I’d assumed we’d travel directly to Mount Nebo with Najac’s band of cutthroats, but he laughed when I suggested it. “We’d have to cut our way through half the Ottoman army!” Ever since Napoleon had invaded Palestine, the Sublime Porte of Constantinople had been gathering soldiers to stop the French. Galilee, Najac informed me, was swarming with Turkish and Mameluke cavalry. Gallic liberation was not being embraced in the Holy Land with any more enthusiasm than it had been in Egypt. Now General Jean-Baptiste Kléber, who had landed with Bonaparte on the beach in Alexandria nearly a year ago, would take his division to brush these Muslims away. My companions and I would accompany his troops eastward to the Jordan River, which flows southward from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. Then we’d strike south on our own, following the fabled Jordan until it passed by the foot of Mount Nebo.
Mohammad and Ned were not happy at having to march with the French. Kléber was a popular commander, but he could also be an impetuous hothead. Yet we had no choice. The Ottomans were directly in our path and in no mood to differentiate between one group of Europeans and another. We’d rely on Kléber to bludgeon a path through.
“Mount Nebo!” Mohammad exclaimed. “It’s for ghosts and goats!”
“Treasure, I’d guess,” Ned said shrewdly. “Why else would our magician here be signing on again with the frogs? The hoard of Moses, eh, guv’nor?”
For a lummox, he guessed entirely too much. “It’s a meeting of antiquity scholars,” I said. “A woman I knew in Egypt is alive and waiting. She’ll help solve the mystery we tried to answer in the tunnels beneath Jerusalem.”
“Aye, and I hear you already have a pretty bauble.”
I shot a look at Mohammad, who shrugged. “The sailor wanted to know what prompted our expedition, effendi.”
“Then know this is bad luck.” I took the ring from my pocket.
“It’s from the grave of a dead Pharaoh, and such plunder is always cursed.”
“Cursed? That’s a life’s wages right there,” Ned said in wonder.
“But you don’t notice me wearing it, do you?”
“Wouldn’t match your color,” Ned agreed. “Too gaudy, that is.”
“So we march with the French until we can break free. There’s likely to be a scrape or two. Are you willing?”
“A scrape without a scrap of steel between us, except that sausage chopper of yours,” Ned said. “And you do have a poor choice of escorts, guv’nor. That Najac character looks like he’d boil his children, if he could get a shilling for the broth. Still, I likes being outside the walls. Felt boxed, I did.”
“And now you will see the real Palestine,” Mohammad promised.
“The whole world wishes to possess her.”
Which was exactly the problem, as near as I could tell.
Were we French allies—or prisoners? We were weaponless except for my tomahawk, with no freedom of movement, guarded by both escorting chasseurs and Najac’s gang. Yet Kléber sent a bottle of wine and his compliments, we were given good mounts and treated as guests of the march, riding ahead of the main column to escape the worst of the dust. We were prized dogs on a leash.
Ned and Najac took an immediate disliking to each other, the sailor remembering the fracas that had killed Tentwhistle and Najac jealous of the giant’s strength. If the villain came near us he’d swing his coat wide to display the two pistols crammed in his sash, reminding us he was not to be trifled with. In turn, Ned announced loudly that he hadn’t seen a frog so ugly since a mutant croaker in the privy pond behind Portsmouth’s sleaziest brothel.
“If your brain was even half the size of your bicep I might be interested in what you have to say,” Najac said.
“And if your pudding was even half the size of your flapping tongue, you wouldn’t have to look so hard for it every time you drop your breeches,” Ned replied.
Despite the quarreling, I relished our release from Acre. The Holy Land arouses uncommon passion, well watered in the north and bright spring green. Wheat and barley grew like wild grass, and broad paint strokes of color came from red poppies and yellow mustard. There was purple flax, golden chrysanthemum in natural bouquets of twisted stems, and tall Easter lilies. Was this God’s garden? Away from the sea the sky was the blue of the Virgin’s scarf, and light picked out the mica and quartz like tiny jewels.
“Look, a yellow bunting,” Mohammad said. “The bird means summer is coming.”
