Holstering the revolver, he knelt down and helped Jones pack up the camera, then put a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, and Jones.”
“Sir?”
“It looks as if you might get first pick at the loot after all. I’m going to need someone to help me carry up the charges, and then to cover me while I lay them. When was the last time you fixed a bayonet?”
17
Captain Wood shifted slightly to the right, wedging his body against the boulder at the edge of the precipice to stop himself from slipping any further down. He rested his revolver on a rock and pulled out his pocket watch, checking it and quickly resuming his position. It was a quarter to four in the afternoon; the main wave of the assault was due to begin at four. Before then the storming party was meant to have breached the thick timber doors and stone archway of the Koket-Bir, the entrance to the fortress, using the powder kegs that should have been brought up to him by now.
Already he and Jones had endured the initial British cannonade, a pulverizing salvo from the Armstrong guns and the eight-inch mortars on the saddle and the mountain guns and naval rocket battery on the ridge behind, the rounds bursting against the parapet and steep ground in front of them, showering him with rock fragments and leaving his ears ringing. Being put in charge of the reconnaissance party at the outset of the campaign had meant a pleasant alternative to the toil of joining the main expedition through the mountains, but in the past hour or so it seemed as if he and Jones were having their comeuppance, finding themselves at the sharp end of the assault against an extraordinary natural fortress and a deranged king who by now had no hope left and was bent only on his own destruction.
The wind wafted over the ridge from the precipice below, bringing with it a sickening stench of decay. Wood leaned over and glanced down the vertiginous slope, seeing the sprawled cascade of bodies at the base of the ravine, hundreds of them, all without hands or feet. The day before, Theodore in a rage had ordered all of his Abyssinian captives to be mutilated and thrown over the cliff from the plateau. Several of the corpses had already bloated in the heat and split open, the source of the terrible smell. He pulled out his pocket telescope and peered at a ledge about a hundred yards ahead, above a sheer drop at least three times that. Among the twisted, swollen limbs he had seen movement, someone still alive. He thought of taking Jones’s rifle and finishing the poor devil off, as he had done the two pitiful wretches on the road a week earlier, but to do so would risk revealing their position to Theodore’s few remaining marksmen on the ramparts above. The time for mercy was now over, to victim and perpetrator alike. All he wanted now was to see this day over and the enemy destroyed.
“What are we doing here, sir?” Jones said, ducking as a bullet whizzed by. “I mean, why are we trying to take this place?”
“For God’s sake, man, this is hardly the time,” Wood exclaimed, peering over the boulder and spotting the man with the musket on the parapet. Here, give me your rifle.”
Jones passed it over and lay back against the rock, looking up at the sky. “I mean, old Theodore released the European hostages yesterday. That’s what we came here for, isn’t it? And it looks as if the Abyssinian hostages are all done for … or rather it smells that way. It positively reeks. If you ask me, sir, it’s time to pack our bags and go home.”
“That’s a change of tune. Yesterday it was all talk of loot.”
“That was before they started shooting at me.”
A musket ball ricocheted off a boulder beside them, and Jones ducked down, his hands covering his helmet. Wood opened the breech cover of the rifle, checked there was a round in the chamber and snapped it shut again, then slowly brought the muzzle to the side of the boulder until it was facing the parapet. With the bayonet fixed it was going to be difficult to shoot accurately, but the parapet was near enough to give it a try. He pulled back the hammer, curled his finger round the trigger and waited, knowing that the marksman had an old muzzle loader that took him at least a minute to reload. On cue a few seconds later the man reappeared, poking his barrel above the parapet. Wood aimed quickly and fired, the kick of the rifle pushing him down the slope. He saw the man lurch forward, blood spilling from his chest, and then hang head-down over the parapet with his arms dangling, his musket clattering to the rocks below and discharging. The smoke from the rifle wafted back over Wood, pleasantly sulfurous after the ghastly odor from below. He pulled himself up and handed it back to Jones. “That’s your job from now on. You’re supposed to be here to provide covering fire.”
