Secret of the Sands

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘I do wish she’d stop that!’ he says. ‘Bloody hullabaloo.’

  Jessop fans himself with a flat square made of rushes. He realised early on, even before they left Sur, that his concerns are different from Jones’ and he has now become tired of the repeated conversation about breeding strains and fetlocks, shipping livestock via Bombay, how much a chap might need to furnish a Knightsbridge house decently or fix its leaking roof and how Arabia has little to offer civilisation.

  Today is their last in the encampment and Jessop wishes he could discuss what he has found with Jones, but the lieutenant will not engage in conversation on any other topic than those most dear to his wallet. Still, it has become clear the more Jessop uncovers about conditions inland, the more difficult supplying any reasonable traffic of British ships seems to be. Both water supplies and tribal territories shift with such alarming regularity that he has come to the conclusion that the business of resupply might need to be assessed almost every time a British ship docks and treaties of alliance would have to be constantly renegotiated. It was hoped matters might prove more stable here than on the coast, but from his enquiries he now understands that if anything they are less so and there is very little out here in the hinterland anyway – it makes no sense even to use the place to ferry supplies. It is simply too dangerous and travelling through the desert has proved painfully slow. He’ll be glad to get back to the coast and rendezvous with the Palinurus when it comes back down from the inhospitable north.

  Preparations are underway for the party’s departure. The Dhofaris are making sure the camels drink as much as possible before the return journey and both Jessop and Jones are wordlessly steeling themselves for the privations of the trip. There is little enough to pack and, apart from overseeing the animals, the bearers and guides lounge drinking coffee, picking their teeth with araq and sharing the last of their supplies of qat leaves, which they chew open-mouthed. Stimulated by the effects, they argue over nothing in particu lar for hours while the Bedu avoid them. The tribes are not enemies, nor are they friends, Jessop notes in his diary. At prayer time, the Dhofaris and the Bedu lay down their mats separately, at meals they skirt around the edges of the other’s group. They have not travelled together and so the oath of the caravan where one traveller will fight to the death for another and all are brothers does not apply.

  On the last night, Jessop and Jones eat in the big tent, sitting on huge, hard pillows grouped around a central, low table piled high with food so laden with fat that it shines in the dim light from the oil lamps. The Bedu carry naphtha, harvested easily from the surface of the infertile plain and distilled into a crude fuel for lamplight, which smells faintly medicinal. ‘Arabia,’ Jones maintains, ‘consists of land either too desiccated for cultivation or too poisonous. It is as well that God has given them naft for they could not afford candles.’

  The emir and his eldest son sit to one side – the officers are cross-legged on the other. The boy has scarcely started to grow his beard, but he is accepted by the men of the camp as a leader in waiting. He is, after all, the son of a great man and wishes that he could be lost on the sands and make a name for himself, as his father did. The men respect his lineage and his pluck even though, as yet, he has had the opportunity to prove neither. He spends more time now with the adults than the other children and as a result has not succumbed to the eye infection, or at least, has not had kohl applied to his eyes by the solicitous woman who started the spread of the sickness.

  ‘Your people do not pray?’ the emir asks Jessop, as if in passing.

  So far, the emir has answered the doctor’s questions but has shown little interest of his own. This last night, the atmosphere feels stilted and the doctor is glad that the emir has thought to make an enquiry or at least start a conversation.

  ‘Ah. No. We do not pray as you do – five times a day.’

  For a long time, the emir does not respond. After the silence has started to drag he turns again to the white men. ‘And you eat pig? Drink the grape?’

  A grin breaks out on the doctor’s face. ‘Yes. Yes, all my people do.’ He reaches into the bag he always carries with him and helpfully pulls out a picture of King William on the face of a decorative, enamel miniature. The likeness shows His Majesty at his coronation a mere three years before.

