Sheikh's Castaway

by Alexandra Sellers

  Where was Bari? Had he seen this? Biting her lip, her hand shading her eyes, Noor gazed up and down the beach, out over the water, hoping for some sign of him.

  “Baaaari!” she called. “Baaareeee!”

  No answer.

  She turned and looked again at the precious cargo being driven towards the rocks. For the first time she didn’t have Bari to tell her what to do. Should she go after those boxes, or was it too risky? And how? Most looked too big and cumbersome for her to simply grab hold of and then swim home.

  Maybe it was a hopeless task. Maybe she should just wait and drag in the stuff that came right to this beach, make sure it landed safely.

  But—

  Making up her mind abruptly, Noor turned and ran to the life raft, where they kept their supplies, and snatched up a coil of nylon rope. Slinging it over her shoulder, she ran along the beach towards the rocks as far as possible, then went into the water and struck out for the nearest item.

  It was a difficult and frustrating task. First she had to get the rope around the thing and tie it snugly, which was less easy than she’d have guessed. Then she had to get back to the beach. Noor had never engaged in a real struggle with nature, but now she became immersed in it, fighting the capricious sea for possession of the bounty it had brought so tantalizingly close.

  She heaved a sigh of exhausted triumph as she landed a small wooden crate safely, untied the rope and immediately went back in the water for another. It was then that she saw Bari in the water, much further out, grappling with a large crate. She had no idea how long he had been there.

  After that, there was only the burning heat, the painful glare and sparkle of sunlight on water, the wrenching discomfort in her arms and back and legs as she pulled and pushed, dancing out of the way when the surf suddenly bounced a crate along the sand, returning to the struggle the moment she had one safely landed.

  “Noor!”

  She looked up, out of a dream, unsure how much time had passed. The beach was littered with salvage. She had been vaguely aware of Bari dragging a chain of smallish items ashore at least once—he tied several pieces to the rope and then landed them all together.

  She looked around. He was in the water, well out from shore.

  “Throw me your rope!”

  There was something in his voice that compelled instant response. Her heart kicked as she dragged the rope from the box she had nearly beached. She coiled the rope as she dashed back into the water and half ran, half swam in Bari’s direction.

  “Don’t come any further!”

  The sunlight was dancing on the ripples, painfully bright and beautiful. Bari’s arm was outstretched in the water, his fist gripping the end of his rope. At the other end was a cluster of three crates. The water had already dragged them to the fullest extent of the rope, and she could see that he was exhausted with the struggle to hold them.

  “Stand firm, hold one end tight and throw me the other end,” he ordered calmly.

  Something was wrong. Noor gasped, her heart pushing into her throat. A sense of danger and threat seemed to fill the air.

  “Bari!” she shrieked. “Let it go!”

  “Throw it!”

  She gripped her rope with shaking fingers. “Leave it, Bari—whatever it is, it’s not worth it!”

  If he was dragged toward the rocks, caught in the surf—

  “Throw the damned rope!”

  With a prayer for strength, Noor tossed the curl of rope in a backhander like her best tennis swing. It snaked out, painting a long grey line in the air before landing with a soundless splash a few yards from him.

  She could see the other rope pulling him from his target.

  “It’s too dangerous!” she screamed. “Let it go!”

  His arms stretched to their fullest extent, he at last snatched up the rope she had tossed. Then he lifted the other rope end, and against the buffeting of the waves, she saw, was struggling to drag the other rope closer in order to tie her rope to the one that held the packages. But the drag on the packages was too strong, and he was being constantly buffeted by waves.

  She couldn’t give him any more rope without getting drawn into the breakers. Already she was being dragged along the beach towards the rocks; she was knocked almost off her feet when a bigger wave caught Bari and he went under.

  “Bari, it won’t reach!” she screamed. “Let go of the crates!”

  If he was dragged against the rocks, he would be so badly smashed up—why didn’t he let the damned crates go?

  The weight suddenly eased and Noor saw the three crates sailing away, the end of the white rope curling and swirling in a little eddy. Relief flowed through her so hot her knees almost buckled.

