‘Get me a real warrior!’ he cried. ‘I want Bin Sadr!’
This enraged Dumas, who felt the honour of his cavalry was being impugned. It didn’t help that the shortage of horses meant that many of his troopers remained without mounts. ‘You honour that cutthroat and insult my men?’
‘I want flankers to keep the Bedouin away from my headquarters, not aristocratic dandies who can’t catch a bandit!’ The grim march and jealous seniors were wearing on him.
Dumas was not cowed. ‘Then wait for good horses instead of rushing into the desert without water! It is your incompetence, not Croisier’s!’
‘You dare to challenge me? I will have you shot!’
‘I will break you in half before you do, little man…’
The argument was cut short by the galloping arrival of Bin Sadr and half a dozen of his turbaned henchmen, reining up between the quarrelling generals. Kleber took the opportunity to drag the hotheaded Dumas backward while Napoleon fought to get himself under control. The Mamelukes were making fools of us.
‘What is it, effendi?’ Once more, the Arab’s lower face was masked.
‘I pay you to keep the Bedouin and Mamelukes off my flanks,’ Bonaparte snapped. ‘Why aren’t you doing so?’
‘Maybe because you aren’t paying as you promised. I have a jar of fresh ears, and no fresh gold to show for it. My men are bought men, effendi, and they’ll go to the Mamelukes if the enemy promises quicker coin.’
‘Bah. You’re afraid of the enemy.’
‘I envy them! They have generals who pay when they promise!’
Bonaparte scowled and turned to Berthier, his chief of staff. ‘Why isn’t he paid?’
‘Men have two ears and two hands,’ Berthier said quietly. ‘There’s been disagreement over how many he’s really killed.’
‘You question my honesty?’ the Arab shouted. ‘I will bring you tongues and penises!’
‘For God’s sake,’ Dumas groaned. ‘Why are we dealing with barbarians?’
Napoleon and Berthier began muttering with each other over money.
Bin Sadr scanned the rest of us with an impatient eye and suddenly his gaze fell on me. I could swear the devil was looking for the chain around my neck. I scowled back, suspicious that it was he who’d dropped a snake in my bed. His eye also strayed to Astiza, his look deepening to hatred. She remained impassive. Could this really be the lantern bearer who had tried to betray me in Paris? Or was I succumbing to fear and fantasy like the common foot soldiers? I hadn’t really taken a good look at the man in France.
‘All right,’ our commander finally said. ‘We pay you for the hands to date. There’s double for all your men once we conquer Cairo. Just keep the Bedouin away.’
The Arab bowed. ‘You’ll not be bothered by those jackals again, effendi. I pluck out their eyes and force them to swallow their own sight. I geld them like cattle. I tie their intestines to their horse’s tail and whip the animal across the desert.’
‘Good, good. Let word of that spread.’ He turned away, done with the Arab, his frustration spent. He looked embarrassed at his outburst, and I could see him mentally chastising himself for not maintaining control. Bonaparte made many mistakes, but seldom more than once.
But Bin Sadr was not done. ‘Our horses are swift but our guns are old, effendi. Might we have some new ones as well?’ He gestured toward the short-barreled carbines that Dumas’s cavalry carried.
‘The hell you will,’ the cavalryman growled.
‘New?’ Bonaparte repeated. ‘No, we have none to spare.’
‘How about that man with his longrifle?’ Now he pointed at me. ‘I remember him and his shot at the walls of Alexandria. Give him to me, and together we’ll send the devils who harass you to hell.’
‘The American?’
‘He can shoot the ones who flee.’
The idea intrigued Napoleon, who was looking for a distraction. ‘How about it, Gage? Do you want to ride with a desert sheikh?’
My attempted assassin, I thought, but didn’t say that. I wasn’t about to get near Bin Sadr except to strangle him, after I’d questioned him first. ‘I was invited as a scholar, not a sniper, general. My place is on the boat.’
‘Out of danger?’ Bin Sadr mocked.
‘But not out of range. Come down to the river bank sometime and see how close I can come to hitting you, lantern bearer.’
‘Lantern bearer?’ Bonaparte asked.
‘The American has had too much sun,’ the Arab said. ‘Go, stay on your boat, thinking yourself out of danger, and maybe soon there will be some new use for your rifle. You may wish you had come with Achmed bin Sadr.’ And with that, taking a sack of coins from Berthier, he turned to gallop off.
As he did so the fabric that covered his lower face slipped briefly, and I got a glimpse of his cheek. There was an angry boil, covered by a poultice, at the same point that Astiza had lanced her wax figurine.
We were already halfway to Cairo when word came that a Mameluke ruler named Murad Bey had assembled a force to oppose our passage. Bonaparte decided to seize the initiative. Orders were issued and troops departed on the evening of July 12 ^ th for a surprise night march to Shubra Khit, the next major town on the Nile. At dawn the French approach surprised a still-organising Egyptian army of some ten thousand men, a thousand of them splendid Mameluke cavalry and the rest an unformed rabble of fellahin – peasants armed with little more than cudgels. They milled in uncertainty as the French formed battle ranks, and for a moment I thought the whole mass of them might retreat without a fight. Then some encouragement seemed to stiffen them – we could see their chiefs pointing up the Nile – and they braced for battle as well.
I had a fine grandstand seat on board the anchored Cerf. As a golden sun rose to the east, we watched from the water as a French army band struck up the ‘Marseillaise’, its notes floating out across the Nile. It was a tune that made troops shiver, and under its inspiration the French would come near to conquering the world. There was a throat-catching efficiency to the way the soldiers assembled into their hedgehog squares again, regimental standards tugged by the morning breeze. It is not an easy formation to master, and even harder to hold during an enemy charge, when every man is facing outward and relying on men behind him to hold. There’s a natural tendency to want to back away, threatening to collapse the formation, or for shirkers to drop their weapons to drag back the wounded. Sergeants and the toughest veterans man the rear ranks to keep those in front from quailing. Yet a square that is firm is virtually impregnable. The Mameluke cavalry circled to find a weak point and couldn’t, the French formations clearly baffling the enemy. It appeared this battle would be another lopsided demonstration of European firepower against medieval Arab courage. We waited, sipping Egyptian mint tea, as the morning turned from pink to blue.
Then there were warning shouts and sails appeared from a bend upriver. Cries of triumph came from the Mamelukes on shore. We stood on our deck uneasily. The Nile was carrying an armada of Egyptian river craft from Cairo, their lateen triangles filling the river like a yard of laundry. Mameluke and Islamic banners flew from every masthead, and from hulls crowded with soldiers and cannon came a great clamour of trumpets, drums, and horns. Was this the use of my rifle that Bin Sadr had slyly warned me about? How had he known? The enemy strategy was obvious. They wanted to destroy our little fleet and take Bonaparte’s army by flank from the river.