SARA SHERIDAN

Secret of the Sands

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2011

Copyright © Sara Sheridan 2011

Sara Sheridan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9781847561992

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2011 ISBN: 9780007352524

Version: 2014-07-08

Author’s note about language

I do not speak Arabic and in any case spelling Arabic words with English letters spawns a wide variety of possible combinations that were not standardised until well after Wellsted’s day. I copied Arabic words from contemporary manuscripts and hope that the resulting spelling does not prove too confusing for those whose knowledge of the language is greater than mine.

Map

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Author’s note about language

Map

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Part Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Part Three

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Epilogue

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

Historical Note

Questions for Reading Groups

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

PART ONE

‘Thus in England, where law leaves men comparatively free, they are slaves to a grinding despotism of conventionalities, unknown in the land of tyrannical rule. This explains why many men, accustomed to live under despotic governments, feel fettered and enslaved in the so-called free countries.’

Sir Richard Francis Burton, 1821–1890

Great Arabian Explorer

Chapter One

Fifty miles inland from the coast of Abyssinia, Tuesday, 11 June 1833

It is dark when they come, at about an hour before dawn. Far away in London, pretty housemaids in Marylebone are setting the fires while the more dissolute rakes make their way home through deserted streets now devoid of the night’s sport. The whores are all abed now as are the Honourable Directors of the East India Company, each to a man concerned that the French, despite being routed, surely have it in mind to capture Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi and unfurl England’s grip on its ruby-encrusted prize. In short order, William Wilberforce, hero of The Cause, will rise habitually early despite his failing health, dress in a sober jacket with dark breeches and, discreetly and behind the scenes, preach the rights of these men and women from thousands of miles away. He has been doing so with success, in and out of Parliament, for the best part of fifty years and he will not have too much longer to wait. But here in the village that makes no difference now.

In the clearing surrounded by lush foliage, the silence is broken and the sleepy huts made of rushes and daub are already being ransacked. There is little anyone can do and it makes no odds whether the families rise fighting, iron daggers in hand, or wake slowly, sleepily, only half-conscious to the screams of their children. One or two of the quickest slip into the darkness, a jumble of long, flaying limbs and flashing eyes, young men abandoning their mothers and sisters, one child with the instincts of a seer, fleeing on instinct alone blindly into the dark jungle and away from the torches and the sparking embers of last night’s fire. A pitcher is knocked over in the panic and douses the rising flames, filling the cool, early morning air with a salty cloud of scorched goat curds that were meant to be breakfast.

It takes only seven minutes to capture almost everyone. The slavers are practised at this. They separate the elderly to one side (hardly worth the trouble to transport even as far as Zanzibar) and beat one old man who shouts so furiously and in such a babble that his own wife cannot fully understand him. There is always one would-be hero. He is usually a grandfather. The slaver known as Kasim consigns him to silence.

The broken body quietens the crowd. The villagers shift uneasily and the raiders turn to the task of sorting through the women. This is the most difficult job for mistakes are easily made with these dusky women in the darkness. Abyssinian slave girls are worth a great deal if they are beautiful. Sultans and emirs have been known to take an ebony slave or two to wive – a rich man’s harim is a place of no borders and should include every colour of skin, after all. White, of course, is the most enticing. Most men have never so much as seen white skin – all those who have agree it is strange and unearthly, the skin of a fearsome devil, a soul bleached to the colour of dry bones and shocking to the core, like a spectre. But still, on a woman, desirable enough.

In this village the women are as dark as bitter coffee and their young bodies are lithe. Kasim’s boyhood friend and business partner, Asaf Ibn Mohammed, eyes the pert titties as if they are liquorice. When he comes to Zena, Ibn Mohammed raises the hem of her winding cloth with the tip of his scimitar and glares at her ripe pudenda. He thinks only of the Marie Theresa dollars that this prize is worth shipped on to Muscat, and how easy she will be to sell. Then, dropping the skirt, he reaches out to check her teeth and nods to his fellow, the one with the ropes.

‘This one,’ he says in Arabic, his tawny eyes cold, the contours of his face caught in the flickering lamplight so it appears he is composed of nothing but long, thin lines. Paler and taller than Kasim, Ibn Mohammed has an elegant air and looks more like a scholar than a man of action. Today nothing has riled him – the raid is going entirely as he expects, so his temper, which often proves deadly, remains in check. ‘Yes, this one will do. Not as skinny as the others and she shows no fear.’

Zena, frozen and so afraid that she is scarcely able to breathe, pretends she cannot understand him. He seems so calm and cold, assured in his right to simply steal her away. Kasim nods silently in agreement though his black eyes sparkle – she can see he is enjoying the process of humiliating the villagers as they are assessed one by one. Something in him feeds off the uneasy atmosphere. The raid isn’t merely a living for this man. In the trade he has found his vocation.

I will run, she thinks. I will run. But her legs do not move. It is probably a blessing – the slavers do not deal kindly when they catch the ones who try to get away. You escape either very quickly or not at all. This is no time for Zena to show her spirit. As the guards pull her out of the line, she stumbles over the corpse of her uncle, the old man she has just watched Kasim murder with his bare hands. Zena does not look at the body. She tries to ignore the outrage that is rising in her belly. Silently, she lets them bind her along with some of the others and then, with the rising sun before them, the slavers drive their spoils, the pick of the village, away from their homes and families forever.

Chapter Two

The principal residence of Sir Charles Malcolm, Head of the Bombay Marine, India

The punkawallah has been on duty for over twelve hours and the wafting fan has slowed to a soporific movement that is having little effect on the soupy air.

‘Feeling better, Pottinger?’ Sir Charles enquires as he pours them each a drop of dry, ruby port from the Douro.

‘Oh yes, sir. The fever is gone. Had to be done, I expect,’ the young man assures his superior brightly, as if he had been serving at the wicket on the village cricket team. For new arrivals, a fever is practically mandatory, though by all accounts Pottinger had a particularly fierce bout and is fortunate to have survived.

‘Go on then, have a look,’ Sir Charles motions.

The captain crosses eagerly to the mahogany table and pores over the new charts of the Red Sea that arrived at the dock only a few hours before. The papers represent the first step in the Bombay Marine’s overall mission in the region, which is twofold. First, to find a way to link Europe to India inside a month by cutting out the African leg of the existing route. If that means developing the market for trade with the Arabs so much the better. Second, to ensure that recent British naval losses on the reefs of the tropical Arabian seas are never repeated. In the scramble for global dominance every scrap of advantage to be had over the French is vital and too many ships have gone down of late due to in adequate maps. For the East India Company these tactics have worked well elsewhere and it is gratifying to Sir Charles that more of the map is coloured pink every year and, in particular, that this victory is in no small measure due to the exploits of his men. It is for this reason that he briefs each of his officers personally at the beginning of their tour of duty. ‘Gives me the measure of them,’ he says.

Pottinger sees immediately that though the newly arrived drawings are detailed in places, there remain gaps. ‘When will our chaps complete it?’ he asks.

‘Another year, at least. And that is with both ships splitting the work. It’s hostile territory and the coastline is complex. We’ve sent a small exploratory party inland to the west of the Arabian Peninsula from the ship Palinurus. Information gathering, that kind of thing. It’s a start.’ Malcolm is glad that Pottinger is getting to grips with the issues. ‘The party comprises a lieutenant and a ship’s doctor, Lieutenant Jones and Doctor Jessop. They’ve gone in south of Mecca with a party of local guides and will travel as far as the camp of a Bedouin emir that we have paid for the privilege. The whole area is desert. The rendezvous is at Aden in four weeks.’

‘They sent in a doctor?’

‘An officer like any other.’ Sir Charles waves his hand blithely. Officers of the Bombay Marine are expected to turn their hand to anything. The corps prides itself on the flexibility of its men – a single officer can make a huge difference, in fact, many of the East India Company’s most startling successes have been instigated by a bright spark who has taken the initiative on the Company’s behalf. ‘Apparently, he was keen,’ Sir Charles says.

‘So, if we can secure Egypt,’ Pottinger muses, ‘we will still have to ferry everything across the land at Suez.’ He points at the most northerly port on the Red Sea.

In Sir Charles Malcolm’s experience, these discussions always come back to the same point on the map but it is good the lad has cottoned on so quickly. The thin strip of land in question lies between his territory and that of his brother, Pultney, who is Commander in Chief of the British Navy in the Mediterranean. Between them, the Malcolm brothers rule most of Britannia’s waves and keep an eye on the French for His Majesty. It is acknowledged that Sir Charles has the raw end of the deal. The Gulf is tribal and savage and even if they can oust the French from Egypt, Malcolm is all too aware how difficult it is to move substantial quantities of troops and supplies, to say nothing of trade goods, from one sea to another. There is no obvious place to build a railway to indulge in the relatively new science of steam locomotion. In any case, the land around Suez that is not desert is peppered with saltwater lakes – mixed terrain is, to use Sir Charles’ own parlance, the most tricky of all.

The Malcolm brothers, however, act as a team and by hook or by crook they will fix this problem somehow, so that not only will the sun never set on His Majesty’s empire, but His Majesty’s troops will move as smoothly as possible across it. If Hannibal can cross the Alps, Sir Charles Malcolm will be damned if he can’t get British men and goods across what is essentially a thin land bridge, whether he has to employ elephants to do the job or not.

Malcolm marks the chart carefully to show Pottinger what he’s hoping for.

‘Ooh, the French won’t like that,’ the youngster smiles.

Malcolm makes a sound like a furious camel and a gesture that clearly demonstrates that he couldn’t care less what the French would like. Some of Sir Charles Malcolm’s friends and acquaintances have not yet given up on England winning back her influence in French ports despite an almost four-hundred-year gap since the end of the Hundred Years War. Sir Charles Malcolm is no quitter nor are any of his ilk. He takes another sip of port.

Pottinger puts his finger on the dot that marks Suez. ‘A canal would be the easiest way … But the chart, sir, the chart is everything. We can’t go further without it.’

The boy is sharp. He’ll do.

At this juncture, Sir Charles notices that the punkawallah is lying prone and has dropped the red cord with which he should be operating the fan. The child has fallen fast asleep and, if Sir Charles is not mistaken, is dribbling over the Memsahib’s fancy new carpet.

‘Well, really,’ the Head of the Bombay Marine bellows, ‘no wonder it’s like a bally oven in here, and we are trying to think.’

He launches a pencil across the room. It hits its target admirably, striking the boy squarely on the forehead. The child jerks upright, mortified at his dereliction of duty and starts to babble, apologising frantically in Hindi. Then he recalls that it is an absolute rule that the house staff should remain silent at all times. Sir Charles, now somewhat pink in the cheeks, stops in his fury and laughs at the aghast expression on the boy’s face.

‘Go!’ he motions the child. ‘Away with you! Fetch another punkawallah, for heaven’s sake, or we’ll broil in here. It’s June, for God’s sake.’

The boy bows and disappears instantly as Pottinger pours more port into his glass and passes Sir Charles the decanter. ‘Thank you for showing me, sir,’ he says.

Sir Charles raises his glass. It is unusual for a commanding officer to bother, but Sir Charles always prefers to survey his resources personally. ‘Welcome to the Bombay Marine,’ he says. ‘A toast – to the very good health of His Majesty and, of course, our chaps in the field,’ he says as he reminds himself silently that the chaps in the field are getting there. Slow but sure.

Chapter Three

Rubh Al Khali on the way to the Bedouin encampment

In the desert it is so hot that it comes as a surprise that a human can breathe at all. At first, when he headed into what the Arabs call the Empty Quarter, with the intention of mapping the unknown, Dr Jessop did not expect to survive, but now lethargy has fallen upon him and he has ceased to worry about what the heat may or may not do. It has become clear, at any rate, both that breathing is possible and that there is no measure in moving from the shade of the acacia tree where the small caravan has halted. It is always hot in the desert, but June is one of the worst months. It is simply the way it has worked out.

‘Even in this bloody shade, you could bake a cat,’ he comments, dry mouthed.

He is a scientific man and a surgeon; in all probability he is right. Lieutenant Jones, his blonde hair plastered to his head with sweat, can do little more than gesture in agreement. He does not believe that the loose, Arabic outfit for which he swapped his uniform is any help at all with the heat, but he cannot quite form the words to communicate this or to ask if Jessop is of the same opinion. In any case, he has taken off the kaffiya headdress with its heavy ropes, for he could not bear them – the damn thing is heavier than a top hat and the cloth gets so hot in the sun that it burns the delicate skin at the back of his neck. Now it is after midday, and when the sun goes down they will start moving again. The Arabs have agreed to travel solely at night to accommodate the white men. They would not do so normally, but the infidels are unaccustomed to the conditions and if they die, the men will not be paid.

In the meantime, one of the bearers, a Dhofari, is making coffee. He grinds the beans and adds a fragrant pinch of cardamom to spice it. The Dhofaris carry spice pouches; their very bodies seem to secrete frankincense and their robes smell musky like powdered cumin. They bring a hint of Africa, a spice indeed, to the Arabian Peninsula. Amazingly, these men can work in the heat without breaking a sweat. Even now, the man’s brother is trying to milk one of the camels that Jessop bought in the market at Sur for the trip, but the beast, bare skin and bone, will not comply. It is a serious business. You cannot carry enough food and water in the desert, and what you can carry either spoils quickly or requires moisture to cook it. Camel’s milk is vital. The men have been hungry and thirsty for days and without enough camel’s milk to supplement supplies, the skins of water are running dangerously low. The Dhofari tethers the beast securely with a thick rope, hobbling the animal’s legs in the same fashion they do to stop the camels wandering off when the caravan breaks its journey and the men are sleeping. The beast nonchalantly chews on a sparse plant with tiny leaves growing in a bare patch of sweet grass and euphorbia, while the Dhofari guide disappears into his baggage. Jessop strains to see what he is doing. Quite apart from the prospect of fresh milk, which is enticing enough, these Arab customs are important. He is here to find out what is acceptable, how to trade with these people, how to supply British ships and protect them from attack. It is his job to understand this harsh country and to find out if it is possible for Britain to make a profit here. The doctor is looking forward to returning home to Northumberland and diverting society with his stories of the Ancient Sea and her Savages. He already has the title of his book planned, you see. And this is just the kind of thing, he is sure, that will entertain the chaps at home next winter.

As a vision of Northumberland – a hillside swathed in snow and puddles glassed over with chill sheets of ice – flashes across the doctor’s brain like a cool breeze, he reaches automatically for the coffee that is handed to him. ‘Thank you,’ he says. Shukran.

Jones only manages a nod though quickly the bitter taste revives him. He wishes he had not come to the desert. Aboard the Palinurus there was at least the prospect of a breeze. They will be back at the coast in perhaps ten days and will rendezvous with the ship a fortnight after that. This seems an interminable period to bear the baking, desiccated hellhole through which they are travelling, though the men surely will endure it – they are determined.

The Dhofari squats and sips alongside the white men. ‘Tonight we will have milk, in sh’allah,’ he says.

If Allah wills it.

‘We will reach the Bedu soon?’ Jones checks.

