Blue Damask (27 page)

     A shadow covered his face.  Descartes bent over her with a full water skin and took the empty one from her hand.  His face was serious.  “They are coming fast.  We will not be able to outrun them.”  He meant that Marshall would not be able to gallop his camel.  Elsa turned to see the approaching cloud.  The dark shapes beneath the yellow dust were getting larger, and as she stared they began to emerge as distinctive objects instead of moving colors.  “Sonnenby says you and Marshall need to get up higher onto these rocks.”

     “You don’t know who they are?”  Her voice sounded weak to her.

     “We are in the hands of God now.  If they are the enemy, they will find us and kill us.  If they are Ruwallah we will feast tonight.”

     He helped her get Marshall to his feet and guided them into a great cleft in the rock.  “Basalt is slippery,” Descartes murmured as he handed Marshall up to a narrow ledge a few feet from the sand.  “Put his leg here so he can brace his foot against that protuberance, there and not slip off.”  They positioned the injured man, and while Elsa pulled, Descartes pushed and they got Marshall up another meter.

     “That’s enough for now.  I have to help with the camels.”  He handed her the water skin he had draped over his shoulder and her briefcase.  “See if you can’t get him higher.”  He took off his fedora and slapped it several times against his thigh, raising great clouds of yellow dust.  He slowly slid it back over his head and looked up at her.  “I have been very pleased to know you, Nurse Schluss,” he said.

     Elsa watched him disappear around the rocks, then turned her attention to Marshall.  “Mr. Marshall.  We have to try to get higher up and in that cleft there,” she pointed to a level area just above their heads. “It is recessed enough to be difficult to see from the ground.”  He seemed to try, but his efforts to move were punctuated with longer rest periods.  Elsa finally got him tucked away, put more water in him, then wedged the water bag between his body and the rock so it wouldn’t fall over the side.  Her briefcase fit nicely wedged in a cleft.

     The rocks arched over her and made it difficult to climb from her ledge, but if she moved a meter or so to the left she might be able to climb high enough to see.  Not seeing the vast horizon was causing distress.  She admitted the anxiety to herself.  In just the short time she had been in Syria she had grown accustomed to vast horizons and a vaulted sky.  Having the stones and boulders and harsh outcroppings of the remains of ancient mountains around her made her claustrophobic.

     The blue damask did not hinder a short climb.  The slit Descartes had put in the skirt made raising her knee easy, though it exposed both legs in a way that was not dignified.  She set her lips together in a firm line and reached for a handhold, and then another.

     The wind started to whip at her hair before she crested the rocks.  It had been very quiet between the stones but now she could feel the wind and the heat of the sun.  The top of the rocks was searing hot, unlike the cooler shaded shelter where Descartes had put her and Marshall. She lifted her head slowly, aware that she might be seen.

     To the north, nothing.  To the southwest, however, the approaching riders would be on them within minutes.  She ducked back down quickly, thinking.  She had not seen Descartes or Sonnenby, but then she could not have seen anything directly below her.  The feeling of being trapped was nearly overwhelming.  Elsa made her way back to Marshall and felt his forehead.  She raised his shoulders and worked on dribbling water into his mouth and gently rubbing his throat on the uninjured side until he swallowed.  This gave her something to do as her ears waited to hear the rumbling of the horses and camels as they came galloping.

     She told herself there was no other plan of action.  She could not outrun the oncoming horde, nor could she defeat them all with a briefcase and hypodermic.  She must stay.  She must hope.  She must trust.  “
Gott im Himmel
,” she hissed.

     Marshall opened his eyes.  “Is it that bad?” he asked.

     “
Nein, mein Herr
.”  She tried to smile at him, but was aware it probably just looked like she was baring her teeth.

     “It must be if you have forgotten your English,” he muttered.  He extended a hand and she took it so he could sit up.  The faint rumble of the approaching riders became loud now.  Marshall swallowed painfully and squinted up towards the top of the rocks where she had recently been.  “They are coming.  Do we know yet if they are friend or foe?”

