‘What are you planning to do?’
'I’ll show you in a minute.’
He went off into the darkness and sat down by the flank of one of the camels. Nabila could hear him working while she prepared Mehmet. A steady scraping sound came from the darkness: David was sharpening something.
‘He’s ready,’ Nabila called at last. She’d forced Mehmet to drink a foul-tasting tea of concentrated herbs, and by careful placing of acupuncture needles, she’d made his damaged hand and wrist go numb again.
David arrived. He was carrying a large hunting knife. Nabila looked at him in horror.
‘David, you can’t ...'
‘It’s a good quality knife. The blade isn’t going to break on us, and it isn’t going to slip. It’s the best we’ve got.’ He looked at Mehmet, then back at Nabila. ‘We have to tie his hand down.’
‘David ...'
‘The knife is very sharp indeed. It’s an Ek survival knife, and it can do a lot of damage if it isn’t handled carefully. I don’t want Mehmet pulling out when he sees me start to cut.’
‘He won’t pull out. Trust me.’
‘I have to trust Mehmet.’
‘Then ask him directly.’
David hesitated, then turned to Mehmet. He spoke to him briefly in Uighur.
‘I will not move. God has willed that I should lose some fingers. Moving will change nothing. Wherever my hand goes, there will be God.’
‘Very well,’ said David. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
They helped Mehmet arrange himself so that his hand lay firmly on the narrow operating table. Nabila spoke to him gently, and David could see how he relaxed, as though bewitched by her voice.
He brought the sharpened knife to the table and laid it across the back of Mehmet’s hand. Nabila held the torch steady over it.
‘Show me where to cut,’ David said.
She guided the blade to the right place and indicated the correct angle at which to cut.
David took a deep breath. Beside him, Mehmet had closed his eyes and was murmuring a prayer, rapidly. David held the knife ready. Nabila nodded. He cut down, and there was a cry so piercing it ripped the black tent of the night from pole to pole, and then silence fell, and there was blood pouring out on everything.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Around midnight, Mehmet fell into a very deep sleep. Nabila had done what she could with the hand, stitching flesh together where possible, packing and bandaging it where not. His three remaining fingers were badly crushed, and the bones broken. About an hour after the amputation, he’d been wracked by sudden spasms of shivering. In part they were a delayed after-effect of the double shock he’d sustained, in part the result of having to sit in the freezing cold after losing so much blood. Nabila gave him her sleeping bag and made him drink something foul-tasting that finally made him sleep.
She lay back against a heap of camel-bags and closed her eyes. There was no wind, no sound except for the grunting of the camels and Mehmet’s fractured snoring. She opened her eyes and saw a black sky so filled with stars no one but God could ever possibly count them. A shooting star dashed suddenly across her view, incandescent for a moment, then gone for ever. It had, for that moment, been the brightest thing in its universe.
She shuddered. David had gone away on his own to check on the camel that had bolted. He’d had no hopes of finding the others, but they both knew they’d have to look for them at first light. If they remained lost, that meant they were down nearly five hundred litres of water at a single stroke. Even if they found water under ground in the morning, it would be brackish, fit only for the camels. Without the barrels, they would have no means of storing any.
The desert was a truly awful place, she thought. It had always been on the edge of her consciousness as a girl and a young woman, a place of stories and legends, a stony wilderness where the jinn walked, and ghouls, and the ghosts of children who’d lived in the ancient silk cities, now lost and buried under the sand. Later, she’d ridden or driven along the desert’s edge and gazed out over it warily, thinking of what might be hidden out there. Or not hidden.
Now, shivering in a hollow defile between towers of white sand, watching the stars revolve indifferently, she felt the full horror of the emptiness she was in creep upon her and bury her, like sand burying a fortress or a long caravan whose bells are at first dimmed, then silenced for all time.
What was the horror exactly? Was it the sense of so much empty space, or the almost total absence of life, or the feeling that, whichever way she went, she would still be lost? Or was it the silence, or the sound of sand moving against sand, or a ghostly memory of sounds that had once been here and were gone for ever?
She decided it was none of these things. There was something else, a more powerful feeling than all the others, a sense that, far from being dead, the desert was intensely alive. Death was only an appearance. Reality was a form of life in which the desert - watchful, listening, alert - preyed on all other forms of life that came within it. She could think of no other place on earth that had made such a success of death. Every step she took, she could feel the desert couching, very like a beast of prey.
She fetched the torch and headed on down to where David was watching the camel. He’d taken some blankets and a little food, and when she found him, he was propped up against the animal’s side. He’d lit a small fire, and when she came up he was trying to read something in its light. It looked like a map, very torn and tattered, with inscriptions in Chinese. When he noticed her standing by the fire, he folded the sheet up and shoved it inside his coat.
She slipped down beside him, saying nothing, pausing only to whisper something in the camel’s ear.
‘What have you been saying to Bobtail?’ he asked.
‘None of your business.’
‘I don’t want any agitation in this caravan. I won’t stand for that. You’re not one of those foreign agitators, are you?’
She put her arm round him, and they sat together in silence while Bobtail digested the food David had brought her.
