The Case of the Golden Greeks

by Sean McLachlan

  He bolted for the temple, the only bit of cover close by. He heard the soft patter of bare feet on the sand behind him.

  Moustafa glanced over his shoulder. The man was gaining on him. In his bloodlust, the fool hadn’t thought to pick up his friend’s gun.

  It didn’t matter. He was armed with a scimitar and Moustafa only had a useless revolver.

  Moustafa vaulted over the low wall of the temple just as the Bedouin slashed at him, cutting the tail end of Moustafa’s robe.

  Moustafa spun around, ready to club him if the man tried to jump over the wall, but the Bedouin was too smart for that. He ran a few paces to the right and through a gap in the masonry.

  That gave time for Moustafa to try and unjam the revolver. No luck. He thought he had cleaned it thoroughly after the sandstorm. More sand must have gotten into the works after that.

  The man was upon him again. Moustafa blocked his blade with the pistol, the clang of metal on metal loud in the night.

  Moustafa ducked behind a pillar tall enough to block the Bedouin’s next swing, but the lithe man stepped around it quickly enough to make Moustafa back away and lose the shelter.

  Moustafa knew he had to think of something quick. It was only a matter of moments before this fellow gutted him like a fish.

  He backpedaled again, then stumbled and fell.

  The Bedouin let out a triumphant cry and stepped forward, raising his scimitar high …

  … and giving Moustafa enough time to grab a handful of sand and throw it in his face.

  Then he threw the pistol.

  The gun hit the Bedouin in the cheekbone, causing him to stagger back.

  Moustafa scrambled to his feet, grabbed his opponent’s sword arm, and gave him three hard punches to the stomach. Then he slammed the Bedouin’s head against a block of stone, leaving a spatter of blood as the man’s face split open.

  The scimitar fell to the ground. Moustafa lifted the man up and was about to break his back on a nearby stone when the cocking of a rifle made him freeze.

  Five dark figures stood in a semicircle. All had rifles trained on him. Beyond, he could see the trapdoor in the desert had reopened. More men issued from it.

  “Let him go,” one of the figures ordered.

  Moustafa lifted the man higher and shook him. “Back off or I’ll kill him.”

  “Kill him and we’ll kill you,” came the response. “Let him go and you will live to see dawn.”

  “And the sunset after that?” Moustafa asked.

  “That depends on you.”

  Moustafa hesitated, then let out a sigh and put the man back on his feet. The Bedouin staggered away and Moustafa raised his hands in the air.

  He was their prisoner.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  How could anyone do such a thing to that wonderful motorcar?

  The motorcar was a mess. Claud stomped around and shouted a bunch of bad words—Faisal didn’t need to know English to know they were bad—and they headed off to the army base a couple of miles away. Claud told them his fellow soldiers would come with another motorcar and help him fix everything.

  They wouldn’t be able to fix Faisal’s Roman jug. He had left it on the back seat and the vandals had thrown it against a stone, smashing it into a thousand pieces.

  Why would they do that?

  As they passed through Biwati, they saw the streets were deserted. Even the children had disappeared. Faisal could still hear the men chanting in the mosque. He kept close to the Englishman, who had his hand in the pocket where he kept his gun. That wasn’t a good sign.

  “Are they going to attack us?” Faisal asked.

  “They very well might. Once we get to the soldiers we should go straight to the temple and pick up Moustafa.”

  “They won’t attack him,” Claud replied. “This sort of thing never escalates into violence.”

  “Are you quite certain?” the Englishman asked.

  “Don’t worry. Petty vandalism is quite common. I was a fool to leave the motorcar for even a moment. When the army puts up notices, they get pulled down. If we order food from the market, half the time it’s spoiled. And the troops aren’t allowed to come into town alone. I only get free reign because I’m a scout.”

  “Still, perhaps we should check on Moustafa.”

  “That would give away his position. The peasants had moved off before we left him there, so they will assume he is with us, or back at camp. Leave him alone to scout and then he can come back under cover of darkness.”

