In Khartoum the trumpeters, layers of red sand glittering on their faces, are posted at each corner of the palace roof. Trapped between the desert and the Jihad, oblivious to the heat and the impending dust storm, General Gordon is waiting, hopelessly, for Wolseley's camel corps to cross the shimmering land and rescue him. He begins to hallucinate betrayals and beheadings; unwittingly he is about to touch and change lives far beyond his own including those of a London doctor, John Clark and his wife Mary, and especially the young boy from the English dockyard slums who now stands beside him, his reluctant last ally.
- ISBN10 0748132562
- ISBN13 9780748132560
- Publish Date 5 January 2012 (first published 1 December 2011)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
- Imprint Virago Press Ltd
- Edition Digital original
- Format eBook (EPUB)
- Pages 320
- Language English