

  Masoud asked, ‘But why arm the fellahin? What can they know of battle that Murad Bey does not?’

  Hazzard looked out at the elite Mamluk cavalry and a unit of Ottomans, watching dumbfounded at the numbers of wounded, their officers bewildered. ‘He wants men who have something to fight for. It is their city. Masoud,’ he said, ‘go back to Cairo. Tell the other beys, tell Muhammad Bey al-Elfi and Sheikh al-Jabarti, the imams, and Al-Charkawi at the Al-Azhar, to rouse the people of the city. Armed with anything, sticks, clubs, stones, I don’t care. Get them out and in front of the gates. And be sure they know these are the wishes of Ali Qarim Sheikh. The sight of them might slow the French or divert Bonaparte’s attention.’ He looked at Nazir. ‘How far away are the French?’

  ‘They have Omm-Dinar,’ said Nazir. ‘Two hours’ ride.’

  ‘Five divisions of five thousand, advancing slowly in squares… we have time. Masoud,’ he said, ‘Ensure that the families are in the citadel as I requested…’ He paused a moment and remembered a moonlit night on a palace landing, and the fire in a pair of almond eyes, ‘…as well as the lady Nafisa and her followers. Protect Signor Rosetti, the Viennese Consul – you must now be Herr Hammer’s replacement, and become the Consul’s adviser. Sharif Nazir is an experienced warrior and he can ride with the army, but your task is just as important.’

  Masoud was at first disappointed at this perceived rejection, then realised the gravity of his task. ‘I shall do this thing, Hazar-effendi, in your name, as you wish. I shall bring out the people.’ He took Hazzard’s hand. ‘Rabbena ma’ak, Hazar-effendi al-hakim,’ and Cook’s, ‘Kuq-effendi al-bahadur. May God be with you both.’

  Hazzard watched the young Alexandrian go. It had been Masoud, he realised, who had drawn him back to the shores of Egypt – and he was grateful. But he had little hope. Within hours, riders returned from Omm-Dinar. The French were coming.

  * * *

  Murad’s horsemen charged across the valley, some engaging in contests, leaning from their saddles at the gallop to pluck objects from the ground as they passed amid cheers. Others rode in short gallops, arms outstretched, to practise or prove their horsemanship, preparing their mounts for what was to come.

  Hazzard’s advice had been ignored: Murad would face the French on the western shore alone. The Embabeh batteries and camel artillery were all they had to hit the French squares before they reached the Nile. The waters of the ancient river drifted by, as it had done before Ramses, thought Hazzard, and would for ever – and into his mind he felt the insidious trickle of the Mamluks’ fatalism: Insha’allah. God willing. It is already written.

  They rode through the lanes of Embabeh, past the batteries, aware of the new crackle of fear in the air, everything done quickly, without conversation, no laughter, only terse greetings or calls to steel the men’s shrinking hearts. As they rode by, Yuzbashi Russuf spread his arms wide and shouted Hazar Pasha! Kuq Chavus! and the men cheered – because their captain knew the exotic foreigner who had foretold of the castles of men rising from the sands, the devil in red. Surely, they believed, this was a good omen.

  Izzam and Alahum guarding the approach from the road, they descended the riverbank into the trees and splashed the horses into the water, giving them a final chance to bathe and drink. Bulaq lay just across the water, and they looked across at Ibrahim’s army, ten- to twelve-thousand strong, waiting on the eastern shore, blocking the northeastern route to Cairo – a wise precaution, but quite useless, thought Hazzard, the men wasted.

  A messenger galloped past on the road, saw Izzam and Alahum, and came to a halt. ‘Hazar Pasha?’ Izzam called down to the riverbank and pointed.

  The courier handed Hazzard a note. ‘Muhammad Bey al-Elfi, effendi.’

  Hazzard took it. It was in magnificent swirling Arabic, English penned underneath, from Masoud.

  Thus says Mahomet Bey al-Alfi to Captain Hazar al-hakim: so it may be written, one day, that we stood to defend our own. God be with you.

  He handed it to Cook. He thought it a wish of good luck, or perhaps more of a goodbye from the already vanqu
ished. But he was wrong. Cook looked upriver at the city. ‘By Davy’s locker. Would you ruddy look at that…’

  The open gates of Cairo became crowded with people. More, then still more emerged. They poured out of the city, men, women, children, calling, shouting, some with sticks, spears, some with swords, others with nothing, picking up the rocks that lay before them, captains of the army calling to them, Allah! And their answer, Ou-al-akbar! Allah! Ou-al-akbar! There were fellahin, merchants, some in fine clothes, some in tatters, some half-naked, others on donkeys, in carts. They swelled the eastern shore of the Nile, blocking the gates. Their numbers dwarfed Ibrahim’s army of footsoldiers. Once assembled, a single officer cried out across the Nile, ‘Allahu akbar!’ The consequent roar echoed across the valley.