“Sir.” Jones fumbled with the cartridge box on his belt, and Wood turned around on his back, staring down the slope at the troops marshaling for the assault. The expedition had an overwhelming force of arms, but even so they had been lucky. The battle on the saddle the day before had swept away the finest of Theodore’s warriors, and most of his artillery had been abandoned on the retreat up the slope. Had he chosen not to meet the British in open battle but instead to occupy and fortify one of the rocky ridges further back along the escarpment, he could have poured down a murderous fire and inflicted many more casualties.
The Abyssinians had shown extraordinary bravery, but Theodore was no tactician. The fortress looming above Wood now should have been impregnable, but the Abyssinian defense had been fatally weakened by the loss of most of Theodore’s muskets and rifles on the saddle below. He had never faced a European army in battle before, and he had expended too much in pomp and show, all that was usually needed to subdue his recalcitrant chieftains. Somewhere up there was his greatest folly of all, a mortar of monstrous dimensions named Sevastopol, dragged all the way up here from the plains to the north. Even if his gunners could manhandle the half-ton ball into the muzzle, the quantity of powder needed to propel it any meaningful distance would blow the gun to smithereens. It was the farcical side of his madness, though at the moment any thought of that was subsumed by the murderous cruelty revealed by the horror spread across the ravine below.
Wood watched as the regiment chosen for the assault, the 33rd Foot, formed up below, seven hundred men in ten companies, with those on the flanks in skirmishing order, all with bayonets fixed, wearing the khaki uniforms and white pith helmets that had been an innovation on this campaign, far preferable to the old red battle order. Ahead of them he saw the storming party making their way up the slope, some thirty men of the 33rd alongside turbaned Indians of his own regiment, the Madras Sappers and Miners. A few minutes later, the officer of engineers accompanying the party scrambled up to his position, panting and dripping with sweat.
“Le Mesurier, Bombay Sappers,” he said breathlessly. “I’ve got bad news, I’m afraid. The girl carrying the message to bring up the powder kegs and scaling ladders was shot down by one of Theodore’s muskets. We’re simply not going to have them in time for the assault.”
“For God’s sake.” Wood snorted in anger, but then remembered the girl he had watched yesterday bringing the message from General Napier; he hoped she was not the one who had been hit.
Another officer joined them, a subaltern of the 33rd, and Wood could see the rest of the storming party spread out among the rocks just below them, awaiting orders. He turned to the two officers and pointed up at the parapet. “Do you see beyond where that body’s hanging, about ten yards to the right? A tall man might stand on that outcrop of bedrock below the wall and pull himself up, or push a small man above him. There’s a rather nasty-looking thorn and stake hedge on top of the wall, but I think it could be done. If we’re not going to be able to blow our way through the gate, then this might be our only way up.”
The infantry officer followed his gaze, and nodded. “I think I’ve got just the men for the job.” He turned and whistled. “Private Bergin and Drummer Magner. Up here, at the double.”
Two soldiers detached themselves from behind the rocks and scrambled up the slope, falling back against the boulder beside Wood with their rifles at the ready. One man was very tall, the other very short. The tall man crinkled up his n
ose. “That’s a God-almighty stench, sir, if you don’t mind me mentioning it,” he said in a rich Irish brogue.
“That it is,” the other man said, his accent equally thick, his free hand over his nose. “Positively disgusting, it is.”
“Well the sooner you get on with the job I’ve got for you, the quicker you’ll get away from it,” the officer said. “You see that low point in the parapet ahead? We’re going to storm it. You, Bergin, are going to stand on the rock, and you, Magner, are going to stand on his shoulders. How sharp are your bayonets?”
“Razor-sharp, sir. We ground them yesterday evening.”
“Good. Because you’re going to need them to cut through that hedge on the top. Understood? There’ll be a medal in this for you if we get through.”
Both men looked distinctly unenthusiastic. “Sir.”
