Sandstorm

by Asher, Michael

  ‘We can use the stars,’ Sterling said. ‘Use Polaris in place of magnetic north.’

  Churchill slapped his pockets for matches and came up with a packet. He lit his cigar. Sterling looked at him and shook his head. ‘Last time you lit that thing,’ he said, ‘you had to ask Hobart for a match. I have to hand it to you, Eric, you’re a bloody good actor.’

  The big man got back in the Jeep and they started. ‘I wanted to hear what was being said,’ he told Sterling, puffing the cigar. ‘And yes, you were right about that, George, I had good training in playing roles in “Gusenkian’s Travelling Circus”. You see we had to do everything: we were ticket-sellers, ringmasters, seat-ushers, programme-sellers, clowns, acrobats — you name it. Each part required a different face, a different mask.’

  ‘And that stuff sneering at “codes of honour” — that was all garbage?’

  Churchill took the cigar out of his mouth. ‘George,’ he said. ‘I meant the oath I made to Taha, just as I meant the oath to King and country when I joined the Military Police. I’ve been a patriot all my life — refugee syndrome, remember? Things other people took for granted, like democracy and freedom of speech, fairness; all that really meant something to me, because I knew — at least my parents drummed it into me — what it was like to be without it. Now, I’m no saint, George — I’ve been economical with the truth at times, maybe, and I’ve always had a bit of a weakness for the ladies, but a traitor to Britain, no. God forbid.’

  The Jeep throbbed across the vast plain, and Sterling wiped dust out of his eyes. ‘No bloody windscreen,’ he complained. ‘Still, I suppose it wouldn’t be much good in the desert.’ He changed gear smoothly. ‘I can’t believe this,’ he said, keeping his eyes ahead. ‘Hobart always seemed so cut up about Billy — I always thought he was so ... well, such a decent bloke.’

  Churchill grunted. ‘To what do you not drive human hearts, cursed craving for gold!’

  ‘That’s not Winston, is it?’

  ‘No. It’s Virgil again. Winston’s repertoire is actually a bit limited. Hobart’s a monster, him and Craven both. Arnold couldn’t live with the fact that his grandfather squandered the family money.’

  ‘But I still don’t understand ...’ Sterling trailed off. Churchill rearranged his big body in the seat and took the cigar from his mouth, watching the horizon.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You deserve an explanation, George. I’m sorry about the web of deception, and I’m sorry about knocking you out — and Taha. I thought it was necessary at the time, and I’ve explained why. As for the rest ... the fact is, yes I have lied to you about myself. I wasn’t kicked out of Field Security in Casablanca in nineteen forty-five, but I did have to hang up my forage cap. After that I simply went covert, and became an asset rather than an operational officer. I’m not claiming to be — who’s that fellow in Ian Fleming’s new book? You know Casino Royale — James Bond, Double-O-Seven, or something?’

  Sterling’s mouth fell open and he stared at Churchill for a second. The Jeep bumped over a stone and Sterling had to wrestle with the steering wheel. Churchill sucked in his breath. ‘Christ!’ he gasped. ‘Keep your eyes on the road or we’ll end up in the ditch, and that’ll put the mockers on everything.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Sterling said.

  Churchill was quiet for a moment. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘if I’m going to tell you the truth, you’ll have to promise not to lose your concentration.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Right. The fact is, George, I’ve been doing unofficial work for MI5 for years — the Craven Patrol case was only one of the things I’ve done. I was in Casa in nineteen forty-five, when Craven came back having lost an entire LRDG patrol — thirteen highly trained commandos —claiming it had been wiped out by a Nazi column heading for West Africa. Well, anyone who believed that would believe anything. That was more men in one go than the LRDG lost in the entire North Africa campaign. But we couldn’t prove a damn thing. At first we didn’t guess that Hobart had been in on it — his story was that he’d been shot in the leg by a Nazi agent while working undercover. I was on Craven’s arse, though — I knew from the start he wasn’t what he was cracked up to be. Then his name came up in connection with five Italian POWs who went missing from a Moroccan camp in nineteen forty-five. Again there was no proof.’

  Sterling steered around a bowl-shaped depression, changing down into second gear. ‘And that stuff about the mafia connection,’ he said. ‘That was all eyewash?’