‘Why’d you come down here on your own?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure. I just wanted to listen to my own thoughts, I suppose. I’m sorry. I’ve neglected you.’
‘No, I’ve been busy. Mehmet’s asleep. He should stay that way until dawn. I don’t want to give him too many herbs: they can be toxic in too large a quantity. The acupuncture may help for a while tomorrow, but it won’t stand much of a chance when he’s moving.’
‘It’s between him and God now, Nabila. There’s nothing more you can do.’
‘Haven’t you eaten? It doesn’t look as though you’ve touched anything.’
‘No, I’m not really very hungry.’
‘Nevertheless, you have to eat.’
‘Who says?’ He was snappish, almost aggressive.
‘I say. I’m a doctor, you have to listen to me.’
‘I’d like to know the hell why.’
‘I already told you, because I’m a doctor.’
‘You’re not my bloody doctor.’
She took her arm away gently, retreating from whatever was burning him up.
‘No? And just who else is your doctor out here? Bobtail? Mehmet maybe? Listen, David. It’s time you wised up. You’re the expedition leader, and I’m sticking my neck on the line to follow you and do whatever you say I should do, even when I think you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. But when it comes to what concerns the health and well-being of this little party, I have the final say. If I tell you to eat, you will eat; if I tell you not to eat, you will not let a morsel pass your lips until further word. The reason is quite simple. If you play the little boy and get petulant and push your dinner to the other side of the table, you will get weak and dehydrated tomorrow. If that makes you ill so you can’t eat tomorrow, we’re heading for trouble. Mehmet isn’t out of danger yet. He’ll need careful watching for a few days. If I could make a phone call and have him lifted out of here by a
ir, I’d do it this minute.’
She stopped suddenly. The truth was, she wished she could have them all lifted out. They’d been fools to get themselves this far inside the desert in the first place.
‘Very well, I’ll eat if it makes you happy.’
‘No, you’ll eat because it helps keep us alive. Thank you for what you did back there.’
‘Mehmet? I hated doing that. I’ve seen men lose limbs before, but only in combat. This was a bit too personal.’
She put her arm round him again, and this time he settled against her beatifically, and reached up and held her hand.
‘Is that what you were thinking about when you came out here?’ she asked.
‘A little, yes. But mostly Sam. I can’t get him out of my mind these past few days. It’s being out here in the bloody sand, with nothing else to do but think. Don’t you find that?’
‘Yes, I know what you mean. I find myself thinking about my sister Rabbia a lot.’ She paused and squeezed his hand. ‘And about us. Do you think ... Do you think we’ll come out of this alive?’
‘I honestly don’t know. I wouldn’t think it very likely.’
‘Do you think, if we did survive ... Would you just go back to England?’
‘Oh, God, Nabila, I don’t know. I couldn’t stay here, you know that. I wouldn’t last a day. And I couldn’t bear to leave you behind.’
‘But I have my work here.’
‘Not any more you don’t. They know who you are, and if our mission succeeds, you’ll be the most wanted woman in China.’
She laughed aloud at the thought, at the absurdity of it.
‘Me? The most wanted woman?’
‘Why not?’ he said, laughing. He reached up and drew her round and kissed her softly. ‘You’re already the most wanted woman in the Taklamakan.’
'I’m the only one.’
‘You’re forgetting Bobtail and a few others.’
‘Do you want me?’
‘Shhhh. Just follow my instructions, and you’ll be all right.’
She unzipped his trousers and reached inside.
‘I could catch frostbite,’ he protested. ‘I’d have to ... You know, like Mehmet ...'
She warmed him with another kiss.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘this isn’t going to catch frostbite. Not where it’s going.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
They found the two missing camels around noon the following day. The beasts were exhausted and looked very sorry for themselves. Unable to dislodge their loads, they’d settled down in the shelter of a dune and spent a miserable night, unwatered, unfed, and unable to snatch more than a few winks of sleep.
David and Nabila stayed close together, not just because it made them feel better, but because separation could prove fatal. The high walls of the dunes made it almost impossible to navigate. Even from the summits, other high dunes still contrived to block the view, and the best anyone could do most of the time was to steer a fairly straight course with the help of a compass, two feet of twine, and a strong sense of smell.
On the ground, a turning of a few feet here or a distraction of a yard or two there could lead to a widening maze in which all sense of true direction was lost. Two people could part, agreeing to meet again in half an hour, and never see one another again. The desert made no concessions to human weakness. Out here, orienteering was not a sport, but the most vital part of staying alive.
They’d left Mehmet behind with the main body of camels. He was conscious, but still traumatized. Nabila had been reluctant to leave him at all.
‘Ordinarily, I’d just say, “He’ll live.“ I’ve seen men much more badly injured take it in their stride and get on with their lives. But that injury weakens him and makes it hard for him to do the most elementary things. That means he may not live. Unless he can make adjustments very quickly, the desert won’t let him. And we can’t afford to let him hold us back or weaken us in any way. We can help him: but the moment he shows signs of holding us back ...’
She broke off, hating what she was saying, knowing it had to be said.
