Sands of Destiny

by E. C. Tubb

  “How interesting,” said Clarice. “You were saying?”

  “Nothing of importance.” He could not tell her of the torture that awaited infidels when captured by the raiders. “Do you intend to remain long in Algeria?”

  “Not long. Dick had some business to attend to and Susan got us this invitation to stay at a real fort.” She sounded like an excited little girl as she spoke. “I’ve always wanted to see just what the Legion is really like and now I know, Gee, who’d have thought that I’d ever be able to say I stayed in a real fortress in the desert.” In her excitement she had slipped into English, much to the apparent relief of Miss Carson and, seeing that she was more at home in her own language, Marignay gallantly forced himself to speak it.

  “You have been to my home, yes? A Villa near Toulon. I wait for the day when I can leave this sand and dirt and spend the few years I have left in idleness and memories.” He leaned a little closer to the elderly spinster. “It is strange is it not, that we, who knew each other so long ago, should again meet as we did? Fate, the natives would call it, and, for once, I will admit that they are right.”

  “It is strange,” agreed Miss Carson. “I’ve often thought of the Legion and the men who live and die to keep the desert safe for travellers. Tell me, Colonel. Do you have many battles?”

  “No. Some skirmishes perhaps, but nothing serious.”

  Marignay laughed. “Why, are you afraid of being carried off to ransom by some Sheik?”

  “Do they do that? Carry people off to ransom, I mean?”

  Clarice spoke the question to the company but her eyes never left the young face of the officer at her side. Corville nodded.

  “It sometimes happens. The Riff tribes are notorious for it, they used to be slavers in the old days, you know, and habit dies hard. They will capture a likely prospect, demand as much ransom as they think they can get, and then send the prisoner home again when it has been paid. They are quite ethical about it really. They will celebrate the payment with a great feast to which the prisoner is invited and they part on the best of terms.” Corville smiled. “You see, to them it is merely a matter of business. Either side is aware of the ethics of the thing and neither will feel hurt or injured in any way. Sometimes the would-be kidnappers are caught and sent to a penal colony. They either escape or die. No native can work for long as a white man can. Their spirit breaks, or their heart, or they just will themselves to die. That is why they will fight so hard to avoid capture.”

  “What if the captive doesn’t pay his ransom?” Dick looked at the young officer and spoke for the first time, His voice was deep, pleasant, and Corville warmed to him as he spoke.

  “Then it is not so pleasant. An ear might be removed and sent as a reminder, a second ear or, perhaps a hand follows. Then, finally, the entire head is usually delivered. If the prisoner’s family are at all fond of him they have usually paid by that time and so it is rare for any captive to die.”

  “And suppose a woman was to be captured?” Clarice looked eagerly at the officer. “Would they do the same?”

  “No. Women are of little value in the desert. Unless she were a rich man’s favourite wife, a Sheik’s daughter, or a person wealthy in her own right, they would not bother with her. If they did, and could get no ransom, then she would be sold to the highest bidder.” Corville smiled at the shocked expression on Miss Carson’s face. “The desert isn’t the romantic place most people think it is. The tribesmen are still pretty medieval in outlook and slavery is still practiced deep in the interior. To the average Arab a woman is merely a chattel, as much a possession as his rugs, his tents, his horses and goats, and of far less value than either of those.”

  “I can’t believe it,” snapped Susan. “Do you mean to say that you tolerate such conditions?”

  “What else can we do?” asked Marignay. “The desert is huge, we are small, and who can watch the comings and goings of every caravan.” He nodded as he poured more wine. “We are not blind we of the Legion and we know that many a slave has been sold on the block, many a load of hashish has passed across the borders into Egypt there to be sold for guns. Pearls too have found their way into the markets of the world without anyone paying custom duty on them. But these are little things. We of the Legion must keep the peace and that is what we do.”

  “You make the desert sound so unromantic,” complained Clarice. “Sheiks who are fat, dirty men, and camels loaded with smuggled guns instead of rare spices. You’ve destroyed one of my favourite illusions.”

  “Not all Sheiks are fat or dirty,” smiled Marignay. “Tomorrow night you will see the Sheik El Morini who, I am sure, will be able to restore your illusions. He is tall and proud and a pure son of the desert. I respect him as a gentleman and, I am pleased to say, he offers me the same respect. I must show you a dagger he gave me, a work of rare price which will comfort me in my old age with tender memories of when I was young.”

  “I’d like to meet him,” said Clarice. She looked at Corville.

  “Have you ever seen him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he as the Colonel says? Tall and handsome and proud?”

  “The last time I saw him,” said Corville deliberately, “he had just knifed a man. He then showed his pride by ordering the deaths of some twenty helpless men. If such actions make him a gentleman, then I do not wish to be classed with him. Therefore, like Captain Gerald, I am no gentleman.”

  He blinked at the colonel, half aware that the closeness of the room and the richness of the unaccustomed wine was going to his head. “Do I walk out or are you going to throw me out?”

  “Silence!” Marignay was white with anger. “I’m surprised at you de Corville. To act and speak so in front of my guests!”

