Secret of the Sands (18 page)

In a second, Wellsted is awake with his knife in his hand. He jumps up and grabs her arm, pulling her out of the way. He checks the others but the rest of the party only turn over and slumber through the disturbance or perhaps merely ignore it.

‘What happened?’ he asks. ‘What is it?’

Zena’s voice breaks. She starts to cry. ‘A snake,’ she explains. ‘It was a big one. I threw a rock and frightened it off.’

Wellsted pulls her down, out of the line of sight. ‘I heard they will sleep near men for warmth,’ he whispers kindly. ‘That is all. Don’t worry.’

Zena’s wide, frightened eyes are all he can see of her. ‘It was a snake,’ she repeats pointing into the darkness. ‘It might have been a constrictor.’

Wellsted lifts the thin carpet on which she has been lying and moves it to the inside tier of the sleeping circle, putting himself between Zena and his saddle.

‘That girl is too jumpy,’ Kasim growls, without rising.

Almost immediately the most feared slaver in Muscat is breathing deeply again. Zena feels a sting of outrage. The snake might have attacked, had it not been for her vigilance.

‘It’s all right,’ Wellsted comforts his charge. ‘It’s gone now. You did well to make it out at all in this pitch. Come – sleep closer to the fire. It’s safer.’

He hands her over as if she is lady and he is her protector, for how else might an officer of the Indian Navy behave? She feels herself relax as she pulls the blanket into place over her frame.

When dawn comes, Zena wakens from her first deep sleep since she left the city, and the coffee is already brewed. There is a fuss among the livestock – a slave is basting a camel’s skin in butter for the beast has developed the mange. Still sleepy, she rises and drinks some milk, sweet and so fresh that it is warmed by the animal’s body rather than the sun. Wellsted smiles at her from the other side of the fire, saddling his camel ready to go. She smiles back.

‘Come,’ Ibn Mohammed wrangles the men. ‘All of you! The sun is rising ahead of us! Today we can ride!’

Zena nods at one of the slaves. The man has only half his teeth left in his head and a strange tattoo on his cheek that forms a dark cicatrice – a spiral. He spits as he holds the camel while she hoists herself onto the high saddle and gees the beast into the caravan that has formed, waiting to be off.

The snakes will not come now it is light,
she thinks as Ibn Mohammed continues to curse the laziness of the men who are not yet in line, and Wellsted, at the head as if he is born to it, leads the party into the mountains. Zena sees Kasim notice him.
The white man,
she thinks
, is surprising them, but then that is not necessarily a good thing.

As the men move higher, the way is stonier and more difficult until, at last, almost a fortnight after the caravan left the streets of the capital, the stones turn into shingle and within two hours they thin to a fine sand, at first of different colours – with black and green mixed copiously with the white. Then the spectrum of colour fades completely until it disappears into a haze of white heat and sand. Any words for sun, or heat, or sand seem somehow an understatement. When the desert appears, it is breathtaking. As the boulders disappear and the trees and bushes evaporate, the undulating dunes stretch for miles only punctuated by a stray boulder or the bleached-out, skeletal remains of what was once an olive tree.

There has been no rain for months. Anything that lives in these conditions must bear an impossible torment of burning, baking, parching and scorching. The scorpions are hiding below the dunes, the vultures circle, looking for any oryx that have strayed this far, hoping at the very least for a square meal of dead snake or lizard. The flies have disappeared for the air is a furnace. To the lieutenant, the landscape seems larger than anywhere on earth he’s been – an immense void in the business of the world. In a heartbeat, he understands why religions are born on the sands – there is nothing here for a man but his own mind. He will enter this place only with what he can carry with him and will leave the same way.

‘It’s like a cathedral,’ the lieutenant mouths in a whisper. It is not for nothing that the Arabs call
Rubh Al Khali
the Empty Quarter.

Turning, the lieutenant senses a change in Ibn Mohammed. He catches a genuine smile on the man’s face for the first time since they met. This wilderness is his home, he thinks – the less life the better. The pride of Muscat belongs here and not among the social niceties of city society.