Our division was a blue snake slithering through Eden, the French tricolor heralding our improbable penetration of the Ottoman Empire. Drifts of sheep divided like the sea for our passage. Light field guns bounced in the sun, their bronze winking like a signal. White covered wagons swayed. Somewhere to the northeast was Damascus, and to the south, Jerusalem. The soldiers were in a good mood, happy to get away from tedious siege duty, and the division had money enough—captured at Jaffa—to eat well, instead of stealing. At the end of the second day we climbed a final ridge and I had a glimpse of the Sea of Galilee, blue soup in a vast green and brown bowl, far, far below. It is a huge lake sunken below sea level, hazy and holy. We didn’t descend but instead followed ridges south to famous Nazareth.
The home of the Savior is a gritty, desultory place, its main road a dirt cart track and its traffic mainly goats. A mosque and a Franciscan monastery stand brow to brow, as if keeping an eye on each other. We drew water from Mary’s Well and visited the Church of the Annunciation, an Orthodox grotto with the kind of gewgaws that give Protestants indigestion. Then we marched down again to the rich, lazy vale of the Jezreel Valley, the breadbasket of ancient Israel and a thoroughfare for armies for three thousand years. Cattle grazed on grassy mounds that once were great fortresses. Carts clattered on roads that Roman legions had traversed. My companions were impatient at this military meandering, but I knew I was experiencing what few Americans can ever hope to see. The Holy Land! Here, by all accounts, men come closer to God. Some of the soldiers crossed themselves or muttered prayers at sacred places, despite the revolution’s official atheism. But when evening fell they sharpened their bayonets, the rasping as familiar as crickets as we fell asleep.
As anxious as I was to see Astiza, I also felt uneasy. I had not, after all, managed to save her. She was once more somehow entangled with the occult investigator Silano. My political alliances were more confused than ever, and Miriam was waiting in Acre. I practiced first lines for all of them, but they seemed trite.
Mohammad meanwhile warned that our three thousand companions were not enough. “At every village there are rumors the Turks are massing against us,” he warned. “More men than stars in the sky. There are troops from Damascus and Constantinople, Ibrahim Bey’s surviving Mamelukes from Egypt, and hill fighters from Samaria. Shi’a and Sunni are joining together. Their mercenaries range from Morocco to Armenia. It’s madness to stay with these French. They are doomed.”
I gestured to Najac’s scoundrels. “We have no choice.”
General Kléber, of course, was trying to find this Turkish host instead of evade it, hoping to flank it by coming down from the Nazarene highlands. “Passion governs,” old Ben liked to say, “and never governs wisely.” And indeed Kléber, competent as generals go, had chafed as a subordinate to Napoleon for a full year. He was older, taller, stronger, and more experienced, and yet the glory of the Egyptian campaign had been won by the Corsican. It was Bonaparte who was featured in the bulletins sent home on the Egyptian campaign, Bonaparte who was growing rich on spoils, Bonaparte who was making possible great new archeological discoveries, and Bonaparte who ruled the mood of the army. Even worse, at the Battle of El-Arish at the beginning of the Palestinian campaign, Kléber’s division had performed indifferently, while his rival, Reynier, had won Napoleon’s praise. It didn’t matter that Kléber had the stature, bearing, and shaggy locks of the military hero that Bonaparte lacked, and that he was a better shot and a better rider. His colleagues deferred to the upstart. None would admit it, but for all his faults, Bonaparte was their intellectual superior, the sun around which they instinctively revolved. So this independent foray to destroy Ottoman reinforcements was Kléber’s chance to shine. Just as Bonaparte had broken camp in the middle of the night to strike the Mameluke at the pyramids before they were fully ready, so Kléber decided to set out in the dark to surprise the Turkish camp.
“Madness!” said Mohammad. “We’re too far away to surprise them. We’ll find the Turks just as the sun is coming up in our eyes.”
Indeed, the path around Mount Tabor was far longer than Kléber had anticipated. Instead of attacking at 2:00 a.m., as planned, the French encountered the first Turkish pickets at dawn. By the time we had drawn up ranks for an assault, our prey had time for breakfast. Soon there were swarms of Ottoman cavalry dashing hither and yon, and Kléber’s ambition began to be tempered by common sense. The rising sun revealed that he had led three thousand troops to assault twenty-five thousand. I do have an instinct for the wrong side.
“So the ring is bad luck,” Mohammad muttered. “Is it possible Bonaparte is still trying to execute you, effendi, but merely in a more complicated way?”
