Blood and Sand

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  Thomas nodded, and returned the hunter to its accustomed fold in his waist-shawl. “Medhet, Yusef, it is time for you to go, my brothers,” he said to the two remaining sappers. Then as they hesitated a moment: “Get out!”

  They faded backwards into the darkness. Thomas waited, listening to the faint brush of their movements, until he knew that they were clear of the tunnel, then he opened the lantern a crack and kindled a short length of match in the candle flame, and transferred the tiny fleck of fire to the end of the fuse. It hissed for a moment, crackled, and sank, then strengthened and began its slow inexorable creep towards the hole in the retaining wall. His heart was banging short and hard in his throat, the walls and roof of the tunnel pressed against his shoulders and the back of his bent head seeming to contract as though to hold him there …

  He forced himself to wait, watching the fuse until he was sure that it was not going to fail; then turned and flung himself on all fours after the other two. The tunnel had no end. Everything had gone slow like time in a dream, a nightmare, as he clawed his interminable way towards the entrance. Then the fresh air of dawn was on his face, and the branches of the pepper tree that shielded the entrance were tearing at him as he crawled through. He scrambled to his feet and ran, heading with bursting heart for the far side of the fig garden.

  He reached it and flung himself face-down, hands locked over the back of his head, just as, behind him, the night roared up in flame and red ruin. The shock-wave leapt upon him, battering him into the ground, then dragging him back deafened and winded, like a savage undertow. For a splinter of time, everything was quiet beyond the woollen ringing in his head; then sound was reborn and gathered strength; a great shouting from within the city, answered all around him as the assault party leapt in from where they had been hidden among the twisted roots.

  Thomas was up, too, and at their head, and they were running, sword in hand, for the broad breach that had opened in the city wall.

  Through the blast deafness singing in his ears, he heard their shouts: “Allah, il Allah!” And shouted with them, “Allahu akba!” at full pitch of his lungs. The smell of burned powder and the smoke still hung in the breach as they scrambled up and plunged over the scarce settling rubble to thrust back the first wave of the defenders racing to meet them.

  21

  All morning the fighting had raged through the sandy streets of Medina and across el Barr, the city’s broad maidan, as wave after wave of Egyptians, Turks and Albanians came pouring through the breach. The Wahabi garrison, beset from all sides once the Medinans, rising to join their rescuers, had taken and flung open the gates, had fought like tigers, but engulfed and beaten back, their survivors had fallen back on the citadel. By the day’s end the whole of the outer city was in Ahmed Agha’s hands.

  Thomas, leaning on his sword and looking across the sacred precinct, let his hot eyes rest on the huge green dome marking the Prophet’s tomb, that rose, remote and calmly uncaring as the moon, above the sandy space dark-littered by the bodies of men lying as yet where they had fallen. Again, he had wondered what he would feel when he looked upon it, when its ground was beneath his feet, this second most sacred spot in all Islam. He felt nothing at all. He was too tired. And he had yet to see to the lodging of his men.

  The days passed. The streets were cleared of bodies and the black cloud of vultures that had fought over them departed back to their sky-wide circling. Ahmed Bonaparte ordered the building of a cairn of human heads hacked from Wahabi bodies, where the road entered the Pilgrim Pass on the way from Yembo, for a visible sign to travellers of how the Haj route had been opened to them again. For three weeks they laid siege to the inner city, the citadel, where the surviving garrison still held out against them. They could have starved the defenders out in time. But surely the Lion of Arabia would not leave his loyal garrison to its fate indefinitely, and they could not afford to merely sit on their haunches waiting for time to do their work for them until the Wahabi relief force came.

  In the end it was red hot shot heated up over great fires on the maidan, and lobbed over the lowest part of the defences from field guns at their maximum elevation, that ended the siege.

  Few of the glowing shots cleared the ramparts, and those that did for the most part fell where they caused little harm save the starting of small fires and maybe the deaths of a few men. But at noon on the last day, with the supply running low, one of the missiles landed on the flat roof of a magazine, and ploughed its way through to the explosive and incendiary material within.

