'That is why they had so many boats,' said Jack. 'I wondered at the time.' He gasped for a while, fanning himself, and then said 'Killick caught one of the governor's people trying to open one of the boxes with seals that Mr Martin begged for his echinoderms. I believe the governor suspects we may have boarded the right galley after all. He was very pressing to be invited aboard. I wonder what the Turks told him.'
'They told him the simple truth. But it is now quite certain that Mehemet Ali is playing a double game with the Sultan, and naturally the Egyptians expect the Turks to do the same by them. Some people here think we took the French treasure or at least some of it; some think we took long-sunk treasure from the depths; some think we took pearls in those waters where they are known to exist but where no man dares dive; and some think we failed; though I believe every reasoning two-legged creature in the town is convinced that the bell was taken for the purpose of material gain. Where the governor belongs in this array of opinion I know not; but Hassan warned me not to trust him. Apart from anything else, since an open breach between Mehemet Ali and the Sublime Porte is very probable, he need not fear Turkish resentment if he treats us ill. I shall tell Martin to take particular care of his echinoderms.'
'I will not say a fig for the governor,' said Jack, 'nor that since he has no troops he has no teeth, because that might be unlucky; but in any case we shall be shot of him tomorrow. And I must say this for him: he has been mighty civil, gathering a good train of camels for us. If I understood him aright they will be here at dawn. Then three or four days later, if we take it easier this time, marching in the morning and evening and resting at midday and night, and if all goes well, we shall be shot of this horrible country too. We shall be aboard that blessed Dromedary, sailing down the Mediterranean like Christians; and all I shall have to do will be to write my official letter. God help us, Stephen, I had rather be flogged round the fleet.'
Jack Aubrey had always disliked writing official letters, even those in which he had a victory to announce: the prospect of writing one which must speak of total failure in every respect, without the least alleviating feature or favourable circumstance—no chance prize taken, no valuable ally acquired—depressed him extremely.
His depression lifted with the appearance of a visitor, however, the Coptic physician, Dr Simaika, come to call on Stephen and to talk about European politics, ophthalmia, and Lady Hester Stanhope; he had brought a basket of fresh khat, and as they chewed it, to find whether in fact it made the heat seem less, he branched off to Egyptian adultery, fornication and paederasty—Sodom itself was only a few days march east-north-east, behind the Wells of Moses—in their less tragic aspects, and he was so droll, so intensely amused, that although Jack did not follow a great deal of what he said and often had to have the point explained, he spent a very pleasant evening, laughing much of the time. Suez seemed a much less revolting place; the changing breeze wafted the stench out to sea; the heat was certainly more bearable; and when the governor's secretary came to say that on second thoughts it might be better if Captain Aubrey were not to start tomorrow after all he received him with a fine equanimity. Fortunately Dr Simaika was still there and the position was soon clarified: as the governor had been disappointed of even the half-platoon of guards he had been promised, he thought it advisable to send to Tina, so that a body of Turks might return with the messenger, thus providing Captain Aubrey with an escort across the desert. It would only take ten days or so, and during that time the governor would have the pleasure of Captain Aubrey's much-valued company.
'God forbid,' said Jack. 'Please to tell him that we know the way perfectly well, that we have no need of an escort, since the men will march with their weapons, and that although nothing would give me deeper satisfaction than sitting with his Excellency, duty calls me away.'
The secretary asked whether in that case Captain Aubrey would assume full responsibility, and hold the governor blamelesss if for example one of his men were bitten by a camel, or if thieves picked his pocket at one of the wells?
'Oh yes,' said Jack. 'On my own head be it—best compliments to his Excellency, and should be happy to keep to our former agreement—camels at dawn.'
'Shall we ever see them, I wonder?' said Jack, when the secretary had gone.
'Perhaps you may,' said Dr Simaika with a very significant look; but before its significance could become explicit the purser came to ask for instructions about victualling and Mowett for Captain Aubrey's views on liberty—liberty in the technical sense—while at the same time a fight broke out in the square below, a fight between Davis and the bear, which resented his familiarity in chucking it under the chin.
The Copt bowed and departed. Stephen hurried down to repair the bear, and Jack, having dealt with the question of provisions, said that there was to be no liberty—there was a possibility of their getting under way in the morning, and he did not choose to spend all day combing the brothels of Suez for stragglers. The one great gate into the caravanserai was to be locked, and Wardle and Pomfret, two misogynistic, puritanical, ill-favoured old quartermasters, the grizzled fathers of seventeen children between them, and perfectly reliable when sober, were to guard it. 'For my part,' he added, 'I must go down and see the last of the Niobe, she sails on the first of the ebb. But I shall turn in very early, in case the camels appear.'
The camels appeared, noisy, smelly, grumbling; and as the great gateway opened they strode through in the first grey light; and dodging among their legs, bent low to pass unseen and led by Wardle and Pomfret, came a discreditable number of Surprises who had crept out by night, now pale, hollow-eyed and weary. However, there was nobody missing, and after a brief inspection Mowett could report 'All present and sober, sir, if you please,' without more falsehood than could be borne, since the few hands who were still drunk by naval standards did not fall until after the inspection; and they were quietly slung on to camels' backs among the tents and seamen's bags.
