Secret of the Sands (32 page)

‘Yes, yes,’ he says, his voice all comfort and his movements smooth. ‘It is fine, Malik, my friend,’ but even as he utters the words he lays his palm, taut, on the shoulder nearest to him and firmly steers her away from the run of houses, off to the side, where the street tapers away. The sand is peppered with sharp shards of shell and dusty pebbles and there is only the light of the moon, which tonight is partly clouded over.

‘What are you doing?’ she starts and pulls back, but he is bulky and very strong. She hesitates a moment. His smile is unnerving. Zena is unsure if she has missed something.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ the fisherman’s tone remains reassuring as he guides her where he wants her to go. ‘My cousin will take you to your master. He will take you. Good. Good.’

Now out of sight of the houses, he pins her roughly against a large rock. With a sinking heart she understands that she has been too slow. She can smell the fish on his breath, the salt on his skin.

‘I have done all this for you,’ he smiles ominously, running his hand once more down the side of her body, ‘but it is not for nothing. I have been your friend and now, Malik, I want something in return.’

Zena gulps. She cannot reach her knife. She can feel his erection stiffening against her through the thin material of the
dishdash.
Her every instinct is to scream but she swallows it, for if she calls for help it is this man’s friends, neighbours and family who will come running. He can tell them anything and will most likely be believed against the word of a black stranger they have known only a few days. Even if they know what he is like, who knows what the punishment is for even getting into this situation? The stakes are high for both of them if she screams. It is not the way out of this. Still, her mind is racing trying to think of something that will get him off her, something that will mean he does not lose his honour and neither does she. She manages to move her face away from his lips, which are searching out her mouth.

‘Allah sees all,’ she stammers. ‘Allah will judge you. Let Allah judge you now, brother.’

The man laughs but she can feel he is uneasy. His grip tightens and she wishes she could reach the
khandjar
.

‘
Allah Akhbar,
’ she intones.

She’d drop to her knees if she could, but he still has her wedged up against the boulder. With a strong hand he pulls her face towards him.

‘
Allah Akhbar
,’ she repeats. ‘Please.’

‘Relax,’ he says, his voice syrupy as if he is comforting a child who has been foolish. ‘Yes. Yes.’

His hand slides down towards her crotch. There is a pause. He scrabbles and feels left and right, for he does not find what he is expecting. Then he raises his palm to her breast
.
As the realisation dawns that Malik is not quite the man the fisherman was hoping for, he stares at Zena in horror and pulls back. For a moment they are both frozen and absolutely silent. Then the man makes a sound like a frightened animal and turns to look back in the direction of the harbour. It is as if he is considering the other men a moment – their reaction, perhaps – and then he jerks as if he might run. But before he can move, Zena is so terrified at what will happen if he delivers her secret into the keeping of their companions that in desperation she punches him right in the face. It is a fierce right hook undercut that she delivers with her eyes blazing. A blow from the blackness.

The weeks of hauling nets have paid dividends and the man falls backwards onto the stony ground. But Zena knows that she has only bought herself a few moments. She is panting and her mind is racing. She checks the tightly stuffed goatskin pouch is still in place, tied around her waist with a rough piece of cord. If only she’d holstered it lower, she thinks, and then laughs darkly at the ridiculousness of the situation. The man groans and turns, coming round slowly, a bruise swelling already on his skin in the dim light. She towers over him and draws her
khandjar
now she can reach it.

‘If you tell them,’ she hisses as he opens his eyes, ‘you’ll have to explain what you were doing groping Malik the fisherman, won’t you?’

The man won’t meet her gaze. He stares solidly at her feet instead.

‘Don’t you like women?’ she asks him.

It is a question that seems to be coming up a lot over the course of her time on the Peninsula. It is strange to think that only a few months before she had little idea what some men liked to get up to in the night, with companions of either gender.

‘Of course I like women,’ he spits back at her. ‘I am no
khawal.
I have a wife. She lives with my family, on the mainland. But you . . . it is an abomination. You have prayed with us. You have, you have . . .’ he searches for other instances of what Zena has done to breach the law of man and of Allah, but his head is aching and he gives up.

‘You seem very like a
khawal
to me, my friend. And if they find out they will punish you. I must find my master,’ she says, ‘and a woman cannot travel alone. If you keep my secret and let me go with your cousin, I will keep yours, I will not cut you now and I will give you five dollars,’ she promises.

It is a large sum for a fisherman from a small island though she is acutely aware that if he unmasks and sells her he will make far more. A lot, she realises, depends on the extent of the man’s shame and his fear of being unmasked.

