The Sultan's Daughter (56 page)

While on the march there had always been other little caravans, mostly carrying wounded, within sight and, on the first day they spent in a little camp they made among some
palm trees outside the town, the number of these increased considerably. On the second day the advance guard of the retreating Army arrived, and with it Bonaparte.

Food of all kinds had already reached famine prices; but Roger went into the town hoping still to be able to buy with gold some boxes of figs, dates or other preserved foods that would not be affected by the heat. In the
muski
he ran into Eugene de Beauharnais, bent on the same errand. That normally cheerful young man was looking exceptionally glum, and Roger soon learned the reason.

There had been only a few sailing boats in which to send off sick and wounded from Haifa, but here there were many more and, with his indefatigable energy, Bonaparte was arranging for his hundreds of casualties to be shipped to Egypt. But it was not that which so perturbed Eugène. His step-father had visited the hospitals, urging everyone there who was capable of standing to get up and go aboard one of the ships in the harbour, rather than remain to be captured by the Turks. He had then gone into the plague ward and had spoken to the poor wretches there. It was a noble gesture but Eugène condemned its rashness, declaring that should his beloved step-father fall a victim to the plague the retreating Army would founder and be lost without his leadership.

Roger agreed with him. Then, during the few minutes that they continued to talk, Eugène urged Roger to set off from Jaffa with as little delay as possible. He said that, as soon as the retreat began, the Nablousian tribesmen had come down from the mountains in hordes, to harass the columns and cut off stragglers. The General-in-Chief, had decreed a policy of scorching the earth. Every village and all crops were being burnt, and the wells stopped up, so that the Army would leave a great area of desolation behind it. But it was feared that it would not entirely stop these fierce irregulars and the pursuing Turkish cavalry.

Eugéne's warning determined Roger to make a start that evening, but when he got back to his small camp he was met by terrible news. One of the Turkish prisoners had been vomiting and the others declared there could be no doubt that he had caught the plague. He had been carried some distance
apart and a friend of his had volunteered to stay behind and do what could be done for him.

But that was not the end of the matter. Zanthé, having been brought up in Constantinople, which was rarely free from cases of plague, knew a certain amount about the disease. She assured Roger that the pestilence was not catching through the breath not, if care were exercised, through touch, but was conveyed by fleas that lived on animals.

Roger was aware that the Arabs had inherited the knowledge of the ancient civilisations and that, in many respects, their medicine was still in advance of European doctoring. He accepted without question what Zanthé said and, when she insisted that one of their camels must be the carrier and that both of them should be killed, he felt that not to follow her advice would be flying in the face of Providence.

He had the camels taken away and slaughtered; but only with great reluctance, for he was now faced with the problem of how they were to proceed. Zanthé's woman could walk with the men; but they would need the tent to shelter them from the blazing sun during the middle of the day, and the spare litter-bearers, after their spells of carrying Zanthé, would collapse if they then had to take up burdens of food and water which, to start with must be sufficient for several days' journey.

He still had enough money on him to buy a score of camels at their normal price, but in the present circumstances he doubted if it would buy a couple. He proved right. Going into the town again, he spent the whole evening endeavouring to buy animals; but he could find no sellers until at last he came upon a peasant whom he persuaded to part with his donkey for five gold pieces.

It was by then too late to start that night; so they set off very early next morning. Even so, they now found themselves in the midst of the Army. Only a few of the regiments had been halted in Jaffa, to assist the engineers in destroying its defences. The main body had been ordered to reach Egypt with as little delay as possible and was taking advantage of the cool of the night for the greater part of the marches.

The condition both of officers and men was pitiful. Their uniforms were faded, torn and blood-stained, and every third
man had a bandage round his head or face or his arm in a sling. The horses of those who were mounted were skin and bone, as were also those which drew guns or light vehicles. The bands no longer had the strength to play. The only words uttered were curses and in quarrels over water. There were still many seriously wounded among them, either being carried in hammocks or reclining on the water and ration carts. Attempt was no longer made to march in formation. They trudged blindly on in ragged little groups, in couples and singly. All discipline had ceased to exist.

It was now less than a month until the longest day in the year. The sun rose each morning soon after five o'clock. By nine it was blazing down from a brassy sky; by midday the barren land became as hot as the inside of a furnace. During the hours of intolerable heat the troops threw themselves down on the burning sands and lay as though dead until well into the afternoon. They suffered most terribly from sunburn and frequently some poor wretch would go off his head with sunstroke.

On the fourth day out from Acre an order was passed down from the General-in-Chief that the wounded must be everybody's first consideration. All mounted men, officers included and of whatever rank, were to give up their horses to the sick or injured. For two days past Roger had not been feeling very well, so he was most loath to give up his mount; but since he had to do so he felt that Zanthé was
his
first consideration. They had lost three more bearers, which had reduced their number to nine, and it was a pitiful sight to see six of them at a time staggering along with the litter. Should many more of them collapse the litter would have to be abandoned, and he then intended to mount Zanthé on his horse. Although she was not wounded he knew that no Frenchman would cavil at her riding it. So to keep the animal with them he made her mount it there and then, which also relieved the wretched bearers and gave them a better chance of surviving as they then had only to carry the baggage in the litter.

Zanthé's hardy Mameluke guard were bearing up well and, although Roger had to walk himself, he felt decidedly better. Next day, however, he developed a splitting headache. By midday he knew that he was running a high temperature and
he assumed that his wretched state could be put down to a touch of sunstroke; but he was puzzled by a stiffness that seemed to be affecting his limbs, and the strong light began to hurt his eyes.

