Lords of the Nile

by Jonathan Spencer

  ‘She is here – he has her…’ she gasped.

  ‘Go, quick,’ he said. ‘Cesár, take her…’ and De la Vega pulled her past them, hefting up the lad, bravo, amigo, bravo.

  For a moment, there was silence. Hazzard stood in the doorway, looking into the shattered interior, another anteroom. It was no more than a corner landing to the Great Cabin, where he had dined that night off Malta in the company of Bonaparte and the savants.

  The guns battered the ship again and the Orient shook from side to side, dust and powder raining from above, the walls reverberating, the gunners calling, and the scene burst with light.

  A dogleg of passages, a doorway, cracked and collapsing; Masson leaned against one wall, wheezing in pain, beside him, Jules-Yves Derrien, his open lantern swinging. He held Sarah in front of him, her arms pulled behind. On a broken bench to the left lay the comtesse de Biasi, a spreading patch of blood on her side. A pool had formed beneath her on the splintered planking.

  Hazzard called to her, ‘Madame…’

  Derrien jerked his hold on Sarah and she gasped. Hazzard stopped. Again, the guns crashed and the ship heaved and rolled, Masson screamed, stamping his foot to alleviate the fear, the pounding on the hull moving steadily forwards, one hit after another, a gun-port bursting in behind them in a gale of splinters, and they all staggered, wind and spray blowing in.

  The ageing countess could barely speak but gasped with some relief when she saw him, ‘M’sieur d’Azzard…’

  Derrien was breathing heavily, the small screw-barrelled pistol hanging at arm’s length. He had been hit badly, like Masson, his leg bloody, the coat torn and charred, one sleeve ripped open, his wounded pistol arm tied with a bloodstained rag – his invulnerable personal precision gone.

  ‘William…’ said Sarah, the dust and soot on her face smudged with tears.

  Having found her, Hazzard almost surrendered to his exhaustion, as if finding her were enough, the chase over. He put a hand out to lean on the doorframe. The scene began to slide away from him, his eyes closing and he fought a distant yearning for it all to end.

  ‘Always, you are there,’ Derrien hissed. ‘Always!’

  Spoken in English. Hazzard swayed, feel drunk, near collapse. Ready to drop, Jory, like the Orient, like this old, sinking… but he managed to speak. ‘Let them go…’

  Derrien’s eyes flicked to De la Vega over Hazzard’s shoulder, searching for movement behind. De la Vega nudged Hazzard with his pistol and whispered, ‘Vacio.’

  Empty.

  ‘Bonaparte… is finished,’ said Hazzard. ‘Cut off. Forgotten. Just as his enemies in Paris wanted.’

  Just as Lewis wanted. Damning Egypt to a new master.

  Derrien trembled. Hazzard could not tell if it were fear, or anger. ‘I came to this—’ he began, the words shot from his lips uncontrolled ‘—this place… half-French half-Englishman, English liar with no king…’ He took a breath. ‘We came… with the Revolution, and a future for all,’ a hand to his forehead, tired, then in French again, ‘At Valmy… I commanded guns, me, moi-même! And I held his head!’ He looked away. ‘His head…’

  Hazzard tried everything he could think of. ‘The map… I will find the tombs… the treasures, on the map, anything…’

  ‘And what have you brought here, Englishman?’ Derrien looked around him, his eyes roaming the destruction all about them. ‘You brought this.’

  The comtesse spoke in English in a sudden rush, ‘Find Salah al-Menouf and Hassan Abd-ar-Rahman. The sultan will issue a firman, for jihad, with Al-Djezzar of Acre—’

  ‘Silence!’ raged Derrien, and Masson pressed the muzzle of his pistol against her breast-bone and squeezed the trigger. Sarah screamed as the frail body of the comtesse bucked, the bullet bursting through her back.

  Hazzard shouted, ‘Pet! Knock-knock!’

  ‘Clear aye!’

  Hazzard dropped to his left and Pettifer and Warnock fired their muskets simultaneously over Hazzard’s right shoulder.

  Masson’s neck and chest burst with the impact of Pettifer’s musket-ball, his head smacking back against a post, eyes wide, mouth opening in a cry, his body dropping dead to the floor. Derrien thrust Sarah behind him protectively and raised his pistol, Warnock’s bullet driving him back – just as Captains Ball and Hallowell gave their order, and Swiftsure and Alexander blazed away: in a storm of thunder and iron, the stern and starboard quarter of the Orient imploded.