The officer spoke quickly to a sergeant who had come up behind him. The sergeant saluted and slid back down the slope, and the remainder of the party began moving up from their positions. The officer turned back to Wood. “Half of my men and all of the sappers are going to the gateway as originally planned, to try to find a way around it. From here it looks as if it’s been blocked from behind by a mass of boulders, so your gunpowder might not have done much good anyway. The rest of my party is forming up here. I’m assuming that you and your sapper will be joining us?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jones muttered, tightening the bayonet over the lug on his barrel. “Just what I signed up for.”
“Good. I don’t see any more of the enemy actually on the parapet. They may have fallen back to the second wall, the one that leads into the fortress. If we keep our wits about us and abstain from unnecessary fire, we might achieve an element of surprise. Agreed?”
Wood and Le Mesurier nodded. Wood checked the chambers in his revolver and got up on his haunches. “I’m the senior officer here, so leading this assault should be my job.” The infantry officer nodded, raised his arm, and held it ready to signal his men to advance, his own revolver at the ready. Wood knelt up, peered round the boulder and put a hand on Jones’s shoulder. “Right, Jones. You’re with me. Let’s move.”
* * *
Ten minutes later Wood emerged scratched and grazed from the thorn thicket on top of the parapet. Bergin and Magner had hacked their way through easily enough, but there had been no time for finesse and there were many vicious thorns still to negotiate. He dropped down on the other side, taking cover next to the two Irishmen, and waited while Jones came up cursing and grunting behind. Ahead of them lay about seventy yards of dead ground between the two walls, much of it variegated and rocky like the slope below, but more level. The inner wall itself had clearly been built for show rather than defense; Theodore could hardly have expected any attacker to get this far. Wood scanned the ground, revolver at the ready, looking for the few final Abyssinian defenders they assumed must be here. The imminent fall of the fortress now seemed certain, but they had all seen the suicidal bravery of the Abyssinians on the battlefield the day before, and they were taking no chances.
The officer of the 33rd slid down beside Wood, one side of his face scratched and bloody. At that moment there was the whoosh of an incoming shell and a deafening detonation some twenty yards to the right. Three Abyssinians who had been concealed there were flung into the air like rag dolls, their limbs and heads flying away and hunks of flesh splattering all around. The officer turned to the man who had followed him through the hedge. “Get the colors up now,” he yelled. “On the parapet!”
He turned to Wood. “I’m not supposed to do this until we’ve taken the fortress, but it might stop our own side from shooting at us.”
The soldier did as instructed, raising a pole he had been carrying and unfurling the colors of the 33rd, a Cross of St. George with a wreath in the middle and a Union Jack in the corner. They waited for a few tense minutes, but no further shell came. All eyes were on the patch of ground where the shell had burst, near the path from the outer to the inner gateway. Suddenly an Abyssinian got up, yelling and ululating, sword in hand, and then another; both were instantly shot down.
The officer turned to Wood. “Right. An old-fashioned bayonet charge should finish the job.” He drew his sword and bellowed at his men. A pistol cracked from somewhere ahead, and he stumbled back, the bullet grazing his forehead.
The dozen men of the 33rd who had made it over the wall got up and charged forward, yelling and swearing, Wood following close behind. Two more Abyssinians appeared brandishing their weapons, one of them firing a flintlock pistol that sent a ball whizzing past Wood’s ear. The Abyssinian stumbled backward and fell, and Wood heard a string of Irish profanities as Bergin lunged at the writhing body with his bayonet. Another soldier barreled into the second Abyssinian, dropping his rifle and clutching the man’s head by the ears, smashing it again and again into a rock, bellowing himself hoarse. Wood could see that the Abyssinians had been well dressed, chieftains rather than foot soldiers, Theodore’s last loyal guard. The rest of the army seemed to have melted away.
The soldier who had smashed the man’s head was ripping the gold brocade from his robe; others were picking over the bodies ahead, several holding up shields and daggers as trophies. Looking back down to the outer entranceway, Wood could see that a route had been found around the boulders and the first of the main force were already through, their bayonets glinting. It could only be a matter of moments now before all resistance ended and Magdala fell.
