And there was added urgency. The dervishes who had melted away from the battle would soon pass word of their defeat to the Mahdi himself, which might lead him to order the final assault on the city, losing Mayne precious time in his attempt to reach Gordon before it was overwhelmed. Abu Klea would show the Mahdi that the British were a force to be reckoned with, that they were superior to the Egyptian army he had terrorised and routed two years before. If the British were to stay in the Sudan, the jihad would not be the walkover his early successes had promised. But the victory might ultimately be a hollow one. The Mahdi knew that the British were there under duress, and that if he were to order the assault on Khartoum now, to remove Gordon from any hope of rescue, they would abandon the Sudan and withdraw to Egypt. He knew they were not present in numbers sufficient to defeat his main force in a set-piece battle; yet if word of Abu Klea were to reach tribesmen of wavering loyalties, it might tilt them towards the British, whilest the news might cause the garrison at Khartoum to redouble their resolve to stand firm, thinking that a British force was finally on its way to defeat the Mahdist army and relieve the city.
Mayne stared in the direction of the Nile to the south, seeing only the haze of an approaching dust storm on the horizon, and below that the undulating rocky plain that extended to the dark smudge marking the beginning of the tangled mass of shrub. He could see no sign of humanity, no flickering lights, no crumbled ruins, not even the camel trail that must lie somewhere in the folds of the ground ahead. He felt as if by passing through the battle he had entered a darker place, a shadowland, a world beyond knowledge where even the pharaohs had feared to tread. This was the land that Gordon had made his own, and it was only here that his motivations could be understood. He swallowed hard, trying to rid his throat of the taste of battle, then twisted round to look one last time. There was no sign of their pursuers, for now. He nodded to Charrière, who dropped the sword and sheathed his knife. Mayne holstered his revolver and grasped the wrapped rifle that was still on his back, knowing that the instant they stood up in their Arab gear they could still fall prey to a trigger-happy British soldier. They crouched forward, readying to leap up and run.
A bugle sounded, and he heard the stomping noise of soldiers falling in. Now was their chance. All eyes would be down the slope towards the retreating Mahdist forces, and the wells where the soldiers and their camels would be desperate to slake their thirst.
They needed to move fast. Mayne put his hand forward to signal Charrière. He tensed, his heart pounding.
They began to run.
PART 5
19
The Toyota bounced and jolted along the track towards the Nile, through growths of desert grass and plots of vegetables and fruit trees enclosed by low mud-brick walls. They were approaching the site of the wreck of the Abbas, some sixty kilometres south of the Semna cataract along the Nile towards Khartoum. The surrounding land was more low-lying than at Semna, more suited to agriculture, and every available area of sandy soil had been turned to arable. The track ran beside an irrigation channel that extended over a kilometre from the river; ahead of them on the bank they could see a pair of pivoting shaduf water-raising devices, the oldest and simplest equipment for getting water from the river into the channels, used since early antiquity. Two scruffy boys who had been operating the devices left them and ran up to the Toyota as it sped by, chasing it through the cloud of dust they left behind. Ibrahim turned to Jack and pointed at the window. ‘Keep it wound up,’ he said. ‘This isn’t a good place. When we get out, watch your pockets.’
Jack glanced at Costas in the back seat, and then kept his eyes glued ahead as they tore down the final few hundred metres of the track, coming to a skidding halt only a few cars’ lengths from the water’s edge. ‘Thanks, Ibrahim,’ he said.
‘Rocket man, that’s what I’m going to call you,’ added Costas.
‘Apologies for the speed,’ Ibrahim said. ‘It’s a habit you pick up around here. I learned to do it when I was with a Sudanese naval attachment in Mogadishu. You go fast everywhere there, and avoid stopping at all costs.’
‘So what’s the lowdown here?’ Costas said, peering out of the closed window beside him.
‘There’s a local warlord who runs this district. His boys belt around in “specials” like those we used to see in Mogadishu, openly carrying AKs. It shouldn’t happen in Sudan any more, but it does. Basically they’re a continuation of the tribal fiefdoms that dotted this territory at the time the British arrived here, concentrating especially on these precious cultivable patches of land. Back in the old days, they made their loot from the slave trade. When you see how these places are run, you can understand how General Gordon found it so difficult to stamp it out. These days of course it’s drugs rather than slaves, and that’s why you don’t look over those mud-brick walls. It’s mostly poppies, but high-grade marijuana too.’
‘How does al’Ahmed fit in with this?’ Costas said. ‘The new official who got us here.’
‘Officially he’s a special appointee to oversee enhancement of the historical and archaeological evidence for Sudan in the period immediately before British rule, especially the era of the Mahdi, which is celebrated by many Sudanese as a time of independence between the Egyptian and the British regimes. That’s why he’s summoned you here, as a convenient way of getting the world’s top archaeological diving experts to have a look at the Abbas site. And he’s secured this area by promising police if needed. But you won’t be seeing any of those when we arrive, because unofficially his family controls most of these drug-producing areas, providing protection from inter-gang warfare and an assured market in return for a substantial cream of the profits, usually eighty per cent. One word from al’Ahmed and these people bow to his will. Those shifty young men you can see sitting on the wall ahead of us, the two with Kalashnikovs, those are our police. But we have to remember that al’Ahmed wears his official hat too and he has the authority to call in the real police if he decides he doesn’t need us any more.’
‘Great,’ said Costas, staring at the children who were banging at the door of the car. ‘Why do I have a bad feeling about this?’
Jack pursed his lips. He had felt uneasy all the way from Semna, and now, seeing this place and sensing the atmosphere, he was beginning to question his decision to agree to a visit. He looked at the riverbank a few metres ahead. ‘How far out is the wreckage?’
‘The most likely site’s about two hundred metres out, and thirty metres deep,’ Ibrahim replied. ‘It should be a quick dive straight from shore to see whether there’s anything worth looking at. We can be in and out within two hours and back on the road to Semna.’
Jack tapped the dashboard. ‘Okay. Let’s do it.’
‘Watch the kids.’
They all got out of the car at the same time, and were immediately swarmed by about a dozen children. Jack firmly pushed two boys away and prevented another from looping his finger around his watch. The two young men with Kalashnikovs sauntered over, and one of them raised his rifle in the air. There was a deafening crack and the children quickly dispersed, scattering into the irrigation ditches and alleys surrounding the fields. One of the men swaggered up to Jack and put out his hand, grasping Jack’s in an iron grip. ‘Hassid Saib told us to look after you, and we will. No more trouble from small boys, eh? Or we shoot them, see, like little pigs.’ The man aimed his rifle here and there, laughing, the other hand still firmly holding Jack’s. ‘You give us a little baksheesh, huh, and maybe we give you something from our fields, eh? You Americans always like our hashish.’