Avenging Khartoum
By Roger Kean
()
About this ebook
1896—In the heart of Sudan, the Mahdiya’s cruel dictatorship faces final retribution. As the British and Egyptian armies under general Kitchener mount a massive campaign to free Khartoum from the fanatic Dervish forces, one young man promises his dying mother to set out and seek the truth of his long-lost father’s fate. Did he die in battle against the Mahdi’s frenzied hordes in 1883? Or did he escape and survive against all odds? Sixteen-year-old Gregory Hilliard stakes his life on discovering the truth.
In his quest, he’s helped by his loyal friend Zaki and two British captains working for the Intelligence department—Edgar and Rupert Clinton. Born and raised in Egypt, fluent in native languages, Gregory is pitched into the heat of war as interpreter for the British command, and through battle and peril unravels a tragic and life-enhancing mystery with its roots in far away England.
Sequel to “Storm over Khartoum”
Roger Kean
Roger Michael Kean spent his childhood in Nigeria, West Africa then survived (just) a British boarding school. He studied fine art and film technique (he edited TV sports films for a decade) before accidentally dropping into magazine and, eventually, book publishing. After the African experience, he has travelled widely for exploration as well as relaxation. In the mid-1980s, he was co-founder of a magazine publishing company which launched some of Britain’s most successful computer games periodicals, including CRASH and ZZAP!64. Since then he has edited books on subjects ranging from computer games, popular music, sports and history, including "The Complete Chronicle of the Emperors of Rome", with links to the original illustrations at the Recklessbooks.co.uk website. In addition to the titles shown here, Kean has also written, under the name of Zack, his artist-partner, the paperback "Boys of Vice City" and "Boys of Disco City", available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon. The third in the series, "Boys of Two Cities" is out in November 2012.
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Avenging Khartoum - Roger Kean
SMASHWORDS EDITION
© 2012 Roger M. Kean
Roger M. Kean has asserted his right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
The ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
Reckless Books
Ludlow, Shropshire SY8 1QS, GB
Cover design: Oliver Frey / oliverfreyart.com
Read the sequel: AVENGING KHARTOUM
Other titles by Roger Kean may be found at Smashwords.com
In Times of Peril
Winning His Spurs
By Sheer Pluck
The Complete Chronicle of the Emperors of Rome: Vol 1
The Complete Chronicle of the Emperors of Rome: Vol 2
Contents
Map of Egypt and the Sudan
Prologue: The Diary
Chapter 1: A Street Arab
Chapter 2: Joining Up
Chapter 3: Into the Sudan
Chapter 4: A Mad Plan
Chapter 5: In the Enemy’s Camp
Chapter 6: A Long Trek Home
Chapter 7: A Fight and a Dash
Chapter 8: A Life Afloat
Chapter 9: A Reckless Rescue
Chapter 10: The Fanatics’ Prisoner
Chapter 11: Atbara and Beyond
Chapter 12: The Infidel Place of Slaughter
Chapter 13: Omdurman
Chapter 14: Aftermath—A Glimmer of Hope
Chapter 15: Evidence of the Fugitive
Chapter 16: A Hakim
Chapter 17: The Truth at Last
Chapter 18: The Incident at Gedaref
Chapter 19: Coming into His Own
Chapter 20: The Final Surrender
Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.
Hillaire Belloc
Prologue: The Diary
Monday, November 10, 1883
It’s five days since the battle—no, I can’t call it a battle. It wasn’t fighting. We faced a massacre. For the Arabs it was a hunt, the prey all herded by expert beaters into the killing ground. The wild yells of the Dervishes, the distressed cries of the wounded, the shocking suddenness of the dead dropping as ball or spear tore life from their bodies, all around us. And blood, everywhere, misting in the super-heated air, splattered uniforms, coated rifle stocks. No Englishmen will ever want to remember what took place here outside El Obeid.
But I, Gregory Hilliard, escaped the slaughter.
We always seriously doubted that Egyptian fellahin could face a powerful army of Dervishes. Even more so those recruited from Urabi’s disbanded troops after we crushed the rebel last year and restored Khedive Tewfik to his throne.
