She closed her eyes. “How much time do we have before we must make a decision?”
“Deir El Zor is one day away due west. They have been there two days already. We have planes in Aleppo, Damascus and Palmyra. Air attack could have been there in hours. The trucks would take a day, maybe two of they wasted too much time loading them.” He thought some more. “The Bedouin would have one day, maybe, before our ground forces arrived. They were probably met with planes when they got there.”
“I have been looking to the west for three nights. I have not seen fire on the horizon,” she said.
“It is too far. You could not see even an explosion.”
She put a hand out and he gave her the water skin. “I say we wait one more day, then.” She unwrapped the corner and took a drink.
“And then?”
“I load the hypo with the Luminal. We take them down.”
He grinned. “He calls you ‘Brunhilde’, you know.”
She nodded. “I know.”
The next day seemed endless. She tried to sleep some of it away, but could not be comfortable in the heat and the sand, even in the shade. The flies bit hard whenever she was careless enough to expose any of her flesh. On the other hand, Marshall improved steadily. He was benefitting from the forced rest. She changed his bandage using strips from the white blouse in her briefcase. The wound was angry-looking and still swollen but was not weeping. It had a dark crust over the stitching. Elsa attributed the lack of infection to the high quality of the whiskey with which she had doused him.
He touched the bandage when she was finished. “Thank you for this,” he said.
She put her things away. The Luminal and the hypodermic lay in the corner of the case. “Tonight. If he is not back.” She glanced up at him and saw Marshall was worried. She looked at their guards relaxing in the shade, their two camels couched near them chewing their cud peacefully. One of the men looked up at the western horizon and said something. The other leaped to his feet and shaded his eyes.
Elsa nudged Marshall with her foot until he was looking too. Dust. There was dust everywhere, but dust on the horizon carried a message. It was in a special language of the desert, the dialect changed by the season. Descartes had told her that sometimes such a cloud meant a rain storm beyond the horizon was approaching. Others meant a sandstorm might blow over in the next hour and scour an unprepared traveler, driving shards of tiny rocks into the eyes and ears and mouth until it seemed the very earth was trying to choke you to death. Sometimes it was just a dust devil. Upward currents of hot air that spiraled to the sky in a twisting ribbon of yellow dirt. Harmless enough, but larger ones could be frightening enough cause the natives to drop in prayer.
This bit of dust was small. The dust moved in the shape of a wedge to the side, not upwards. This was a man. Just one. Maybe two. Maybe three. No more than three or the shape of the dust would have swirled into more of a rectangle instead of a triangle and been thicker near the ground. She moved closer to the edge of the rocks, looking. One of the guards spoke harshly to her and she took a step back.
The two guards had their camels up. One of them mounted and rode a few meters toward the dust cloud. The other climbed the stones to get a better perspective.
“They don’t seem to worry we will escape,” Marshall said.
“They know there is nowhere to run on foot. I am in a long dress and you are injured. Like you said, we are easy to kill.”
The two men shouted to each other, then settled in to wait. Elsa and Marshall took a few steps at a time, until they were standing in the sun, side by side facing the approaching riders. They could see now that three camels were raising the dust, and that all three of the camels had riders. The camels were coming at a gallop, and this too was a message in the desert. A gallop meant urgency only. One ran toward battle and away from it. One did not gallop a camel across the wastes for hours. The camels probably had not been goaded to hurry until their riders could see the black spires of the basalt outcropping that marked this well. A thirsty man would trot towards a well. Gallop even. Or men being chased. Or charging.
Elsa turned to look at her captors. They could read this message as well. What could not be conveyed by the riders was whether or not their kinsmen had won the battle against the English. A victory might send three riders back to collect them so they might join in the victory feast. A defeat might send the last three survivors fleeing back to their women and children. The two Arabs had come together in front of the black stones, their eyes on the approaching riders.
Elsa said to Marshall, “They do not seem to getting ready for a welcome.”
“Do you think it is Sonnenby?” Marshall was squinting.