The man bristles. ‘Tomorrow, perhaps.’

The Bedouin encampment is the halfway mark – as far as they will venture this trip. Though the arrangement had been made for them and a price agreed, the timescale had been, of necessity, fuzzy. However, now they are embarked, the Bedu will be expecting their arrival, for news travels quickly in the desert – far more quickly, the white men are coming to realise, than in London where at least a fellow has a chance of keeping a secret. An adept guide can tell an enormous amount from a few blunt scratches in the sand. These men recognise one camel’s tracks from another, how many are in the party and who is injured or ill. The tribesmen have a keen memory for the precise pattern each camel makes on the shifting landscape – the beast’s hoofmarks and its individual gait. Out on the sands a mere line out of place tells them there is a foreigner riding a camel. While a desiccated turd robs an entire, long-gone caravan of all its secrets. They are like fortune tellers.

Jones is not interested in the native population and remains unimpressed by their tracking skills. The lieutenant has it in mind to find out more about transporting Arabian horses back to Europe – his own private concern rather than that of the Marine. Thoroughbreds are the only civilised international currency the Peninsula has to offer. Now they cannot send slaves home to London, that is, and it looks likely that the Empire will soon close its doors to human traffic besides and there will be no trade westwards either. Jones had hoped for jewels in Arabia. He had daydreamed of pearls as round as muscat grapes and plentiful as if on the vine, of emeralds big enough to fill a handmaiden’s belly button and diamonds bright and copious, like desert stars. His dreams have been quickly shattered. While there are occasional treasures, most of the people on the Peninsula are poor and, like everywhere else in the world, riches are hard to come by. A tenant farmer at home probably owns more in the way of material goods than the average emir. Jones is coming to accept there is little either His Majesty or himself is likely to profit from this expedition. No wonder the whole damn country is full of beggars. Paupers to a man, the Arabs. Jones empties his cup and once more curses his misfortune to be sent here of all places after the high society of Bombay where he hobnobbed with senior officers’ daughters and gambled copiously in the mess. The cellar in India was much finer than he expected and due to the large amount of Jocks in almost every regiment, the whisky, in particular, was excellent. By contrast, Arabia is an unforgiving country and although some of the officers seem almost to enjoy the hardship, Jones is not one of them. He is merely getting on with what he has to and hoping to get away with as much for himself as he can.

‘Good heavens,’ Jessop mumbles under his breath, sitting up slightly and staring at the chap with the camel. ‘Well, if that doesn’t take the biscuit.’

The Dhofari finishes his coffee and begins to laugh at the wide, blue eyes of the white men as they realise what his brother is doing. He takes a stick of araq from his robe and carefully begins to pick, cleaning his teeth as he studies Jessop and Jones’ facial expressions.

‘Good Lord,’ Jones echoes, his face even pinker than usual. This country takes everything a step too far, he thinks. ‘Is he actually …?’

‘Yes. Yes, old man,’ Jessop nods. The doctor is the son of a gentleman farmer and used to livestock but his voice is still incredulous. ‘I do believe he is sewing up the animal’s arsehole.’

‘She give milk soon. Very soon,’ the Dhofari assures them in a low voice.

This place is completely beyond the pale. Jones shudders. He is thirsty, of course, and hungry too if it comes to that, but he finds himself unsure now if he will be able to drink the camel’s milk after all.

Chapter Four

Zena has never seen the sea before and it takes her by surprise. The Indian Ocean is a startling blue, and the unrelenting African sunshine plays on its surface so that, for all the world, the water could be studded with diamonds or, perhaps, stars. It is the sound that is most striking though – the movement of the waves as they roll onto the sand is like the voice of a great god. The slavers allow the group to stop a moment and the slaves turn towards what Zena calls in her mind, the Giant Blue. She is so stunned by the majesty of it that she is almost glad they have brought her here and stares rapt at the water as goosebumps rise down her arm at the great booming rush of the waves.

It is undeniably beautiful, though some of the others are afraid and one or two let out a scream. The slavers stare openly at the faces of their cargo. This feels like a ritual – something they know to do and the group spends a moment in silence as, after the initial fear, an air of reverent awe descends upon the villagers. These people worship rainclouds and sunshine, they give offerings to the god of thunder, but the phenomenon before them now is so huge that it is almost beyond comprehension. It is as if they have been brought to the very edge of the world. The slavers have stolen the youngest of each tribe and, apart from Zena, who at seventeen summers is one of the older captives, not one child in the party has even heard of the sea.

I had no idea it was so, so … The words trail in her mind for she cannot decide which ones to use to describe the shimmering vision before her. As she grasps for an adjective, one of the boys breaks away from the group, free from his bonds since that morning when the slavers clearly decided they had broken enough spirits to simply herd the villagers without having to slow the party by keeping them tied. They watch him whooping with joy as he runs, long-limbed, into the water, falling face down on the bounty for they have been dry-mouthed for days. Water has been in short supply since they left the village. The boy realises, too late, that the sea is salt. Two of the slavers trudge wearily into the surf and pull him out. Laughing, they slap him soundly and he folds on the sand so you’d hardly believe he’d bounced so elegantly into the water.

‘It will poison you, you fool.’

Zena is perturbed. The sea is so beautiful it is strange it should be deadly – no one has ever mentioned that before. But then she is learning that in life, away from all she has known, things generally are not what they seem. Not so far.

Kasim and Ibn Mohammed wave the party on. Zena hears Kasim say, ‘I always wonder which one will be the brave child.’

Ibn Mohammed only stares. ‘The foolish child, surely. That boy will be dead before the trip is done.’

The men agree on this as if it is a simple matter of fact, something they have seen many times before. Zena wonders if curiosity in these circumstances is always fatal? Or is it the boy’s propensity for action – the very fact that he tried to help himself that will doom him? She shudders in the sunshine. What on earth are they walking towards? What do these men in dark robes have in mind? Now the ropes are untied, she is not sure what it is that is stopping her from running back into the undergrowth and making for home, where those left behind will surely have buried her uncle, resurrected what was left of the village and, in the sensible way of her family, got on with their lives. She is afraid and yet something here is fascinating – she likes the water. She is enticed by the prospect of seeing the wider world – a place she has already been privileged to hear about but has never visited. Zena glances inland despite herself and then focuses on the movement of her feet. The slavers are watching all the time. They sleep in shifts and can smell dissention, or perhaps courage. You need only pitch in the wrong direction or trip and they will flog you. Kasim’s eyes sparkle and Ibn Mohammed, for the most part, maintains his cold outward appearance. She has never met people so removed from those around them. The whole party is cowed and the Arabs need only give an order for everyone to jump to action. The men’s authority is impressive.

I will stay, she decides, feeling sick in the pit of her belly. It is important to Zena to pretend she has a choice.

Chapter Five

To the east, on the ocean, the atmosphere aboard the Palinurus has become intolerable on more than one count since the departure of Dr Jessop and First Lieutenant Jones from the complement of officers. If only the damn malaria had taken Wellsted instead of any of the others, Captain Haines curses to himself. However much Haines hates losing good men to the fever, even as he is damning his only surviving lieutenant’s good health, he feels a wave of shame. He does not admit that the reason he is so angry is because he wanted to achieve what Wellsted has done and write a memoir of their trip so far. Instead, he blusters that the lieutenant is an upstart who has behaved abominably. Still, the captain has to grudgingly allow that perhaps to wish Wellsted dead is too harsh.

The mortalities were unexpected, of course – if Haines had known that a fever was about to break out, he would never have sent Jessop onto the jabel. Choosing him for the mission, Haines can’t help thinking, was an unfortunate mistake. Had he been aboard, the doctor might have been able to save at least some of the crew from the sickness. But the man was keen and how was Haines to know what was going to happen? Generally, this side of Africa, if a chap survives his first weeks in Bombay, he tends to be fine. The dead men, of course, wherever their souls may be, probably don’t believe that anymore. In only a few days, over half the Palinurus’ officers and a third of the crew have died. However, despite the losses and the weather, the Palinurus is still making progress along the coast, the chart is coming along, the soundings are accurate and the brig has so far not run into a single French vessel. Nonetheless, the captain has a strong sense of duty for his men’s welfare, the stricken cadavers buried at sea weigh on his mind and he blames himself. Still, rather than think on it too deeply, he diverts his inner invective towards his only remaining senior officer.

It was only a few days before the malaria outbreak that the captain found by chance the package that contained Wellsted’s memoir while he was checking the mail going off the vessel. Damn cheek! Now he wishes he had stopped its dispatch, but at the time he felt so wounded at what the lieutenant had written, so terribly shocked at the man’s blatant use of other officers’ experiences and discoveries that he went into some kind of shock and simply parcelled up the damn thing again and sent it on its way, for his overwhelming emotion, at first, was that he wanted rid of it.

The book Haines intended to write about the trip would have used, of course, much the same material, but as captain he considers that his right. Haines envisioned reporting to the Royal Society as the head of the expedition and doling out credit where it was due to his talented officers whose dedication, he had decided on wording it, was a credit to both the expedition and the Bombay Marine. He’d have credited Wellsted, of course. However, the lieutenant’s manuscript has squarely put paid to any such grandiose dreams and Haines wishes he could recall the parcel, which by now will no doubt have cleared the Red Sea and, safe aboard a company ship, be dispatched westwards to London. What rankles the captain most is that Wellsted did not dedicate the tome to him. In an unheard of lapse of etiquette, the lieutenant barely mentioned any of the other men on board, least of all the illustrious Haines. Worst of all, he is entirely unapologetic, which only makes Haines even more furious. When the hell did the man find the time to write a damn book, anyway?

A knock on the cabin door interrupts Haines’ furious train of thought. Three midshipmen hover in the doorway, boys of eleven, twelve and thirteen years of age, dressed in pale breeches and smart, brass-buttoned, navy jackets. Their hair is uniformly the colour of wet sand and they look so alike that they could be brothers, though really they are only brothers in arms. Haines notes to himself that they have been through a great deal, these boys and they are good lads. They have seen, between them, too many cadavers the last few days. As the captain motions them into the room, by far the largest on the ship, the boys seem suddenly taller as if growing into the space. Each of them silently hopes that one day he will be man enough to be called captain.

‘Ah. Dinner. Yes,’ says Haines.

Jardine, the captain’s portly, Scottish steward follows the deputation, closing the door behind him with an unexpectedly deft flick of the ankle. The man’s face is like a craggy cliff of pink chalk, fallen away slightly on one side, as if the steward’s very person is as old as time and disappearing gradually into the sea. There was, during the time of the fever, no expectation that Jardine might succumb; he is an indestructible kind of fellow. Now in one hand he holds a decanter of brandy and in the other a flacon of red wine, which he lays on the table.

‘What is it tonight, Jardine?’

‘Mutton, sir. Stewed,’ he replies, lopsided in the mouth.

They last resupplied far south of Makkah and bought a flock of small, dark-coated sheep from an unwilling tribe of Wahabi for a small fortune. Supplies further along the coast have proved limited. Many of the Musselmen refuse to trade with the English at all although some tribes are easier than others. This coast – to the east of the Red Sea – is proving particularly troublesome. Islam, in this area, appears to be taken to extremes and is most unforgiving in its tenets – quite a contrast to the more laissez-faire Ibadis who populate the other side of the Peninsula and to the south. In this neck of the woods the mere sight of white skin often provokes an apoplexy of virulent hatred. The landing parties have been spat upon, screamed at and chased off at knife point by wild-eyed, pale-robed assailants spewing a torrent of abuse, which upon later translation, turned out to mean ‘Eat pig, pig-eaters!’ and the like. At one port a merchant even pissed into a sack of flour rather than sell it to the infidel ship to be eaten by unbelievers. ‘Die empty-bellied, kafir,’ the man sneered. No amount of money or attempt at goodwill seems to make the long-bearded zealots change their minds. The holy cities are closed to foreigners so it has been mutton for some weeks now, supplemented with thin dates, ship’s tack, sheep’s milk, coffee, a small amount of cornbread and any decent-sized fish the younger members of the crew can scoop out of the water.

‘Well, lads, you did not join up, I trust, in the hope of feasting at the expense of the Bombay Marine?’

Haines pours his officers a glass each.

‘A toast, shall we?’ he says with largesse.

That very morning the last of the dead was buried at sea – an Irish seadog from Belfast called Johnny Mullins, who fought the malaria like a trouper but lost in the end. All members of the crew who caught the sickness are either dead or cured now. The worst has passed and Haines holds up his glass.

‘We survivors, gentlemen. May our poor fellows rest in peace.’

The boys shift uneasily. Protocol demands that they do not start the proceedings of dinner without all the invited officers present. They may be young, but they know the form.

‘Come now,’ says the captain testily, imposing his authority.

Slowly, the boys concur. Uneasily, they pick up their glasses and down the wine.

‘Jardine!’ the captain calls for service.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Mutton stew is it?’

‘Yes, sir. With seaweeds. But …’

‘If Lieutenant Wellsted cannot be troubled to join us on time, then I see no reason why we should wait on his pleasure.’

Haines turns back to the little group.

‘Now,’ he says. ‘The soundings you took today, young Ormsby. I checked over your work and I was most impressed. Heaving the lead all afternoon like that and collating your measurements with excellent accuracy – why, you are a regular Maudsley man, are you not? We’ll have you in charge of this survey yet!’

Ormsby’s grin could illuminate London Bridge. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he says as Jardine shuffles in with a pewter casserole dish, steam emanating from the open lid, and starts to serve the officers their dinner.

Chapter Six

Jessop and Jones are coming to realise that the Dhofaris have a very different sense of time. Or, as the lieutenant puts it, ‘You cannot trust a word the buggers say.’ It has been another day or two to the emir’s camp for almost a week now, and no manner of earnest enquiry elicits any other response from the men, than occasionally, a wry shrug of the shoulders. Jessop restricts Jones from becoming too insistent.

‘We are not in such a rush, old man,’ he points out.

It is long enough till the men’s rendezvous with the Palinurus that they have time to lag behind their schedule.

Apart from their inability to keep to a timetable, Jessop finds the Dhofaris very pleasant. They are endlessly patient with his attempts to map the route, which is proving extremely difficult. For a start, for most of the day, the brass instruments the doctor brought for the job are far too hot to touch.

‘Sort of thing you don’t realise in Southampton,’ he smiles.

Jones does not find this kind of thing amusing. The tasks are as much his as the doctor’s to complete but the lieutenant constantly gives up, the doctor considers, a mite too easily for an English officer who is charged with what is, after all, the fairly routine, if inconvenient, mission of checking the lie of the land. The Dhofaris bind their hands in cloth and try their best to assist.