  “Oh, thank God, thank God!”

  “Can you pull me in?” Bari called.

  He worked his way towards the sandy beach at an angle, not fighting the current directly. Slowly he got away from the rocks, while Noor, keeping a tight grip on the rope, dragged him in. It was a little like reeling in a wild stallion.

  When he stood up out of the waves at last, staggered towards her and then fell again, she saw blood streaming from a long gash in his thigh.

  Twelve

  He was heavy, almost a dead weight on her, and that terrified her. Bari wasn’t a man to show weakness, but he was leaning on her hard, grimacing with every step, dragging the wounded leg as if unable to put any weight on it at all. His breath rasped in her ear, sending shivers of blank terror through her. If he was seriously wounded, what would happen to them?

  She helped him up the beach to the little hut, where he sank down onto the foil sheet with a stifled groan. Gripped by horror, Noor stared helplessly at the long wound running down his thigh.

  “Ya Allah!” she moaned, her mother’s favourite expression in the face of trouble. Thoughts of infection, gangrene and amputation danced grotesquely across her imagination. How dreadful to think of him losing a leg, and all because she—

  “First aid kit.”

  His voice was a whisper; he was clearly in pain. Noor came abruptly to her senses. He was the wounded one—he shouldn’t have to do the organizing! But she was the only other person available.

  She had to concentrate.

  First aid kit. Noor ran to the overturned life raft, under which they stowed their equipment, scrabbled wildly for the first aid kit, then, from the diminishing pile of white silk she had salvaged from her carefully demolished wedding dress, grabbed a medium-sized square.

  Back at the shelter, she knelt beside him. The bleeding was already slowing. At least he wasn’t going to bleed to death! Her panic subsiding somewhat, she began to tear the silk into strips. Such basic action made her feel more competent and confident.

  “I’m sure it needs stitches,” she told Bari, though she had nothing more than television hospital dramas to go on.

  “Never mind. The important thing is to get antiseptic onto it.”

  She was sure she should use boiled water to wash the wound first, but there was no possibility of that. Even if she had a pot to boil it in, she had already proved hopeless at lighting the fire.

  The fire! They had lighted it every night for a signal, as well as the psychological and physical comfort it offered. But who would light it tonight?

  “The drinking water in the emergency kit will be sterile,” Bari said, sending her dashing back to the raft to search for some of the tiny little plastic packs of water which they hadn’t had to touch yet.

  What followed was the most nerve-racking half hour of her life. Under the patient’s quiet but clear instructions she washed the ugly wound, made sure it was clean, bathed it with antiseptic, then drew the edges of the gash together, applied sterile pads, and taped them as neatly as she could. Then she bound his thigh with a clean bandage and, afterwards, strips of silk. Finally, to protect the bandages, she wrapped and taped a plastic bag around the whole.

  “Does it feel all right?” she asked at last.

  “It feels fine. Thank
you,” Bari said, still breathing in a way that frightened her. “You made a very workmanlike job of it.”

  Even though she knew it wasn’t true—some of her taping looked like a five-year-old’s craft project—Noor was swept with an unfamiliar sense of accomplishment. She’d done it! She’d actually managed it! Something had desperately needed to be done, and, however inexpertly, she had done it!

  “Thank you,” she said, with real humility. She smiled down at Bari, feeling a strangely touching connection with him because she had been able to help. “I’m really glad I could do it.”

  “So am I.”

  After all the cynical looks in the past, his approving smile now was like rain on new roots. They gazed into each other’s eyes for a moment of silence. In the forest the birds began to sing the sun down.

  “Do you want a painkiller?”

  “No,” said Bari. His mouth contorted. “Yes.”

  She pressed a tablet out of the bubble pack and gave it to him with a little water. He drank it and lay back with a little grunt of pain.

  “How did it happen?”

  “I didn’t see whatever it was. I was kicking hard against the current and it was in my way. A jutting rock, maybe.”

