by Sax Rohmer
“Heil Hitler,” he said mechanically as they passed.
But there was no response from the sheikh, and none from his servant. Their camels complained loudly at being compelled to move again, but their angry snarls could not possibly have been construed to mean “Heil Hitler.” In an otherwise unbroken silence the march continued until, passing through a gloomy wadi in the hills, a side track revealed itself to the spectacled eyes of the leader.
Leaving the direct route (which ultimately came to Benghazi), with its litter of a straggling battlefield, the two swung into the ravine, their camels proceeding through its blackness with extended necks and distended nostrils. This was evidence that there was water at the well.
Bir Rumba lay at the end, and slightly to the east, of this wadi which may at some period of history have accommodated a considerable stream. It was marked by two ill-nourished palms, and so situated that during a large part of every day it enjoyed considerable shade. Here, the sheikh and Ismail Habun made simple arrangements for the night.
The evening meal which they set about preparing was highly unconventional for Arab travelers. A bottle of whisky formed a conspicuous item of the menu. Ismail, employing himself about a fire which he had laid, while the sheikh carried out other duties, a silence of some duration—complete save for the whining of jackals—was broken.
“This job is not the sort of thing I really relish, B.B.,” said Ismail. “But in the rush of joining up perhaps I have missed certain details.” He thoughtfully uncorked the bottle. “There is just one small point which I should like to have cleared up. Save it for an after-dinner pipe, as we are both pretty whacked. I mean: What are we looking for—sand, or rocks?”
And so, their simple meal dispatched, reinforced by whisky and tepid water, with pipes well alight they settled down by the fire in the wadi. Bimbashi Baruk and Captain the Honorable J. Popham Madden had shared a number of odd adventures, and their common knowledge of the ways of the Arab made them a valuable team. As Bimbashi Baruk talked, Pop Madden watched him in the light of the fire, for as yet there was no moon; and in the chiseled features of Mohammed Ibrahim Brian Baruk, he found a study to have delighted a sculptor.
This British officer whose father had been an Arab, this product of the harem and the public school, was unusual, was completely white, and was a charming companion. Furthermore, he was damnably clever.
The bimbashi, too, was studying the face of his companion. He had himself likened it to a ripe apple; and even, with the present stubble of beard and general dirtiness of Ismail, the simile held good. And it was under these circumstances, with that wary jackal choir as a chorus, that Bimbashi Baruk offered the following explanation.
MARGARET STARKIE enjoyed international reputation as traveler, lecturer, author and journalist. A comely redhead of irrepressible vitality, although perhaps past her attractional zenith, she remained nevertheless an almost startling personality, being, in the words of her Best Friend, one of those women who know how to grow old disgracefully.
A caravan journey from Baghdad to Samarkand undertaken for a New York magazine, and afterward published in book form asThe Golden Road, was an early example of her self-revelatory style. It was characterized by a frankness which might have staggered Sir Richard Burton. Her two marriages, both dissolved, were front-page material. Her first husband, Paul Verity, the film actor, whom she divorced on the ground that he paid more attention to his own hair than he did to hers, she afterward admitted lacked everything but physical charm. Her second, to a fellow journalist and traveler, Robert Parker, one time editor of the Strange World Magazine, terminated in less than three months. He, too, was a redhead, and the result a conflagration. Since then, her name had been associated with a number of public characters, and her outspoken discussions of these friendships more than once had led perilously near to the Criminal Courts Building.
Shortly after the outbreak of war, she accepted an assignment from the PhiladelphiaGlobe as special correspondent in Europe, with the inevitable result that she was expelled from a number of capitals. Perhaps her star achievement was that of inducing Hitler to invite her to luncheon at Berchtesgaden, only a few weeks before the United States became involved. Margaret proceeded from there to Geneva, to interview Dr. Richler, the famous alienist, and having first made her way to Lisbon, sent in to her paper that remarkable dispatch which disclosed that the Fuehrer was a certifiable lunatic.