While the few stores that remained from the voyage—a little biscuit, a little tobacco, a quarter keg of rum, and a few barrel hoops that Mr Adams had saved (he was accountable for every one of them)—the seamen's bags, the officers' chests and Stephen's belongings were being loaded, Killick stripped Jack of all his finery, packed it into his sea-chest and lashed the chest, triple-locked and covered with sailcloth, on to a particularly docile, reliable she-camel led by a black man with an honest face, allowing his captain no more than a pair of old nankeen pantaloons, a linen shirt, a broad-brimmed sailor's hat, made of straw, a pair of common ship's pistols, and the shabby sword he used for boarding—these to be hung on the chest when they were out of the town.
Yet plain though he was, Captain Aubrey marched in state, coming first, with Mowett on his right, a midshipman on his left, and his coxswain immediately behind him; then came the Surprises with their officers, forecastlemen in front, then foretopmen, maintopmen and afterguard, and then the baggage-train. They left Suez in quite good style, escorted by a cloud of excited yellow curs and little boys, for although those seamen who started in step soon fell out of it they did at least keep in recognizable groups until they were well out into the desert.
But presently there came a long stretch of heavy going, sand so soft that unless a man had feet like a camel he sank to the ankles; furthermore the whole party had been long enough at sea to grow quite unused to walking, and by the time Jack gave the order to halt for breakfast the column was a long straggling line.
'I see that there are some camels with nothing on their backs but drunken sailors and a few tents,' said Martin. 'Army officers generally ride, even in the foot regiments.'
'So they do in the Navy, sometimes,' said Stephen, 'and an eminently comic spectacle it is, on occasion. But there is a tedious and I fear increasingly powerful sentiment that when something exceptionally arduous and disagreeable is to be done, like walking over a hot, shadowless desert, then all hands must share alike, ton for ton and man for man. It seems to me foolish, inconsistent, ostent
atious, useless, illogical. I have often represented to Captain Aubrey that no one expects him to join in cleaning the filth from the ship's heads, nor in many other vile offices, and that it is therefore mere froth and showing away, spiritual pride, nay downright sin, voluntarily to strut about the wilderness like this.'
'And yet—forgive me, Maturin—you are doing so yourself, with camels of your own at hand.'
'That is only moral cowardice. My courage will increase as my ankles swell and my feet grow more blistered, and presently I shall silently mount my beast.'
'We rode, you and I, on the march down.'
'That was because they marched at night, while it was known that we spent the day botanizing. We were also unperceived.'
'How we botanized! Do you think we shall reach Bir Hafsa tomorrow?'
'Which as Bir Hafsa?'
'The resting-place where there was such a fine stretch of centaurea for the camels and where we found the curious euphorbia among the dunes.'
'And the spiny lizards, the crested desert-lark, the anomalous wheatear. Perhaps we may: I hope so, indeed.'
Yet at one time it seemed scarcely possible. The party did not get along well at all: those men who had spent the night in song and dance were horribly jaded, and once the sun had climbed a little way the heat was very great; but there was another factor that had not come into play when they marched down to Suez in the darkness—by day the vast expanse of desert, perfectly level in every direction, offered no shelter for those who wished to relieve themselves; and as several of the Surprises, including their captain, were as shamefast and bashful in their actions as they were licentious in their speech, this led to a great loss of time as men hurried off so that distance, often very great distance, should preserve their modesty. So much was this the case that the party advanced no more than a pitiful stage the first day, only reaching a place called Shuwak, a rocky outcrop with some tamarisk and mimosa scrub less than sixteen miles from Suez. But had they gone farther Stephen would never have been able to show Jack his first Egyptian cobra, a magnificent specimen five feet nine inches long that was gliding about the small ruined caravanserai with its head raised and its hood expanded, a most impressive sight. Nor would he and Martin have been able to take a camel over to the shores of the Little Bitter Lake, where in the last rays of light they saw the pied kingfisher and the houbara bustard.
But by the next day most people had recovered; they were now on firm stony sand with a certain amount of low vegetation, and they went along at a fine rate. It was the same easy going after the long midday halt, and the sun was still a handsbreadth over the horizon when Bir Hafsa came in sight far ahead—another ruined building by the side of the track and three palms by the well, in a region of fixed dunes.
'I think we might as well pitch camp by the well,' said Jack. 'Going on another hour would be neither here nor there, and we might as well sup in comfort.'
'You will not object if Martin and I go ahead on our camel?' asked Stephen.
'Never in life,' said Jack, 'and I should be most uncommon obliged if you would clear the ground of the more disgusting reptiles while you are there.'
