Batula settled down under a twisting-branched marula tree, a hundred yards from the prison tent. The others came up casually and joined him, squatting in a circle and spreading their robes around them until, in the semi-darkness, they seemed like any of the other small groups of Omani soldiers scattered about, talking softly, drinking coffee and sharing a pipe.
Suddenly there was a stir as a group of three splendidly apparelled Arabs came striding towards them, followed closely by their bodyguards. Tom felt a flutter of panic, certain that somehow their presence had been discovered, but the men passed close by them and went on towards the tent.
‘He with the blue headcloth and gold rope is Prince Abubaker, the one I told you of,’ whispered Batula. ‘The other two are al-Sind and bin Tati, both fierce soldiers and liegemen of Abubaker.’
Tom watched the three enter the tent in which Dorian lay prisoner. They were close enough to hear the murmur of voices from behind the leather walls. Then there came the sound of a blow and a cry of pain. Tom half rose to his feet, but Aboli reached out a hand and drew him down. There was more talking within the tent, then Abubaker stooped out through the fly and paused to look back. ‘Keep him alive, Ben Abram, that he may die with more passion.’ Abubaker laughed and came back, passing so close that Tom could have touched the hem of his robe.
‘Salaam aliekum, mighty lord,’ Tom murmured, but Abubaker never glanced in his direction, and went on to where his own tent stood in the centre of the encampment.
Slowly a hush settled. Voices died away, and men curled up in their shawls around the fires and the flames burned down to ash. Tom and his men lay down around the small fire Batula had built, and covered their heads but did not sleep. As the fires died, the darkness deepened. Tom watched the stars to judge the passage of time. It went infinitely slowly. At last he reached across and touched Aboli’s back.
‘It is time.’ He stood up slowly and moved towards Dorian’s tent. He had been watching the sentry who sat at the rear. He had seen his head droop, then come up with a jerk, only to droop again.
Tom walked up softly behind him, leaned over him and struck him across the temple with the barrel of his pistol. He felt the thin bone break and the man sagged forward without a sound. Tom squatted in his place, assuming the same position with the man’s musket across his lap. He waited for a long minute to make certain that there was no alarm. Then he eased himself forward on his haunches until he was close to the rear wall of the tent.
He had no way of knowing if they had posted a guard inside the tent at Dorian’s bedside. He wet his lips, drew breath, then softly whistled the opening bar of ‘Spanish Ladies’.
Someone stirred behind the leather wall, and then came a voice he did not remember. It was not the voice of the child Dorian had been when they had parted. It was the voice of a man.
‘Tom?’
‘Aye, lad. Is it safe within?’
‘Only Ben Abram and me.’
Tom slipped out his jack-knife and the leather wall of the tent fell apart beneath the blade. A hand reached out to him through the gap, pale in the starlight. Tom seized it, squeezed hard, and Dorian drew him through the gap into the tent where they embraced, kneeling chest to chest.
Tom started to speak, but his voice was choked. He hugged Dorian with all his strength, and drew another breath. ‘God love you, Dorian Courtney. I know not what to say.’
‘Tom!’ Dorian reached up with his good hand and seized a handful of the thick dust-stiff curls at the back of his brother’s head. ‘It’s so good to see you.’ The English words were alien on his tongue, and he was weeping, overwhelmed by the weakness of his wound and by a towering joy.
‘Don’t do that, Dorry, or you’ll set me off,’ Tom protested, and pulled away to wipe his eyes on the back of his arm. ‘Let’s get you out of here, lad. How badly are you hurt? Can you walk if Aboli and I help you?’
‘Aboli? Is he here with you?’ Dorian’s voice trembled.
‘I am here, Bomvu,’ Aboli rumbled beside his ear, ‘but there will be time for all this later.’ He had dragged in the fallen sentry through the cut in the tent wall. Now Tom and he rolled the Arab onto the sleeping mat, and covered his body with Dorian’s woollen blanket. In the meantime Ben Abram was helping Dorian into his robe, covering those shining red curls with a turban.
‘Go with God, al-Salil,’ he whispered, and turned to Tom. ‘I am Ben Abram. Do you remember me?’
