A Hundred Thousand Dragons

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  Jack nodded. ‘Yes, sir. The mechanics were fitting extra fuel tanks.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Youlton pushed back his chair and stood up, leaning his hands on the desk. ‘The reason those fuel tanks are needed, Mr Haldean, is that the plane has to be flown to Petra.’

  Jack stared at him. ‘Petra, sir?’ he repeated in bewilderment. ‘The lost city, you mean?’

  Major Youlton smiled briefly. ‘We know where it is. That’s something, anyway. It’s about two hundred miles to the south-east, over some of the most forbidding country on earth,’ he added quietly. He glanced at Jack. ‘Well?’

  Jack squared his shoulders. ‘If it’s possible, sir, if the plane is capable of making the trip, I’ll do it.’

  Major Youlton’s mouth tightened. ‘Good man,’ he said softly. ‘You’ll have a passenger with you, a Major Craig. He flew in this morning from Cairo.’ Jack nodded. ‘Major Craig,’ continued Youlton, ‘is, perhaps, one of the most important men in the East.’ Jack looked suitably impressed. ‘He’s a well-known explorer and traveller and knows Arabia like the back of his hand. Durant Craig? Does the name mean anything to you?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I’ve never heard of him.’

  For the first time Youlton gave a real smile. ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t tell him. He has a proper appreciation of his talents and, to be fair to him, he’s perfectly justified. When the war broke out he was in the Ahkaf Desert and it took him some months to find out what was happening in the outside world. He made his way back up to the coast and offered his services to General Murray. As it happened, he couldn’t have arrived at a more opportune moment. We need experts, Haldean, men who know Arabia and can inspire the Arabs, and real experts are few and far between.

  ‘At the beginning of the war we had Captain Shakespeare, who had a real pull with Ibn Sa’ud and the Wahhabis of Central Arabia, but he was killed in action, poor devil. Durant Craig came as the answer to a very pressing problem. He was given the rank of major but if you think of him as a general, you wouldn’t be far wrong. He’s lived with the Arabs so long he’s more of an Arab than an Englishman. He speaks every kind of dialect and knows how their minds work. They call him Tawr Ta’ir, which more or less translates as the Angry Bull. It’s a good name. He’s rather like a bull. He’s pretty short-tempered with our lot and can’t stand red tape, but he has no end of patience with the Bedouin. Anyway, he’s your passenger. Now, I must tell you the details of the trip.’

  Major Youlton walked across the room and indicated the route on a large-scale map. ‘I’ll give you the precise directions to study, Haldean, but this is the route in general. There’s a camel convoy, under the command of Captain Hawley, on its way to Esh Shobek. You will intercept the convoy and deliver sealed orders to Captain Hawley. You will then fly to Elji, where the Beni Sakr, pro-British Arabs, are encamped. Major Craig needs to confer with them. After that, you will take Major Craig on to Petra. Major Craig has, apparently, arranged a fuel dump in Petra, and you’ll be able to re-fuel the plane there. Then, leaving Major Craig in Petra, you can return.’

  ‘So I leave Major Craig in Petra, sir?’ asked Jack.

  Youlton nodded. ‘Yes, that’s correct. What the Major does afterwards is, of course, none of our concern.’ He turned to Jack with a wry smile. ‘That’s it. It’s a difficult journey but vitally important.’

  ‘When do I start, sir?’

  ‘As soon as the fitters have finished with the plane,’ said Youlton, coming back to the desk. ‘It shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours at the most.’

  Jack looked at him blankly. ‘But that’ll mean flying in the full heat of the day, sir.’

  Major Youlton clicked his tongue unhappily. ‘I know, Lieutenant, but this is urgent. Major Craig needs time and that’s what we can give him.’ He picked up a small folder and gave it to him. ‘That’s your flight plan. Keep it with you at all times and don’t let anyone see it. I’d better introduce you to Major Craig. After that, get something to eat and drink. With any luck, you’ll be back tomorrow. You will, of course, report to me immediately you return.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Jack. He stood up and put the flight plan into his pocket.

  Youlton nodded, walked to the door and gave instructions to Corporal Quinn to bring Major Craig to the office. Youlton was clearly uneasy. He lit another cigarette and paced edgily round the room, continually looking at the wall map, until the noise of footsteps sounded in the corridor.

  ‘Major Craig, sir,’ said Quinn. Quinn saluted and withdrew, shutting the door behind him.