  Churchill shrugged. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t know how far I could trust you. That’s been a bugbear from the start. When you told me Hobart’s story about Corrigan and the mafia, I just elaborated on it a bit, to keep you off the scent.’

  ‘And you weren’t kicked out because you were getting close to Hobart and Craven?’

  ‘No. There was just no need and no money for chaps like me when the war ended. I was a bit miffed about it, but since they kept me on as an asset, it wasn’t so bad. I’ve done some good jobs for the Security Service over the years. I kept an eye on the Craven-Hobart business, of course, and I knew Craven had been lost in Morocco in nineteen forty-six. Then, out of the blue a few months back, someone handed me a report about Corrigan, a known associate of Craven’s, who’d been spotted in London. The Office put me on alert: Corrigan, USAF deserter, is making enquiries about a certain George Bridger Sterling, who turns out to be Arnold Hobart’s son-in-law. The dots start to join up. Sterling’s son was on the kite with Craven when she went down. Sterling is the partner of a Major Vernon Dakin, ex-Royal Tank Corps, and a friend of a couple of my private clients. I get Dakin to feed you my name, just in case Corrigan manages to get in touch — and he does. Bingo! We’re right on the money.’

  Sterling chortled incredulously. ‘But how did you manage to insinuate yourself into Hobart’s confidence?’

  Churchill sighed and picked a piece of tobacco off his lip. The sun was being sucked into the horizon now, losing its globe shape along the lower perimeter. Dust clouds fanned out like wings around it, their undersides turning to fire. Sterling changed down to negotiate a patch of loose sand.

  ‘When I got home the night we met, I made two phone calls, neither of them to Dakin. The first was to the Office, to let them know I’d made contact with you. My boss thought about it, and told me to get in touch with Hobart. It was a gamble, but it paid off. Your father-in-law didn’t know I was an MI5 asset — thought I’d been out of it since forty-five, as officially I had. Actually, I knew him a little better than I let on. I’d run into him once or twice at reunions since Morocco, so we weren’t strangers, and he knew I was in the private investigations business, anyway, so my cover story rang true. The conversation about the wireless actually did take place, but with Hobart, not Dakin. He leapt at the idea and told me I should address my reports to codename Steppenwolf. My codename would be Wolfgang. Sounded so Boy’s Own that it was all I could do to stop myself laughing!’

  Sterling slowed again and let the Jeep coast over a rocky hammada. ‘But why did you try and persuade me to take Billy — Taha — home?’ he asked. ‘I mean, when Billy was the key to the whole case.’

  Churchill threw the cigar-stub into the desert. ‘You must understand, George, that I’ve been playing all this by ear. It started off as a case of suspected murder, that’s all. We knew damn well something odd had happened to those LRDG boys, but we didn’t know about Sonnenblume, Skorzeny or anything else. As it turned out, the disappearance of the Craven patrol was only the tip of the iceberg.’

  The sun was a gold cartouche on the skyline and the dust clouds had turned to bats’ wings. Sterling stopped the Jeep and a delicious silence absorbed them. ‘We’d better eat,’ he said, breaking the silence. Out there, nothing moved but a flight of crows flitting across the darkling sky.

  *

  In the Guelb, the Delim were carousing half naked round a bonfire and piles of hot stones, on which they were cooking haunches of camel mea
t. The meat had been sliced from one of Belhaan’s prize racing-camels, which they had slaughtered at sunset. Its ravaged carcass sat a little way away in a swamp of giblets and gore. Someone was playing a tabla and some of the nomads were moving their bodies, swinging their long hair in time with the rhythm, apparently mesmerized. A few fired off shots from their new rifles into the night. Suddenly one of them dashed into the shadows where the Reguibat prisoners were gathered, and came back into the light dragging a girl by the arm. It was Rauda. Her head-veil had been torn off and her braided black hair fell to her waist. She clung to her flimsy mehlafa as the nomad tried to rip it away and expose her naked breasts. The audience clapped and cackled. Suddenly Rauda let the garment go, and the man took an unexpected step back. There was an audible ‘Aaah!’ as the men stared at Rauda’s body, naked but for her loincloth. In that instant, Rauda snatched the dagger from her assailant’s belt, and held the point against her own breast, panting.

