He pointed to the jibba. ‘As for the clothing of the Ansar, I studiously collect everything that comes my way, and let it be known that I want more, as I did during my time in China. Apart from my collection, there will be few other mementoes from this war, and none from Khartoum; the relief force will not arrive before the Mahdi occupies the city, and there will be no souvenir-hunting by our troops. But if Wolseley and his cronies so fervently believe in my imminent apostasy, then I have a mind to start wearing the jibba. It would be more comfortable in the heat.’
Mayne turned back to the rifle on the stand. ‘The Martini is a better rifle, sir, but I have seen dervish sharpshooters over the Nile use Remingtons to some effect.’
‘Are you a sharpshooter, Major Mayne? I had imagined so.’ Gordon looked at him, his blue eyes piercing. ‘What is your preferred rifle?’
Mayne paused. Had Gordon guessed? ‘A Sharps, sir. Model 1862, in 45/90 calibre. A thirty-four-inch octagonal barrel, made especially heavy.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Gordon, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. ‘An American buffalo rifle. Aperture sights?’
‘They are the best, sir. I first used them at the Creedmore range near New York when I went there with a team from the Royal Military Academy.’
‘Stiff competition, I should think.’
‘I won, sir.’
Gordon looked out into the darkness towards the island, where the cooking fires of the dervishes could just be seen. ‘I believe an American soldier holds the distance record with a Sharps, during the Indian wars?’
‘One thousand four hundred and twenty-one yards over rough ground in the state of Montana, in the summer of 1874. His name was Private Ephrain Jones, sir. I competed against him at Creedmore.’
‘And you won.’
‘Sir.’
Gordon gestured outside. ‘Then I could do with such a rifle here, and such a sharpshooter. The first thing I did when I returned to Khartoum last year knowing it would come under siege was to make accurate measurements of the distances from the city to the far shore of the river, to allow my riflemen to find their range. It was a most interesting geometrical exercise. I had my Sudanese row a measured line across the river, and then took right angles from it to create a trigonometric survey of all the main points of the shore. Do you understand my reasoning?’
Mayne nodded. ‘Using triangulation you could thus calculate distances from any points of fire along the river shore.’
‘The Mahdi holds the island and all the shoreline to the west, but the fort and the adjoining riverbank to the east is dead ground, of no value to him because it’s too far away for his riflemen to shoot accurately, and his artillery is concentrated to the west and south where it can do greater damage to the entrances into the city. That fort provides good cover, though, and that’s where you’ve left your companion, isn’t it? I assume you have one. A spotter, perhaps. You’ve come here without your rifle and you would not leave that unattended.’
Mayne saw no reason to deny it. ‘Sir.’
‘What is your estimation of the distance to that fort?’
Mayne remembered Kitchener’s map. ‘Six hundred and fifty metres, give or take twenty.’
‘Six hundred and sixty-five metres. Bravo. You are good. Even at that range, with a cartridge that powerful a body shot could be a clean kill. Am I right?’
‘I’ve hunted deer with my Sharps at a thousand yards and dropped them stone dead.’
‘Have you ever hunted men, Major Mayne?’
Mayne swallowed, suddenly discomfited. ‘I’m a soldier, sir. Like you.’
Gordon stared at him, then smiled and slapped his shoulder. ‘Indeed we are. Soldier first, engineer second, dilettante fossicker down the byways of archaeology and geography and natural history third. That’s what they taught us. Isn’t that right?’
‘Sir.’
‘I know why you’ve come. And you know that I won’t leave with you. There’s nothing more I can do for the people here, but if the world knows the truth of why Gordon of Khartoum stayed to the end, then perhaps it will not be a pointless sacrifice. The Mahdi is coming at dawn. I will be on the balcony when they break through the gates. I will be in this full dress uniform, with a red tunic. You will not mistake me. I believe the sun will shine tomorrow, for the first time in days; I can sense it. You must choose your time well. For a few moments at dawn a sliver of light from the eastern horizon lights up the balcony and the mosque behind, but then as the sun rises it reflects off the Nile and obscures this place. I have seen it myself, from the fort on the opposite shore. And watch your back. There will be others with their eyes on you. Mark my words.’
Mayne did not know what to say. ‘Sir.’
‘Have I done my best for these people? For my country?’
Mayne looked into his eyes, and suddenly felt a flood of compassion, and a flash of anger towards those who had orchestrated all this. ‘For Queen and country, sir.’
Gordon put a hand on his shoulder, and then picked up a leather-bound volume from his desk. ‘Good. Now, before you go, I trust that you will allow a condemned man one final request. It is of the utmost importance.’
23
Gordon led Mayne to his desk, pointed him to a chair and sat down himself behind the writing pad. He opened up the book he had been holding, and Mayne could see that it was a journal, filled almost to the last page with closely lined writing. Gordon gave him a penetrating look. ‘When I dispatched Colonel Stewart to safety in the steamer Abbas, little knowing the fate that awaited him downriver, I sent with him the largest part of my archaeological collection as well as the latest volumes of my journal. All of that was lost when the Abbas was sunk and Stewart murdered.’
‘Kitchener mentioned your collection,’ Mayne said. ‘He told me you had an ancient stone slab packed beneath the boiler.’
Gordon nodded. ‘That was the day that Kitchener was here. Our discussion was almost exclusively concerned with archaeology. And the loss of that slab would have been an utter tragedy, had I not sketched the carvings on it.’
He opened the back page of the journal, and passed it to Mayne. An inked drawing filled the page, neat, precise, the work of a trained draftsman. But the image was bizarre, different from any other ancient depiction Mayne had seen in the Sudan, almost like something occult. He looked at it with a sapper’s eye. ‘It’s a map, a plan,’ he murmured. ‘Rectilinear interlocking lines of communication, perhaps trenches or tunnels. They all seem to originate from one opening at the bottom, like a maze, a labyrinth.’