by Wilbur Smith
“You have not fulfilled that prophecy. Therefore you have failed your God as well as his prophet,” the Mahdi replied.
“The prophecy of God and Muhammad, the Mahdi, can never be brought to naught,” Osman replied quietly, feeling the breath of the dark angel upon his neck where the executioner’s blow would fall. “Your prophecy is a mighty rock in the river of time that cannot be washed away. I have returned to Omdurman to bring the prophecy to fruition.” He pointed across the river to the stark outline of Fort Mukran. “Gordon
Pasha still awaits his fate within those walls, and the time of Low Nile is upon us. I beseech you, give me your blessing, Holy One.”
The Mahdi sat silent and unmoving for a hundred of his rapid heartbeats while he thought swiftly. The Emir Osman was a clever man and an adroit tactician. To refuse his plea was to admit that he, Muhammad, the Mahdi, was fallible. At last he smiled and reached out to lay his hand on Osman’s head. “Go and do what is written. When you have fulfilled my prophecy, return to me here.”
An hour before midnight a small felucca lay in the eastern channel of the Victoria Nile. It was hove to against the night breeze and the current, with sail skilfully backed. Al-Noor sat beside Osman Atalan on the thwart. Both men watched the Khartoum bank. Tonight the rocket display was extravagant. Since the onset of darkness a continual succession of fireworks had soared into the sky and burst in cascades of multi-coloured sparks. The band was playing with renewed alacrity and verve, and at intervals they heard singing and laughter, carried faintly across the dark waters.
“Gordon Pasha has heard the news of Abu Klea,” al-Noor whispered. “He and his minions rejoice in their heathen hearts. Hourly they expect the steamers to appear from the south.”
It was long after midnight before the sounds of celebration slowly subsided, and Osman gave a quiet order to the boatman. He let the lateen sail fill, and they felt the ii way in closer to the shore below the walls of Khartoum. When they reached a point opposite the maid an al’Noor touched his master’s arm and pointed at the tiny beach, now exposed by the retreating waters. The wet mud glittered like ice in the starlight. Osman spoke a quiet word to the boatman, who tacked and sailed in closer still. Osman moved up to the bows and used one of the punt poles to take soundings of the sloping bottom as they crept along the beach. Then they sat quietly, listening for the sentries doing their rounds, or other hostile movements. They heard nothing except the hoot of an owl in the bell tower of the Catholic mission. There was lamplight within the upper floor of the British consular palace which faced on to the river, and once they saw shadowy movement beyond the window casement, but then all was still.
“After their victory, the infidel is lulled. Gordon Pasha is not as vigilant as he was before,” al-Noor whispered.
“We have discovered the beach on which we can land. We can return to Omdurman now to make our preparations,” Osman agreed. He gave a quiet command to the boatman, and they headed back across the river.
When Osman and al-Noor reached his double storeyed house in the south quarter, which lay between the Beit el Mai, the treasury, and the slave market, dawn was breaking and a dozen of his aggagiers were sitting in the courtyard being fed by the house slaves a breakfast of honey-roasted lamb and dhurra cakes with steaming pots of syrupy black Abyssinian coffee. “Noble lord, we arrived at dusk last night,” they told him.
“What kept you so long on the road?” he asked.
“We do not ride horses like al-Buq, who is the prince of all horses.”
“You are welcome.” Osman embraced them. “I have more work for your blades. We must retrieve the honour that was stripped from us by the infidel on the plains of Abu Klea.”
David Benbrook insisted that he should host a victory party to celebrate the battle of Abu Klea, and the imminent arrival of the relief column in the city. Because of the paucity of food and drink, Rebecca decided on an al fresco dinner, rather than a formal display of silver and crystal in the dining room. They sat on folding canvas campaign chairs on the terrace overlooking the maid an and listened to the military band, joining in with the better-known choruses. In the intervals, while the band regained their breath, they toasted the Queen, General Wolseley and, for the benefit of Consul Le Blanc, King Leopold.
After much inner communication with his conscience, David decided to bring up from the cellars the single case of Krug champagne that he had been hoarding all these months. “A little premature perhaps, but once they arrive we will probably be too busy to think about it.”
