He Shall Thunder in the Sky (43 page)

     “Your arm. It isn’t . . .” His eyes met those of Ramses. “Hmph. Whatever you say, my boy.”

     Ramses had heard the story of how his father’s shoulder had first been dislocated. His mother’s version was very romantic and very inaccurate; according to her, Emerson had been struck by a stone while shielding her from a rockfall. Ramses could believe that all right. What he didn’t believe was her claim that she herself had pulled the bone back into its socket. Such an operation required a lot of strength, especially when the victim was as heavily muscled as Emerson. Nefret had once demonstrated the technique, using Ramses as a subject, with such enthusiasm that he could have sworn her foot had left a permanent imprint under his arm.

     For a few agonizing moments Ramses didn’t think he was going to be able to do it. His right arm was unimpaired, though, and the left was of some little help. A final heave and twist, accompanied by a groan from Emerson — the first that had passed his lips — did the job. Weak-kneed and shaking, Ramses unhooked the canteen from Risha’s saddle.

     The process had been more agonizing for his father than for him. Emerson had fainted. Ramses trickled water over his face and between his lips, then poured a little into his own hand and wiped his mouth. It was the same temperature as the air, but it helped. His father’s face was already dry and warm to the touch. Water evaporated almost instantly in the desert air.

     “Father?” he whispered. Now that the immediate emergencies had been attended to, he had leisure to think about what he had said. Had he really sworn at his father and called him . . .

     “Well done,” said Emerson faintly.

     “Done, at any rate. Have a drink. I’m sorry it’s not brandy.”

     Emerson chuckled. “So am I. Your mother will point out, as she has so often, that we ought to emulate her habit of carrying such odds and ends.”

     He accepted a swallow of water and then pushed the canteen away. “Save it. Mine is on the body of that unfortunate animal, and it’s not worth the risk of . . . Er, hmph. May I smoke?”

     “You’re asking
me
? Uh — I suppose so. Better now than after dark.”

     “You don’t mean to stay here until dark, do you?”

     “What else can we do?” Ramses demanded. He took the pipe from his father. After he had filled it he handed it back and struck a match. “Risha can’t carry both of us, and it would be insane to expose ourselves to a marksman of that caliber. He dropped your horse with the first shot and the others came unpleasantly close.”

     The rifle spoke again. Sand spurted up from beside the carcass of the horse. The second bullet struck its body with a meaty thunk.

     “He’s somewhere on that rocky spur to the southeast,” Ramses said. Emerson opened his mouth. Ramses anticipated him. “Forget the binoculars. A flash of reflected sunlight would give him his target. I fired three . . . no, four times. That leaves me with only six shots, and —”

     “And a rifle has greater range than a pistol,” Emerson said. “You needn’t belabor the obvious, my boy. It appears we’ll be here awhile.”

     Ramses looked round. A few yards to his right the ground dropped into a kind of hollow, bordered on two sides by the remains of the wall. He indicated the place to his father, who was graciously pleased to agree that it offered better protection for all concerned. He even accepted the loan of Ramses’s arm. Getting Risha into shelter was a more nerve-wracking procedure, but they made it into the hollow without incident.

     They celebrated with another swallow of warm water and another smoke. The slanting rays of sunlight beyond their shelter had turned gold.

     “Someone will come looking for us in the morning,” Ramses said.

     “No doubt.”

     He seemed to have accepted the idea of waiting for rescue. That wasn’t like him. Ramses had other ideas, but he did not intend to propose them. Short of knocking his father over the head, there was no way he could keep Emerson from trying to help him, and he didn’t want help, not from an injured man who also happened to be someone he . . .

     Someone he loved.

     Emerson had dropped off to sleep, his head resting on Ramses’s folded coat. Ramses watched the shadows darken across his father’s still face and wondered why they all found that word so difficult. He loved both his parents, but he’d never told them so; he doubted he ever would. They had never said it to him either.

     Was the word so important? He had never seen his mother cry until the other night, and he knew the tears had been for him: tears of worry and relief, and perhaps even a little pride. It had been a greater acknowledgment of her feelings than hugs and kisses and empty words. All the same . . .