Elsa’s eyes were better than his at a distance. “I do. I think I can see Descartes’ hat.” She felt weak with relief. One of the Bedouin had mounted his camel and was leading the other toward his comrade. They spoke to each other as they settled in the saddles and moved the halter rope side to side. They both carried rifles which they took from its strapping-place on the camel saddle. They primed them.
“Definitely not a welcome.” Marshall began to back up toward the rocks.
“I will not let them shoot him,” Elsa clenched her fists. She had not waited interminable days in heat and worry and biting flies to have Sonnenby’s return marred with his murder. She began to march toward the two Bedouin until one of them lowered the rifle at her and shouted. She stopped. “What are you doing!” she screamed at them.
The sand at her feet blew up and over her legs as the crack of a rifle shot echoed over and around the rocks. She covered her ears. He hadn’t missed. He was warning her. The other Bedouin noticed Marshall retreating to the shelter of the rocks. He whacked his camel with the long goad and turned the animal toward the Englishman. The man with the rifle reloaded from the crossed straps of ammunition across his chest.
Elsa backed away, wondering why the sight of the returning camels caused the Arabs to decide it was time to attack the prisoners. Perhaps their leader had told them to kill the Europeans if the entire raiding party did not arrive together. If Descartes had been wearing a head cloth instead of a fedora they might not have known the nationality of the approaching riders from such a distance. She backed further.
The other Bedouin and his camel disappeared behind the rocks. She wondered if she could make it back to the ledge before he could shoot her. And wouldn’t he be more interested in pointing his rifle at Sonnenby and Descartes? The approaching riders had been tipped off by that shot. They must know things had gone bad.
The rifle came down to aim at her. She could hear shouts from Sonnenby and Descartes. She took off running at an angle toward the camel and the black rocks. The tribesman would have to spin his camel to get a bead on her now. Her legs pounded the sand with a speed she had not known she possessed. As she cleared the first outcropping she could see a riderless camel between the rocks.
She tripped on her hem and fell. She hit the ground hard, falling and rolling in the hot sand. She kicked her feet to free them from the hem of the gown and then dug her toes into the sharp grit and gravel and launched herself toward Marshall. He lay on his back, his mouth gaped open and his eyes stared up at the sun, dull and unseeing. Beneath his chin he was all the colors of red.
Elsa ripped off her veil and tossed it aside. She cupped his cheeks with both hands and leaned over him, nose to nose. He was still so warm. Tears came to her eyes and stuffed her nose so she had to breathe through her mouth. She glanced down at his throat, opened from ear to ear above her carefully tied bandage. It had been quick.
She sat up and looked around for the man who did this. Gone.
She could see Sonnenby and Descartes approaching fast, their prods rising and falling on the beasts’ haunches to keep them at a gallop. Dust rose up behind them in spiraling columns.
The camels began to trot when they reached the rocks. Neither man waited for them to stop and kneel, but fell to the sand, clutching their rifles t
o their bodies as they rolled and then they staggered to their feet. The camels lurched away from them and continued to trot, halter ropes dragging, into the shade of the canyon and toward the well. Sonnenby and Descartes came at her, running full out, raising almost as much dust as their animals had.
“Elsa! Behind you!” Sonnenby yelled. He stopped, dug his boots into the sand, and raised the rifle to his shoulder. Elsa looked behind her and saw one of the Bedouin striding toward her, his own rifle ready to fire at Sonnenby and Descartes. Obviously she was no threat, as he did not even look at her as he strode past.
She kicked at him furiously, catching the side of his knee and causing his shot to go high into the cloudless sky. She heard Sonnenby’s shot at the same moment. Because she had kicked the Bedouin, he was not in the right place when Sonnenby’s bullet fired, and the shot was wasted.
The Bedouin spun around as he put another round into the chamber. The rifle barrel swung toward her stomach and she saw the dark hole of its eye, smoking from the failed shot. It was an old single-shot rifle, from wars long ago won and lost, probably no good at thirty yards, but at this point-blank range it was lethal. She blinked and was amazed at how calm she felt at the moment of death, and how slow time seemed to pass. Where was the fear? The panic?