     “No. We do not.”

     Marshall scanned the tops of all the rocks.  “Sonnenby?”

     “He and Monsieur Descartes will greet the riders.  It will be one tribe or another.  A roll of the dice, Mr. Marshall, whether we live or die.  I do not like to gamble.”

     “Nor do I.  I do not even play at cards.”  He winced and put his hand over his ribs.

     “Are you injured beyond the obvious?”

     “Probably,” he said.  “The Ruwallah was not gentle when he took me to the ground, and it feels like the camel dislodged all my insides.”  He shifted his weight and leaned back against the rocks.  They were both silent, listening.  The rumble reached a crescendo, accompanied by the percussion of blasts from rifles that echoed among the stones and the deep bass of camel bellows and sharp squeals of horses.  Then came the shouting of men.  The cadence of hoof beats approaching caused Marshall and Elsa to press themselves together against the wall of rock behind them.  Elsa saw a lone rider gallop between the stones just below their hiding place, and another crossed his path as scouts examined the rocky island in the sands.  She strained her ears to hear Sonnenby’s voice.

     Marshall turned his head to look at her as they heard him speaking.  Then Descartes in his French-accented Arabic.  They sounded calm.  The voices that answered them were tired and gravelly, but not hostile.  She relaxed.  Marshall whispered, “We’d be dead now if these men were the enemy.”

     They waited for a few more tense minutes before the top of a faded fedora appeared below them followed by two white
keffiyahs
and black
agals.
Descartes looked up at them and waved an arm in their direction.  Sonnenby’s dark eyes met hers expressionlessly and the strange Bedouin lowered his as soon as he saw her.  They spoke, but not to Marshall and Elsa.  As they turned to walk away, Descartes looked up to give her a soundless warning.

     “I believe we are to stay up here,” she said to Marshall.

     “I agree.  They would not know what to do with you in camp.”

     “Or you, sir.”

     He tried to smile.  “Or me.  Yes.”

     Before the sun set Elsa climbed to the top of the rocks again to see what was happening.  There seemed to be at least a hundred men, camels and horses.  The well was being continually worked to water so many thirsty mouths.  A camp of sorts was set up with the well in the center.  No tents were raised, instead bedrolls made from the camel trappings were set about in patterns. 

     There were no fires but one or two made from dung or what fuel had been brought with them.  Elsa saw that eating and resting and drinking were the order of the evening.  She scanned the camp for Descartes’ fedora.  She found him with Sonnenby around one of the fires and a magnificently dressed Arab in gold and white.  Beside her Marshall’s head appeared.  “The
sharif,”
he said.

     “I do not know that word,” she told him.

     “Like the holy family.  As if there were a descendant of Christ.”

     “He is a priest?”

     “No, a special nobleman.”

     She looked at the
sharif
carefully, taking in the spotless white robes and the glittering belt and dagger sheath he wore.  More importantly, she counted his bodyguards. “We should get back to the ledge before they see us.”

     She helped him down; glad he had recovered from the ride and was more himself.  The sun sank low, and then disappeared.  The stars came out with the cool breeze and Elsa found herself dozing.

     Just before dawn she awoke with a start.  A camel had bellowed its discomfort or anger.  She nearly slid down to the sands, but caught herself.  Marshall took her arm and steadied her.

     “Careful,” he said unnecessarily.

     “Oh,” she answered.  “I almost lost my briefcase.”  She felt for it beside her and pushed it back against the wall behind them.

     “It amazes me that you still have that with you.”  Marshall leaned on one elbow.

     “It is why I am here, Mr. Marshall.  To lose it again would be to fail.”

     “I can see you are not accustomed to failure.”

     “No.  I strive against failure every day.  It is to be avoided at all costs.”

     “Really?  All costs?”

