‘Thank you, Farraj.’
The boy nodded to Lawrence and departed.
‘Shall I be mother?’ the soldier asked, pouring a cup and
offering it to Jo. ‘There’s only camel milk to go with it, I’m afraid. Not too
bad once you get used to it.’
Once politeness had been satisfied and they all had drinks,
he tried again. ‘So, what exactly were you doing on an Ottoman troop train?’
His increased directness seemed to irritate the Doctor. His
reply was calm but a little testy. ‘I told you. We were prisoners.’
‘So you say. But you can see my predicament. How did you
come to be prisoners?’
How do we ever not
come to be prisoners, Jo wondered to herself. She was sure it mustn’t be like
this for other people. The Grand Bazaar at Constantinople was a sprawling
warren, filled with people from all over the Ottoman Empire, and more than a
few from Europe besides. It was heaving with sights and sounds and smells, a
thousand-and-one distractions. Common sense surely dictated that it ought to be
possible to wander around minding your own business for hours without
attracting the attention of anyone at all, even if a group of rowdy Turkish
naval officers on shore leave did happen to be passing. Common sense surely
dictated that even if they did start
making pointed comments and asking unwelcome questions, it ought to be possible
to resolve the situation with something other than a loud cry of hai!!! and a flurry of Venusian aikido
that would bring every soldier and jandarma
in the area hurrying to investigate.
They’d been in custody within ten minutes of stepping out of
the TARDIS. The Doctor’s relationship to common sense, it seemed to Jo, was at
times barely more than tangential.
The Doctor delivered a summary of these events to Lawrence which somehow succeeded in making them sound somewhat less ridiculous than they had felt at the time. His description of the month they’d subsequently spent locked up in the bowels of the justice ministry dwelled rather more heavily on his verbal sparring with the Adliye Nazırı over chilled ayran and baklava than on the elements Jo remembered as having characterised the vast majority of their stay, such as hours of mindless tedium and endlessly repetitive accusations of spying. Eventually, out of the blue one day they had been summoned up from their cells and told they were being sent south.
The Doctor delivered a summary of these events to Lawrence which somehow succeeded in making them sound somewhat less ridiculous than they had felt at the time. His description of the month they’d subsequently spent locked up in the bowels of the justice ministry dwelled rather more heavily on his verbal sparring with the Adliye Nazırı over chilled ayran and baklava than on the elements Jo remembered as having characterised the vast majority of their stay, such as hours of mindless tedium and endlessly repetitive accusations of spying. Eventually, out of the blue one day they had been summoned up from their cells and told they were being sent south.
‘You are wanted in Mada’in Saleh,’ the minister had said
with the stiff sulkiness of a man whose authority had been overruled. That had
been that. He would not elaborate on why. Jo had got the distinct impression
that the officious little fellow didn’t know himself.
Within hours they were at Sirkeci Garıbeing bundled on to a
train. Several changes and several days later they were on the Hejaz Railway on
the final stage of their journey. On a train that would never reach its
destination.
Lawrence listened thoughtfully. ‘Mada’in Saleh,’ he mused.
‘There’s not much there. There’s the Ottoman railway depot, and the old
Nabataean ruins, of course… I don’t suppose you have any idea why they might
have wanted you there?’
‘The chap on the train didn’t seem very talkative,’ the
Doctor admitted apologetically.
‘Yes, well that’s the problem with Turks,’ Lawrence agreed
with twinkling irony. ‘Bloody unhelpful at times.’
‘I still think it might have something to do with the
TARDIS,’ Jo blurted. The Doctor shot her a warning glance.
‘TARDIS?’ asked Lawrence, suddenly intrigued.
‘Our... boat. The one we arrived in Constantinople in.’
‘When you were blown off course.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What does a boat have to do with Mada’in Saleh?’
‘Nothing, probably.’
‘Except?’
The Doctor sighed. ‘It’s no ordinary boat. And when I
escaped briefly a couple of weeks ago it wasn’t where I’d left it.’
‘They probably just impounded it. It’s hardly likely to be
in Mada’in Saleh, Doctor. The place is almost a hundred miles from the sea and
there’s not a river to be had in the whole of Arabia.’
‘Like I said, it is a very special boat.’
~~~
Take up the White
Man's burden—
Send forth the best ye
breed—
Go bind your sons to
exile
To serve your
captives' need;
To wait in heavy
harness,
On fluttered folk and
wild—
Your new-caught,
sullen peoples,
Half-devil and
half-child.
