‘Hazar Pasha…?’ It was Izzam. He was frightened of the spirit that had taken him, as was Hazzard.
Hazzard nodded, looking up. ‘Hasanan, sadiqi.’ All right, my friend. ‘Hasanan…’
* * *
Sergent-chef-major Achille Caron dashed to the next stand of palms, pistol in hand. Rossy hurried up beside him at a crouch. The battle was in full cry and the Alpha-Oméga platoon was on the move. A band of Mamluk horse galloped past on the track, ‘Ilal amam!’ not seeing them in the depths of shade beneath the trees.
‘As we all have the natural instincts of the true soldier, Chef,’ whispered Rossy, priming his Charleville with quick, deft hands, ‘that is, to do as little as possible, unless anyone is watching…’
‘Very wise, yes, Rossy…’ agreed Caron. He waved Pigalle and Antonnais forward and they ran ahead and ducked into cover, St Michel following with his Austrian rifle.
‘Why then, I must ask, are we performing this little bit of heroic madness, Chef?’
‘Our lust for glory, Rossy, mon brave, our duty to the beloved Republic, and to take these merde batteries before they pound our arses into the ground…’
‘Not our arses, Chef, but the arses of the 25th and 2nd Légère. And they should not matter, not being fine arses at all.’
‘C’est vrai,’ said Caron, ‘It is true. Come.’ They ran onward, passing the others and crossing the track to a whitewashed mud house. Caron waved the others to follow.
There were twenty of them, the Alpha-Oméga of the 1st Company, 1st Battalion, the 75th. The rest of the Invincibles fronted Dugua’s square, pulling out of range. A hundred yards from Caron lay the gun-pits and the remnants of ancient Embabeh. They could see the muzzles of the guns, the blooms of smoke as they fired. Rossy grasped Caron’s sleeve.
‘Chef. We cannot. I know the capitaine is in the square, but this is open ground.’
Caron nodded. Rossy had meant Captain Moiret. ‘Do you think we are like the 25th? Putain. We shall do as all wise and treacherous men, and go over there, and come quietly from behind.’
Keeping to shade and cover, they darted far to the left, into the unprotected roads leading to the river.
* * *
Hazzard watched as the end came. Losing too many men, the Mamluk cavalry pulled back, Murad leading them off to the south in full retreat, a French square in steady pursuit.
Ahead, the Nile was clogged with men, running, swimming, plunging in and making for the opposite bank of Bulaq. Hazzard saw the red and white banners of the Ottoman Sultan flutter and snap in the hot wind – then the eastern army broke. Without engaging the enemy, Ibrahim Bey and the Ottoman Pasha Abu Bakr turned their horses at full gallop and rode away. Sheikhs waved their fists and called after them, cursing their name, then turned to the river to rescue their swimming countrymen from the water, elevating the guns to fire across the river and support Embabeh.
‘Sinai…’ muttered Izzam, watching Ibrahim Bey, muttering their likely destination. He spat.
But breaking from Murad’s Mamluk cavalry in a tight arc came an unexpected sight. It was a troop of horse.
‘Innahu al-Sharif!’ cried Izzam and pointed.
An arrowhead of galloping cavalry churned the dust into a broadening cloud, at the head, Sharif Nazir, sword drawn, calling his orders, keeping them in formation, speeding the charge ever faster, trailing a whirlwind of dust in his wake. Behind him came charging mounts and the shayalaz mobile camel artillery, their small deadly guns puffing smoke, their sound reaching their ears moments later, no more than a muted popping in the distance. Hazzard watched as Nazir dodged the formation along the wall of a French square, the disciplined ranks falling in clouds of packed shayalaz grape-shot, the camels braying in victory.
But the inevitable response came: a single volley burst from four hundred French muskets and the attack disintegrated into a writhing mass of dead and wounded. Of Nazir there was no sign. Hazzard looked away, head down. And thus, the princes of Egypt fell before them, because they were right, he decided, it was written. Perhaps the sooner he accepted this the better.
From the timeless wastes of stone and gods came the wrath of Ptah Himself, angry clouds of dust and smoke swept away by an unseen hand, a sandstorm blown from Giza, whipping at their faces and stinging the skin. Izzam tried to shield Hazzard and they buried their faces in their shemagh headscarves. But Hazzard looked numb, lost, dead.