Our British commander, Colonel William Hicks, given the rank of Pasha by the Khedive, expressed his fears too, even as he desperately trained the Egyptians to a better standard than Urabi ever achieved. But he had time against him—and in September it ran out.
The Khedive and the British determined to crush the Mahdi, the crazed prophet who has roused the Sudan to rebellion. In January, the Mahdists captured El Obeid, Egypt’s capital of Kordofan province, and so Hicks Pasha reluctantly followed the orders of Raouf Pasha, the Khartoum governor, and brought his eight thousand poorly trained Egyptian regulars into the desert.
We went with a thousand tribal irregulars and some two thousand camp followers, with supplies for fifty days carried on an immense caravan of five thousand camels. The force also carried four Krupp field guns and six machine guns—much use they were—the terrain reduced their effectiveness dramatically.
As you know, my darling Anne, I was along in the role of interpreter for the thirteen white officers who formed Hicks Pasha’s staff, none of whom spoke any Egyptian Arabic let alone any of the local Sudanese dialects.
We left Khartoum on September 9th and the following day departed the Nile at Duem to strike inland for El Obeid across the waterless wastes of Kordofan. How could we know that few of our soldiers would ever see the Nile again. No more would they greet the ancients’ Ra, rising in the east, the shore of life. Every weary step they took led on toward the setting sun, the west, and the ancients’ place of the dead.
September slipped into November. Evidence of the enemy grew with every day. Skirmishes became frequent, and by the second day of the month, after three days’ incessant fighting, the men were exhausted, worn out, half mad with thirst, and mutinous at being brought into the desert, as they said, to die. So, when the Dervishes stopped feinting and charged us in a mass the defense was feeble.
In an instant, the Arabs crashed like a breaking wave on the front face of our defensive square in overwhelming numbers. They swept us away like chaff before the wind. The other sides of the square turned inward at this disaster and let loose a death-dealing fusillade both on the Dervishes pressing into the square and on each other crossways, fellahin killing fellahin.
The murder was terrible. Hicks Pasha and the few English officers left with him, stood among the tangled mass of wounded, dead, and dying.
I served with the black Sudanese regiment which formed the rear of the square. The white officer in command had fallen ill and returned to Khartoum a few days after we left. As there were no others to spare, Hicks had asked me to take his place, and in this highly aberrant army, an untrained irregular officer seemed no odder than a desert mirage.
As long as the other two sides of the square stood firm, so did I—but under the relentless pressure they soon gave way. I saw Hicks, with his staff, charge into the middle of the Dervishes and vanish among a forest of spears and muskets. Seeing the battle was lost, I kept my men together and we marched off in disciplined regular order, our only hope of getting free of the bloody massacre.
Two or three times the Dervishes charged us, but in a compact, disciplined square my black Sudanese soldiers’ volleys were fatally accurate. The enemy finally left us alone. They preferred to turn their fiendish hands to the slaughter of the panic-stricken Egyptians, and to grab up the spoils in hands that looked as though they wore scarlet gloves, so bloody was the theft.
We made for the wells of swampy Lake Raab, but the next day were again surrounded and so outnumbered that, after half our number had fallen, I accepted terms from a Dervish emir. I called out that we would give an answer in the morning, which bought me time to think things through. The surviving black Sudanese would have to swear loyalty to the Mahdi and wear his badge, but it was obvious that as a white man and a Christian I would be executed on the spot, and my head would join the others of the Pasha’s army at the feet of the Mahdi.
The explanation of how I managed to escape must wait for another day. People are coming, and I can’t be seen writing. I don’t suppose this diary—which I’ll try to keep up as circumstances allow—will ever be read. The odds seem to be stacked against that ever happening. Still, there’s a possibility that it could fall into the hands of one of my countrymen when—as is bound to be the case—the Mahdi’s rebellion is finally crushed and order restored.
