Gregory's Story

By Roger Kean

“Roger Kean writes like the rest of us breathe... effortlessly.”
— Goodreads author Summer Michaels

A heavy burden rides the shoulders of young Gregory Hilliard—to discover the fate of a father he never knew. Did the elder Hilliard die with Hicks Pasha’s army at El Obeid in 1883 or, as his mother fervently hopes, did he somehow escape the massacre there by the fanatic Mahdist Dervishes?

And then there is the puzzle of his real name. Is he who he thinks he is? Born and raised in Cairo, fluent in native languages, Gregory is pitched into the heat of war after his mother dies. The teenager makes his way by joining General Kitchener’s Nile campaign to retake the Sudan from the Khalifa’s Mahdist armies. In doing so Gregory hopes to find out what happened to his father. Two spies—Edward and Richard Rainbow—help in his quest, brothers with their own dark secret. But his greatest support comes from the Ja’alin Zaki, the love of his young life, his friend and soul-mate.

In a world that refuses to recognize the right of young men to love and in an era that looks down on the “inferior” natives, Gregory faces his most difficult battle for personal happiness. Success will bring him and Zaki fulfilment but also unravel a tragic and at the same time life-enhancing mystery with its roots in far away England... and in the solving of it, one which might yet rip the two lovers apart.

“Gregory’s Story” is the companion to the Goodreads.com March 2013 M/M Romance and Queereaders Book of the Month choice “A Life Apart”. While “Gregory’s Story” stands alone as a novel, the events are greatly enriched by having first read “A Life Apart”, which features Edward and Richard Rainbow, who appear as Gregory’s companions, some 13 years on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roger Kean
• Release date: Jul 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301278954

Roger Kean

Roger Michael Kean spent his childhood in Nigeria, West Africa then survived (just) a British boarding school. He studied fine art and film technique (he edited TV sports films for a decade) before accidentally dropping into magazine and, eventually, book publishing. After the African experience, he has travelled widely for exploration as well as relaxation. In the mid-1980s, he was co-founder of a magazine publishing company which launched some of Britain’s most successful computer games periodicals, including CRASH and ZZAP!64. Since then he has edited books on subjects ranging from computer games, popular music, sports and history, including "The Complete Chronicle of the Emperors of Rome", with links to the original illustrations at the Recklessbooks.co.uk website. In addition to the titles shown here, Kean has also written, under the name of Zack, his artist-partner, the paperback "Boys of Vice City" and "Boys of Disco City", available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon. The third in the series, "Boys of Two Cities" is out in November 2012.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Kordofan in the Turco-Egyptian Province of the Sudan

The Diary

Thursday, November 8th, 1883

I intend, as long as I live, to write down what happens to me, in order that my wife, Anne, and my little son may possibly, someday, discover what fate had in store for Gregory Hilliard, once—in another country and another time—known by the noble name of Hartley. To this end, I beg you, good finder, to send this and any other scraps of paper that may accompany it to Mrs. Hilliard, care of Mr. Murray, manager of the Anglo-Egyptian Bank, Cairo.

It may be that this, my first time of writing, may also be my last so I send to you, Anne, my heart’s love. My last thoughts will be for you and our baby son in whom all hopes rest that he shall grow strong, straight of limb, and in all honor will follow the instructions I gave you before leaving Cairo.

It’s five days since the battle—no, the massacre. For the Arabs it was a hunt, the prey herded by expert beaters into the killing ground. The wild yells of the Dervishes, the distressed cries of the wounded, the shocking suddenness of the dead dropping all around us as ball or spear tore life from their bodies. And blood, everywhere, misting in the super-heated air, splattered uniforms, coated rifle stocks. No Englishmen will ever want to remember what took place here close by El Obeid…

The Victors

El Obeid

An ochre haze hangs in the large square, its dusty particles stirred like a thick pottage by the clamoring throng of jubilant Arabs. Among the host are all the major tribes of the nomadic cow-herders, the Baqqara: the Beni Halba jostle with the Habbaniya, the Halafa of the Hawazma, the Rizeigat, and Ta‘isha, even the jet-black Diffa of far off Niger raise their voices, for all the young men of Darfur and Kordofan are answering the call of the Promised One—the Mahdi. Their constant chants overpower the groans of tethered camels and distressed lowing of corralled cattle terrified by the stench of blood. The great and the humble of the Sudan express their exuberance with shouted slogans and ululation. From every mouth praise sings out for the Mahdi’s great victory over the hated Turks and their British kaffir commanders.

Two of the non-believers stare sightlessly from severed heads mounted on poles close to the center of the square. Colonel William Hicks—known by his Turkish title of Hicks Paşa —and Baron Seckendorf, distinguished by his full, light-colored beard, have fought their last battle and paid the price of defying the Mahdi’s Dervish army. Their blood stains the tangerine and burnt umber soil beneath the heads a clotted black.

To the side of these grisly trophies stands a slightly raised platform on which it is eagerly anticipated the Mahdi, his Khalifa, and his leading emirs will soon appear. Two British officers kneel before the dais, heads bowed as much in shame as from their terrible battle wounds. Kneeling beside them in a row, some twenty black Nubian Sudanese survivors of the battle await their dread fate.