Izzam shook him awake. ‘Effendi, Embabeh, Kuq…’
Hazzard blinked and nodded. ‘Yes, Embabeh, Izzam – Embabeh…’
Izzam led the way and they galloped. The battle for Cairo, and Egypt, seemed lost, the grand manoeuvres of armies descending into individual acts of savagery. As they rode into the maelstrom of sand, faces materialised in the storm, then dissolved, shadows in the whirling dust, some crying out, running, leaping aside, somewhere drums rapping. A Mamluk as tall as Cook facing a charging French cavalryman dived for the horse’s forelegs, clamping his massive arms round it, the hindquarters of the beast rising up and over his back in a somersault, the rider launched screaming into the air – then abruptly impaled in mid-flight by two Mamluk spearmen.
‘Jory!’ He would hear no answer, Hazzard knew that, but still he called. ‘Jory!’
Embabeh lay ahead, but only some of the batteries were firing. The left flank company of Albanian Janissaries stood in ranks, their sergeant shouting at them, one volley, then another. A shell burst and the sergeant fell. His troops broke formation – but they did not run: instead, they attacked. Some brandishing their long miquelet muskets and spike bayonets, others waving their yataghan swords, they charged into the blast of French artillery without fear, Cook’s voice roaring over it all, Get back in line!
Struck by two volleys and French field-guns, the Albanians were cut down in minutes. The survivors stumbled on, some reaching the first row of bayonets, taking two men with each swing of the yataghan, but the others fell back. The right flanking company had also been turned and routed. The guns were next.
Sensing victory, Dugua’s square broke formation, the battalion commanders screaming out, ‘Dans l’ordre des colonnes! En avant!’ Column order! Advance!
The front ranks charged, streaming down in a cataract of grey and green uniforms, overwhelming the batteries. The fleeing Albanians were clubbed or cut down without mercy, the fleeing conscripts bayoneted as they ran, the French troops at last released from their tight formation discipline, enraged by their defiance.
Izzam’s black robes flapped ahead like wings as he rode through the slaughter, Hazzard following, the brightwork of Izzam’s sword gleaming in the howl of the sandstorm, the desert come to the Nile in its displeasure.
The pair burst through a platoon of white-coated French grenadiers in tall mitre headgear, Aux armes! À droite…! Hazzard dropped his sword-arm and the bloody scimitar cut through wool, leather, skin, bone, and a man fell, his hands clawing at his head. A bullet caught the saddle, once, twice, unseen blows smashing into Hazzard’s right leg, hit, and he fell across the horse’s neck.
‘Jory…’
He saw Yuzbashi Russuf fighting off three men, a fourth sinking his bayonet into his chest, and the Turk gasped, his giant Turkish kilij crashing down, cleaving his killer almost in half as he fell by his guns.
Izzam made his final leap over a gun emplacement into a knot of French. A grenade exploded, and he was thrown from his saddle, Hazzard losing him in the dust as the sand and wind whipped in. ‘Izzam!’
A soldier dived on the Bedouin but was cut open by his whirling scimitar. Hazzard jumped his mount into the pit, his hand reaching for him. ‘Izzam – isri! Yallah!’ Izzam leapt for him but was snatched backwards into the pit. ‘Hazar!’ He swung his sword in a tight circle as he had seen Hazzard do, and took another head, but Izzam of the Awlad ’Ali was at last brought down by a musket-butt and collapsed. ‘Izzam!’ cried Hazzard, but helpless, too far from him, and drove his sword down into a French shako, then saw Cook.
; He had one man by the throat, ‘Come on, ye bloody mollies!’ He swung him up and over his shoulder, snapping the neck, throwing the body to one side, skittling another. Caron saw him and called out ‘Anton! Les jambes!’ and one of them dived for Cook’s legs, Pigalle swinging a Charleville musket overhead. Cook kicked Antonnais away with a boot to the chin and the boy flew back with a cry. Pigalle lunged for the big man. Cook ducked the blow, put his head down and charged him with a roar, doubling the giant over, lifting him from the ground, and dropping him. The huge Pigalle bellowed as he fell and rolled, crushing a fusilier and a Turkish gunner. Hazzard swung his mount round, and Caron recognised him.
‘Rossy! L’anglais!’
