The Grand Shariff Ghalid, addressing him as a brother, expressed warm friendship, and the utmost satisfaction at the arrival of the expeditionary force, but explained in terms of sweet reasonableness that he dared not declare war on the Wahabis, nor withdraw any troops from his garrisons at Mecca and Jiddah until Tussun Pasha had had at least one success against the Wahabis in battle. If he were to do so, Ghalid pointed out, the Wahabis would immediately reoccupy Mecca and the southern Hijaz, which would leave Tussun himself disastrously isolated.
“We have two thousand cavalry and more than twice as many infantry — What if we go for Mecca or Jiddah in spite of him?” Tussun had just demanded of the council, as he had demanded it of Thomas the day before; and had received from ibn Hussein the same answer as he had already received from Thomas: “Sir, if you do that thing, the Grand Shariff and his forces will fall back into his late alliance with the Wahabis, and you will indeed be left isolated in enemy territory.”
It was that that had caused the silence.
Tussun broke it with an abrupt change of position, shifting his weight from one ham to the other, and flinging an arm over the camel saddle behind him. “You are right of course, Zeid ibn Hussein, it is a bad habit you have. Fortunately it seems that at least the thing faces both ways.” He flung up a hand in a summoning gesture, and a tall desert Arab caked with journey dust stepped forward from the shadows where he had been standing among the scouts and junior officers.
“Tho’mas,” said Tussun, whose own Arabic was some-what scanty, “bid this man repeat to our brothers of the council what he has already told me earlier this day.”
Thomas passed on the order, and the man bent his head for an instant over his joined hands in token of acquiescence. “Sir, I come to you in the name of the merchant Zeid Muhammed el Marouki my master, he that has long been friend to His Most Honoured Highness the Viceroy your Father. I bring you word that the Grand Shariff is in truth no more eager to ally himself openly with the Wahabis” — the man spat precisely into the glowing embers of the coffee hearth — “than with the armies of Egypt. He has replied to a summons from the Prince Saud ibn Saud their leader, that he can make no move openly to help the Wahabis” — again the exhibition of precision spitting — “at this time, lest the Egyptian soldiers should seize Jiddah and Egyptian ships blockade the town.”
“How do you know this?”
“The clerk who took down the letter is a man of ours.”
“So,” Tussun said, “it seems clear that the Shariff and his followers will remain neutral until they see the outcome of the first battle.”
“In the words of my birth-people,” Thomas said, “he is sitting on the fence.”
He used the term for a tribal boundary; and a breath of mingled anger and amusement ruffled through the men in the commander’s tent.
But the Grand Shariff’s letter was not the only one lying beside the coffee hearth. Tussun’s second act on arrival had been to send out a call to arms in the name of the Sultan to the sheikhs of the Beni Jehaine and the Beni Harb, the two great tribes whose territories lay between Yembo and Medina, most of whom had promised the Viceroy’s emissaries over the past two years (in exchange for considerable gifts of Maria Theresa dollars) to give their aid and support to the Egyptian forces when they came. The Viceroy, though by no means of a trusting disposition, had been inclined to believe that at any rate some branches of the two tribes would honour their bargain and come in to earn their purchase money. And over the past few days, by messenger speaking word-of-mouth or by clerk-written letter, their response, the justification or otherwise of the Viceroy’s belief, had been coming in.
Tussun, acting on private advice from both Thomas and Zeid ibn Hussein, had waited until it seemed that there was nothing more to wait for, and then called the war council.
Only one of the Beni Harb sheikhs had sent a reply in any form, and that a very non-committal one, pleading his nearness to the Wahabi borders and sickness among his camels; but the sheikhs of the Beni Jehaine, it seemed, were made of sterner stuff; several of them had combined to send inviting Tussun Pasha to meet them in Council at Yembo el Nakhl, a day’s march inland from Yembo Port, and promising the support of most of the tribe.
