Secret of the Sands

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘I should kill you now,’ Ibn Mohammed spits for he is sure that Wellsted must have known of this mutiny. The man is not the least distressed.

  Kasim lays a hand on his friend’s arm. ‘Holster your blade,’ he counsels. ‘We might need him.’

  Kasim stares at the ground. The situation is impossible. Damn the girl. Damn her. Kasim struggles to think of an honourable way out or at least a way to salvage the situation. He makes a quick calculation. If they fly in the night, they can at least make good the soultan’s wishes, he decides. They must take action.

  ‘Where are they holding your friend?’

  Wellsted points in the direction of the tent.

  ‘And you think he can travel? We have no litter – can he ride a camel?’

  Wellsted nods. ‘With some help,’ he admits.

  Kasim motions the others towards him. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘we can’t find the girl in the dark. She has shamed us all in this for we have given our word to hand her over. In the morning, the emir will be furious. He may allow us to track her and bring her back. He may agree to that, but we have no certainty that we will find her before she dies and, in truth, we do not know what he may decide to do in anger. He has the reputation of a man who might take drastic action. In any case, with the girl gone and the deal broken, he has every right to kill your Jessop if he wants to. We’ll be most fortunate if that is all he does. We cannot run tonight with our whole party. That would raise the whole camp and even if we succeed in sneaking all our men and camels away, he will have the right to pursue us. We have made a deal with him and reneged on it. In daylight, his men know this terrain well and they have horses rather than camels. We will stand little chance. If we could get away, I’d say to do that. If I knew we could find her, I surely would. But there are no certainties, so here is what I propose.’

  Ibn Mohammed and Wellsted lean in.

  ‘We must take only those we need. Leave the slaves and take half a dozen of the servants – those best camel men. Ibrahim, Jasouf, Hamza and Hassan. Perhaps Tarif and Sudar. No more than that. They are the best. We will steal your doctor, Lieutenant, for the sake of the soultan. And in return, in the hope it will appease him, the emir can have our slaves, the rest of the camels and supplies and we will leave him two thousand talers – the thousand we agreed and another thousand in compensation. It is more than the girl is worth. He will be angry, for it is hardly honourable. He will probably kill our men. But if we leave enough by way of compensation, he might not follow us. In fact, it will save him face, for he will not have to come clean about your Jones being dead. Besides, if he does not slaughter those we leave, he will have at least another six hundred taler worth in the livestock and slaves – maybe more. With a small party and travelling at night, we can make for the coast. We will not complete Said Ibn Sultan’s bidding with honour, but it will cost him less than his five thousand talers, he will have the doctor and as far as I can see, it is the best we can get away with.’

  ‘If we find the girl, I will kill her,’ Ibn Mohammed sneers, though he nods in agreement.

  Kasim says nothing about Ibn Mohammed’s threat. The slaver has every right to punish a runaway as he pleases, and in terms of the mission it will not matter by the time they find her whether the girl lives or not, though it is a waste of a few hundred silver coins in his opinion. Ibn Mohammed, however, has enough money to waste should he wish to and Kasim harbours neither love nor hate for the girl. He only wants to complete what he came to do and be free to pursue his Zigua once more.

  Wellsted stares into the blackness. He hopes Zena will make for Muscat. She has a camel and supplies, and though he has not said so, he knows she also has a small goatskin pouch of silver coins. He smiles, for he has just realised that it is missing from his belt. She is most impressive, he thinks with pride. If they catch her and Ibn Mohammed wants to kill her, he will simply have to strike first. At the first sign, he’ll slit the slaver’s throat. Meantime, they must rescue the doctor.

  ‘All right,’ he says. ‘If you raise the men, I’ll fetch Jessop.’

  ‘I will come. You may need help,’ Kasim smiles. He may not want to kill Wellsted, but he no longer trusts him.

  Ibn Mohammed nods towards the camp. ‘I will fetch the men,’ he whispers. ‘It will take five minutes.’ Silently he congratulates himself they never took the saddles and packs from the camel’s backs and notes that it always pays to be circumspect. ‘We will meet at the camels,’ he orders.