This created no small sensation; and it may be recalled that she related with circumstantial detail how Hitler's paranoia centered upon the figure of Marshal von Hindenburg. She assured an astonished world that he employed a special medium for the purpose of establishing contact with the spirit of the departed marshal; that he ascribed his early victories to the guidance obtained in this way; but as the disease progressed, complete obsession had supervened, so that the spirit of the old soldier often appeared uninvited: his early encouragement was replaced by reprimand. In the watches of the night, those immediately about the Fuehrer had heard him in frenzied argument with the spirit of the marshal.
It appeared, so Margaret Starkie wrote, that his spirit guide had opposed the invasion of Russia, and had warned him to avoid the sea if he would save Germany. Secretly, the famous Swiss doctor had been introduced to those about Hitler, had studied the symptoms, and had notified Marshal Goering that a brain always unstable had now acquired a fixed bias. Hence Margaret's dash to Geneva, where, owing one presumes to her amazing powers of persuasion, she had secured from the scientist some confirmation of this. Dr. Richler's subsequent disappearance was susceptible of several explanations.
Syria—Iran—Russia—the inner secrets of their leaders were dissected and laid bare by the tireless and uncompromising Margaret Starkie. Second visits were rare, and in some cases might have been dangerous. Then she had descended upon Cairo, putting years on the life of the Director of Military Intelligence by insisting that she must be permitted to go to the Libyan front. She was never content with the base.
How it was managed, a number of harassed officers would very much have liked to know; but managed it was, and in due course Margaret Starkie impressed herself upon Libya.
“You see, Pop,” said Bimbashi Baruk at this point, “I had rejoined my unit, and it was from the post that I commanded at the time that she actually slipped off. By the way,” he added, “here comes a Hurricane. Douse the fire.”
“Damn the fool!” remarked Pop Madden. “It will take an hour to get it going again.”
He threw the muddy contents of a small bucket onto the flame and effectually doused it. The pilot, who no doubt had seen the fire, circled around querulously for a short time and then passed on his way. Pop set to work to fan up fading embers.
“I came to the conclusion,” the bimbashi continued, “when I heard of her approach, that Roden-Pyne had taken leave of his senses. It was touch and go all the time, with the limited resources available, and I might have had to retire in a cloud of dust at almost any moment of the day or night. Then, this torch-headed damsel comes rolling up.”
“What is she like?” asked Madden disinterestedly, relighting his pipe.
“She is rather like a stormy sunset: one looks out for squalls. She made a terrific impression on young Challoner. I am by no means satisfied that Challoner did not aid and abet her in her lunacy, but I don't want to break him.”
“You have not found time so far to tell me what occurred.”
“Well, what occurred was this: I was doing our most advanced patrolling, except for the R.A.F., and she tried to persuade me to let her join in. Naturally, I was quite definite on the point. It was bad enough having her there at all, but to send her prowling into the enemy's lines on my responsibility was more than I was prepared to concede. Well, some Arabs came in on camels about dusk one evening—I should add that Margaret is an expert camel rider—and some time during the night she managed to buy a camel from one of them, and with or without the knowledge of Challoner, slipped off into the wide-ope
n spaces.”
“Great Scott! She's probably dead!”
“Well, when it was discovered, I couldn't think of anything bad enough to say to myself. But I did pretty well with Challoner. She had the impudence to leave a note behind, Pop, and it was this note which accounts for you and myself being here tonight.”
“What did it say?”
“She informed me that her real aim, which naturally I had not suspected, was to get through to the German lines—and to interview Rommel. She seemed to think that she could persuade him to allow her to send a dispatch off—I don't quite know by what route. In view of her reputation since the celebrated Hitler interview, I can only kneel in reverence to a woman with such colossal nerve.”
“By gad, B.B.! But what a jam you are in!”
“A jam! I expected to get the sack. I sent back post haste for instructions, and in consequence”— the bimbashi sighed wearily—“here I am, seconded once again, and here are you. For I insisted on your joining me.