At night, by the panorama of low-slung stars with which the region is blessed, the instruments provide better results. The sand dunes, however, are tricky to render. The wind will move them long before the next British mission comes inland, making that element of the map all but useless. There is no landscape on earth as changeable as the desert, Jessop muses. While the Northumberland hills where he grew up have remained largely the same for thousands of years, the features of the desert landscape might last no more than a few weeks. The doctor does not give up, though. He merely notates all his thoughts and as much detail as he can manage, down to the fact that the thin goats the Dhofaris have brought have shorter carcasses than their European cousins and are surprisingly tasty. A chap never knows what might prove a useful piece of information – which shrub will turn out to hold a priceless secret that can be used in British industry, or the understanding of which local custom will endear a later British delegation to an emir or a caliph and secure a lucrative trade agreement. Dr Jessop, unlike Lieutenant Jones, is focussed clearly on what the East India Company requires of him. He notes each twenty-four hours the mileage they have managed to cover and estimates that a thirsty camel can drink twenty gallons in less than three minutes.

As they make camp in the middle of the morning and settle down to sleep for the hottest part of the day under a hastily erected tent that provides shade probably only a degree or two cooler than the baking sand adjacent to it, the doctor dresses a burn on the older Dhofari’s hand. The wound was acquired in the service of the British Empire, after all. He daubs lavender ointment across the skin. Kindness, the doctor always thinks, is terribly important to a patient. When he first qualified, many of his patients healed all the quicker, he’s sure, for his attention, rather than simply his medical knowledge.

‘I don’t know why you bother, old chap,’ Jones mumbles sleepily to his companion.

‘I have the ointment with me, it costs me nothing,’ the doctor points out.

Jones turns over. ‘Night night,’ he murmurs like a child rather than one of His Majesty’s finest.

Jessop burrows himself an indent in the sand. It is really very telling, he muses. Jones didn’t seem – he angles for the right word – so very ungentlemanly when they were aboard ship. He glances at the blinding orb that is reaching its height. The doctor prefers travelling by the stars. Night in the desert is quite the most extraordinary spectacle.

‘Good night,’ he returns, rather more formally, and settles down to sleep for a few hours before they get on their way.

Chapter Seven

It feels to Zena as if she has walked into a nightmare. In the low-ceilinged hold of the Arab dhow there are eighty prisoners shackled. Seventy-one of them are still alive though the shit swills around their chapped ankles and all still living are so faint from hunger and thirst that they scarcely feel it sting. Most have never before seen so many people as they are now crammed up against and for all it is an abomination not to bury the dead before sundown. They have been eleven days on board the mashua. It is this that worries her most. The majority of the slaves are ignorant of the geography both of where they came from and where they might be going, but Zena lived for six years with her grandmother, high in the cool, emerald hills of northern Abyssinia, less than two hundred miles from the cosmopolitan and bustling trading town of Bussaba. The old lady was respected and her house was a prosperous staging post of some renown for travelling caravans and pilgrims. Within its compound, Zena’s grandmother’s rules were simple and absolute: no weapons, no theft of either person or property.

It was in that place of safety that Zena learnt about faraway lands and the limits of the slave routes. She heard tell of a variety of gods and legends – all of which seemed merely curious to her, for her grandmother believed in nothing except, she always said, the goodness of people as long as you were firm. The travellers talked about where they had been and where they were going to and, though Zena has never seen a map, it is as a result of these many conversations that it is clear to her that eleven days on a ship is further than these men really need to go simply to sell her.

At the port she was separated from everyone she knew and marched aboard another vessel with strangers hand-picked from other slave raids, for it seems, though the slavers clearly prefer the young, the different quality of human cargo merits different destinations. At least that is her best guess, for as far as she can tell, the ships are not sailing together and Zena knows no one aboard. There will be, she has come to realise, no getting away. Simply to survive the crossing will be a feat.

Sitting well-fed beside her grandmother’s fire, the names of the foreign climes sounded exotic – Muscat and Sur, Constantinople and Zanzibar, Bombay and Calicut. The strange tone of the men’s skin seemed benign, somehow, as they talked wistfully of their homeland or their religious devotions. There were Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Animists and Jews and they came in all shades of brown – Nubian princes, Wahabi emirs, minor Persian noblemen, Turkish traders, the dusky emissaries of caliphs and sultans, Semitic merchants, Indian warriors, Somali pirates and Abyssinian bishops. Each and every one of the strangers was tattooed and pierced with the markings of their individual tribe – some shaven and some with long beards, some bare-headed and others with ornate headdresses or brightly coloured turbans. They dressed differently too – in white flowing robes, or embroidered jubbahs, or animal-skin capes adorned in ostrich feathers or sometimes simply in a hessian winding cloth. Under her grandmother’s watchful eye, Zena served platters of food to all of them – spiced couscous and succulent lamb piled high with melted butter poured on top till it dripped from the edge of the plate. Roasted chicken stuffed with fruit and nuts and gleaming with basting juices. Spicy wot, stewed till it almost melted into the hot injera bread. Latterly, she danced for the strangers to the beat held by Yari, her grandmother’s fat, Anatolian eunuch who played the drums. When they found out she was not a mere servant (one of many) or indeed a slave girl (even more), but a favoured grandchild, many of the visitors paid her attention and left her gifts – a phial of perfume or a length of silk. There are no gifts now.

After the third day aboard, in the darkness of the hold, she can see this new ship is following the coast to the south and, between the intermittent keening of the other women and the praying of the men, silent tears stream down her face. There can be no going back now, she mouths. All she can think of is returning to the village, and what might be there if she does. So much loss. A grave. Her mother, always surly. A marriage Zena never sought for herself, now long overdue. It should not have happened like this, she thinks. In the darkness, it is safe to mourn so she cries for a long time.

On the sixth day, after silence and exhaustion finally prevail below deck and all surrender themselves to the stifling crush, Zena notices through a tiny strip of light in the bulwark above her head that the land is on the wrong side of the ship and she knows they have turned eastwards. These territories are strange to her – she retains in her memory only some names and meagre scraps of information, but it is enough to realise the scale of the distance she now lies from home and the impossibility of an easy return.

Her grandmother’s death sent her back to the village only a few weeks before – back to her parents who had hoped for better for her. The stone compound was inherited by her mother’s elder brother who arrived a week after the burial with several camels, a horse or two and a cold-eyed wife in full burquah. He took stock of his new home, ordered an ox to be killed and cooked in celebration and banished Zena at the first opportunity.

‘Go home and get married, child,’ he commanded. ‘There is nothing for you here.’

Her presence had always been unorthodox and so, as he was fully entitled, he sent her, with only one servant and one camel, back to the shamble of huts where she was born. She travelled light with just one small wooden box of trinkets and baubles and a few lengths of dark cotton. At the time, she thought the old lady’s passing was the saddest thing that would ever happen – Zena loved her grandmother. She had nursed Baba devotedly through her short illness. When death finally came, Zena washed the old woman’s naked body and wrapped it in a white linen shroud. The servants buried the corpse and then Zena cried for three days without sleeping. Yari fed her yoghurt and honey though she scarcely tasted it.

Above Zena’s head, the hold opens suddenly and those in the way pull back from the bright stream of blinding light that beams down. A bucket of brackish water is lowered on a rope and two more of scraps – rancid fat, raw fish and rock-hard khubz. The slaves fall upon it, tearing at each other to secure a cupped handful of water and a mouthful of food. A sound that Zena identifies as laughter floats down from the white square above her head as she eats the mush between her fingers and tries not to retch. Then the light is obliterated.

The following day, a ladder is lowered and two men climb into the darkness. Each has a cloth tied round his mouth and nose, for the stench is foul. Together, they roughly remove the dead, hacking the chains and hoisting the stiff bodies over their backs. When the hatch closes behind them once more, they throw the cadavers into the sea from above, like a fishwife emptying a pan of trash – a shudder runs through the cabin as the survivors hear the splash, though all are relieved the rotting corpses are finally gone.

The night after, the ship arrives in Muscat, rolls up its sail and the slaves are marched onto the deck by the light of the moon to be doused in sea water under the careful, still gaze of Asaf Ibn Mohammed. As the sky lightens and the Muslim call to prayer echoes over the city from minarets dotted along the shoreline of the sapphire bay, Zena catches sight of Kasim in the shadows, feeding scraps to a small guenon monkey he must have captured in the forest – a white-lipped tamarin. The little beast is tethered to him on a string but the animal is cleaner and better cared for than any of the dhow’s human cargo. Zena is not sure, but thinks that she can make out that it is eating fruit of some kind. Gently, the man who less than a month ago beat Zena’s uncle to death sets the animal to one side with a small, metal cup of water so he can watch the slaves disembarking. He does not move into the light as three huge negroes, six feet tall, bound in muscles, their veins standing out like vines over sculpted stone and their eyes like the eyes of statues, bundle the new shipment ashore into a rickety warehouse. Everyone is so afraid and so glad to be on land again that not one single protest is raised. It would make no matter, in any case, for the handlers are in possession of both whips and the strength of lions. They are deliberately only dressed in indigo loincloths so that every rock-hard muscle is on show. What starving, enfeebled fool is going to try to make his case in the face of such strength? Who would dare even ask a question? These men can slice the weakest of them right down the middle and drink their blood, if they wish it, and no one will say a thing.

Locked inside the warehouse, Zena knows what to expect. She’s heard of this. Her skin will be oiled for the marketplace, which is surely close by. She can hear it, smell it. She feels sick with apprehension and hunger as she squats and waits. No one says a word, though two boys, not more than twelve and probably brothers, if Zena guesses correctly, hold hands. Wafting from a distance, they hear the waves of communal prayer that accompany the dawn. The haunting words of the Salat sung by a mullah with a strong, clear voice: ‘You alone we worship. You alone we ask for help.’

I should have run, she berates herself, thinking of the proximity of the undergrowth near the beach. She knows she is confused. One moment one thing, one moment another. But right now running seems as if it would have been easy, certainly easier than the long days on the dhow. I might have made it, she thinks. At least I would have tried.

As the dawn rises, the fiery orange gradually fades from the sky and through the slats of the locked door Zena catches bare glimpses of the harbour, slices of Muscat life in the bright morning light. It is unexpectedly beautiful. She has never seen anything like this place – a huge bay bordered by high, green hills. It is a big city, she realises – larger than any settlement she has ever known. The dockside is properly paved and the houses and businesses built of a pale mud crammed between the date palms. The newer constructions are whitewashed so they dazzle when the sun hits them, and over time the older ones have muted to a dun brown. Along the dock there is a castle of some kind – a fortification set back from the water’s edge, with huge, dark guns pointing out to sea over its battlements.

The dock is already busy – a sure sign of a profitable trading port – with forty ships or more at anchor. Outside, the morning’s trade has started – a man with birds in a wicker cage is setting up his stall next to a hawker in a dazzling white jubbah with a litter of prayer mats. The men are boiling water over a small fire and are set to brew mint tea with a sliver of cinnamon and some honey which they will sip from delicate, etched-glass cups. Three dirty goats are tethered between the stalls. A toothless beggar with only one leg and one eye struggles past, arrayed in a filthy swathe of rags, his sole possession a calabash from which he stops intermittently to drink. One of the traders hastens to beat him away. ‘Son of a dog!’ the man shouts, waving his arms as if batting off a fly, the tone of his protestation furious. ‘Away with you!’ Ibn al-kalb. Imshi. Imshi.

‘They will eat us,’ one of the other girls bursts out suddenly as the angry words filter through. Her voice is trembling. ‘No one ever comes back when they are taken. They will eat us all.’

She begins to cry, huge sobs wracking her angular, bony frame. The rest of the group remain absolutely silent though a few shoulders round in fear. Zena ignores the hysteric – she knows she will be sold here, not devoured. Besides, seeing Muscat waking up has somehow heartened her. It is not as alien as she might have expected. The city is prosperous, clearly, and if the call to prayer is anything to go by, there are a lot of mosques so perhaps it is also devout. She knows it is unlikely she will get away now, for apart from anything else, where can she run to? But this is a large and cosmopolitan place, she knows more about it than anyone else she is locked up with and the worst, surely, is over. She turns her head towards the light and thinks she must, at least, try to remain hopeful. Someone kind will buy me, she thinks as she clutches her empty stomach and assures herself that she will eat soon, perhaps within the hour.

Chapter Eight

In a five-storey, palatial townhouse on Albemarle Street, just off Piccadilly, John Murray, London’s most prestigious publisher, rises late, the summertime sounds of London finally cutting short his slumbers. Some damn fool is shouting his wares at the top of his voice. Murray has to concentrate for the words to become distinct – he has never woken easily and it always takes him a while to come to full consciousness. After a few seconds it becomes apparent that the costermonger has roused the master of the house over some beets and pears that are available to purchase. Murray groans and reaches over to the other side of the bed. His wife is already gone and he is glad of it. They squabble almost constantly and he tries to avoid her whenever he can – the damn woman is as bad as his mother. She will, like many upper-class ladies, leave town at the end of the month to visit friends in the country, and Murray (unlike many upper-class gentlemen) will remain in the capital, shot of her for a few, satisfying weeks. It is a cheering thought.

He makes use of the chamber pot and stows it back under the bed. Then, rather than calling for his valet, he washes in a desultory fashion, pulling on his wig haphazardly, preoccupied over whether he might have chocolate this morning with his rolls, or coffee. Still debating this, he takes the stairs down at a sharpish trot to the sunny, yellow drawing room on the first floor. He never will get used to the portrait of Lord Byron over the mantel, though, of course, to remove it would cause a scandal were further scandal required. It has been a good ten years since Murray’s father famously burned Byron’s memoirs to safeguard public morality, and hardly a week passes even now that he is not asked by some starry-eyed matron or other if the old codger had, by chance, ever mentioned to his son the nature of the manuscript’s contents. Murray considers the matter both foolish and tiresome. He is a serious man of science and his interests do not stretch to poetry – unless perhaps it is German poetry – or indeed to much in the way of scandal. Byron’s musings on sherbet and sodomy might have funded Murray’s education, but now, as he has been known to dryly remark, it is time to put aside such childish things. At least in conversation – for Byron’s full canon still graces the great publisher’s list and sells at least several hundred copies every year. In addition, each week Murray receives by post a number of attempts at Byronic genius, all of which, on principle, he consigns to the fire.

Coffee, Murray decides.

The enticing smell of fresh bread is floating upstairs from the kitchens in the basement and he can almost taste the melting butter and lemon conserve already. A glass of rhenish, some ham perhaps and he will be set.

There is a pile of correspondence on his desk and, as it is Friday, he might have passed it by for it is his habit to ride on a Friday morning, but there is one packet that catches his eye. Neither the handwriting nor the paper is extraordinary but in the small, nondescript, black wax seal there are embedded some grains of sand. Murray breaks open the packet with a satisfying click and inside lies a manuscript bound in worn card, accompanied by a covering letter dated several weeks before and written in a neat hand.

Dear Sir,

I wish to offer for your consideration an account of my recent exploration and adventures on the island of Socotra where I have been humbly employed as an officer of the Indian Navy during the current survey of the Red Sea by the ship Palinurus. I hope you might wish to publish my unworthy writings and find them of some small interest.

Yours, etc.,

James Raymond Wellsted (Lieutenant)

Murray crosses the room and spins the leather globe until he finds the Red Sea. Then he peers short-sightedly to try to identify the islands nearby. He has never heard of this Socotra place but with the help of a magnifying glass he quickly plants a firm finger over the speck of the island, which is far smaller than his nail. It is perched to the east of Abyssinia and to the south of Oman.