  “Yes,” said Corville. “I’m sorry. I should have known better than to speak the truth. They may want to cling to their illusions a little longer.” Suddenly he laughed. “Sorry. I must really apologise, The Colonel is right.”

  “He was found wandering in the desert suffering from thirst and heat,” explained the colonel rapidly. “I had hoped that he had made a full recovery but apparently I was wrong, You must excuse his conduct.”

  “But did he see this Sheik, what’s his name kill those men?” Dick narrowed his eyes as he stared at the young officer. “He doesn’t look sick to me, a little drunk perhaps, but not sick.”

  “Of course he did not,” said Marignay, “The whole thing was but a figment of his imagination. El Morini is a gentleman and would never do such a thing.” The Colonel touched his temple. “The sun, you know, it can do strange things to a man dying of thirst.”

  “And wounded too.” Clarice gently touched the strip of plaster across the young man’s forehead. “How did that happen?”

  “It is nothing,” said Corville, already ashamed of his outburst. “The Colonel is right. I did suffer from too much sun and it may have left me a little light-headed.” He reached for his glass, then added:

  “When did you say you were returning to Sidi bel Abbes?”

  “We’re not,” said Dick. “From here we’re going by camel caravan to Marojia. From there we hope to pick up transport to Toulon, then up through France, to London where we leave Miss Carson, and so back home to the States.” He stretched. “Personally, nice as it has been to come here and see all these things, I shan’t be sorry to get back home again.”

  “And you?” Corville smiled into the eyes of the young woman. “Will you be glad to leave?”

  “I don’t know,” she said softly. “I’d like to stay but a woman can hardly stay in a fort on her own, can she?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me,” she said absently. “What happens when you people marry? You do marry I suppose?”

  “Sometimes. Then, if the man is an officer and wise, he resigns his commission. If he is a man, he doesn’t get married, he can’t; or if he does, then it is his own fault. The desert is no place for women, white women that is, not when every moment is filled with
danger.”

  “I’d wondered about that.” she said. “The danger I mean. Tell me, is it really as dangerous as some people make out? We’ve not seen any trouble and we’ve travelled hundreds of miles across the desert. Is it all rumour or do you actually fight real battles?”

  Corville thought of Le Farge and his ever present fears. He thought of blood-stained sand and the bodies of twenty legionnaires lying in their shallow graves less than half a day’s march away. He thought of Sheik El Morini and the man’s cold, calculated cruelty. He thought of Fort Hollendoft and what had been found there. He remembered that she was young and a guest and not really interested in the answer at all. Looking into her eyes he smiled and lied with easy skill.

  “No.”

  “I thought not. That Captain, Captain Gerald I think his name is, he kept trying to get us to leave sooner than we had planned.” She laughed. “The caravan is due in five days time and there isn’t any way we could leave until then so I don’t know what he was worried about anyway.”

  “He is a good soldier,” said Corville abruptly. “He meant well.”

  “He frightened me,” complained Miss Carson. “He is so rough, so uncouth.” She frowned. “de Corville,” she murmured. “I wonder? Tell me, young man, did you go to school in England?”

  “I did.” Corville was deliberately rude. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to pry into his personal history. Miss Carson nodded.

  “I thought that I recollected the name. A friend of mine, perhaps you know him? Mr. Smithers? No? Well, he sent his son to the same school. At least I think that it was the same. He was telling me of a boy who was there years ago, the son of Lord Trehern.” She frowned again. “Of course it’s so long ago now but it seemed that there was some sort of scandal, I never did know what it was all about and my friend, Mr. Smithers, he had to take his boy away because he lost most of his money in a share deal or something that this Lord Trehern had floated. I did hear that the boy, he was older than my friend’s son, of course, went to live with his mother in France. I....” She broke off at the expression on Corville’s face. “Is anything the matter?”

  “No. You were telling me of this Lord Trehern?”

  “Yes. Well rumour had it that he ran away and hid somewhere.” She tittered; the wine had obviously taken effect. “Some say that he joined the Foreign Legion, but then they always say that, don’t they. It just struck me because of the name de Corville, it’s an unusual name, but it couldn’t be the same one, could it?”

  “Hardly,” said Corville drily. “If my father was an English lord then I should know it.”

  “But your English is so perfect,” insisted Miss Carson. “I knew that you must have been to school in England the moment you spoke.” She tittered again and, as she reached for her glass, managed to spill a few drops of the red wine on the spotless napery. Dick Mason smiled at Corville and shrugged. His sister, sensing the young officer’s feelings, rested her hand with friendly warmth on his arm. Marignay, oblivious to all the byplay, grunted as he reached for a fresh bottle of wine.

  “Come. Let us not be sad or remember the past, or think too deeply of the future. Let us drink to my Villa near Toulon and the wines I shall drink there and the toys, similar to the dagger I mentioned, I shall have to while away my lonely hours.” He poised the bottle over Miss Carson’s glass. “Wine?”

  “I shouldn’t really,” she simpered. “I’m not used to wine and I’m afraid that it’s affecting me a little.” She watched him pour her glass full. “Only a little then and after that I’m off to bed. I always say that there’s nothing like a....” She broke off, her glass half tilted to her mouth, her eyes wide and suddenly strained. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing,” said Marignay. “The wind perhaps?”

