‘A case in point is Lord Kitchener,’ Aysha said. ‘I made a special study of him because I felt that his role in the archaeology of Egypt had been overlooked. We think of him chiefly as the man who avenged Gordon, who led the British in the reconquest of Sudan and the final victory against the Mahdist army at Omdurman 1898. But in so doing he opened up the whole of the Nubian desert to archaeological exploration, including the first investigations that took place here at Semna. I always felt that if he hadn’t been so obsessed with avenging his hero, he would have been able to carry out more exploration himself in the desert, as that was really his calling.
‘General Gordon is another example. When he was first made governor general of the Sudan in the 1870s, he travelled around the country extensively, accompanied by some colourful European and American characters he’d appointed to his staff. He managed to visit many archaeological sites and amass a large collection of antiquities and ethnographic material. I ended up arguing in my dissertation that if it hadn’t been for Gordon’s insistence on staying to evacuate Khartoum in the face of the Mahdist uprising, then he wouldn’t have died and Kitchener might never have been spurred on his career of reconquest, leaving the archaeology of the Sudan virtually unknown. So in one way or another Gordon is the linchpin of the whole story, and without him we might not be here as archaeologists today.’
‘The Mahdi was the bin Laden of the 1880s, right?’ Costas asked.
‘There was more to him than that,’ Aysha said. ‘For a start, he wasn’t a spoiled rich boy with a whim for jihad that became obsessive. The Mahdi was the real deal, and lived the life he preached. He was a Sudanese boatbuilder with Arab ancestry who became a Sufi holy man. He had visions and was highly charismatic, leading people to think he was a kind of messiah. His followers included many Sudanese tribemen who were disaffected with Ottoman rule and wanted their own freedom; these were the enemy the British and the Egyptians fought, the warriors they called dervishes. The Mahdi died in the same year as Gordon, in 1885, probably poisoned, and his revolt ended with the defeat of his successors at Omdurman in 1898, but he was certainly seen as a role model by bin Laden and his cronies. Growing up as a Muslim in southern Egypt, I can assure you that the influence of the Mahdi’s family and his chosen line of successors remains strong. You do not use his name in vain in this part of Sudan without risking your neck.’
Jack turned to Costas. ‘Gordon was also a Royal Engineers officer. So you can see the link with Kitchener, and with my great-great-grandfather. After the Royal Military Academy they’d all done the same two-year course at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham, and they were a tightly knit corps. And many of them not only had archaeological interests but were also strongly committed Christians, influenced by the evangelical movement. They were most interested in the archaeology of the Holy Land, which for them included Egypt.’
‘And that ties them to the Mahdi as well, especially Gordon,’ Aysha said. ‘Gordon was a real maverick, an iconoclast, not very good at taking orders, something he shared with Kitchener. But in Gordon’s case his iconoclasm extended to his religious views as well. The evangelical movement liked to claim him as one of their own, to see him as a devout crusader who had gone to Khartoum to confront the Islamist threat, but in truth that was far from Gordon’s own attitude. His view of religion was very inclusive, and his focus was on the common tradition from which Islam and Judaeo-Christian beliefs sprang: the same God, many of the same prophets, a similar take on the idea of a messiah. He knew that the Mahdi had visions of Jesus as well as of Muhammad, and that he shared Gordon’s fascination with the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. And both men would have had an interest in Moses, and the origin of the idea of the one God.’
‘Which brings us neatly back to Akhenaten,’ Jack said. He pulled a small paperback book out of the side pocket of his combat trousers and tossed it to Hiebermeyer. ‘Have you ever had a go at reading that?’
Hiebermeyer looked at the cover and raised his eyes knowingly. ‘Moses and Monotheism, by Sigmund Freud. Yes, I have attempted this. A great deal of psychobabble, but the kernel of it contains some sound ideas.’