I must ask George about this, he thinks.

Murray will be dining that evening with the President of the Royal Geographical Society and his beautiful wife, Louisa. The manuscript might make for some interesting dinner conversation over the roast fowl and jellied beets. His wife will not like it, for her interests do not run to anything the least bit sensible, but Murray, like most of London, is eager for news of the Empire’s burgeoning territories – the more exotic, the better – and a keen sense for a bestseller is in his blood. If it is written well, an explorer’s memoir is generally a sure-fire success. So many people these days are either venturing abroad themselves, or have relations in the far reaches, that there is something of a vogue for travel writing and Murray’s view is that he will be publishing more and more of the stuff. After all, it is worthy, educational and occasionally exciting (all of which he approves far more than any damned fiction). There is a market, he fancies, for some kind of guidance for those embarking on life overseas. He must make a note of that, he thinks, and scrambles around for a clean sheet of paper. In any case, the prospect of dinner tonight is especially entertaining and, he is certain, there may even be pear pudding, for that costermonger had been right outside. Cook surely will have availed the household of fresh pears if it is possible, will she not – first of the season this early in July? Socotra, eh? Sounds fascinating. Murray hopes George will be able to tell him if the island is Arabian or African, for a start. An interesting conundrum given its position on the map between the two territories.

Murray rings the bell and the butler appears almost instantly.

‘Bring me breakfast here, would you?’ he asks as he sinks into the high-backed, wooden chair at his desk and pulls a plush, yellow, velvet pillow into the crook of his back. The long windows behind him let in a flood of light – perfect for reading. Many of England’s greatest publishing success stories have started their journey at this desk, in this light.

‘Coffee, I think. And tell Jack I won’t need Belle saddled just yet.’

And with the tiniest speck of sand loosing itself from Wellsted’s missive and falling onto the wide, dark boards that span the floor, John Murray begins to read.

Chapter Nine

It is almost midday when Jessop and Jones spot the tents. Nothing moves out on the burning sands, even the scorpions have buried themselves. The first they know that there is any life at all is the eddy of dust that floats into the air as the men come out, tiny specks on the horizon standing at the fringe of the lush oasis, to watch the foreigners and their party arrive from well over a mile away. While Jones’ attention is immediately taken up by the Arabian horses tethered in a makeshift corral, Jessop considers the place itself extraordinary. Despite the heat and the difficulty of the journey, the doctor is glad to be here. As the senior officer, he took the decision simply to keep going because, with the instincts of a true traveller, this time when the men said they were close to reaching the destination he believed them.

Now, he is ushered into the emir’s tent and makes his salaams as he has been shown in Bombay, in preparation for just this kind of occasion – an introduction to someone of some small power who might be of use on His Majesty’s business. Jessop gives the emir the payment that has been agreed and then entreats the ruler to allow him to help the children of the camp. The doctor can see the young ones are suffering from an eye infection. Thin and angular as baby storks, they tarry at the tent flaps, blinking through their swollen eyelids, batting off the flies, their feet bare and their arms like sticks. Fresh burn marks pock their little legs – the Omanis treat pain with pain and burn flesh to purify from disease; it is the best they can do.

‘I am a doctor,’ he explains. ‘Let me try my white man’s medicine. I will do my best.’

‘Bitsalam yadak,’ the emir replies graciously, which Jessop takes to mean, ‘May God keep your hands safe.’ A good sign, surely.

In another tent, Jessop inspects the eleven children who seem even more like fragile, strange, featherless birds now they are grouped together. When he asks questions, the women tending them shy away, but one of the men becomes a go-between, attempting the translation. In the main this is achieved by the means of hand movements as much as the Englishman’s sparse Arabic vocabulary, which is hindered further by his accent. The upshot is, Jessop concludes, that the infection has been spread by the kohl used on the youngsters’ eyelids. Kohl is widely believed to be medicinal in Arabia and is used to keep the eyes moist, but often people do not wash it between applications. When one of children got a windblown infection, it spread rapidly to the others. Now one or two are even sporting pustules ripe with suppurating mucus.

‘Bring me water, please,’ he asks his translator, who eyes him with suspicion, but returns quickly with a flask nonetheless.

Calmly, Jessop takes each child in turn and washes away the black powder with precious water. The children squeal for they are used to cleaning themselves only with sand – water is far too scarce to be used for bathing. As the drops slide down their faces, they lap them up with their tongues, unwilling to allow even a teaspoonful to go to waste. Once the infection has been cleaned, the doctor breaks out the contents of his leather bag. This is one of the reasons he joined the service – Jessop likes to help and, big of heart and strong of stomach, he shows no horror or revulsion at whatever he is presented with. He mixes a solution of vinegar and applies it to each child in turn as an eyewash. It stings. The younger children make a fuss, the older ones succumb in silence.

‘That should help,’ he says. ‘We will look at it again tomorrow. Salaam,’ he says, bowing as he takes his leave.

Jones has stationed himself by the corral and has been trying to strike up a conversation with the horsemen. The refinement of the breed is most appealing. The finely chiselled bone and the concave profile, the comparatively high level croup and high-carried tail make the Arabians an enticing prospect. They are wonderful, majestic beasts and no mistake and the lieutenant has to admit he is moved when he sees two of the robe-swathed men from the encampment saddling up. They cut a queer kind of dash that stirs excitement in the whole group, and while the doctor faffs about with the barefoot children, everyone else comes out to watch the men set off. Where they are riding to is a mystery – perhaps they are only taking the animals for their daily exercise. The horses are worth a fortune; Jones isn’t sure yet where the best of the money is to be made, but he can almost smell that there is money in it somewhere – be it shipping home pure breeds or using an Arab stallion to cover a mare of another breed – there is something for which he knows the fashionable and wealthy around St James’s will pay through the nose. Some already are. Napoleon rode an Arabian, of course, but that is no matter for the King himself now has one – a present that arrived last year from the Sultan of Muscat and Oman. To Jones this is as good as receiving direct royal approval for his project. It is the sheer quality of the animals that will attract society and he knows if he can get a shipment or two back to Blighty, he’ll make his fortune. No smart family wants to be without the latest breed to take the royal fancy.

Jones pulls out his notebook, his mouth almost watering at the thought of the stud fees and what he might achieve when in receipt of them, given the faded glory of his family’s London house. He clears his throat and, with a sense of history, or at least publicity, puts pen to paper, for he will need notes to validate the authenticity of the animals and his experiences in selecting them.

The emir seems glad of our company and has invited us to feast with him. It is no cooler but the water here is very plentiful if slightly sour in taste. Coming in from the desert my camel drank for a full ten minutes. Brave beast, she has served me well and kept us supplied in milk the last days of our journey. There are seventy or eighty people in the encampment – the emir, his family, retainers and slaves. All are respectful and courteous. I envy these men little other than their horses – the horses are beautiful, though, and very fine.

By contrast, it is immediately apparent that the Bedu are less impressed by the infidels. Some of them have seen white men before – those who have taken caravans to the coast where if you linger long in any seaport between here and India you are sure to catch sight of a Nazarene – strange-looking creatures. Their blue eyes remind the Bedu of the sky, seen through the empty eye sockets of a bleached, white skull. They are haughty too, like living phantoms, zombies greedy for the lifeblood of Arabia. When the white men speak they always ask questions and the Bedu know what that means.

‘You do not have horses in England?’ Jones is challenged bluntly when he enquires about the breeding habits of the animals, where they can be bought and for how much. The Bedu are close to their livestock – camels, horses or goats – and at least as protective of such property as they are of their wives. Animals are their only measure of wealth and the truth is that they are unlikely to sell any of their horses unless they have to. Itinerant tribesmen rely on their livestock not only for food and transport but to find water – a good camel can save your life in the desert, and water is the only treasure that matters out on the hot, dry sands. Gold and precious jewels cannot save your life like a decent steed. The horse, of course, has the advantage of speed and intelligence over the camel – and they are necessary for successfully raiding other encampments or carrying important news.

There is a legend in this tribe that as a child, perhaps thirteen years old, the emir was caught out on the sands with only his horse for company. He survived two days without water and did not succumb to panic (a legendary feat in itself). Then when it could go no further, he used his sabre to slaughter his horse and drank its blood to survive. He made it back to his father’s camp on foot the following afternoon with the animal’s blood still crusted on his clothes and around his mouth. He had sucked the carcass dry. It is a tale acknowledged as so extraordinary and heroic that still the people of this tribe tell it to their children and will do so for several years after the emir dies. More importantly, the emir’s enemies tell the same tale to the children of their own camps – as a warning. The tough young man has grown up into a fierce opponent and he is respected and feared across the entire region.

The emir’s men are as hard-nosed as their master, Jones thinks. They continue to bat his questions back to him, revealing nothing in the process. When Jessop strolls out of the family tent he comes to stand by the lieutenant.

‘Nice animals,’ he says, with a nod. ‘I’m glad we arrived today. Several of those children might certainly have gone blind, or died even. If the infection gets into the blood it will poison them. I hope I have been able to avert that.’

Jones is not listening. ‘Thing is with these Arabs,’ he says nonchalantly, ‘they are great traders. They are trying to make me feel like a fool in the hope of gaining a better price.’

Chapter Ten

Zena is running. She is running so fast to get away that she doesn’t even feel the ground beneath her feet or the sun on her skin. Her body is almost silent – the way a dyk dyk moves through the trees at speed – the flash of a leaf and the movement of a branch. It’s like being invisible. Zena has hardly ever had occasion to run before – not since she was a child and she played with the others, hiding in the bushes and splashing in the stream. That was many years ago now, and this kind of running is different. It is a sensation that is both desperate and strange. Her breath comes fluidly and the further she goes the more energy she has. She does not look back. She can take any direction she likes. At least that is how it feels at first. After a little while she realises that she is being followed so she picks up the pace, stretching her limbs further.

I’ll never stop, she thinks. Running is all I want to do now. Running until I get shot of these strange men and this strange place.

The thought is no sooner formed than a hand claps down heavily onto her shoulder and pulls her to a stop. Forcefully, the palm pushes her onto her knees. Her heart flutters as she tries to stay upright. Her stomach turns. She has a sudden burst of energy and tries to pull away, but he is shaking her whole body, forcing her to the ground.

‘Wake up! Stupid female!’ the voice says.

Her limbs twitch as she opens her eyes, the lids heavy and her vision bleary with sleep. She bats her hand in front of her as if to move a fly and it is struck sharply.

‘Get up!’ the voice orders as she rubs the stinging flesh on her fingers.

The darkness of the warehouse is a shock and at first she can’t make out where she is. In her dream she was running in the sunshine. Still groggy despite the blow, for it was a much-needed and wonderfully deep sleep, Zena struggles to her feet, feeling confused. The man before her is small and his rounded belly shapes his jubbah. He has a purple and green embroidered cap on his balding head and he inspects the girl with the sharp eye of a cold-hearted appraiser.

‘Yes, this one will do well, I think. Kasim said she was a worthwhile piece. All in all this has been a very good consignment.’

Zena wonders how long she slept. About half of the people who were stowed in the hut are now gone, and in the doorway there are two old men, black sidi slaves, carrying a vat of something that smells rancid. Her appetite sharpened, she feels a rush of hope that she might be able to eat it.

The plump auctioneer moves on, separating twelve of the Abyssinian slaves from the others. Then he takes each in turn, ordering them to circle around, show him the soles of their feet and display the insides of their mouths. When he is satisfied, he waves the sidis into action and they move around each person, their dry, old hands smoothing the gloopy oil onto the slaves’ parched skin and rubbing it into their hair to make it glisten. They are trying to make it look as if the people who survived the journey from Africa were well cared for during the trip. One or two cannot help licking at the fat on their forearms. They wince at its bitter taste and are slapped for removing the shine from their skin. Then, with a rough brush with wire bristles, the sidis comb the hair of the boys, leaving the women be. Most have hair that is still dressed with plaits and beads from their village days, when it was styled by their mothers and sisters. Zena realises that these ordinary hairstyles look enticing, exotic and strange to the eyes of Muscat. Arabic women cover their hair with a veil.

It crosses her mind that for some odd reason she would like to look her best now. She wants them to see that she is no ordinary Abyssinian slave girl like the others. She has been well brought up and loved, adored even. At her grandmother’s house she had slaves of her own. Now, her heart sinks as she looks down sadly at her dirty, tattered dress. It is a thin piece of material, originally a green colour, now brown from the dirt of her long journey. She must look pitiful.

She takes a deep breath and runs her hands over the glistening skin of her arms to give at least a little comfort. I am alone. I am going to be sold, she thinks incredulously.

The doors of the shed open and let in the light. It is afternoon now – the sun has moved across the sky. Beyond the barrels piled up near the doorway, a crowd is gathered and Zena catches a glimpse of a podium surrounded by a jostle of people, all craning to get a better view of the proceedings. The auctioneer leads the way with the sidis ushering the dozen slaves into a line behind him. The marketplace is crowded to capacity and there is no hope of getting away; her dream of running will remain just that. Besides, in the light, clearing the path, are the handlers who ushered the slaves from the ship to the hut that morning. The men tower over the heads of the crowd as they ensure the short auctioneer can make his way unhindered. Zena smiles at the sight. The top of the man’s head comes only as high as their bellies. These men must eat whole chickens to have grown so tall and strong. She pulls her shoulders back and thinks that at least the top of her head will clear the height of their chests and perhaps make it as far as their shoulders.

My name is Zena, she intones to herself and, with a pinch of sadness, she comes to understand that her name is all she has left now as she steps into the heat and the light of the market.

At the auction stand there is a pause so that prospective customers can peruse the goods. Beneath a tatty canopy men peer out of the crowd, strange faces in a strange town with leering, needy expressions, hungry to possess others. Zena lowers her head, but even so she is aware she is arousing interest. A snatch of conversation, a lewd remark. It makes her skin prickle. Under the watchful gaze of the guards, two men prod her in the chest and discuss matters to which her Arabic vocabulary does not extend. She has been protected from all this, she realises. She had no idea of the cruelty and the humiliation that was possible. As the men cackle with laughter she tries not to look at them. She tries not to cry.

‘Are you a virgin?’ one asks. Baakira?

She has heard the word once before when her grandmother refused to allow a neighbouring merchant to take Zena as his wife. Now she pretends not to understand. The man redirects the question to the guard.

‘That one can be whatever you want her to be,’ the man replies. ‘She is beautiful.’ He makes the word sound as if it is an insult.

A boy next to her is ordered to open his mouth and another man, who has emerged from the throng, holds the tongue down with a stick so he can check the child’s teeth. If there was anything in the boy’s stomach he would vomit, but as it is he only makes a dry sound as if he is being strangled. His eyes dart in distress, but no one does anything. As the man moves towards Zena, she keeps her gaze averted. He pulls her head back and stares into her face but he does not use his stick to probe her mouth. He lingers though and she can feel his breath on her skin. Then, slowly, he lets go and walks carefully right around her.