He reached the path that led toward the inner gate, seeing that there was no door in this one to bar their way; through the passageway he could make out the thatched roofs of the houses on the plateau beyond. He and Jones advanced inside, hardly expecting further resistance now but still being cautious. Suddenly a man appeared in front of them, standing up from a cleft in the rock, a pistol held muzzle-down by his side. Wood aimed his revolver at the man’s chest, but he had recognized his face and did not fire. The golden mantle, the braided hair, the wispy beard, and the white robe were all familiar from the illustrations that had garnished newspapers the world over for months now; only the eyes were different, not wide open in some caricature of madness but somehow anchorless, the eyes of a man who no longer knew the measure of himself, who had lost all grip on reality.
King Theodore looked at Wood, the pistol still by his side, and spoke in English. “Your queen has destroyed me. But you will not have our greatest treasure. It is no longer here, and will never be yours.” Then he raised the pistol, put it in his mouth, and fired. A large chunk of skull and brains exploded from the back of his head and he collapsed on the ground.
Wood remained transfixed for a moment, watching the blood rapidly puddle around Theodore’s head, then reached down and picked up the pistol, the smoke still curling up from the muzzle. It was highly ornate, with etching on the lock plate and silver inlay in the grip, and had the king’s name on the escutcheon plate. He realized that it was one of the pair that Queen Victoria had sent to Theodore as a present, and that he had just witnessed the grotesque irony of the king using it on himself in the last desperate act of war against his erstwhile benefactor. He dropped the pistol beside the corpse, suddenly repelled. Someone else would claim it, for certain, but for now there were more pressing treasures to safeguard.
The officer of the 33rd came up beside him, his head swathed in a bandage. He stared at the corpse and then turned to the soldier who had hurried up behind him. “Get our Abyssinian. Tell him to call out that Theodore is dead. That should put an end to it.”
Moments later the chieftain’s son who had come along for this purpose with the storming party raised his voice and shouted, a high-pitched, penetrating sound that reverberated off the walls, repeating the same mantra again and again. Wood advanced past the corpse into the fortress, coming out among a cluster of thatched huts. In front of him was the gaping maw of Sevastopol, the huge mortar that Theodore had dragged up here at immeasurable cost in lives and energy and yet never f
ired, mute testament to the futility of the enterprise. To his left a group of emaciated Abyssinians stood with spears and shields on the ground in front of them; others were coming forward from the huts, dropping weapons and putting their hands in the air. Wood gestured to Jones, who advanced with his rifle raised and directed the men toward the others with his bayonet.
The rest of the storming party came streaming through the entranceway, the sergeant ordering several of them to take over from Jones in guarding the prisoners. The standard-bearer appeared with the colors he had brought from the parapet and now proceeded to mount them on the highest point he could reach above the gateway, making sure they would be clearly visible to the main force below. Seeing the red, white, and blue fluttering in the breeze, Wood knew that this really was it, that the game had been up the moment Theodore had put the pistol into his mouth.
He quickly took stock. There were wounded soldiers among the 33rd and the sappers, men such as the officer who had been grazed by the pistol ball, but, incredibly, they appeared to have forced one of the most formidable natural fortresses ever known without suffering a single fatality. That at least was something to be thankful for. Officially, the orders to the sappers on taking Magdala were to destroy the guns, mine the gates, and burn everything that was flammable: the huts, the palaces, the storerooms, only the church to be spared. But Wood was here as a reconnaissance officer, not in charge of a sapper company, and for a few crucial minutes before the main force arrived he might be able to limit the desecration that he knew was about to happen.
He turned to the officer of the 33rd, who had come up beside him. “For the time being I’m the senior officer present, so I’m taking charge. I want you immediately to post a guard around the church to prevent looting.”
The officer nodded. “Understood. But it won’t work.”
“I’m obliged to try.”
Testament Page 23