Jack grinned. ‘I had a look at it on the plane on the way here; I’m glad I’m not the only one who struggled with it.’ He turned to Costas. ‘Freud was putting his own particular spin on the well-established theory that the pharaoh of the Old Testament Book of Exodus was Akhenaten, and that it was he who was associated with Moses and the idea of the one God. This theory gained real bite during the late Victorian period when archaeologists began to understand more about the cult of the Aten, the sun god Akhenaten tried to foist on Egypt at the expense of all the old gods. Because this vision of one God happens to Moses in the Bible as well, Freud toyed with the notion that the two men were really one, that Moses was Akhenaten. Personally I’d discard all that in favour of what you actually read in the Bible, which seems a perfectly plausible picture of a pharaoh and a Hebrew slave sharing the same vision.’
The baby cried, and Aysha quickly undid the cords and passed him to Hiebermeyer, who put down the book and began feeding him with the bottle she gave him, sitting awkwardly but with a beaming smile on his face. ‘I agree with Jack. We’re talking about real people, not some kind of mystical union.’
Costas grinned at him. ‘You’re a hands-on kind of guy, aren’t you?’ The baby coughed, spraying milk over Hiebermeyer’s face and neck, and Costas stiffened, looking past Hiebermeyer’s shoulder. ‘Can you handle a camel as well?’
Hiebermeyer tried to wipe his face on his sleeve, while shoving the bottle back in the baby’s mouth. ‘What do you mean, a camel?’
‘I mean, a camel.’ While they had been talking, the camel that they had first seen from the Toyota had loped over and was now craning its neck down so that its face was directly behind Hiebermeyer, its jaws chewing from side to side and its hooded eyes looking out indifferently, apparently disconnected entirely from the scene. Suddenly its tongue came out and wrapped itself around Hiebermeyer’s face, drooping down over his chest to lick up the milk and then withdrawing again. The animal licked its lips contentedly and backed off with a sigh. Costas guffawed, and Hiebermeyer spluttered, trying to wipe his face again while still holding the baby. Aysha quickly took Ahren from him, and Hiebermeyer got up and stumbled towards an open water barrel behind them, dunking his head inside and shaking it vigorously before returning, sitting this time a good few metres away from the camel. He blinked and wiped away the water, then eyed Costas. ‘Watch it, Kazantzakis. Next time it’ll be you.’
‘That camel’s become the expedition mascot,’ Aysha said. ‘The locals say it’s descended from a camel that was left here by a British officer during the Nile expedition, and that it’s still waiting for him to return. So we feel kind of sorry for it. And it’s taken a particular liking to Maurice.’
‘So I can see,’ Costas said, grinning at Jack.
‘I think it’s time you earned your keep as godfather,’ Hiebermeyer said. He went over to Aysha, carefully took the baby from her and gave him to Costas, whose expression had changed to one of frozen horror. Aysha passed him the bottle, and they all watched for a moment as the baby fed contentedly, his eyes closed.
‘You look as if you were made for it,’ Aysha said, then turned to Hiebermeyer. ‘Have you remembered our visitors?’
Hiebermeyer snorted with annoyance and looked at his watch. ‘I could do without them. When Jack and Costas have gone to kit up, I have to get to the excavation on the other side of the river and make sure everything’s shipshape there too.’
Costas looked dubiously at the river. ‘How do you get there? Swim? Watch out for crocodiles.’
Hiebermeyer shook his head. ‘We took a page out of the 1884 expedition. We rigged a cable across the river just like the ship’s hawsers used by the Royal Naval contingent to haul whaleboats up the Nile. One of those pictures from the Illustrated London
News shows a cable laid across those two jutting rocks that formed the narrowest point of the cataract, now completely submerged. I use the one we set up to pull a boat over the pool below us to the other side.’
‘Who’s coming exactly?’ Jack asked.
‘We’re expecting a visit from the Sudanese Ministry of Culture. It’s a scheduled inspection, and I welcome that. Our team here is almost entirely Sudanese and I’d love to see this develop into a permanent programme. Ever since the Aswan dam construction this area has been written off by archaeologists assuming that the interesting sites have all been inundated, but as you can see, there’s a lot still to be found on higher ground above the river. Perhaps the programme could have IMU backing.’
‘I can certainly propose it to the board of directors,’ Jack said. ‘Especially if our dive produces good results.’
