“Perhaps they will send a group to take over the mountain and then a large force hiding out in the desert will come rushing in.”
Mr. Wall shook his head. “This bunch are too savvy for that. They’ll know about the wireless at base, and they’ll know that if Claud doesn’t check in, the soldiers will know something’s wrong. No, I think they’re not waiting for a large force, but a small one. Maybe only one or two men.”
“What could one or two men do?” Faisal asked.
“If you had been in the war you wouldn’t ask that,” Mr. Wall said.
Faisal shuddered. “I don’t want to go to one of those European wars.”
“Um, no. What I mean is that a couple of men with three or four camels could bring in all sorts of hardware that would balance the scales—a trench mortar, or a case of grenades. Maybe even a disassembled field gun wrapped up to look like sacks of cloth.”
“The Senussi smashed an Italian army in the last war. They took everything from machine guns to trucks,” Moustafa said, wondering at the odd sense of pride he felt at that.
“Much was taken back by our lads, but you’re right, there still must be a lot of it about.” He turned to Faisal. “You say Ahmed knows about these tunnels?”
“Sure. He showed me the entrance to one. It’s not far from our camp.”
“Right where a bunch of British soldiers are on guard. That won’t do.”
Moustafa suppressed a groan. Once again, Mr. Wall wanted to solve everything himself. He didn’t want to bring in the army, even though this was an army matter.
“Ahmed knows about other tunnels. He knows everything about Bahariya,” Faisal said.
Moustafa nodded. At least the other boy was good for something. “The captain said he would come down the mountain tomorrow morning to see us, and keep up the sham that we went up with him.”
“I hope he brings Ahmed,” Mr. Wall said.
“Of course he will, you silly Englishman, they go everywhere together.”
“He better,” Moustafa said, eyeing the tunnel. “Because if I’m estimating the distance correctly, this tunnel is almost finished.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Faisal did not like the look of this tunnel.
Ahmed had led them to a palm grove a couple of miles from the base, where a few farms stood out of sight behind a thick screen of trees. A couple of farmers had spotted them, but Claud’s uniform had scared them off. He hoped they were the good Bahariyans and not the Senussi.
But he was more worried about this tunnel than a whole army of Senussi.
It was set into a small rise of ground and surrounded by date palms. The entrance was mostly filled in and just big enough to fit Ahmed, and so overgrown that Faisal hadn’t seen it until they were standing right in front of it.
The adults couldn’t fit through at all. Just his luck.
“Careful, there might be scorpions or snakes here,” Ahmed said.
“I’m more worried about djinn.”
“Stop speaking nonsense!” Moustafa barked. “But be careful of scorpions and snakes.”
They grabbed a couple of fallen palm fronds, stripped the dried greenery off them, and used the hard wooden spines with their sharp edges to beat back the bushes in front of the entrance. Lots of bugs scuttled out. Faisal and Ahmed jumped away.
“Just bugs, nothing dangerous,” Ahmed said.
Faisal didn’t reply. He knew the older boy was trying to make him feel better. Nothing was going to make him feel better about this.
The Englishman handed Faisal his electric torch. Faisal fiddled with it. All you had to do was push a little knob on the side forward and light came out. The Europeans had so many nice things.
“Be careful in there,” the Englishman said.
If the Englishman wanted them to be careful, he wouldn’t be sending them in there at all. Faisal didn’t bother to say that. Moustafa would only shout at him and the Englishman would say something silly like there were no djinn to worry about.
They moved past the brush and into the shadowy tunnel, the air becoming moist and cool. Faisal turned on the electric torch.
“Is Augustus going to allow you to keep that?” Ahmed asked.
“You shouldn’t call them by their first name. Not even Moustafa does that with foreigners.”
“Why not?”
Faisal shrugged. He wasn’t quite sure. He called lots of Egyptian adults by their first name. Somehow he knew the foreign adults wouldn’t like it, though.
