Secret of the Sands (30 page)
‘This one,’ he says, ‘can go tomorrow morning. To the Bombay Marine.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the butler says, grateful that the master appears to have ceased his eccentric behaviour for the time being. ‘There is a fellow downstairs to pick up the chaise. Shall I send him up?’
Murray looks down into the street. There is a cart and horse parked at the doorway. The light is fading and the street lamps are being lit.
‘The chaise?’ Murray repeats absentmindedly. ‘Oh no. Send him away. It was ruse, nothing more. The thing doesn’t need doing at all.’
As soon as they take to the water, the balance of everything changes. While Ibn Mohammed and Kasim are born to the desert, both men have always employed crews for their ships and know little about how to navigate on the water. Ibn Mohammed normally sleeps the entire journey, dozing off in one port and rising only for meals until he reaches another. So it is Wellsted and even Jessop, with his meagre frame, who come into their own when the
imam
finally agrees an extortionate price on the
dhangi,
the only ship, it seems, he is at liberty to sell them. Kasim congratulates himself that when they fled the emir’s camp he prevented Ibn Mohammed from killing the only able-bodied man on board who knows how to get them back to Muscat inside of a week.
At the dock, skilfully divested of the camels and most of their money, they start their journey with the tide. Nervous of the reefs around the shoreline, for which the area is notorious, Wellsted and Jessop decide to head further out to sea than is normal in a native vessel and navigate not by the coastline but by the stars. A course south is easy enough to follow, and at a steady pace and with good winds they reckon the journey will take a mere five days.
Jessop sits at the prow, like a figurehead, and breathes in the sea air.
‘I am holding you to the goose and the pudding,’ he tells Wellsted. ‘If we have to scour Muscat, I insist upon it.’
‘I could manage a goose,’ Wellsted replies.
The
imam’s
hospitality over a day and a night has stretched only as far as a broiled fish and a little rice. On board they have some baked biscuits, salted whitebait, a few fresh oranges and three unappetising barrels of souring water. Still, they are on their way.
The first to succumb is Tariq, one of the servants. On the morning of the second day at sea, his legs give way under him and with a cry of agony, as if he has been stabbed, he keels over, knocking the brewing coffee from its stand and spreading the grounds across the thick boards of the deck. When the doctor pulls back the man’s
jubbah
to examine him, the first scattering of pustules are evident and a wail goes up among the others, an incitement for help from Allah. In a blind panic, Hamza jumps off the side of the
dhangi
and has to be fished out of the water. As he cowers, soaking, on the deck, Kasim strikes him hard.
‘We are too far from shore to swim back,’ he sneers. ‘Be a man.’
The distance from shore, both naval men know, is ir relevant now. Even if they can get there, no port will take them with a contagion on board.
‘We will all die,’ Hamza wails.
And, as if to prove himself right, it is he and Jasouf who are next to succumb. A fierce delirium takes them during the course of the afternoon and they are quickly soaked in sweat and a mixture of other bodily fluids upon which Wellsted does not care to dwell.
‘It’s the fever that will kill them. A body cannot stand this heat,’ Jessop says in a matter-of-fact voice as he helps to sluice the vomit and piss from the deck. ‘It will be quick at least, unless the fever breaks.’
He swabs the men with sea water and tries to calm the frantic calls as they twitch and spasm. Smallpox can be agonising and, though the men are seldom conscious, their cries of pain are terrible to listen to. In his fever, Hamza recites long portions of the
Quran
but Tariq shouts, begging for death in his more lucid moments when, between the pains, he slips in and out of delirium. At length he sets up a haunting whine that prevents the other men from sleeping when darkness falls.
Jessop finds he is acutely aware now of how difficult it is for a man’s dying to take a long time. He has always been kind to the sick and it is his custom to treat a cabin boy and an admiral exactly alike. However, in the past when the sick begged to die, he considered it a weakness in their character. Now he has suffered himself he has developed a sensitivity – a progression in his understanding. It isn’t weakness to give up. It can happen to anyone, he realises, for it is impossible to fight all the time and pain, sickness and degradation can be overwhelming for even the bravest of men.
The devout one, Hamza, is the first to die. As the sun rises and the healthy roll out their prayer mats, they tip his body overboard. While the servants who still can, prostrate themselves in sincere mortification, Kasim appears at the doctor’s side and motions him to the prow. Ibn Mohammed, who at first Kasim thought was simply sleeping, has in fact been sick half the night.
‘I brought him coffee,’ Kasim says, ‘and then I saw. You must tell me what to do.’