The Diary

But I, Gregory Hilliard, escaped the slaughter. We always seriously doubted that Egyptian fellahin could face a powerful army of Dervishes. Even more so those recruited from Urabi’s disbanded troops after we crushed the rebel last year and restored Khedive Tewfik to his gubernatorial throne of Ottoman Egypt.

Our British commander, Colonel William Hicks, given the rank of Paşa by the Khedive, expressed his fears too, even as he desperately trained the Egyptians to a better standard than Urabi ever achieved. But even with the aid of the Khedive’s American officers, Lieutenant General Charles Pomeroy Stone and Colonel James McEwan, the last known as Umar Paşa to his men, Hicks had time against him—and in September it ran out.

Khedive Tewfik and the British determined to crush the Mahdi, the crazed prophet who has roused the Sudan to rebellion. In January, the Mahdists captured El Obeid, Egypt’s capital of Kordofan province, and so Hicks Paşa reluctantly followed the orders of Raouf Paşa, the Khartoum governor, and brought his eight thousand poorly trained Egyptian regulars into the desert.

We went with a thousand tribal irregulars and some two thousand camp followers, with supplies for fifty days carried on an immense caravan of five thousand camels. The force also carried four Krupp field guns and six machine guns—much use they were—the terrain reduced their effectiveness dramatically.

As you know, my darling Anne, I was along in the role of interpreter for the thirteen white officers who formed Hicks Paşa’s staff, none of whom spoke any Egyptian Arabic let alone any of the local Sudanese dialects.

We left Khartoum on September 9 and the following day departed the Nile at Duem to strike inland for El Obeid across the waterless wastes of Kordofan. How could we know that few of our soldiers would ever see the Nile again. No more would they greet the ancients’ Ra, rising in the east, the shore of life. Every weary step they took led on toward the setting sun, the west, and the ancients’ place of the dead.

The Victors

The harsh call of an ombeya and the rattle of drums heralds the appearance of Mohammed Ahmed, the Mahdi, chosen of God, conqueror of Kordofan and, according to his own prophesy, soon of all the Sudan and Egypt. His avowed mission is to sweep away the hated Turks and their kaffir white allies. For this, God has placed him on Earth. He strides from his humble hut and mounts the platform. His beautifully washed, short, quilted jibbah is perfumed with sandal-wood, musk, and attar of roses, a perfume his disciples call Rihet el Mahdi, the Scent of the Mahdi.

The Mahdi is a tall, powerfully built, broad-shouldered man of light-brown skin tone. He has a broad forehead above sparkling black eyes. His nose and mouth are well shaped, and he likes to smile a lot—as he does now—to show off his white teeth and expose the V-shaped gap between the two front incisors. This falja is a sign of good fortune in the Sudan, which it is for the Mahdi, for women flock to share his luck and he reserves the prettiest for his harem.

A step behind the Mahdi stands his Khalifa, handsome Abdullahi ibn Muhammad al Ta‘isha, in his jibbah covered with the small square patches of different colors that mark him out as a Mahdist warrior. His sympathetic Arab face belies a ruthless nature in pursuit of the Mahdi’s spiritual aims. Mahmud, one of the Khalifa’s many sons, stands at his side, his handsome face composed, while at his other hand stands Yakub, the eldest son, shorter and with an ugly countenance. The unworthy fear him, for he is known to resolve disputes efficiently with the executioner’s sword. Much of his recent handiwork litters the square’s extremities.

The Diary

September slipped into November. Evidence of the enemy grew with every day. Skirmishes became frequent, and by the second day of the month, after three days’ incessant fighting, the men were exhausted, worn out, half mad with thirst, and mutinous at being brought into the desert, as they said, to die. So, when the Dervishes stopped feinting and charged us in a mass on November 3 the defense was feeble.

In an instant, the Arabs crashed like a breaking wave on the front face of our defensive square in overwhelming numbers. They swept us away like chaff before the wind. The other sides of the square turned inward at this disaster and let loose a death-dealing fusillade both on the Dervishes pressing into the square and on each other crossways, fellahin killing fellahin. The murder was terrible. Hicks Paşa and the few English officers left with him, stood among the tangled mass of wounded, dead, and dying.

I served with the black Sudanese regiment which formed the rear of the square. The white officer in command had fallen ill and returned to Khartoum a few days after we left. As there were no others to spare, Hicks had asked me to take his place, and in this highly aberrant army, an untrained irregular officer seemed no odder than a desert mirage. As long as the other two sides of the square stood firm, so did I—but under the relentless pressure they soon gave way. I saw Hicks, with his staff, charge into the middle of the Dervishes and vanish among a forest of spears and muskets. Seeing the battle was lost, I kept my men together and we marched off in disciplined regular order, our only hope of getting free of the bloody massacre.

The Victors

The Mahdi raises his arms in greeting. The crowd falls silent. But there is no silence.