‘I shall never forget you and your kindness to my brother, old friend.’ Tom gripped his arm. ‘All God’s blessing be upon you.’
‘You have kept your oath,’ Ben Abram said softly. ‘Now you must gag and bind me, else Abubaker will treat me cruelly when he finds al-Salil gone.’
They left Ben Abram trussed up and took Dorian through the back wall. Outside the tent they lifted him to his feet and supported him between them. Then they started slowly through the sleeping camp. Batula and Luke Jervis went ahead, moving like dark ghosts, and they skirted one of the camp-fires. A sleeping Arab stirred, sat up and stared at them as they passed close to where he lay, but let them go unchallenged, sank down to the earth again and covered his head again.
‘Bear up, Dorry,’ Tom whispered in his ear. ‘Nearly out of it.’ They went on towards the edge of the forest and, as the trees closed around them, Tom almost exclaimed aloud with relief, but at that moment a harsh voice challenged them in Arabic from close at hand.
‘What manner of men are you? Stand, in God’s Name, and deliver yourselves.’
Tom reached for the sword under his robe, but Dorian caught his hand and replied in the same language, ‘The peace of Allah on you, friend. I am Mustapha of Muhaid, and I am devoured by the dysentery. My friends take me to a private place in the bush.’
‘You are not alone in your suffering, Mustapha. There is much of this sickness in the camp,’ the sentry sympathized. ‘Peace upon you, and on your bowels also.’
They moved on slowly. Suddenly Batula appeared again out of the night. ‘This way, effendi!’ he whispered. ‘The horses are close.’
They heard the stamp of a hoof, and suddenly Yasmini’s small figure detached itself from the darkness and raced to Dorian. They clung to each other, exchanging embraces and soft, loving whispers until Tom drew them gently apart and led Dorian to the strongest horse. Between them Aboli and Tom boosted him into the saddle, where he swayed unsteadily. Tom tied his ankles together with a leather thong stretched under the horse’s belly, and they swung Yasmini up behind him.
‘Hold him steady, little sister,’ Tom told her. ‘Do not let him slide off.’
He mounted his own horse, and took the lead rein of Dorian’s mount. ‘Take us home, Aboli,’ he said, and looked back through the trees towards the sleeping camp. ‘We will not have more than a few hours’ start at best. Then they will be after us like a swarm of hornets.’
They used the horses cruelly. The animals had been driven hard on the ride up from Fort Providence, given almost no rest and time to graze, except during the brief night halts. Now the treatment was the same on the ride back. It was baking hot at noon, and the stretches between water were long. The hard ground and flinty stones ripped into the animals’ hoofs.
They lost the first horse before they had gone twenty miles. It was the mount carrying Dorian and Yasmini. It went stone lame in all four hoofs, and could barely hobble. Tom turned it loose, knowing in his heart that lions and hyena would have the brave beast that same night. They put Dorian up on one of the spares and went on at the same pace. By the third day they had burned up all the spare horses and had only those they rode. As they were about to mount again after the brief noon stop at a muddy waterhole, Aboli said quietly, ‘The muskets will be no use to us against an army, and the weight is killing the horses.’
They abandoned their firearms and powder flasks, shot bags and every stick of baggage, keeping only their edged weapons and the waterskins. Tom turned his back so that none would see what he did, and slipped one of the loade
d pistols into his belt below his shirt.
It was a double-barrelled weapon. He knew from what Yasmini had told him of the fate that awaited her and Dorian if the Arabs caught up with them. The pistol was for them, one barrel each. ‘God give me the strength to do it when the time comes,’ he prayed silently.
Though they had drastically lightened the load, they lost another two horses that day. Luke, Aboli and Tom took turns trotting beside the mounted men, hanging on to the stirrup leathers to keep up with the driving pace of the march.
That evening, for the first time, they spotted the pursuing column of Arabs. They were crossing another line of those hills that ran with the grain of this wild country. When they looked back they saw the dustcloud rising three leagues behind them.