  The Englishman nodded. “Yes, I suppose he’ll be all right.”

  “Why does everyone here hate the English?” Faisal asked.

  “They don’t all hate the English,” Claud replied. “That mosque is part of a religious order called the Senussi. They want to kick out all the foreigners from North Africa. But they’re a hard lot, and many of the locals don’t like them. The Senussi try to stop them making date palm wine and smoking and praying at saint’s tombs.”

  Faisal thought about this. Many of the fellahin along the Nile drank date palm wine. It was alcohol and bad, but what was wrong with smoking and praying at the tombs of holy men? Everyone did that.

  As they passed through the palm groves, heading for the base, a few men tending the palm trees stopped their work and came over to greet them.

  “Why are you walking, Mr. Claud?” one of them asked.

  “Oh, hello Mohammed. Someone wrecked my Model T.”

  “Bah! The village has gone mad with religion. Come, we will escort you to the base so there will be no trouble.”

  “That’s quite all right,” the Englishman said. They all turned and stared at his mask. “We wouldn’t want to cause trouble between you and your neighbors.”

  “They are the ones who cause trouble,” another farmer said. “During the war, when the Senussi took over the oasis, they stole all the food. We nearly starved! And they took away many young men to join their army.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” the Englishman said.

  The men walked to either side of them, holding their sickles. The groves seemed to have no limit. Faisal had never been to an oasis before, and he had always imagined a little place, like an island in the Nile surrounded not by water but by sand. Maybe twenty palm trees and a little well at most. This place was so much bigger. The date palms gave cool shade, and every now and then the groves open up into cultivated fields. Everywhere there were little channels of water. They passed another hot spring where some men were bathing. Faisal felt like stripping off and taking a dip, but Claud and the Englishman obviously wanted to get to the base as fast as possible so he didn’t ask.

  One of the farmers smiled down at him.

  “So, Mr. Claud has another servant!” he said.

  “Oh no, I work for the other Englishman,” Faisal told him.

  The man bent closer. “Why does he wear that thing on his face?”

  “A German cannon tore his face apart.”

  “God protect him,” the farmer said, shaking his head. “The war was a scourge upon this land. The soldiers tell me it was even worse in Europe.”

  “You know the soldiers?”

  “We trade with them. Many farmers won’t, or will try to cheat them, but we are at peace with the English. And they give us a good price.”

  “Foreigners don’t know the prices of things,” Faisal agreed. “You can make good money off them.”

  The man laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “You are a clever boy, I see.”

  Faisal grinned.

  The army base was a lot smaller than Faisal imagined. He had imagined a place like the Citadel in Cairo, an old fort on a hill with cannons and machine guns poking out everywhere.

  Instead it was only a few buildings surrounded by barbed wire and one wooden tower next to the gate. A soldier stood in the tower and two more at the gate. The buildings included one long building like the barracks in the Citadel, plus a couple of smaller ones that looked like houses, a big gara
ge where Faisal could see some men working on motorcars, and another building from which cooking smells came out.

  Faisal’s stomach grumbled. They hadn’t eaten in a while. Maybe the soldiers would invite them for lunch.

  The peasants went back to their fields and groves and the rest of the group approached the gate. The guards talked with Claud for a minute in English and let them through.

  Once they were inside, Claud turned to Ahmed and switched to Arabic.

  “You boys amuse yourselves for a minute. We have to speak with the commander.”

  Once Claud and the Englishman had entered one of the smaller buildings, Ahmed tugged on Faisal’s sleeve.

  “Want to see the garage?”

  Faisal forgot all about his empty stomach.

  They ran for the garage. In front were two motorcars like the one Claud had, all stripped down so they weighed less and wouldn’t sink into the sand. The two soldiers working on them raised their greasy hands in greeting as they spotted Ahmed.

  “They know you?” Faisal asked.

  “Sure! I come here all the time.”