In the sudden absence of screaming ululation the moans of Yakub’s victims taint the powdered air. Men hang from wooden frames, dead and dying, their flesh in tattered shreds from the flaying lash. Others are suspended from beams by their thumbs, legs twitching in their agony, or lifeless from the torture of inexpressible pain. Here and there, slumped against mud walls, are men caught in thieving, now missing their left hands and right feet. At the end of the square a score of men bound to a rail suffer torments from recently inflicted wounds to their arms, legs, and torsos, into which interrogators pour a strong solution of salt and water well seasoned with pepper of the Sudd. This desperate but muted chorus becomes the background to the Mahdi’s words. He starts quietly, slowly.

O Beloveds of the Prophet! His voice, a deep baritone but sibilant, rings out. In the name of God the most compassionate and merciful, swear to renounce this world and look only to the paradise to come through the glories of our religious war. The war the Turks have brought down on their unbeliever heads through their greed, their adultery, their theft, and their deception.

A collective sigh gusts from bearded lips… alalalalalalala!

The voice begins to resound. O Beloveds, know that I am the Mahdi! The Chosen of God!

He stretches his arms to heaven, head tilted back into the gaze of God.

Ayayayayay!

His black eyes flash beneath hooded lids as he returns his mesmerizing stare to the adoring crowd. He lowers a hand slowly to point at the kneeling prisoners and his voice mounts toward crescendo. See before you those who defy the word of God. See the kaffir dogs who would claim this land in the name of Shaitan.

Aaahhhhh… Kill them, shouts a warrior.

The Mahdi’s smile narrows to a cruel slit which allows only a glint of teeth between his lips and that mysterious black void in the middle. "O Beloveds, let their just punishment be a lesson to those who cower in Khartoum. It is the will of God. He has spoken to me. Do not wait for your ammunition, for you are not to fight the enemies of God with ammunition, but with spears and swords. Let the words of the Mahdi be taken to Gordon Paşa in Khartoum that jihad is coming… His voice rises to an unearthly shriek of spitting passion. The desert whirlwind will wipe him and his soldiers from the face of our Sudan… he slams out his right hand… and then we take Egypt!"

Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!

The seven executioners begin their work, striking heads from shoulders of the kneeling men. They start with the two European officers. Massive sweeps of their curved swords carve through flesh and bone as easily as reaping grass. White and black bodies fall to their sides, fountaining life blood into the sand, and the joyous screams of the crowd sound like the end of a colonial dream.

The Diary

Two or three times the Dervishes charged us, but in a compact, disciplined square my black Sudanese soldiers’ volleys were fatally accurate. The enemy finally left us alone. They preferred to turn their fiendish hands to the slaughter of the panic-stricken Egyptians, and to grab up the spoils in hands that looked as though they wore scarlet gloves, so bloody was the theft.

We made for the wells of swampy Lake Raab, but the next day were again surrounded and so outnumbered that, after half our number had fallen, I accepted terms from a Dervish emir. I called out that we would give an answer in the morning, which bought me time to think things through. The surviving black Sudanese would have to swear loyalty to the Mahdi and wear his badge, but it was obvious that as a white man and a Christian I would be executed on the spot, and my head would join the others of the Paşa’s army at the feet of the Mahdi.

The explanation of how I managed to escape must wait for another day. People are coming, and I can’t be seen writing. I don’t suppose this diary—which I’ll try to keep up as circumstances allow—will ever be read. The odds seem to be stacked against that ever happening. Still, there’s a possibility that it could fall into the hands of one of my countrymen when—as is bound to be the case—the Mahdi’s rebellion is finally crushed and order restored.

I live in that hope, otherwise… if you are reading this now, dear Anne, you will already know that I can know nothing of these things.

CHAPTER 1

Disinherited, Cairo 1884

After the loss of Khartoum and the Sudan in January 1885, an Egyptian army, under the command of British officers checked the northern advance of the Mahdists to about half way between Dongola and Wadi Halfa, which restored confidence among the Egyptians. The death of the Mahdi, barely six months after Gordon’s murder, resulted in a pause in Dervish attacks as Khalifa Abdullahi ibn Muhammad of the fearsome Ta‘isha tribe fought a vicious civil war against two rivals, which left him the Mahdi’s successor.

So years went by. Things were quiet in Egypt.

Sometimes a bit too quiet for young Gregory Hilliard. In his head he protested that he was grown up, he didn’t want the suffocation of molly-coddling; he wanted action, excitement, a stretching of his legs. Stirring news from the front where the Sirdar, General Herbert Kitchener, was beginning to drive the Mahdists from Dongola Province only added to his restlessness. He sighed and looked down two floors into the inner courtyard of Habibah al-Suef’s grand house. Where was the fairness in it? he mused, he trapped up here while Zaki sprawled on a bench down there, a free spirit—his friend, more a soul-mate, but an unwelcome Nubian native inside Habibah’s exalted home. Zaki lay in the deep shade, only his dark legs glowing in the sun, the sharp line of demarcation seeming to cut him off at the knees. Gregory would be happy to be as unwelcome in Habibah’s home, then like Zaki he too could be free as a bird on this fine afternoon—free to go where he pleased instead of being stuck up here acting his role of good boy.