‘Don’t forget, I can tell them what you tried to do with me. Everyone will know what you did. Everyone.’

The man rubs his head. From the tilt of it, she can see that the threat has hit home. For a fisherman from such a small village to lose his reputation is a serious matter and were Zena to make the shameful allegation the mud might stick. She knows that men can be stoned for such behaviour. In some areas, where
sharia
law prevails, there are those who have been beheaded.

‘All right,’ he nods slowly. ‘I want more than five dollars, though,’ he says, shakily rising to his feet.

Zena relaxes a little and slowly reholsters the knife. ‘That is all I have,’ she says. It is a lie, but five dollars is enough. ‘I will give it to you the morning I leave.’

But she has hardly finished the sentence and turned away before the man has moved, quick as a hawk, and is pressed up against her once more. First, he takes the knife from her belt and throws it into the blackness. Zena lets out a low shriek of frustration.

‘Hit me, would you?’ he mumbles. ‘You say you have five dollars. Well, my fine friend, no woman should own her own money. Where are you keeping it?’

If he takes the coins Zena knows she is done for. She jerks furiously, kicking out. He contains her a moment or two before she manages to catch him a heavy blow to his crotch with her knee. The man doubles over and Zena jumps to the side. But as she does so she sees that he has the goatskin pouch in his hand. She cannot leave it behind. She falls on him and wrestles the purse from his grasp, then kicks him twice, hard in the head. There is no point in trying to reason with him. There is no deal to be done here. She rains blows with her clenched fist and furiously finds that she can hardly stop herself from continuing, even though the man is now lying still. In the end, her attention is only diverted by the possibility of regaining her weapon.

She leaves him where he lies, scrambles in the darkness to find the
khandjar
and slides it back into her belt. Then she thinks a moment. For a mere second she wonders if the man is dead, and her stomach shifts, unsure whether she hopes he is or not. The anger still has a grip of her, but when she leans over him there is the sigh of a deep breath. She pokes him, but he is still out cold. Perhaps it is for the best. A murder would provoke a manhunt. Things had been going so well.

‘No!’ she says out loud. ‘Damn it.’

She searches for an alternative course of action, but all Zena knows is that now she can take no risks and she has very few options. The ship for Muscat doesn’t leave for days and she has to get away from here now.

Using the sailor’s knots she has learned, she ties the man’s arms and legs together with a strip of cloth so he cannot follow her. She walks smartly back down the road that leads to the harbour without greeting anyone on her way. Back at the dock, she calls one of the men to the side. He is a fisherman like the rest of them and a friend of the man she has left up on the hill. She cannot accuse the man directly of attacking her, but it is entirely possible that those closest to him have some idea of his preferences and might suspect the truth if he left the campfire with a pretty young boy and headed off into the darkness.

‘Your friend,’ her voice is croaky, ‘took me to his cousin. I was offered a passage to Muscat but the price was too high,’ she looks the man directly in the eye. ‘I knocked him out and left him by the boulders. Up the hill in that direction. Over there. I am sorry. I should go now. He was raving. He said crazy things. But he is all right. I just had to get away.’

‘What do you mean?’ The man puts a hand on her shoulder kindly, but after what happened Zena can’t help but pull back.

‘Malik . . .’ the man starts as if he is about to apologise, but she waves off his attempts to finish the sentence.

‘It is all right,’ she says. ‘Will you fetch him? He is fine, but I tied him up so he could not follow me. I must go.’

As she turns to leave, the fisherman calls out and runs after her. ‘Here,’ he offers her a calabash of water. ‘Take this.’

So,
she thinks,
he knows.
She holsters the flask on her belt and walks into the darkness towards the causeway that leads to the mainland. There are other villages and other boats. If she follows the coastline, soon enough there will be a peppering of lamps by the water. This man will look after his friend, and she hopes his shame will see to it that she isn’t followed. Besides, they cannot know which causeway she chose or in which direction she will walk. In Arabia, she has come to realise, if a slight can be forgotten or waved away, it is best for everyone. She casts her eyes to the sky to guess her best direction and then she looks back only once at the island, her first chance at a direct passage to Muscat.

Oh well,
she comforts herself,
it could have been far, far worse,
and rubbing her arms which suddenly feel very stiff and bruised where the man laid his hands on either side of her, she sets off to the south again to walk through the night, for as long as it takes, with the Pole Star twinkling at her back.

