Pyramid: A Novel (Jack Howard Series Book 8) by David Gibbins Page B
Authors: David Gibbins
Ads: Link
explosifs
?”
Jones carefully lifted up an oiled tarpaulin beside the hatch and revealed a small wooden box attached by a coiled cable to a plunger. “Borrowed from the Royal Engineers depot in Cairo,” he said. “Security there is not what it used to be. The box contains eight one-pound sticks of dynamite, packed in petroleum jelly for waterproofing. The cable is two hundred feet long, and the charge should be waterproof down to a depth of thirty feet. If the captain can hold us at that distance from the riverbank, the boat should survive the detonation unscathed.”
Guerin stared hesitantly at the box. “That is, if I find what you are after, and have occasion to lay the charge.”
“I have spent weeks triangulating this exact position from the pyramids, transposing the ancient plan on the most up-to-date topographical maps prepared by the Ordnance Survey.”
The Frenchman tweaked his mustache. “More
équipage
liberated from the Royal Engineers, I surmise? And you found a theodolite too? You are a man of many skills.”
Jones coughed. “Let’s just say I’ve had some training.”
Guerin’s eyes twinkled. “Do you mean in larceny,
mon ami
, or in the military sciences?”
Jones pointed at the riverbank looming out of the darkness. It was held off by the captain’s boy with a pole. A cascade of bricks and mortar lay embedded in the bank, and above it they could make out the ruined walls and gun embrasure of the fort. “There it is,” Jones exclaimed, his voice hushed. “This was the feature thatcoincided precisely with my measurement, the place I told the captain to find. When I came here in daylight, I also measured the movement of water along the shore. It’s outside the main river current, but there are strong eddies, enough to keep river silt from accumulating or mud from building up too deeply. Monsieur Guerin, I believe you will be in with a very good chance.” He looked up at Chaillé-Long. “Are you up to getting your hands wet, Colonel?”
Chaillé-Long bristled. “I will have you know that I have survived pitiless rain, mud, misery, malaria, and the other dread fevers of the jungle in my years as an explorer of deepest Africa.” He pointed to a faint scar on his cheek. “This wound, as you will doubtless have wondered, I acquired fighting off the Bunyan warriors of Uganda, alone with my Reilly elephant gun, assisted only by two of my bearers with Snider rifles, together accounting for dozens of ’em.” He took off his silk gloves with a theatrical flourish. “I do believe, sir, that I am capable of dipping my hand in this river, however fetid and pestilential its waters may be.”
Jones glanced at Chaillé-Long as he squatted down beside him. He noted the silk top hat, the black cape with its crimson lining, the patent leather shoes. The war in Sudan had attracted all manner of mavericks, some of them genuinely capable, others charlatans, and had refracted their skills in the intensity of the struggle, sometimes brilliantly so. And then it had thrown them out at the other end, propelling some on to greater things and others back to the obscurity from which they had emerged. The American officers hired as mercenaries in the Khedive’s service had made the Egyptian army a force to be reckoned with, but it had included their share of tale spinners and egotists. Jones remembered one night by the Nile sitting with his officer, Major Mayne, and a group of other Royal Engineers officers and listening to them talk about Chaillé-Long and his exploits in equatorial Africa. He had been derided at the Royal Geographical Society for suggesting that LakeVictoria was only twelve miles across, having misidentified some islands as the opposite shore, and for trying to bribe a cartographer to make Lake Kyogo, on the Upper Nile, appear larger than it was, a blatant act of self-aggrandizement. It was also common knowledge that the wound on his face had not been caused by enemy fire but by his
?”
Jones carefully lifted up an oiled tarpaulin beside the hatch and revealed a small wooden box attached by a coiled cable to a plunger. “Borrowed from the Royal Engineers depot in Cairo,” he said. “Security there is not what it used to be. The box contains eight one-pound sticks of dynamite, packed in petroleum jelly for waterproofing. The cable is two hundred feet long, and the charge should be waterproof down to a depth of thirty feet. If the captain can hold us at that distance from the riverbank, the boat should survive the detonation unscathed.”
Guerin stared hesitantly at the box. “That is, if I find what you are after, and have occasion to lay the charge.”
“I have spent weeks triangulating this exact position from the pyramids, transposing the ancient plan on the most up-to-date topographical maps prepared by the Ordnance Survey.”
The Frenchman tweaked his mustache. “More
équipage
liberated from the Royal Engineers, I surmise? And you found a theodolite too? You are a man of many skills.”
Jones coughed. “Let’s just say I’ve had some training.”
Guerin’s eyes twinkled. “Do you mean in larceny,
mon ami
, or in the military sciences?”
Jones pointed at the riverbank looming out of the darkness. It was held off by the captain’s boy with a pole. A cascade of bricks and mortar lay embedded in the bank, and above it they could make out the ruined walls and gun embrasure of the fort. “There it is,” Jones exclaimed, his voice hushed. “This was the feature thatcoincided precisely with my measurement, the place I told the captain to find. When I came here in daylight, I also measured the movement of water along the shore. It’s outside the main river current, but there are strong eddies, enough to keep river silt from accumulating or mud from building up too deeply. Monsieur Guerin, I believe you will be in with a very good chance.” He looked up at Chaillé-Long. “Are you up to getting your hands wet, Colonel?”
Chaillé-Long bristled. “I will have you know that I have survived pitiless rain, mud, misery, malaria, and the other dread fevers of the jungle in my years as an explorer of deepest Africa.” He pointed to a faint scar on his cheek. “This wound, as you will doubtless have wondered, I acquired fighting off the Bunyan warriors of Uganda, alone with my Reilly elephant gun, assisted only by two of my bearers with Snider rifles, together accounting for dozens of ’em.” He took off his silk gloves with a theatrical flourish. “I do believe, sir, that I am capable of dipping my hand in this river, however fetid and pestilential its waters may be.”
Jones glanced at Chaillé-Long as he squatted down beside him. He noted the silk top hat, the black cape with its crimson lining, the patent leather shoes. The war in Sudan had attracted all manner of mavericks, some of them genuinely capable, others charlatans, and had refracted their skills in the intensity of the struggle, sometimes brilliantly so. And then it had thrown them out at the other end, propelling some on to greater things and others back to the obscurity from which they had emerged. The American officers hired as mercenaries in the Khedive’s service had made the Egyptian army a force to be reckoned with, but it had included their share of tale spinners and egotists. Jones remembered one night by the Nile sitting with his officer, Major Mayne, and a group of other Royal Engineers officers and listening to them talk about Chaillé-Long and his exploits in equatorial Africa. He had been derided at the Royal Geographical Society for suggesting that LakeVictoria was only twelve miles across, having misidentified some islands as the opposite shore, and for trying to bribe a cartographer to make Lake Kyogo, on the Upper Nile, appear larger than it was, a blatant act of self-aggrandizement. It was also common knowledge that the wound on his face had not been caused by enemy fire but by his
Similar Books
