LITMIR.BIZ

      Although I would rather have swallowed my own sword than openly admit it, deep in my heart I knew that finally it was over.

      Fifty years ago the Hyksos multitudes had appeared without warning within the borders of our very Egypt out of the eastern wilderness. They were a savage and cruel people with no redeeming features. They had one asset that made them invincible in battle. This was the horse and chariot, which we Egyptians had never seen or heard of previously, and which we looked upon as something vile and abhorrent.

      We attempted to meet the Hyksos onslaught on foot but they swept us before them, circling us effortlessly in their chariots, and showering us with their arrows. We had no alternative but to take to our boats and fly before them southward up the mighty Nile River, dragging our craft over the cataracts and into the wilderness. There we lingered for over ten years, pining for our homeland.

      Fortuitously I had managed to capture a large number of the enemy horses and spirit them away with us. I soon discovered that the horse, far from being abhorrent, is the most intelligent and tractable of all animals. I developed my own version of the chariot, which was lighter, faster and more manoeuvrable than the Hyksos version. I taught the lad who was later to become Tamose, the Pharaoh of Egypt, to be an expert charioteer.

      At the appropriate time we Egyptians swept down the Nile in our fleet of river-boats, landed our chariots on the shores of our very Egypt and fell upon our enemies, driving them into the northern delta. Over the decades that followed we had been locked in the struggle with our Hyksos enemies.

      But now the wheel had turned full circle. Pharaoh Tamose was an old man, lying in his tent mortally wound by a Hyksos arrow. The Egyptian army was melting away and tomorrow I would be faced by the inevitable.

      Even my intrepid spirit, which had been vital in carrying Egypt forward over the past half-century of struggle, was no longer sufficient. In the last year we had been beaten in two successive great battles, both bitter and bloody but in vain. The Hyksos invaders who had seized the greater part of our fatherland from us were on the threshold of their final triumph. The whole of Egypt was almost within their grasp. Our legions were broken and beaten. No matter how desperately I attempted to rally them and urge them onwards, it seemed that they had resigned themselves to defeat and ignominy. More than half of our horses were down while those still standing were barely able to bear the weight of a man or chariot. As for the men, almost half of them bore fresh and open wounds that they had bound up with rags. Their numbers had been reduced by almost three thousand during those two battles that we had fought and lost since the beginning of the year. Most of the survivors staggered or limped into the fray with a sword in one hand and a crutch in the other.

      It is true that this shortfall in our roster was caused more by desertion than by death or wounding in the field. The once proud legions of Pharaoh had finally lost heart, and they fled before the enemy in their multitudes. Tears of shame ran down my cheeks as I pleaded with them and threatened them with flogging, death and dishonour as they streamed past me on their way to the rear. They took no heed of me, would not even glance in my direction as they threw down their weapons and hurried or limped away. The Hyksos multitudes were gathered before the very gates of Luxor. And on the morrow I would lead what would almost certainly be our last feeble chance to avert bloody annihilation.

      As night fell over the field of battle I had my manservants clean the fresh bloodstains from my shield and my armour, and beat out the dent in my helmet which earlier in the day had deflected a Hyksos blade. The plume was missing, sheared off by the same enemy blow. Then by the flickering flame of a torch and the reflection in my polished bronzed hand-mirror I contemplated my own image. As always it gave my sorry spirits a lift. Once again I was reminded how readily men will follow an image or a reputation when common sense warned of imminent annihilation. I forced a smile into the mirror, trying to ignore the melancholy shadows in the depths of my eyes; then I stooped out under the flap of my tent and went to pay my respects to my well-beloved Pharaoh.

      Pharaoh Tamose lay on his litter attended by three of his surgeons and six of his numerous sons. In a wider circle around him were gathered his generals

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