  The passage blew in with splintering wood and breaking glass. All were thrown off their feet as the rounds crashed into the flagship, a post flying past, a bulkhead collapsing, Pettifer calling out, and the battleship heeled and rocked. Someone was shouting and Hazzard put his hands to his ears, get up, shouting at nothing, everything, pushing a smashed panel away, Derrien’s lantern fallen, the crackle of fire, the smell of smoke. ‘Sarah!’

  ‘Here,’ she said, and Hazzard reached for her and she found his hand as the ship crashed from side to side, the concussion of the guns battering them, his vision catching the scene in flashes, shouting to Pettifer and De la Vega, Get out! Out out out! Derrien curled in a heap, unmoving, eyes half-open, and he squeezed Sarah tight, St Jude pressing into his chest, telling him yes, this was real, and she sobbed against his neck, ‘William…!’

  Another roar of thunder and they scattered, stumbling, falling, the lamplight blotted out, screams from above, from below. Her hand pulled him back to his feet, this way, and in the flashing of the barrage he saw Masson and the comtesse, dead, the burning debris by the broken lamp flaring in the dark. But for a smear of black blood, Derrien had gone.

  ‘Where is he!’

  De la Vega pulled him back. ‘Vamos, amigo! Leave him! The devil comes for his own!’

  Orient shook and bellowed, a stricken beast in its death-throes, the barracking of the guns incessant. Warnock led the way, French crewmen tugging at them for help as they passed, officers waving them onward to the upper deck, thinking they were crewmen.

  A blast struck high above and showered them with splinters, and Warnock went down, Pettifer grabbing him up, and they burst through to the upper deck. French marines crowded the gangways in firing parties, a sous-lieutenant calling the orders, wounded lying everywhere, seamen carrying comrades to shelter, others running with lengths of line, some fighting to secure the stays, battling fires, men falling, men jumping overboard.

  He could feel the heat on his back and shoulders, and he burned as if alight with flame. Pettifer shouting in his face, Can’t hear… can’t see, his blackened features crazed in a fog. ‘Larboard, sir! We got to go over the larboard side! Make for the boat!’

  Sarah screamed at him from somewhere and he felt her hands on his face, shaking him, can’t think, De la Vega down on one knee, Cesár! Hazzard rising, hauling him up, Warnock carrying them past the mainmast, musket-volleys cracking from the British ships and in the fighting-tops. He then saw what he had glimpsed when they had first climbed aboard: buckets of tar and lime.

  Fire.

  He saw the pale limewash spreading across the boards, meeting a pool of black pitch creeping to the base of the mainmast.

  ‘Get off!’ he yelled. ‘She’s going to blow…’

  Hazzard hauled himself up the steps to the quarterdeck gangway, shoving Warnock onward. He half fell, straw underfoot, spilling from split mattresses at the rail, men screaming at them as they staggered past. He could hear Sarah calling, Jeanne! Jeanne!

  Hazzard could not see Casabianca on the quarterdeck, only a group of officers gathered around a fallen officer, nearby a white-haired figure, lying propped against a cask, his leg shot away at the hip. Brueys, thought Hazzard, nearly torn in half, yet still he tried to direct the battle. Hazzard leaned on the rail, and saw Lt Gilles Marais. Marais stared back at him, wide-eyed, unseeing, and Hazzard turned away, a terrible sickness overwhelming him as he thought of Jullien, and their climb into the heavens.

  Flame rushed up the mainmast, the pools of lime and pitch catching lig
ht, the fire roaring across the decks – the rigging catching like a fuse, the flames rippling along the lines up to those trapped above. A blazing spar crashed down from the tops, men crying out, some falling into the sea in flames.

  Hazzard stumbled to the port gangway, Pettifer taking him by the arms, trying to get him to a line, We got her, sir, we got her in a boat! but he kept pushing them away. ‘Where is she…’ said Hazzard. ‘Get over the side…’

  He could see boats below, men calling up, urging the crew to jump as Alexander and Vanguard blazed away, every gun on their starboard broadsides firing at will in an endless pounding rhythm.