When all had been laid before the council a great deal of talk followed. Thomas wondered, not for the first time, if he should ever get used to the sheer amount of words, convolutions and arabesques of words, high-pitched discussion, with long pauses for the hookah or more coffee, long and flowery compliments and devout calls upon Allah or his Prophet, that his adopted world appeared to need in order to get anything decided.
It seemed to him that there was very little to discuss. They could not remain where they were, holed up in Yembo, much longer. That would look like irresolution, even fear of the Wahabis, and would be the surest way of losing their potential allies. They could not advance on Mecca or Jiddah without, as he had warned Tussun, throwing the Grand Shariff back into alliance with the enemy. Their remaining option was to march on Medina, the only city of the Hijaz with a large Wahabi garrison. It was not, he had gathered, the normal policy of Saud ibn Saud to establish garrisons of his own men in his conquered and vassal cities, but rather to leave the task to their sheikhs; but he had made an exception in the case of Medina, partly because of the strategic importance of its position across the caravan routes, and partly because it seemed the citizens were particularly stubborn in their attempts to follow their own old forbidden ways, even to the lavish decorations of the Prophet’s tomb.
To take Medina, the second of the Holy Cities, would harm or enrage no one but the Wahabis, and would bring over the warrior tribes throughout the Hijaz. Looking further ahead, it would either provide a forward base for an attack on Najd, or provoke ibn Saud into risking a pitched battle with the Egyptian army at a time and place not of his own choosing.
He listened, putting in a word of his own from time to time, until at last, many words and many little brass cups of coffee later, the war council had reached much the same conclusion.
“So, then,” Tussun finally wound the matter up, “it is agreed that we shall march on Medina; and since the road runs through Beni Jehaine country, we shall first accept the invitation of the sheikhs, which will give us a chance to scout out the land at the same time. It is agreed also that Ibrahim Agha shall accompany me with part of the cavalry, to make an impression, whilst the foot and the rest of the cavalry remain here waiting further orders.”
‘For better or worse, then,’ Thomas thought, ‘we are on our way.’
18
Some days later, Thomas was sitting in much the same position in the commander’s tent, playing a rather more active part in another council. But the view spread beyond the tent opening was not the walls of Yembo Port and the transports at anchor in the harbour under the ancient guns, but the feathery date palms about Yembo el Nakhl, the melon fields, and the white huddle of the oasis village about the upward-pointing finger of its minaret; and opposite to where he sat beside Tussun, on the guest’s side of the coffee hearth, sat the Beni Jehaine sheikhs, headed by Sheikh Muhammed their leader and spokesman. They were all clad in magnificent abbas of scarlet silk, and nursed fine new gold-mounted swords.
The Viceroy’s son with his backing of Arab cavalry had ridden in the night before, to be courteously welcomed and royally if barbarously feasted. But Tussun had decided that the ceremonial gifts should be made at the start of the council rather than at the arrival feast, putting it to his officers that there would be friendly feeling and to spare at the feasting, and it was in the clear light of morning, when the hard talking started, that extra warmth and friendliness might well be needed.
The commander was certainly gaining in wisdom, Thomas thought.
The gifts had been chosen in Cairo, with tact in the case of the swords, which were of the Arab and not the Turkish pattern; with something much more in the case of the ceremonial abbas, for since the Wahabis had strictly forbidden the wearing of s
ilk or any kind of gold ornamentation, public acceptance of these must signify public repudiation of the Wahabi ruling. It had been a calculated gamble, and the gift ceremony had provided a sharply interesting few minutes. But neither Sheikh Muhammed nor his brethren had made any show of hesitation in accepting the silken robes and instantly putting them on over their camel-hair abbas.
But the crowning glory of the gift ceremony (el Marouki’s scouts had reported well and in detail) was the extra gift for Sheikh Muhammed himself of a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. The old man had accepted them with delight, sending for his own copy of the Koran that he might put them instantly to the test. “I see! I see! This is most wonderful! Allah is good!” he had exclaimed, and now sat peering out through them from among the folds of his head cloth like some large-eyed small desert creature peering out from its hole.