  The magazine went up in a great cough of flame, the shock-waves rocking the buildings in the outer city, and fire leapt above the ramparts, red against the vast billow of smoke that blotted out the sun. When the use of their ears returned to citizens and attackers, they heard thinly the screaming of men torn to pieces and the thin, high, bird-of-prey sound of desperately shouted orders. Presently the flames sank and the smoke cleared.

  At evening a white flag on a spear shaft appeared above the main gatehouse.

  Ahmed Agha, standing at a short distance from the gate, said with an air of pleasant satisfaction to Thomas standing beside him, “It seems they have had enough. I thought we should see that before sunset.”

  “Are you not going to order a ceasefire?” Thomas said.

  “Oh, yes, but it would be a pity to waste the firewood,” the commander said, and gave the signal to the gun team, whose master gunman, on the point of firing, had checked and was looking towards him. The crack of the field pieces split the waiting silence; and the last red shot went on its way, but failed to clear the parapet.

  Thomas let his breath go gently.

  Ahmed Agha spoke without hurry to the bugler who stood behind him: “Sound the ceasefire.”

  The call echoed away in the sunset light, and in a short while a head appeared beside the white flag, and a voice, harsh and croaking, drifted down: “I, Hammud al Rakshi, Captain of Medina, ask speech with Ahmed Agha, Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish Host, concerning terms of surrender.”

  Ahmed Agha set his hands to either side of his mouth and shouted back, “I, Ahmed Agha, Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian army stand here, oh Hammud al Rakshi. Therefore do you come forth now, that we may speak together before the gate of the citadel, concerning the terms of surrender.”

  A hand went up in acceptance, and the head and the white flag disappeared together.

  “Cover me,” the general said to his escort, a few moments later, as the postern of the heavy timber gates creaked open just wide enough to let one man through.

  “I come with you,” Thomas said, half statement, half question.

  “You remain with the escort. There is no danger. The Wahabis are men of honour, and will not shoot under the white flag.”

  ‘Yet only a fool takes his second-in-command with him into a possible trap,’ Thomas thought. ‘And you are no fool when you are even half sober.’ And hearing the snick and rattle of the breech bolts as the escort readied their muskets, paid silent tribute to his commander’s courage, as Ahmed Agha walked forward alone to meet the Wahabi captain.

  He watched the two come together on the open barbican before the gate; the thickset Turkish general, brilliant in gold-laced blue and crimson, arrogant as a fighting cock; the tall man in black Wahabi robes, his headdress laid aside and a bloody clout bound about his head, the white flag on its spear-shaft across his shoulder, unarmed, though the glint of jezail barrels in the evening sunlight here and there at shooting embrasures showed that he was being covered by his own men.

  Thomas watched them, trying to guess, from a shift in stance, the movement of a hand, how the thing went, while the long moments crawled by and the light thickened. At last they parted with the ritual gestures of courtesy, the Wahabi captain to melt backwards into the shadows of the gateway where the postern opened for his passage; Ahmed Bonaparte to return with his game-cock strut to his waiting escort.

  Even as he did so, the black Wahabi banners above the rampart
s came fluttering down.

  “So, that is an end to one lair of the black dogs,” he said with an almost shocking pleasure to his second-in-command.

  “They have surrendered on terms?”

  “But of course. They lay down their arms and march out at dawn, with food and water for three days, to re-join Abdullah ibn Saud at Diriyah.”

  Thomas looked at him in some surprise. He would not have expected generous terms from Ahmed Bonaparte.

  The Turkish general saw the look, and his full lips curved in a smile. “My dear friend, we have enough on our hands without taking prisoners.”

  It seemed a reasonable enough point, but there was something in the smile that Thomas did not like.