Whenever he reflected on the matter—which was only when his mother tried dunning into him his proper English heritage—Gregory thought he was happy to be called a street Arab by his mother’s English acquaintances (and, indeed, some of the snobbier Egyptian ladies like Habibah al-Suef) when they thought she was out of hearing. He’d always been here in Cairo, and only hazy impressions of what might have been came from putting together the bits and pieces of his mother’s stories of his past. And at sixteen years, that all seemed like such a long, long time ago…

* * *

Cairo—city of extremes. Fine, three-story houses of lovely proportions, with their elegant balconies, overlooked run-down, tottery apartments; fine jewelers crowded flea-bitten junk stalls; cheap bibiteria sat cheek by jowl with quality dining to exotic Lebanese music or Nubian pipes and Libyan dancers.

To the fine-boned black Nubian woman hurrying along Sharia Gohan el Qaid the bustling surroundings were too familiar to be of much interest. Her day had not been an easy one, and she was running late. She held the hand of a young white boy of not more than four years, who gamely struggled with rapid steps to match her strides.

Swerving and dodging, the mismatched couple plowed a fast course through Egyptians, Greeks, Turks, Berbers, Bedouin, Jews, Arabs, and dark-skinned Nubians from the Sudan. They passed a Caucasian-faced Turkish functionary, his proud colonial status declared in neat blue uniform and red fez. They threaded between portly merchants in oriental robes, Arabs muffled in cotton cloths with turban and burnous, lightly-clad fellahin, the humble farmers of the Nile canals, and women shrouded in dark blue cottons, their faces almost entirely hidden behind veils. All swirled in a blaze of color through the dusty sunbeams.

A string of loaded camels swayed out of a narrow side street from under the shadow of the Ashraf Barsbay Mosque, which towered over the chaos in the streets between Bab el Futuh and Bab Zuwaila.

Nabila! Must we go so fast? The little boy’s thin voice piped up through the noise, but the black woman holding his hand shook her head impatiently and only answered with an imperative tug. Although pale of skin, the boy spoke in an Afro-Arabic dialect of the Sudan.

At that moment four porters carrying a heavy load suspended from thick bamboo poles resting on their shoulders, dashed out of a side street as though to cut across the crowded Sharia Gohan el Qaid to disappear down a sloping street on the other side. They misjudged and crashed headlong into a donkey. The merchant, perched on his high saddle, looked far more capable of carrying the donkey than the other way around. The poor beast, grazed by a sharp pole, gave vent to a hollow bark and slipped on the cobbles.

Furry gray limbs collapsed in a flurry, poles tumbled, men flew. Knocked sideways, Nabila’s grip on her charge slipped. She screamed, convinced the boy had been crushed. As a fascinated throng gathered around the disaster, Nabila found herself pulled upright by a young white soldier. Her immediate fear was for her tiny charge, but with relief she saw the boy held securely in the soldier’s arms against his blue and gold-banded Hussar uniform.

From across the street another white person rushed and Nabila flinched when she saw the appalled expression on her mistress’s face. Anne Hilliard had been giving lessons in a house across the Qaid. From the shuttered balcony of the rich lady’s house both teacher and pupil must have witnessed the terrible accident overwhelm her and the child, for she could see Habibah al-Suef glaring down through the slats with a look that shouted, Never trust a Nubian!

* * *

My God Nabila! Are you all right? But Anne’s main concern was for her son gathered in the soldier’s arms. She vaguely noticed his cavalryman’s uniform.

The young man gave her a bright grin then turned to the boy. He’s fine, aren’t you?

Her son nodded.

What’s your name, then? the soldier asked.

Gregory. I am nearly four. What’s your name, please sir?

Me? Oh, I’m no one important, just a trooper in the Hussars. Trumpeter Edward Smith at your service, Mrs.… He turned toward Anne as he lowered her boy to the ground.

Mrs. Hilliard, Mr. Smith. Thank you for rescuing my son. The young man—Anne had already noted that he was hardly that, more a slip of a boy—smiled broadly from warm hazel eyes and with a generous mouth. On the other hand, he sported a fresh scar across his cheek, the only blemish on his lightly bronzed skin. The smile revealed fine white teeth, his eyes twinkled in the sun. Anne suddenly found herself feeling motherly toward him.

He indicated the chaos behind them. The porters and merchant hurled insults at each other and made no effort to clear the street. I’m glad I was here to help another European.

Have you been long in Cairo?

Since January. My outfit saw action at El Teb and Tamai on the Red Sea at Suakin. He fingered the scar. Got this at El Teb. Now we’re stuck here, while everything goes to pot down south. It’s frustrating. They’re sending units from everywhere, except those of us already here, to relieve Khartoum and avenge Hicks Paşa … I’m sorry?

Smith fell silent as he saw her distress.

Anne recovered herself with a shake of the head and tried handing her son over to the Nubian governess, but Nabila, far from upset by her close escape, had joined the shouting match behind them.

You mustn’t worry, Mr. Smith. It’s just that my husband went with Colonel Hicks and…

Oh, I’m sorry. Smith looked stricken, and suddenly very young.

I was hoping… well it’s probably silly, but, I was hoping that with this new expedition to relieve the siege of Khartoum I might hear something of Gregory—my husband, the same name as my boy’s—for I’m sure in my heart that he escaped at El Obeid. He was fluent in Arabic, you see, and he was not a front-line man. I just know he got away. She looked up at the soldier. I feel it here, in my heart. I would know if he were dead… Oh, I am sorry, I’m babbling.