  Her breath hissed in sympathy. “Do you—” She blew her breath up over her forehead, sending a tendril of hair dancing. “Is it broken?”

  He was silent for a moment. “No. The bone may be bruised. It’ll be a day or two at most before I can put weight on it.”

  She wasn’t sure she believed that. Might he be lying to keep her calm, or was he maybe in a state of denial?

  “Ya Allah,” Noor whispered again, her eyes wide, as the full extent of what his injury would mean began to unfold in her mind.

  “Tomorrow you’ll collect some herbs for me. Good thing the shelter is nearly done,” he muttered drowsily. Reaction was setting in. “You’ll be able to manage.”

  Manage! She stared at him in mute protest. Bari’s eyelids fluttered, and Noor’s heart fluttered in response. If he lost consciousness—! The weight of the world seemed to be on her shoulders all at once.

  “Bari! Do you want anything?” she cried, just to see him open his eyes again. To know that he could.

  He took a long time to collect his thoughts, gazing at her with a frown. Then he shook his head.

  “Do we have any food?”

  At the mention of the word her stomach growled. Because of the salvage operation Bari hadn’t gone fishing today. They hadn’t foraged for eggs. The sun was very low now. Behind her, the birdsong was at its evening peak. She would have little chance of finding anything in the dark.

  “There are dates,” she remembered, getting to her feet. She had laid some dates out in the sun in the hopes of drying them.

  But as she stepped out of the shelter, she stopped short.

  “The salvage! I forgot all about it!” she cried jubilantly.

  She dashed back inside the shelter and snatched up the little knife.

  “Take it easy with that thing,” Bari protested.

  But Noor barely heard. A moment later she was halfway along the beach, bending over one of the biggest boxes. The slanting sun picked out the delicate Arabic letters she had not had time to examine before.

  “‘Al Bostan luxury food importers!’” she translated with a happy shout. “Food! I knew it!” With hands made clumsy by excitement, hunger, and fatigue, she finally managed to slit the plastic packaging, and then the packing tape. Eagerly she pulled up the cardboard flaps.

  In the sunshine the cellophane-wrapped packages were unmistakable. Her heart lifted with crazy joy.

  “Lettuce!” she shrieked, as excited as, in a former life, she might have cried Moët et Chandon!

  She reached in and drew one head of lettuce out of the neatly packed box. Then she glanced back towards the shelter and frowned a little. Wilted lettuce. Not exactly the meal of choice for an invalid.

  “I suppose the tinned soup went straight to the bottom,” she muttered darkly, as if the soup would regret that choice one day.

  She chose a smaller box and renewed her attack, much more proficient with the knife than she would have been even a few days ago, if she had been in a state of mind to notice….

  It was like a joke, but somehow Noor couldn’t laugh. She had half killed herself, and Bari had ripped up and maybe broken his leg, and all they had to show for it was…

  “What’s that howling?” she heard from the shelter. She got up and walked over to where he lay.

  “Two boxes opened so far,” she reported in a flat voice. “And the score—we are now in proud possession of two dozen severely wilted heads of romaine lettuce and a few thousand plastic swizzle sticks.”

  A shout of laughter met her ears as she dropped one of each on the ground beside him.

  She laughed with him. It was that or cry.

  Bari picked up the swizzle stick and frowned at it in the fading light. “I thought so,” he said after a moment, and held it up. “See the logo? The shipment was destined for the Gulf Eden Resort. They bring fresh food and supplies over from the mainland on a daily basis. One of the dhows either sank or had to cut loose the cargo during the storm.”

  “It’s taken a long time to beach, hasn’t it?” Noor asked.

  Bari shrugged. “The currents among the islands can be very difficult, particularly after a storm. Every sailor learns that quickly. And that blow we had last night might have had something to do with it.” Last night there had been a horrible wind and high rough seas smashing up the beach. “The wooden crates may contain less perishable food,” he suggested.

  “From your lips to God’s ears!” Noor said, reaching for the axe and hefting it like a pro. She scarcely noticed how the burned handle blackened her callused hands.