“Did he give it to you?” Ahmed asked again.
“No. Just lent it,” Faisal said. They had only stepped a few paces inside. He shone the torch down the aqueduct. They stood on a slope of sand that had partially filled in the tunnel. Further down, he could see it was clear and unblocked. The electric torch reached pretty far, shining off the stone walls and dark water, but beyond lay only shadows. That worried him.
“I’d like one of those,” Ahmed said.
“So would I, but how could I afford the batteries? Keep quiet, we don’t know what’s in here.”
Ahmed had obviously never broken into a house or anything. He didn’t know when he needed to be quiet.
They moved forward. The aqueduct was cut into the rock to make a tunnel just wide enough for him and Ahmed to walk side by side and a bit taller than a grown man. Within a couple of paces from the entrance it sloped down into water, which was cool and came up to his knees. The tunnel ran straight as an arrow as far as the light could reach.
“This is heading in the direction of the temple, just like Augustus thought it would,” Ahmed said, his voice echoing down the tunnel.
“Shh.”
Ahmed nodded, realizing his mistake.
They waded into the water, Faisal gritting his teeth at the noise they made. There was no way they could walk quietly through this much water. It splashed with every step. He might be able to sneak through it alone, maybe, but not with Ahmed, and there was no way he was going any further without Ahmed.
They continued, Faisal shivering a bit from fear and the cold air and water. The bottom of the tunnel was sand, unlike the stone walls and ceiling. Faisal and Ahmed kept stumbling over rocks and other objects lying on the bottom. He didn’t even want to think what else might be hiding in the inky water. Good thing he had kept his sandals on.
After the heat of day outside, this felt like a Cairo alley in wintertime. He clutched his charm, hoping it would protect him against water djinn like it had against desert djinn. But what would protect him against the Senussi? Sure, they couldn’t have come in the way he and Ahmed had, but there must be plenty of other ways inside.
That’s what the adults were hoping. Of course they hadn’t wanted to spend the time looking for an entrance they could fit in. Instead they had insisted Faisal explore the one entrance Ahmed knew about near the temple.
Every few steps, Faisal glanced over his shoulder at the dwindling light of the entrance. He really didn’t want to be doing this.
Then a thought came to him.
“If this was cut out of stone, why are we walking on sand?” he asked in a whisper.
“There’s stone underneath the sand. A lot of these tunnels have filled up,” Ahmed explained. “That’s why they’ve been forgotten. I’ve found entrances to aqueducts that were totally full of sand.”
“How could the people here forget they built something like this? It looks like it took a lot of work.”
The tunnel continued straight and empty. Faisal had more confidence now that no Senussi were down here to hear them. The djinn would spot them whether they spoke or not. Still, he kept his voice down.
“Because the people alive today didn’t build them,” Ahmed said. “Not even their great-grandparents did. Claud says that some of the aqueducts were built by the Persians, or even earlier, maybe in the New Kingdom.”
Faisal nodded like he knew what the older boy was talking about. He had heard of the Persians. They had invaded Egypt a long time ago from so
mewhere. Maybe Europe. He didn’t know what the New Kingdom was. Moustafa and the Englishman talked about it sometimes but Faisal had never asked them what they meant.
Ahmed looked around at the tunnel.
“You know, people who have lived all their lives here don’t know about this place, and we do.”
“And the Senussi,” Faisal said, watching all the shadows.
Ahmed didn’t look worried.
“It’s like when Claud and I go out to the ruins and kick around in the sand. We always find old things people haven’t seen in thousands of years. I like these old places. Back in the Fayoum I went to the pyramids.”
“The Fayoum is near Cairo?” That would be good. Once Ahmed moved back they could visit each other.
“No, it’s pretty far. A couple of days by steamboat.”
“But the pyramids are near Cairo. I’ve seen them.”
“The Fayoum pyramids are different pyramids.”
“Oh, right. Those.”