‘What I’m apprehensive about is the new guy they’re bringing with them. He’s been specially appointed to increase awareness of recent Sudanese history, especially the Mahdist period. As a historian, I have a lot of sympathy with the idea. The Mahdi was an extraordinary character, and the way in which the Sudanese people rose up in support of him, mainly fighting for their own independence from foreign interference rather than out of religious fanaticism, should be looked on positively as a basis for nation-building today. God knows, this place needs it.’
‘Has there been any progress yet?’ Jack said.
‘Things got off to a bad start when Kitchener desecrated the Mahdi’s tomb after the Battle of Omdurman in 1898; from then until the end of the Anglo-Egyptian regime in 1956, the Mahdist era was not exactly a focus for celebration. Even the period of Gordon’s rule quickly passed out of visible history, because there was so little left to look at and a great desire to sweep away the horror of that time and look ahead. The only significant building to survive the Mahdist destruction of Khartoum, the palace where Gordon was holed up, was demolished after the British returned in 1898. The only substantial other survivals are two of the river steamers that he used to make contact with the advance force of the British on the Nile. The Bordein was restored in 1935, the fiftieth anniversary of Gordon’s death, and was something of a tourist attraction until it fell into disrepair after the British left. One of the new appointee’s first jobs has been to oversee its restoration. He wants it to appear as it did when the Mahdi ruled Khartoum and took over the steamers for his own use.’
‘I’d go along with that,’ Jack said. ‘Virtually all we know of the place during those years of Mahdist rule after 1885 comes from the account of Rudolf von Slatin, the Austrian officer who had been one of Gordon’s staff and later returned under British rule as a special inspector for the Sudan. It is extraordinary that a former boatbuilder from the Nile should have ended up ruling a country three times the size of France, and anything that can be done to put that period into visible history is very worthwhile, in my book.’
Costas knitted his brows. ‘Wasn’t there another steamer, one that was wrecked? I flipped through Jack’s books on the plane on the way here and that caught my interest. Gordon sent one of his officers downstream with a lot of his personal papers and artefacts, but the steamer foundered and the officer was murdered.’
‘Colonel Stewart,’ Jack said. ‘The steamer was the Abbas, wrecked in the fifth cataract, about five hundred kilometres upstream of here, in September 1884. It was the event that really seems to have sent Gordon into a downward spiral.’
Costas turned to Aysha. ‘Has anyone ever dived on it?’
She shook her head. ‘Not to my knowledge. The Mahdi’s men ransacked her and salvaged what they could after Stewart was murdered. They’d been persuaded that there was gold on board, and that’s what the locals still believe. They’re pretty hostile to anyone going near the site. There’s a local warlord who runs the place like a private fiefdom.’
‘Any truth in it?’ Costas asked. ‘The gold?’
‘Gordon wasn’t that kind of treasure-hunter. But he does seem to have sent a good part of his archaeological collection away in the Abbas, and that must still be lying on the riverbed. We thought it might make a good IMU project.’
Costas turned to Jack. ‘What do you think? Sounds like another case of the Beatrice, digging up a nineteenth-century wreck to find ancient antiquities.’
Jack pursed his lips. ‘It’d have to be a pretty big prize for me to go diving at a site guarded by a Sudanese warlord and his private army who might be hankering after reliving the murder of a British officer on the site a hundred and thirty years ago.’
Aysha nodded. ‘I think you’d have to get them on your side.’
Costas turned to Hiebermeyer. ‘Would that project come under the aegis of this new guy? Excavation of the steamer would put that period of history into the limelight, with the added attraction of ancient artefacts. Who knows what kind of things Gordon might have collected.’
Hiebermeyer looked uncertain. ‘I’m keeping my distance. I haven’t told you about this man’s background. He’s not a career politician, but he’s from an immensely wealthy Sudanese family based in Egypt. His father’s side are originally from this part of the Nile in upper Sudan. They claim descent from the prophet Muhammad through his grandson Hassad.’
‘The same as the Mahdi?’ Jack said.
