In the heart of the desert even the most mundane sights take
on a strange and unsettling air. The dog sat perfectly still on the crest of
the ridge, watching the patrol with dark eyes. It was a grey mongrel, the kind
of tattered and wretched creature that slopes despondently around meat-souqs
hoping to make off with a scrap of mutton or chicken before the trader beats it
from his stall.
‘I don’t like it,’ grumbled Najid, shielding his eyes
against the sun. ‘How did it get here? Why’s it so still?’
Najid abu Rasil was the oldest of them. His beard was more
grey than black and when he smiled that impudent, insouciant grin of his, half
his teeth were missing. Those that remained were crooked and stained from
decades of shisha-tobacco. Najid was not a man easily perturbed, except by the
prospect of real work.
‘It’s just a dog, Najid,’ Abdul-Malik laughed. ‘Probably
belongs to some herdsman and wandered off.’
‘If I was a shepherd and my mutt wandered off to sit in the
desert miles from anywhere I’d have whoever trained it’s head! Besides, have
you seen any flocks round these parts?’
Abdul-Malik had to admit he hadn’t. Between leaving the camp
and arriving in this dry wadi, they had seen not a single living thing, nor any
sign of human habitation. Abdul-Malik still couldn’t decide whether it was
depressingly barren or magnificent.
He looked again at the dog. It still didn’t move. Such
stillness. Perfect, unnatural stillness. Was it even alive? He felt foolish for
even entertaining such an absurd thought. Why would anyone stuff a dog and pose
it atop a ridge in the middle of the desert? Besides, it was staring back.
Those dark, motionless eyes smouldered with patient intelligence.
Another thing unnatural. Whoever heard of an intelligent
dog?
‘We’re wasting time,’ said Ali bin Shatam, fidgeting
impatiently with his rifle. ‘It’s hot and I’m thirsty and we’re wasting time.’
Bin Shatam was always thirsty. The smug young Circassian had
had a privileged upbringing; some obscure connection to the sharif, so he said.
Not that anyone had ever seen Sharif Ali pay him the slightest hint of
attention. He’d never got the hang of moderation or rationing. He always gulped
down his water too quickly and then went crawling round the others begging a
share of theirs. ‘Bin Shaitan’, the men called him behind his back – Son of the Devil.
‘You’re welcome to go on alone,’ Najid snapped, his
attention never wavering from the dog.
‘They say the djinn sometimes appear as
dogs and lead men to their doom in the desert.’
‘If you go around following random dogs you deserve all you
get,’ Abdul-Malik replied with a chuckle. ‘Come on now, Najid. You don’t
believe in djinn.’
‘Oh, I don’t, do I?’
That surprised him. ‘Do you?’
The older man shrugged.
‘We’ve got to be rational,’ Abdul-Malik said firmly. ‘If we
want the British to take us seriously we can’t go around believing in ghūls and ifrits and all those superstitions. We’re not credulous savages.
It’s the twentieth century.’
‘Hmm. The British can keep their reason. We’re Arabs, my boy. Sooner you realise that,
the happier you’ll be.’ He shouldered his rifle and hauled himself back up into
the saddle of Barirah, his camel. ‘Come on, bin Shatam’s right. We’re wasting
time here.’
Bin Shatam sighed with relief and made a great show of
remounting his own camel. Abdul-Malik lingered. Until now he’d wanted nothing
more than to be on their way. It was well past noon but the sun overhead was
still merciless. As far as he was concerned, the sooner they completed their
circuit of the area and got back to the camp, the better. But somehow leaving
now felt like a mistake. Like they were shirking their duty; leaving a mystery
unresolved.
‘What if it’s a Turkish dog?’
‘Unlikely suggestion,’ bin Shatham said. ‘Animals don’t have
nationalities. They can’t get issued with passports.’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘I have a degree from Cairo.’
Abdul-Malik didn’t believe for a moment that bin Shatam had
ever even been to Egypt. If he had any been on the receiving end of any
education beyond how to pose and preen his beloved fair hair, it had assuredly
not extended to manners or social skills. Abdul-Malik ignored him and spoke to
Najid.
‘Maybe it belonged to someone in a Turkish scouting party?’
‘I don’t care if it’s Kaiser Willy’s dear little puppy Otto
so long as it keeps sitting there minding its own business.’
‘You said you didn’t like it.’
‘I don’t. I don’t like arse-face here either.’ He nodded at
bin Shatam. ‘Some things you just have to put up with and move on.’
‘I’m going for a closer look.’
Abdul-Malik hadn’t known he was going to say that till the
words crossed his lips. He cocked his Enfield and began advancing cautiously up
the slope towards the dog. Somewhere behind him he heard Najid utter a
theatrical, long-suffering sigh.
‘Hey there, boy. You’re a nice dog, aren’t you? Not an enemy
spy. Certainly not a djinni.’
The creature regarded him dispassionately. When he was about
halfway up the incline it turned and slowly sauntered away.
Typical.
