The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [5]
Emerson lowered the newspaper, and flinched at finding my face only inches from his. “Kitchener,” he said, “has taken Berber.”
It is inconceivable to me that future generations will fail to realize the vital importance of the study of history, or that Britons will be ignorant of one of the most remarkable chapters in the development of their empire. Yet stranger things have happened; and in the event of such a catastrophe (for I would call it nothing less), I beg leave of my Readers to remind them of facts that should be as familiar to them as they are to me.
In 1884, when I made my first visit to Egypt, most English persons persisted in regarding the Mahdi as only another ragged religious fanatic, despite the fact that his followers had already overrun half the Sudan. This country, encompassing the region from the rocky cataracts of Assouan to the jungles south of the junction of the Blue and White Niles, had been conquered by Egypt in 1821. The Pashas, who were not Egyptians at all but descendants of an Albanian adventurer, had proceeded to rule the region even more corruptly and inefficiently than they did Egypt itself. The benevolent intervention of the great powers (especially Britain) rescued Egypt from disaster, but matters continued to worsen in the Sudan until Mohammed Ahmed Ibn el-Sayyid Abdullah proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the reincarnation of the Prophet, and rallied the forces of rebellion against Egyptian tyranny and misrule. His followers believed he was the descendant of a line of sheikhs; his enemies sneered at him as a poor ignorant boat-builder. Whatever his origins, he possessed an extraordinarily magnetic personality and a remarkable gift of oratory. Armed only with sticks and spears, his ragtag troops had swept all before them and were threatening the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.
Against the figure of the Mahdi stands that of the heroic General Gordon. Early in 1884 he had been sent to Khartoum to arrange for the withdrawal of the troops garrisoned there and in the nearby fort of Omdurman. There was a good deal of public feeling against this decision, for abandoning Khartoum meant giving up the entire Sudan. Gordon was accused, then and later, of never meaning to comply with his orders; whatever his reasons for delaying the withdrawal, he did just that. By the autumn of 1884, when I arrived in Egypt, Khartoum was besieged by the wild hordes of the Mahdi, and all the surrounding country, to the very borders of Egypt, was in rebel hands.
The gallant Gordon held Khartoum, and British public opinion, led by the Queen herself, demanded his rescue. An expedition was finally sent but it did not reach the beleaguered city until February of the following year—three days after Khartoum fell and the gallant Gordon was cut down in the courtyard of his house. “Too late!” was the agonized cry of Britannia! Ironically, the Mahdi survived his great foe by less than six months, but his place was taken by one of his lieutenants, the Khalifa Abdullah el-Taashi, who ruled even more tyrannically than his master. For over a decade the land had groaned under his cruelties, while the British lion licked its wounds and refused to avenge the fallen hero.
The reasons, political, economic and military, that led to a decision to reconquer the Sudan are too complex to discuss here. Suffice it to say that the campaign had begun in 1896 and that by the autumn of the following year our forces were advancing on the Fourth Cataract under the gallant Kitchener, who had been named Sirdar of the Egyptian Army.
But what, one might ask, do these world-shaking affairs have to do with the winter plans of a pair of innocent Egyptologists? Alas, I knew the answer only too well, and I sank into a chair beside the desk. “Emerson,” I said. “Emerson. I beg of you. Don’t tell me you want to dig in the Sudan this winter.”
“My dear Peabody!” Emerson flung the newspaper aside and fixed the full power of his brilliant gaze upon me. “You know, none better, that I have wanted to excavate at Napata or Meroë for years. I’d have tackled