In that hope I intend, as long as I live, to write down what happens to me, in order that my wife, Anne, and my little son may possibly, someday, get to know what fate had in store for Gregory Hilliard, once—in another country and another time—known by the noble family name of Hartley. To this end, I beg you, good finder, to send this and any other scraps of paper that may accompany it to Mrs. Hilliard, care of the Cairo branch manager of the Anglo-Egyptian Bank.
It may be that this, my first time of writing, may also be my last so before anything else, I send to you, Anne, my heart’s love. My last thoughts will be for you and our baby son. I can only hope that you followed the instructions I gave you before leaving Cairo…or that events have proved kinder.
If you’re reading this now, dear Anne, you’ll already know that I can know nothing of these things.
Chapter 1: A Street Arab
Cairo—city of extremes. Fine, three-story houses of lovely proportions, with their elegant balconies, overlooked run-down, tottery apartments; fine jewelers crowded flea-bitten junk stalls; cheap bibiteria sat cheek by jowl with quality dining to exotic Lebanese music or Nubian pipes.
To the fine-boned black Nubian woman hurrying along Sharia Gohan el Qaid the bustling surroundings were too familiar to be of much interest. She held the hand of a young white boy of not more than four years, who gamely struggled with rapid steps to match her strides.
Swerving and dodging, the mismatched couple plowed a fast course through Egyptians, Greeks, Turks, Berbers, Jews, Arabs, and other dark-skinned Nubians from the Sudan. They passed a Turkish functionary, his proud colonial status declared in neat blue uniform and red fez. Threaded between portly merchants in oriental robes, Arabs muffled in cotton cloths with turban and burnous, lightly-clad fellahin, the humble farmers of the Nile canals, and women shrouded in dark blue cottons, their faces almost entirely hidden behind veils. All swirled in a blaze of color through the dusty sunbeams.
A string of loaded camels swayed out of a narrow side street from under the shadow of the Ashraf Barsbay Mosque, which towered over the chaos in the streets between Bab el Futuh and Bab Zuwaila.
Nabila! Must we go so fast?
The little boy’s thin voice piped up through the noise, but the black woman holding his hand shook her head impatiently and only answered with an imperative tug. Although pale of skin, the boy spoke in the Afro-Arabic dialect of the Sudan.
At that moment four porters carrying a heavy load suspended from thick bamboo poles resting on their shoulders, dashed out of a side street as though to cut across the crowded Sharia Gohan el Qaid to disappear down a sloping street on the other side. They misjudged and crashed headlong into a donkey. The merchant, perched on his high saddle, looked far more capable of carrying the donkey than the other way around. The poor beast, grazed by a sharp pole, gave vent to a hollow bark and slipped on the cobbles.
Furry gray limbs collapsed in a flurry, poles tumbled, men flew. Knocked sideways, Nabila’s grip on her charge slipped. She screamed, convinced the boy had been crushed. As a fascinated throng gathered around the disaster, Nabila found herself pulled upright by a young white soldier. Her immediate fear was for her tiny charge, but with relief she saw the boy held securely against the soldier’s blue and gold-banded Hussar uniform.
From across the street another white person rushed. Anne Hilliard had been giving lessons in a house across the Qaid. From the shuttered balcony of the rich lady’s house both pupil and teacher had seen the terrible accident overwhelm the Nubian and the child.
* * *
My God Nabila! Are you all right?
But Anne’s main concern was for her son gathered in the soldier’s arms.
The young man gave her a bright grin then turned to the boy. He’s fine, aren’t you?
The child nodded.
What’s your name, then?
Gregory. What’s yours, please sir?
Me? Oh, I’m no one important, just a trooper. Trumpeter Edward Smith at your service, Mrs.…
He turned toward Anne as he lowered the child to the ground.
Mrs. Hilliard, Mr. Smith. Thank you for rescuing my son.
The young man—Anne had already noted that he was hardly that, more a slip of a boy—smiled broadly. On the other hand, he sported a fresh scar across his cheek, the only blemish on his sun-bronzed skin. The smile revealed fine white teeth, his hazel eyes twinkled in the sun.
He indicated the chaos behind them. The porters and merchant hurled insults at each other and made no effort to clear the street. I’m glad I was here to help another European.