After a brief inspection, the doctor directs a swab of cold sea water, the same as the others. Jessop does not believe in bleeding a sick man. It is, he always says, like taking ammunition from the arsenal when the war is in full swing. His views are revolutionary, but they are based on his observations. He only bleeds for prevention, not cure.
‘There is no more we can do but try to break the fever,’ he insists.
Kasim’s face hardens. ‘How many men will survive this?’ he whispers.
Jessop shrugs. ‘Half will die. At least. Contained as we are at sea, there may be more.’
‘He is strong,’ Kasim points out.
The doctor lays his hand on Kasim’s shoulder. ‘That will help,’ he nods.
Jasouf dies after midday, a trickle of blood from his nose staining the top of his
jubbah
as he expires without uttering a cry the entire illness. As they heave him over the side, Wellsted speaks to the doctor in English so the Arabs cannot understand.
‘They will all get it, won’t they?’
Jessop nods curtly. ‘Most likely. Or almost all.’
‘And we?’
‘Are immunised. There is still a slight risk, but it is a small one.’
There is a moment’s silence. Wellsted cannot bring himself to form the question, but in the event he does not need to. The doctor understands.
‘I must apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required, old man,’ Jessop says cheerfully, quoting his hypocratic oath. ‘I cannot fly and leave these men in need of medical help.’
‘I only wondered,’ Wellsted says. ‘We have come this far to save you, and to put yourself at risk now . . .’
‘I am at less risk than any of them. They’d have killed us, wouldn’t they? If it were the other way round.’
Wellsted looks at Kasim bent over Ibn Mohammed at the prow.
‘Possibly,’ he says. ‘But they have saved my life a hundred times. They stood by me on the sands, whatever else. I’d be dead without them.’
‘Of course,’ Jessop understands.
The third day of the sickness is grim. The men who have not succumbed pray almost constantly, their mats rolled out on deck.
Allah Akhbar. Allah Akhbar.
All the while, Jessop and Wellsted continue to swab and move the sick to keep them in the shade of the huge sail. At the prow Kasim will not let anyone tend Ibn Mohammed but himself. He whispers in his patient’s ear, though the slaver is comatose. Wellsted cannot hear what Kasim is saying, but by nightfall Ibn Mohammed is the only sick man left alive and Tariq’s body has been consigned to the deep. The doctor examines him once more. The pustules are everywhere and his body dotted with yellow boils as he twists in pain and fever.
‘We were boys together,’ Kasim whispers to Wellsted.
‘In Muscat?’
‘Yes. We learnt to ride together. We learnt to hunt. When my father died, his father took me in.’
Long after midnight, Wellsted wakes, propped up against the mast. He thinks, momentarily, of Zena and hopes that she is safe. Perhaps it would be best if she did not go eastwards after all. He checks on Jessop who is asleep beside him. Then the lieutenant rises and goes to the barrel for some water. He takes a sip – for he must take as little as he can to conserve the supply, restocking will be tricky now. As he turns he sees Kasim bent low over Ibn Mohammed’s body. In the dark shadow, the slaver heaves a sob. The men are talking.
‘Death is not meant to be like this. A man is supposed to invoke Allah. There is supposed to be some dignity,’ Kasim sniffs.
‘It is what it is.’ Ibn Mohammed is pragmatic as ever. ‘Allah has done nothing for me. Never. You are my brother,’ he gasps. ‘You will be my brother, always.’
Kasim kisses Ibn Mohammed’s pus-speckled cheeks. Wellsted backs away. This is too private. A minute later there is a heart-rending sob and he knows that Ibn Mohammed is gone. He lets Kasim cry in peace a while and when he has composed himself, Wellsted pretends to have just woken.
‘I am so sorry,’ he says, bending to check the corpse.
In the moonlight Ibn Mohammed is already pale. Kasim puts his hand to the knife at his waist. ‘I’ll kill you if you try to fling him over,’ he swears.
Wellsted moves away. ‘It is not safe . . . Doesn’t the
Quran
stipulate an early burial?’
‘He will be buried in Muscat, facing
qibla
,’ Kasim growls.
In the morning, Kasim allows them to set the men to basting the body with saltwater, which the doctor says is better than nothing in stalling the inevitable decay. Kasim swaddles Ibn Mohammed’s corpse in a black shroud made of his
jubbah
so that they do not have to look at his face, and then he stows the body at the far end of the vessel, respectfully facing
qibla,
or as near as he can reckon it on a moving vessel. He mutters the words of a prayer and draws his
khandjar
to keep watch.
‘You’re consigning us all to further danger by keeping him here,’ the doctor tries to reason, but in his grief the slaver will not listen.