  Wellsted and Kasim move around the perimeter of the settlement without a word. Wellsted motions towards the tent and they make their way down the incline of soft sand with a balletic roll. Behind them Ibn Mohammed is moving like a shadow among the sleepers, raising the men chosen to travel into the night.

  ‘Jessop,’ Wellsted hisses.

  ‘I am here, James,’ the reply comes.

  They enter the tent.

  ‘We have to take off,’ Wellsted explains. ‘This is Kasim,’ he motions towards his companion.

  The slaver makes a sound, not quite a grunt, but no salaam.

  ‘I am tied,’ the doctor explains.

  Kasim feels for the rope. He draws his khandjar and slits the bond easily. There is a noise as Jones’ corpse, now stiff, is felled to one side. The men ignore it. They have no time to tend to the dead, and Kasim thinks that in leaving the body they are underlining to the emir that he also has reneged on the deal by omission. Wellsted leans towards the doctor.

  ‘Can you walk, Jessop?’

  There is a good-humoured snigger. ‘It’s been a while. I’ll try.’ Then a soft thump. Kasim moves forward but Wellsted motions him away and envelopes the doctor’s thin frame as it lies slumped on the sandy floor of the tent. It will not take two of them to carry him.

  ‘He would not trade us, then?’

  ‘Long story, old man.’

  As he touches the doctor’s body, the lieutenant feels a sense of revulsion at how fragile Jessop has become and of course, there is the smell. He steels himself.

  ‘Upsadaisy,’ he whispers as he lifts him. ‘Just keep very quiet and your fingers crossed, if you can.’

  They sneak back into the darkness towards the camels. Ibn Mohammed is already directing which animals they will take. There are ten thoroughbreds, the rest will be forfeit, along with the slaves. It is not a high price to keep the emir from pursuing them. Ibn Mohammed orders a large casket of taler coins to be placed in open view. As the servants carry it over and place it on the ground, Wellsted stops and draws breath. By the moonlight he can see his friend properly for the first time. He tries not to show his concern. Jessop is all skeleton. His jubbah is a filthy, stinking rag and it is stuck to his skin where he has defecated. The doctor’s hair is patchy and in knots and his unkempt beard is wispy. All over his body the skin is badly marked and so terribly pale that in the moonlight he looks luminous. He is a pitiful straggle of a fellow and he has the air of a pauper, if not a lunatic. However his eyes are still bright. The lieutenant does his best not to stare in outright horror at what happens to an educated, country gentlemen when he is not fed.

  ‘The stars,’ the doctor motions into the distance.

  They are beautiful, of course. The same twinkling panorama that adorns the desert sky every night. Wellsted swallows his pity and tries to remain pragmatic.

  ‘We’re lucky the moon is so slight. I’ll get you something to eat,’ he promises, below his breath.

  A smile breaks the doctor’s face. He is so thin that his teeth look eerie – they are the only part of him that has not shrunk away.

  ‘I have to take it easy, James, with the food. Ease myself in. A decent meal would do for me now – I probably couldn’t take it, but if you gave me food I’d eat it. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.’

  ‘A decent meal we’ll keep for Bombay then. But perhaps you could manage some camel’s milk?’

  The doctor nods. ‘A little,’ he agrees. ‘A little every couple of hours – like a babe.’
/>   ‘As soon as I can. And I’ll ride with you.’

  The man can’t stand, Wellsted thinks. If he gets on a camel there is a good chance he’ll simply slip down the flank onto the sand. It would be an easy thing to lose him in the darkness. If he fell it would be close to silent – there is no weight to him at all. Wellsted realises that they have arrived in the nick of time. Not much longer and Jessop would have gone the way of Jones. It is best this way. Zena, he thinks, will have to fend for herself for a while. She has proved, so far, surprisingly capable.