  Jack was startled by the Major’s appearance. Craig wore the uniform, right enough, but instead of a military moustache, he had a huge brindled beard, piercing eyes and aggressive eyebrows. He looked more like a sailor than a soldier and more like a Yukon miner who had strayed from the Alaska gold rush than either. He was shorter than average but strongly built, with massive shoulders, large hands and skin darkened by the sun. His Arab name suited him, thought Jack. He was a real bull of a man.

  Major Craig received Jack’s salute unenthusiastically. ‘I asked for your best pilot, Youlton,’ he said, as if Jack were incapable of hearing him. ‘This is just a boy.’

  ‘Lieutenant Haldean is one of our best pilots, Major,’ replied Youlton firmly.

  ‘If you say so.’ Craig looked Jack up and down. ‘He knows damn all about Arabs, though. We’re going amongst Arabs, boy, Arabs,’ he added, addressing Jack directly for the first time. He glared at the hat in Jack’s hand in distaste. ‘What’s that you’ve got? A bush hat? Ridiculous! Don’t you know anything? The Bedouin will shoot you if they see you wearing it. They think hats are immoral. You wouldn’t go to Ascot wearing bathing drawers, would you? Then don’t insult the Arabs by being improperly dressed. Before you come anywhere with me, get yourself a keffiyeh.’

  Jack flushed indignantly. A boy? Who was he calling a boy? And what was that Arab thing he wanted him to get? A . . . A . . . ‘What was that you said, sir?’

  ‘A keffiyeh. An Arab headdress, damn it.’

  ‘I’ll see you’re properly accoutred, Mr Haldean,’ said Major Youlton quietly. ‘The last thing we want to do is upset Arab ideas of etiquette. That would never do.’

  ‘It’s not mere etiquette, man,’ snorted Craig, prickling at the sting of sarcasm in Youlton’s words. ‘Damn it, we’re not going to a vicar’s tea party.’

  ‘But why don’t they like bush hats, sir?’ asked Jack.

  Craig sighed dangerously. ‘It’s not just bush hats, boy, it’s any hat. Don’t you understand? If a man’s wearing a hat, he can’t press his forehead to the ground in prayer. It offends Allah and, more to the point, offends the Arabs.’ He sighed once more. ‘It’s no wonder we’ve had trouble with the Arabs if people can’t be bothered to learn a few simple facts.’

  ‘I’m sure Lieutenant Haldean will be guided by you and your superior knowledge,’ said Youlton.

  Craig grunted ungraciously. ‘He’d better be. It’ll be the worse for him if he’s not.’

  Youlton turned to Jack. ‘That’s all for now, Lieutenant.’ He returned Jack’s salute and smiled. ‘This mission depends on your skill and courage. I know you’ll do a good job.’

  And that comment, thought Jack, as he left the office, was more for Craig’s benefit than his. Still, he might as well enjoy whatever compliments were on offer. It didn’t look as if he was going to get many from Major Craig.

  It was just over two hours later that the B.E.2c took off, lumbering into the air with the huge weight of extra fuel. Craig had shed his uniform and was dressed as an Arab. He made a very passable Bedouin, but it would be a firing squad for certain if the Turks or the Germans caught them with Craig in that garb.

  Jack’s goggles had dark glass in them and he needed it. They were flying directly east into a blinding sun. Below them stretched a yellow and grey wilderness, mile upon mile of the rolling, featureless sand of the Sinai Desert, broken only by the sharp black shadow of ro
cks or the smudge of camel-thorn. Again and again he raised his hand to his eyes, peering through his fingers past the sun, dreading seeing the crosses of a German or the white-square-on-black of a Turkish plane. On three occasions he saw, far off on the horizon, circling black dots, but he slipped past unnoticed. He was so far over enemy territory they probably assumed he was one of theirs. It wouldn’t be so bad if he had some sort of weapon, but both the Vickers and the Lewis machine guns were controlled from the observer’s cockpit, in the front of the plane. Craig held no truck with machine guns and had been incredulous at the idea of manning them. He was, Jack was willing to bet, looking at his slumped form, fast asleep.

  With the Vickers and the Lewis gun unmanned, he was helpless before the enemy, a sitting duck in the big, ungainly plane. The desert stretched monotonously under him, and then, thank God, the sun was behind him, casting needle-sharp black shadows on the flint-strewn surface of the desert below. He pushed up his goggles, wiping his eyes made watery by the glare.

