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wail of horns and changing gradually to a cacophony of human voices. A few officers were standing outside the zariba, looking like a group of racegoers awaiting the appearance of the field round Tattenham Corner. A man laughed. It was high-pitched and nervous, and a sergeant, equally strained, told him to be quiet. Then an officer galloped up to Dabney’s father, saluted and smiled. ‘They’re coming on beautifully, sir! About two miles away now!’
    The battle they had all been expecting seemed at last to be on them. Dabney glanced at his father again as he peered across the desert. He’d been roughly Dabney’s age when he’d ridden with the Light Brigade at Balaclava. That had been a disaster in the making even before the trumpets had sounded.
    As Dabney turned towards the front again, he saw a white speck appear on top of the ridge.
    ‘There they are!’
    What he was looking at took on the shape of a banner, then he saw another and another, until the whole ridge, a moment before stark and bare, seemed furred along its edge as hundreds of men and hundreds of flags began to line it. The whole ridge to the north was covered by teeming black dots. There was a strange unreality about the scene. The enemy host was marching forward, rank on rank, and it was possible to pick out from the roar of thousands of voices the ceaseless chant of the Mohammedan prayer – La illa Lah Muhammad rasul Allah.
    Glancing behind him, Dabney could see the boats carrying supplies and ammunition deployed along the banks of the Nile with the barges that were to carry the wounded. Kitchener was staring across the sand, his head forward, his pale eyes and squint faintly menacing behind the bull’s horns of his moustache.
    By this time, among the mass of Dervishes, Dabney could see the emblems of the more famous Emirs – the bright green flag of Ali-Wad-Helu; the dark green of Osman-ed-Din; the sacred black banner of the Khalifa himself, heir to the great Mahdi, on its right a vast square of men under an array of white flags. Using his field glasses, he could even pick out the individual leaders themselves, in front of their troops. There were plum-skinned Arabs and yellow men with square bony faces and tightly-ringleted black hair, bent men, straight men, old men, young men, boys even, all advancing together in a cheering excited mob which nevertheless marched quickly and steadily and kept its formation, every single one of them with hatred in his heart and a desire to kill. The sight made his heart thump. These were the men who had killed Gordon and they were inspired by their old victories and embittered by their more recent defeats.
    The Dervish left was beginning now to stretch out towards the Kerreri Hills, the centre moving directly towards Dabney, the right edging to the south. This southern wing, under its hundreds of white flags, decorated by texts from the Koran, was perfect in its formation.
    There was a surprising clarity about the battlefield, every stone and grain of sand sharp in the light, each one with its sun-touched side and its little curve of shadow. But it was silent. No one seemed to speak. Not a gun fired. In the stillness a horse whinnied and a man cleared his throat noisily, nervously, as men did before a race.
    ‘If we don’t win this one,’ someone said – and in the silence his voice was clear and frightening in the implication of his words – ‘then God help us. It’ll be Isandhlwana all over again.’

 
     
Two
     
    The battlefield remained silent. The guns had still not spoken. But the excitement was growing almost too much to bear as they watched the horde of black figures approaching, and there was a murmur and an excited surge forward.
    ‘Stand still,’ an officer snapped. ‘Your turn’ll come!’
    As he spoke, about fifty yards short of the zariba two puffs of red sand lifted into the air as the Dervish artillery opened fire. Immediately, one of the field batteries began to bang away, followed at