‘Just like old times in Canada, eh?’ Buller said, slapping his hand on the table. ‘And you’ve got the Mohawks with you too!’
Mayne turned to Wolseley. ‘I’ve brought along Charrière, as you requested. He’s waiting outside.’
‘Best damned hunter I’ve ever seen,’ Buller rumbled, shaking his head. ‘Took me with him into the forest back in ’70 above the Winnipeg river. Never seen a man fell a deer before with a throwing knife. He still got that squaw? She was damned good too, could have led the expedition.’
‘His wife and child died in a cholera outbreak two years ago,’ Mayne said.
‘Ah. Sorry to hear it.’ Buller paused for a moment, then turned to Wolseley. ‘Had Stephenson in for a few drinks last night, your old quartermaster-general. Told me about your pension arrangement for the voyageurs after the Red River expedition. Damned decent of you, if you ask me.’
Wolseley looked briefly discomfited, then tapped his pencil on the map. ‘It was the least I could do. They gave their services to an expedition which achieved its goal without a single life being lost. I treated them as I would have done British soldiers, for services to Queen and Empire.’
‘Especially generous to Charrière, I gather,’ Buller said.
‘He was my chief reconnaissance scout. He risked his life more than the others.’
‘Never knew when you might need to call on his services again, eh?’ Buller said, eyeing Wolseley and slapping the table. ‘In the Sudan, of all places.’
Mayne knew that the voyageurs were being paid handsomely for their work on the Nile, so it was hardly as if they were here solely out of loyalty to a patron. But it was typical of Wolseley, the type of act that drew men to him. He could be prickly, sometimes snobbish, an infuriating stickler for detail that was probably the undoing of this expedition, but he could also be generous to those under him in a way that seemed to go beyond expediency. Even though he looked something of an aesthete beside larger-than-life characters like Buller and Burnaby, he was also a ruthless soldier who bore the scars of front-line fighting from his first action as a subaltern in the Crimea thirty years before.
Buller peered at Mayne. ‘So, you’ve been surveying the Nile, eh? Too many damned engineers on this expedition, if you ask me. Mapping, planning, building. Old Charlie Gordon’s a sapper, and General Graham at Suakin on the Red Sea, and those two in the corner,’ he said, jerking his head towards the figures hunched over the desk. ‘If you want my opinion, we’re overengineered.’
Mayne saw the twinkle in Buller’s eye. He was right, as usual, but not necessarily in the way he meant. Sapper officers were trained to seek solutions to engineering problems, not to create them. In many ways this was an engineers’ war: a war of survey, of intelligence, of logistics. And Buller knew perfectly well that the problem with overengineering lay with Wolseley, whose fastidious attention to detail and obsession with repeating his renowned river expedition had prevented the dash across the desert that could have seen a British force at the gates of Khartoum weeks ago. But Buller owed his career to Wolseley, and he was astute enough to couch his criticism in elliptical terms. In any case, they all knew it was too late for any change of strategy now.
The taller and younger of the two men who had been working in the corner of the tent came over to Wolseley, holding a map. He had chiselled, handsome features, and a waxed handlebar moustache over a beard; a keffiyeh cloth was wound loosely around his neck, and with his sun-bronzed features he could have passed himself off as an Arab. He stared at Mayne, the cast in his right eye making it impossible to return his gaze comfortably. Wolseley glanced up at him. ‘Major Kitchener has just traversed the Bayuda desert and come within two miles of Khartoum. He’s my Deputy Assistant Adjutant General for Intelligence, though sometimes he thinks he runs the show.’
Mayne nodded at Kitchener, knowing there would be no handshake. Kitchener was an individualist who did not take orders easily; he was not one of Wolseley’s Ashanti Ring, and had come perilously close on several occasions to overstepping the mark. He was saved by his indispensability as an intelligence officer and by the sheer force of his presence. He had become the eyes and ears of the expedition, a fluent Arabic speaker who had developed his own intelligence network as far as Khartoum and rallied loyal tribesmen around him, and who was the last man present in the tent to have spoken with Gordon. Mayne had encountered him three weeks earlier in the Bayuda desert, when Kitchener had swept down upon them like one of the Madhi’s emirs, swathed in Arab dress and surrounded by a bodyguard of tribesmen.