  HMS Orion loomed off the port bow, HMS Theseus behind, swinging round on her anchor springs, her reloaded guns emerging, the darkened crippled hulk of Peuple Souverain blocking Orion’s path. The cry went up: Sauve qui peut! Every man for himself. Those climbing down the broadside of Orient began to jump. Hazzard saw Pettifer falling from halfway down into the water, De la Vega jumping, Warnock calling upward to him, Come on, sir!

  Orient began to break up, the blast of the fire blowing men from the rail. Hazzard climbed over on his line, walking down the broadside, the planks bursting around him with fire. He felt only a faint impact, a heavy hand on his back, then weightlessness, as Hallowell on the Swiftsure opened fire for the last time.

  Falling.

  The air burst overhead and he tried to shout but he struck the water, his arms, his shoulders, stiff, useless, his hands like stones. The guns were reduced to a muffled thumping, somewhere far above, but otherwise, there was silence. He could see the bodies of seamen floating gently all around him, some rolling slowly in the current, others hanging, arms out in open embrace, discarded puppetry, nudging their fellows, turning, the glow of the fire and flash of the guns high above illuminating their faces in a weightless underworld.

  Drift away… so very easy.

  Bursts of light and water above his head, more men diving into the water, some splashing to swim, some sinking. Then one hand, two, Warnock, Kite, a third, Porter, their swinging fists clutching at him, holding him up, pushing him to the surface, their legs kicking – and the air hit him, roaring, alive, blasting, too hot, and he dragged it into his lungs, muffled calls from far off and Cook’s pocked and blistered face, ‘Got him, lads, move away, away now…’

  There were figures still on deck high above, the fire raging through the rigging, the ratlines ablaze, a fiery web against the smoke, survivors below calling up for them to jump, sauve-toi, save yourself, some with their clothes ablaze, screaming, hitting the water, Where is Sarah? De le Vega was standing, shouting up in French to Jeanne and the boy, his arms out as if he would catch them. But the boy looked down, then ran back into the flaming destruction, and she followed him, calling his name.

  The barrage eased. Saumarez backed HMS Orion away, as did Swiftsure and Alexander, their gun-ports closing, their greater fear now the fire they had created. Orient was a blazing corpse, but no one could yet close her eyes and finish her.

  Hazzard gulped in the boat, can’t breathe, a crushing pain in his throat, in his chest, his eyes bulging, and he fought off their help, can’t breathe. Someone grabbed his legs and up-ended him, the bilge of the boat suddenly in his face as seawater belched out of his lungs and mouth and he retched, his throat tightening, closing, breathe breathe breathe.

  ‘We got him, Sarge!’

  Kite, Porter, De Lisle – they were there, with Hesse and Underhill, Wayland at the tiller…

  Where is she?

  He was shouting but no one heard him and no one would speak, and all the while he kept shouting, Where is she! Cook shook him and pushed him down and he saw, there she was, lying with him across his knees, a faint smile on her lips. ‘Here I am…’

  Relief swept over him in a tidal wave as he held her, his head bowed. ‘Are you really…?’ He buried his face in her wet hair, holding her tight, as he had done in the Orlop on the Orient that night so long ago, feeling her arms around his neck, and he knew all was well – though he could not bring himself to accept it: he wanted to rage at them and their bloody battle, damning Nelson and Bonaparte and his fleet and all of them to eternal darkness. He knew he would have burned down the world just for this moment. ‘Sarah… forgive me…’

  She sighed and held him tight and he breathed, tired, so tired, running his hands over her, to support her legs, to keep her safe. He then felt the jagged shard of wood that had penetrated her lower back.

  No.

  ‘I… feel nothing,’ she said, then tried to swallow, and he wanted to stop her as she closed her eyes. ‘Really…’

  He looked at them all, sitting around him, doing nothing. ‘Pull for the Orion! Pull, damn you! Surgeon! Porter!’

  Porter was already at his side, Underhill, Wayland, Kite and Hesse watching, Warnock and Pettifer’s smoke-blackened faces downcast. Cook looked on, Sorry, sir, and Hazzard could not believe it, would not, and the tears shook him, his breath coming in fits.

  ‘Why did you come?’ his voice a strained whisper.

  She coughed, almost a laugh. Wayland gripped the tiller, his face white, the boat rocking as Handley helped a few more aboard. Hazzard heard French but registered nothing.