I wish I were going up the river. He looked earnest as he politely ignored her embarrassment. I would try to find out what I could for you—and for your son. I—I know what it’s like to lose a father. He looked wistfully into the distance.

Anne pulled herself together. She turned to call Nabila to order and saw Gregory staring in obvious admiration at the cavalryman who had saved him.

Mr. Smith, here is my card. It’s on Al Gawali, the fourth dwelling along from the river end. We live very simply, but if you should find yourself out of barracks and at a loss, please feel free to call, so I may repay your kindness with at least a glass of English tea.

The young man thanked her and turned away with a wave at Gregory, whose face split in a wide smile.

Bye bye Trumpeter Smith!

* * *

That meeting in the street had been in July and Anne often reflected on the young man’s words—rather well spoken, she thought, for a mere, undoubtedly poorly educated, trooper. His mention of the Nile campaign he so wanted to be a part of dared her to hope she might hear something of her husband. But the rest of 1884 was a source of great discontent and worry as news drifted back down the Nile from the dilatory progress of the belated relief expedition. And she had already had to put up with nine months of deep uncertainty, for which only Gregory and her teaching duties had provided comfort—and Lady Hicks, whose house was always open to the wives of British officers for the time she still resided in Cairo.

Nine months…

But my dear, you must accept. Lady Sophie Hicks had said, her head held to one side in evident concern.

Once it became clear that the Mahdists had wiped out Hicks Paşa’s army, the Egyptian government had started to hand out pensions to the British wives according to their husbands’ rank. Anne was in line only for a small annual sum, barely sufficient for them live on.

Sophie took her hand. I know, Anne. I do understand what you are going through. You feel that in accepting the Khedive’s pension it’s as good as saying there is no longer any hope that your husband might still be alive.

Anne felt irritation that she should be so transparent, but out here in Egypt many of the stuffy conventions of polite English society were burned away. People had a tendency to speak their minds more forthrightly. She admired how Lady Hicks had accepted her husband’s death and yet remained a stalwart of the English colony in spite of her well-hidden distress. Already, several of the other ladies had returned to England, but her husband’s last note held Anne back from leaving.

In a few days, my dearest, the decisive battle will take place, and although it will be a tough fight, none of us has any fear of the result. In the unlikely event of defeat, I equipped myself with an Arab burnous and may hope to escape. However, I’ve little fear that it will come to that. Take care of yourself, and the boy!

So Anne stayed, convinced he had escaped in the disguise he had written about.

She pulled herself together, smiled briefly at her kind hostess, and took back her hand. You are right, of course. I must take the pension for young Gregory’s sake.

It’s little enough. How will you get by if you insist on remaining in Cairo? Have you no relatives at home you might turn to?

Anne shuddered. She had no intention of throwing herself on the mercy of her miserable in-laws in England—not, at least, until she had absolute proof of her husband’s death. But she needed more than the pension to bring up Gregory in the educated and well-mannered way she knew his father would wish for his son.

Lady Hicks could hardly avoid the look of distaste on Anne’s face. She sighed. I suppose we all own to family we would rather not have. Is it so bad?

We do not talk, Sophie. But I must find some occupation which will bring in some extra income.

As a servant wheeled in the laden tea trolley, Lady Hicks marched with her usual military precision toward the veranda and threw out a breezy encomium. But that should be little problem, my dear Anne. Your French is exquisite, naturally you speak elegant English, and how much we sad old ladies have enjoyed your playing of the piano-forte.

Anne followed with a blank expression.

Lady Hicks settled behind the table and busied herself with the cups, milk, and teapot. I shall leave soon, but before I do I will mention to the Egyptian ladies with whom I have regularly socialized—which of course includes most of the Khedive’s court—that Mrs. Hilliard would be glad to give lessons in English, French, or music.

Oh. How wonderful. Thank you.

The idea proved a huge success. Within days she had several wealthy ladies as pupils. Laughter accompanied many lessons, which helped lighten Anne’s hopeful but anxious spirit. Soon, she regularly earned enough to move from the cramped quarters they had taken before Gregory left for Khartoum and rent and then purchase a spacious house on Al Gawali, close by the Garden City. Here, she opened a school for the children of good Egyptian homes. The boys came first thing in the morning, brought to her by servants. At eleven o’clock she taught the girls. Of the elegant building’s three floors, Anne decided to occupy the two upper floors and rent the ground spaces as two small habitations and a store. The additional sources of income to her small pension left her quite well off and allowed her to employ Abina, another Nubian girl, as a maid and to help Nabila.

The two ground-floor residence were quickly occupied by a policeman, a local coffee-shop owner, and their small families. A friend of Nabila’s took the store to sell silks, alabaster items, and the finest essences of the best perfumers of Assouan. At the rear, accessed by a hallway which cut through from front to back and also housed the wide staircase to the next floor, a courtyard enclosed by the L-shaped house and two adjacent properties provided a space shaded from the burning sun other than for an hour at midday. Here, a part-time gardener squandered water on a fine lawn for Gregory to play on. When he was old enough, Anne allowed Gregory access to the roof without supervision, where he could amuse himself and friends amid the lush hibiscus bushes and flowers in their large china planters and gardinières, and gaze out over the neighboring roofs.