That night they stopped only for an hour, then went on by starlight, following the high beacon of the great cross in the constellation of Centaurus. Despite this long night march, and that the Arabs must be burning up their mounts even as they were, they discovered when the dawn broke that they had gained no ground on the pursuit. In the early sunlight the dustcloud rose, red as blood, on the horizon still three leagues behind them.
During the night marches, even Aboli had lost all sense of distance covered and their exact position in this wilderness of forest and broken, hilly country. That evening they crossed another line of hills, hoping to see the shining waters of the Lunga below them, but their hopes were dashed as ahead rose yet another line of green hills. They struggled across the intervening valley, the horses almost finished, and all of them nearing the limit of their endurance. Even Aboli was suffering, trying to conceal the limp caused by a strained ligament in his knee. His face was dry and dusty grey with all the moisture sweated out of him. Dorian was gaunt, his body skeletal beneath his robe, his wound weeping fresh blood from under the filthy dressing. Yasmini had almost exhausted the last of her strength trying to hold him in the saddle. The last horse staggered under their combined weight.
It fell just below the crest of the hills, going down as though it had taken a musket-ball through the brain. Tom cut the thong that held Dorian’s ankles together and dragged him out from under it.
‘It’s shanks’s pony from here, lad. Can you go on?’ he asked him.
Dorian tried to smile. ‘I can go on as long as you can, Tom.’ But when Tom tried to lift him, his knees gave way under him and he sagged to the stony ground.
Close behind them the red dustcloud rose in the valley they had just crossed. They cut a short pole and Aboli and Tom took the ends. They sat Dorian in the middle of it, placed his arms around their shoulders and staggered down the side of the hill into the valley, carrying him between them.
They stopped during the night for a few minutes at a time, then picked up Dorian on his pole and carried him forward until they could not take another pace and sagged to the ground for another rest. It took them all that night to cross the wide valley. They could only hope that the pursuit had halted in the dark behind them, unable to follow their spoor.
Dawn caught them toiling up the slope on the far side of the valley. When they looked back the Arabs were so close that their lance-tips caught the early light and twinkled merrily.
‘They have halved the distance,’ Tom gasped, as they lowered Dorian to the ground for another rest. ‘At the speed we are making they will be up to us in an hour.’
‘Leave me here, Tom,’ Dorian whispered. ‘Save yourselves.’
‘You are mad!’ Tom cried. ‘The last time I turned my back on you, you were gone for years. I’ll not take that risk again.’
They hoisted him, and set off again. Yasmini was walking a few paces ahead. Her leather sandals were ripped and torn almost off her feet, and her heels were bleeding where the blisters had burst open. She fell before they reached the crest, and though she crawled to the nearest tree and tried to use the trunk to pull herself upright, she was too weak to regain her feet.
‘Luke, take my place here! You, Batula, help him.’ Tom handed over the end of the carrying pole to them and went to where Yasmini crouched against the tree, sobbing softly.
‘I am a stupid, weak woman,’ she wept as he stooped over her.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but much too pretty to leave behind.’ He lifted her, and though she was fragile and bird-like, the effort strained every sinew and muscle in his aching back and shoulders. He held her to his chest, and braced himself to take another step upwards.
There was a faint shout far behind them, and he looked back over his shoulder. The outriders of the Arab pursuit column had reached the foot of the hill below them. One raised his jezail and powder smoke spurted from the long barrel. Seconds later they heard the thud of the shot. But the range was still too long, and the ball came nowhere near them.
‘Almost at the top,’ Tom sang out, trying to sound cheerful and gay. ‘One more tilt at it, lads.’ He stepped out on the top of the hill, blinded by sweat. He knew he could go no further. He lowered Yasmini to the ground and wiped his eyes, but his vision was still blurred and starred with bright lights. He reeled on his feet, looked back at the others, and saw that they, too, were finished. Even Aboli had used up the last of his giant strength. He could hardly take the last few steps onto the crest.
This is where we will die, Tom thought. I still have the blue sword to make a decent fight of it, and in the end I will have the pistol for Yasmini and Dorian. He fumbled under his shirt and touched the butt.