Mayne looked into Kitchener’s disarming eyes. ‘Congratulations on the survey of Palestine. I saw the first of your volumes at the Royal United Service Institute library in London before I came out here. It’s a prodigious achievement, more than most survey officers would hope to achieve in a lifetime. It puts the study of biblical geography truly on the map.’
Kitchener kept staring. ‘Palestine interests you? You were not part of the biblical archaeology society at Chatham.’
Mayne held the steely gaze. He remembered the group of evangelical officers who believed that the scientific survey of biblical lands was their true calling, the most noble use of the skills they were learning as engineers. Charles Gordon, an individualist who professed allegiance to no church or movement, was not among them, but they revered him for his morality, and because he seemed to live his life to the utmost by Christian principles: a man who would now seem poised for the ultimate Christian act, willing to sacrifice himself for those in Khartoum who depended on him.
Mayne shook his head. ‘My interest is purely professional. Before coming out to the Sudan, Lord Wolseley asked me to discover everything I could about Gordon, his possible motivations for being here, his recent state of mind. I read the book he wrote about his time in Jerusalem in 1883. He seemed to retreat into himself in much the same way he has done in Khartoum, and as he did in China twenty years ago before leading his army to victory there. But he also carried out some useful survey work. He used your maps and notes to identify to his satisfaction a number of New Testament sites. Together your work provides a most valuable basis for intelligence on Palestine should we ever come to confront the Ottomans there.’
‘My opinion, decidedly,’ said Kitchener, his stare unwavering.
Wolseley gestured towards the other man at the desk. ‘In which case you will also be familiar with the work of Kitchener’s superior and my Deputy Adjutant General for Intelligence, Colonel Sir Charles Wilson.’
Mayne looked over, seeing a slight man of about Wolseley’s age who also wore the lapel badges of the Royal Engineers. Wilson put up a hand in acknowledgement while continuing to write in his notebook. It made sense that Wilson should have been appointed to the expedition. He had recently been military adviser to Sir Evelyn Baring, British agent in Egypt, and had even been considered for Gordon’s role as saviour of Khartoum. He and Gordon knew each other well and Wilson shared his passion for the Holy Land. Like Kitchener, Wilson was not one of Wolseley’s Ashanti Ring, yet Mayne sensed no palpable tension between the two men. They were united by an overwhelming common purpose, the relief of Khartoum, and Wilson’s personal friendship with Gordon as well as his expertise on the Sudan meant that he could be at the centre of Wolseley’s operations with no questions being asked.
Wilson finished writing and came over, looking at Mayne with his penetrating blue eyes. Mayne extended his hand over the table. ‘Sir Charles. While I was reading General Gordon’s Reflections on Palestine, I chanced upon a description of the ancient arch that bears your name under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. I should very much like to have your opinion on its purpose.’
Wilson shook his hand, keeping his gaze. ‘It’s always gratifying to find an officer with an interest in archaeology, especially a fellow sapper. Perhaps when this expedition is over we can meet up again and discuss it.’
May
ne withdrew his hand. There had been no hint of recognition in Wilson’s eyes. Yet Wilson had been Mayne’s superior in the intelligence department for almost fifteen years now, the man who briefed and debriefed him in the hidden complex of rooms under Whitehall. Mayne felt a rush of certainty course through him. In the past, his immediate contact had always been someone else, a middleman, an anonymous officer on the staff, someone who would secretly make his presence known and wait to pass on the signal to activate his mission. But this time was different. For the first time, Wilson himself had come, a man who was not only intelligence chief for the Nile expedition but also head of the most secretive department in Whitehall, an officer charged by the highest authority in the War Office to send out missions essential for the security of the Empire, missions that would shock the British Establishment to the core if the truth were ever to come out.