‘You cannot map this in your little book,’ the slaver sneers, proud that his homeland cannot be tamed and measured by the infidel. ‘The sands move,’ he says sternly. ‘You cannot write them down. It is too large. The desert runs from here till Cairo. Sand and wind all the way.’ Both Ibn Mohammed and Kasim are from
Bedu
stock. Their families have travelled in this way for many generations. They are born to it. If it disconcerts the white man so much the better.

Wellsted is suitably daunted. He wonders how – and if – Jessop and Jones have survived. The Arabian customs of hospitality and the quaint oath of the caravan make sense now he truly comprehends the scale of the desolation. In an environment such as this, these customs are not courtesies – they are the only way to stay alive. Only a fool would enter this place of emptiness without knowing with some degree of certainty that his fellows will do anything to save him. It’s different from what he saw at Aden – there he only hovered on the fringes and could not see the scope of the void. Just like Mickey showed him in Muscat, he pulls his headdress into place across his face, mask-like as a
litham
. If he does not cover his skin now he realises he will burn the already pink flesh so badly that it will flake away entirely in the searing heat. Behind him, the
habshi
sits absolutely straight in the saddle.

‘How far away are we from Jessop and Jones now? When do you think we will get to them?’ the lieutenant asks the slavers.

Ibn Mohammed’s tawny eyes narrow to a slant. Time is meaningless here. No man can rush in this heat for long. If you push yourself hard you will simply die quicker. Experienced travellers take their pace from the camels.

Kasim is more accommodating. He considers the lieu-tenant’s question slowly. He does not know exactly where the emir has camped but their destination certainly is a long way to the north. They will meet
Bedu
en route and ask for directions and in the meantime they must simply check their position at night by the stars, and in the daytime by the direction of the wind, when there is any. If they are lucky they will travel perhaps 40 miles in a day and they are making for Riyadh, which is a long way off – 750 miles or so. That is a journey of twenty days (though time in the desert disappears and the slavers have known caravans make less than 15 miles in a whole day if the sand is very soft). In any case, from Riyadh they will have to make a new plan – depending on the news of where the emir has pitched. Like many things on the Peninsula, the target is moving.

‘Within a week, I hope,’ he says slowly, knowing this is hopelessly optimistic. ‘Perhaps two weeks. Three.
In sh’allah.
Though of course, it may be more.’

Ibn Mohammed turns his face into the sun.

‘
Of course. Of course,’ Wellsted agrees. Look at the place. As he gestures at the landscape, Zena slopes directly across his view sending the now-familiar sting of protective feeling through his frame. ‘A week. A fortnight. A month. How could anyone know?
In sh’allah.
Indeed.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

It has been over two months since their capture, not that Jessop and Jones are aware of that, and for a brief period Jones has been removed from the tent. It is the fourth time this has happened.

‘Well,’ he says under his breath, ‘this is a turn-up. I wonder what in the hell they want now?’

He is unsure what he is supposed to say as none of his officer’s training or indeed the first-rate education in the schoolroom in his family’s shabby house on one of Knightsbridge’s smarter streets has prepared him for this. A gentleman is never naked, at least not in public, and Lieutenant Jones is of the view that the emir’s tent is certainly a public place. In London he knows that the gentlemen of the Whatley Club recently inspected an Indian prince who was put up to the job over dinner. When an autopsy is performed on a black man or a Chinaman, the Medical School is packed to capacity. All society has a natural interest in anything or anyone different from itself. Still, he is uncomfortable. It’s not the same for a white man. A nigger is a savage and lives naked in the wild. A white fellow, in particular Lieutenant Jones, certainly does not. Having to wear the
jubbah
is bad enough.

The emir peers at Jones’ golden pubic hair and tuts loudly. One of the other men laughs hysterically – not an action designed to make a chap stand proud. They have not inspected Dr Jessop like this, for the doctor has not left the prison tent at all, except when they have marched with the caravan. They are most likely more interested in him, Jones muses, because Jessop is older and is not blonde. Besides, it is Jessop who killed the emir’s daughter so, he thinks, to the emir and his men, he, Harry Jones Esq., is the superior specimen – far more interesting than Jessop’s mud-coloured hair, which is clearly not diverting in the least. The attention is an honour, he flatters himself, and perhaps there will be an advantage to it. A fellow never knows what such savage men may do. But they have picked him and that is surely a good thing.