Then, suddenly, Aboli was beside him, shaking his arm, unable to speak, pointing down into the valley ahead. For a moment Tom thought it must be a mirage, but then he realized that the dazzle that hurt his squinting eyes was the sunlight off the wide surface of the Lunga river, and that the little Centaurus was moored against the bank. They were so close that they could see tiny human figures on the open deck.
Tom felt new strength flow into his legs. He drew the pistol from under his shirt and fired both barrels in the air. There was a sudden stir on the ship, and Tom saw the flash of a telescope lens as it was aimed up at them. He waved wildly, and the tall figure of Alf Wilson waved back.
Tom turned and looked behind him. The Arab outriders were coming on at a gallop, already halfway up the hill. Without another word, Tom picked up Yasmini and launched himself down the slope towards the river. Gravity took hold of his legs, and he could hardly keep up with them. Each pounding step jarred his spine, as the ground flew past under his feet. He heard Aboli and the others coming down after them, but he could not look back. It took all his wits and strength to stay on his feet. Yasmini closed her eyes in fear, and clung to him with both arms around his neck.
Suddenly there was a shout from behind them and a volley of musket fire. The Arabs had reached the top of the hill. A musket-ball knocked a slab of bark and a burst of wet white splinters from the bole of the tree close beside Tom. He could not keep up the pace and, with Yasmini’s weight, he could not stop. He felt one of his legs give way under him and he fell. He and the girl rolled in a tangle together, until they slid into a boulder and lay stunned.
Aboli came past them, with Dorian on his back, bouncing and staggering, Batula and Luke Jervis trying to keep up with him. Aboli’s legs were beyond his control. He could not stop to help Tom, but Luke grabbed Tom’s arm and dragged him up, while Batula lifted Yasmini in his arms and took a few more unsteady paces down the hill.
There was the rumble of hoofs as the Arabs charged their mounts down upon them. They had already couched their lances and Tom could see the expressions of triumph on their dark faces. Then he heard Sarah shout his name. ‘Tom! We’re coming!’
He spun round and saw that she was astride a bay, dragging two spare horses on lead reins behind her, coming straight up the hill at full pelt. Alf Wilson was a length behind her, on a black mare from their herd. He also had two spares. Sarah reined in beside him and Tom snatched Yasmini out of Batula’s arms and almost threw her light body over the withers of Sarah’s mount. Sarah grabbed her and prevented her from sl
ipping over the other side of the horse.
‘Go!’ Tom gasped. ‘Get her out of here!’
Sarah said not a word, but tossed him the reins of the spare horses and wheeled away down the hill with Yasmini bumping like a wet sack before her.
Tom left one horse for Luke and Batula, and threw himself onto the back of the other. He caught up with Aboli swiftly and plucked Dorian’s bleeding, battered body off his back. ‘Take a mount from Alf!’ he shouted at Aboli as he swept past, and tore down the hill after Sarah. He heard Arabic howls and driving hoofs close behind him, and expected a lance thrust into his back at any instant. But he could not spare a backward glance – he was too busy clutching Dorian. In despair he felt him slip from his grasp and could not hold him. Then, suddenly, Aboli was riding beside him. He leaned across and pushed Dorian upright so that Tom could get a fresh grip around his shoulders.
When they hit the level ground of the riverbank, Tom and Aboli were riding knee to knee, hard behind Sarah, who still held Yasmini. Next came Alf, Batula and Luke in a group. Close behind charged the Arab cavalry. They were gaining, reaching forward eagerly with the long lances.
Sarah did not hesitate when she reached the river. She pushed her mount straight on. It leaped out from the high bank then hit the water in a burst of spray and went clean under. Tom and Aboli followed her over the edge without checking their gallop, then the others jumped almost on top of them. They came up swimming beside their straining mounts, heading out into the stream towards where the Centaurus lay.
Behind them, the Arabs reined up on the bank in a swirl, trying to draw their jezails out of the boots as their horses reared and plunged. The first blast of grapeshot from one of the Centaurus’s nine-pounders caught them, and half went down in a bloody, broken tangle of men and animals. The rest wheeled away in panic and tore back up the hill as another broadside from the Centaurus shattered the trees around them.