Not him. Zena has never prayed. It was not her grandmother’s custom. However, the phrase runs through her head again and again, as if she is pleading with some greater being. Not him.

A bell is rung though it can hardly be heard over the throng of voices. The man instantly retreats into the crowd. Zena raises her eyes just long enough to see that there are several finely dressed Arabs now turning away, who have looked but not come forward. Perhaps one of those. It occurs to Zena that her grandmother has endowed her with a sense of optimism. Even here and now, she feels optimistic. I will be all right, she tells herself, though she is batting off a cold shadow that is creeping from behind.

‘Gentlemen,’ the auctioneer begins. ‘Today, fresh from Abyssinia, we have a selection of the finest. The absolute finest!’

A scrawny girl is pushed forward into the sun beside the auctioneer’s podium. Her dress is badly torn, exposing the top of her legs. Her shoulders are slumped and one of the guards pokes her to make her stand up straight.

‘And for this little one!’ the auctioneer tries to whip up the crowd. ‘She’ll brush up well enough. A price beyond rubies perhaps?’

Zena heaves in a breath, only glad that all eyes are now on the auctioneer and that momentarily she is not the focus of attention.

‘What am I bid? Twenty, sir? No, surely not? Come now. She is a little thin perhaps but is there not more? I beseech you. Ah, thirty. Thank you …’

And the auction has begun.

Chapter Eleven

Lieutenant James Raymond Wellsted has not taken dinner at the captain’s table, but instead he remains on deck as the shimmering, marmalade sun disappears in a blaze into the vivid, blue sea and the stars rise. He has some dates and tack in his pocket and that will do him fine. The night sky in Arabia is breathtaking and little enough in Wellsted’s life has caused him to take in his breath in wonder, so he greatly appreciates the huge, low moon and the clarity of the studded constellations so close to the equator. Especially now, when so many of his fellows have died. Staring at the moon is the closest he allows himself to get to expressing sentiment. The last few days have been grim and Wellsted already misses each victim of the sickness – two of whom he has known for more than ten years for they were midshipmen together. The younger members of the crew have taken to asking his advice of late on matters of navigation and Wellsted has taken his mind and theirs off the death toll by playing the expert and showing them what they need to know to guide the Palinurus towards Suez, where the brig is set to rendezvous with Captain Moresby on the Benares and make an attempt to sound the very northern limit of the map.

Wellsted wishes he had been stationed aboard Moresby’s vessel. Quite apart from the buckets of vomit and the delirium that has reigned of late aboard the Palinurus, conditions are cramped and that has made the atmosphere worse now that Haines has made known his objections to Wellsted’s manuscript. The captain appears to care more about Wellsted’s scribbles than he does about losing half his officers.

Thirsty, the lieutenant makes his way to the galley and orders hot coffee. Aboard ship the coffee is not as good as ashore. He has watched the Arabs carefully as they grind the roasted beans and brew them over the campfire with a witch’s pocket of spices, but no matter how exactly he emulates their actions, right down to using a rough mat of palm fibre to strain the liquid of its grains, he never can make his concoction taste as good. Still, James Wellsted prefers even poor ship’s coffee to the liberal dose of alcohol the crew imbibe daily. The lieutenant likes his head to be clear. He likes Arabia too. He finds the language comes naturally, the flowing robes give a sense of freedom and the undiscovered nature of the land provides an unspoilt enticement.

Back at the prow, he savours the dryness the coffee leaves in his mouth. Haines’ dinner is finishing and he can hear the midshipmen leaving the cabin, laughing and drunk as they make their way below deck to squeeze their tired bodies into closely packed hammocks. They are pleasant enough – gentlemen’s sons, all three of them, rich in family money and social advantages. Like Wellsted, they left home very young but unlike him they never saw the hideous poverty of the English streets (for it is easy, passing in a carriage to ignore it). Bombay with its skeletal beggars and stinking slums on open display shocked them, the pitiless harshness of Arabia is worse and the rampaging malaria over the last few days has reduced them to tears privately, though each has done his duty and masked his shock from the men. Still, the youngest, Henry Ormsby, has taken to drinking a good deal. He carries a hip flask of brandy inside his jacket. When he arrived on board he had to be warned about gambling. Pelham, one of the crew, a sardonic ne’er-do-well with few brains and fewer teeth, was caught dicing with the young gentleman and was deemed to have taken advantage of Ormsby’s youth and the ready supply of bright shillings from the youngster’s family allowance. The man was flogged for the offence. Unfairly, in Wellsted’s view. Ormsby had begged to be allowed to play and had gambled his money fair and square. If he had won he would have pocketed the winnings.

Captain Haines, with his moral standard hoisted ever high, was scandalised, of course. Wellsted, however, was brought up in Marylebone with his grandfather, Thomas, at the helm. Thomas clawed his way up from a cottage with a dirt floor. He’d worked hard and taken every opportunity that God had given him, and some that were sent by the devil too. A truculent, unforgiving old man, his life’s purpose is to see to it that at least one of his grandchildren rises in society. He pushed his son into the upholstery business and then begged, borrowed and stole to make sure that his workshops were stocked with fabrics so fine that both staunch traditionalists and the avant-garde of the ton sent their business to the Wellsteds and paid, more or less, whatever Old Thomas chose to charge.

‘Where do you find these wonderful silks?’ the ladies breathe. ‘I have never seen any fabric so perfect in my whole life.’

The wily old man says nothing – but it is not a complete coincidence that James’ younger brother, Edward, is apprenticed to the customs service the same year that James joined the Bombay Marine.

When the Indian naval commission came up, Thomas spent almost the entire family savings on securing the position for James.

‘He’s bright. He’ll go far. He’s our best chance,’ Thomas insisted.

James’ parents were slack jawed. It was a fortune, but they complied. Iron of purpose, Thomas dominated the Wellsted household for years, marshalling the entire family behind his purpose: to rise. To this end he made sure that his grandchildren understood the poverty around them on the streets – the constant threat of sliding backwards, of having nothing at all. He’d show them the hoi polloi as if to say, ‘This is what’s possible’, you can belong in the salons of gentlemen customers, all fine damasks and mahogany finishes, with the fire stoked and the servants scrubbed, well fed and respectful, but you can fall too and fall far. As a result, James has seen ragged gin whores aplenty and a regular freak show of pestilence. In London decay simmers constantly, breaking through the surface if only your eyes are peeled. The whole, crowded city is built on a barely contained plateau of shit – open sewers in the streets. Never far away, the Thames is a stinking, rancid, stagnant strip of thick slime, running through the centre of the city. Nothing can live in it.

In such surroundings, people are cruel and even in the gentrified streets of Marylebone, women, children and animals are beaten till they cower by their husbands, fathers and masters. Worse, James’ grandmother died in the front room of number thirteen, of the pox. Blood gushed from her ears and her sphincter lay open permanently for two days as vitality (if you could call it that) seeped from every orifice. In the end, exhausted and ravaged, she begged to die. The boy was a mere eight or nine and, his eyes already open to the world, about to leave for his dearly bought commission.

‘Well now, James Raymond,’ his grandfather said, standing dry-eyed over his wife’s dead body. ‘The old lady will not live now to see you make the Wellsted fortune. We can go no higher, your father and I. It’s the education, you see. Whereas you, with all your letters, well, you can take us up. By hook or by crook, Jamie boy, whatever you have to do to win the prizes, for there will be prizes and no mistake. Make us proud.’

An ant crawls over the old woman’s milky eye. She has been dead less than an hour.

‘Swear you’ll bring it home, James.’ The old man grips the youngster’s wrist and slams the child’s hand down on the corpse’s stiffening breast. ‘Swear to me on your grandma’s dead body that you’ll shine. You’ll make a gentleman no matter what. Steal it, plunder it, swindle it or earn it fair. It doesn’t matter to me. Swear on her broken body or go to hell yourself.’

The harshness of Arabia does not shock James Wellsted one bit. He has few scruples about writing his memoirs. He has credited those he believes require credit – Chapman gave Wellsted use of his diaries before he died and he offered help when he was writing about geological specimens. Another officer advised on the Greek translation the lieutenant used. Wellsted will be damned if he’ll kiss Haines’ arse. He knows that the captain is not generally liked, and his objections to what Wellsted has done are questionable. He’d simply have liked to get his account in first. Well, damn the old man – it’s first past the post, the British way and the captain will simply have to lump it.

Against the sound of the lapping waves, Wellsted does not hear Haines approaching in the darkness.

‘I could have you up on charges, Lieutenant, for refusing the captain’s orders. Dinner in my cabin, I said.’

‘I didn’t realise it was an order, sir. I thought it more an invitation.’

Haines makes a derisory grunt. His breath is sour. Wellsted can smell it keenly on the thick, evening air.

‘I’m so hurt,’ the captain mumbles, ‘that so many good men, who have now given their lives for the service … that you are stealing their credit. It is wickedness, Wellsted, not the act of a gentleman.’

‘I found what I found in Socotra,’ Wellsted replies evenly. ‘I simply noted down what I had done. I have named the others.’

Haines snaps. ‘You were my assistant. An assistant, that is all.’

Wellsted does not rise to the bait. They have had this argument before and Wellsted can put his hand on his heart and say that the majority of what he claimed in his memoir is his own work. He’ll find his way, by hook or by crook and it will be a better memorial of the men who’ve died than Haines’ interminable snivelling.

The captain, still outraged, waits a few moments but Wellsted only stares silently towards the inky outline of the shore.

‘You were right not to come to my cabin tonight, I suppose,’ Haines continues in a vicious tone. ‘It is a good idea for you to eat alone. It will give you time to think – to consider. Shall we say for the rest of the tour, Lieutenant Wellsted?’

James knows the man is insulting him. For any officer to be banned from the captain’s table is a dreadful blow. Certainly, the gossip of such disciplinary action will animate the crew for days and when they make port it will be wondered at all over the service. Captain Haines has the outer appearance of bluff liberality, but those who work with him know well enough that he is dogged in his thinking and takes a dislike often to individual members of the crew with little reason. For James, banishment from Haines’ cabin is little skin off his nose, in the long run. The worst the captain can do is work him hard and neglect him a little and he’s survived worse than that. Also, as things stand on board, Wellsted is the only senior officer, which puts Haines over a barrel. The midshipmen are green as gooseberries in a lush, English summer and the captain needs the lieutenant to continue the survey. If Haines hoped that Wellsted would baulk at social disgrace, he is disappointed.

‘As you wish, sir. I shall dine alone.’

The captain brushes his palms together as if he is cleaning them. ‘Well then, carry on, Wellsted. Keep the watch, will you?’

For hours there is nothing on the sound but the endless, penetrating blackness relieved by the low, whirling brightness of the stars. If you stare at them long enough they send your head spinning. The temperature has plummeted so that the night is merely pleasantly warm after the searing intensity of the day’s sunshine and Wellsted keeps watch comfortably without his jacket. By the light of a candle that is magnified only slightly by a brass ship’s lamp, he writes home to Molyneux Street. Neither his father nor his grandfather can read but he knows his younger siblings, infants when he left, will have learnt, as he did in his time, and will relay the household correspondence to the older generations. ‘Once a person can read,’ Old Thomas said so solemnly that he could have been quoting from the Bible, ‘a person can be employed to hold office, a person can marry above his station, a person can execute wills.’ All the young Wellsteds are literate, even the girls. James’ letters home are relayed, like most Arabian traffic, via Bombay and take weeks to arrive. Still, he writes regularly, never hoping for a single word coming in the other direction, for it is not the Wellsted way.

An hour or so before dawn, he smells the day’s cornbread baking in the galley and his appetite is sharpened. He wonders briefly if the last supply of bitter water they managed to obtain further down the strait is responsible for the fact the coffee on board is so substandard. The water is difficult to stomach without mixing it with something, and the men have been taking it with sheep’s milk. Perhaps that is the key. His mouth is watering now and his stomach grumbles – he knows there is some cheese left – hard and mostly rind, but he has a yearning for it nonetheless. He is about to make his way to the galley when Ormsby reports to take over Wellsted’s duties and allow the lieutenant a few hours of sleep before the day’s survey gets properly underway.

‘Morning.’ The lad stretches and reaches inside his jacket for his flask. He offers it, but James declines. Then, shrugging his shoulders, Ormsby takes a draught and smacks his lips as the liquor hits his bloodstream.

‘Will you break your fast with me?’ James offers.

Ormsby nods. ‘Yes, sir,’ he says.

‘Good. We can fetch it from the galley and eat here. We’ll see the sun come up. Then I must sleep, I think.’

‘This weather’s quite the thing for a picnic. It feels almost fresh this morning,’ Ormsby smiles.

‘Give it an hour or two!’

Ormsby’s eyes fall to the small bottle of dark ink and the roughly made quill his superior officer has been using. His pupils shrink and he feels uncomfortable. Wellsted has been writing again. This is what has caused all the trouble and he is hoping that there will be no more. The captain has been moody for weeks on end and has taken it out on everybody.

‘I’m writing home, you idiot,’ the lieutenant says fondly. ‘My grandfather likes to keep up. He’s an invalid these days. I send a letter now and then – to keep the old boy going.’

‘Ah,’ Ormsby nods, though he can hardly really understand. His grandfather, after all, is a committed Christian, a Conservative and the brother of a duke, who scarcely if ever leaves his well-run and comfortable estate in Gloucestershire and would be horrified had he seen even half of what James took as read during his Marylebone childhood. The most the old man hopes from his grandsons is that they will be good eggs.

‘Yes. My family likes the odd letter too,’ Ormsby says. ‘They are awfully fond of news. I should really write to them more.’

He wonders if he might see some interesting fish today – the coral reefs are teeming with brightly coloured, odd-looking marine life and Ormsby has been sketching what he sees. It keeps him amused and he is hoping, if he can learn to swim, that he will be able to make a comprehensive study of the shoals of strange creatures, for as his grandfather says, the Lord’s design is in everything.

‘Come on,’ says Wellsted. ‘There is the last of the cheese left. We can toast it on top of the oven.’

Chapter Twelve

The very same day that Zena is auctioned off, on the kind of brisk but sunny English summer morning of which men in the desert can only dream, at his cousin’s substantial, terraced, stucco mansion on Cadogan Place, William Wilberforce, a man of principle and a social pioneer, receives the news that the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery is set to pass the Commons. He celebrates by catching influenza and three days later he is dead. It is decided to bury the old man’s body in Westminster Abbey, close to his venerable friend, William Pitt. He is, after all, one of Britannia’s own – a national treasure. The funeral is an enormous event. Both Houses of Parliament suspend their business for the duration as a mark of respect, and most members actually attend the obsequies personally. All over the British Isles toasts to the new, enlightened age are drunk by Whigs and Tories alike and Wilberforce is universally mourned from the public house to the pulpit and back again. His obituary is read aloud at a hundred thousand breakfast tables. In Wilberforce’s home town of Hull private subscriptions flood in to erect a monument one hundred feet high to his memory. Ladies across the country pray for the great man’s eternal soul, dab handkerchiefs to fresh tears and furiously cross-stitch samplers of the better-known liberal maxims concerning slavery including the famous Am I Not A Man And Your Brother? Immediately there is earnest talk of Wilberforce’s beatification, despite his personal commitment to the cause of Evangelical Anglicanism and lifelong antagonism to the Papacy. Mild-mannered, staunchly Protestant ladies in the Home Counties are heard to say, ‘Still, dear Mr Wilberforce was a saint. He was, wasn’t he?’