The three of us gaped at the huge herd of menacing cavalry, horses half swallowed by the tall spring wheat as their riders pointlessly fired guns in the air. The only thing that prevented us from being overrun immediately was the enemy’s confusion; no one seemed to be in charge. Their army was stitched from too many corners of the empire. We could see the rainbow colors of the various Ottoman regiments, great trains of wagons behind them, and tents pitched bright as a carnival. If you want a pretty sight, go see war before the fighting starts.
“It’s like the Battle of the Pyramids all over again,” I tried to reassure. “Look at their disarray. They have so many soldiers they can’t get organized.”
“They don’t need organization,” Big Ned muttered. “All they need is stampede. By barnacle, I wish I were back on a frigate. It’s cleaner, too.”
If Kléber had proved rash in underestimating his opponents, he was a skilled tactician. He backed us up a hill called Djebel-el-Dahy, giving us the high ground. There was a ruined Crusader castle called Le-Faba near the top that overlooked the broad valley, and the French general put one hundred of his men on its ruined ramparts. The remainder formed two squares of infantry, one commanded by Kléber and the other by General Jean-Andoche Junot. These squares were like forts made of men, each man facing outward and the ranks pointing in all four directions so that it was impossible to turn their flank. The veterans and sergeants stood behind the newest troops to prevent them from backing and collapsing the formation. This tactic had baffled the Mamelukes in Egypt, and it was about to do the same to the Ottomans. No matter which way they charged, they would meet a firm hedge of musket barrels and bayonets. Our supply train and our trio, with Najac’s men, were in the center.
The Turks foolishly gave Kléber time to dress his ranks and then made probing charges, galloping up near our men while whooping and swinging swords. The French were perfectly silent until the command rang out to “Fire!” and then there was a flash and rippling bang, a great gout of white smoke, and the closest enemy cavalry toppled from their horses. The others steered away.
“Blimey, they have more pluck than sense,” Ned said, squinting.
The sun kept climbing. More and more enemy cavalry poured into the gentle vale below us, shaking lances and warbling cries. Periodically a few hundred would wheel and charge toward our squares. Another volley, and the results would be the same. Soon there was a semicircle of dead around us, their silks like cut flowers.
“What the devil are they doing?” Ned muttered. “Why don’t they really charge?”
“Waiting for us to run out of water and ammunition, perhaps,” Mohammad said.
“By swallowing all of our lead?”
I think they were waiting for us to break and run—their other enemies must be less resolute—but the French didn’t waver. We bristled like a hedgehog, and they couldn’t get their horses to close.
Kléber stayed mounted, ignoring the whining bullets, slowly riding up and down the ranks to encourage his men. “Hold firm,” he coached. “Hold firm. Help will come.”
Help? Bonaparte at Acre was far away. Was this some kind of Ottoman game, to let us sweat and worry until they finally made the penultimate charge?
Yet as I sighted through the scope that Sir Sidney had given me, I began to doubt such an attack would come. Many Turks were holding back, inviting others to break us first. Some were sprawled on the grass to eat, and others asleep. At the height of a battle!
As the day advanced, however, our endurance sapped and their confidence grew. Powder was growing short. We began to hold our volleys until the last second, to give precious bullets the surest target. They sensed our doubt. A great shout would go up, spurs would be applied to horses, and waves of cavalry would come at us like breakers on a beach. “Hold…hold…let them come…fire! Now, now, second rank, fire!” Horses screamed and tumbled. Brilliantly costumed janissaries tumbled amid clods of earth. The bravest would spur onward, weaving between their toppling fellows, but when they reached the hedge of bayonets their horses would rear. Pistols and muskets pocked our ranks, but the carnage was far worse on their side. So many horse carcasses littered the fields that it was becoming difficult for the Turks to hurtle past to get at us. Ned, Mohammad, and I helped drag French wounded into the center of the squares.
Now it was noon. The French injured were moaning for water and the rest of us longed for it. Our hill seemed dry as an Egyptian tomb. The sun had halted its arc across the sky, promising to beat down on us forever, and the Turks were taunting each other on. A hundred French had fallen, and Kléber gave orders for the two squares to join into one, thickening the ranks and giving the men badly needed reassurance. It looked like all the Muslims in the world were massed against us. The fields had been trampled into soil and dust rose in great pillars. The Turks tried sweeping over the crest of Djebel-el-Dahy and coming down on us from above, but chasseurs and carabiniers in the old Crusader castle forced them to diverge and they spilled uselessly down both sides of our formation, letting us thin them by firing into their flanks.
