Buller snorted. ‘Old Charlie Gordon doesn’t care about his reputation any more. All he cares about is his people in Khartoum, and the promises he has made them. He’s their messiah. He’ll go down fighting rather than scuttle out with his tail between his legs. That’s where this plan falls asunder. We’ve left it too late. He won’t want to be rescued.’
Wolseley pursed his lips, and looked at Wilson. ‘Your opinion? You are my intelligence chief.’
Mayne held his breath. Suddenly his mission was on a knife edge. Only he knew the thoughts that would be running through Wilson’s mind, the urgency of keeping Wolseley’s plan on course. Wilson looked up. ‘I defer to Kitchener. He’s the last man here to have seen Gordon.’
Wolseley pursed his lips again, and looked up at the tall man standing impassively opposite him. For once Kitchener was silent, staring at Wolseley with those disarming eyes, his moustache barely twitching. Wolseley turned away and looked at the others.
‘Mayne?’ he said.
Mayne did not dare to glance at Wilson. He could not allow Wolseley to be dissuaded, even though he knew Buller was right. Buller’s scenario was precisely the one that had brought him here. Gordon might die defending Khartoum, but he might also survive and be captured. That could not be allowed to happen.
He spoke confidently. ‘It can be done. Charrière and I can reach the Blue Nile, and I can make my way across to the palace. I know what to say to General Gordon.’
Wolseley nodded curtly. Kitchener leaned over and continued transferring his notes to the map as they watched in silence. When he had finished, he stood up, and Mayne pointed at a series of crosses that he had put along the course of the Nile. ‘What do these mark?’ he asked.
‘Ancient ruins from the pharaonic period,’ Kitchener replied. ‘A passing interest.’
‘A passing irrelevance,’ Wolseley said irritably.
Kitchener pointed to one cross. ‘Not an irrelevance, sir. This cliff face had a bas-relief showing slaves pulling boats over rocks in the river, apparently undertaking the same exercise as General Earle’s river column, without of course the benefit of Mohawks or Kroomen but with many different dark-skinned men among the team.’
Earle looked up incredulously. ‘Are you saying that the ancient Egyptians attempted the same exercise, dragging boats through the cataracts?’
‘The next scene shows them having abandoned the boats and setting out across the desert. Of course, they had no camels then, the camel only having been introduced by the Arabs, but they have horses and chariots and even the slaves are shown striding off confidently.’
‘A lesson for us there, perhaps,’ Buller rumbled, peering at Wolseley.
‘Precisely my plan in ordering out the desert column, though we hedge our bets by keeping the river column going,’ Wolseley said tartly.
Mayne picked up Wolseley’s pencil and put another cross beside the Nile to the south-east of Korti. ‘Yesterday I was shown an underground chamber found by our sappers beside the third cataract,’ he said.
Kitchener looked at him sharply. ‘Any inscription?’
Mayne thought for a moment, and decided not to describe the scene showing the destruction of the Egyptian army. ‘At the far end of one wall was the image of a sun-disc, with its rays carved over the entire relief. In front of it was a man with a distended belly and an elongated face, a pharaoh.’
‘Akhenaten,’ Kitchener breathed, looking over at Wilson. ‘It must be.’
‘I believe so,’ Mayne said. ‘I saw the same disc when we stopped at Amarna on the voyage south through Egypt and visited the excavations there.’
Kitchener spoke directly to Wilson. ‘I will visit this site tomorrow morning.’
‘Right now, you will finish tracing the desert route,’ Wolseley said, his patience clearly wearing thin. ‘You still need to show Mayne a track from Metemma to Khartoum.’
Kitchener stood back from the map. Wolseley tapped the pencilled lines between Korti and Metemma, and then between Metemma and Khartoum, and looked at Mayne. ‘If all goes to plan, Wilson will reach Gordon within a day of your meeting with him, giving Gordon as little time as possible to change his mind if you are able to persuade him to leave. Meanwhile the Mahdi might force our hand by ordering the final assault on Khartoum. But we must take our chances. Whether you succeed or fail, Mayne, you will not wait to return on the steamers, but will make your own way back along the Nile to rejoin General Earle and the river column. If we fail to save Gordon, and one of the press correspondents gets wind of the fact that a British officer had managed to reach him beforehand, then there will be hell to pay. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It would look like a desperate measure that could only have been ordered by the expedition commander. I would rather the blame went higher up the chain of command in Whitehall. Scapegoats will be sought, gentlemen, you can be sure of it. The press and the public will bay for blood, and those on whom the blame should fall for delaying the dispatch of the expedition will be seeking any sign of weakness in our conduct. If my reputation is tarnished, then so is that of every one of you around this table. Major Mayne’s mission must remain secret, known only to those of us in this tent and to Charrière, who will go with you.’
Mayne stared at Wolseley. He had guessed as much, but he still had to try. ‘Most of the Mohawk contingent have left for Canada. Their job was mainly done after the third cataract, and their contract finished. Charrière will want to go too.’
Wolseley gave him a thin smile. ‘They’re anxious to get back to their wives and families. As you told Buller, Charrière has nothing to go back to. I want you to operate together just as you did on the Red River expedition fifteen years ago, when you observed Louis Riel and his rebels from your hideout for days before the rest of the column arrived.’
Buller slammed his hand on the table. ‘Come on, man. You should relish it. You were a team. He can be your bodyguard, and your tracker.’
‘Colonel Wilson will brief him after this meeting,’ Wolseley said. ‘You are agreeable to this?’
‘Sir.’ Mayne returned an unwavering gaze. He well remembered the two of them lying with their rifles on the ridge above Riel’s encampment. He had been there as Wolseley’s reconnaissance scout, with Charrière as a runner to report back should Riel strike camp and return to the American border. Had Riel mustered his men in preparation for a fight, then Mayne had an entirely different mission, one so sensitive that nobody else knew of it. His friendship with Charrière had always been predicated on what he had been briefed to do that day.
Wolseley carried on. ‘I requested you for this expedition because I anticipated just such a mission. I had General Earle send you on long reconnaissance forays into the desert not only to acclimatise you, but also so that your fellow officers in the column will not think it unusual if you return a few weeks from now after a particularly long absence, dressed and bearded like an Arab and doubtless the worse for wear. And if you do not return, you will not be the first British officer to ride out into the desert and disappear without trace.’