Thomas wondered whether he would sleep in them, and felt a glow of sympathetic warmth towards him. It must be sad to grow old and not be able to read one’s Koran, nor see clearly the evening light on the desert, or the faces of friend or enemy.
But the cardamom-scented coffee was making its first round, the return gift-making was over; a superb pair of salukis for Tussun, which would doubtless gravitate to Zeid, weapons, embroidered saddles; for himself a very fine silver watch, Edinburgh-made as were most of the best watches of the day, though the maker’s name on it was not his father’s. It was stopped, and he did not try to wind it up, having a feeling that there was probably sand in the movement. Well, he would be able to deal with that later. The talking was at last about to start.
Tussun, with the air of a grey-bearded elder, began it by announcing his plan of marching on Medina and by Allah’s Grace freeing the second Holy City from its oppressors.
The Beni Jehaine sheikhs greeted the plan warmly, bending their heads in agreement.
“That indeed makes sweet hearing,” said one.
“By the beard of the Prophet, a true warrior’s plan,” said another.
“Surely Allah the All Powerful will aid you in so pious a venture!”
But the question of the moment was whether the Beni Jehaine would, Thomas thought.
There followed five hours of gruelling discussion, while he lent every atom of ability he possessed to the task of helping Tussun bring the sheikhs down out of the clouds of pious platitudes to actual details of the resistance likely to be met with, the best routes, the maintenance of supplies, and, above all, the help and support to be expected from the Beni Jehaine themselves.
Maps made by the cartographers of Alexandria were compared with maps drawn in the sand by two of the sheikhs, and found to be virtually useless, because the distances were marked in kilometres, whereas the Bedouin had no measure of distance other than the camel-march. Thomas amended the maps, with much advice, some of it contradictory, substituting days and half days of camel marching.
A great deal of information emerged about the Beni Harb, the largest tribal confederacy in the Hijaz, whose clans dominated the main route from Yembo el Nakhl to Medina; and Thomas took careful notes. The Jehaine sheikhs seemed to have as great a gift for gossip as Leith fisher wives. He hoped they were as given to exaggeration. He could scarcely believe that the Beni Harb could put thirty thousand foot fighters armed with matchlocks in the field, even though their horsemen numbered only a few hundred; but one could only assume that the numbers were correct; and with a tightening of the stomach, he noted them down. Fortunately, it seemed that, for one reason and another, they would be most unlikely to have the whole fighting strength of the Beni Harb as well as the Wahabi war host on their hands at the same time. Partly to make sure that he had got that straight, and partly for the benefit of Tussun with his somewhat sketchy Arabic, when the end seemed to have been reached, he recapitulated from his notes the enemy forces which probably would contest their advance, and the alternative long-term outcome of those encountered.
“From Badr to Jedaida and the pass northward, we may meet two clans, the Beni Sobh and the Beni Salen, combined forces five thousand matchlocks; first class fighting men. If we can overcome them quickly, probably no more trouble from the Beni Harb until we have dealt with the garrison at Medina. If, however, we are held up for more than a few days by Beni Sobh or Beni Salen, they could well be joined by others of the confederacy, another seven thousand foot, maybe, and several hundred horse …”
Dark attentive faces bent forward in agreement.
“Also, if we reach Medina but are then held up by a long siege, Saud ibn Saud may well send a relief force from the Najd, joined by as many as fifteen thousand men of the Beni Harb clans to cut off our retreat —”
“Who talks of retreat?” Tussun said quickly and at half breath, in the French tongue.
“No one. But it is a possibility which in any advance, must needs be considered.”
Sheikh Muhammed clearly understood the drift of this though the tongue was unknown to him. He stroked his beard, smiling benignly through his new spectacles. “You have grasped the hilt and the haft of the problem, Ibrahim Agha. On the one hand the Turks” (Thomas was growing used to the fact that among the Tribes the whole Egyptian army, Bedouin, Albanian, Turkish and all else, were known as Turks) “on the one hand the Turks will face annihilation if held back for any length of time at Jedaida or outside the Holy City. On the other hand if you reach and take Medina without delay, the matter will be as different as the desert before and after the autumn rains, for almost all the clans of the Beni Harb will abandon the black standards of Saud ibn Saud and rally to yours, Tussun Pasha.”