This was the first time that General Gordon had accepted one of Rebecca’s invitations to dinner and entertainment. He wore an immaculate dress uniform with a red fez. His boots were polished to a high gloss and the Egyptian Star of Ishmael glinted on his breast. He was in a relaxed, expansive mood, although Rebecca noticed the nervous tic below his eye. He nibbled a minute portion of the food on offer: green-cake, dhurra bread and cold roast bird of indeterminate species, which had been gunned down by the host. He chain-smoked his Turkish cigarettes, even when he stood to make a short speech. He assured the company that the steamers crammed with British troops were racing even at that hour up against the rapids of the Shabluka
Gorge and that he confidently expected them to reach the city by the following evening. He commended the other guests and the entire populace, of every colour and nationality, for their heroic resistance and sacrifice, and gave thanks to Almighty God that their efforts had not been in vain. Then he thanked the consul and his daughters for their hospitality and took his leave. The mood of the remaining guests was at once much lighter.
The twins were given special dispensation to delay their bedtime until midnight, and were allowed a sherry glass of the precious champagne. Saffron quaffed hers like a sailor on shore leave, but Amber took a minute sip and made a face. When Rebecca was looking the other way, she poured the rest into her twin’s glass, much to Saffron’s glee.
Amber was becoming increasingly quiet and wan as the evening progressed. She took no part in the singing, which Rebecca thought odd. Amber had a sweet, true voice and loved to sing. She refused when David asked her to dance the polka with him. “You are so quiet and subdued. Are you feeling unwell, my darling?”
“A little, Daddy, but I do love you so much.”
“Would you like to go up to bed? I will give you a dose of salts. That will fix it.”
“Oh, no. Goodness me, no! It is not that bad.” Amber forced a smile, and David looked worried but did not pursue the matter. He went off to dance with Saffron instead.
Consul Le Blanc also noticed Amber’s unusual behaviour. He came to sit beside her, held her hand in an avuncular manner and launched into a long, complicated joke, about a German, an Englishman and an Irishman. When he reached the climax he doubled over with laughter and tears ran down his pink cheeks. Although she saw nothing funny in the story Amber laughed dutifully, but then stood up and went to Rebecca, who was dancing with Ryder Courtney. Amber whispered in her elder sister’s ear, and Rebecca left Ryder, took the younger girl’s hand and hurried indoors with her. David saw them leave and he and Saffron followed. When they reached the foot of the staircase, Rebecca and Amber were on the first landing above them.
“Where are you going?” David called after them. “Is anything the matter?”
Still holding hands Rebecca and Amber turned to face him. Suddenly Amber groaned and doubled over. With an explosive rush of gas and liquid, her bowels started to empty. It poured out of her like a yellow waterfall, and went on and on, forming a deep, spreading puddle at her feet.
David was the first to recover his wits. “Cholera!” he said.
At that dread word Saffron thrust the fingers of both hands into her mouth and screamed.
“Stop that!” Rebecca ordered, but her own voice was almost a scream. She tried to lift Amber, but the yellow discharge was still spurting out of her and splattered down the front of Rebecca’s long satin evening dress.
Ryder had heard S
affron scream and ran in from the terrace. He took in the scene almost instantly. He dashed back to where they had dined and swept the heavy damask cloth off the long table, sending silver candlesticks and table ornaments crashing to the floor. He raced up the stairs.
Amber was still voiding copiously. It seemed impossible that such a small body could contain so much liquid. It was running down the staircase in a rivulet. Ryder shook out the damask like a cape, and enfolded her in it, lifted her as though she were a doll and ran with her up the stairs.
“Please put me down, Ryder,” Amber begged. “I will dirty your lovely new suit. I cannot stop myself. I am so ashamed.”
“You are a brave girl. There is nothing to be ashamed of,” Ryder told her. Rebecca was at his side. “Where is the bathroom?” he asked her.
“This way.” She ran ahead and threw open the door.
