Ice-cold, solitary and obsessional, Kitchener, six foot two, blond, with pewter eyes (and a cast in one of them) and a face like a mask, was a self-made Anglo-Irish officer, a celibate, probably a repressed homosexual, who combined steely acumen, vindictive ambition and porcelain collecting. Now this meticulous operation would win him the nickname the Sudan Machine. When the British Lancers charged, Churchill rode with them.