Have you been long in Cairo?
Since January. My outfit saw action at El Teb and Tamai on the Red Sea at Suakin.
He fingered the scar. Got this at El Teb. Now we’re stuck here, while everything goes to pot down south. It’s frustrating. They’re sending units from everywhere, except those of us already here, to relieve Khartoum and avenge Hicks Pasha… I’m sorry?
Smith fell silent as he saw her distress.
Anne recovered herself with a shake of the head and tried handing her son over to the Nubian governess, but Nabila, far from upset by her close escape, had joined the shouting match behind them.
You mustn’t worry, Mr. Smith. It’s just that my husband went with Colonel Hicks and…
Oh, I’m sorry.
Smith looked stricken, and suddenly very young.
I was hoping…well it’s probably silly, but, I was hoping that with this new expedition to relieve the siege at of Khartoum I might hear something of Gregory—my husband, the same name as my boy’s—for I’m sure in my heart that he escaped at El Obeid. He was fluent in Arabic, you see, and he was not a front-line man. I just know he got away.
She looked up at the soldier. I feel it here, in my heart. I would know if he were dead… Oh, I am sorry, I’m babbling.
I wish I were going up the river.
He looked earnest as he politely ignored her embarrassment. I would try to find out what I could for you—and for your son. I—I know what it’s like to lose a father.
He looked wistfully into the distance.
Anne pulled herself together. She turned to call Nabila to order and saw Gregory staring in obvious admiration at the soldier who had saved him.
Mr. Smith, here is my card. We live very simply, but if you should find yourself out of barracks and at a loss, please feel free to call, so I may repay your kindness with at least a glass of English tea.
The young man thanked her and turn away with a wave at Gregory, whose face split in a wide smile.
Bye bye Trumpeter Smith!
* * *
The intervening months had been hard on Anne Hilliard. Once it became clear that the Mahdists had wiped out Hicks Pasha’s army, the Egyptian government handed out pensions to the British wives according to their husbands’ rank. As the wife of a captain and interpreter, Anne received only a small one, barely sufficient for them live on. One by one, the other ladies returned to Britain but Anne stayed, convinced Gregory had escaped in the disguise he had mentioned in his last note.
In a few days, my dearest, the decisive battle will take place, and although it will be a tough fight, none of us has any fear of the result. In the unlikely event of defeat, I equipped myself with an Arab burnous and may hope to escape. However, I’ve little fear that it will come to that. Take care of yourself, and the boy!
In her hope that he still lived she would have preferred to refuse the pension, but it was necessary for little Gregory’s sake, especially as she had no intention of throwing herself on the mercy of her miserable in-laws in England—not, at least, until she had absolute proof of her husband’s death. But Anne needed more than the pension to bring up Gregory in the educated and well-mannered way she knew his father would wish for his son.
In this, Anne met with good fortune. She had asked Lady Hicks, before the pasha’s widow left for England, to mention to the Egyptian ladies with whom she had regularly socialized, that Mrs. Hilliard would be glad to give lessons in English, French, or music.
The idea proved a huge success. Within days she had several wealthy ladies as pupils. Laughter accompanied many lessons, which helped lighten Anne’s hopeful but anxious spirit. Soon, she regularly earned enough to rent a spacious apartment close by the Garden City, where she opened a school for the young boys and girls of good homes. The boys came first thing in the morning, brought to her lodgings by servants. At eleven o’clock she taught the girls. The extra income allowed her to employ Nabila to look after Gregory, and Abina, another Nubian girl, as a maid. Often, when giving one of her Egyptian ladies a lesson in the afternoon, Anne had Nabila bring Gregory to visit her pupil and for the little boy to enjoy a fruit sherbet. It was on such an occasion in late July of ’84 that the street accident occurred in which the young English soldier Mr. Smith rescued her boy.
Anne reflected on the young man’s words—rather well-spoken for a mere, undoubtedly poorly educated, trooper. His mention of the Nile campaign he so wanted to be a part of dared her to hope she might hear something of her husband.