All this, however, affects business at the slave market in Muscat not one jot.

Zena is pushed into the clear space in front of the auctioneer and he calls for offers. ‘Twenty,’ he starts. ‘Anyone at twenty?’

At first there are several low bids, two from the man who treated her harshly in the slave pen. Zena feels her chest tighten. The bidding, however, is spirited and the offers come fast. When the man drops out at fifty, she allows herself a sliver of a smile. The price continues to rise ten silver dollars at a time. Zena can hardly believe this is really happening. That she will be owned and that she is powerless to stop it. Sadness swills around her empty stomach and the world stands still. It is a curious sensation.

As the price rises above a hundred and fifty, it is between two parties. One is an Abyssinian, like herself. The man sits, still-eyed, in a litter at the side of the bazaar, only raising his black finger slightly to register his interest as the price spirals on. Her stomach surges with some kind of hope. At least he looks familiar.

Yes. Him. Someone from home, she thinks silently as she stands stock-still in the sun.

The auctioneer skilfully bats the opportunity back to the other man still in the game – a blue-robed Arab pulling on a hookah pipe beneath an intricately fringed, white parasol.

‘Two hundred dollars,’ the auctioneer shouts triumphantly. ‘Do I have more?’

Zena has to admit, this is a handsome price for an Abyssinian 17-year-old, who may or may not be a virgin. It is certainly more than any of the others have made.

‘Have I any advance?’

There is silence. The bidding is still with the Abyssinian, who nonchalantly refuses to look at his opponent. All other eyes turn to the Arab, who considers a moment, tosses his head and refuses to go any higher.

He has got me! she thinks. One of my own. She wants to tell him, in her own language, where she comes from and what brought her here. Surely he has bought her because they are from a common background. Surely his house will be the same as her grandmother’s, for how else would a wealthy Abyssinian run their home?

Eagerly, she lets them lead her from the podium and tether her to a post beside the clerk. There she overhears the arrangements being made for her payment and realises this man has not bought her for himself. He is a slave, only doing his master’s bidding. He counts out his master’s dollars.

‘My name is Zena,’ she says, with a rush of enthusiasm. ‘I come from the hills. Near Bussaba.’

The man hisses at her like a spitting snake, affronted by her impertinence. One of his attendants roughly ushers her away. She glances back at the man in slight confusion. He is still counting out her price and making his salaams to the auctioneer. She wonders if he was sold here himself. She wonders if he can remember what it felt like. There will be no fellow feeling, she realises sadly as she is tethered again. When the business is concluded, she follows the litter, docile and under guard with two other women, sidis. They come from another shipment, seemingly purchased earlier at a far lesser price. As they progress through the cramped, busy streets, Zena’s appetite is so sharp and her sense of smell so elevated that the aroma drifting from the street stalls selling thick, sticky pastries hits her like an assault of honeyed sesame sweetness in the warming air while the nutty scent of coffee almost stops her dead in her tracks. She can think of nothing else. The truth is that right now she would thank someone more for a plate of food than for her freedom. The business of the marketplace is so frantic that she is diverted by the constant stream of images. Just breathe in, she thinks as the honeyed sweetness wafts towards her. Instinctively, she knows she must not think about what is happening or she will cry.

Not far from the palace on the front, but away from the direction of the souk they step through a huge wooden gate studded with dark nails. Inside is a shady courtyard lined with blue and green tiles and dotted with huge bronze planters sprouting dark, glossy leaves interspersed by an occasional splash of garish brightness – an exotic flower or two. White archways lead away from the entrance over two storeys. Zena could swear she smells orange blossom and cinnamon and just a hint of a chicken boiling in the pot.

The litter is set beneath a date palm and the gold muslin is drawn back as the man swings his plump legs to the ground. He walks past the three women, inspecting his purchases slowly from head to foot. The one to Zena’s left whimpers. She smells, Zena suddenly realises, as the other women do, of the oil used to burnish their skin – the odour is acrid, stale and unsavoury. A flicker of emotion crosses the man’s face though it is impossible to read. He waves his hand airily and the two other women are led off by a male slave. Zena watches them go. Then the man walks around her again, inspecting her even more slowly.

‘Bathe her,’ he orders at length.

He speaks Arabic with an accent. Zena drops her head as a mark of respect. She will try to talk to him again. This time in his adopted tongue. She has to.

‘Sir,’ she says, ‘I am very hungry. Please may I eat?’

It is an audacious request from one who has spent the past two weeks up to her ankles in excrement, sleeping only periodically, propped up against a black-tongued corpse. Worse, it is a request from one who is a mere chattel and who has already been berated for even talking. But she cannot stand it any longer.

‘You speak Arabic? Ha!’ the black man laughs, though what comes out of his mouth sounds more like a dry bark.

He has no heart to laugh with, Zena thinks, but instead she tells him where she learnt the language they are speaking. ‘My grandmother taught me. In her house she had guests who were traders and I learnt to talk to them.’

‘That is good. Good,’ his brown eyes widen, pleased at his luck. ‘You speak the tongue – you are a bargain.’

He smells of butter and honey and Zena is so hungry that she would willingly lick his skin.

‘Please, sir,’ she ventures, emboldened by the conversation, blurting out the question. ‘What are my duties here?’

The man stares blankly. ‘I was once a stranger too. I came from the marketplace. You will work hard here. Your master is a great man – you will work to please him.’

He does not tell her she can rise in the household as he has done. He is anticipating that he will win his freedom soon, as some slaves do, having proved their worth as family retainers. He will never leave the service of his master, but he will not be owned, or indentured, he will be a free man – a huss. He does not mention it. There is no point. After all, this slave is merely a woman and, apart from her beauty, and now the advantage she will have because she speaks Arabic, she has fewer uses than a skilled person like himself. His master has bought her only as a bauble and as she gets older her decorative effect will diminish and her value lessen.

‘What work will I do, sir?’

Another dry bark. ‘Nursemaid, habshi,’ the man says.

Zena feels an immense wave of relief wash over her. She has no experience with children, but nonetheless it sounds like an easier job than many who have been bought that morning will face in the afternoon. She smiles.

‘Feed her,’ the man orders as he turns away. ‘Then bathe her.’

Four black slave women guide Zena through an archway into the house. Through a series of shady passages their strong arms shepherd her without touching her skin. She smells the roasting meat and the baking bread so keenly that she almost breaks into a run. The slaves speak a mysterious African language that sounds like music – a cacophony of clicks and long vowels that soothes. Zena does not understand but it is clear where she is meant to go. Their chatter heightens the pace. This house is a maze, a labyrinthine warren of passages. It crosses her mind that she will never know what is around the corner here – there is no pattern. The place is vast and sprawling – one long corridor turning the corner into another short one, one room locked and another without a door at all. After two or three minutes of increasingly fragrant and warm corridors they cut into a huge room, lit by high windows. At last – it is the kitchen. For a moment, the group hovers in the doorway.

After being shipbound and starved, the delicious fecundity, the sheer generosity of the provisions on display seem an impossibility to Zena and she is stunned. Hand-hammered, bronze pots hang from the ceiling. On a table as far away as possible from the fire, fruits are laden onto wide, clay ashettes. It is all Zena can do not to rush over and reach for a pomegranate, sink her teeth into the ruby-coloured flesh and let the sweet juice run down her chin as she sucks it dry. A bough of dark, succulent grapes, trailing its leaves, is propped against a clay bowl of oranges with glossy foliage, darker in contrast to the vine. Bunches of fragrant mint fresh from the farm stalls of Muttrah hang above from a shelf of honey jars and preserved nuts that are so close she swears she can almost taste them. Around the oven, two thin boys are baking pitta bread, which they pile onto a huge, bronze sheet. A dead animal is butchered by a fat man with a cleaver. His bare chest is speckled with bone and blood as he flings the pieces of meat into a wooden box of marinade that smells of lemon, garlic and chilli. And overseeing it all, a huge Nubian chef is directing all the work, while kneading a handful of pale pastry with fat fingers that send clouds of flour into the air over his head and dust his figure into a ghost-like apparition.

Zena’s knees feel suddenly weak and she thinks she might faint until one of the slaves fetches a bone cup of milk and a small dish of thin gruel with a long-handled spoon and some dry zahidi dates. She remembers to thank the man, only just, nodding and clasping her hands in a pantomime of gratitude, before she falls, open-mouthed and ravenous, upon the meagre meal, her stomach retching at the sudden plenty, her throat swallowing at the same time. Tears stream down her cheeks. There has never been a meal more delicious. As she rouses herself from it, the cup drained dry and the plate empty, she notices that they have all just stood there and watched her gorge herself, sucking in the food, almost without chewing. Licking her fingers of the remnants, she feels suddenly ashamed. The other slaves show no emotion. Perhaps they never felt the same hunger, Zena thinks as the crockery is taken from her with dead-eyed efficiency and without skipping a beat the party moves on, back through the unnavigable passageways of the house.

She knows they will wash her next.

I wonder what the children will be like? she thinks and she places a hand on her full belly as she follows the party upwards to the tiled bathhouse, replete with a brazier for making steam.

The water is tepid. It feels cool in the heat of the day and makes a delicate trickling noise as the old woman scoops it up in a glazed clay jar and then pours it over Zena’s hair. Another girl, not much older than herself, mixes oil of lemon with oil of thyme and thickens it with date paste. It is as if she is being basted – prepared for the pot. The efficient hands simply do their work, sponging her, soothing and anointing her skin with oil, combing out her long plaits and resetting her hair into a smooth coil. They are neither gentle nor rough and they say nothing. Zena asks, first in her own language then in Arabic, what they are doing, where she will be taken next, what the family is like.

‘Please,’ she says, ‘tell me about this place.’

But not one of the slaves even acknowledges that they understand what she is saying and she gives up and simply allows them to pummel her clean.

When a slave arrives bearing a diaphanous, aquamarine kaftan of fine, silken gauze, Zena does not even wonder. Who can say what is unusual in such a place and what is common? The others are dressed in plain, pale robes of rough cotton, but what does that mean? Surely personal servants of the family merit a more luxurious uniform than common house servants. The hands dry her with white linen and as she slips into the dress they bind up her hair in a golden turban and draw leather sandals onto her feet, instructing each other in the strange musical language that Zena cannot understand. After the dhow and the slave market this is heaven – no matter that they are only doing what their superior has bid them. No matter that they do not acknowledge her in any way.

Before dusk, Zena is delivered to a room on the first floor that smells faintly of incense. There is a wide bed, a carved screen, an ornate rug with velvet cushions of red and yellow scattered about it, a window covered with a wooden shutter and evenly spaced brass lamps ready to be lit for the evening. Beside the bed there lies a covered flask of water flavoured with mint, a box containing rose jelly and another of honeyed pistachios. Zena inspects everything and then sits on the bed. It does not seem like a child’s room. She waits until the muezzin has made the call to prayer. She waits until the sun has sunk from the sky and it is absolutely dark. The scent of night flowers wafts in through the window on the perfumed air from tubs far below outside – moonflowers, nicotiana and jasmine. She desperately tries not to doze but her belly is full, her skin is silken and the cushions are tempting. In the end, she succumbs and cannot help but fall fast, fast asleep.

What raises her is a strange noise. A cackle. She jumps up into the pitch darkness, panicked, and it takes her a second or two to realise where she is. She trips over a small table and then recovers her balance. Then in a flash she remembers.

Before her there is a man in the doorway carrying a torch that flickers in the breeze from the window. The bright flame sends strange shadows over his face so that she cannot tell what he really looks like. But he is finely dressed in a long, bright robe. His dark hair flows like a woman’s and when he smiles he has the teeth of an animal, white, bared and ready. He cackles again – the sound a hyena might make, or a dog. Zena falls to her knees.

‘Salaam,’ she whispers, drawing her hands together in supplication and raising her eyes only high enough to see that he wears an array of gold rings on his long fingers.

‘They sent you?’ the man asks.

Zena nods and looks up at him. ‘I was bought today. In the marketplace.’

The man laughs and beckons her towards him. Now she can see that he is younger than she first thought – perhaps twenty or so. He motions her to turn around so he can inspect her.

‘What did you fetch?’

‘Two hundred dollars, I think.’

He casts his eye over her coldly. ‘They think this will tempt me,’ he says in a derisory tone, but the comment is not directed at Zena – he is talking to himself and has turned away. He puts down the lamp and proceeds to sit on the plump cushions by the window, picking up a sweet from the rosewood box and chewing it as he mulls things over.

‘Light, girl!’ he calls.

Zena hovers for a moment behind him, and then realising that he means her, she springs into action, taking the lamp from the low table and lighting the others one by one. The room gradually takes on a buttery glow. She can see now that the man’s silken jubbah is edged with intricate embroidery and that he wears gold earrings in a low loop in addition to his collection of rings. His eyes are pitch black – the darkest she has ever seen. She lays the lamp once more on the low table and steps back to wait for another order. But, before one can be given, the door opens and a slave boy enters. Taken back at the sight of Zena, he retreats slightly.

‘Ah, come in, Sam. Come in. Don’t worry about her,’ the man says, his dark eyes turning from the view across the midnight city and back into the room again.

His gaze, Zena notices, is suddenly bright. The slave boy has skin as black as Zena’s own. He crosses to his master and kneels beside him. The man’s jewelled hand falls languidly onto the boy’s shoulder and then runs down the smooth skin of his strong, well-defined arm, stroking with surprising gentleness.

‘A nursemaid,’ Zena realises. ‘They wanted me because …’

The boy raises his eyes towards her. ‘Is it your wish for this habshi to watch us, Master?’ he asks.

The man cackles once more. He leans down and kisses the boy on the lips.

‘Go!’ he says over his shoulder without even looking at her. ‘Leave me!’

Zena bows and leaves the room as gracefully as she can manage but in the hallway she hovers. Her mind is racing. She doesn’t know where she ought to go. She cannot remember the direction of the bathhouse or the kitchen. The household is asleep and the maze of hallways is dark and silent. There is no one around so she crouches against the wall and decides to wait. The master, may, after all, call for her when he has finished.

Chapter Thirteen

Jessop has thoroughly enjoyed his stay at the encampment. He has made notes about the Bedu and their way of life, the details of the trading routes of the tribe and their customs of war and has even managed some observations on the way one family interweaves with another. The site is temporary, of course. The Bedu are set to graze their animals there till only saltbush remains. The wells fill up once a season and the Bedu will stay to drink the water dry and then move on. The tents are comfortable enough though and, like most nomads, the tribe is hospitable to a fault. An Arabic tribesman will go hungry himself in order to feed his guests lavishly. It is well known that if you come across a camp in the desert and are accepted as a guest, you’ll always be fed better than the people who actually live there.