“The Sheikh Mahdi, although his town has been occupied by Rommel's troops for some time now, is solidly with us. He has persuaded the Nazis that he detests the sight of anything British. He really has a brother in Benghazi, and in view of our almost daily plasterings of that spot, it is highly probable that his brother is ill. At any rate, he had no difficulty in getting permits to visit him, accompanied by one servant. We managed to smuggle him back to my post, but I had to start in a hurry; hence the rush of which you complain. These beastly spectacles”—he indicated a pair upon the ground beside him—“actually belong to Mahdi Abdel Beyda, and I can hardly see through them at all. But I began to train my mustache to its present dimensions at the very moment that I conceived the plan.”
“The nature of this plan, B.B., is not too clear, What exactly is our game?”
“Our game is to find someone sufficiently well acquainted with Rommel to let us know if Margaret Starkie is at German headquarters.”
“That, I take it, will more particularly be my part of the game?”
“Yes. You will have to scrounge about, Pop. I have my sheikhish dignity to think of.”
“Suppose I find she is there?”
“In that case, we have to get her back. For more than a week we have hushed up the unpleasant story, but we can't hush it up forever.”
EACH DAY of this odd pilgrimage resembled the day before. Bimbashi Baruk was intimately acquainted with the district, and no one questioned the validity of his permit. From Germans, Italians and wandering Arabs, Pop Madden made almost continuous inquiries. But they were rapidly approaching the spot at which, according to information, the German general was quartered, before anything vaguely resembling a clue came into their possession. Often, from the north, they heard the thunder of guns.
“I don't know about the other fellows you mentioned,” said Pop complainingly, “but this woman is putting years on my life. Couldn't we turn a bit south at Wadi el Kuft and spend the night at Zawia Kuftah? I have heard wonderful stories about the place.”
“You have probably heard it referred to as the Hidden Oasis; and hidden it is. But I fear there are objections to your plan.”
“What are they?”
“Well, in the first place, Sidi Selugi, to whom the place practically belongs, is a dangerous fanatic. The Italians never attempted to interfere with him, and as the only practicable road to the oasis is easily defended, they permitted his very rude behavior to pass unchecked. Our latest information is that Rommel has adopted much the same attitude. Zawia Kuftah is of no military importance, and the Sheikh commands the services of a considerable body of tribesmen; so that in a job like the present one he is best left alone.”
“He sounds,” said Pop Madden, “just the kind of bird I should like to meet.”
“I am confident that you would find him charming. He is a handsome fellow, and cultured up to a point.”
“You know the way?”
“Quite well. But our German permits would be of no use whatever.”
“You mean they wouldn't let us in?”
“They might even shoot us.”
“That,” said Madden, “would possibly be amusing from their point of view, but not from mine.”
“I agree. But nevertheless we could certainly spend the night there.”
“You think so?”
“Oh, yes. I know Sidi Selugi quite well, and he would give us a royal reception. But—”
“But, what?”
“After seeing us off in the morning, he is quite capable of sending a rider in to Rommel and claiming a hefty reward for his information.”
“I see.”
“Sidi Selugi is a born brigand,” the bimbashi added.
Following a short silence: “I don't like your pals,” muttered Madden.
Midday heat compelled them to halt for some hours in the kindly shadow of a natural mound similar in outline to that of a vast sphinx; and it was as they pursued their way that Bimbashi Baruk suddenly pulled up, and dismounted without the formality of making his camel kneel. Watched by Madden, he crawled about on all fours, from time to time picking up certain small objects the nature of which Madden was unable to discern. At last he seemed to be satisfied and he sprang to the saddle again with that agility which derives from long practice.
Without offering any explanation, he swung his camel aside from the track, one of Africa's most ancient caravan roads, into a narrow defile which must have been invisible to anyone not familiar with its whereabouts. This path, which became uncommonly narrow and so overshadowed by frowning crags as to resemble a tunnel, they pursued for some time. Then Bimbashi Baruk checked his camel. Discarding the sheikh's spectacles? he stared down at a break in the shadows drenched in sunlight.