“Now!” A volley would roar out, smoke acrid and blinding, bits of wadding fluttering like snow. Horses, screaming and riderless, would go galloping away. Then teeth would tear at cartridges, pouring in precious powder. The ground was white with paper.
By midafternoon my mouth was cotton. Flies buzzed over the dead. Some soldiers fainted from standing in place too long. The Ottomans seemed impotent, and yet we could go nowhere. It would end, I supposed, when we all died of thirst.
“Mohammad, when they overrun us pretend you’re dead until it’s over. You can emerge as a Muslim. No need to share the fate of addled Europeans.”
“Allah does not tell a man to desert his friends,” he replied grimly.
Then a fresh cry rose up. Men claimed they’d spied the glimmer of bayonets in the valley to the west. “Here comes le petit caporal!”
Kléber was disbelieving. “How could Bonaparte get here so soon?” He gestured to me. “Come. Bring your naval spyglass.” My English telescope had proven sharper than standard French army issue.
I followed him out of the comfort of the square and onto the exposed slope of our hill. We passed a ring of bodies of fallen Muslims, some groaning in the grass, their blood a scarlet smear on the green wheat.
The Crusader ruins gave a panoramic view. If anything, the Turks looked even more numerous now that I could see farther over their ranks. Thousands trotted this way and that, gesturing as they argued what to do. Hundreds of their comrades already carpeted the hill below us. In the distance their tents, supplies, and thousands of servants and camp followers were visible. We were like a blue rock in a sea of red, white, and green. One determined charge and surely they would crack our formation open! Then men would run, and it would be the end.
Except they hadn’t yet. “There.” Kléber pointed. “Do you see French bayonets?”
I peered until my eye ached. The high grass billowed in the west, but whether from the passage of infantry or wind I didn’t know. The lush earth had swallowed the antlike maneuvering of armies. “It could be a French column, because the high grass is moving. But as you say, how could it come so quickly?”
“We’ll die of thirst if we stay here,” Kléber said. “Or men will desert and have their throats cut. I don’t know if there are reinforcements that way or not, but we are going to find out.” He trotted back down, with me following.
“Junot, start forming columns. We’re going to meet our relievers!”
The men cheered, hoping against hope that they were not simply opening themselves to being overrun. As the square dissolved into two columns, the Turkish cavalry became more animated. Here was a chance to swoop down on our flanks and rear! We could hear them shouting, horns blaring.
“Forward!” We began marching downhill.
Turkish lances waved and danced.
Then there was a cannon shot in the distance. The businesslike crack was as French as a shouted order in a Parisian restaurant, so distinct are calibers of ordnance. We looked and saw a plume of smoke drift off. Men began crying with relief. Help was indeed coming! The French began to cheer, even sing.
The enemy cavalry hesitated, peering west.
The tricolors rippled as we tramped down Djebel-el-Dahy, as if on parade.
Then smoke began rising from the enemy camp. There were shots, faint screams, and the triumphant wail of French bugles. Napoleon’s cavalry had broken into the Turkish rear and was sowing panic. Precious supplies began to go up in flames. With a roar, stored ammunition exploded.
“Steady!” Kléber reminded. “Keep ranks!”
“When they come at us, crouch and fire on command!” Junot added.
We saw a small lake by the village of Fula. Our excitement grew. There was an Ottoman regiment in front of it, looking irresolute. Now the officers galloped up and down the columns, giving orders to ready a charge.
“Strike!” With a cheer, the bloodied French swept the rest of the way down the hill and toward the Samaritan infantry that garrisoned the village. There were shots, a plunge of bayonets and clubbed muskets, and then the enemy was running. Meanwhile Turks were fleeing from whatever had appeared in the west as well. Miraculously, in minutes an army of twenty-five thousand was collapsing into panic, fleeing east before a few thousand Frenchmen. Bonaparte’s cavalry galloped past us, giving chase toward the valley of the Jordan. Ottomans were hunted and slain all the way to the river.
We plunged into the Fula pond, slaking our thirst, and then stood wet and dripping like drunken men, our cartridge pouches empty. Napoleon galloped up, beaming like the savior he was, his breeches gray from dust.
“I suspected you’d get yourself into trouble, Kléber!” he shouted. “I set out yesterday after reading the reports!” He smiled. “They ran at the crack of a cannon!”