  Ahmed started speaking to them in English. He spoke a bit slowly and had to repeat things sometimes so the soldiers understood, but Faisal was still impressed.

  One of the motorcars had the hood up. Faisal peered inside. He had never seen an engine before. It looked really complicated with all sorts of strange metal things that connected to one another, plus some hoses and a fan. How could anyone make sense out of all this?

  “You like it?” Ahmed asked.

  “It’s amazing.”

  Ahmed started explaining the engine to him, pointing out the different parts and saying lots of unfamiliar words. Faisal didn’t understand much of it. He got the idea that all of these pieces moved at the same time, some pieces moving other pieces and that’s how they made the wheels turn.

  “You sure know a lot,” Faisal told the older boy.

  “Claud is teaching me everything. So are Mark and Terrence.”

  “Who?”

  “Them,” he pointed at the two soldiers.

  One of the soldiers looked at Faisal and then said something to Ahmed in English, gesturing toward the inside of the garage. Ahmed nodded eagerly.

  “Mark is going to show you something even better than an engine,” Ahmed said.

  The soldier named Mark went over to a large door that took up the entire side of the building and opened it. As the door creaked open, Faisal peered inside.

  He gasped.

  A motorcar stood inside, unlike any motorcar he had ever seen.

  It was all covered in metal plates that looked a lot thicker and stronger than the usual sides of a motorcar. There was a metal roof too, so you couldn’t see where the driver or passengers sat. Little slits on the front and sides were the only way to see in or out.

  And on top of the car was the strangest thing of all.

  It was a big metal thing shaped like a barrel. A machine gun poked out of the front, with another slit on top of it.

  “What is this?” Faisal said, his voice hushed with awe.

  “It’s an armored car,” Ahmed said. “Bullets can’t do anything to it. Claud used one in the war against the Senussi.”

  “No wonder the British rule everything!”

  The soldier named Mark went inside the garage and gestured for the boys to follow. Faisal hesitated at the entrance.

  “It’s all right, little brother.”

  Faisal went up to the armored car and peeked inside. It looked a lot like a regular motorcar on the inside except there were metal plates all around and some strange things he didn’t recognize.

  Mark rapped his knuckles on the metal.

  “Zehn,” he said in Arabic, smiling at Faisal. “Good.”

  “You speak Arabic?”

  Mark just shook his head, laughed, and said something in English.

  He pointed to Faisal and then to the metal barrel with the machine gun.

  Faisal looked at it uncertainly. Mark picked him up and set him on top of the hood of the car. From there he could see that on top of the barrel was a hatch for getting inside.

  Mark clambered onto the hood as well while Ahmed stood by, smiling. The soldier pointed at the machine gun, pointed at Faisal, and shook his head while saying something in English.

  Faisal nodded. He didn’t want to touch the machine gun anyway. He’d been in a few gunfights and knew how dangerous those things were. Plus, they made the Englishman go away in his head and Faisal didn’t like that.

  Mark opened the hatch and gestured for Faisal to get in. Faisal hesitated, but his excitement was stronger than his nervousness and he climbed onto the barrel. Inside were a couple of rungs like a ladder so you had something to hold. There was a seat for the person using the machine gun. It was awful cramped in there, even for someone his size, but he was used to crawling through tight spots. It came in handy when breaking into houses.

  He squeezed inside and sat on the seat. He was too short to reach the slit above the machine gun and had to lift himself up to see out.

  Mark’s head appeared in the hatch.

  “Zehn?”

  Faisal laughed. It was the only word Mark the soldier knew, but it was the only word he needed for this. “Zehn! Zehn!”

  Mark pointed down. Faisal got the message. He could explore more.

  He got out of the machine gunner’s seat and climbed down into the lower part of the armored car. It was darker in here, but less cramped. In front were two seats and the steering wheel and all the usual things you saw in a motorcar. There were also two seats in back. Strapped to the wall were pistols and a short shovel and a couple of boxes Faisal didn’t dare open.