‘I’ll not have him thrown overboard like a filthy slave,’ he swears. ‘He will be buried in the ground, properly. I’ll kill you if you try to move him.’
* * *
Jessop retreats to sip a coffee and eat a biscuit as if he has been served it at his club. Sudar has a slight temperature but no pustules. He is refusing any help, believing that if he succumbs to care he will get sicker. The doctor tries to rest. For a while there will be no one else to nurse, but the danger is not over. Smallpox can incubate for a week or more.
‘We don’t want any more casualties – it’s recoveries I’m looking for. I’m not much of a doctor if none of them makes it, am I?’ he says.
But there is nothing for it but to wait the sickness out. The officers check the supplies. There is some food left but not nearly enough water.
‘We should be quarantined at least seven days with no further casualties before we make port,’ Jessop directs.
‘We’ll have died of thirst by then,’ Wellsted says. ‘We have to dock.’
‘Give it a day,’ Jessop replies. ‘We have enough water to keep going another day. If no one else gets sick we’ll have to chance it.’
Ormsby is on watch on the deck of the
Psyche
. Duty through the night is the closest it is possible to get to being entirely alone on board, and with the darkness comes cooler air. In climes such as these, any breeze at all is what the midshipman’s illustrious grandfather would call a heavenly blessing. In Ormsby’s experience, though, the Persian Gulf is never anything less than balmy even on the darkest November night, and on the evenings there is a storm the weather remains distinctly tropical in nature even if the rain lashes onto the deck and winds howl. Tonight, though, the water is as still as the pond in St James’s upon which he used to sail his toy schooner.
He draws his silver flask from his pocket and takes a swig. In Bombay he resupplied his own stores and he now has a stash of whisky among his things. These days the midshipman finds India Pale Ale on the weak side and standard-issue rum far too sweet. His taste runs to spirits and of them all whisky is proving his favourite. It seems to travel best. Last month he turned twelve. His family allowance was increased and in celebration he bought a small cask of Strathspey. He is already almost halfway through it.
The
Psyche
, he reflects, is a far more pleasant posting than the
Palinurus
. It has freed him from Captain Haines. Though all ships work to the same strict routine, the nature of the captain affects morale. The
Psyche
is under the command of First Lieutenant Denton, who is altogether a far more cheerful fellow to work under. Denton runs a tight ship but he is both fair minded and good humoured. He has become a mentor to the midshipman. Ormsby is sure that the lieutenant will certainly be promoted soon – Captain Denton sounds very fine – and when that happens there will be a shifting throughout the service, for when a lieutenant rises so must a midshipman or two. After his actions in capturing the French schooner under Haines, Ormsby knows he is well placed, if somewhat young, for promotion and he is quietly hopeful.
The midshipman squints into the darkness. On the horizon he sees what looks like a fallen star. He reaches for the brass ocular lens and draws it to his eye. The light is white, too low to the swell to belong to a European ship, but unlikely to belong to a native vessel either, for the Arabs generally dock at night. Still, he can certainly make out movement. It is a small boat under sail, that’s for sure. Suddenly, the light is extinguished. Ormsby gasps.
Better safe than sorry, he shrugs, and turns to ring the bell that will rouse the crew to action. Putting out your lights, in the midshipman’s admittedly limited experience, is rarely an honourable course though, not to be outdone, and for her own protection, the
Psyche
’s own lamps, fore and aft, are doused immediately.
Denton is roused and sleepily makes for the bridge, pulling on his jacket as he goes. He orders silence, and the crew waits on deck, stock-still and listening for any sound that might prove a clue to the identity of the mystery ship. There is nothing – only the creak of the
Psyche’
s timbers as the vessel holds its position on the swell.
‘You are sure it was in that direction?’ Denton whispers.
Ormsby nods. ‘Yes, sir,’ he says.
He might be drunk but he’s found that as long as he’s conscious he can assess degree to within a point and can calculate without the aid of any instruments some of the easier mathematical equations required to navigate a vessel. If anything, a few shots of whisky make him sharper. This natural intelligence will mask Ormsby’s alcoholism for the whole of his life and the devil-may-care attitude that goes alongside the administration of a dram every waking hour will see him gain a reputation as a spirited fighter with the kind of pluck that the Indian Navy is happy to reward in its officers. In less than ten years he’ll be a captain. Denton trusts him already.
‘Take a boat and half a dozen men. Arm everyone, Ormsby, but don’t fire if you don’t have to. Just investigate what the hell it is. We’re too far out for it to be simply moored for the night. The Arabs don’t do that on trading vessels and certainly not on fishing boats. Perhaps it’s the French on reconnaissance. Try and hear what language they’re speaking. Be as quiet as you can and, for God’s sake, be careful.’