They’d followed hoofprints in order to track down the camels. Now, coming back, they followed exactly the same course. The camels had been two miles away, a dangerous distance, maybe a quarter of a day’s march. The journey back doubled the distance. All the time, David felt vulnerable, knowing how hard it could be to rejoin the main caravan if they strayed from the path even a short way.
The weather felt oppressive, the heat more clinging than normal, the air denser. David wrapped his scarf round his mouth. Nabila walked ahead with Doris, saying nothing.
Suddenly, she stopped and pointed with her stick towards an opening to one side, angled so it was now visible on the return trip. David came up, leading the other camels. He looked inside.
Between two enormous dunes a large space had been eroded from the sand, like a giant grotto, smooth-edged yet grotesque. It was bowed, like a chapel carved out of light, unpolished stone, its sides so high and rounded that David wondered for a moment if any of it was sand at all.
But it was not the sand that Nabila had been pointing at. Not the sand, not the great swoop it made over their heads. He stepped further inside and lowered his gaze.
At first, it could have been almost anything. David squinted, trying to make the object out against the bright sunlight that surrounded it. It might have been an outcrop of rock, or a strange formation of sand sculpted by the wind, or perhaps something half-angelic, dropped from the sky - part of a helicopter, say, or the wing of a light plane.
But as he looked it became clear that it was none of these. For one thing, it seemed to have been made from cloth. Parts of it fluttered loosely in the springing breeze, and a biggish section flapped back to reveal a dark interior before swinging shut again, the gesture of an erotic dancer or a butcher stripping back flesh.
‘It’s a tent,’ whispered David, ‘a bell tent. Look, that’s the centre pole.'
‘But ... who ...?’
The tent was half buried in sand, and a fine coating had covered the canvas on all sides. David took a step closer.
‘Who? Don’t you know?’ He stopped then, puzzled, and a little afraid of this unexpected thing. ‘Give me a moment.’
He went back to Doris and found his torch in a pack towards her rear. She watched him impassively as he rejoined Nabila, carrying the torch like a small club. He approached the tent again, tentative and wary, as though it might rear up and attack him.
Holding the torch at an angle, he gripped the large flap and drew it back. He shone the light down into the hole this created, then looked inside.
‘Well, what do you see?’ asked Nabila impatiently. By now she had a premonition of what it would turn out to be.
‘Two men,’ he said, then, turning, he spoke with greater exactitude. ‘What’s left of two men. Some sand has got in, but not enough to cover them. Not yet.’
‘They must have been trapped in a storm. Or grown too ill to go any further. How recent was it, do you think? Can you tell from ...?’
He switched off the torch and looked round. What was in the tent had not been very pretty.
‘They’re not skeletons,’ he said. ‘More like mummies, really. It’s this dry air, it preserves things amazingly well. By my reckoning, they’ve been here over a hundred years.’
‘And exactly what do you base that reckoning on?’
He smiled.
‘I can do better than that, I can tell you their names: one was called Yolchi, the other Muhammad Shah.’
‘Now you’re just playing games. I don’t think it’s so nice to poke fun at the dead.’
‘Poke fun? Nabila, haven’t you heard of Sven Hedin?’
‘The Swedish explorer? Yes, of course. Everybody in these parts has heard of his adventures. But he died in the fifties, David, back home in Sweden, not out here.’
‘He tried to make the crossing from Merket to the Mazartagh Mountains back in 1895. He wen
t into the Taklamakan with four men, eight camels, three sheep, and two dogs, and he barely made it out with two of the camel-handlers. The last he saw of Yolchi and Muhammad Shah, they were sitting in this tent, waiting for the inevitable. They both knew they had no strength left. God knows how Hedin and the others survived.’
They hurried away from the tent as though it was cursed or contaminated, leaving behind not even a prayer for the spirits of the two men trapped for ever inside it. The tent itself was of no use to them: the canvas was rotten, the ropes were nearly gone. They preferred to leave it as a shrine. As they plodded on, the dunes on every side seemed to weigh more heavily on the narrow path they were treading between them.
Neither of them noticed anything much out of the ordinary until they reached a spot about halfway back to the camp. They had just started to turn the corner of a low dune when David noticed something.
‘Can you feel it?’ he asked.
‘The breeze?’
‘Yes. It’s getting fresher all the time.’
‘And the fresher it gets the faster it becomes.’
He looked down at his feet. The wind was scuffing the sand along in small puffs. Further off, it was raising it in little plumes, their feathered tops spinning, then fading off into nothing.
‘Look,’ David said.
‘It’s wiping out the track.’
‘We don’t have time to get back to Mehmet before the hoofprints are completely wiped out. There’s a real risk we could make a wrong turning.’
Nabila looked up. The round disc of the sun was reddening, but all around it, like a murky halo, a grey haze was forming. On the tops of the higher dunes, sandspouts were performing a crazy dance. The horizon was veiled in a yellow-grey mist.
‘It’s blowing up into a full-scale sandstorm, David - I was caught at the edge of one years ago. It’s stupid to think of trying to push on. Let’s put ourselves and the camels into the lee of that dune.’
She pointed to a dune of red sand some three hundred feet high. All along its edges, sand lifted in a thin red veil, as though mocking them.
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