Mayne thought hard, his mind racing. Everything that was happening now, the relief expedition, the planning around this table, was the culmination of involvement in the Sudan that had begun before the British invaded Egypt three years earlier, going back to Gordon’s appointment by the Ottoman Khedive as governor general of the Sudan in 1875. At that date Wilson’s official role was as consul general in Constantinople, a brief that allowed him to travel widely and gather intelligence on the Ottoman Empire. It was no surprise that his interests came to cover the southern limits of Ottoman control, in Egypt and the Sudan. With the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt had become the pivotal crossroads of empire, the gateway to India. For the British and the French, the other main shareholder in the canal, the lands of Egypt and the Near East also held huge historical resonance. Eight hundred years ago, the first crusaders had reached the Holy Land, confronting the forces of Islam that had laid claim to Jerusalem. Now those forces were once again rearing up, and standing at the apex of that gathering maelstrom was the figure of General Charles Gordon. Mayne knew now that his own future was wrapped up in that man’s destiny; that this was to be the ultimate mission for which Wilson had been preparing him.
Wolseley beckoned Mayne over. ‘You know why you are here?’
‘I await your instructions, sir.’
‘Then listen closely. What I am about to tell you will not only determine Gordon’s future, but will shape the future of the Sudan and Egypt and our prestige in the eyes of the world. What I am going to ask you to do must remain top secret. There will be no medals, no public accolade. Only those of us around this table will ever know. Are you willing to serve your Queen and country?’
Mayne caught Wilson’s eye, then gave Wolseley a steely look. ‘It’s what I’m here for. Tell me what I have to do.’
14
Wolseley picked up a tattered piece of paper from the table and showed it to Mayne. ‘This is Gordon’s last communiqué. It reached me through Kitchener’s network of spies, carried by fast camel through the desert. It’s dated the twenty-ninth of December, two days ago. He says: “Khartoum all right, and can hold out for years.”’
Kitchener opened the notebook he had been holding. ‘General Gordon has been sending his journals down by steamer to Metemma for safe keeping, and I have read the most recent entries. This is one for the fourteenth of December. “If the expeditionary force does not come in ten days, the town may fall; and I have done my best for the honour of our country.”’
Burnaby tapped his cigarette ash on to the floor. ‘Lord Randolph Churchill has suggested to me that we collect together a group of big-game hunters with African experience and send them to rescue Gordon,’ he said. ‘A posse, as I believe they would call it in America.’
‘With you at their head, doubtless,’ said Buller, giving Burnaby a jocular look.
‘The thought had occurred to me,’ Burnaby said with a smile, leaning back and exhaling another cloud of smoke.
‘Out of the question,’ Wolseley said forcibly. ‘This not the Wild West, and Her Majesty’s army does not appoint deputies to do its dirty work.’ Kitchener shut the notebook, and Wolseley stared at Mayne. ‘You see our dilemma. Gordon was in a perilous situation in November, and yet two days ago he can last out for years. Clearly the latter cannot be the case. We must question his state of mind.’
‘Can you not order Gordon to leave?’ Earle said. ‘You outrank him.’
‘Officially he works for the Khedive of Egypt, as governor general of the Egyptian province of Sudan. If I bring the Queen’s Regulations to bear, he will resign his commission in the British army and be out of our orbit completely. He has tried to resign before, and only the intervention of Gladstone kept him on our books. It is the only thread of control we have with him and we cannot jeopardise it.’
‘The man only ever treated orders as a basis for discussion,’ Earle said. ‘They even say he consults the prophet Isaiah before giving his approval.’
‘Orders as a basis for discussion? That sounds familiar.’ Wolseley raised an eyebrow at Kitchener. ‘Except that some of us operate without the need to consult any prophet other than ourselves.’
‘Is there any hope of negotiation with the Mahdi?’ Earle persisted.
Kitchener snorted. ‘As self-appointed ruler of the entire Muslim world, he answers only to Allah.’
‘Only to God?’ Buller mutterered. ‘That sounds like Gordon.’
‘General Gordon answers to himself,’ Kitchener snapped.
