Sennefer's return snapped him from his reverie. The officer informed him that everything was now ready, so Djedef ordered him to have the horns sound the signal for departure. Immediately a great movement spread throughout the encampment as the music was played and the first units of the army began to march. Djedef mounted the commander's chariot, — which — was driven by Sennefer. Then the most senior officers mounted their vehicles, and the group of them proceeded to the heart of the troop of chariots. As the horns sounded again, Djedef's chariot moved to the head of the troop, flanked by two wings of mighty officers. Following them was a formation composed of parallel ranks of three thousand war chariots bristling with weapons. Marching behind them were the brigades of infantrymen, each one bearing its own standard. At their head was the brigade of archers, then the spear-throwers, trailed by the swordsmen. Following the army were huge wagons bearing weapons, provisions, and medical supplies, guarded by a squadron of horsemen.
This army traversed the desert wastes, its destination the mighty wall that the tribes had taken as their secure fortification.
The forenoon sun had risen over them, and the blaze of midday heat had scorched them, when the breeze of sunset struck them as they stalked the earth like giants. The ground almost seemed to complain from bearing their immense weight, while they themselves complained of nothing.
27
A scouting chariot was seen rapidly covering the ground in their direction, and they watched it with great interest. Its commander approached Djedef and informed him that their eyes had detected a band of Bedouin scattered around Tell al-Duma. The reconnaissance officer proposed that a troop of soldiers go out to fight them. Intrigued, Djedef spread out a map of the desert in front of him, searching for Tell al-Duma.
“Tell al-Duma lies to the south of our path,” he said. “These Bedouin are known to travel in small parties that pillage and then flee — and it would never enter their minds that they would be attacked by a sizable army like ours. We have no reason to fear an attempt to outflank us.”
One of the officers spoke up. “I think, Your Excellency,” he said, “that it would not be wise to leave them as they are.”
“No doubt we will stumble upon quite a few groups like this one,” the youthful commander countered. “If we sent out a unit of soldiers against each of them, we would disperse our forces, so let's keep our eyes fixed on the primary objective. And that is to pierce the wall around their stronghold in the midst of their territory, and to arrest their leader, Khanu.”
Yet Djedef wisely chose to strengthen the force protecting their supplies. Meanwhile, the army advanced on its route, seeing no trace of any tribesmen along the way. News came to them that all those who roamed the desert, when they heard of the approach of the army marching in the peninsula's direction, had turned tail and fled. And so the Egyptians proceeded down the safe, empty road until they reached Arsina.
There they stopped for rest and provisions. Prince Ipuwer came to visit them, and was given a reception befitting his rank. The prince inspected the units of the army, then lingered with the commander and his senior officers, discussing with them the affairs of the campaign. He suggested that they leave a detachment between them and Arsina to communicate their news, and to promptly send them anything they might need. Then he addressed them, “You should know that all the forces in Arsina are buckled up to fight,” said Ipuwer, “and that sizable reinforcements from Serapeum, Dhaqa'a, and Mendes are on their way to Arsina, as well.”
“We beseech the gods, O Your Highness,” answered Djedef, “that we do not require new troops, respecting the — wish of His Majesty, — who is anxious to preserve the lives of the believers.”
That night the army slept deeply and quietly. Then it awoke to the blast of the horns when the cock began to crow.
Pharaoh's army resumed its march, moving east from Arsina with an awful clamor. They kept stopping for rest, then resuming their journey, until there loomed in the distance the huge wall that began in the south at the Gulf of Hieropolis, then bent eastward, tracing the shape of a great bow. The expedition swung toward the north, then turned slightly to the east before encamping in a spot where assailants’ arrows could not reach them.
From their camp, they could observe the firmness of the wall's construction. They could also see the guards perched upon it, bows in hand, ready to defend it against any attacking army.
Djedef and the officers agreed that, in this case, there was no purpose in waiting to launch their assault, as there would be if they intended to take a city by starving its populace. They reached a consensus that it was best to begin with light provocative skirmishes to test their enemy's strength.
Clearly it was dangerous to use their chariots in the first battle for fear of losing their brightly bedecked horses. Therefore, they put hundreds of armored bowmen at the lead, arrayed in a half circle, each one separated by tens of arms’ lengths from his nearest fellow. They approached until they reached a point where the enemy thought that it was practical to launch their arrows at them, and they judged it effective to respond in kind. Thus began the first battle between the two sides, the arrows flying in dense droves, like clouds of locusts, most of them vanishing into the great void between them.
Djedef watched the battle with absolute concentration, admiring the Egyptians’ skill in archery that had long — won them a reputation without peer. Then he spied the gate on the wall.
“What a massive portal that is,” he said to Sennefer, “as though it — were the entrance to the Temple of Ptah!”
“Just wide enough for our chariots — when — we punch through it later,” the zealous officer replied.
The skirmish — was not in vain. Djedef noticed that the tribesmen had not built towers on the fortress's walls from which to shoot arrows down on their attackers. As a result, their bowmen could not respond without exposing themselves to danger. Hence, it seemed profitable to attack with great armored shields, known as “the domes.” Shaped like the prayer niches in the walls of temples, and big enough to cover a soldier from his head to his feet, they each had a small aperture near the top, through which the soldiers fired their arrows. Thanks to their thick plating, the only way these shields could be penetrated was through these same openings.
Djedef ordered several hundred of the men carrying these shields to advance on the wall's defenders. The soldiers were all to line up behind their armor in the form of a wide half circle. They all then moved up toward the wall, indifferent to the hail of arrows falling down upon them. Next, they set their shields on the ground and fired their own arrows, as a fierce and bloody battle began between them and their enemy, the messengers of death flying to and from both sides. The tribesmen succumbed in great numbers, but they nonetheless displayed a strange steadfastness and a rare sort of valor. Each time a group of them fell, another took its place. And despite the Egyptians’ protection behind their peculiar armor, many were struck by missiles piercing the tiny apertures, and were killed or wounded as a result.