  ‘Masoud did it,’ said Hazzard, feeling a glimmer of hope. ‘They’ve called out the bloody militia. Now we have a chance.’

  Then Hazzard heard the first shots. Sharif Nazir appeared at the gallop, and stopped at the top of the bank, his dark face half-hidden in the shade of the overhanging trees.

  ‘Hazar-effendi!’ he called. ‘The blasphemers come!’

  They rode back up the bank and through the empty streets of Embabeh, among the artillery crews running for their guns. They passed a trail of straggling villagers, a family, a lone mother, bare breasted in a torn gown, a naked child in her arms, all led by a long-bearded Coptic priest, all running, fleeing for the river.

  Izzam and Alahum close, they trotted past the gun emplacements, the crews alert, listening. They heard the flat percussion of approaching artillery. The ground shook.

  Cook cocked an ear and listened. ‘Howitzers.’

  They watched the open ground before them, across the valley. The Mamluk cavalry had gathered into troops and squadrons behind their sheikhs and amirs, their horses stamping. The first intrusion came, a howling rush of air, one shell, turning on a high, lazy trajectory, shrieking down and striking with a deafening thud, sending up a fountain of earth. Then another, and another. The field began to erupt before them, the descending whine of rounds, the jarring crump, spouts of sand and soil bursting high into the air.

  Without looking, Cook handed a folded slip of paper to Hazzard, and Hazzard did likewise to him, an old ritual. They put the wills into their inside pockets.

  ‘In the event.’

  ‘In the event, aye, sir.’

  Units of Mamluk cavalry tore through the camp behind Nazir and drew up nearby, in front of the massed ranks of artillery and foot. Hazzard looked behind him. The Bedouin of the Beni Qassim, the Albanians and Egyptians all stood ranged behind, looking to Hazzard and Cook, waiting. Teams of water-carriers moved swiftly through the ranks with a cup, each man taking a swallow, none too much, though some could not.

  Hazzard put a hand to the scimitar of Ali Qarim. He thought of Sarah, of green Suffolk, an alien universe in this place of stone gods and dust, thoughts clouding purpose. Cook shot him a glance.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘if she’s in Alex or Rosetta now…’

  Then she is safe.

  ‘Yes,’ Hazzard drew the sword.

  Automaton.

  Ships in line, open the ports, run out the guns, drums beating to quarters, master to the helm, bo’sun to the mainmast. He looked about. It was no different here in this dry, dead place full of fear and hope. His heart banged in his chest. The heat was all consuming. The ground quaked to the booming of the French guns.

  ‘Foot to the flanks,’ ordered Hazzard. ‘Stand by, all guns. Company! Make: ready!’

  Cook drew a broad-bladed Turkish cutlass, transferred a loaded pistol to a holster on his saddle and conveyed the orders, roaring out ‘Make ready!’ Nazir did likewise in Arabic, Yuzbashi Russuf screaming at his gun-crews in Turkish.

  The company had swelled to nearly a battalion, and dispersed into its positions, Sergeant Fee’s company running for the right flank of the gun-pits, Sergeant Fum the left. Cook rode through them. ‘Open order! March! Front rank: kneel! Make ready!’

  The ground heaved and burst before them, ranging shots raining down. Murad’s cavalry kicked up a cloud of dust far ahead, Murad Murad Murad! Allahu albar!

  Hazzard looked left and right. ‘Marines will form line!’

  It was an old habit, for both of them, from the decks of countless ships and countless duels at sea, but Cook obeyed and drew his horse closer, his voice bellowing out over the heads of the Egyptians and Turks, ‘In line! M’rines, clear aye!’ Izzam and Alahum followed suit, and the Beni Qassim moved in behind, ranks of horsemen, scimitars in hand.

  Hazzard shouted to Cook over the cannon-bursts, ‘We man the guns, but no more. Broadsides and blazing, that’s it, no bloody heroics, and the first sign of a turn you get back across that damned river just as I shall, clear?’

  ‘Clear aye, sir. And you’re a bloody liar an’ all too.’

  Cook kicked his heels in and cantered back to the middle of the battery and the ranks of Albanian Janissaries, reaching down, shaking the hands of his four sergeants, and they shouted ‘Kuq Chavus! Kuq Chavus!’