Ahmed laughed. “It’s all right, little brother. Lots of Egyptians don’t know their country. They’re stuck in Cairo or a village and never get to go anywhere.”
“We get to go lots of places,” Faisal grumbled, looking around. “Dark places full of snakes and djinn and people with guns.”
They came to a heap of sand that almost blocked their path. A small hole in the ceiling let in some feeble light. Faisal could see the hole was choked with dried palm fronds and leaves and other things.
“This is one of the access holes,” Ahmed said. “In the old times they’d lower buckets down to get the water. And they could climb down with a ladder to clear out the tunnel.”
“Just that one little hole to water all the fields above?”
“Oh no, we’ve passed plenty but we couldn’t see them because they’re all blocked up.”
“And so is this tunnel. I guess we have to go back,” Faisal said, turning around and glancing hopefully at Ahmed.
“We can dig out the sand a bit and crawl through. We need to see what’s on the other side.”
Faisal slumped.
“I knew you were going to say that.”
They got to work. There was already a small space between the mound of sand and the ceiling, which they cleared enough to crawl through. Then, out of curiosity, they cleared away some of the brush and sticks to peek out to the surface. They found themselves in a dry field with only a few scrawny palm trees and withered bushes scattered about, one of the patches of desert that Faisal had seen in parts of the oasis where the water didn’t reach.
But it had been watered once. The aqueduct proved it. How could someone forget to water their field? Maybe there was a war or something.
“Hey, look,” Ahmed said.
Ahmed had already slid down the far side of the mound of sand. He was pointing at some shape on the wall.
“Shine your torch on this,” he said.
Faisal slid down the sand and did what he asked. It was some of the old picture writing, carved into the wall. Faisal saw an ibis and a little squiggly thing and what looked like an eye.
“What does it say?” Faisal asked.
“I don’t know,” Ahmed said with a shrug. “When I’m a man I’m going to be an Egyptologist, but not like your Englishman. I’m going to be one of the ones who does the digs and shows off what they find in Cairo. They get in the newspaper even. Imagine that, ‘Dr. Fakhry makes amazing discovery.’”
“Wow.”
Faisal had never thought he could be in a newspaper, unless he was caught stealing something really valuable. Newspapers were good for lighting fires or stuffing inside your djellaba on cold nights so you could sleep better. He couldn’t even read the newspaper. Ahmed could. Ahmed could do everything. He could drive and cook good food and play football. That got Ahmed a good job and a nice place to live.
And that got Faisal to thinking, and thinking about anything was better than thinking about this dark tunnel with its water and its shadows and its drippy noises. As they continued down the tunnel, Faisal thought about how the Englishman only wanted him around when there was trouble. Sometimes he’d beg from the Englishman on his evening walks. He was usually good for a piastre or two, but he soon got impatient if Faisal stuck around too long. And if the Englishman knew he was living on the roof, there would be a lot of shouting, that was for sure. And that shouting would end with Faisal living in an alley again.
But Ahmed got to live with Claud and had his own room and everything. Why did Ahmed get these things and Faisal didn’t?
It must be because Ahmed was useful all of the time and Faisal was only useful part of the time.
But that wasn’t true! He guarded the Englishman’s house from robbers and djinn. The Englishman didn’t know that. He only saw the things he asked him to do.
Like now.
So he needed to prove to the Englishman he was useful all of the time.
But how was he supposed to do that? The Englishman didn’t want him around to cook or check the engine of the motorcar. He only wanted him around for the dangerous things.
Suddenly Faisal stopped thinking about the Englishman. They had come to an intersection. The underground aqueduct ran off in three directions.
To the right, the tunnel was filled in with sand just beyond the intersection. The tunnel to the left was mostly filled in too and looked like it got worse further on, while the one that went straight ahead was clear as far as they could see.
“Which way?” Faisal asked.
Ahmed shrugged. “I guess straight. That’s the easiest. I think it’s still leading toward the temple. It’s hard to tell, though. The tunnel could be turning a little bit and we wouldn’t notice.”