  They had been in the air for well over three hours when he saw the camel convoy spread out below like a picture on a box of Christmas dates. There was the glint of white from upturned faces as he circled overhead and brought the plane down in front of the convoy, flying only feet off the ground at just over stalling speed as he gazed at the sand for obstacles. Then, with a final glance at his fluttering pennon to show him the wind direction, he touched down, bringing the plane to a bumpy, rumbling halt.

  Stretching his cramped muscles, he climbed out of the cockpit and, standing in the shade of the wings, took a drink from his canteen. It was warm and brackish but tasted wonderful. He wet his handkerchief and rubbed it over his face, luxuriating in how it felt against his parched skin. Craig hadn’t moved so he climbed up to the observer’s cockpit. He’d been right. The Major was asleep.

  ‘We’ve reached the convoy, sir,’ he said, shaking him awake.

  Major Craig opened his eyes. ‘Well, give ’em the orders, man. Don’t waste time. We’ve got to get a move on.’ With that he relapsed back into sleep.

  Jack dropped back on to the sand. He hadn’t expected praise, but Craig could have made some sort of comment. Damn, that had been a monumental journey. The heat haze distorted visibility and the slightest error in his compass readings could have thrown them miles off course. Not only that, but it was hard physical work flying over the desert. Columns of heat rising many thousands of feet made an invisible switchback of the air. Some of the bumps had been so severe that if he hadn’t been strapped in he’d had been flung out of the plane and the strain of continually correcting the plane was exhausting. Major Youlton would appreciate it, he thought to himself, as the leaders of the convoy approached. Three hours over virtually uncharted and hostile desert with an observer who wouldn’t observe and the guns so much useless weight was the sort of flight that would have got on to the front pages of the newspapers before the war.

  With a jingling of harness, grunts from camels and cries from the drivers, the convoy arrived. With a series of shouts the column came to a halt.

  ‘Where on earth did you pop up from?’ shouted the leading officer over the noise as he dismounted. He was in Camel Corps uniform with lieutenant’s stripes. ‘We couldn’t believe it when you flew over.’

  ‘Ismailia,’ Jack called back cheerfully. ‘I’ve got sealed orders for Captain Hawley.’

  Hawley, when he rode up, took the orders, opened them and read them with a frown. He looked at Jack, who was sharing a canteen of water with the young lieutenant. ‘Do you know where the information in these orders came from?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘No, sir. They were given to me by my C.O., Major Youlton.’

  ‘I’d like to know where the information came from, all the same,’ muttered Hawley. He looked at the aeroplane. ‘Are you in that thing by yourself?’

  ‘No, sir. I’ve got Major Craig with me, but he’s asleep. I did tell him we’d arrived, but he instructed me to hand over the orders and not waste time.’ And how he can sleep, thought Jack, in the middle of a herd of grunting camels with all this racket going on, is an absolute miracle.

  ‘Craig? Durant Craig?’ asked Hawley sharply. His face cleared. ‘That makes a difference.’

  ‘Do you want to speak to him, sir?’ asked Jack. He wouldn’t have minded an excuse to wake up Craig.

  ‘No, don’t do that.’ Hawley glanced at his orders. ‘If I know anything about it, Major Craig is going to have his work cut out over the next few days. The orders are quite clear. Where are you off to next, Lieutenant?’

  Jack hesitated. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I’d better not say. I’ve been given strict instructions not to tell anyone.’

  Hawley smiled grimly. ‘Quite right, too. It’s about time Cairo started taking security seriously. This front is riddled with spies. All I can say is that if it’s anywhere in the region of Qal’at Aneiza or Q’asr Dh’an, watch your step. There’s been a lot of activity round there recently. We’ve heard – I don’t know how true this is – that Ozymandias is there.’

  ‘Ozymandias, sir?’ Jack repeated the name doubtfully. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’ The only thing Ozymandias meant to him was a poem by Shelley. I met a traveller from an antique land . . . Jack’s face must have mirrored his feelings, for Hawley laughed humourlessly.