Abdul-Malik stared at the words intently, trying to focus on
the unfamiliar letter-forms as they danced in the firelight. English was still
a struggle for him, but not quite so much as it had been. He understood most of
the words, but the sentiment of the poem still mystified him somewhat.
‘English poems again?’ asked Najid as he sat down beside
Abdul-Malik. At least he’d brought his shisha. He began setting the pipe up.
‘What’s wrong with our stuff? You want to read some – what’s his name? – Hafiz
Ibrahim or whatever.’
‘You know who Hafiz Ibrahim is?’
Najid grinned. ‘There you go, lad. Don’t believe everything
those English say. We’re not all ignorant camel-jockeys out here in the
desert.’
‘Is that a fact? Don’t suppose you feel like reciting a
verse or two to while away the night?’
‘The urge may take me some day, my boy. But not, I fear,
tonight.’
‘Of course not.’
The shisha bubbling away happily, Najid took an experimental
puff on the pipe. It met with his approval and he sucked a longer, deeper drag,
visibly sinking down into his cushion as the tension in his shoulders ebbed
away.
Abdul-Malik turned back to his book. He barely made it
through another line before Najid interrupted again.
‘So what’s the appeal? Why d’you bother? It can’t do your
eyes any good.’ He squinted suspiciously at the page, the roman letters
jittering and jostling in the firelight. ‘I can’t make head or tail of those
weird letters of theirs.’
‘They’re civilised. I want to understand it. So we can be
civilised too.’
‘We are
civilised.’
‘Yeah, we are. But not like them. We scrape a living out
here in the desert. England has the greatest empire in the world.’
‘So civilisation’s measured in how many people lick your
boots and call you master? Time was when the caliphate stretched Persia in the
east to al-Andalus in the west. Where were the English then? Where were any of
the Europeans? Scrabbling around like barbarians in their dark ages, that’s
where.’
Abdul-Malik blinked. He’d underestimated Najid. The old man
knew a bit of history. Enough to make it sound convincing, anyway. The past had
never interested Abdul-Malik so much as the future. He knew there’d been a
great caliphate once, centuries ago, but those days were long gone. As for
European dark ages, he had no idea.
‘It’s not like that,’ he told Najid. ‘They’re trying to make
the world better. To bring progress…’
‘Progress,’ Najid repeated sceptically, and spat a gobbet of
something on to the sand. After a moment’s thought he pulled something from his
thawb. ‘You want to translate
something?’ he asked. ‘Tell me what this says.’
He thrust the envelope into Abdul-Malik’s hands. He saw the
English words carefully typed on it.
O.H.M.S.
F.A.O. Maj. Gen.
E.H.H Allenby
To be delivered BY
HAND ONLY
UTMOST SECRET
‘The Englishman’s letter! You should have given this to
Sharif Ali!’
‘Forgot.’
Abdul-Malik looked at him sceptically. He saw the firelight
twinkle in the older man’s eyes.
‘Besides,’ Najid went on, ‘don’t you want to know what it says?’
‘Besides,’ Najid went on, ‘don’t you want to know what it says?’
~~~
With a final flare of vermilion and gold on the undersides
of the sparse clouds, the sun dipped beneath the rocks of the horizon, done
tormenting the earth for another day. As night settled over the Arab camp it
brought with it a certain stillness and quiet. Camels folded themselves down on
to the still-hot sand to sleep. Men settled down to talk for a while by the
firesides or to suck on their shishas and stare at the brilliant stars
overhead, the arch of the Darb al-Tabbana like sand grains across black silk.
On a ridge overlooking the encampment, a man watched through
field-glasses.
The creature at his side seemed briefly to resemble a ragged
dog before its shimmering, protean form altered once again and no words this
world presently had could have described it.
~~~
Outside his tent, Sharif Ali discussed strategies and
politics with his lieutenants in low voices as they finished off the last
scraps of rice and flatbread. The attendant emerged from within, yawning. There
was no more he could do for his patient tonight, he told them. He begged
permission to retire to his own, bedroll. The Sharif dismissed him with an idle
wave and the fellow gratefully disappeared into the dark.
So there was no-one around to see when, a moment later, the
Englishman’s eyes flicked suddenly open.
~~~