By the third and final day, the doctor is gratified to see that there is a marked improvement in all but one little girl who, Jessop now fears, might well lose her sight as the infection progresses. Clearly it had advanced too far by the time he arrived and he knows there is little more he can do for the child but clean the pus and hope her body might rally. The danger is septicaemia, blood poisoning. If the little girl succumbs to it she will almost certainly die. He has tried to transmit this information but fears it loses something in the translation. The devoted mother, meanwhile, has placed a copy of the Quran under the girl’s sleeping rug and spits into the child’s face to clean it (starting Jessop all over again on the painful process of the vinegar eye wash). Now, leaving her daughter in the care of others, the woman has taken to following Jessop, entreating him to save her daughter in the same way he worked his magic on the other children. No amount of explanation or reassuring smiles and hand gestures seems to communicate that he can do no more, and she neglects her domestic duties and hovers in her dark burquah, a little behind the white men, occasionally breaking into a keening wail that makes Jones start.

‘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 particular 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 officers 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 important 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.

Inside, he is shown into a cool, tiled courtyard by a young slave boy in a robe as yellow as a canary, his eyelashes so long that they could dust the ceilings of their cobwebs. The boy offers Wellsted a copper bowl of cool water and rose petals in which to make his ablutions. He does so noticing how much better he feels only a little way out of the oppressive heat. Then, courteously, the slave ushers him upstairs and Ibn Mudar welcomes the young lieutenant into his office on the first floor. The slatted wooden shutters keep the room shady and warmed by the sun, and also give out a pleasant aroma of sandalwood. Between the slats and cut-out stars there are glimpses of an impressive view over the bay. To one side there is a large, cedarwood desk with scrolls of accounts and ledgers stored behind it on a series of intricately carved, wooden shelves and burr cubby holes. On the other side there is a comfortable seating area with low, embroidered cushions and goatskin throws. This is not the agent’s home, however. That is far grander and much higher up the hill. He prefers to keep his working life separate, always has.

As the man smiles and rises to greet his visitor, Wellsted quickly notes that Ibn Mudar’s plain jubbah is made of very fine cotton – curiously unshowy given that the main part of his income comes from a textile business. The lieutenant considers mentioning his own family’s background in the same trade but deems it inappropriate. Instead, he sizes up the Navy’s agent silently. Ibn Mudar, with a greying beard, in his mid-fifties, is only slightly overweight and his eyes seem to take in everything and give nothing away. He clears his throat to make his salaams, but he does not invoke Allah. The custom in this office is the same as it would be in Liverpool or Southampton so the Navy’s representative reaches out to shake Wellsted firmly by the hand and smiles.

‘How do you do? I was to send to the ship shortly, you know. Would you partake of a coffee, Lieutenant?’

Wellsted does not laugh, though not to do so is an effort. The man’s accent is as thick as treacle. He might as well be from Cork. ‘Thank you. I would enjoy a coffee.’

The agent waves a hand and his slave disappears to fetch what is needed as the men sit down together on the pile of cushions on the floor. Wellsted likes him immediately. There is something cut and dried about this man and competent too. Our Dear Mickey feels like an apt moniker.

‘You have come for your letter from London, have you?’ Mickey says.

Wellsted starts. He has, in his whole time in the service, never received a personal letter. It is an amazement that such an item has found him here.

‘From London?’ he repeats, the shock showing in his voice.

His heart races with the realisation that this could be a momentous turn of events – is it possible that Murray has already responded to his manuscript? Surely it will take longer than this, but then who knows the ways of the famous publisher? It has, he counts the weeks, probably been long enough. With surprise, he notes that his palm feels suddenly sticky and his stomach flutters nervously.

Mickey reaches into a large, burnished box beside his cushion and passes a folded envelope franked in Mayfair. Wellsted breaks the small, red seal. Inside, the handwriting is haphazard – not what he would expect from a man of Murray’s education and renown. Wellsted takes a deep breath, comprehending that this missive is even more momentous than one that might contain John Murray’s comments on his account of the Socotra trip. This letter has emanated from his family home in Molyneux Street and is dated in May – two months ago.

Dear Brother,

I regret to inform you that after some months of suffering our grandfather has died. We buried him at the parish church a week past. Apart from this sad news all is well here. Edward has taken the oath to be a customs man at Greenwich. Please when you write now, address yourself to our father.

Most sincerely,

Your brother,

Thomas Wellsted Jnr

James turns the paper over. It seems unnecessarily brief. He remembers young Thomas as an infant only just out of his nappies and rosy-cheeked, learning to climb out of the cot – a child as he had been in the year James Wellsted left home. For a moment James indulges himself, wondering what the boy looks like now or if, indeed, there might be more infants that followed his departure and he has nameless brothers and sisters growing up in his parents’ home. A Charles perhaps. Even an Emily or Elizabeth.

Mickey allows a pause long enough for Wellsted to take in his news, whatever it may be. ‘All is well in London, I hope,’ the agent says gently.

‘News of home, that is all,’ Wellsted dismisses the letter briskly, pushing it into his pocket. He has no time for personal matters or at least he never makes any. ‘I did not come for the letter,’ he admits. ‘I am here on another more serious matter. We have two officers gone missing in the interior. They were led across the jabel and into the desert by Dhofari guides to visit the Bedu several weeks ago. Dr Jessop who was our ship’s surgeon and First Lieutenant Jones. They missed their rendezvous and have not been heard of since. We docked at every decent-sized port along the coast but have found out very little, though outside Aden I encountered a group of Bedu. I heard the men were prisoners of the emir – that they had offended him in some way and were being held in his caravan. The description the Bedu gave was consistent with the appearance of the men though the captain – Captain Haines, that is – believes them dead. When we made rendezvous with the Benares however, Captain Moresby was of the view that we must be sure.’

Mickey scratches his cheek with a long, carefully manicured finger, which sports a thick ring of yellow gold with a red stone embedded on the face. He takes a sip of his strong coffee.

‘Captured by an emir’s caravan and held there? Now that’s not good. I will make enquiries,’ he says. ‘Leave it with me, Lieutenant Wellsted, and I will see what I can find out.’

‘It is a matter of some urgency, sir.’

Ibn Mudar bows. ‘Of course. Immediately.’

With the efficiency of a man who is used to getting a great deal done, Ibn Mudar calls his slave boy.

‘Bring me Rashid,’ he snaps. The yellow-robed child immediately disappears to find the chief clerk, who is stationed at Mickey’s warehouse, a few streets away.

Wellsted’s cup is refilled and the agent asks polite questions.

‘And your work? How goes the survey?’

‘Slow but sure,’ Wellsted grins. ‘The reefs are all but impossible but the charts are coming along.’

‘Any French vessels?’

This is of interest to any trader with ships on the nearby seas.

‘Only very close to the Egyptian coastline. Where you would expect, really.’

‘It will be good to have maps,’ Mickey points out and Wellsted says nothing in reply, only downs the rest of his coffee.

‘Do you think they might still be alive?’ he asks.

The agent’s face does not alter its expression one iota. ‘My brothers would say it is in Allah’s hands,’ he says. ‘Let me see if I can find out what Allah has in mind. I will send Rashid the moment he comes. He is the man for this job. Leave it to me.’

The men shake hands and Mickey sees the lieutenant to the door of his office.

While he waits, Mickey strokes his thick, salt-and-pepper beard and retreats back onto the comfortable cushions in the corner of the room to consider matters. The British survey interests him tremendously, for if it is successful there will be a far greater volume of English ships in the Red Sea and he will be contracted to see to their needs. He is determined to do his job well for the English. Mickey is inclined to do everything well – he is careful and fastidious in all his dealings. He will apply this to the search for Jessop and Jones – which potentially, he realises, is one of the most dangerous situations with which he has been asked to help. Men die all the time, but kidnap is a different matter.

Watch out, he says to himself. God knows what they are up to, the tricky bastards. And now there are two of them missing.

When Mickey thinks of the English, the voice in his head is always that of his Irish wife, Farida, who maintains that without question the English are untrustworthy. Her tribe, it seems, are perpetually at war with the lily-skinned sailors, though they share the same tongue. Mickey trusts Farida’s judgement. He was young when he bought her at auction after she had been captured on a shipwreck. He was a brash, young buck of a merchant of twenty who had made his fortune quickly. He wanted to show the world that he was cosmopolitan and he knew an exotic, white-skinned beauty in his harim would make his name as much as any bale of fine silk ever had. There was no question of love. When he met her, however, he realised just how much he had focussed all his attention on his business and how little he knew of the world beyond it. At first he expected she resented being captured and sold, but she told him frankly after only a fortnight, that his house was a hundred times the size of the cottage in Rowgaranne, County Cork, where she was brought up, that she had spent much of her young life there hungry, cold and in want and that she would gladly stay in his beautiful harim, especially as his wife.

The land of white men still seems to Mickey like a fairy-tale kingdom. The landscape Farida describes is undoubtedly accurate and yet it is so outlandish. She swears on her life that Cork is so rainy that much of the land is bog, and so cold that sometimes when it rains the drops freeze solid. He finds this particularly difficult to imagine – Mickey, for all that he is a trader, has never left the south of the Arabian Peninsula and the thought of freezing, squelching mud flats is almost incomprehensible to him. That the people who live in such a place should subsist on potatoes and that spice is almost unheard of is bizarre. In fact, he finds the lack of camels and gazelles in the stories his wife tells of her homeland profoundly eerie. And the infidels have such strange names – Macgregor, McLean and O’Donnell.

‘Why, you are silly,’ Farida laughs, dismissing him with a wave of her elegant, snow-white hand. ‘That’s only your Ibn. Macgregor is the son of Gregor (that is the name of the man who taught me to read – our priest at home) and O’Donnell (which is my name, you know) is Son of Donnell. It’s exactly the same as yours – Ibn Mudar – the son of Mudar. Or Ibn Rashid is the son of Rashid. The word Ibn is only O or Mac in English, or rather in the Gaelic. We shan’t go into the Fitzes now, my dear. But it’s only a way of identifying your family – like all names. Don’t you see?’

At first Mickey can’t get used to it – European languages simply have too many consonants. He is certain that he’ll never become fully accustomed to the sound.

‘You Arabian lads,’ Farida continues, ‘have great swagger and no mistake. We only call our chief soldiers, our boxers and wrestlers The Knife or The Hurricane. Whereas you fellas have legions of names like that – serious fellas can be Al this or Al that. The Dog, The Thief, The Lion. Well, fair play to you, I say. You’re warriors one and all. You can be my Ali Ibn Mudar, Ali Al Malik – Ali the King. I am your possession now, after all, and you my master, like royalty.’

Mickey kisses his wife hotly on the lips. She is a wonderful woman. She has taken to his household far more easily than could have ever been hoped and, better still, she is a boon in business. Farida has no qualms about Arabian manners or customs and her open-mindedness rubs off on her husband, who finds himself more and more intrigued by her tales. His world is opening up.

The strangest thing of all though is that in Farida’s country, it seems, men only take one wife. Or, as she says with a characteristic giggle, ‘One wife at a time’. This shocks Mickey to the core – it seems such a barbaric practice.

‘But what happens to the other women the man desires?’ he says.

‘Exactly, my boy,’ Farida grins. ‘Now in these parts here you have what I would term a practicable system. I can see this working out very nicely indeed.’

Over the years she has remained indescribably foreign for all her aptitudes and the whole-hearted fashion in which she has adopted her new, Arabian life. While his other brown-eyed beauties scent themselves interminably with exotic oils, coil their hair into glossy ringlets and dote on the nursery of children that they have produced, Farida or Fanny as she originally wished to be called, on her very first day demanded pen and ink to draw pictures of the plants in Mickey’s courtyard garden and write reams of descriptive prose and poetry. Within six months of her arrival, the Pearl, as he has come to call her, is speaking Arabic like a master at the university. She reads and memorises long portions of the Quran and fashions herself a set of silk garments from the harim’s stock of materials that prove to be deeply enticing to Mickey O’Mudar.

‘Never been without a bodice. Not going to feckin’ start now,’ she says.

Mickey never can tell what she is going to do next, what she might read or what strange ideas she will voice. The thing he likes about her most, though, is the fact that she is clearly interested in pleasing herself as much as she pleases him – both in bed and out of it. This is an irresistible challenge after years of women bred to compliance. Farida is a matchless pearl indeed and, illuminated by the spark of independence that is so natural to her alongside her fierce intelligence, she stimulates him body and mind. It does not matter to him one jot that in all the years she has not borne him a child. In fact, it adds to her allure, her difference from his other wives. It is also probably the only reason why the other women in the harim accept the strange, pale-skinned foreigner. She is not – as far as they are concerned – competition, for she has no son to compete with their own. She is, they think, a mere dalliance to keep Mickey amused.

‘Do you mind?’ he asks her.

‘Well you can’t say we haven’t given it a good enough shot,’ she giggles.

He loves her all the more for being so contented. Farida has the admirable ability of being able to adapt and he’d never be where he is today if it wasn’t for her. It was Farida after all who made the navy job possible. He might not have taken it had she not encouraged him.

When he tells her of the opportunity that has presented itself, Farida makes no judgement on his lack of manliness in sharing his concerns – she takes it in her stride as easily as she has taken their habit of discussing literature and art (also, now he comes to think of it, unusual).

‘Well now,’ she sips a glass of rose-water and pomegranate juice and contemplates Mickey’s smooth, chestnut skin as he lies naked beside her on purple, satin sheets that she picked herself from the lavish stock of textiles available to all his women. ‘Into bed with the English is it, eh? Well, my advice, dear husband, is to take their money. They have acres of money, the English. Take their money and charge them plenty, treat them fair – true to yourself – but never trust them. Individually they are fine, I’m sure, but as a nation they’ll stab you in the back as soon as look at you. My father, God bless him, used to say there are four things you can never trust – a bull’s horn, a dog’s tooth, a horse’s hoof and an Englishman’s smile. And a man such as yourself, a fine man with brown skin, is worth even less to them than a penniless Catholic. Remember that, my darling, whatever happens, whatever friends you think you have made – you are a darkie to them and that’s all.’

In what can only be described as ongoing training, his pale-skinned wife teaches Mickey a thing or two about matters European and briefs him in British manners and business customs as a matter of course, so that when he agrees to Allenby’s proposition and takes up the post of naval agent, the officers with whom he comes into contact feel instinctively that somehow he understands what the Navy needs. Quickly he is trusted and liked throughout the service.

These days though well into her forties, and displaying with each passing year, were it possible, less interest in his household and domestic matters, it is still Farida who Mickey seeks out most regularly for company and advice. It is she he most desires when it comes time to retire. He has tried asking his other wives for their opinion but the conversations never go beyond what they think he wants them to say. Her delight these days, as always, is her frantic scribbling and reading any Arabic text that comes her way. She quotes poetry, whispering well-constructed if profane lines in her husband’s ear as she pulls him on top of her pale flesh. Most surprisingly of all for a woman, she has, as far as he can remember, never been wrong about anything.