     Emerson’s eyes opened, and Ramses started, as embarrassed as if his father could read his private thoughts. Emerson had not been asleep; he had been thinking. “Were our brilliant deductions about the route wrong after all?”

     “I don’t think so,” Ramses said. “There’d be no point in killing us to prevent us from telling the authorities what we found; we haven’t found a damned thing! It’s more likely that someone took advantage of our being out here in the middle of nowhere to rid himself of . . . Father, it’s me he’s after. I’m damned sorry I got you into this.”

     “Don’t be a bloody fool,” his father growled.

     “No, sir.”

     Emerson’s eyes fell. It took Ramses several long seconds to interpret his expression correctly; he couldn’t remember ever seeing his father look . . . guilty? Downcast eyes, tight mouth, bowed head — it was guilt, right enough, and all at once he understood why.

     “No,” he said again. “
I
didn’t get
you
into this, did I? You went out of your way to find Hamilton this morning. You told him we were coming here. You —”

     His father coughed apologetically. “Go on,” he muttered. “Call me anything that comes to mind. I was the bloody fool; I knew that between the two of us we could deal with a few assassins or an ambush, but I didn’t count on falling off the damned horse. If harm comes to you because of my clumsiness and stupidity, I will never forgive myself. Neither will your mother,” he added gloomily.

     “It’s all right, Father.” He felt an incongruous rush of pleasure. “Between the two of us . . .” Did his father really think that highly of him? “In fact, there’s no one I would rather — er — well, you know what I mean.”

     Too English, David would have said. Both of them. Emerson raised his head. “Er — yes. I feel the same. Hmph.”

     Having got this effusive display of emotion out of his system, he accepted a cigarette from the tin Ramses offered and allowed him to light it.

     “What made you suspicious of Hamilton?” Ramses asked.

     “Hamilton?” Emerson looked surprised. “No, no, my boy, you mistake me. I do not suspect him of anything except being a crashing bore.”

     “But the other night you implied you had identified Sethos. Don’t deny it, Father, you wouldn’t have been so certain Mother was on the wrong track if you hadn’t suspected someone else. I thought —”

     “Well, curse it, Hamilton’s avoidance of us was suspicious, wasn’t it? I was mistaken. As soon as I set eyes on him I knew he wasn’t our man. I mentioned our destination to him as a precaution, so that if we did run into trouble someone would know where we were heading.”

     “Oh.”

     “A number of the officers overheard my conversation with Hamilton. One of them might have mentioned our intentions to other people. You see what that means, don’t you? We’re talking about a limited circle of people — all English, officers and gentlemen. One of them is working for the enemy. He had time to get out here before we arrived.”

     “Or send someone here to wait for us.”

     “Or reach someone by wireless.” Emerson shifted uncomfortably. He was obviously in pain, though he would rather have died than admit it.

     Ramses unbuckled the holster, took off his shirt, and began tearing it into strips. “Let me strap your shoulder. Nefret showed me how.”

     “You can’t do much worse than your mother,” said Emerson with a reminiscent grin. “It was her petticoat she tore up. Women used to wear dozens of them. Useful for bandages, but cursed inconvenient in other ways.”

     Astonishment made Ramses drop one end of the cloth he was holding. Had that been a mildly risqué double entendre? Nothing double about it, in fact, but to hear his father say such a thing about his mother . . .

     Greatly daring, he said, “I expect you managed, though.”

     Emerson chuckled. “Hmmm, yes. Thank you, my boy. That’s much better.”

     “Why don’t you try to get some sleep? We’ve nothing better to do.”

     “Wake me in four hours,” Emerson muttered. “We’ll take it in turn to keep watch.”

     “Yes, sir.”

     In four hours it would be dark and the moon would be up. It was a new moon, but there would be light from the brilliant stars. Ramses wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he had to do something. Desert nights were bitterly cold, and they had no blankets and very little water. Emerson had left his coat, canteen, weapon — everything except his precious pipe — on the saddle of the dead horse. Risha stood quietly, his proud head bent. He would have to go hungry and thirsty that night too. Ramses would have given him the last of the water, had he not wanted it for his father. Well, they would survive, all of them, and he’d have been willing to stick it out if the worst they had to fear was discomfort.