It had been done so skilfully that it was impossible to say at what point the old sheikh had ceased to address Thomas, the man who knew what he was talking about, and began addressing Tussun, the commander-in-chief.
“Say then, most honourable son of a mighty father, now that we have laid bare the bitter with the sweet, is it still in your head to advance against so great odds?”
Tussun sat for a few moments unanswering, his gaze turned down to his own sword-hand; and as the silence lengthened, Thomas grew afraid that the boy had not fully understood, or could not frame in Arabic the reply that must be given. But there was nothing he could do to help. The question had been shot directly at Tussun, as the commander, and nobody but the commander could answer it.
Then Tussun looked up. He spoke in slow and careful Arabic with the usual strong Albanian accent, and the warrior note in his voice was plain to hear. “When the followers of the Prophet, peace be to Him, first set foot in Egypt, were they not fewer than four thousand against five times that number? We are marching to free the Prophet’s beloved city from oppression and desecration. Can we doubt that Allah will look with favour on our cause? And if the All Powerful be with us, shall we fear and can we fail?”
Loud and courteous exclamations of approval greeted his words, and the old sheikh agreed, “Truly we believe that Allah goes with you in your high endeavours, and that in His strength you will succeed.”
“And with the help of the Beni Jehaine His loyal and valiant servants,” Tussun added. “That is a matter that we have yet to speak of.”
The silence which followed was broken by the sound of horses whinnying impatiently near by, and the old sheikh gestured toward the sound with a hand like a withered terebinth root. “That is a true word. Yet it is not wise to press forward over hastily, speaking of too many weighty matters in one day; and Allah the All Merciful sends to remind us in the voice of Rani, his servant, that we are to have — did your Honour not promise it — a display of Western cavalry skills in the cool of the day. Alas, I grow old, and weary, and must rest a while to make ready for such delights. So — we have talked enough for one day of warlike things; now we will rest, and make light our hearts with the beauty of horsemanship, and with feasting afterward; and tomorrow we will return to our council, refreshed as by the autumn rains.” And on that note the council broke up until the following morning.
“All that talk!” Tussun exploded un
der his breath to Thomas, as they went down to the makeshift maidan below the village, to make sure that all was in hand and going forward for the evening’s cavalry display. “And not one word yet of the thing we came to talk about! Wasted — all wasted! We might as well have gone hawking!”
“Oh I don’t know,” Thomas said. “We have cleared a lot of ground ready for tomorrow’s talking. I should judge that by Hijazi standards we have made a surprising amount of progress.”
Tussun gave an angry splutter of laughter. “How can you be so patient? The Turks are slow enough, but that is generally because they hope that if they drag any matter out long enough, gold, or power, will come into their hands thereby. That is a thing that all can understand. These desert Arabs seem to drag things out simply for the sake of the dragging.”
“Oh they do,” Thomas agreed. “It is a delicate art. To rush forward with unseemly haste into the making of decisions in the Western way is uncouth. Had you not realised? Time is different for the desert people, too, and decisions often are not of their own making. You come to a well, and if the water lasts you may camp there from one full moon to the next. If the water gives out you load up the camels and move on next morning. No good making any decision in advance, and no knowing what is to be until the water runs out or the moon changes.”
Tussun looked at him sideways, as they walked. “You sound as though you were of the Bedouin yourself.”
“I had more than cavalry training in my first frontier months,” Thomas said. “The Bedouin are my second people. It is simple.”
They had reached the place where the horses were being made ready, in what little shade a skein of date palms afforded, for the well-rehearsed display. Thomas’s own mare advanced a velvet muzzle with gently working lips, and he pulled out the crust of sugar-bread he always carried for her in the breast of his thobe. “Hai-Mai, greedy one — Heart’s delight, lend me your skill this evening.”