David Gibbins - Pharaoh

Jack leaned over and examined the print. ‘The detail on these drawings is astounding. It’s easy to forget the training in draftsmanship and survey these officers had, especially the engineers. This looks good enough to be used for range-finding.’

Costas took the cartridge from Jack and peered at it. ‘So we’ve got a guy up here shooting a Martini-Henry rifle, probably one day in December 1884. Is there a chance he was one of the enemy, the Mahdi’s men? In Afghanistan, the tribesmen were good at getting hold of British rifles from battlefields and by stealing them, and their own gunsmiths were skilled at making copies. I remember seeing a photograph in the news a couple of years ago of a cache of arms seized by US Marines from the Taliban, and as well as old Lee-Enfields there were a couple of Martini-Henrys.’

Jack shook his head. ‘The Sudanese tribesmen hadn’t yet had the opportunity. They’d first encountered the British army less than a year before, and even though the battles were generally bloody stalemates, the British were left in control of the battlefields and were careful not to lose their arms. The Egyptian army as well as the Sudanese irregulars under Gordon were armed with Remington rifles; thousands of these were captured after the first big battle against the Mahdi in late 1883. Some of the Egyptian soldiers spared by the Mahdi, those who promised to convert to his cause, served as musketry instructors and even produced halfway-competent snipers. The Remington took a .43 calibre round, so that would have been a further disincentive to acquiring Martini-Henrys, as they used different ammunition.’

Costas looked at Hiebermeyer. ‘Where exactly did you find this?’

Hiebermeyer straightened up and pointed. ‘About fifty metres to the west, on the edge of the cliff overlooking the river. Let’s go there now.’ Jack and Costas followed him, making their way over the bare sandstone and igneous rock and then through a shallow dusty gully full of dried-up camel dung that led to the cliff. They stopped beside a freshly excavated square about three metres across where the bedrock had been completely exposed, along with the lower courses of a finely constructed masonry wall that blocked off access to the cliff face to the south-west. Hiebermeyer jumped into the trench, moved aside a measuring rod and squatted by the wall, pointing at the worked stone. ‘This is part of the fort complex built by our friend Senusret in the early second millennium BC. It’s the final part of the lookout he ordered constructed on either side of the cataract. There were further outposts to the south, as we saw in that papyrus dispatch, but I think a veil of mist rose above that torrent in the river and beyond was a land of darkness, a place they feared.’

‘The British in the river column must have begun to feel the same,’ Jack said. ‘This was their biggest obstacle so far, and everything ahead must have seemed almost insurmountable. They hadn’t experienced battle yet, but they’d begun to encounter the odd dervish sharpshooter.’

‘You’ll be interested to see where I found the cartridge.’ Hiebermeyer vaulted out of the trench and on to the ancient wall, and then disappeared over the other side only a few metres from the cliff edge. The other two followed and joined him in a pit about four metres across and two metres deep in the centre, eroded around the sides but clearly man-made. The edge forming a parapet beside the cliff had been excavated down to bedrock in a section about three feet wide, exposing the construction sequence. Hiebermeyer got inside and turned around so he was facing the other two, and pointed at the section. ‘Here you can clearly see the pharaonic wall, in five surviving courses. This was a blockhouse attached to the larger complex we were standing in earlier, overlooking the river. But above the masonry you can see unworked slabs of gneiss and smaller stones, as well as compacted clay that must have been brought up from the river shore. There’s clearly an amount of wind-blown fill inside the pit, but as you’ve seen, there isn’t much sand in this part of the desert and certainly not enough to explain that material on top of the wall. I have no doubt it was built up by the British in 1884.’

Jack looked around. ‘It’s a sangar,’ he murmured. ‘That’s a Pashtun word the British picked up in Afghanistan, meaning a protected built-up pit, basically a firing position or sentry post.’ He shaded his eyes and scanned the far bank of the river, where a group of Hiebermeyer’s team could be seen excavating another complex of ruins. ‘My guess is that there would also have been one of these on the other side, and that they were temporary sentry posts established above the pool while the column was camped here during December 1884.’

‘The sentry post on the other side also served as a heliograph station,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘We found smashed glass from the reflective mirror, which must have been damaged while they were putting it up or taking it down.’

Jack continued to gaze at the cliffs opposite, moving slightly so that he was looking south-west. ‘If I were a dervish sharpshooter, I’d be in the rocks over there, above the gorge,’ he said, pointing. ‘That would give me a clear line of sight to the work being carried out on the river, as well as to this sangar. The distance to here is four hundred, maybe four hundred and twenty yards, within range of a Remington.’

‘And presumably of a Martini-Henry, from this side,’ Costas said.

‘Could you do it, shoot accurately at this range?’ Hiebermeyer said, looking at Jack.

‘I’ve had a go with a Martini-Henry, 1883 vintage,’ Jack said. ‘It’s difficult as the sights take a lot of getting used to, but it could be done. I’ve shot accurately at this range before with a Lee-Enfield, no problem.’

‘I’ve seen that,’ Costas said, squinting at Hiebermeyer. ‘Four years ago, in the Panjshir valley in Afghanistan, when Jack used an old British rifle loaned to him by an Afghan warlord to take out a guy who’d been stalking us.’

Jack continued staring at the cliffs, saying nothing. Hiebermeyer leaned over a finds tray and picked up a labelled plastic bag with a small lump in it, then pointed at the other debris in the tray. ‘This material came from inside the pit, and shows that British soldiers were here for some time, several days at least. You can see the rusted lid from a tin of army-issue bully beef, and the paper wrapper from a package of Wills tobacco. Of course the conditions here are as elsewhere in the desert, and organic material survives very well.’ He handed Costas the bag. ‘Take a look at this.’

Costas peered at the lump bemusedly and then handed it to Jack, who opened up the bag and carefully rolled it out on to his hand. ‘Fascinating,’ he murmured. ‘It’s a spent bullet, only partly compacted, so fired from a considerable range, conceivably from those cliffs opposite. And that’s a little bit of fabric with it. This bullet went through a clothed human body.’ He weighed it in his hand, and then peered closely at it. ‘This isn’t heavy enough for a Martini-Henry bullet, but I’d swear it’s from a Remington. The base is still intact, so we’ll be able to measure it.’

‘Already done,’ Hiebermeyer said, beaming. ‘I’ve got an electronic caliper measurement of .445 inch, just right for .43 calibre Remington. The bullet wasn’t loose in the pit but had penetrated the clay on the side of the sangar. Fortunately I was here supervising when it was revealed and I had the student stop excavating while the bullet was still in situ so that I could measure the angle of trajectory. You’re right, Jack. It had been fired from the opposite cliff and had penetrated the sangar below the maximum possible line of sight of the shooter, so was coming in on an arching trajectory. I used a laser rangefinder and got a range of four hundred and thirty-five yards to an opening on the upper ridge where a sniper could have been positioned. I then did a little research of my own with a friend in Germany who is a military re-enactor, and he told me that the drop of a bullet from a regulation Remington cartridge in dry desert conditions over that distance would be about twenty-nine inches. That allowed me to find the exact spot on the opposite cliff where the sniper sat when he took the shot that hit the British soldier.’