  ‘This is our shah,’ he explains, ‘our caliph. Sultan, perhaps. We call him a king.’ Jessop is unaware that carrying this manner of representational likeness is deeply offensive to followers of Islam and tantamount to idolatry. The emir’s son glances sideways at his father to see what he might do, but the emir affects scarcely to notice the miniature.

  ‘Your shah is powerful? He has many camels? Many horses?’

  ‘Ah,’ Jones cuts in. ‘Yes. His Majesty King William loves horses.’

  This is, in fact, not strictly true. His Majesty is a sailor rather than a landlubber and his concerns are largely marine. In the main, he becomes enthusiastic about horses only if the animals are racing and he has taken a bet. But the comment at least brings the conversation round to a subject upon which Jones wishes to elaborate and he grasps upon it, becoming suddenly quite animated.

  ‘I am sure His Majesty would be most impressed by an animal of the tenor of your fine beasts. The sultan kindly sent him an Arab horse last year from Muscat and His Majesty by all accounts is completely taken by the creature.’

  The emir does not rise to the suggestion. He reaches out and picks at some gleaming couscous that has been piled before him. As he raises it to his lips there is a terrible sound. At first Jessop thinks there has been a stir that has woken the animals but as the ululation starts up in earnest he realises it is the women. They are screaming in chorus. No, not screaming, not really. It is more as if they are singing their screams. A slave enters the tent, slips to the emir’s side and leans, as discreetly as any footman at Windsor Castle, to whisper in the emir’s ear. The couscous stops in midair. The emir’s face, if it is possible, becomes stonier. He looks at Jessop and Jones and Jessop thinks fleetingly that being caught in his gaze is like being a butterfly pinned to a board. He has a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach and a sudden longing for his matchlock, which is safely stowed in his saddle bags, with ample ammunition, ready for the journey they will start before dawn. He wishes fervently that it was nearer to hand.

  ‘I say,’ says Jones, now outside the tent where he can see the Dhofaris scattering like buckshot into the night. ‘Whatever is going on?’

  Jessop makes to rise but a heavy weight bearing down on his shoulders renders it impossible. Suddenly it is as if darkness closes in on the tent, the polished scimitars, like lightning bolts, the only brightness. It is hard to tell exactly how many men are in the shadows drawing their traditional, curved knives.

  ‘Ibn al-kalb,’ the emir growls. ‘Nazarene ala aeeri. Ya binti. Ya binti.’

  ‘Your daughter?’ Jessop asks, picking out the word. ‘Why? What has happened?’

  ‘Ya binti. Ya binti,’ the emir repeats darkly in his distress as the eyes of his son flash in horror and the hideous sound of the keening women in the background grows ever louder and more frantic.

  And after that, it all goes dark.

  When Jessop and Jones wake again they are bound to each other with a rough cord. Shifting, they each notice that their muscles are stiff and sore and that they are thirsty. The atmosphere in the tent is stifling. Slowly Jessop comes to realise that they are being held on the far side of the settlement and that the tent has been pitched quite deliberately in the full glare of the sun. The Dhofaris have gone, their animals are forfeit and it will be hours before they are given water, never mind food.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Jones sinks into self-pity with an ease that does not entirely surprise his fellow officer.

  ‘It’s the little girl,’ Jessop explains. ‘I think the little girl died.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Palinurus waits for more than a week in the blinding heat for the officer
s to arrive at Aden. While the crew repair the sun-bleached decks, Haines paces and waits with the single-minded bad temper that is now all too familiar to everyone on board.

  ‘They should have been here at least a week before us,’ he keeps repeating, as if a mistake has been made deliberately, only to bait him.

  The Dhofaris at port evade questioning like petulant teenagers and it is clear that there is no measure in pushing any of that tribe for more information for neither violence, nor courtesy nor bribery has any measure of success.

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ they say over and over again, denying all knowledge of the British expedition.