“There has been a car along here,” he observed.
“I am looking at the same place,” replied Captain Madden, “but not with your eyes. I can see no evidence of a car having passed this way.”
“There was other evidence at the point where I turned off—otherwise I should have carried straight on.”
“What evidence?”
“Hairpins.”
“Good God! What does that mean?”
“It at least suggests that there was a woman in the car which passed this way. Now, study the track ahead.”
It was true that the surface was not of a character to carry normally visible impressions, but Bimbashi Baruk, who possessed that extra sensibility which belongs to the desert-born, nevertheless indicated these impressions. When one looked ahead, small pebbles and all but imperceptible mounds of sand distinguished the outside curve of the defile. On the left, or inside, although less clearly discernible, similar fragments had been cast against the side of the wadi; for nearly a mile the bed of this dried-up stream had wound in a southeasterly direction.
“Only car tires,” said the bimbashi, “would disturb the surface in that way. Therefore, a car has passed and not a tank.”
Pop Madden sighed and refreshed himself from his flask. “If I worked more frequently with you, B.B.,” he remarked, “I might learn my business— in time.”
They proceeded into the shadow of a spur of the scarp which presently arose to so great a height on the east that no direct light could ever have penetrated to this place.
“Look,” said Bimbashi Baruk, as he pulled up and pointed. “You see? I was right.”
The broad marks of tires might be discerned upon the softer surface.
“How old are those tracks?” Madden asked. “Several days old. You may judge from the extent to which evaporation so far has affected them.”
“Proceed, maestro,” said Madden.
With an abruptness that was shocking, the shadows of the wadi were burst open by hot sunshine, for here occurred a great gash in the cliff. Before this patch of flame, and hanging over so as to form a silhouette, a thorn bush offered a pattern not unlike that of a mushrabiyeh screen. A second time Bimbashi Baruk checked his camel.
“Ah!” he murmured. “He
re is something better than a tire track, and better than hairpins.”
Leaning sideways in his saddle, he extricated from the thorns a strand which gleamed redly in his fingers.
“What the devil have you there?”
Bimbashi Baruk turned and held up that which he had recovered. “A strand of undeniably red hair.”
“Do you mean it was torn off from someone's head?”
“Not at all. It is a lock cut off with some care, and placed here quite deliberately.”
“You think that Margaret Starkie went this way?”
“I doubt if there is any other hair in Libya like hers. In an indiscreet moment I admired Margaret's hair; and in the note which she kindly left behind she said, 'If you don't hear from me in a week, please come and look for me. I will try to leave a clue.' She has left me two: hairpins—and this.”
“Then where the devil can she have been going?”
“That, Pop, is the interesting point. We are now following the only known route from the old caravan road to that spot which you recently expressed yourself so eager to visit.”
“Zawia Kuftah!”
“Exactly. The Hidden Oasis.”
SOME TIME elapsed, however, before that mysterious and fertile valley burst upon their view. It was a sight so unexpected as to be breath-taking. Held in a sweep of striated cliffs rising sheerly to the skyline, and in many respects resembling a half-closed giant hand, Zawia Kuftah was a spot deliciously restful to eyes wearied by desert prospects. There were numerous caves high up in the cliff, and through the trunks of a considerable palm grove they saw a small, deep blue lake. East of the lake and the palm grove was a miniature town of mud huts, with a sort of tent suburb adjoining it, one tent set on a mound more imposing than the rest. There were sheep and cattle; in fact, every foot of Zawia Kuftah seemed to be under some sort of cultivation.
Madden drew a deep breath, cool with the tang of near-by water. “Your glowing description of the hospitality offered to travelers,” he said, “leads me to expect the worst. Why this change of heart? And why, if your old pal, Sidi Selugi, objects to callers, have we been allowed to get here?”