But Rossy could not reach him, and Hazzard was knocked from his saddle by a grenadier, a bayonet rushing down at him – he rolled against the man’s shins, the tip of his sword stabbing upward, biting, and he thrust the blade from thorax to throat, twisting the grip, For Izzam. A gout of blood and a scream and another shadow, bared teeth flashing, wide eyes, and Hazzard shoved a hand over the face and cut as he withdrew from the grenadier’s body, the rage feeding on itself, giving him strength. For Alahum. He felt Cook’s hand on his collar, hauling him up, but still he swung and cut and another fell, a Charleville flying to pieces.
‘Out of it, lad!’
‘Not yet!’
The scimitar flew up and a face split apart, and turn, and cut down on the other side, a wild ferocity gripping him, for all of them, until Cook grabbed him hard. ‘Now, damn ye!’
They ran, stumbling out to the road towards a stand of trees, Hazzard dragging his leg, Cook half-lifting him, the pair of them limping, struggling, the Nile just visible through the rubble of a shattered house. ‘Just – reach the river…’ gasped Hazzard, and he looked across the blue waters, whipped into waves by the sudden storm. As Ibrahim’s army ran for the open desert to the northeast, the people had turned for the gates of the city, their cries filling the air.
Cook’s voice was dull with exhaustion. ‘Time to bloody scarper with the wind…’
Salvoes rushed overhead, crashing into the water, into the fleeing Mamluks and Ottomans, into the running Turkish gun-crews and the Bedouin and fellahin swimming across the Nile. Hazzard heard the barking blasts and knew they were their own guns: the French had turned the wheeled guns of Yuzbashi Russuf on the Mamluks.
They loped along the bank, Hazzard’s wounds flaring with fire. Mamluk bodies clogged the Nile. French soldiers stood on the riverside, tearing the silk robes and gold from the fallen, kicking the corpses back into the water, some sniping at the swimming Egyptians. One of them turned and saw Cook, but far too late.
The big man charged into their midst before they had a chance to turn. Two men fell. Hazzard made a loose swipe, too tired, and the blade jammed in the man’s knee, no more. He jerked the blade free and knocked away the muzzle of a Charleville, the blast going off too close to his leg, and the powder scorched and he screamed and fell into the soldier, using the curling cruciform guard of the sword to hit his face again and again. ‘Have you had enough now! Have you! Have you!’ A hand snatched at his robe and spun him around and a bayonet tip passed his head and he saw the blue water, so close, so inviting.
So this is where.
The robe tore and he rolled and struck out with the sword, will not go, as horsemen of the Beni Qassim galloped through them, their scimitars cutting, their voices calling, Muhammad Bey al-Elfi! Al-Aafrit al-ahmar! Cook was down, a French infantryman lying dead on top of him.
‘Jory…’
It was no more than a gasp, his throat burning with dust, his skin bone-dry, heart hammering. The old euphoria overtook him, from sun, from heat, and he fell, and rolled down the bank into the Nile mud, the Beni Qassim looking for him, calling, then riding off in pursuit of the French.
He pushed himself onto one elbow, collapsed, the shade enveloping him. Cannot see. Hazzard slid into the Nile, so cold after the furnace of the field. He floated on his back, the shade offered by the trees sliding away slowly, the sun exploding in his eyes. Somewhere he heard Arabic, Al-Pasha al-ahmar, and splashing, then nothing.
He let himself go, drifting slowly downriver with the gently bobbing dead and, so he dreamt, safely out to sea.
* * *
The Volpone slid silently towards the port waters of Alexandria. De la Vega had ordered the ship rigged with lateen yards, to give her the lazy slope of a Levantine trader, with looped lines and cargo nets swagged over the rails concealing her gun-ports. All lanterns and lights had been doused and commands were made on the whisper. Once again, Volpone was running silent.
At the starboard rail of the quarterdeck De la Vega observed the shore lights through his glass, Wayland and Alfonso beside him.
‘The port, she is busy…’ murmured De la Vega. ‘But I count only one, two… three French frigates. Where is the great fleet?’
Wayland followed De la Vega’s sightline through his own scope. ‘Two 24s… the third perhaps only twelve guns…’
‘Their lookouts, they sleep,’ said De la Vega. ‘They shall have the bad surprise when your Nelson comes.’
‘If that Turk can be believed.’
De la Vega was not so dismissive. ‘Ah, those men of the tartane boats are never wrong. They know these waters. If he saw eleven great British ships heading this way, then be certain that he did.’