Ryder carried Amber in and laid her in the galvanized bath. “Get her soiled clothes off her and sponge her down with cool water,” he ordered. “She is burning up. Then force her to drink. Weak warm tea. Gallons of it. She must keep drinking. She has to replace every drop of the fluid she has lost.” He looked at David and Saffron in the doorway. “Call Nazeera to help you. She knows about this disease. I must go back to the this to fetch my medical chest. While I am gone, you must keep her drinking.”
Ryder raced through the streets. He was fortunate that for this one night General Gordon had relaxed the curfew so that all the populace might celebrate the relief of the city.
Bacheet had stowed the medical chest in its usual place under his bunk in the main cabin of the this. He rummaged through it swiftly, searching for what he needed to staunch Amber’s diarrhoea and replace the mineral salts that she had lost. He knew he had little time. Cholera is a swift killer. “The Death of the Dog,” they called it. It could kill a robust adult in hours, and Amber was a child. Already her body had been stripped of fluid. Soon every muscle and sinew would scream for liquid, terrible cramps would twist her, and she would die a desiccated husk.
For a dreadful moment he thought that the vital packets of dirty white powder were missing, then remembered that he had moved them to the lockers in the galley for safety. In the cholera-torn city they were worth more than diamonds. The powder was packed in a woven-sisal bag. There was enough to treat five or six cases. He had bought it at a usurious price from the abbot of a Coptic monastery deep in the gorge of the Blue Nile. The abbot had told him that the chalky powder was mined by his monks from a secret deposit tucked away in the mountains. Not only did it have a powerful binding effect on the bowels, it was also close in character and composition to those minerals purged from the human body by the disease. Ryder had been sceptical until Bacheet had been struck down with cholera, and Ryder had pulled him through with liberal doses of the powder.
He stuffed everything he needed in to an empty dhurra sack and ran back to the consulate. When he climbed the stairs to the bathroom he found that Amber was still in the bath. She was naked, and Rebecca and Nazeera were sponging her from the basin of warm soapy water that Saffron held. David hovered ineffectually in the background holding a tin mug of warm black tea. The stench of vomit and faeces still hung heavily in the room, but Ryder was careful not to show disgust.
“Has she vomited?”
“Yes,” replied David, ‘but only some of this tea. I don’t think she has anything else inside her.”
“How much has she drunk?” Ryder demanded, as he snatched the mug from the other man’s hand and poured a handful of the powder into it.
“Two mugs and a bit,” said David, proudly.
“Not enough,” Ryder snapped. “Not nearly enough.”
“She won’t take any more.”
“She will,” said Ryder. “If she can’t drink it, I will give it to her with an enema tube.” He carried the mug to the bath. “Amber, did you hear what I said?” She nodded. “You don’t like enemas, do you?” She shook her head vehemently, and her sodden curls dangled in her eyes. “Then drink!” He placed one hand behind her head and held the cup to her lips. She gulped it down painfully, then lay back gasping. Already wasted by prolonged starvation, her body was now dehydrated and skeletal. The change that had taken place in the hour he had been away was dramatic. Her legs were as thin as those of a bird, her ribs as distinct as the fingers of a hand. The skin on her sunken moon-pale belly seemed translucent so that he could see the network of blue veins under it.
Ryder poured another handful of powder into the mug, and filled it with warm tea from the kettle that stood close at hand. “Drink!” he ordered, and she choked it down.
She was panting weakly, and her eyes had sunk into plum-coloured sockets. “I have no clothes on. Please don’t look at me, Ryder.”
He stripped off his moleskin jacket and covered her. “I promise not to look at you if you promise to drink.” He refilled the mug and poured the powder into it. As she drank it, her belly bulged out like a balloon. The gases in it rumbled, but she did not void again. Ryder refilled the mug.
“I can’t drink any more. Please don’t make me,” she begged.
“Yes, you can. You made me a promise.”
She forced down that mug and another. Then there was a strong ammoniac odour and a yellow trickle of urine ran down the bottom of the bath to the plug-hole. “You’ve made me wet myself like a baby.” She was weeping softly with shame.