  “Silence!” Corville rose from the table, his stomach knotted with apprehension. Thinly through the thick walls, filtered by the embrasures and echoing from the hills around came the sound of the sentry’s harsh challenge.

  “Qui va là?”

  He was answered by a shot, his scream mingling with the sound of gunfire and, as he screamed both shots and cries were drowned in an undulating yell,

  “Allah il Allah! Mohamed ill akbar!”

  The attack had begun.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ATTACK

  FOR a moment no one moved then, as the frenzied yelling slashed again through the tropic night, Corville lunged towards the door.

  “What is it?” asked Clarice, her soft brown eyes wide with apprehension. “What is that yelling, and those shots?”

  “An attack.” Corville reached the door just as it burst open and Captain Gerald staggered into the room. He was sober, stone cold sober, and his eyes as they stared at Marignay were wild and flecked with blood. He had lost his kepi and his uniform was stained with an ugly splotch of spreading blood.

  “You,” he said, and pointed towards the Colonel. “You did this.”

  “Nonsense!” Marignay licked his thin lips with a nervous gesture. “Probably some tribesmen trying to gain credit by attacking the fort. They will break and retreat at the first charge.”

  “You think so?” Gerald sneered and spat a mouthful of blood. “The hills are alive with raiders. The fire from their guns makes the night seem like day. Men died where they stood, the watchtower guard, the sentries, others.” He swayed and his grimed hand fumbled with the pistol in his belt. “Cochin! Je vous mort pour....” He staggered again his mouth filling with blood before he could finish the threat, and, as Corville reached out to steady him, the Captain fell lifeless to the floor.

  Miss Carson screamed. She stood. her eyes wild, her hair disarranged, and shrieked at the unaccustomed sight of freshly spilt blood. Clarice moved to comfort her and Dick, his face white and drawn, looked at Corville.

  “Is it bad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I help?”

  “Stay with the women. See that they stay away from the embrasures and out of the line of fire.” Corville stepped over the dead man. “I must see what has happened. I’ll return when I’ve learned the state of things.” He looked at the sobbing woman and gestured towards the wine. “Give her a drink, slap her if you have to, but make her keep silent.” He was gone before the American could do more than nod.

  Outside, beneath the glowing stars and the swollen moon, the night had turned into a flame-lit hell.

  Bullets whined like bees over the scarred merlons, whining as they ricochetted or making a soggy thud as they ploughed into soft and yielding flesh. The fire was the heaviest that Corville had ever experienced and. as he squinted at the winking points of light, he swore with an unusual savagery.

  “Machineguns!”

  “Two of them.” Sergeant Smith, his face grimed with sweat and dirt, squatted beside the lieutenant as he stared towards the surrounding hills. “Spandaus I reckon, or maybe they’ve managed to get hold of a couple of Vickers. Whatever they are they’re bad.”

  “The caravan,” said Corville sickly. “The machineguns must have been among the load. Sacré! I could have stopped all this.”

  “You could have died,” agreed the sergeant, “but I doubt if you could have stopped it.” He pointed towards the moonlit desert as he gave a quick explanation of what had happened. “They must have crept to within the very shadow of the walls before opening tire. They have all the cover they need while we are illuminated by the moonlight. The first shot killed the watch-guard, and it was followed by a volley that killed most of the sentries. Before we could beat them back they had dug themselves in, too close for comfort, and those damn machineguns are sweeping the walls.” He stared over his shoulder. “Where the hell is the Captain?”

  “Dead.”

  “And the Colonel?”

  “He’ll be out soon.” Corville spat into the darkness. “He has his guests to worry about.”

  “Guests?”

  “Didn’t you know?” Corville looked at the bleak face of the sergeant. “Three of them,
two women and a man.” He shrugged. “The man can fight, most Americans know how to use a rifle, but the women....”

  “They can act as nurses.” Smith ducked as lead chipped dried brick from the merlon behind which be crouched. “Your orders, sir?”

  “Let them waste their ammunition as long as they wish.” Corville squinted into the darkness. “We can’t see them as well as they can see us, but we have thick walls and they can do us no real harm. When they charge we must be ready to beat them back.” He looked down the line of waiting men, each with his loaded Lebel, his bayonet at his side and his water canteen to hand. The dead lay where they had fallen, stiff and cold in the pale light of the setting moon. “Release the prisoners from the cells, arm them, and have them issue a half-litre of wine per man. Relieve one third of the men at a time for food and rest and tell the others to stay behind cover. Time enough to return the fire when they have something to shoot at.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you any idea as to who is behind this, sergeant?”

  “I’d guess at the Sheik El Morini, sir. He has been much about the fort and knows our defences too well.” Smith glanced towards the well in the centre of the compound. “Shall I draw water, sir?”

  “Can you?”

  “I think so. The walls should protect me from the machinegun fire and the fort is so built that the well is protected from direct aim.” He hesitated. “I think that it would be best, sir, wounded men need water and when the sun rises....”