As it turned out, it hadn’t gone far. When Abdul-Malik reached
the crest of the ridge he found it was waiting a few dozen feet away. There was
something sprawled on the stone beside it.
‘Najid! Ali! Get up here! There’s a man. The bloody thing’s
got an owner!’
He ran over and checked the fellow while he waited for his
companions to arrive. It was a young man, older than him but younger than
Aurens. Clean-shaven except for a skinny moustache across his upper lip. Pale,
sunburnt skin and khaki drill marked him out as a British soldier. Abdul-Malik wasn’t expecting much when he
felt at the man’s jugular but was surprised to find a pulse, faint but steady.
The man’s eyes opened the barest crack. He muttered
something but Abdul-Malik’s English wasn’t yet good enough to discern meaning
in the slurred sounds. He fished out his goatskin and offered water to the
Englishman’s lips. He choked and spluttered most of it down his chin, but the
second time Abdul-Malik raised the skin he was able to swallow it down.
Najid and bin Shatham arrived.
‘Ya allah!’ Najid
sighed. ‘As if one Englishman wasn’t enough trouble. Is he dead?’
The man murmured something, his eyes closed.
‘Not far off, I think. He must have been in the desert all
day. Maybe even since yesterday. It’s a miracle we found him.’
‘Alhamdulillah,’
Najid retorted, not, Abdul-Malik considered, entirely sincerely.
‘Where’d that dog go?’ asked bin Shatam.
‘It’s right th– ’ Abdul-Malik broke off. The creature had
vanished. The ridge was a few score feet higher than the surrounding desert.
The view was uninterrupted as far as the big jagged rock outcroppings near the
camp. Wherever the mongrel had slunk off to, they ought to have been able to
see it.
‘Never mind that,’ said Najid. ‘We’d better get this halfwit
back to camp. What in God’s name was he doing out here by himself anyway?’
Between them, Abdul-Malik and Najid hauled the Englishman to
his feet. They had to support his weight; the man was still limp and delirious.
As they lifted him a sealed manila envelope fluttered from a fold or pocket of
his uniform. It was addressed in English to General Allenby.
‘What’s this?’ asked bin Shatam. ‘What does it say?’
‘Mind your own business,’ Najid said, snatching the paper
and stuffing it into his thawb. ‘Are you going to help us or just stand by and
watch?’
~~~
To Abdul-Malik’s relief, the Englishman was still alive when
they rode the camels into the camp. The tribesmen rose from their shishas and
games of backgammon to stare at the new arrival. Najid waved sarcastically at
the spectators. Aurens, it turned out, was not yet back from his attack on the
railway. They delivered the soldier to Sharif Ali, who sent an attendant out to
find someone with medical experience. That was that. Their role was complete
and the foreigner was no longer their responsibility.
‘This should get us in Aurens’ good books, anyway,’
Abdul-Malik said as he and Najid walked back from the Sharif’s tent to their
own corner of the camp. God knew where Bin Shatam had got to. Abdul-Malik
couldn’t find it in himself to care. ‘Reckon he’ll reward us?’
‘Yeah, and maybe we’ll find a hammam full of houris at the next well we stop at. That’s your
problem, my boy. You’re too damned optimistic.’
‘Better that than a cynical old grump like you. Look, the
raiding party’s coming back.’
Raiding was their raison
d’être at the moment. Rumour was that the ultimate goal was to push north
and take al-Quds and Damascus before the British could, but for now Allenby and
Lawrence had them tied up waging a guerrilla campaign against the Hejaz
Railway. It was the only artery connecting Medina and the other scattered
Ottoman holdings that still held out in Arabia to the empire in Palestine and
Anatolia. Their job was to harry the supply line, to keep blowing up tracks and
trains as fast as the Turks could repair them. Sometimes they’d pull down
telegraph wires too while they were at it. Just for larks. The more soldiers
and engineers were bogged down trying to keep the railway operational, the
fewer there would be to hinder the northwards advance of Allenby’s army when it
made its push into the Levant.
Most of the men, of course, cared not a fig for strategy.
They were in it for the loot.
Emerging from a cloud of dust, the raiders thundered down
the hillside on camels laden with boot. They made, it had to be said, more
noise and fuss than was strictly necessary. Those left behind gathered round to
see how jealous they ought to be. Abdul-Malik saw Turkish rifles and officers’
ornamental kilijes; paintings and old
books; what looked like a large pile of silken şalvar
‘Ahh,’ said Najid wryly. ‘Another successful day!’
‘It’s kind of reassuring to know that even in wartime the
Ottoman Empire feels the need to load its trains up full to the brim with junk.
Shows they’ve still got standards.’
‘I’m starting to see a pattern. Today people ride off into
the desert; they come back with useless crap.’
El-Aurens rode in at the back, as he often did. Like all
Europeans he was stiff-necked and aloof. He didn’t like to get caught up in the
excitement like an Arab. Well, didn’t like to show it, anyway. That famous
English reserve, people would say with knowing nods. Famous it might be, but
Abdul-Malik didn’t think it could be much fun. Aurens never brought back any
loot. His paymasters must be keeping him well.