“Good girl,” he said. “That means you are making more water than you are losing. I am so proud of you.” He understood the trespasses he had already made on her modesty, so he stood up. “But I am going to let Rebecca and Saffy look after you now. Don’t forget your promise. You must keep drinking. I will wait outside.”
Before he left the bathroom he whispered to Rebecca, “I think we may have beaten it. She is out of immediate danger. But the cramps will begin soon. Call me at the first sign. We will have to massage her limbs or the pain will become unbearable.” From his sack he handed her the bottle of coconut oil he had brought from the this. “Tell Nazeera to take this down to the kitchen and warm it to blood heat, no more than that. I will stay close.”
The other dinner guests had left hours ago, and everything was quiet. Ryder and David settled down to wait on the top step at the head of the staircase. They chatted in a desultory fashion. They discussed the news of the relief column, and argued about when the steamers would arrive. David agreed with Chinese Gordon’s estimate, but Ryder did not: “Gordon is always conservative with the truth. He says whatever suits his purpose best. I will believe in the steamers when they tie up in the harbour. In the meantime I will keep up steam in the this.”
Out in the night an owl hooted mournfully, then again, and a third time. Restlessly David stood up and went to the window. He leant on the sill and looked down on the river
“When the midnight owl hoot thrice. To-wit-too-woo, with one breath, Then in a trice It heralds death.”
“That’s superstitious nonsense,” said Ryder, ‘and, what’s more, it does not scan.”
“You are probably right,” David admitted. “My nursemaid repeated it to me when I was five, but she was the wicked witch in person and loved to frighten us children.” Then he straightened up and peered down towards the riverbank. “There’s a boat out there, close in to the beach.”
Ryder went across to join him at the window. “Where?”
“There! No, it’s gone now. I swear it was a boat, a small felucca.”
“Probably a fisherman laying his nets.”
From the bathroom they heard Amber cry out in anguish. They rushed back to her. She was curled into a ball. The wasted muscles in her limbs were like whipcords as the spasms tightened them almost to snapping point. They lifted her out of the bath and laid her on the clean towels that Rebecca and Nazeera spread on the tiled floor.
Ryder rolled up his sleeves and knelt over her. Nazeera poured warm coconut oil into the cup of his hands and he began to massage Amber’s twisted legs. He could feel the ropes and kn
ots under the skin. “Rebecca, take the other leg. Nazeera and Saffy, her arms,” he ordered. “Do it this way.” While they worked, David dribbled more of the tea mixture into their patient’s mouth. Rebecca watched Ryder’s hands as he worked. They were broad and powerful, but gentle. Under them Amber’s muscles gradually relaxed.
“It’s not over yet,” Ryder warned them. “There will be more. We must be ready to start again as the next spasms seize her.”
What depths there are tcthis man, Rebecca thought. What fascinating contradictions. Sometimes he is ruthlessly resourceful, at others he is filled with compassion and generosity of spirit. Would I not be foolish to let him go?
Before the hour was up the next cramps had locked Amber’s limbs so they fell to work on her again, and were forced to keep it up through the rest of the night. Just before daybreak, when all were reaching their own limits of exhaustion, Amber’s limbs gradually straightened and the knots softened and relaxed. Her head rolled to one side and she fell asleep.
“She has turned the corner,” Ryder whispered, ‘but we must still take care of her. You must make her drink the powder mixture again as soon as she wakes. She must eat also. Perhaps you might feed her a porridge of dhurra and green-cake. I wish we had something more substantial, like chicken broth, but that is the best we can do. She will be weak as a newborn infant for days, perhaps weeks. But she has not scoured since midnight, so I hope and believe that the germs, as Joseph Lister is pleased to call the wee beasties that cause the trouble, have been purged from her.” He picked up his damp, soiled jacket from the floor. “You know where to find me, Rebecca. If you send a message I will come at once.”
“I will see you to the door.” Rebecca stood up. As they went out into the passage, she took his arm. “You are a warlock, Ryder. You’ve worked magic for us. I don’t know how the Benbrook family can ever thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, just say a prayer for old Abbot Michael who robbed me of fifty Maria Theresa dollars for a bag of chalk.”