  ‘You promised,’ she said, ‘An adventure…’

  His numb hands shuddered and he could not stop them, his vision distorted, blurred, fogging. She was pulling further away from him by the moment and he tried to stop her. He put his trembling fingers to her cheek and as he leaned forward, felt that the piercing end of the wood shard had come clean through her front. ‘Oh God, no…’

  Porter was saying something quietly to him, his hand on his shoulder, trying to pull him gently away but Hazzard could not hear him properly, loss of blood, sir, she’s just closing her eyes, sir, just tired, falling asleep-like… and she’ll be safe away…

  No.

  Hazzard rolled forward into a ball over her, held her to him, for minutes, for hours, for moments, and Cook had to pull him off. He heard the murmur of prayer, Cochrane, and the French sailors in the boat.

  Someone took a sword from his hand, possibly De la Vega – he had whipped it round and thrust it forward until it quivered at the throat of one of the French survivors, just a boy, praying with his tear-stained eyes tight shut. Hazzard had no idea he had done it. He stared, seeing the curved scimitar of Sheikh Ali Qarim as if he had never seen it before, and then sank down. At that moment, Orient exploded.

  The blast lit the sky and the ships around with a double clap of thunder, and flattened the water’s surface, the surprise on every man’s face captured in a white and orange flash. Moments later, the full sound hit them, tilting the boat, knocking them backwards as they clung to the sides, as Orient cursed the world with her final defiant act, the decks heaving and bursting into the air, burning wreckage and men flung skyward.

  Brueys. Casabianca. Marais.

  Jeanne.

  The remaining guns of the two fleets fell silent, struck dumb at last. Smoke drifted across the bay, lit by the fires of flaming French ships. Guerrier was gone, shattered, surrendered. Conquérant had struck her colours, Spartiate and Aquilon were disabled; Franklin and Peuple Souverain had struck, and were overrun, hemmed in by British 74s, now pausing in unexpected armistice. The rearguard of ships, Généreux, Guillaume Tell and Timoléon had watched in impotent frustration, unable to attack, unable to escape the contrary wind. The men in the small boats hung their heads, in sorrow, in relief, grateful for the deafening, woollen silence. The skeletal cadaver of the Orient blazed furiously. Everywhere floated the bodies of the dead.

  ‘She’s gone…’ said Cook.

  The only sound was a distant cheer from the British ships, but even this was half-hearted and faded on the wind. The men of 9 Company exchanged glances, then looked away. None were jubilant. Some minutes later, calls came across the waves, from rowing boats, in English at first and then in French, ‘This way. Come along. Venez ici. You are now made prisoner, this way, come alon
g…’

  Hazzard saw nothing, heard nothing, but watched the water as it rose and fell, Sarah lying in his arms as if asleep, his fingers toying with her dark curling hair. The oars sat shipped in their locks, untouched. No one moved. Time passed, and they bobbed on the swell, the tide pulling them in, away from the battle.

  Eventually they touched the shoals, the boat gently grounding, the gradual stop giving them strange rest, returning them to the earth.

  ‘Sir,’ said Cook softly, breaking the silence, ‘fleet destroyed. We’re done. They get no more of us.’

  Hazzard’s voice was distant, wandering. ‘I have no more to give…’ Then a memory recurring. ‘I sent you back, with Hammer, and Underhill…’

  Cook nodded. ‘Found me way back.’

  Handley spoke in a quiet monotone, his eyes on Sarah, ‘Culloden grounded on the rocks, sir,’ reported Handley, a task to be done. ‘Come under mortar-fire from the fort. Riding on a horse, Mr Wayland took a gun position single-handed, killing two… and with surviving hands from the old Esperanza turned the gun on the fort, knocking out the mortar batteries. Saved Sir Thomas and his crew. Survivors of Esperanza now rejoined the fleet, sir.’ He looked at the marines. ‘Nine Company recce complete, sir.’

  Hazzard nodded. Then, after a moment, ‘Well done, Handley. Well done, Mr Wayland… well done, all.’

  ‘Didn’t give up the boat, sir,’ said Warnock softly, staring down at Sarah.

  ‘No,’ agreed Hazzard, ‘you didn’t…’

  On the beach in the distance Hazzard could see a group standing by their horses, others still mounted. Bedouin, thought Hazzard. He watched, unmoving.

  ‘Ahoay!’ came an officer’s voice from astern, ‘I say there, ahoay!’