  ‘Touch me, son of a pig!’ she spat, her eyes flashing in the bonfire-light. ‘And nobody else ever shall!’

  The tabla stopped abruptly. The dancing men froze. The Delim who had seized her threw the mehlafa on the ground and stepped towards her, smiling truculently. Rauda raised the dagger higher. At that moment a frail voice said, ‘Stop!’

  As the Delim turned in surprise, an old man hobbled out of the shadows, barefooted, without head-cloth and wearing a torn and filthy dara’a.

  The nomad who had threatened Rauda began to chuckle. ‘Sorry, old man,’ he said, laughing. ‘But you are no substitute for her.’

  Uproarious laughter raced round the Delim. ‘Give him a kiss!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Make him dance!’

  The old man stood very still and the firelight played across his face. The laughing stopped. There was an unmistakable power and presence to the man, a stillness that was almost unnerving. ‘I am Belhaan ould Hamed,’ he said quietly. ‘Sheikh of my clan. I am of the inhaden yenun.’

  A murmur spread among the crowd. Some of the Delim made the sign against the evil eye.

  ‘This is the Guelb Richat,’ Belhaan continued. ‘It is a haram, a sacred place, a refuge of the spirits of our ancestors — Ulad Delim and Ulad al-Mizna — for generations, back to the Time Before Time. It is forbidden to slaughter an animal here, even to light a fire. To molest a woman here is a disgrace. I speak not for myself but for you. The spirits will not forgive your impertinence.’

  There was another moment of silence, and more murmurs among the Delim. Then a tribesman clad only in a loincloth stepped out of the crowd. His body glistened with sweat from the dancing, as he thrust the muzzle of his Garand towards Belhaan. ‘You see this weapon, old man,’ he growled. ‘This is my new amulet against the spirits.’

  He cocked the weapon. The sweat ran down his face and he blinked it out of his eyes. There was no sound but the crackle of the flames. The tribesman’s finger tightened its pressure on the trigger, and Belhaan waited patiently for a shot that never came. Instead, there was a terrific explosion from across the floor of the crater, a brilliant gush of orange light and a shockwave that made the air tremble. The afrangi chariot, the one containing the two men who’d been left behind by the Lame One, had erupted into flame. The rifleman who’d been about to kill Belhaan dropped his weapon in astonishment. The rest of the Delim leapt up and yelled as if they had been stung by scorpions, firing off their rifles uselessly into the air, jabbering, making the sign against the evil eye.

  Belhaan picked up the fallen rifle and shot the Delim at point-blank range. The round took the man as he ducked, passed through his ear and exploded from the other side of his head in twists of bone and flesh.

  Almost simultaneously, the nomad who had dragged Rauda to the fire shrieked as his own dagger suddenly thumped into his chest. Rauda didn’t wait to find out if he was dead. She strode quickly to her uncle, grabbed his arm, and dragged him back out of the firelight.

  The iron chariot was burning over there across the valley. Powerful lights blazed up like giant eyes in the darkness, and the Delim howled. The lights were moving towards them fast, accompanied by the dragon roar and a thwack and whomp of shots that blistered the darkness, leaving green and orange trails. One nomad turned to face the great yellow eyes and a bullet smashed his forehead before he could get his rifle into his shoulder. Some of the Delim had simply flung their new weapons away and were now scrabbling up the valley’s crooked stone walls. There was a last peppering of gunshots from the roaring monster and then it came to a rest by the burned-down fire. A bulky shadow moved on its back. Old Belhaan eased out of the darkness with his newly acquired rifle and fired one shot at it. The shadow fell. The old man was about to shoot again when his son, Fahal, knocked the rifle askew with his good hand. ‘No!’ he growled. ‘Don’t shoot! That is Taha’s afrangi father in there!’

  *

  They laid Churchill on an esparto mat by the fire. He had lost some blood but was still conscious. The bullet had grazed his shoulder, slicing into the muscle before exiting, but mercifully it had not damaged the bone.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ he grumbled as Sterling crouched over him, dressing the wound. ‘After all this, I have to get shot by one of the people I came to liberate!’

