Jones’ face had turned from horror to despair. Mayne grinned at him, then picked up his saddlebag and slung the khaki wrap over his back, feeling the hard wooden case inside, and turned towards the parapet.
It was time to go.
8
‘Get down, sir!’
There was a crack as a bullet whined by, so close that the air it displaced pushed Mayne off balance and sent him tripping and stumbling back into the sangar. The report of the gunshot echoed and rumbled down the gorge below, and he heard yells and commands from the men on the river as they took cover. He quickly doffed his bags and crawled to the parapet beside Jones, who handed back the rifle he had taken from him only moments before. The other soldiers had dropped what they were doing and crouched with their heads under the parapet. The sound of the report had come about half a second behind the bullet; for a .43 calibre Remington that meant the shooter was about four hundred yards away, perhaps five hundred over the river where the air was cooler and less dense, slowing the bullet by a fraction. He twisted his head to one side, listening as another bullet whined by. He could also gauge the distance a Remington bullet had travelled by its noise, whether a snap or a buzz or a whine, and what he heard confirmed his estimate: four hundred, perhaps four hundred and fifty yards, exactly the distance from the ridge opposite where he had expected a sharpshooter to appear. He whipped out his telescope and trained it on the ridge. Another bullet whined over, followed by another sharp report, the noise overlaying the distant echoes of the previous report and resounding through the gorge. He lowered the telescope, searching for the telltale puff of white smoke. Another shot rang out, but he could see nothing. The man had waited until there was enough haze coming off the desert to obscure the smoke, and until the sun was directly behind him, dazzling any onlookers from the opposite bank. He was good, too good to allow himself to be caught by the soldiers who would already be clambering up the rocks from below to search for him, but likely to hold his ground until he had inflicted serious casualties among the men by the river or here in the sangar.
‘It’s a harassing fire,’ the subaltern said, his voice high pitched with excitement and fear. ‘They can’t be aiming at us individually, from that far off.’
‘There’s only one of them,’ Mayne replied. ‘The dervish sharpshooters only ever work alone, like any good marksmen. And I wouldn’t be sure it’s just harassing fire. He’s going to get his range soon enough, and then we might be in for some trouble.’
The subaltern slid further down into the sangar, holding his helmet on to his head. ‘What do you propose to do?’
‘He’s using the sun behind him as cover, but he’s left it a little late in the day. Pretty soon the sun will drop and we might have a chance of seeing him on that ridge. Until then we sit tight.’
‘Do you intend to have a go? At this range?’
Mayne pursed his lips, looking at the others. ‘Everybody hold their fire. I’ll only have one chance. As soon as he knows we’ve spotted his position, he’ll be gone and that’ll be it.’ He glanced at the wrapped box, and then dispelled the thought. The Sharps was more accurate at a longer range, but he had yet to sight it in, and to use it now would be to compromise himself, to open himself to questioning that he did not want. The Martini-Henry would be at the limit of its effectual range but he had got to know its foibles in the desert, and he felt confident with it. He glanced through the crack in the parapet masonry and saw the men of the river column running around and diving for cover, sheltering behind rocks and overhangs, the sentries fixing bayonets and holding their rifles at the ready, blindly scanning the rocks above them. He glanced at the subaltern, who had taken out his revolver and was gripping it hard, his knuckles white and his hand shaking, popping his head up to look and then quickly slipping down again, breathing fast and hard. Mayne opened up his cartridge box. ‘At the moment he’s targeting us because he knows he’s got us at a disadvantage in this light, and it’s always good to put the wind up a sentry post like this so that the men inside keep their heads down and fail to see what’s coming next.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked the subaltern, alarm in his eyes. ‘The Mahdi army?’
Mayne grunted, not listening, eyeing the river again. ‘We don’t want him shifting his position behind a rock where we can’t see him but he can shoot at the river column below. Their progress is slow enough as it is, but being under fire will seize it up completely. The Kroomen and voyageurs are not members of Her Majesty’s armed forces and I doubt whether being shot at was in their contract with Wolseley.’
‘How long?’ asked the subaltern, his voice hoarse.
Mayne narrowed his eyes, looking towards the orb of the sun to the west, beyond the ridge. He remembered the days he had spent with Shaytan, observing everything about the desert, learning to gauge the remaining daylight by the position of the sun above the horizon, a crucial survival skill. He had needed to prepare himself for what might lie ahead in the days and weeks to come, but it was paying off here as well. ‘About half an hour,’ he murmured. ‘We need to catch him just as the sun drops and before he realises he’s visible. That might be a matter of moments.’
The subaltern had slid down the sloping edge of the parapet on his back, and was now gripping the revolver with both hands, trying to control his shaking. ‘I’m going to watch the desert on this side. He could be distracting us while others sneak up from the east.’
Mayne looked at the subaltern, a terrified young man under fire for the first time, his back to the enemy, trying to convince himself and his soldiers that he was not a coward. Every soldier had to go through his trial by fire, and it was especially hard in the sangar, where there was nothing they could do except wait. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Corporal Jones, watch the southern flank.’
Mayne trained his telescope on the opposite cliff once more, seeing only the glare of the sun, then lowered it and turned over, his back against the parapet. Two of the soldiers were still crouched at the rear of the sangar, vulnerable to bullets that would be falling in an arched trajectory at this range, and he waved them urgently forward, making space so that they could squeeze up alongside him. Another bullet whined overhead and struck a rock, moaning like a spent firework as it tumbled off into the distance. The rock was only yards from where his camel stood in open view, munching away oblivious to the danger. He thought for a moment. Exposing himself would be an additional risk, but he was sure the marksman had not yet pinpointed the range well enough to shoot accurately. He would need to hit a visible target before he had done that, and repeat his point of aim. Mayne turned to Jones. ‘I’m going out. I won’t be long.’
Jones stared at him, horrified. ‘Where?’
‘The camel. Your camel. A good camel like that’s worth its weight in gold.’
Jones seemed incapable of response. Mayne crawled to the ancient masonry wall at the far end of the sangar, quickly vaulted over and ran below the ridge line of the cliff until he was some thirty yards away and about the same distance from the camel. He dropped below a slight rise in the plateau that put him out of sight of the opposite side of the river, then threw himself flat, hugging the ground, and crawled across on his elbows. Just as he came within range, the beast emptied its bowels in a vile spray, filling the air with a brown mist; then it bent its neck round, staring down at him with that expression of disdain and indifference unique to the camel. A bullet struck with a deadening thud somewhere in its midriff, only a few feet above Mayne’s head. He rolled over just as another whined by, and saw where the first bullet had embedded itself and flattened into the camel’s harness, the bone-dry leather already beginning to smoulder with the heat of the lead. He whacked the harness with one hand to extinguish it and swivelled round to kick the camel hard behind its front right knee, bringing it down with a groan on its forelegs. He quickly did the same to the hind legs, then took a coil of braided leather rope from the harness to hobble it. The camel was still vulnerable to falling bullets and ricochets, but at least it was no longer a visible target. He crawled back the way he had come, feeling the brush of air as another round buzzed past. The marksman was getting better; these seemed more like targeted shots. He reached the wall and leapt over, then quickly crawled up beside Jones and peered out through the embrasure in the parapet. Jones stared at him, wincing and going red in the face, then let out a loud exhalation. Mayne stared, alarmed. ‘Are you all right? Are you hit?’