The Sultan's Daughter (58 page)

On the other hand, physical attractions apart, Zanthé was of a most lovable disposition, had been well educated by her
French mother and was quick to learn. With such qualities, Roger had no doubt that she would take Susan to her heart, prove as good-tempered a wife as any man could wish for and perhaps, after a while, acquire the manners and attitude of mind of an English lady of quality.

In any case, the more he thought about it the more convinced he became that honour demanded that he take a gamble on the future. Zanthé had twice saved his life and now, having severed herself from her own people, all she had in the world were some valuable jewels and himself. Sarodopulous had examined her jewels and had declared that, if sold, they would provide her with a handsome dowry; so, had Roger decided against marrying her, she could have found another husband. But he believed that it would break her heart to have to do so, and after all she had been to him he could not bring himself to do that.

As a result of these deliberations, he broached the subject to her, one afternoon during the first week in July, on the score that, as in another month or six weeks he hoped to be fully restored to health, they ought to begin making plans. Just as he expected, she at once raised the question of religion. He had no intention of becoming a Mohammedan and had thought it probable that, as they would in due course be going to make their home in Europe, she would consent to becoming a Christian.

He was not disappointed in that but, to his surprise and dismay, he met with most determined opposition when, evading the awkward implications of saying he was Church of England, he declared himself to be a Protestant. Zanthé's mother had been brought up as a Roman Catholic, so she respected that faith and was perfectly willing to subscribe to it in order to marry him. But she had been taught that Protestants of all denominations were as evil as Jews and was greatly shocked to learn that Roger was what Christians of her mother's faith termed a ‘heretic'.

During the next few days they had several sessions in which they argued the matter passionately. Zanthé suggested that both of them should become Catholics, but Roger would not hear of it. He was far from being a religious man but, like most Englishmen of his day, had been brought up to regard
the Pope as anti-Christ and all his works as of the Devil. Such beliefs, when inculcated young, die hard, and he was as fully convinced that he would lose his hope of salvation should he become a Catholic as she was that she would lose hers should she become a Protestant.

The resistance she displayed might have caused another man to have seized on it as an excuse to refuse to pursue matters further, but in Roger it only aroused a determination to make her his wife. He suggested that they should be content with a civil marriage, which was now the normal form of ceremony in Republican France. But Zanthé would not hear of it. She protested that, unless their marriage were blessed either by a Muslim imam or a Catholic priest, it would be no marriage in the sight of Heaven. Then, in tears, she declared that, if Roger were not prepared to sacrifice his scruples to make her his wife, she loved him so dearly that she would accept the terrible humiliation of accompanying him back to France as his concubine.

This impasse continued for some days until on July 11th Roger was given other things to think about. On that day Sir Sidney Smith's Squadron appeared off Alexandria, convoying an armada of transports carrying a considerable Turkish Army. For the past week Roger had been going for short rides, accompanied by a groom. In view of this emergency he felt that, to maintain his status as an aide-de-camp to the General-in-Chief, he must, although still far from strong, offer his services.

Ignoring the protests of Zanthé and the Sarodopulouses, he rode into Alexandria and reported to Marmont, who was now in command there. The young General was a gunner. He was one of Bonaparte's oldest friends and had served with him at the siege of Toulon, where Roger had also met him. Their greeting was cordial but, after one look at Roger, Marmont declared him unfit for active service. However, he said that he would welcome his help in his bureau; so Roger was given a desk and set about dealing with urgent administrative matters.

Couriers had been sent post-haste to Bonaparte at Ghizeh. They reached him on the 15th and he at once set out for Rahmaniyeh. From there, he ordered a concentration of
troops headed by Kléber's Division, then at Rosetta. By the 21st he had at his disposal an Army nearly as large as that of the Turks, which was reported to number ten thousand men. Meanwhile the Turks had landed on the peninsula of Aboukir, massacred the garrison of the small fort there and dug themselves in behind a double line of entrenchments.