In the afternoons Anne would sally forth to visit one of her Egyptian ladies for a lesson and often had Nabila bring little Gregory to visit her pupil’s home so he could enjoy a cooled karkadé or a fruit sherbet. It was on such an occasion in late July that the street accident occurred in which the young English cavalryman Mr. Smith rescued her boy.

At the end of January 1885 came appalling news. Khartoum had fallen. Gordon Paşa lay murdered. The army scurried back to Egypt. The triumphant Mahdists occupied Dongola and pushed north toward Wadi Halfa. As they conquered, they shouted the Mahdi’s boast to invade Egypt itself and first take Cairo, then Rome and Constantinople.

The expedition’s failure utterly devastated Anne’s hopes. She’d prayed that, with Khartoum’s relief, some prisoners might know something of the British officers’ fates at El Obeid. She clung to the notion inspired by her husband’s last note that he had escaped in disguise and, fluent in Arabic, even now hid out among friendly tribesmen.

And she heard a depressing bit of news, which leaked from the barracks. That nice young man, Trumpeter Smith, had been granted his wish to accompany the expedition in the Heavy Camel Corps. He had become something of a mascot to the men and they greatly mourned his loss, feared killed by the Dervishes.

Anne was not given to feeling sorry for herself, but there were dark days when she cursed Egypt, even though she knew how much she owed it. England held unpleasant secrets, which affected her darling son, but which she could not reveal to him. Not yet, at any rate. Even now, after the years, her eyes pricked at the thought of the cruel treatment meted out to her husband by his own family.

* * *

From the first moment she met the handsome Gregory Hilliard Hartley, she felt compelled to share her every thought and action with him, and, she was sure, he with her. Which had its downside, since he confessed all that passed between him and his father. The problem was her status. When her very respectable clergyman father succumbed to the cholera and died, Anne Forsythe had been thrown on her uppers and forced to fend for herself. She took a position as governess to a family which, in addition to its country estate, owned a modest London property in fashionable Hanover Square. Two doors along, a far larger establishment was the London residence of the Honorable James Quinton Ffoulks Hartley, younger son of the Earl of Langdale. He in turn had two sons, Geoffrey Quinton and Gregory Hilliard. When, at a polite afternoon tea invitation, she first met Gregory, it was quite apparent to both parties that it was love at first sight.

Gregory had only recently returned from a few years’ post-graduate work with a renowned Egyptologist in search of fabled ancient Egyptian tombs and monuments. He entertained Anne endlessly by dropping into fluent Arabic and by explaining how the dialects of the more southerly regions differed. His father James, however, was not joyous at their association. Anne recalled the reported battle when Gregory informed his father of his intentions to marry. James Hartley went incandescent.

"She’s beneath your position. It’s damned monstrous after the education you’ve enjoyed. I have a position to uphold in society, and so do you, you blackguard! If I survive your uncle, I will become the Earl. If I don’t, your brother will. How dare you think of placing me, or Geoffrey, in such a scandalous position? That you should dream of throwing yourself away in this manner. You will make a good marriage to a suitable lady of taste, wealth, and influence. And that’s my final word."

James Hartley puffed expansively in his temper. You know I’m not a rich man. Geoffrey’s tastes are expensive… and what with his education, and yours, and the allowances I’ve made you both, it’s as much as I’ve been able to do to keep up our standing in society. And there are your two sisters—

But sir, mother’s settlement provided for Vera and Susan—

Don’t interrupt me, sir! The idea of your falling for this young strumpet’s whiles is monstrous.

"Young lady, Father. She is a clergyman’s daughter."

By this time, Gregory’s father was beetroot red in the face and spluttering. I won’t hear of such a thing, I will not hear of it for a moment, and if you persist in this madness, I tell you now that I won’t have anything more to do with you! That’s your choice: my wishes, or get cut off for this penniless beggar.

And they never spoke or crossed paths again.

She thought of their wedding. A happy day stained with sadness, unremarked in any society columns. Not even Gregory’s older brother Geoffrey attended the brief ceremony in the poorer suburb of Pimlico. And it seemed that, in breaking with his family, fortune itself withdrew benign fingers from their lives. Gregory’s avowed intention to earn a living as a writer faltered in the face of competition in an overcrowded market, and they were soon almost penniless. Then Anne’s persistent cough turned nasty and Gregory had to draw on his scanty reserves to consult a specialist. The doctor diagnosed tuberculosis (an early form of consumption, he said); the prognosis: not good, unless Gregory removed her to a much warmer climate. Egypt was his first choice.

They sailed to Alexandria by P&O steamer in the spring of 1879, certain only of one thing, that employment as a lowly clerk with Partridge & Company awaited Gregory. After settling into a small but reasonably clean apartment, he went to introduce himself to his new employer. His sense of responsibility to his family name infuriated Anne, but in the end she saw his point that dropping his surname of Hartley would save his father and his brother Geoffrey the embarrassment in society of having one of their own employed as nothing more than a poor clerk in trade. So he signed on with Partridge & Company as plain Gregory Hilliard. All I have to remember in future is to stop my signature at the end of Hilliard, he said with a smile of reassurance.