Ormsby moves into action immediately. He tags the men he wants with him as he passes along the deck, and a rowing boat is lowered silently onto the water.
‘Don’t show yourself unless you are in trouble. Light a lamp if you want us to come for you,’ Denton promises. ‘Light two and raise them if you want us to open fire.’ With that, he salutes and takes his place at the helm to keep watch.
Ormsby returns the salute and drops over the side. This is just the kind of adventure a midshipman hopes for past midnight. The prospect of rowing into the blackness is thrilling and if they can capture another French vessel he will have a double dose of prize money coming his way. The men lower their oars into the water and set off.
As the weather goes, it’s perfect tonight – it is extremely still and there is only a light swell so it is easy for the men to row, and so silent a whisper will carry orders easily. Ormsby steers in the direction he last saw the light and watches keenly for a shadow in the shape of a ship. His eyes are accustomed to picking out vessels in the darkness as much as he is adept at spotting the shoreline through heavy cloud. When he judges himself halfway across, there comes the sound of a whistle. It’s an eerie call, but Ormsby laughs out loud. It is an English boatswain’s whistle, directly ahead. A plain up-and-down note he’s heard a hundred times.
Away boats! Away boats!
He stops the men rowing. It’s a risk, but the sound of the whistle emboldens him. The French calls are different and the sound of the whistle is such a bizarre attempt at communication that who else can it be but one of his own?
‘Ahoy there! Are you a naval vessel?’ he calls blindly.
Silence.
‘Are you one of His Majesty’s ships?’
Ormsby belts. ‘Ormsby? Is that you?’ comes back the cry from a couple of hundred yards.
The voice is familiar and authoritative, but the midshipman can’t place it.
‘It’s the only bloody call I can whistle without, well, a whistle. Stay off. That’s what I mean. Stay off.’
‘Who is there? Identify yourself!’ The oars splash in the water.
‘Don’t come too close, man! Stop! For God’s sake. How many men have you?’
‘Six, sir.’
‘To which ship are you attached?’
‘The
Psyche
, sir. Under Lieutenant Denton.’
‘Well get back to the
Psyche,
Ormsby, and tell Denton to pass us by. We are under quarantine.’
‘But,’ Ormsby asks as the question pops into his head, ‘why didn’t you just raise the flag?’
There is a short bark of laughter.
‘That, son, is a long story. We have no flags. We’re on a native vessel. And we didn’t know who you were, did we?’
‘Permission to come aboard?’
‘Not unless you want a dose of smallpox. Can you be sure everyone on the
Psyche
is immune?’
In the little rowing boat, the able seamen squirm on the planks and the vessel rocks unsteadily in the water. Seamen are superstitious about even small things and this is a real and sizeable threat. About half of them have been immunised, of course, but far less than that number really believe the small scratch they received on their arm is any real protection. The occasional case of an immunised man who goes on to die in agony fuels rumours below decks, were any fuel required to have the men well and truly terrified. What is certain is that, when contained on a ship, diseases spread as quickly as fire through dry gorse. Ormsby casts the men a harsh look far beyond his years. He has a natural authority and the punishment for not heeding even a junior officer is severe. The men settle immediately.
‘Total immunisation is unlikely, sir. We’ll hold off. Can we carry any messages for you?’
‘Only pray for us. We have four native allies dead already. When you get back to Bombay tell them Wellsted and Jessop are alive. We will make for Muscat when it’s safe – with all who survive.’
Ormsby baulks. In the mess and at the captain’s table, the officers have toasted Wellsted and drunk to the survival of Jessop and Jones several times, without once expecting to see any of them ever again. But it’s the lieutenant’s voice – he remembers now.
‘You did it, sir! You made it, Wellsted!’
Another laugh.
‘I haven’t done it yet, Ormsby. And Jones died before we left the desert. You can tell them that in Bombay too. We should be fine, though, for both Jessop and I have had our immunisation and the doctor is recovering after his ordeal. But we cannot leave these men to their fate, and of course, we may still carry the infection on board if we were to jump ship to you. We will make for Muscat when it is safe – it is our nearest port for rendezvous.’
Aboard the
dhangi,
Wellsted meets Jessop’s eyes in the darkness and the doctor nods. They are agreed they have to stay. In the darkness, they weren’t sure if the approaching vessel was French or English. Now they are certain it is friendly, turning down passage is a different matter to the academic exercise of what they might or might not do if the opportunity arises. The
Psyche
will pick them up if they insist, of course, but there is no chance that the Arabs will be permitted on board, for that is far too risky and of no real value to His Majesty’s naval concerns.