     Would the assassin give up when darkness fell? Bloody unlikely, Ramses thought. If I’d sent him, I’d want proof that he’d done the job. A grisly picture flashed through his mind: Egyptian soldiers after a battle piling up their trophies of victory. Sometimes they collected the hands of the enemy dead. Sometimes it was other body parts.

     Ramses began to unlace his boots.

The sun had just set and a dusky twilight blurred the air when he heard the sound he had been expecting. It was only the faint rattle of a pebble rolling, but in the eerie silence of the desert it was clearly audible. He strained his ears, but heard nothing more. Not an animal, then. Only a man bent on mischief would take pains to move so quietly.

     He eased himself upright and moved cautiously along the wall, his bare feet sensitive to the slightest unevenness on the surface of the ground. The bastard knew where they were, of course, but a stumble or a slip would warn him that they were awake and on the alert. Then he heard another sound that literally paralyzed him with surprise.

     “Hullo! Is someone there?”

     A sudden glare of light framed the speaker — a British officer, in khaki drill jacket and short trousers, cap and puttees. He threw up his arm to shield his eyes.

     “I see someone is,” he said coolly. “Better switch that off, old boy. The fellow who was firing at you has probably taken to his heels, but one ought not take chances.”

     Emerson was on his feet. Injured, sick, or half-dead, he could move as silently as a snake, and he had obviously not been asleep.

     “Looking for us, were you?” he inquired.

     “Yes, sir. You are Professor Emerson? One of the Camel Corps chaps heard gunfire earlier and since you had not turned up, some of us went out looking for you.”

     “You aren’t alone?”

     “Three of my lads are waiting for me at the mouth of the wadi, where I left my horse. A spot of scouting seemed to be in order. Is your son with you?”

     Pressed against the wall, Ramses held himself still. He could see the man’s insignia now — a lieutenant’s paired stars and the patch of the Lancashire Forty-second. His hands were empty and the holster at his belt was fastened. The impersonation was almost perfect — but it was damned unlikely that the military would send a patrol at this hour of the night to search for mislaid travelers, and although his accent was irreproachable, the intonations were just a bit off. Ramses had to admire the man’s nerve. The ambush had failed and he was hoping to settle the business before daylight brought someone out looking for them.

     Emerson was rambling on, asking questions and answering them, like a man whose tongue has been loosened by relief. He kept the torch pointed straight at the newcomer’s eyes, though, and he had not answered the question about Ramses’s whereabouts.

     “Afraid I’ll have to ask the loan of one of your horses,” he said apologetically. “Banged myself up a bit, you see. If you could give me your arm . . .”

     For a second or two Ramses thought it was going to work. The officer nodded affably and took a step forward.

     The pistol wasn’t in his holster. He had stuck it through his belt, behind his back. Ramses had a quick, unpleasant glimpse of the barrel swinging in his direction, and aimed his own weapon, but before he could fire Emerson dropped the torch and launched himself at the German.

     They fell at Ramses’s feet. By some miracle the torch had not gone out; Ramses saw that the slighter man was pinned to the ground by Emerson’s weight, but his arms were free and he was trying to use both of them at once. His fist connected with Emerson’s jaw as Ramses kicked the gun out of his other hand. Emerson let out a yell of pure outrage and reached one-handed for the German’s throat. Ramses swung his foot again and the flailing body went limp.

     Emerson sat up, straddling the man’s thighs, and rubbed his jaw.

     “Sorry for being so slow, sir,” Ramses said.

     Emerson grinned and looked up. “Two good arms between the two of us. Not so bad, eh?”

     “You saved my life. Again.”

     “I’d say the score was even. I tried to blind him but his night vision must be almost as good as yours. He went for you first because he took me to be unarmed and incapacitated. Now what shall we do with him?”

     Ramses lowered himself to a sitting position, wondering if he would ever be able to match his father’s coolness. “Tie him up, I suppose. I’ll be damned if I know what with, though.”

     “Yards of good solid cloth in those puttees. Here — I think he’s waking up. Stick that pistol of yours in his ear. He’s a feisty lad, and I’d rather not have to argue with him again.”