The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

When we had toiled across the wilderness for two weeks, which, despite the plentiful supplies of water thanks to the Hittites, was exhausting enough, we saw one night a pillar of fire rising from a mountain beyond the desert and we knew that Horemheb awaited us there with his chariots. This night in the desert has stayed in my memory, because I remained awake, unable to sleep, and the red pillar of fire glowed and sparked throughout the night and paled the stars by its redness. After sweltering days, nights brought chill to the desert, and men who marched barefoot through scorching sand and prickly plants for days cried out in their sleep groaning as if tormented by evil spirits. It is for this reason no doubt that men believe the desert to be full of devils. Already during the early hours, the horns rang out, and the march continued, although ever more men who were unaccustomed to marching and carrying heavy loads sank down unable to move any more — for Horemheb’s fire beacon urged us to hasten, and from every quarter of the desert small groups of ragged, sun-blackened robbers along with fighters from the voluntary troops hurried toward the fiery signal, glancing greedily at our equipment, spears and sledges of the oxen. They stayed separate from us and only followed Horemheb’s fire beacon, and I think they would have been just as ready to attack and rob us as they would have been to attack the Hittites.

But as we approached Horemheb’s camp, we saw that the desert horizon was covered with dust clouds as the Hittites were coming to conquer their water stores back. Their scouts drove with their chariots in small detachments across the desert and attacked our vanguard raising great terror in men who were not used to fighting against chariots — nor ever having fought against anything else either to kill with spears and bows. Thus our troops came into great turmoil, and many ran to the desert in their terror, and the Hittites pierced them from their chariots. Luckily, Horemheb sent forth from his camp those chariots that could still move to help us, and such was the Hittites’ respect towards him, that they left us in peace and withdrew back. But it might also be that this did not happen out of respect but that they simply had orders to scout and disrupt us without engaging in battle.

In any case, their withdrawal and escape aroused great enthusiasm in our infantry, and the spearmen shouted at them raising their spears, and the archers wasted a large number of arrows that they shot in vain at the escaping chariots. Everyone still kept quietly glancing at the horizon where the dust rose like a cloud wall,

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but the men encouraged each other by saying about Horemheb, “There is nothing to worry since his strong arm protects us. There is nothing to worry since he hits the Hittites like a falcon, tearing their eyes out and blinding them.”

But if they hoped for time to rest when they arrived at Horemheb’s camp, they were to be sorely disappointed, and if they believed he might commend them for their rapid march and for having worn the skin from their feet in the desert sand, they were to be sorely disappointed. He received us with his eyes bloodshot with weariness and rage in his face, and swinging his golden whip, which was stained with blood and dust, he shouted at us, “Where have you been loitering, you dung beetles? Where have you skulked, you devil’s spawn? Truly I should rejoice to see your skulls whiten in the sand already tomorrow, I am so filled with shame at the sight of you. You creep to me like tortoises and smell of sweat and dung so that I am compelled to close my nostrils with my fingers, while my best men bleed from countless wounds, and my noble horses pant their last breaths. But dig now, you men of Egypt, dig for your lives, and this is work most fitting for you who have dug all your lives in the mud when you haven’t been digging your noses or behinds with your filthy fingers.”

And the inexperienced soldiers of Egypt were in no way resentful of his words but rejoiced at them and repeated them to one another laughing aloud — and everyone felt as if having found protection from the terrifying wilderness in the mere sight of Horemheb. They forgot their flayed soles and parched tongues and they began at Horemheb’s directions: to dig deep trenches in the ground, to drive wooden stakes between stones and to stretch reed ropes between these stakes and to roll and drag huge stones to the pass and down the slopes of the mountains.

Horemheb’s weary charioteers crept out from their mountain holes and tents and limped up to them to display their wounds and boast of their prowess — and even the half-dead rose to boast of their prowess, thus encouraging the diggers, spearmen and archers and making them all envious. When they had seen the Hittites approaching like a cloud at

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