     Elsa stopped.  He was right. Not all costs. “It is a figure of speech, Mr. Marshall.”  She lowered her eyes.  She knew he was thinking about the war, not her briefcase.  “There is a proper time for failure.  When it benefits others.  When it brings peace.”

     “Then it is not failure,” Marshall said. “It is success.”

     “I am certain they do not feel that way in Berlin.”

     “Success and failure at the same time.  Difficult concept.”

     She changed the subject.  “Will you eat now?”

     He opened one hand and she put a round of flatbread in it.  “You’ll need more water to get that down,” she said.

     “Granted.”  He tore a mouth-sized piece off and chewed carefully. She handed him the water skin.

     “Mr. Marshall.  Please tell me what happened to send Mr. Sinclair to St. Mary’s.”

     He swallowed carefully before answering.  “Something happened in Cairo.  I don’t know what it was.  It has been excised from the records.”

     “I noticed.”

     “I understand that he attacked the general…that would be General Wallace.  It was agreed he had to be mad to do such a thing, but I don’t know the specifics.  It is the General’s signature on a report that helped commit him.  There was no hearing.”

     “Was the General hurt?”

     “He was terribly aggrieved.  Sonnenby had been one of his men and he greatly admired Sonnenby’s command of the language and his insights into the native way of thinking.”

     “I mean was he
injured.
”

     “No.  He was knocked to the ground, but his attaché had Sonnenby pinioned before he could get his hands on the general’s neck.  He was able to break free and lunge again.  I believe that is when they shot him.”

     She had seen the scar that night on the train.  “And the reason for his attack on the General?”

     “They told me he was raving, was making no sense.  Then he fell into that catatonia with which we are so familiar.  He would come out if it raving and violent, then sink back into unconsciousness.  Mad, indeed.”

     “One does not try to kill one’s commanding officer lightly.”

     “Clearly he cracked under the strain of his duties.”  Marshall took another bite of the bread and did not answer until he had finished it, then he said, “If you could discover what really happened, Miss Schluss, would that change anything?”

     “It would change things for Lord Sonnenby, certainly.”

     “I needed you to make him presentable and coherent.  I am currently impressed with his ability to function.  I would say you have already done a remarkable job.  You have succeeded.   He has not been this lucid in over a year.”  He closed his eyes.  “But I wish he had been able to make Mehmet see things differently.”

     Elsa knew that any appearance of health was Sonnenby’s own doing.  He most likely had not as afflicted from the very beginning as his physicians supposed.  He had also hinted to her that he had exaggerated his symptoms to his advantage.  She could not lie to herself.  “I think he decided he wanted to help you, Mr. Marshall, or he would still be in that straightjacket.”

     “He has helped me,” he pointed to his neck, “but not like I had hoped.  I have failed in my mission to bring the Ruwallah on board.”

     “He knew your message was false.  He could not lie to his brother as you wanted him to.”

     “It is not a lie,
fraulein.
  We will support the Ruwallah against their enemies in exchange for their acceptance of our use of their land for a product they do not need nor understand.  They do understand gold.  They do understand guns.”

     “They want their own government.  The Turks oppressed and abused them for almost five hundred years.  But at least that master shared their religion.  They will not stand for Christian masters.  Do not fool yourself.  No amount of gold can buy their souls.”

     Marshall looked at the moon and took a drink from the skin.  He finally met her eyes and said, “Every man’s soul is for sale.”

     “The devil certainly thinks so,” she quipped.

     Marshall took another drink.  “I have sold mine.  Sonnenby refuses to sell his.  The trade in men’s souls is the business of war, Miss Schluss.  There is profit and loss.”

     She wanted to argue further, but a group of men came around the edge of the rocks toward their position.  When they stopped and looked up at Elsa and Marshall on their ledge she saw that it was Sonnenby and two Bedouin.  Sonnenby glanced over his shoulder at his escorts, then began to climb.  The other two men made no attempt to come up but assumed the poses of men accustomed to waiting.