  A little later Noor stumbled up the beach into the hut with her arms full. She dropped to her knees beside Bari and spilled the riches on the sand.

  “It’s really hard to prise open those crates!” she cried. Her hands were bruised, bleeding and filthy, but she was exultant.

  “But you managed?” Bari asked.

  “Two of them, plus a couple of the boxes, and I’ve got the knack now— I can do the others tomorrow!” Noor said jubilantly. “And look what I found!”

  “What?” He smiled at her, and Noor blinked on an indrawn breath. She had never seen quite that expression in his eyes before, and somehow it made her heart skip.

  “Ta da! Smoked salmon!” she cried, holding it up, too excited to save the best till last.

  “What a relief to know the civilized world still exists.”

  “It’s food, isn’t it?” Noor said defensively, reacting to the irony. “I love smoked salmon, and we’ve got pounds of it, in packs that are good for years!”

  Bari laughed, his eyes alight with that strange warmth. “I did say we might be stranded for a while, but I hope…”

  She was too focused to appreciate his irony. “I know, Bari, but the point is, it’s good for as long as we need it. It’s good now. Not like the lettuce.”

  “Alhamdolillah,” he said.

  “And rice! Bags of it. Who’d have thought that would float? And water biscuits, and a huge carton of potato chips, look, and—” she scrabbled happily among her treasures “—oh, and coffee! Isn’t that just so fantastic? I’m almost crazy for a cup of coffee!”

  “All we need now is the cup,” he teased.

  “And a pot for boiling the water! I haven’t found anything useful like that yet, but there must be some way to make something that’ll work.”

  She didn’t see the expression that crossed his face. “You think so?”

  “Not everything was for the hotel kitchens. There’s some stock for different boutiques. Haven’t you noticed?” She lifted a hand and struck a pose.

  “You have a new forage cap,” he said admiringly.

  “Not just any forage cap, either! This is the last word in desert chic.” Noor turned her head to display the canvas flap th
at protected her neck, as if she were a member of the French Foreign Legion. “Notice the discreet Gulf Eden Resort logo! Only the truly discerning—well, the obscenely rich—will recognize that, of course.”

  “Of course,” Bari agreed gravely.

  “I’ll bet the shop sells bikinis to match, too! I’d love it if I found one. This thing I’m wearing is just about at the end of its very short but traumatic life span. But it’ll be dark soon—I had to stop. How hungry are you for dinner?”

  “Homicidal,” Bari allowed with a grin.

  “Smoked salmon and crackers?”

  Noor had cut little squares from the plastic that sealed the boxes, which now she laid over pieces of board chopped from a crate, to serve as plates.

  She peeled open a pack of smoked salmon and a box of water biscuits, poured water into their one plastic cup and set it carefully in the sand, then sat back, as proud and satisfied as if she had produced a five-course meal.

  “Doesn’t that look delicious?” she cried, her stomach growling in anticipation.

  “Best offer I’ve had all day,” Bari agreed.

  They fell on the food as if it were a feast. “Oh, the taste of salt! And who’d have believed a simple cracker could be so satisfying?” Noor demanded, munching, when they had demolished most of the meal in silence.

  Bari nodded, picked up the cup of water, and offered it to her.

  As she reached to take it, Noor suddenly noticed her hands. She always scrubbed her hands with sand and seawater at the end of every day, not with much success. But tonight she had been too busy. Dirt was packed around the ragged nails, the callused palms were black with soot from the axe handle, the skin of her fingers raw and scraped with the effort of opening the crates.

  She shrugged. Well, she had worked hard, and it was no surprise if her hands showed it. As her fingers closed around the little cup, she felt a curious pride, as though the dirt of hard work were a badge that marked her kinship with women all over the globe, the women who wrest a living from the earth.

  Suddenly she felt how much she deserved the drink. For the first time in her life, Noor unconsciously made the connection between work and self-worth. Always before, she had been given whatever she needed by right. Because her father was rich, because she was who she was.