  A man on the street, a trader, a beggar, an imam, the son of a caliph – it makes no difference who the captain asks or what he offers – they simply smile and wave him off. Frustratingly, there is no way of telling if any of the men at port were part of Jessop and Jones’ expedition as they hired their own hands.

  ‘I know they are lying, the bastards,’ Haines swears. ‘They know. They just won’t tell us.’

  The general consensus is that he is right. But no one is sure what to do about it. After two days of fruitless enquiries, Wellsted steps up.

  ‘Please, sir,’ he petitions the captain on deck. ‘May I have permission to head inland?’

  Haines blusters. The midshipmen look at each other. The hands simply stare at the captain, their shadows cast long in the midday sun. This is the kind of conversation that should be confined in officers’ quarters, but Wellsted is not welcome in the captain’s cabin. Haines is about to berate the lieutenant when he realises where that conversation will lead.

  ‘If I can get inland I’ll pick up the Bedu,’ Wellsted continues. ‘They’ll know what’s happened. We must try something else, surely.’

  The Bedu are the gossips of the desert. Everyone knows that. Haines takes a draw on his pipe and blows the smoke close to Wellsted’s face in defiance. He is determined not to lose his temper in front of the entire ship nor, if it comes to that, his dignity.

  ‘Yes, and I’ll forfeit you next, Wellsted, and return to port with not one fully trained officer in my crew,’ he sneers as if Wellsted is laying a trap for his reputation.

  ‘I won’t go far, sir. Just to where the desert meets the coastal territory. It might take two or three days at most. We’re stuck here anyway.’

  Haines considers. He looks over the tatty rooftops of Aden and up into the hills. He wishes he had sent Wellsted instead of Jessop on what it is now clear has been a doomed mission.

  ‘We owe them that at least, sir. An investigation of a couple of days?’

  Haines taps out his pipe. He will have to account in Bombay for the decision he makes here, and Wellsted will be in his rights to make it known that he requested permission to search further and that the captain deemed it unnecessary. That might look shabby. Haines tries to think what Moresby would do.

  ‘Oh very well,’ he snaps. ‘You’ll go alone. No more than two days and the first sign of trouble and you get back here.’

  At the camp inland, at the crossroads where the trade from the sea meets the trade from the sands, Wellsted makes his salaams. A white man is a curiosity here, though unlike further north where they are considered a threat, these travellers are men of the world – they have seen most things before. At the oasis news is swapped easily no matter the colour of your skin. After all, only a fool does not want to know what he is travelling into.

  Wellsted drinks the obligatory coffee and eats sweet, lush, mujhoolah dates with the other men. The tribesmen laugh at the story of his first attempts to ride a camel and marvel at the length of the journey across the sea from Southampton. Wellsted knows this swapping of tales is an important part of the bond of the campfire. He also knows that the closer in time to an event and closer in geography, the less opportunity there is for hyperbole to take over. So when the men tell him they heard that a party of two infidels, lead by Dhofari guides, have offended the emir and are now taken and at his disposal, he believes them.

  ‘Do you know their names? What do they look like? Are they alive?’

  The Bedu are nonchalant. They sip the coffee slowly and speak without intonation, for noisy or enthusiastic banter is considered low bred. They do not know any names for the Nazarene or if the men are still alive. Their news is a fortnight old at least. Who can tell what might have come to pass by now? One of the men has golden hair though, that much is certain. And (here a shrug of the shoulder) the other hurt the emir’s daughter.

  Wellsted cannot imagine Jessop being stupid enough to dishonour a woman in a camp where he is receiving hospitality. The doctor is a gentleman in every sense of the word. However, he is delighted that on last sighting at least, Jessop and Jones are alive.

  ‘And what are you expecting us to do now? Hare off across the desert on a wild-goose chase?’ Haines is incandescent with rage when Wellsted reports to him. ‘The natives are raving. Storytelling round a campfire. And even if it’s true, Jessop and Jones are probably dead by now,’ he insists. ‘Bound to be. I’d say their guides did for them. That’s what I reckon. Jessop had instruments worth a fortune.’