  All of a sudden, Ibn Mohammed motions the men to be still and, alert, all fall to their haunches. There is some movement between the tents behind them. A woman walks out to relieve herself and is followed by a whining child. The men hold their breath and stand stock-still while she moves across the camp with the child in her wake like a familiar. She has not noticed the missing bodies – why should she? Still, if they move the camels she will certainly be able to see them.

  Everything stops and the night is once more as silent as it should be. One of the slaves stirs in his sleep and turns over. A donkey brays.

  Then, perhaps two minutes later, the woman returns, carrying the child and humming a lullaby below her breath. She disappears back into the family tent. Ibn Mohammed motions everyone to stay in place another minute. The time passes painfully slowly. They can hear their own breathing and the pounding of their hearts. Then, like a conductor in concert, he bids the men rise and lead their camels into the night. They will mount the saddles when they are further off.

  Wellsted cradles the doctor, who still has not taken his eyes from his rescuer. The stench of him comes in waves and Wellsted averts his face, pretending he is checking the sand beneath his feet for rocks. The doctor says nothing. Beyond the camp they climb up and Wellsted ties Jessop into place on the saddle. It is like riding with a child who cannot hold their seat yet.

  ‘All right?’ the lieutenant checks.

  The doctor turns away. ‘I am alive,’ he whispers.

  Wellsted suspects he is crying. He puts his hand on Jessop’s and gives it a squeeze.

  No one can see. The Arabs wait for him to nod that the doctor is secure and to mount the camel himself, then Ibn Mohammed points the way and the caravan rides quickly eastwards. They have four hours until the sun rises. It is not much of a head start.

  PART THREE

  ‘Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.’

  Henry David Thoreau 1817–1862

  Poet, naturalist and historian

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Once she can no longer see the camp in the distance and the light of the fire has disappeared into a pinprick, Zena vomits onto the sand in terror and tries to bring her racing mind into check. Slowly, she calls herself to order and through force of will she makes herself think clearly. She pulls a pale blue dishdash and orange hauza from her bags. She stole these tatty clothes from a tent in the encampment and now switches her burquah for the man’s garb, carefully binding up her hair in the orange turban so that from a distance she will look like a poor Bedu. Then she straps on her khandjar as she has seen the men do and hides the small purse of coins. The disguise, she knows, will not fool any of the slavers’ party who come to find her, for even from a distance they will recognise the camel, but perhaps anyone else she comes across will leave her alone. To travel openly as a woman is unthinkable. Next, she turns her mind to navigation. She knows the direction she has come from and remembers where the sun set, so it is not difficult to find her bearings. She considers this and then steers the camel to the east. Returning to Riyadh is out of the question – it is the emir’s closest settlement and news will reach there of what she has done with the lightning speed that gossip travels across the sand. To the west and south there is little but open country for hundreds of miles, but to the east there is an ocean. The Giant Blue. She has seen it on the map the master drew. She is sure of it.

  Zena does not really expect to live for long enough to see the sea, but what she knows is that if she does not go now, she will never have a better chance to get away and she is determined that she will not be trapped in the service of the emir. Finally, she has found the courage to make a choice. It is just as the master said – he’d run himself if he was faced with the prospect of slavery in the desert. You have to run for yourself, she realises, no one else can do it for you. At first she thought her only option was to slit her own throat with the khandjar rather than be left in the encampment. But the more she thought about it, the more it seemed a foolishly dramatic gesture and she would far rather live if she can. The thought of what killing herself in front of him would do to the master horrifies her almost as much as the deed itself. As she mounts the saddle she feels surprisingly calm. She thinks of the boy who ran into the sea that first day on the coast when she was captured all those months before. She remembers Kasim and Ibn Mohammed sneering at his chances of survival. They were right, of course, for the boy was dead within two days of boarding the mashua and, in truth, she knows her odds are probably even less than his.

  But I will try, she thinks and a shimmer of a smile plays on her lips and it feels like magic. After all, on every trip there is a boy who runs into the sea, but a slave girl who steals her favourite camel and makes off into the night surely is a rarer creature. They can have no template for that. She wishes she could see their faces. And at this moment, it feels exciting, almost fun to be – she pauses a moment – free. Free. Yes. It has been a long time.