Chapter Forty-Six

The officers of the Bombay Marine, and Sir Charles himself for that matter, are nursing a collective hangover this morning the like of which has not been seen since the day after the Ball in Support of the Emancipation of Chattel Slavery, organised by Lady Malcolm some eighteen months before. So wholeheartedly enthused was the English community by this event (at the time, the first proper dance in Bombay in almost a year) that erstwhile reserved ladies quaffed large quantities of champagne cocktails in support of The Cause, a duel was fought and the evening resulted in not one, but two engagements, both of which have since been solemnised by the vows of matrimony. Today, however, it is only the officers and some of the men who are finding their duties particularly challenging, and not one single marriage has been announced. Instead, an unaccustomed hush has fallen over the officers’ mess and naval officers and the gentlemen are, according to their prediliction, either particularly short-tempered or completely unresponsive to all around them. All this over the news relayed via His Majesty’s ship
Psyche
and subsequently picked up by the
Nancowry
as it returned to the capital, that Wellsted and Jessop have been spotted on the water and, in charge of an Arab vessel and, resupplied, are heading for safety. The pluck of their endeavours is the subject of much speculation (as well as several well-supported toasts) and proof, were proof required, that the British can do anything. It’s all a matter of pluck.

Sir Charles views with disdain the cup of weak Chinese tea that has been placed on his desk. In the normal run of things he is a man who has several difficult decisions to take in the course of a working day, but this morning even deciding whether to add sugar or not seems well nigh impossible. Now he searches for the words to communicate his desires.

‘Take it away,’ he snaps eventually and motions for the cup to be removed.

The smell of the aromatic brew is making him feel quite nauseous. Slowly, he pulls a sheet of paper towards him across the desktop, and dips his nib in the silver-bound pot of India ink.

To be held at Muscat for Lieutenant James Raymond Wellsted,
he starts, and then finds himself quite mesmerised by the shape of the double ‘l’.

Sir,
he continues,
we were delighted to receive news of Doctor Jessop’s rescue. Many congratulations are due to you, and commiserations also upon the reported loss of Lieutenant Jones, a dutiful officer who will be sadly missed by his comrades and friends. Doctor Jessop must return to Bombay upon the next available passage. Please forward with him your sealed account of what transpired in which I beg you to be frank. Meanwhile, you sir, are charged to take the next ship to London and report for duty there, as soon as possible, to the residence of Admiral Rose, at 43 Edgware Road. The admiral is expecting you, we hope within the next six weeks as time is of the essence. The admiral will brief you upon arrival. Do not delay. I am told they have sold out the first run of your account of Socotra which has been recently published and there is a great appetite for more. Congratulations.

Charles Malcolm

The signature trails off the end of the paper and Sir Charles thinks that the effort of writing might make him quite sick. He falls back into his chair from where he has an excellent view of his well-stocked tantalus.

‘Fetch,’ he motions to the boy attending him. ‘Brandy.’

The boy jumps into action. He pours the drink into a crystal balloon and brings it to Malcolm’s desk on a small, silver tray. Malcolm downs it in one.

‘That’s better,’ he gasps. ‘Now. Here.’ Sir Charles seals the paper with wax, as if in slow motion. He proffers the missive to the boy. ‘Find my secretary,’ he mouths.

Whitelock has not appeared for duty this morning. If Malcolm recalls correctly, the lieutenant made a wager with one of the other officers, though he’ll be damned if he can recall the terms of the thing. Lately Sir Charles finds himself bored by the shenanigans of highly spirited young men. Their concerns reside somewhere between balder and dash and many of the youngsters simply cannot hold their liquor.
It won’t do,
he thinks vaguely as he pushes the boy by the arm, launching him into action.

‘Find Whitelock and have him dispatch that to our agent in Muscat straight away,’ he says.

Sir Charles has a busy day ahead and he already feels entirely exhausted. It crosses his mind that the broad spectrum of young officers may be full of nonsense but they are, to a man, extraordinarily brave. He heaves himself fully upright at the thought and tries to forgive Whitelock’s absence. After all, both Sir Charles himself and his brother, Pultney, were no doubt, high spirited as youngsters. His head begins to thump and he stares longingly at the tantalus, but cannot rouse himself to cross the room. A boy, no doubt, will be along shortly.

‘Damn weather,’ he mumbles under his breath, and pulls another sheet of paper from the escritoire. His Majesty’s business is neverending, and Malcolm knows it.

‘Still, best get on . . .’ he admonishes himself, and thinks for a moment before he addresses the difficulty of obtaining timber around the Red Sea and how Britain may be able to provide a consistent supply for her own use or, indeed, such a sufficiency that the Company can profit from the needs of the local market. With a little planning it’s not impossible, he ponders, it’s just that the natives don’t think that way.