  The captain prefers the certainty of a blood-and-guts beheading by the savages of the ancient sea. Wellsted realises the man has been overly influenced by the fundamentalism of the Wahabis further to the north. Their threatening behaviour, all heavily armed, wild promises of doom, dark beards and flashing eyes are a jumble of aggression that has coloured the captain’s view of every Musselman in the Peninsula. Now he does not appear to grasp the difference between the tribes or at least does not apply any such knowledge to his judgements. Still, the idea of a band of renegade Dhofaris does not hold water with Wellsted if for no other reason than the guides’ bonuses for any trip are always payable on return to the coast.

  ‘The Dhofaris are business minded and largely liberal,’ he points out.

  ‘You are dismissed, Lieutenant,’ the captain snaps.

  After a week waiting at Aden to no avail, it is clear that Haines is so ill-disposed towards Wellsted that the lieutenant wonders if he ought to have presented his findings as the result of an enquiry made by one of the midshipmen. He keeps his peace for whatever he says only provokes outrage. Still, the captain clearly does not feel comfortable abandoning the search entirely.

  ‘We will continue to Muscat,’ he announces. ‘There may be news there.’

  It is, for everyone on board, a relief to cast off.

  After a brief rendezvous with the Benares during which Wellsted is forbidden to attend the officers’ dinner, the sight of Muscat harbour is welcome to every soul aboard the Palinurus, and all for entirely different reasons. The truth is that in the wake of the malaria many of the crew had not anticipated making it back around the Peninsula alive and, having unexpectedly done so, they are only too delighted to be able to avail themselves of the illicit grog shop that trades from the back of one of the old warehouses down on the docks.

  Wellsted, however, has not given up on the missing officers and, refusing to discuss the matter with the midshipmen, who have taken to asking him questions they ought to reserve for their commanding officer, the lieutenant obtains leave to go ashore. With the ship safely at anchor and his duties complete, Wellsted strides out from the dock and makes for the office of the Navy’s agent in Muscat, hoping that the man might have some contacts that will help in the search. Haines’ priority is to dispatch a report on a clipper that is to leave for Bombay directly but that, Wellsted cannot help thinking, is more about covering the captain in his decisions than actually finding out what happened to his men.

  As he strides out, he ignores the stares a white man in naval uniform necessarily excites on the crowded streets of the capital. He ignores too the pressing heat of his well-tailored jacket as he passes through the stripes of sunshine and shade. He is not under orders but that matters little to him – he simply wants to know what has happened, not only for Jessop and Jones’ sakes, but also because it’s im por
tant to build up his knowledge of the Peninsula and how things work here. In fact, if he is to make his name, it is vital. By hook or by crook. Whatever it takes.

  The agent’s office is a modest, whitewashed, two-storey house a little way up the hill and beyond the frantic press of streets that make up the dockside district. The man’s name is Ali Ibn Mudar and he has served the interests of the Indian Navy for the best part of twenty years, for which he receives a hefty retainer in addition to the proceeds of the thriving business he runs as a trader in textiles, particularly silks. These two activities dovetail well and Ibn Mudar’s ships often obtain preferential treatment when they come into contact with Indian Navy vessels. Ibn Mudar speaks perfect English. He has, it is rumoured, a European wife, captured from a shipwreck some years before and bought at an astronomical price for his harim. This lady has never been seen in public and no one knows if the rumours are true, but if it is she who has tutored Ibn Mudar in what can only be assumed is her native tongue, she has done a good job; he speaks English, somewhat comically though, with a heavy Irish accent. For this reason he is known in Bombay, exclusively behind his back, as Mickey Ibn Mudar or Our Dear Mickey. That notwithstanding, the agent is considered well-connected, helpful and courteous, and although Wellsted has never met him before, he has high hopes as he knocks on the sun-bleached front door and waits.