“What if there are more tunnels? What if we get lost down here?” Faisal said. He wasn’t sure how long they had been underground already, and he didn’t know how long the batteries in the electric torch would last. If the thing went out while they were so far from the entrance, they would die for sure.
“Let’s keep going straight no matter what happens,” Ahmed suggested. “That way we can’t get lost.”
That sounded like a good idea. It was the clearest route anyway.
They were just moving past the intersection when a noise down the right-hand tunnel made them stop cold.
Muffled voices came from that way.
At least he thought they were voices. The noises were so faint, so blunted by the mound of sand, that it was more a hint of sound than an actual noise. But his gut reaction was that they were voices. It was like hearing conversation inside a house while you were trying to sleep in the alley outside. The noise was more felt than heard.
Faisal felt his skin prickle. Was it djinn or Senussi? He couldn’t decide which would be worse.
But how could they be hearing the sounds at all?
They peered at the heap of sand and debris blocking the path, but couldn’t see an opening.
“Turn off the torch,” Ahmed whispered.
“Are you crazy?”
Ahmed nudged him. “Just for a minute.”
Faisal gulped, but he had a good idea why Ahmed wanted him to do it, so he did it.
He clicked the button and the aqueduct was plunged into darkness.
For a moment there was silence. Faisal saw nothing but black.
Then his eyes began to adjust. The faintest wisp of light, a reflection of a reflection, came to him from the direction they had been headed. A bit of light filtering through one of those blocked holes in the ceiling? He hoped so. He hoped it wasn’t something dangerous.
In the direction of the blocked tunnel, he heard the sound again. Yes, it was definitely voices, but they had changed in tone. Closer, and yet softer, as if they were hushed and whispering.
A crunch of sand. A twig snapped, a little sound that sounded like a pistol shot in the general silence of the dark. Faisal jumped.
Then came a sound that weakened Faisal’s knees and almost sent him screaming blindly back the way they had
come.
The regular scraping of a shovel on sand.
It came from the heap of debris blocking the tunnel. There could be no mistake. Some people were on the other side digging in Faisal and Ahmed’s direction.
Faisal reached out and gripped Ahmed. The bigger boy hadn’t moved. That reassured Faisal a bit. He wasn’t alone.
Then Ahmed started to tremble just as much as Faisal was. That made Faisal even more scared.
The scraping continued. The voices had stopped.
Faisal tugged on Ahmed’s arm, pulling him to the left and into the tunnel they had been about to go down. He felt Ahmed tense, then relax, a silent agreement to follow.
Although it terrified him to continue into the unknown, he figured it would be safer than going back the way they had come. This tunnel led somewhere. He was sure of it. All the other ways were blocked but the tunnel hadn’t filled with water. That meant the way ahead was clear. They wouldn’t be trapped. And the way back was long and straight. If the Senussi or whoever was on the other side of that pile of sand chased them down there, they’d catch them for sure. There might be some shelter the other way.
Or more danger.
Then he had another thought. What if the aqueduct was like a well, where the water came up to only a certain level and stayed there? The tunnel ahead could be blocked and still the rest of the aqueduct wouldn’t fill. Were aqueducts the same as wells? The only aqueduct he had ever seen was the old Ottoman one that ran through Cairo, and that was above ground.
He wished he was back in Cairo now. There he knew everything. He knew how to take care of himself. Here everything was unfamiliar.
Faisal raised his feet only a little above the floor, sliding his legs forward instead of walking normally. He didn’t want to make the smallest splash, nothing that the diggers could hear. He still gripped Ahmed’s djellaba. Reaching out with his other hand, he touched his fingertips to the wall and used that to guide him.
For a moment he thought they’d be able to creep away. Ahmed was being just as silent as he was even though he was bigger and never had to sneak like Faisal had to every day. Yes, maybe they’d make it.
The Case of the Golden Greeks Page 25