The warm Mediterranean air proved immediately beneficial to Anne’s health and her recovery brought another happiness—three months from their arrival Anne became pregnant and within another two Gregory had established himself as a valuable employee of Partridge. Little Gregory came along in due course, born in April and at a crucial moment when Egypt seethed with unrest and soon teetered on the edge of civil war. The Egyptian army, inflamed by the outspoken nationalist army officer Urabi Paşa, eventually rebelled against the Khedive, his Ottoman Turk overlords, and the interference in Egyptian affairs of France and Britain. With so many interests to protect, on May 20, 1882, a powerful British fleet anchored off Alexandria. Urabi’s forces manned the sea defenses and the British bombardment began in July.

Anne shuddered at the horrors that followed. But while hundreds of natives and Europeans were robbed of their lives before British troops landed, the little Hilliard family survived. Everything in Alexandria had been smashed, and with the businesses all closed, Anne asked the obvious question.

How will we live?

Gregory pondered. As we cannot remain here we must move to Cairo. I’m entitled to three months’ notice pay, that will keep us, but in the meantime there should be work for men who speak the native language as labor overseers. Now that Urabi is defeated and peace returned, the army commissariat will want men like me and I know several officers through my work in the port and being at Partridge’s.

What about the army itself?

It’s an idea. I’m sure I could get employment as a quartermaster or in the transport… but… I’d be worried about running into someone I knew at school, or at Cambridge, or since then. As Gregory Hilliard, I don’t mind carrying a parcel or helping to load a cart, but I wouldn’t like, as Gregory Hilliard Hartley, to be seen doing that sort of thing. It’s not me I’m thinking of, it wouldn’t be fair to Geoffrey.

Damn Geoffrey! He doesn’t care about you. Anne sighed more in resignation than annoyance. Then she brightened. How about the Egyptian army? I know it’s in tatters right now, but won’t it be reformed now this rebellion is over?

And she was right. Gregory found them an apartment in Cairo and only days after making the move Colonel William Hicks arrived to take command of the regenerated Egyptian force, and Gregory found employment as an interpreter. His new pay covered their costs and enabled him to hire Nabila as a nanny for his baby son. And so in 1883 he set off with the Egyptian army for Khartoum.

The goodbyes at Cairo station were the last Anne and infant Gregory saw of him.

CHAPTER 2

A Cairo Street Arab, September 1896

No point envying Zaki his exile down in Habibah al-Suef’s shady yard below. His sentence would soon be commuted when Habibah and his mother finished their gossip and then he could run off to the shooting range for an hour’s practice with pistol and rifle, and then to the exercise yard he and Zaki frequented. Gregory turned his head from the overhanging oriel where he sat cross-legged on the window seat. The sun angling in through the glass panes burned his left thigh below the hem of his khaki shorts. His neat dress, European for the visit instead of the loose and comfortable djellaba he’d rather wear, had begun to cling uncomfortably from sweat forming under its tight confines. Across the wide room his mother spoke in quiet tones with her pupil. In truth Habibah no longer required his mother’s tuition and the regular afternoon visits were expressly for the exchange of gossip, just about every morsel of which bored Gregory. He reached down to the broad window sill, picked up the glass of karkadé and finished his drink. It was unpleasantly warm. He could tell they were talking about him and his sharp hearing picked out the familiar words in Habibah’s elegantly accented English.

He is such a handsome boy, Mistress Anne. How proud you must be.

Habibah always started this topic in the same manner. The objective was simple: by contrast with Gregory’s esteemed wonderfulness, show up Zaki.

"I never will understand it. A Ja’alin as well. Cairo teems with more suitable companions than…"

She’ll be waving her hands now, lost for words. She was too well bred to mention that the Sudanese Ja’alin tribe was a part of the Mahdist rebellion which had set fire to the Egyptian province and helped slaughter the government’s garrisons far up the Nile. Habibah, he knew, would never say anything to remind his mother of the loss of his father. But Gregory knew Zaki’s story, that he’d had nothing to do with it, was too young when the war which carried off Gordon of Khartoum started. He switched his gaze and glanced down again. Zaki had stirred and started chatting with the woman who looked after the household laundry. He looked up suddenly. Gregory raised a hand, waved, and received a cheery all-white-teeth-in-black-apple-cheeks grin in return, which caused him to shiver pleasantly. The woman offered Zaki a corner of her musallah. Gregory caught the faint call of the muezzin from… the Mosque of Ibn Tulun was probably the nearest. As the adhan rang out over the streets, to be joined in a musical wailing wave by other muezzins near and far, Zaki oriented himself and bowed his head to the prayer mat, his tightly coiled hair like the pile of a black Berber carpet. Gregory knew well the tight nap of Zaki’s hair and mentally ran a hand over it with a renewed shiver, and from his eyrie joined his friend in prayer. He was used to performing the rak’ahs which made up the full salah, although he did not pray five times a day as prescribed (and to be honest, neither did Zaki observe all of them).