  ‘Ozymandias is the Turks’ answer to Durant Craig. To be honest I don’t know if he’s Turkish, German or Arab, but he’s a tough customer, whatever he is. He puts the fear of God into my Arabs. They think he’s got the powers of a demon.’ Hawley shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that, but he seems to know everything we do before we do it.’ He glanced at the orders in his hand. ‘I hope he hasn’t cottoned on to this. Anyway, Lieutenant, if Major Craig told you to get a move on, I’d better not keep you any longer. Refill your canteen before you go and good luck.’

  The second leg of the journey was a comparatively short hop of less than fifty miles and, now the fuel was low, getting into the air was a far less nerve-racking experience. It was so low that Jack wondered if the problem was shortly going to be not getting into the air, but staying there. Fortunately his directions were good, and less than an hour later he sighted the black Arab tents of the Beni Sakr.

  This time there was no need to wake up Craig. Before the engine had juddered to a halt, he had undone his harness and had climbed out of the plane. It was as well he did, for the noise of the aircraft had brought men running into the open. They were armed with long rifles and, although Jack had been in the East for only a few weeks, he knew from experience just how trigger happy a group of excited, nervy and bellicose men could be.

  Craig extended his arms in a magnificent gesture and roared out a command in Arabic. There was a medley of shouts in return and a ragged volley of shots, aimed, thank God, not at the plane but into the empty air. Leaving Jack without a word, Craig strolled off like a king visiting his subjects, flanked by the noisy, jostling crowd, in the direction of the largest of the black tents.

  Jack, alone and feeling ridiculous in his hastily-donned keffiyeh, opened his canteen, took a much-needed drink of water, and lit a cigarette. It must have been over an hour later, an hour spent mainly in fending off swarms of curious wide-eyed children from the precious aeroplane, when Craig came back, this time alone. He clapped his hands and the children scattered.

  ‘They agree to the change of rendezvous,’ he said without preamble.

  ‘Change of rendezvous, sir?’ asked Jack, puzzled.

  ‘Damn it, boy, are you deaf? You gave the orders to the convoy, didn’t you?’

  ‘Why, yes, sir, but I don’t know what the orders were.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Being amongst Arabs was good for Craig’s character, Jack decided. He wasn’t exactly charming, but a sort of lordly condescension had replaced his irascibility. ‘By George, I’d want to know the reasons why before I went running round at anyone’s say-so.’

  He indicated the tents in a sweeping gesture. ‘We’re gue
sts of the Beni Sakr. You know that, don’t you?’ Jack nodded and Craig continued. ‘They’re friendly and we want to keep them that way. They’re the key to winning the war. I told Archie Murray – that’s General Murray – the only hope of success was to inflame an Arab revolt and he agreed. That’s what I’m doing here. I’m going to lead the Arabs against the Turks.’

  The thing was, thought Jack, that although Craig was a difficult man to like, he was willing to bet that he was perfectly capable of doing exactly what he said.

  ‘My word, sir,’ he said enthusiastically, ‘that’d turn things around all right.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it though,’ agreed Craig, looking kindly at Jack for the first time. ‘The Turks have ruled the roost for far too long.’

  ‘Have the Beni Sakr agreed to follow you, sir?’

  ‘With conditions,’ said Craig with a short laugh. ‘I really respect these people, you know. They haven’t gone soft, like the so-called men you find in England. They want honour and adventure and are prepared to endure fantastic hardships. I can promise them all that, and gold as well.’

  ‘Gold, sir?’ asked Jack, startled.

  ‘Yes, gold,’ repeated Craig impatiently. ‘You don’t expect the Arabs to fight for nothing, do you? I told Murray that grubby banknotes or promises won’t do. It has to be gold and lots of it.’

  ‘But how will you get gold, sir?’

  ‘From the convoy of course, boy.’ Craig laughed once more. ‘Hawley’s convoy is my convoy. I organized it. Murray gave me a free hand. The convoy’s carrying enough gold to satisfy the Beni Sakr and spread the word across Arabia.’ His face grew grim. ‘I made a promise and I never go back on my word. You can’t let the Arabs down. They neither forgive nor forget. If I hadn’t stepped in, all the gold would have ended up in Turkish hands. I received news an ambush was planned and it’s the Arabs – my Arabs – who would come off worse. The convoy’s too heavily guarded for the Turks to attack, but as soon as the convoy delivers the gold, they’ll strike. The convoy was going to rendezvous at Esh Shobek but the place is swarming with Turks. I’m going to ride up to Petra with the Beni Sakr and meet the convoy there. Those orders you gave the convoy told them of the change of rendezvous.’