How was this different from the experience of men facing death in battle? The barrel was moving to aim at her. She was ready for it. Her life had been a good one, full of learning in school and philosophic discussions across the supper table, long walks in the country and honest labor at home. Her parents had been kind and loving, her siblings supportive and caring and loyal. She had a good life. Now it was over.
But the barrel disappeared and moments later she heard a shot and felt the concussion and then heard the echoes on the rocks. She looked down, curious to see how her blood would look on the blue damask, but there was nothing below her breasts but glistening beadwork and the glorious blue of shimmering silk.
Her ears cleared to see her attacker and Sonnenby rolling on the ground, kicking sand and grappling to get a firm hold on one another. The rifle lay some meters away where it must have flown from the impact as Sonnenby threw himself on her attacker. She contemplated retrieving the rifle, or kicking the Bedouin.
The rifle would be empty and she did not know how to load a rifle and she had no ammunition. She kicked the Bedouin as he rolled past her. Sonnenby appeared on top, punching his enemy in the face over and over, his broad shoulders rising and falling like pistons as he threw that massive muscle into powerful jabs one after another. That Bedouin would soon be dead.
She looked for Descartes. The Frenchman was scuffling in the gorge with the other man. She thought about going to his aid. She may not be able to load a rifle. But she could use one as a club. She took a step towards the discarded rifle, but found herself suddenly on her back staring at the sky. Her head hurt.
Towering over her, another man in flowing white robes was thinking the same. This man was a stranger. He must have been the third one riding with Sonnenby. He reached for the barrel of the rifle, lifted it, and with a long arc and plenty of momentum, brought the stock flat up against Sonnenby’s head, knocking him so hard he rolled a full meter from the man he had been pummeling.
Elsa gasped, her own pain forgotten. That blow had been hard enough to cause a fracture. Her mind was back at the field hospital. Flashes of metal surgical tables and scalpels and bone saws clouded her vision. She saw a vision of medics with laden stretchers between them hurrying across rough ground toward the medical tents. She got to her feet and tried to reach the patient.
A rough hand grabbed her dress and long hanks of her hair between her shoulder blades and lifted her completely off her feet. She kicked air and screamed her frustration at being interrupted in her need to get to the stretchers. The sand rose up to meet her and knocked the scream right out of her throat. She rolled to her belly and panted, getting her breath back. The desert formed around her again. She was not at the front. She was in Mesopotamia. A Bedouin had picked her up and thrown her away like she was nothing. But Elsa Schluss was not nothing.
She could barely see, she was so angry. There was just a small circle of light immediately before her eyes, all else was deep black. In that circle a white-robed man straddled her patient and was drawing his knife from his belt. She had a vision of Marshall’s slack face and gaping neck. She saw the severed throat, the muscles, veins and arteries opened like a cadaver on the dissecting table.
Medical school flashed before her eyes. The lecturer pointed to anatomical points of interest with a beautifully polished pointer. The cadaver’s jugulars were dyed a lovely blue like her gown, and the carotids a bright poppy red. Elsa gathered her feet beneath her and launched herself at the Bedouin’s back, digging her fingers into his shoulders and pounding her knee into his kidney just as she had the Turk on the train. He rolled from the impact and lay face up, his mouth and eyes wide with surprise. Elsa was on him. One knee crushed his unprotected privates, causing him to curl toward her and gasp.
That gasp was his last, for she ran her right thumb up his throat until she felt the thick pulse of his left carotid. She used her left hand to grasp his trachea below his beard, and with her elbows locked she squeezed and pressed and twisted with all her strength, which was considerable. Her victim’s eyes rolled up in his head out almost immediately, but she was not finished.