His mother greatly disapproved of him aping the Muslims. You are a Christian, she berated him after finding him forehead to a musallah with Zaki. On that occasion Nabila had chased the nasty Ja’alin heathen from the house—like Habibah, though eons apart socially, Nabila was a Copt. He found the whole business odd, since his mother also insisted that the god of the Christians (she graciously included the Copts), the Jews, and the Muslims was really the same being. When he interrogated Zaki on this, his expert on Islamic affairs shook his curly-knotted head and said he’d have to ask. A day later he reported what a local imam told him, that both of them were ahl el-kitab, along with any Jews.

People of the Book, Gregory translated, no wiser really, but he assumed it matched his mother’s assertion.

Unbidden, his mind side-slipped from the sublime to something baser. He laughed to himself at what Nabila and Habibah al-Suef might think if they knew what he and Zaki got up to when out of sight of censorious adults. Rather a lot more than praying together. While it was the son of a French stockbroker who initiated Gregory into the secrets of sex not so many years before, it was Zaki’s precocious uninhibitedness which transformed the purely mechanical into something wonderful, something which only they shared. At first they pleasured each other by fondling and rubbing, although a deep instinct told Gregory what they were doing should be kept secret from anyone else, especially grown-ups. But as they matured toward adolescence, they soon discovered how to make the strange and wonderful sensations stir in belly and groin and then explode like going for a desperately needed piss only… well, so much stronger a feeling. And the resulting emissions, enjoyed together, cemented their feelings in a way that made Gregory go fuzzy inside whenever he thought of Zaki, and which Zaki returned in all manner of ways: by looks, private touches of shoulder, hip, hands, gently tapped heads, even feet when they sat side by side on a high wall, legs dangling.

Looking down at Zaki in the yard, he grinned and unconsciously squeezed his cock. Loose-limbed but so elegant in his economic movements, just a glimpse of Zaki’s dark smooth-skinned legs whenever he hitched up his djellaba made Gregory feel breathless with a strength of excitement he didn’t know how to express. Yes, French and English snobbishness perfectly mirrored Habibah’s high-born Egyptian disdain, for Gregory’s white peers frowned on his friendship with Zaki and were often as vocal in their disapproval. He simply shook it off.

In fact years ago he’d shaken off several of the expatriate children of his acquaintance after Zaki came into his young life. The Ja’alin boy’s bubbly and irreverent sense of humor appealed to Gregory. It wasn’t long before Zaki mattered to him much more than any of his European friends did. But in that, even as youngsters, Gregory innately understood that his close friendship with a native would never be

Reviews for Gregory's Story

[bramptonite · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another masterpiece by Roger Kean. The story follows the lives of Gregory Hilliard, an English boy born in Cairo, Egypt, and his childhood companion, Zaki, a native born Sudanese, from their early childhood to their growth and maturity as young men.
Gregory Hilliard’s parents had moved to Egypt on account of his mother's illness, which required she live in an hot dry climate. His father joined the army to support his family in the country, and was on a mission when he was lost, presumed dead by the Army, when Gregory was just an infant.
Gregory's mother, Anne Hilliard, instead of retreating back to England, choose to continue to live in Cairo, Egypt. She worked hard and was able to support herself an infant in relative comfort. She brought up Gregory in the belief that his father might have survived, and thus Gregory wants to find out exactly what happened to his father all those years ago. In pursuit of that quest, Gregory joins the English army when he was still very young.
Roger has shown in incredible detail the nuances of that period of history of those parts of Egypt and Sudan. We also have a short period in which we see the intricacies of English society during those times. There are periodic cameo appearances by the Rainbow brothers, whose enthralling story was shown in Roger Kean’s previous book.
Gregory's early life and upbringing in Cairo explains satisfactorily why he is able to blend in the enemy lines while on missions for the English. His hair-raising experiences while being an officer in the English army and the solid support of Zaki, who is shown to be in as much risk as Gregory himself due to his "Jaalin" ancestry, kept me engrossed for hours.
Roger has an observant eye to description. The battles of that period are dissected. One missing thing, which would have placed the cherry on the cake, would have been if Roger had included a map of the region as well. From the details of the battles, it is clear that Roger has either an encyclopedic knowledge of the area or has really researched it well. Thus, the absence of a map is slightly puzzling. I am one of those readers whose enjoyment is exponentially increased by reading about a battle, and then referring to the map to see its strategic impact on the overall war. However, that is just a personal preference, and other readers might not find this quality a lack.
Roger highlights the horrors of war indirectly by showing the impact it has on the innocents, the widows, the orphans, the grieving parents of the combatants. However, he also tempers the bleakness by giving a glimpse of hope after the battles are over. Life goes on. The survivors and the widows return to their homes and start rebuilding their shattered lives afresh. This aspect of the story is awesome for readers like me, who do not care for books with unmitigated tragedy for chapter after chapter after chapter.
The quality I personally most admire about Roger's writing is that he has an instinctive grasp of the humanity of everyone, not just the protagonists. I have said it before and will say it again, Rogers' created villains are not simply villains just for the sake of doing evilness; they always have some defined motive for their actions. Most people are shown in shades of grey, they have some redeeming quality inside them. This makes the entire story believable and much more engrossing.