  He climbed all around, looking at everything.

  “Isn’t it something?” Ahmed said from outside.

  “It sure is,” Faisal whispered.

  At last he climbed out and sat at the edge of the hatch, his legs dangling inside the big barrel with the machine gun. Mark stood on the hood next to him, saying something in English that sounded friendly. He tousled Faisal’s hair and pulled a small packet of paper from his pocket. He opened it up to show a piece of chocolate. This he broke into three pieces, tossing one to Ahmed, putting one in his own mouth, and offering the last to Faisal.

  It was the biggest piece.

  Faisal smiled at him and took it.

  Mark the soldier tousled his hair again and said something in a kind voice.

  As the sweet, wonderful chocolate melted in Faisal’s mouth and he looked around at the armored car and the smiling soldier, he suddenly felt very strange, like he was two people, the one he was and another one standing back a bit looking at the first one.

  He thought about what it was like on Ibn al-Nafis Street, and how Karim the watchman tried to beat him if he came close to the motorcar of the Englishman’s friend. He thought about how everyone ignored him when he begged for food, and how the merchants in the bazaar kept a close eye on him anytime he passed by. He thought about how everyone said “Go away” or “Don’t touch that.”

  The Englishmen did that sometimes too, but not all of them, and not all the time. What Egyptian had ever let him ride in a motorcar? Or climb inside an armored car? Or tousle his hair and give him chocolate? Mark the soldier only spoke one word of Arabic and treated him better than Egyptians who had known him for years.

  Claud treated him nicely too, and Claud was from another foreign country.

  Why did foreigners treat him better than Egyptians?

  The feeling of being two people got stronger. When he was with the Englishman, he was useful, even trusted. The Englishman relied on him. Sure, he told him to go away sometimes, and got impatient with him a lot, but he treated him better than any Egyptian adult he knew. Even Mina’s parents didn’t treat him so well.

  Why was it that most of his good times were with foreigners? Was he a foreigner too somehow?

  He sure didn’t fit in back in Cairo, none of the street kids
did. They were ignored or slapped around and never made to feel part of anything. The foreigners were treated better, of course, but they weren’t part of anything either. They had their own place, a separate place like the street kids.

  Did this make Faisal more like the foreigners than like an Egyptian?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The commandant was an older officer named Major Belgrave. At sixty, with his gray hair and sizeable paunch, he looked well past his prime. But he had fought the Dervishes, the Boers, the Aro tribe, and the Turks, so was certainly sharp enough to keep the peace in this far corner of the globe. Major Belgrave was quick to give them everything they needed. They set out with two motorcars, one for them and another full of soldiers.

  “A show of force is in order. The Senussi are getting too bold,” Major Belgrave pronounced. “We daren’t shut down the mosque and madrasa, but we can’t stand by and let government property be vandalized.”

  Once they got to the wrecked Model T, a mechanic from base helped Claud change the tires. The boys tried to help too, but only succeeded in getting underfoot. The soldiers set out to make a slow patrol around town. They made a point of marching past the mosque more than once.

  Faisal remained uncharacteristically quiet this entire time. Augustus looked at him askance once or twice. The boy stood by the side of the lane, watching the mechanic at work before looking out across the oasis and then looking back at the mechanic again. He seemed pensive, a rare state for him.

  Just as the car got fitted with new tires and cleaned of camel dung, a most welcome sight came down the road.

  Jocelyn.

  She had left Bucephalus behind and was strolling down the dirt lane between the mud brick houses as calmly as if she was window shopping in Mayfair.

  Augustus hurried up to her.

  “Are you all right?”

  Jocelyn looked at him curiously. “Shouldn’t I be?”

  “There’s been a spot of trouble with the locals. They vandalized Captain Williams’ motorcar.”

  “Oh dear. Well, it wasn’t the women. We’ve been sipping tea and gossiping about the men. The women here are quite secluded and are thankful for some new company.”