* * *
General Gordon had gone upriver early in the year as governor at Khartoum. The town’s inhabitants, who loved him for his period of duty some years previously, hailed his arrival, but it soon became evident that, unless aided by England with something more than words, Khartoum must finally fall to the Mahdi.
When help would have meant the most, the British government at first refused Gordon’s requests. In May, public indignation at Prime Minister Gladstone’s desertion of a British hero set in motion the preparations for his rescue. But it was December before the leading regiment arrived at Metemma, far up the Nile. An advance party went on in two steamers which Gordon had sent down to meet them, but only arrived near the town to hear that they were too late. Khartoum had fallen. Gordon lay murdered. The army hurried back to Egypt. The triumphant Mahdists occupied Dongola and pushed north toward Wadi Halfa. As they conquered, they shouted the Mahdi’s boast to invade Egypt itself and take Cairo.
The expedition’s failure utterly devastated Anne’s hopes. She’d prayed that, with Khartoum’s relief, some prisoners might know something of the British officers’ fates at El Obeid. She clung to the notion inspired by her husband’s last note that he had escaped in disguise and, fluent in Arabic, even now hid out among friendly tribesmen.
And she heard a depressing bit of news, which leaked from the barracks. That nice young man, Trooper Smith, had been granted his wish to accompany the expedition as a trumpeter in the Heavy Camel Corps. He had become something of a mascot to the men and they greatly mourned his loss, feared killed by the Dervishes.
Anne was not given to feeling sorry for herself, but there were dark days when she cursed Egypt, even though she knew how much she owed it. England held unpleasant secrets, which affected her darling son, but which she could not reveal to him. Not yet, at any rate. Even now, after the years, her eyes pricked at the thought of the cruel way her husband’s family had treated him.
The second son of the Honourable James Hartley, brother to the Earl of Langdale, Gregory Hilliard Hartley set out for Egypt after he left Cambridge. He went with an archaeologist of his father’s acquaintance. Gregory’s intention—to stay for a couple of months—went by the board when he quickly became infected by his professorial companion’s enthusiasm. He remained in Egypt for two years. A natural linguist, he quickly picked up the Egyptian form of Arabic as well as a few of the southern dialects from the fellahin who worked the archaeological sites.
When the professor, stricken by a fever, died Gregory returned home. Within months, he fell in love with Anne Forsythe, governess to the children of a neighboring family, and she was as quick to return his feelings. His father James, however, went incandescent when his younger son spoke of his intentions. Anne recalled the reported battle.
She’s beneath your position. It’s damned monstrous after the education you’ve enjoyed. I have a position to uphold in society, and so do you, you blackguard! If I survive your uncle, I will become the Earl. If I don’t, your brother will. How dare you think of placing me, or Geoffrey, in such a scandalous position. That you should dream of throwing yourself away in this manner. You will make a good marriage to a suitable lady of taste, wealth, and influence. And that’s my final word.
James Hartley puffed expansively in his temper. You know I’m not a rich man. Geoffrey’s tastes are expensive…and what with his education, and yours, and the allowances I’ve made you both, it’s as much as I’ve been able to do to keep up our standing in society. And there are your two sisters—
But mother’s settlement provided for Vera and Susan—
Don’t interrupt me, you cur! The idea of your falling for this young strumpet’s whiles is monstrous.
Young lady, Father. She is a clergyman’s daughter.
By this time, Gregory’s father was beetroot red in the face and spluttering. I won’t hear of such a thing, I will not hear of it for a moment, and if you persist in this madness, I tell you now that I won’t have anything more to do with you! That’s your choice: my wishes, or get cut off for this penniless beggar.
And they hadn’t spoken or crossed paths since.
Gregory Hartley married the girl of his choice, in spite of her protests at his sacrifice for her sake. Their quiet marriage in the poor suburb of Pimlico went unremarked in any of the society columns. Not even Gregory’s older brother Geoffrey attended the brief ceremony.