There is a clattering sound on the stairway to Mickey’s office as Rashid arrives from the warehouse. He has recently put henna in his hair but immediately decided against the resulting shock of colour, so he is wearing a long headdress to cover the luminous orange while it fades. The material sways behind him lending an unaccustomed elegance to his entrance.

‘Salaam aleikhum,’ the boy bows.

He comes from a long line of Ibadi herdsmen and he learnt to read purely by chance, when he was taken ill and sent to Muscat to the house of a distant relative. Having discovered indispensable administrative skills, which have benefited Mickey’s business immeasurably, Rashid never returned to the shit-poor caravan where he spent the first ten years of his life. He is, however, a competent horseman and good with a camel. He knows how to survive on the sands.

‘I need you to come with me,’ Mickey says. ‘We will be gone for a few days. There are two Bedu I want to find on the jabel who can help me. Two white men are missing. We must find them. Though first some enquiries in town, I think.’

Rashid hovers, hopping from foot to foot very lightly in a barely perceptible movement that Mickey completely understands.

‘Oh yes, Rashid. There will be bonuses if we find them. For you and for me. If they are still alive.’

Chapter Fifteen

Six weeks into their captivity and having moved camp twice, Jessop comes to understand that the curse of being a doctor is the knowledge what a man can survive and what he can’t. His is a profession that does not countenance much in the way of hope. He wonders if it is for this reason that Jones has survived more easily than he, for Jones has been able to believe that the treatment they have received in the camp will kill them, that it will end soon. Jessop, however, understands that the emir has a particular talent. He is extremely good at keeping men alive. Just. The heat has exacerbated their decline, and when he thinks of it logically he knows that it really hasn’t been that long. For heaven’s sake, the Palinurus will only recently have abandoned the rendezvous point at Aden. But every day of this has been hell – the heat and the terror of never knowing when they may be hauled from the tent and made to march for miles overnight or, worse, perhaps be beheaded. Jessop is sure he read somewhere that it is beheading that is most likely.

The men have quickly become two ragged piles of skin and bones – the doctor is a good two stones down on what he considers his fighting weight of two hundred pounds, at which he left Bombay all those months before. He has little fight left now. For a while he hoped the abrasions caused by their initial struggle against the ropes might cause blood poisoning or that the sign that the emir had branded agonisingly on the white men’s buttocks might become infected to the same effect but neither of these possibilities has transpired to release either him or Jones from their captivity, and he has become resigned simply to waiting, endlessly, and hoping despite himself for food and water. If the meagre rations stopped, at least there would be an end to the whole damn business. In this weakened state, a couple of days of privation would certainly do it.

However, when their stony-eyed jailer arrives and pours some warm, brackish liquid from a goatskin down Jessop’s face, he cannot help but lick at it in desperation. The survival instinct, he notes, is stronger than his logical response to the situation and thirst turns any man, even a scientific kind of chap, into a panic-stricken, babbling, begging fool. The doctor has come to realise that a man will sit in his own excrement, wracked by hunger pains, baking in his own skin, and still he will survive despite himself.

‘Me too,’ Jones begs and receives a dark dribble of lukewarm liquid.

Jones, it has turned out, has no dignity and less goodness. Jessop does not blame him, and it is hardly a surprise. Jessop suspects that when Jones is occasionally taken away by one of the guards that he is gratifying the man sexually for extra food. Firstly, he never mentions what happens when he leaves the tent, which is odd. And then the lieutenant’s weight has not dropped as dramatically as the doctor’s own. Jessop is not sure what he would do given that opportunity – Jones’ blonde hair is clearly of more interest to those so inclined. In any case, he does not like to think about it preferring, when he is not wishing fervently for death, instead to fantasise about either crisp, green apples and a stroll he took shortly before his departure through the winding lanes of his father’s estate or, occasionally, the madman’s dream of escaping the tent, stealing a camel and somehow outrunning and outfoxing the emir’s well-fed warriors on their own territory, to make it back to the coast and safety. Both these dreams seem equally outlandish and unlikely but they occupy him nonetheless. Out on the jabel there are falaj – stone-lined irrigation systems to carry the water. They were built by the Persians more than a thousand years ago. Jessop dreams of bathing in one. Why won’t the man simply let him die?

Most evenings there is thin soup of some kind or other – the watered-down, half-rancid remnants of meals served days ago at the emir’s table. The moisture in this mush is as important as the nourishment though Jessop has noticed he is sweating less and as a consequence he cannot cool down. He knows he is in the advanced stages of acute dehydration and thinks it would be good to write to his professor at King’s about the phenomenon. The old man would be interested, no doubt, for the human body is always endlessly fascinating to him and he values practical experimentation above all else. Both of the men have lost the ability to grow their beard and the thin, straggly wisps on their chins are matted against the skin. If you think about it too much, it becomes devilishly itchy.

Jessop is jolted out of this reverie by the voice of his companion.

‘I don’t see it,’ Jones says his first coherent words in several weeks that have not been formed to beg for food or water. ‘I’ve no idea how we are ever going to get out of here, old man.’

Jessop laughs more in shock than in amusement. He had assumed that Jones, like him, was wishing for death but that clearly has not been the case.

‘Really,’ Jones continues, as if it is only just occurring to him, ‘at most we could run if we could get through these ropes. But then how would we survive? There’s sand everywhere. Sand and baking sun. This whole damn country is just an oven.’

‘We’re not going to survive,’ the doctor says wearily. ‘At least, I hope not for much longer. A little more privation and we’ll be there, my friend, and that is my considered, medical opinion.’

Apparently, this has not occurred to the lieutenant. Perhaps, Jessop wonders, he thinks this is a tale in some story book and we have to get out because, as white men, we are the heroes. It occurs to him that Jones did not have much of a grasp on reality even before their fortunes changed, and now he does not comprehend that he is filthy, ragged and hovering on the cusp of death.

‘But they will send someone when they realise we’re missing, won’t they? I mean, we’re British subjects.’

The lieutenant manages to sound almost outraged. It’s actually quite admirable and Jessop can’t bring himself to point out that Haines is well-meaning but not always effective and that it will take an extraordinarily effective man to cross the burning sands and come to find them. All this to be done quickly – for in current circumstances, the doctor does not give himself or his companion much more than a few weeks of life. A man given no food can last three months, of course, there’s always that – and they are at least receiving some rations. But still, he considers, with the heat, another two months seems an impossibility unless things improve.

In any case, it is not, as far as the doctor can see, in Captain Haines’ nature to marshal his men into a search party or to undertake what would surely be an arduous negotiation with the Bedu. If the emir were for turning he would surely have done so by now. Their best hope is that he has sued for ransom, though there has been no mention of that, and truly the fellow would have a cheek, given they’d paid for his hospitality already. Jessop feels outraged. He didn’t kill the damn girl on purpose. In fact, he cured all the others. There is no accounting for it; the emir is grieving, he is not reasonable. He may never return to reason and that’s the truth. It is too exhausting to think about.

‘How long do you suppose we have been here?’ Jones cuts in on the doctor’s rambling thoughts. ‘How long do you think it will take them to rally the troops and come for us? It’s really not on. Seems to me that we’ve been tied up for far too long, anyway.’

It’s a good question. Jessop tries to work out how long it might have been but the trouble is that one scorching day merges into another. It’s impossible to measure time.

It’s weeks, he thinks, not months. He’s sure of it though he is aware that in these conditions he is easily confused. For all he knows they could have been here a year, perhaps, or longer. The imprisonment in the tent is punctuated very occasionally by a sandstorm or a few days of exhausting marching to another oasis where the tent is set up again and the two men are bound again to a stake. Once, they were lucky and the ropes were long enough to allow them to sleep on their stomachs. Sleeping on the stomach, Jessop has come to understand, diminishes the pain of extreme hunger. Today his bonds are far too tight, however, to manage it. They’ve been bound like this, he thinks, for ages and ages, though how long that actually is escapes him.

‘They’ve certainly held us for several weeks,’ is the best he can do.

‘Well, I hope the rescue party make it soon,’ the lieutenant says testily, as if his carriage is late for the opera or the vicar and his sister have, inexplicably, not turned up to take tea. ‘Really I do.’

Chapter Sixteen

After some weeks, Zena learns that she is all but invisible to everyone in her master’s household. The servants come and go, each with a prescribed list of duties that they undertake like clockwork. She need not clean nor cook nor even wash herself – everything simply seems to happen without any effort on her part. A tray of food arrives twice a day. Jugs of scented water are delivered so she can be washed. There are clean clothes and a doe-eyed, tongue-tied negro girl combs and dresses Zena’s hair. She is a sidi slave who speaks neither Arabic nor her own Abyssinian tongue nor, indeed, any language at all it seems for, she never says a word to anyone, and will not indulge even in sign language, for Zena has tried. It seems to her that the slaves clean the furniture, make the bed, refill the lamps, sweep the floor, leave fresh water and jellies for the master’s delight and care for her in the same way that they look after everything else – there is for them, no distinction between their master’s inanimate objects and the girl who is confined to his room day after day. It is all very businesslike.

This must be what it feels like to be a pet, Zena thinks, and then she realises that in her experience, even a pet is shown some affection.

Meanwhile, each morning the master rises shortly after sunrise, prays and leaves. In the evenings he returns to the room with one of three or four slave boys, who are his favourites, and occasionally two of them at the same time. Zena spends almost all day at her seat by the window where she finds she can pass the hours simply watching the activities on the street. There are white jubbahed hawkers and earnest, serious-faced slaves going about their business, intriguing, covered litters carried by muscle-bound black bearers and keen-eyed messengers, stick thin from running errands and always keen to be on their way. Down the hill she catches glimpses of the azure sea, all the way across the bay and out to the Strait of Hormuz. At night, the stars are fascinating, though none of the shapes they make in the sky are familiar or at least appear in the location she expects them, as seen from the fragrant, lush vantage point of her grandmother’s compound where she used to sit and listen to the crickets in the darkness and trace shapes between the specks of bright fire above. In Muscat, Zena loves the sunsets and after the blazing sky settles into darkness she enjoys watching the bustle of so many far-off people moving indoors, eating with their family and feasting with friends as the city closes its shutters and lights its lamps.

When the master arrives back at his room it is always very late. Zena lights the naft in anticipation though when he swings briskly through the door he only dismisses her casually as soon as his slave boy arrives – just as he did the first night she met him. Lying in the hallway on the cool earthen tiles that line the floor, she hears a lewd cry or two from behind the thick, cedarwood door and falls asleep after midnight, staring at the low moon and waking only as the muezzin’s calls start when the first red line of dawn appears on the horizon. Prayer is better than sleep, they echo around the bay from minarets all over the city, summoning the men to the fajir and lending a rhythm to Zena’s day even if she does not pray when they call. As the music fades, the door to the room opens and the master’s boys step over her on their way back to their own quarters. Then she waits patiently, hovering outside for perhaps half an hour or more, listening to the household wake up – the sound of far-off doors opening and closing, a child’s voice and a woman’s laugh – before the master himself leaves and she can take her place, like some kind of ornamental doll, a place holder, on the cushions by the window.

The rhythm of the days numbs her and after the initial relief that she is fed and cared for, it does not take long until Zena is bored to distraction. In such a situation even a small change in routine can come as a shock so she finds herself taken back when one evening the master returns alone and in a fury. He slams the door and, flinging himself onto the cushions like a child in ill-humour, he pokes a smooth finger into the brass-bound box of rose jelly that is replenished daily. Then he takes a deep breath and sighs heavily. It is a dramatic sigh. The master is trying to communicate.

Zena hesitates. Her huge, black eyes flick towards the doorway. The slave boy will be here any minute. The master takes another deep breath and heaves it out again. This is quite the most interesting thing that has happened in the last fortnight. Zena decides to make a move. She crosses the room gracefully, her hips swaying beneath her blue jilbab. She presses her hands together in supplication, lowers her eyes modestly and bows down to the ground, prostrate at the master’s feet.

The master raises another rose jelly to his mouth, dropping a trail of powdered sugar across the velvet cushions. He stares openly at Zena’s long, curled hair splaying across the carpet towards him. He thinks it is like the surf on the shore, reaching towards him on the sands. He is tempted to kick but manages to restrain himself.

‘What they sent you for, I don’t know,’ he says.

Zena looks up and smiles. She is no fool and there is no measure in letting him treat her like one. ‘Oh, master, I think they have sent me hoping that I can tempt you. That is what you said yourself, is it not, the first day I arrived?’

‘Yes. Yes,’ he laughs. ‘You are right. That is exactly it.’ He makes a dismissive noise and waves his hand to demonstrate how ridiculous this notion is. ‘My father thinks because I like Aran and Sam and they are black like you … Galla. Pshaw! He is a fool! How dare he?’

Zena feels embarrassed. What can she say? That they have spent a fortune on her? That in the past many men have found her attractive? That three years ago her grandmother had an offer of two horses and a white peacock for her hand in marriage, if the Arab trader who made it could be assured that she was a virgin? That an imam promised a chest of gold but the old lady did not want to let her go with him for she believed Zena too young. The old lady protected her, she realises now, too much. ‘We will find a grand, Ethiopian prince for you, my love,’ she promised, ‘when the time is right. And you will bear a king for our own country.’

The master does not care about any of that. There is a moment’s hesitation and then what Zena finds she can say is this. ‘Shall I dance for you? I used to dance at my grandmother’s house.’

The master regards her. He stares into the distance, distracted by his fury at the situation that has brought her here. Then he gestures with his hand. ‘Dance then,’ he says curtly.

There is no music, not even a drum, but that doesn’t matter. Zena simply imagines Yari playing for her as he has a hundred times before. She imagines that Baba is still alive and she is dancing for the old lady’s guests after a magnificent feast. She raises her arms and starts to gyrate, easily finding a rhythm of her own and, lithe as a dyk dyk in the bush, she dances back to Abyssinia in her mind. Her hair falls in a curtain and she tosses it aside to the rhythm, she stamps her feet and sinuously moves her hips, she flutters her eyelashes and flashes her eyes. She is as smooth as a fast-flowing river and she dances, whirling like a dervish, tossing her hips like a girl for hire at the bazaar. She moves frantically as if all her days of inactivity can be kicked away in the rhythm. She dances until she is not even aware of the master anymore, and when the music in her head stops, her skin is flushed with delight and she is panting as she falls on the vivid cushions beside him with a wide smile.

He claps. He laughs.

‘If ever I was to …’ he starts, moved by the display momentarily before he catches hold of himself and suspends the sentence, hanging in the air. ‘You are very beautiful,’ he finishes. ‘For a woman.’

‘Do you think,’ Zena asks him, ‘that they will take me away if you don’t want to …?’

The master shrugs his shoulders. ‘I don’t know what they are going to do. All my slaves are employed elsewhere tonight so that I will come back to you here and we will be alone. I almost slept downstairs. They want me to marry, but if I do they fear I will disgrace the family. When there are no children a wife can insist on a divorce.’

There is an earnestness in his tone, a crack of emotion too. Zena feels sorry for him.

‘I can sleep here tonight,’ she says, ‘if you would like it. No one will know what has or has not happened.’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.