On July 25th Bonaparte attacked. Lannes, amazingly recovered from his wounds, and d'Estaing outflanked the village which formed the strongpoint centre of the first line of Turkish defences, then Murat followed with his cavalry and drove a great number of the Turks into the sea.

During the terrible heat of midday Bonaparte gave his troops two hours' rest. He then sent them in against the Turks' second line, which had a strong redoubt in its centre. Again the French charged with tremendous élan but this time the attack failed, largely owing to the supporting fire of the Turkish gunboats that had been brought close inshore. The Turks, confident of victory, surged out of their entrenchments, but delayed to butcher the wounded French and mutilate the dead. Seeing them to be scattered while engaged in this barbarous business, Bonaparte ordered another attack. Catching the Turks at a disadvantage, the French reached and seized the second line of trenches. Murat, with his cavalry and camelry, again drove the fleeing Turks into the surf and hundreds of them were either sabred or pursued into deep water until they drowned. Heavy cannon was then brought up to bombard the small fortress into which the surviving Turks had crammed themselves. It became a massacre. After two days, two thousand of the Turks surrendered—all that was left of an Army of ten thousand.

Roger saw nothing of this, but received gruesome accounts of it while working at Alexandria in Marmont's office. The emergency over, he returned to Sarodopulous's villa, a little tired from his exertions but otherwise in good heart, to continue his convalescence.

It was on the day after his return that he had a most unnerving experience. While sitting on the privy, he felt something furry tickling his left buttock. Leaping up, he found it to be a large scorpion. At his sudden action the poisonous beast fell off on to the floor. Next moment he had crushed it
with his boot; but he stood there for a few moments, white and shaking. Had it stung him he might have died in agony. Shortly afterwards, on returning to the villa, he told Zanthé of his lucky escape and added:

‘This is the most accursed country. I managed to escape from it once. When next a chance comes for me to do so I'll take it, and never, never will I return. Not even wild horses shall drag me back to it again.'

Three days later it so happened that he was given a chance to leave Egypt. The fortnight he had spent working in Mar-mont's office had proved no undue strain upon him. On the contrary, he was inclined to think that, before it, he had allowed Zanthé and the Sarodopulouses to pamper him too much; for on his return to the villa he felt considerably fitter. In the early mornings, before the sun got too hot, he was going out riding on his own and ever further afield.

On the morning of July 30th, having ridden some five miles along the coast to the west, he trotted to the top of a big sand-dune and saw below, in the little bay, a group of men. A British sloop-of-war was lying about half a mile off-shore and the men had obviously landed from her. At a glance he saw what they were about.

The coast of Egypt was far too long for the French, with their limited number of troops, to patrol the whole of it regularly; so at times the blockading ships landed parties on deserted stretches of coast to collect springwater. Such sources were too small for the larger ships to pick up the hundreds of gallons they required, so from time to time they had to water at Crete or Cyprus; but even half a barrel of fresh springwater was a great luxury so now and then, in order to obtain it, blockading vessels took the risk of their parties being surprised by the French.

Down in the bay a semi-circle of half a dozen sailors with muskets kept guard some distance from a cluster of rocks above the tide-line. Among the rocks, under the supervision of an officer, others were filling three small casks from the spring with pannikins while, a hundred yards away, a boat was being kept in readiness to take them off.

As Roger brought his mount to a halt on the top of the dune, the sailors spotted him, gave the alarm and raised their
muskets. Before they could draw a bead on him he swung his horse round, put spurs to it and, crouching low in the saddle, cantered off back down the slope. But as soon as he was well under cover of the crest he pulled up.

Wild thoughts were racing through his mind. He was alone; so if he appeared again, waving his white handkerchief, the men would not fire upon him. He had only to ride down to them and give himself up to be taken aboard the British sloop. Within a few days he could get himself transferred to
Tigre
and be again with Sir Sidney Smith. After all he had been through he had no doubt at all that the Commodore would take the first opportunity to send him home.