‘We should burn the French in the port,’ said Wayland. ‘Make a signal-fire for Nelson. Teach them a damned lesson…’
De la Vega took his eye from the glass. The boy had changed, there was no doubt, his frustration expressed in the rapping of the walking-stick he now employed as he limped about the ship. The unlucky shot that had taken so little of his calf on Malta had so far left him virtually lame in one leg.
‘Tenente,’ said De a Vega, ‘you are impatient.’
Wayland seemed to have lost his uncertain deference. He seemed, after all, not unlike Hazzard. ‘Sir.’
‘Are the men prepared? Alfonso? Todos preparados?’
‘Sí, Capitán.’
The marines waited on the main deck below, Underhill, Pettifer, De Lisle, Hesse, Kite, Cochrane, Napier, Porter and Warnock. At Underhill’s instruction they had put on plain shirts, jerkins, some wore Spanish bandannas or dark turbans in the Turkish style, much as they had in Malta. They checked their weapons, each musket and blade smudged with a coating of dried pitch and boot-black.
Wayland looked down at them. ‘Clothes dark, weapons dark.’ It was just as Hazzard had promised them on that first day. He turned to De la Vega. ‘Men are ready, Captain.’
Volpone caught the onshore breeze, gliding past the Alexandrian coast towards the Nile and Rosetta. After a mile or so, they swung a boat over the starboard rail. Wayland put his stick into the boat and began to climb in.
‘Tenente,’ reminded De la Vega. ‘We agreed.’
Wayland stopped, his bad leg nearly over the gunwale of the boat. His face worked in anger. ‘Damn it all…’
‘We’ll find him, sir,’ said Underhill. ‘Don’t you doubt it. And we’ll plug a bloody great hole in any Frog as tries to stop us, just like you said.’
They all murmured aye. De la Vega tried to reassure him. ‘Alfonso comes to return the boat. So, we need an inglés aboard Volpone, to tell Nelson not to shoot, sí?’
Alfonso regarded Wayland with his dour eyes. ‘I leave you the Volpone, Tenente, while I take them. For no other man will I do this thing.’
Wayland looked over at Handley, standing off, watching. ‘Aye. Entiendo.’ Wayland let go of the boat and hauled his leg back to the deck of the Volpone. He leaned on his stick, the pain from the manoeuvre evident to all, and nodded to Alfonso. ‘Estoy honrado.’ I am honoured.
‘And your Spanish, it comes better,’ said De la Vega.
Wayland then looked to the Spanish bo’sun. ‘Señor Carlos, si te gusta, lower away, por favor.’ They smiled at his very British ‘if you please’.
‘Si, señor el
Tenente.’
The big bo’sun gave the order. The crew worked the boom lines and lowered the boat hand over hand, Wayland watching the dark faces of the marines sink below the level of the rail and down to the water. They raised the oars and began to row for the shore. Handley joined him to watch them go.
‘I’d ’ate to be a Frog tonight, sir.’
Wayland made a grunt and stumped off to the quarterdeck. ‘Let’s bring her about, Handley, guns rammed and ready… I want that harbour kept tight as a drum. Anyone comes out we look them over or blow them to Hades.’
Handley grinned and touched his forelock. ‘Too bloody right, sir.’
* * *
Alfonso had the tiller in the boat and guided them closer to shore. Off to starboard the coast stretched to a headland jutting out to sea to a small rocky island outcrop. On the tip of the headland was an ageing fortress tower rising into the deep blue of the night. Light shone from within, through narrow embrasures.
The squat shape of the old tower was limned in a backwash of light from somewhere bright beyond. De la Vega saw small boats laden with cargo, lanterns swinging at their sterns, possibly from Alexandria, making their way round the promontory.
‘To that fort, my friends,’ whispered De la Vega, and Alfonso moved the tiller. ‘Something is in the bay behind it. Silencio…’
‘Shallows here, sir?’ asked Pettifer.
‘Yes, amigo, everywhere, the moving sands. But we are light, and I have the long memory. Alfonso, a estribor…’ To starboard.
Alfonso swung them inland and they rowed closer to the shoreline, the surf breaking against shingle and rock, the rhythmic roar louder still as they approached the base of the fort. Alfonso looked up and pointed. The tower had a few small gun-ports, but no guns. A goat wandered through the scrub, grazing. It saw them and bleated.
Lords of the Nile Page 27