  Sterling made the dressing as comfortable as possible and gave Churchill a shot of morphia from the medical kit. ‘It should be all right,’ he commented, ‘but you won’t be doing a lot of shooting, not for a while, anyway.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Churchill declared. ‘I’ll use the other shoulder.’

  Belhaan was sitting by the fire a few feet away, with Fahal and some of the other men of the clan. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Churchill. ‘But my son told me you were a bowqaa, a traitor.’

  Churchill blew air. ‘Not his fault,’ he said. ‘Though I did tell him never to make that mistake. I suppose I was too convincing, that’s all.’

  Belhaan shook his head in confusion. ‘This is not a way the Ulad al-Mizna understand,’ he said. ‘A man stands up and fights in the full view of his enemy, shouting his name so that all will know who he is.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Churchill groaned. ‘Well, it’s horses for courses, as they say, but probably yours is the way it ought to be, after all.’

  Belhaan turned his eyes on Sterling with interest. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you are Taha’s afrangi father? I can see him in your face.’

  Sterling felt a pang of resentment against this old man, who looked like a decrepit old savage, but who had won Billy’s love and devotion, and who had shared with his son so many precious moments that should have belonged to him. ‘I prefer just father,’ Sterling said.

  Belhaan’s eyes lit up. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I understand. He is your son, but he is also mine. And then again, he is neither yours nor mine. Our children do not belong to us. They are not possessions, but are given into our keeping by God, lent to us for a short time. Taha fell from the stars and was given to me by God as a sacred trust. I have kept that sacred trust as well as I could, but he is not mine. He is a man and belongs only to himself.’

  Sterling was fighting back resentful words, when Rauda approached him leading two small boys by the hand, one about five and the other smaller. ‘This is Dhaalib,’ she told him, presenting the elder boy, ‘and this is Nofal.’ The children were shy, but advanced towards Sterling warily with their small hands outstretched. ‘I am Dhaalib ould Taha of the Ulad al-Mizna,’ the eldest said proudly.

  ‘And I am Nofal ould Taha,’ the other squeaked.

  Their likeness to Billy as a child was almost uncanny. The boys were a little darker, their hair perhaps a bit curlier, but they had the same expression, the same eyes, the same determined small mouths. Sterling gasped and hugged the children to him suddenly, one in each arm. Tears streamed down his cheeks. ‘My grandchildren!’ he repeated, incredulously. ‘My grandsons!’

  The resentment he’d felt towards Belhaan evaporated. The old man was right. Billy — Taha — had been given to them both for a while, but d
id not belong to either of them. Billy had dropped suddenly into this man’s life, and whereas he might have mistreated him or abused him, even killed him, this man, this apparent savage, had saved his life, devoted himself to him, loved him as his own son. New tears fell down Sterling’s cheeks. Ever since he’d entered the desert, he’d regarded the people who lived here as primitives. He’d been amazed and revolted that Billy had had to live amongst them. Now, though, face to face with his own grandsons, understanding hit him with the force of a hurricane. Billy was right. Life in the desert was hard and sometimes brutal, but, if civilization meant more than merely acquiring possessions, then it was here rather than in the city that true civilization lay. Sterling hugged the boys tighter, kissed them both and let them go. He turned to Belhaan.

  ‘Thank you for looking after my son,’ he said. ‘I suppose there’s enough love in the universe for us all.’

  The old man pointed to the stars with a crabbed finger. ‘The thanks is to God,’ he said.

  ‘This is all very touching,’ Churchill croaked suddenly, sitting up and mouthing obscenities at the pain shooting through his shoulder. ‘But Hobart’s on his way across the Umm al-Khof right now with ten thousand kilos of bullion and Taha as a hostage.’

  There was silence for a moment. The big man went on. ‘Look, George,’ he said. ‘Frankly I’m just about hors de combat. I can’t take bumping across the desert with this shoulder, and you’re right, I can’t shoot.’

  ‘We will go after Taha on the camels,’ Belhaan said. ‘All of us will go!’

  ‘No,’ Churchill groaned. ‘It won’t work. First of all, by the time you get there on camels it’ll be too late. Second, you’ll have to leave women and children here, and unless I’m very much mistaken, Amir and his locusts will be here by first light, eager to help themselves to the womenfolk. So somebody’s got to stay here to defend the place.’