It was seventeen months since he had left England During that time he had twice secured important despatches from Bonaparte, and had also sent back from Naples a very full report on the resources of the French Army in Egypt. Meanwhile, he had suffered grievously and several times had narrowly escaped losing his life. No one, with the possible exception of the fanatically patriotic Nelson, could possibly contend that he was not now entitled to give up the desperately dangerous double life that he had been leading for so long.

If he did not take this chance, in a few weeks he must return to duty in Cairo. And what then? On re-entering Egypt Bonaparte had issued a proclamation containing more flagrant lies than even he had ever before given out. He claimed that he had totally destroyed Acre and that this had been his only object in invading Syria. He declared his total casualties to number a mere five hundred, when everyone in the Army knew that they ran into thousands. With superb effrontery he had organised a triumphant entry into Cairo, with the captured Turkish standards being carried before him, and claimed to have returned from a campaign of victories equalling those he had achieved in Italy.

This unscrupulous propaganda had deceived the greater part of the Egyptian people and had even, to some extent, been swallowed by the French regiments which had not taken part in the Syrian campaign. But Roger knew the truth.

During its thirteen months in Egypt the French Army had been reduced, by casualties and pestilence, to little more than
half its original number. It had not received a single reinforcement from home and, as long as the British blockade continued, could not hope to do so. Even with the regiments of Mamelukes and other natives who had been enlisted, it was now barely strong enough to hold Egypt, let alone undertake other campaigns further afield. All prospect of raising the Arab races against their overlord, the Sultan, had vanished with the failure to take Acre. Gone, too, was the dream of capturing the Red Sea ports and from them invading India as a prelude to creating a great Empire in the East. Now the French were like a garrison in a besieged city that had no hope of relief, and in which the population was hostile. From attacks on their convoys by Bedouin, knifings by night in the streets, accident and disease, they must gradually be weakened to a point at which the Egyptians felt strong enough to rise and massacre them.

As Roger thought of those months ahead during which, if he remained in Egypt, he must continue to suffer from the sweltering heat, myriads of flies, possibility of being killed by an Arab or stung by a poisonous reptile, and living all this time among companions growing daily more desperate with fear about their future, he had never before so greatly longed to be back in the green fields of England.

Only the thought of Zanthé deterred him from galloping back over the crest, pulling out his white handkerchief and waving it aloft to the little party of seamen who meant home and safety to him. She had given him intense pleasure. She loved and needed him. She had twice saved his life and had nursed him back to health. Could he possibly desert her? Still worse, could he simply disappear without a word, leaving her to months of misery, wondering whether he were dead or alive and what had happened to him? She was very beautiful and he would soon be strong enough to become again her lover in the fullest sense. But there were other women as beautiful, even if in a different way, and as passionate in England. In a few years she would look middle-aged and have become fat and unwieldy. Why should he sacrifice every other thing for which he craved to saddle himself with a half-Asiatic girl whom he would have to take with him as his wife wherever they went, whether they actually married or not?

For a few agonising minutes he wrestled with the most terrible temptation that had ever beset him. Then he knew that he could not give in to it. The shame of having left her, after all she had been to him, would haunt him all his days. He must remain in Egypt and share the lot of Bonaparte's ill-fated Army. Sadly, he kneed his horse into a walk androde back to Alexandria.

Having resolved not to abandon Zanthé, he committed himself to her still further that evening. It chanced that the Patriarch of Alexandria called at the villa to solicit a large sum from Sarodopulous for a charity. He was a big, jolly man with a fine, curly black beard and, while they were all consuming coffee and cakes, the talk turned to different faiths.

When Roger was in St. Petersburg he had found that, under Catherine the Great, Russia was then the most tolerant country in the world with regard to religious matters. Priests of all denominations were encouraged by the Empress to establish churches there, and every year the Metropolitan gave a reception to which he invited Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists as well as brethren of his own Church. Three kinds of wine were served at these receptions, and it was his custom to welcome his guests with the words: ‘Gentlemen, these wines are different; but all of them are good, and so are the different faiths which we follow.'