Events then conspired to bring them to Egypt. Gregory’s avowed intention to earn a living as a writer faltered in the face of competition in an overcrowded market, and they were soon almost penniless. Then Anne’s persistent cough turned nasty and Gregory had to draw on his scanty reserves to consult a specialist. The doctor diagnosed tuberculosis; the prognosis: not good, unless Gregory removed her to a much warmer climate. With his fluency in Arab tongues Egypt seemed the obvious answer, even if it meant working as a lowly clerk in Alexandria.
His sense of responsibility to his family name infuriated Anne, but in the end she saw his point that dropping his surname of Hartley would save his father and his brother Geoffrey the embarrassment in society of having one of their own employed as nothing more than a poor clerk in trade. So he signed on with Partridge & Company as plain Gregory Hilliard. He told Anne, All I have to remember in future is to stop my signature at the end of ‘Hilliard.’
And so early in the summer of 1880, the Hilliards arrived by P&O steamer in Alexandria. Within two months Anne became pregnant and within another two Gregory had established himself as a valuable employee of Partridge. Little Gregory came along in due course, born at a crucial moment when Egypt teetered on the edge of civil war.
The Egyptian army, inflamed by the outspoken nationalist Urabi Pasha, rebelled against the Khedive, his Ottoman Turk overlords, and the interference in Egyptian affairs of France and Britain. With so many interests to protect, on May 20th, 1882, a powerful British fleet anchored off Alexandria. Urabi’s forces manned the sea defenses and the British bombardment began in July.
Anne shuddered at the horrors that followed. But while hundreds of natives and Europeans had been robbed of their lives before British troops landed, the little Hilliard family survived. Everything in Alexandria had been smashed, and with the businesses all closed, Anne asked the obvious question.
How will we live?
Gregory pondered. "I’m entitled to three months’ notice pay, that will keep us, but in the meantime there should be work for men who speak the native language as labor overseers. Now that Urabi is defeated and peace returned, the army commissariat will want men like me and I know several officers through my work in the port and being at Partridge’s.
What about the army itself?
It’s an idea. I’m sure I could get employment as a quartermaster or in the transport…but…I’d be worried about running into someone I knew at school, or at Cambridge, or since then. As Gregory Hilliard, I don’t mind carrying a parcel or helping to load a cart, but I wouldn’t like, as Gregory Hilliard Hartley, to be seen doing that sort of thing. It’s not me I’m thinking of, it wouldn’t be fair to Geoffrey.
Damn Geoffrey! He doesn’t care about you.
Anne sighed more in resignation than annoyance. Then she brightened. How about the Egyptian army? I know it’s in tatters right now, but won’t it be reformed now this rebellion is over?
And she was right. Colonel William Hicks arrived to take command of the regenerated force, and Gregory found employment as an interpreter. And so in 1883 he set off with the Egyptian army for Khartoum.
The goodbyes at Cairo station were the last she and infant Gregory saw of him.
* * *
After the loss of Khartoum and the Sudan, an Egyptian army, under the command of British officers checked the northern advance of the Mahdists to about half way between Dongola and Wadi Halfa, which restored confidence among the Egyptians. The death of the Mahdi, barely six months after Gordon’s murder, resulted in a pause in Dervish attacks as Khalifa Abdullahi ibn Muhammad fought a vicious civil war against two rivals, which left him the Mahdi’s successor.
So years went by. Things were quiet in Egypt.
* * *
Little Gregory grew into a sturdy young teenager, handsome like his father, Anne told every one of her lady pupils. In this, Gregory had little to measure himself against except for a photograph of his father which stood on a sideboard. Since early childhood, as soon as he grew tall enough to reach it down, he’d studied the monochrome hues to seek an answer to the mystery which hung over the household. All his friends—except the Ja’alin boy Zaki—had fathers and it set him apart that he didn’t. His mother repeated often that his father was a hero, but there seemed little point to it if he wasn’t around. A natural reticence stopped him boasting of his father’s mysteriously heroic status to his friends, even if stung to do so when they teased him about it.
He picked up the photo frame often to trace a finger over the line of neatly cropped dark hair. The face looked taller than his own, but he imagined that his would become leaner in time. Making a comparison in the mirror, he saw