She rose up, pushing with her legs for more leverage to bring as much of her weight through her shoulders and arms as possible. Her jaw began to hurt with the force of clenching her teeth. She squeezed with both hands, locking her elbows harder and putting extra weight on her thumb, completely cutting off any blood to the brain. She felt the trachea collapse, her hands sank into the man’s now flaccid neck; she could feel his spine through the flesh. The head rolled to the side, the tongue flopped out from between his blue lips and his eyes bugged sightlessly.
She adjusted her grip and tilted her head, narrowing her eyes as she focused on his face. She would not permit this man to kill her patient. She would rip his head off. He became every man who had harmed another. He was every aeroplane, every tank, every bursting shell, every incendiary bomb and every gas canister. Elsa was wild. She felt as though she no longer could think in words, only in images.
She saw ruined faces, bayoneted bellies, broken limbs, amputated legs, crushed skulls, slack jaws, and worst of all, the vacant stares of men whose bodies survived the battles, but had lost their minds. Her hands squeezed as if she could squeeze the violence out of this man and every single man on the planet.
Big hands had her by the shoulders again. She flew up and twisted in the air, ready to savage the next man who tried to kill her or someone she loved. She reached her claws out with a deafening scream and took this man down too. She would kill them all. Every single man in the world.
Without men there would be no more wars. She held her face over his so he could see her ferocity. She wanted him to see what a mistake he made in touching her without permission. She drew her lips back in a snarl and ran her thumb up his throat and along the side of his neck, searching for the carotid. There. She had it.
His eyes blinked huge and round at her. He was not kicking or rolling or striking her. He lay very still. Now the eyes seemed familiar. Her thumb stopped a centimeter from the wildly pulsing artery. The man’s lips were moving, he must be speaking to her, for she could feel the humming vibration beneath her hands, but all she could hear was a roaring in her ears like pounding surf or the screams of wild cats.
Then she heard German. “Leibling, liebling, schatze…”
She recognized Sonnenby. She blinked and drew in her breath and another and another. She relaxed her grip on his throat. He took a deep breath, too. “Gott im Himmel, Elsa,” he said and put a hand to his neck.
Elsa felt as if all the air leaked from her, and all her strength. She opened all her stiffening fingers and rolled off his body and lay on her back in the hot sand. Sonnenby turned to h
is side and pulled her closer to him. Her body felt like a rag doll in his arms.
He was so solid. Like a tree. She used to climb trees when she was a child and hang from their branches on warm summer afternoons. She would climb them and nestle on a notch, her back against the sturdy trunk and read her books until her sisters would call her in the late afternoon to help with supper. She looked at his face. Blood soaked his hair and his ear on his left side where he had been struck with the rifle. He was pale, but his eyes were bright. “Valkyrie,” he whispered.
She closed her eyes. She had killed a man. With her bare hands. It was hard to breathe.
“Brunhilde, you have saved the world.” He kissed her on the mouth without asking first. She decided she would permit it.
“Mon Dieu.”
Sonnenby released her and they both looked up at the Frenchman. Now her head ached and her mouth was dry. Sand was ground into every part of her body and scraped her between the gown and her skin. She sat up and put her head in her hands, willing the ache to go away. Sonnenby’s head must hurt even more. She turned to see him pushing himself up to sit in a similar posture. He touched the blood over his ear with two fingers and then looked at them.
“Mon Dieu,” Descartes said again, slapping his fedora against his thigh.
Sonnenby squinted up at him. “I take it you dispatched your man as well.”
Descartes nodded. “He is dead. They are all dead. But poor Marshall. Look at him.” He put his hat to his chest and went down into a crouch on his heels beside the field agent.
Elsa did not want to look at Marshall. Tears burned her.
Sonnenby put a hand over his eyes. “We will bury him,” he said. “Leave the others. Let the jinn take them.”
Chapter Eighteen
Elsa stood over Marshall’s grave, holding her briefcase in one hand and his pocket-watch in her other. She had found all their passports in his trouser pockets along with a small case that contained two fine gold cuff links and a tie tack. She put them in her briefcase. The watch she held in her palm, feeling Archibald Marshall in its solid weight and steady ticking.
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