‘Are you absolutely sure you want to stay?’ Wellsted checks with the doctor as the sound of Ormsby’s rowing boat rocks on the swell a hundred yards ahead. ‘This is a way out, if you choose to take it.’
There is a pause – a mere beat. Kasim is watching from the shadows – he cannot understand a word the men say although that makes no difference to the doctor’s decision.
‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Jessop does not flinch. ‘Completely. My duty is to stay and help these men.’
The lieutenant takes a deep breath and raises his voice again. ‘Get back to your vessel, Ormsby! Before we change our minds! And send us some water. We need water. We cannot dock to resupply.’
On board the
Psyche
, Denton makes the decision that they must move on. He trusts both Wellsted’s judgement and that of the doctor for he knows them both well. Though four years older, he was a midshipman with Wellsted when he first arrived in Bombay a pale, skinny slip of a boy. Also, he knows the doctor’s family in Lancashire. He is particularly fond of Jessop’s pretty sister, Sarah. She holds a tune beautifully and plays rummy like a rogue and for stakes so high that many a duchess would lose her
sang-froid
at the same table. Leaving these men in a small ship, while an infection rages is no clear-cut decision for him. Denton is a good man and he maintains a steady conscience about whatever he does. Besides, on his next home leave he will have to face Sarah, and he knows she is no shrinking violet.
‘Dear heavens,’ he murmurs under his breath as he scoops Ormsby and his men back on board.
As Ormsby explains the words that were lost at a distance, the lieutenant’s eyes dart. Sir Charles Malcolm, he knows, would have no truck with a hypocratic oath sworn to protect desert Arabs or the loyalty Wellsted feels he owes to men the Indian Navy has bought and paid for. The Bombay Marine needs its officers and doctors to tend to its own business. He must be careful when he mentions this in dispatches and be sure to make the men’s decision appear solely on medical grounds. But he will honour the decision nonetheless.
‘God save you!’ he shouts into the blackness, and he orders the rowing boat anchored and abandoned, loaded with a bottle of rum, two barrels of water, some ship’s biscuits and a side of salted beef. On top they set a lighted lamp so the men can find the supplies easily. And then the
Psyche
disappears smoothly into the night.
The food and water are very welcome. Jessop has only one sick man in his care now. Hassan, that evening, cried out and fell. He has not moved or made a sound since, but he is still breathing. Meanwhile, Ibn Mohammed’s corpse, still swathed in black, is starting to smell, the pustules on the skin have whitened and are firm as stone and when his
jubbah
is raised to douse the skin in sea water, the slaver’s lips are black.
Kasim has not told the white men that he can feel the illness starting inside him. There is a dull itch in his groin and on his chest and the beginning of a nagging pain in his belly. He is sure he’ll survive. As the
Psyche
relights its lamps and disappears northwards, his skin is alight and his limbs are jumpy. When the ship has disappeared completely and they bring the supplies on board, the doctor notices that Kasim finds it impossible to focus either his mind or his eyes. Allah is not always kind, but Kasim hopes he is wise. Such trials make a man question everything. He retreats aft and lays down close to Ibn Mohammed’s body, hoping for sleep, but instead he finds he has tears rolling down his face. He is glad that it is a dark night and no one can see.
‘Here,’ says Wellsted, creeping up the deck and passing a freshly filled goatskin of water to the slaver.
Kasim takes it from his hand without looking. He does not want the white man to see that his cheeks are wet. ‘
Shukran
,’ he says.
‘You know what to do in the desert. I know what to do at sea,’ Wellsted smiles.
Kasim drinks.
‘The doctor says you are unwell, my friend.’
Kasim sighs. ‘I will not die,’ he says simply. ‘I will not die.’ Someone has to survive it.
‘We will tend you as best we can.’
Kasim holds the white man’s gaze. ‘Look after Ibn Mohammed and me, my friend,’ he says. ‘If I go with him, we must be buried. Take our bodies to Muscat. Promise me that.’
‘You can trust me,’ Wellsted assures him. He means it.
Sailing south provokes mixed feelings in the lieutenant. It seems to Wellsted that his blood now runs with strong coffee and his heart beats to a
doumbek
drum. The arid desert has brought him to life. He wonders where Zena is. He wills her to be all right. A new convert to the mysteries of love, it is as if this voyage is only a strange interlude. As it happens it has turned out better that she is not with him. Here she would stand a deadly chance of catching the sickness. He will find her again, though, he is sure of it.