  *

  Before dawn next day the crowds were thick on the maidan, and lining the streets from the citadel to the Damascus Gate, to watch the defeated garrison march out. Thomas with the cavalry was stationed beyond the gate, where the road ran down through the palm groves and gardens to lose itself north-eastwards in the desert. The palms were no more than dark feathered shapes as yet, but the smell of the dayspring was in the air, and beyond the jagged rim of the mountains eastward, the sky was lightening to a watery green, taking on a faint creeping wash of pink and cool lemon. The city gates already stood wide, and it seemed to Thomas that something, an uneasiness, seeped out through them like an invisible stain spreading across the sand. He had sensed it earlier, even before the muezzin’s call to morning prayer, as he came down through the streets from his quarters in the Governor’s Palace, to join his men. The horses seemed uneasy too, ready to take fright at shadows. The green pigeons taking off from the palm trees, circling overhead on clapping wings, all but threw them into a panic.

  “Softly, softly, jewel of my heart! Have you never heard pigeons take off in the dawn before?” Thomas soothed with voice and hand his startled and fidgeting mare.

  The east was growing brighter; the colour draining from it to leave the whiteness of pure light behind. The first rim of the sun slid up over the mountain line, and dazzled straight into the eyes of the waiting Arab cavalry. From the heart of the city a trumpet call like a spear pricked the bubble of the morning quiet; and in its wake faint sounds arose, a kind of surf of sound but with jagged and ugly overtones. Wrenching round in the saddle to strain his gaze in through the dark mouth of the gatehouse, Thomas thought suddenly of a pack of wild dogs he had once seen pulling down a wounded donkey. A scatter of shots made sparks of sound above the rest, and, from the top of a tall building that showed above the ramparts, a puff of powder smoke wisped away on the morning wind.

  Medhet, close beside him, was shouting in his ear: “It sounds like a running fight! In the name of Allah, what is happening?”

  Thomas was sitting wrenched round in the saddle, his eyes narrowed as he strained to see the answer to that question. There was a flicker of movement in the street, beyond the gate, then in the darkness of the gate arch itself, men running, a smother of shouts and cries. Into the open spilled Wahabi warriors, running for their lives, and after them, yelling with blood-lust the tribesmen of Medina. Weapons caught the morning sun in shards of light. A solitary shot cracked out from the gatehouse roof, and a tall man with a bandaged head pitched in his tracks, another ran a few paces spouting blood from his throat, then fell, others were going down.

  “The tribesmen and Medinans have turned on them against the terms! And where in Allah’s name are our troops?” Thomas ripped his sabre from its scabbard, “Follow me! — use the flat of your blades!”

  He swung his mare round and sent her across the gateway, the rest of the squadron thrusting after him. He was in the midst of a sea of wild faces, yelling, red-eyed. There had been some mischief at work during the night, and from the maddened look of the good citizens of Medina, hashish had played a part in it. He beat up a brandished sword, forcing his way between the last of the black-robed fugitives and the wolf pack that flooded after them. The man with the bandaged head suddenly appeared almost under the mare’s fore-hooves, and as Thomas wrenched her aside, the Wahabi captain came to one elbow and glared up at him. He was aware for a fleeting instant of eyes that burned like hot coals into his, and a gasping of “Treachery! — Allah’s curse” that ended in a vomit of blood from the open mouth.

  He was facing inward toward the gate, Medhet at his shoulder, the squadron spread in ragged wings on either side, charging the yelling mob, driving them back by sheer horse-weight and the flats of their blades. He heard himself shouting evil words: “Back, sons of misbegotten bitches! Back, breakers of faith, if you would not be damned to all eternity! …”

  Slowly the frenzy seemed to sink, and the thrust of the mob slackened, while all the while he was aware of the surviving Wahabis — he could not tell how many or how few; he could not turn his gaze for an instant from the snarling surge of men in front of him to look behind — running for the cover of the fig gardens and away into the desert beyond the screen that the Arab cavalry had flung across their rear.

  *

  Towards evening of that day, Thomas and Ahmed Agha confronted each other in one of the chambers of the old Governor’s Palace which the Turkish general had taken over for his headquarters. They faced each other standing, for it was not the kind of interview for which one sat down.

  “And how many of those whose escape you so valiantly covered this morning do you imagine will get through to the camp of ibn Saud?” Ahmed said, playing with the great rough-cut ruby on his forefinger. “Unarmed, without water? My way might have been not only quicker but kinder in the long run.”