When these disorders came quite suddenly upon him he was lying beside Zanthé in the shade of the tent. Seeing his distress she anxiously questioned him, then, undoing his tunic, slid her hands up to his armpits. Under the left one her fingers felt a lump. Her great tawny eyes distended with horror, but she did not cry out With a sob in her voice, she said:

‘My love! My love! It is useless to conceal it from you. Four to six days is the usual period for the horror to reveal itself after one has been infected. Oh, that accursed camel! A flea from it has given you the plague.'

Had it not been for Zanthé there is little doubt that at the age of thirty-one Roger would have died in Palestine. During that terrible retreat the French Army went to pieces. The men fought among themselves for water. In many cases wounded officers who were being carried in litters were abandoned at night by the bearers, who stole the supply of water that had been allotted to the officers, and their valuables. Anyone showing symptoms of the plague was driven away by his comrades and left to die alone or be butchered by the Arabs. As the French retreated, setting fire to every village, farm and field of crops that they left behind them, the numbers of desperate, homeless Arabs seeking vengeance constantly increased. Like the carrion crows that hung in clouds on the rear and flanks of the Army, bands of these Arabs pressed on it night and day, forcing it to keep to the shore and falling upon any small parties rash enough to seek shelter or water by leaving the main, straggling line of march.

The course of Roger's affliction was no exception to the rule. First the rather seedy feeling for a day or so, recovery to normal spirits for about forty-eight hours then, almost without warning, the onset of stiffness, blinding headaches, nausea and rise in temperature. He was overcome so swiftly that he would not have been capable even of sending the Mamelukes among the retreating Army to try to find a doctor or a senior officer who would at least have ensured that he would not be abandoned by the roadside, and but for Zanthé that would have been his fate.

Neither could a European woman have saved him, however great her courage and devotion, for the Mamelukes and
Turks would certainly have made off with the water and left her to die with him. As it was, when she told them that the
Effendi
was smitten with the pestilence they accepted the situation with the fatalism of Orientals and, through a mixture of devotion and fear, continued to accept her orders. The devotion of the Mamelukes was partly inspired by Bonaparte's having entrusted her safety to them; since, as a great leader of fighting men, he had inspired an almost religious respect in them, and partly because she was a beautiful woman. The element of fear, which equally affected the Turkish prisoners, was due to the fact that, as the daughter of a Sultan, she had in her veins the Blood of the Prophet; so to abandon her would have meant certain hell-fire in the Hereafter.

She explained to them that plague was neither infectious nor contagious, unless pus from a plague boil came in contact with a scratch or open wound. She then had Roger lifted into the litter and carried down to the seashore. There, while with glassy, staring eyes he twisted and moaned, she got his clothes off and had the men in turns support his head as he lay in the creamy surf. By this means she reduced the heat of his fevered body until the sun went down. She made them strip, too, search all their garments minutely, in case they were harbouring a flea, wash them in the sea and bathe themselves.

All night and for most of the two days that followed Roger was delirious. For a part of the time he raved in English but, as he had spoken and thought in French for a long time past, broken sentences in that language came equally often from his cracked lips and at times he shouted in Turkish. His eyes were red and inflamed, his tongue swollen and covered with white fur. From time to time he vomited and, although Zanthé kept him for hours each day immersed in the surf, he broke out in profuse sweats when taken from it. On the third day he was prostrate with exhaustion, but Zanthé still had hopes for him because he was constipated and that, in a case of plague, she knew to be a good sign.

In addition to her intense anxiety about Roger she had another. The shattered Army was, all this time, trudging past them on the track a hundred yards away. Bonaparte's policy of scorching the earth might delay the pursuit by regular
Turkish cavalry, but the merciless Arabs would, she knew, be close on the heels of the French rearguard and, even should they spare her, she felt sure they would murder Roger. In consequence, on the morning of May 30th she decided that they must abandon the little camp they had made by the seashore and move on.

But when she examined Roger soon after dawn she found that the bubo under his arm was so swollen that it was ready to burst. As he was conscious she had two of the Mamelukes hold him down, then lanced the great swelling with her sharp dagger, squeezed out the pus and washed out the cavity with seawater. He was then put in the litter and they took the road again.

After the operation he sank into a coma and all day Zanthé feared that at any moment he might die from weakness, but when they made camp that evening he was conscious and able to mutter a few words. Again they bathed him in the sea and for the first time in four nights he slept. Next day he was a little easier and, provided his heart held out, it began to look as if he would pull through.

The halt of two days had been a welcome respite for the prisoners and the seabathing had helped to recruit their strength, so they were now making better progress. But, by then, their store of water was running low. The seawater thereabouts had an exceptionally high degree of salt and, if allowed to dry on Roger after his immersions, it tended to clog his pores and prevent him from perspiring. As he could not be rubbed down hard Zanthé had had to sponge off the salt with a moistened cloth, and this had eaten into their limited supplies of water. By June 3rd their need had become desperate so, at sundown that evening, she sent four of the Mamelukes out with orders to get water, even if they had to kill for it.

Some hours later they returned in triumph with several gallons of water, and they had not had to rob others in order to obtain the precious liquid. In certain places along the coast, near the southern end of the Syrian desert, there are small sand-dunes, composed of such fine sand that the heavy rains in winter are absorbed by them as though they were giant sponges. Later, when the dry weather comes, their crust
hardens; but it can be pierced with a stick and, even after many months, water will trickle out. The Mamelukes had recognised some dunes as this type of natural reservoir and laboriously, but joyfully, filled from them the empty waterskins they carried.

After a further four days' march they reached the Roman ruins of Pelusium. At the nearby village on the shore Zanthé succeeded in hiring a native dhow, so that they could make the remainder of the journey by sea. For much of the time Roger had been sunk in a lethargy, and still had hardly the strength to raise his arm. But he had recovered sufficiently to know what was going on round him and, when Zanthé told him about the boat, he asked her to release the Turkish prisoners and make for Alexandria.