  Hazzard looked out at the endless shell-bursts. Earth flew up, casting vast sudden shadows. Thoughts of eager Lt Wayland and the men on Malta, Rivelli, killed in Naples, Emma Hamilton, her touch, and the scent of her lips, so close – of Jeanne, of Sarah in the Orient, holding her tight. And thoughts of all those falling beneath the wheels of the juggernaut now approaching, driven by Derrien, by Bonaparte, and his damnable self-assurance.

  I shall burn his dreams to the ground.

  Her face at the rail, the look of a broken doll as she was hit, her hand reaching out as he fell from her, endlessly falling into nowhere.

  She is alive.

  To protect her, to save her, he recognised, they had to defend Cairo and force Bonaparte into retreat. He knew this would never happen. But Hazzard could admit no further deductions. He knew now what his mind must do, as it had done so many times before. He let the rage come.

  How dare they. How bloody dare they.

  This time, he determined, he would correct his error on the Orient. He would cut off the head of the serpent and damn the consequences.

  Through the cover of the palm thickets by the edge of the field on the north road, he saw the first signs of movement – the bastion of a square fortress, a field-gun at its corner, its wheels rumbling, squealing, and slowly, inexorably, they came into view: ranks of men six deep, in blue, in grey, in green, five thousand bayonets pointing outwards, and their slow, heavy, chanting march – un deux, un deux, un deux.

  Caesar has come to war.

  ‘Enemy in sight!’ Hazzard called. ‘Prepare to engage! Awlad ’Ali! Beni Qassim!’ and they cheered. Hazar Pasha! Hazar Pasha! Kuq Chavus, Kuq Chavus! Al-Aafrit al-ahmar!

  Murad Murad Murad! Allahu akbar!

  Hazzard moved his horse forward one pace.

  The only battle that matters…

  Never stop.

  Never give up the boat.

  The shells rained down. He found himself shouting, screaming, the sword high. Riding across the line, he spun the mount and went out alone, calling across the field at the advancing army, a lone voice raging at a storm, ‘Bonaparte! By all that is holy in this ancient place, I swear I shall die hard this day e’er I die at all!’ He raised the scimitar and looked back at the Ottomans and Egyptians behind. ‘Ya saif… Ali!’

  They roared back, ‘Ya saif Ali! Ya saif Ali! Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!’

  Hazzard was ready. He would man the guns and defend Cairo, then ride the field, find Bonaparte, and kill him.

  Pharaoh

  Bonaparte led the general staff in a loping trot behind the squares. Berthier and the others watched him as the squares entered the head of the valley. He looked through his glass at Murad’s horsemen galloping to and fro, cheering each other, darting in for attack, then dashing away.

  ‘It is quite unbelievable,’ said Bonaparte. ‘They are still on this side of the Nile…’

  The 2nd D
ivision under General Desaix advanced first to the south, opposite the city, far to Bonaparte’s right, Reynier’s division guarding its left flank. The mobile fortresses moved like armoured creatures across the landscape, the men’s steady chant bringing unity and a nameless terror to the people’s army on the far shore – the citizens of Cairo began to scream, the women ululating, some running back to the closed gates.

  ‘Silence!’ called the sheikhs and amirs. ‘The Prophet waged war without the sound of dogs baying and screeching!’

  Murad’s cavalry raced in turmoil, a swarm of bees in apparent disarray. Bonaparte looked out at the pyramids in the distance beyond Murad, to Giza, the dunes rolling like waves on the sea.

  He looked upon his army. ‘Divisions to advance in echelon. Squares to engage.’ He raised his eyeglass and watched, a murmur of satisfaction to Berthier, ‘Forty centuries of history look down upon us, Berthi. Make them count for nothing.’

  The command went up: ‘Divisions en échelons! Vers la droite – marchez! Right wheel!’

  Desaix’s square of five thousand turned to the right, the dust rising as they chanted their pace, un deux, un deux, and marched straight for Murad, Reynier’s square moving in support. Within moments the disorganised mass of Mamluk riders became an angry swarm in a crescent attack formation.

  Murad raised his sword. ‘Ya saif Ali…!’ and the answer came back just as before, Murad Murad Murad! Allahu akbar!

  The Mamluk horse swept down upon the French squares, obscured for a moment by lines of palms before arcing towards them, and drew within fifty yards before the first volleys exploded.

  ‘Fire!’

  The Charlevilles cracked with a clapping detonation, clouds of grey smoke erupting all along the line, then bursting with a second volley. The Mamluk vanguard fell, so close to the blazing muzzles that some riders burst into flame, the musket balls carrying with them the burning wadding from the barrels, setting their silks alight. The screams echoed along the riverbanks.