  “Nevertheless,” Thomas returned stubbornly, “they surrendered on terms, and the terms were broken. Apart from all else, you must see — with respect, Sir — how desperately important it is that Saud ibn Saud and his Wahabis, aye, and the tribes and the citizens of Medina, should see and believe that we are keepers of our word.”

  “It is for that very reason that I intend to see justice done on the ringleaders.” Ahmed paused an instant, his head cocked towards the window, listening to the angry hornet-hum that was the voice of Medina still seething with unrest. “Considering the display of righteous indignation that you have made about this whole incident, I should have imagined that you would have found it very much to your taste to take charge of hunting down those same ringleaders.”

  “I have small taste for the hunting down of men. But maybe I would if I thought for one moment that the evil had begun with them.”

  The arched brows lifted. “And you do not?”

  “No,” Thomas said, “I do not.”

  For a long moment they looked at each other, the unspoken accusation hanging in the air between them.

  “If you were not the property of Tussun Pasha, purchased from me at, I admit, a very handsome price, if you were not Tussun Pasha’s friend” (the word became an insult) “which gives you certain advantages and protections, I think, yes I really think, you might come to regret that ever you stood up to me with that look on your face … But Tussun Pasha is not yet returned to us — how if I order you to deal with this matter?”

  Sickness twisted in Thomas’s guts. He wanted to hurl insult for insult into the fatly handsome face. He swallowed the insult along with the desire to vomit, and said gently, “If you remember the contents of yesterday’s despatch, Tussun Pasha will be returned to us in a very few days.” And then still more gently, through shut teeth, “Don’t order, Sir, don’t order.”

  For a long moment the silence was so intense that he heard the tick of the silver hunter tucked into its fold of his waist-shawl, then Ahmed Agha shrugged and turned away to take up his furred mantle from where it lay across the divan. It seemed the interview was at an end.

  “Have I leave to return now to my own men?” Thomas asked.

  “I think — not,” the Agha flung on his cloak. “Ah, I do not order, but I would much prefer that you remain in your own quarters here in the Governor’s Palace. Perhaps you will give me the pleasure of supping wi
th me this evening.”

  Clearly Ahmed Bonaparte did not want him marching out to his tent in the cavalry camp outside the walls; anything, for the moment, that might suggest however faintly, a rift between himself and his second-in-command.

  Thomas’s quarters in the Governor’s Palace were not unlike his old lodgement in Cairo, a couple of rooms at the head of a spiral stair, but these rooms were above the arched gateway between the inner and outer of the palace gardens. Chambers which must once have been beautiful before the Wahabis in their puritan zeal had smashed the intricate window frets and defaced the flowered tile-work on the walls. Fortunately it seemed that the followers of ibn Saud could allow beauty if it were the work of Allah and owed nothing to the hand of man, and so the gardens below the ruined windows, though they had received no care during the years of Wahabi overlordship, and were a wilderness and in part a desert, still blossomed into beauty here and there, where half-dead bushes still flung abroad white scented trails of jasmine and the many-petalled roses of Damascus, and the tall spears of iris leaves rose through the tangle in odd corners after the winter rains; and the water in the leaking cisterns still reflected back the sky through the matted weeds.

  Thomas, having excused himself early from an extremely uncongenial supper party with the general, stood by the window and heard the faint trickle of water rising to him out of the starlit darkness of the garden, and, beyond the cool delicate arabesque of sound, the more distant turmoil of the streets, where the hunt for the ringleaders of the morning’s massacre was going on.

  The hunt was getting out of hand; was being deliberately allowed to get out of hand. That was why it had not been ordered until evening, Thomas judged. Night was the time for such a hunt; torches in a mob had a great power for rabble-rousing; horrors could come about in the dark which the commander would find it harder to disclaim all knowledge of if they happened in the daylight … The Turkish and Albanian troops were not used to taking a city without being allowed their spell of rape and looting afterwards; there had been a good deal of grumbling in the past three weeks, and now that the citadel had fallen …