‘That also sounds like someone else, Major Kitchener.’
Kitchener’s look hardened, but he kept his counsel. ‘General Gordon’s intentions are tied to his sense of responsibility towards the people of Khartoum. In China he was there to defend the mercantile interests of the West, and in Khartoum he is here to defend the livelihood of the Sudanese.’
‘By all accounts it is a pestilential place, a veritable Gomorrah,’ Earle said forcibly. ‘Why Gordon should choose to make it his cause is beyond me. They say that half the population are slaves, the other half slave-dealers.’
‘A trade that Gordon has allowed to continue, to the consternation of the prime minister and the Queen,’ Buller added.
‘He allowed it to continue because it is in the best interests of the Sudanese people,’ Kitchener retorted. ‘General Gordon abhors the corruption of the Ottoman viziers who control the Sudan, and the venality of the Arab and Egyptian merchants. By banning the slave trade he would have lost sympathy with both the Ottomans and the Sudanese. By allowing it to continue he has established his reputation among them and increased his chance of quashing the trade when the time is right. His actions are sorely misunderstood, even by his erstwhile friends. His decision was made with noble intentions.’ Kitchener opened a marked page in the notebook and read from it. ‘“November the ninth. I declare positively, and once and for all, that I will not leave the Sudan until everyone who wants to go down is given the chance to do so.”’ He paused. ‘The next line is written by General Gordon in capital letters. He states that if any emissary comes up ordering him down, “I will not obey it, but will stay here, and fall with the town, and run all risks.”’ Kitchener shut the journal and put it down. ‘He reiterates his intention to stay many times, with great vehemence.’
‘At that date he was incensed by the murder of his friend Colonel Stewart, who he had sent down from Khartoum to supposed safety in the steamer Abbas a few days before,’ Wolseley said. ‘Now perhaps he will be less agitated and see more reason.’
‘Or see no reason at all,’ Buller said. ‘He has been under fire since the end of October, when the Mahdi arrived with his army outside Khartoum. Kitchener tells me that his garrison lives on tree gum and tobacco dregs and bread made from the pith of palm trees. As for the civilians, they must have eaten the last of the rats weeks ago. The dead will be strewn in the streets, and one shudders to think what the living eat now. There are those who say that Gordon has rigged the palace to explode if it is taken; ever the engineer. They say that he s
leeps by day and stays up at night, sitting framed by his window in the palace deliberately backlit by candles, as if he’s asking for a bullet. I ask you: are these the acts of a man who can any longer see reason?’
Kitchener snorted. ‘General Gordon is an officer of the Royal Engineers. He will have calculated the distance across the Nile to the nearest sharpshooters, and know perfectly well that their Remingtons would stand little chance of hitting him at that range. And he will also have calculated the uplifting effect on his Egyptian and Sudanese garrison of seeing him night after night seemingly impervious to gunfire. If it makes him seem a god in their eyes, then it can only be to the good in his present situation.’
‘It’s not their perception of his godlike status that matters to me; it’s whether he has that perception himself,’ Buller rumbled. ‘Gods don’t need to be rescued by mere mortals like us.’
Wolseley tapped his pencil on the table. ‘Twenty years ago I watched him deliberately expose himself above the parapets at Sebastopol in the Crimea. He was drawing the fire of Russian sharpshooters so that the smoke would reveal their positions. He’s not the only one among us who seems to relish a dice with death.’ He glanced at Burnaby, who flicked the ash of his cigarette and looked impassively on. ‘In February, Gordon arrived in Khartoum alone, like a penitent holy man. He presented himself to the people of Sudan as their saviour, and also as one who was at their mercy should they choose to disbelieve him. He depends for survival on his own heroic self-image. That is how you garner loyalty among these people.’
‘Heroic, or foolish,’ Buller muttered.
‘He has the heroic qualities of authenticity and honour,’ Kitchener replied. ‘He will not be swerved from what he thinks is right, and he will not let down those who have given their loyalty to him. He will not leave Khartoum without his people,’ he reiterated.
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