‘The man’s name is Hassid al’Ahmed. His family were boatbuilders, just like the Mahdi’s. He’s never openly claimed a connection, but my contact in the ministry says it’s an unspoken assumption.’
Costas whistled. ‘Now that is living history. Maybe he’s not just intent on celebrating the history of the Mahdi, but is also a jihadist himself.’
Hiebermeyer pursed his lips. ‘You have to ask that question of everyone you meet out here. But I don’t think it’s as straightforward as that. When Aysha and I gave our briefing on the Semna project for the ministry people in Khartoum, I noticed that he seemed completely uninterested and was texting most of the time until I mentioned my particular interest in Akhenaten, when he suddenly pocketed his iPhone and began furiously taking notes. I mentioned this to my ministry friend, and he said that both this man and his father had plagued the ministry with requests to excavate a number of sites up and down the Nile with evidence for ancient Egyptian occupation. They’d been rebuffed because the family had an ugly reputation for treating any project they’d been allowed to develop in the Sudan as their own private enterprise, using bribery to corrupt officials sent to police them. The ministry had been obliged to accept Hassid’s appointment with great reluctance after he’d made a cash donation of thirty million dollars to the Khartoum museum in return for the role. Officially he has nothing to do with ancient sites, but it’s no surprise that he’s managed to shoehorn himself into the inspection today. Ostensibly he’s here to look at the evidence we’ve found from 1884, but I’m sure what he’s really interested in is the pharaonic remains and anything else he might wheedle out of us about ancient Egyptian discoveries. Why he should have that special interest, I don’t yet know.’
He looked at his watch and stood up. Aysha went over to Costas and took the baby, now fast asleep, and sat down again. Hiebermeyer turned to Jack and Costas. ‘I promised to show you how I know that two soldiers died up here that day in 1884. And how that’s led to a fabulous ancient discovery. It’s the reason why you’re here. Aysha, we’ll be back in half an hour. Let’s go.’
11
Hiebermeyer led Jack and Costas from the shrine over about two hundred metres of bare rock towards the beginning of a large gully that opened out into the desert to the east. They dropped a few metres below the level of the surrounding rock and walked towards an off-white tent some fifty metres into the gully, at the end of a dirt track from the main road where several of the expedition vehicles were parked. The tent was the size of a small marquee, with a pitched roof and guy ropes pegged out and anchored against the wind. Hiebermeyer opened the
door flap and ushered them inside, where the air was noticeably warmer. ‘It’s something of a greenhouse in here during the day, but it’s the price we pay for keeping the dust out of the excavation,’ he said. They followed him over to a square trench about three metres across and two metres deep, with measuring rods along the sides and a plastic sheet laid over the bottom.
Costas squatted close to the edge of the trench, being careful not to let the loose dust and stone crumble inside. ‘This looks like a crime scene investigation,’ he said. ‘An ancient burial?’
Hiebermeyer nodded. ‘During our preliminary recce Aysha spotted two low piles of rocks about two metres long, evidently man-made. As you’ve seen, the plateau is largely exposed rock – gneiss and granite with some sandstone – and this gully is one of the few collecting places near the river for wind-borne dust and sand, the only place with stable sediment deep enough for a burial. But the two burials we found under the stones weren’t ancient. Beneath that tarpaulin are the semi-mummified remains of two British soldiers.’
Jack stared, his mind reeling. ‘Are they from the Gordon relief expedition?’
‘The khaki uniforms are correct. They have the shoulder badges of the South Staffordshire Regiment, one of the units with the river column. And one of them has a letter from a woman in Dublin in his front tunic pocket, dated early October 1884.’
‘So this is why you think a second soldier was killed in the sangar.’
‘We’ve left the bodies in situ, but did a full forensic analysis. They were clearly both buried at the same time and with some care, undoubtedly by their comrades. One was killed by a single gunshot wound to the upper chest, and probably died immediately. The other, the one with the letter, was hit twice, once in the lower leg and once through both thighs, severing the artery in his right thigh. He probably bled to death in agony.’
Pharaoh (Jack Howard 7) Page 15