‘I can sing,’ he says, hoping to please the assembled tribesmen. ‘Sing,’ he says again loudly over the rush of conversation as they try to understand what he has said. He takes a deep breath, recalls his days in the church choir at St Luke’s and decides to simply show them.

Jones is felled with a brutal blow to the stomach before he can stir himself to the second verse. The emir clearly does not appreciate an anthem. He might be an old fellow, but he can move quickly if he wants to. Apart from feeding himself, it is the only time Jones has seen the ruler take any kind of action. Normally, his minions do everything. The emir retakes his seat and Jones watches, curled up, from ground level. There is an enticing scent on the air of jasmine oil, which he vaguely remembers as the scent used to perfume the emir’s robes. While it transports Jones to a lately unvisited place of fresh, clean linen, two of the tribesmen pull the stinking lieutenant to his feet and this time he stands silently, trying not to tremble.

When a man approaches with a knife in his hand, Jones wonders fleetingly if it is worth fighting the grinning hyena that wants to cut him, though it quickly becomes apparent that the intention is to lop a lock of blonde hair from the lieutenant’s matted head. Once that is done, the emir considers his investigations completed. He waves away the white man and Jones is thrown his tattered old
jubbah
, given a drink of water and a handful of dates and walked back to the stifling furnace of the tatty, grey tent where Jessop remains tied to the stake. On the way, the guard pushes him roughly, his hand groping Jones’ genitals. This action, slyly repeated at any opportunity, has ceased to surprise the lieutenant and he only motions to be given a few more dates, with which the guard generally complies before laying his hand firmly on Jones’ arse. He never seems to want anything more and there is, Jones tells himself, no harm in it. Or at least, no more harm than in anything else to which Jones is being subjected.

Best not to say anything,
the lieutenant thinks, the soles of his feet burning on the scorching sand. The whole inspection scenario is bizarre and the guard’s actions afterwards even more so. Jones always makes the same decision – just to keep schtum. Otherwise, he would have to share the dates with Jessop, quite apart from bear the humiliation of admitting he’s been inspected like a farm animal and manhandled like a whore. He wonders for a second what the emir wants. Perhaps, Jones thinks somewhat optimistic ally, he will be forced to mate with one of the emir’s dusky women. He remembers reading somewhere about the propensity in tribes of welcoming strangers in this way. He saw a book one time in Bombay, with engravings. It was an illicit night fuelled by whisky and the sheer boredom of the officers’ mess when he and his friend Lieutenant Whitelock took to the slums in a
tanga
and bought what Whitelock referred to later as ‘a charming time’. Charming. It cost, if he recalls correctly, a mere handful of Indian rupees – not even a proper, English coin. Now what did that book say? Something about healthy breeding strains, if he remembers rightly, though everyone here seems a relatively uniform pale coffee colour, bar one or two of the slaves. And since Jessop healed the children (well, almost all of them) Jones hasn’t once on his (admittedly limited) excursions seen any evidence of illness. Still, he could be just the shot of fresh blood that the emir wants for his people. It would certainly explain the damn fellow’s interest in his naked flesh. Yes, he thinks, indulging the schoolboy fantasy and blocking out the humiliation he has just endured with the humiliation he doled out in happier times to the shy 15-year-old whose father sold her first to Jones and then to Whitelock. Yes – breeding strains – that’s probably it.

The jailer pushes Jones roughly as they enter the tent. He falls easily into place, next to his confederate.

‘You all right, old chap?’ Doctor Jessop grunts.

Jessop is concerned for Jones’ welfare. After all, he is the man’s doctor. The Navy has solid, scientific information about how long a man can go without much food and Jessop is fully appraised of the details though the statistics don’t account for the heat or the fetid conditions. Such squalor, Jessop feels, can only add to the pressure on the body to succumb. Still, Jones looks quite perky and, the doctor thinks vaguely, the fellow smells different from when he left. There is a sweet aroma from his breath. Can it be possible? Jessop wonders what they gave him. The thought of something that tastes sweet is most diverting. He finds himself fantasising about Turkish delight as the lieutenant shrugs and submits himself willingly to being tied up by the guard. Why not?

‘God Save the King,’ he mumbles.

‘And our good men in the field,’ Jessop replies automatic ally.

It is, after all, a standard military toast.