  The camel moves smoothly and she makes sure it keeps its pace, peering over her shoulder into the darkness. She has a good idea of everything she needs to know. For a start, she is aware that they will not willingly let her go and that they are skilled at moving silently at night, but if they could not track the escaped Wahabi till dawn then they will not be able to track her either. The night gives her respite and for now, at least, the going is easy. She will make good way before the sun rises. Zena’s mouth is dry, more from the excitement than anything else, but she does not tap her goatskin. Instead, she sings a lullaby – not in Arabic, but in her own language. It sounds as comforting as a flowing stream as it bubbles up from inside her. The camel likes it, she can tell, and Zena picks up the pace to encourage the animal to push on faster. At first she sings it very low, but as the miles roll out she is emboldened and sings freely.

  After several hours, just when exhaustion begins to overtake her, there is a sliver of sunshine on the horizon and then, as if there is a box of light hidden behind the dune, the dawn bursts upwards. It stops Zena in her tracks. The stillness is incredible – the silence of being alone. She looks all around, but there is nothing. Where are they all? It is almost too much to wish for. Zena shrugs her shoulders.

  ‘Seent,’ she calls to gee up the camel, but now it has stopped, the beast is nonchalant. ‘Seent.’

  The animal moves unwillingly and sets a course slightly to the south of the sun. Zena notices the deviation, but she heard a Bedu once say his camel knew the desert far better than he did, and that they can find water, so she lets it be. East-southeast will be fine.

  At length they come to a parched-looking oasis and Zena dismounts. The plants are mostly dead, but still she draws what little water she can from the well, unloading the skins into a shallow, rock-lined indent built for the purpose of watering camels. The liquid is brackish and clouded with mud, but she takes a long draught and then sets the animal to drink the rest, patting its long neck as much to comfort herself as anything else. After the camel is finished, she milks the beast and fills her own stomach.

  I should have stolen some coffee, she thinks as she downs the thin milk, though she does not want to stop long enough to make a brew. She was right to trust the camel. Now, very aware she is one, small figure in the vast landscape, the desert seems astonishingly empty and she cannot quite believe that she has got away. The camel brays, she is as tired as her rider. They will both
need to sleep soon, though Zena is sure they can make a few more miles before they have to stop and rest.

  Then, as she makes to remount, her legs stiff with exhaustion, she senses a movement on the horizon behind her, somewhere in the distance. Dark eyes darting, one hand flies to her khandjar and she mounts quickly, ready to bolt. As the figure moves closer she can tell immediately it is not Kasim or Ibn Mohammed. Nor Wellsted either. The clothes are wrong and the camel is too short-legged. Then, behind the first rider another three appear and she realises, her stomach sinking, that they must be the emir’s men. If she makes a run for it they will follow her and she is not confident she can outride them – in fact, it is an impossibility. She hesitates a moment and then slips to the ground, steeling her heavy heart. She expected, if not this, then something and whatever happens she wants to meet it with dignity. The blade of the knife will be hot, she thinks sadly, but at least it will be her own choice and the master will not have to watch her die.

  As the men approach, she pictures him, his strong body, his blue eyes and his softly spoken tales of London. She cannot fight four of them but she decides she will wait until they dismount before she kills herself. She has something to say. It is odd, she knows, but she wants to tell them how she feels. She wants to tell them that she made her bid for freedom not out of disloyalty to her master but out of horror at what he would be forced to do by the slavers. She feels a rush of emotion, glad she had that night with him in Riyadh. At least she experienced that, and now death is infinitely preferable to an Abyssinian woman of noble family who has been so cruelly treated by fate that she has ended up traded as if she is nothing. Yes, she’ll tell them that. Still, her heart is pounding as the first rider’s roll of dust reaches her feet and the Bedu dismounts. Zena takes a deep breath and slides her hand onto the knife’s handle, but before her final words can come the man smiles and greets her as a brother. As a man.