The camel in question, a comparatively good-natured animal with a long swift stride, soon outpaced the column even with its double load, and set them down in the centaureas near the palms with half an hour of sunlight to spare.They had seen two very curious wheatears, black with white polls, and they were climbing a dune to the east of the camping-place to see more when Martin said 'Look. How extremely picturesque.' He pointed westwards, and there on a corresponding dune, black against a brilliant orange sky, Stephen saw a dromedary and its rider. He shaded his eyes against the glare, and down on the level desert he saw more camels, a great many more; and not only camels but horses too. He looked to the south, and there was the column marching in or rather straggling in over a furlong of ground, with the baggage-train fast catching up as the camels smelt the thorny pasture. 'I think we should hurry down,' he said.
Jack was pointing out the places for the tents when Stephen interrupted him. 'I beg your pardon, sir, but there is a large force of camels a short mile to the west: when I last saw them from up there their riders were changing to horses, which I understand is the Bedouin mode of attack.'
'Thankee, Doctor,' said Jack. 'Mr Hollar, pipe to quarters.' And raising his voice enormously, 'Afterguard, afterguard there. Double up, double up, double up.'
The afterguard doubled up, falling into their place on the fourth side of the square formed by the forecastlemen, the foretopmen and maintopmen. 'Mr Rowan,' said Jack, 'take some hands and make the camel-drivers take shelter in that enclosure with all their beasts. Killick, my sword and pistols.'
The square was not military in its neatness, and when Jack said 'Fix bayonets' there was no simultaneous flash, click and stamp; but the sharp blades were there, the muskets were there, and the men were thoroughly used to using them. The square was small, but it was formidable: and as Jack stood there in the middle of it he thanked God that he had not tried to increase the rate of march by having the weapons loaded on to the pack animals. He was not so pleased when he looked at the slow-moving animals themselves, however; his own chest was on one of the foremost beasts and Killick was already coming back, but although Rowan and his men had most of the camels in the enclosure they were still having to beat the stragglers along and he was just about to call out when he saw horsemen appear on the top of Stephen's dune. He hailed 'Rowan, Honey. Rejoin at once,' and they came running, their shadows long on the sand.
More horsemen gathered, and then with a concerted shriek they raced breakneck down the hill upon Rowan and Honey, easily catching them and cutting them off, enveloping them but avoiding them by inches as they stood there: after a moment they were past, riding furiously up the opposite slope, where they reined in so hard that their horses stopped dead. Here they poised for a long moment, all armed, either with swords or very long guns.
Jack had seen many a fantasia on the Barbary coast—Arabs galloping full tilt at their chief and his guests, firing in the air and turning at the last moment—and as Rowan and Honey came gasping into the square he said 'Perhaps it is only their fun. No man is to fire unless I give the word.' He repeated this with emphasis and there was a general grunt of agreement, though old Pomfret muttered 'Funny fun.' The men looked grave, displeased, but perfectly competent and sure of themselves. Both Calamy and Williamson were nervous, naturally enough, since they had seen almost no action on shore, and Calamy kept fiddling with the lock of his pistol.
High on the dune a red-cloaked man threw up his gun, fired it into the air and launched his horse down the slope, followed by all the others, firing and crying 'Illa-illa-illa.'
'It is a fantasia,' said Jack, and aloud 'Do not fire.'
The troop raced towards them, split in two and swept round the square, a bewildering whirl and counter-whirl of flying robes, swords flashing in the sunset, guns going off, the unceasing 'Illa-illa-illa', and a great cloud of dust.
The sun set: the opaque dust glowed golden. The ring of galloping horsemen came closer, shouting over the thunder of hooves. Calamy dropped his pistol, which flashed in the pan: Killick sprang from his place as though he had been wounded, crying 'No, you don't, you black bastard,' and somebody shouted 'They're off!'
They were indeed. The last wild round spun away, racing in a straight line westwards, and now it was seen that the camels too were fleeing in the same direction, flogged to their uttermost stretch by their drivers. For a few moments they could just be made out in the brief twilight; then they vanished among the dunes. All the camels but two: one of which had broken its leading-rope and was now placidly grazing, while the other lay on the ground, its forelegs still clamped together by Killick; he was half buried in the sand and dazed by a variety of blows; he had been trampled upon, struck and kicked, but he was not much the worse. 'I served the bugger out,' he said, looking at his bloody fist.
Silence fell: the darkness gathered f
ast. It was over and no one had been killed or even seriously hurt. But on the other hand they had lost everything except Captain Aubrey's uniforms and decorations, some papers and instruments, and two large tents, which were carried by the other beast.
'The best thing we can do,' said Jack, 'is for every man to drink as much as he can hold, and then for us to steer for Tina, marching by night again. No one needs food in this heat, and if they do we can eat the camels. Gather some branches and make a fire by the well.'
The dry tamarisk flared up and by its light they saw not what Jack had dreaded, a dry bottom with a long-dead camel in it, but a reasonable body of water. They had no bucket, but Anderson the sailmaker soon whipped one up, using the canvas that covered Jack's sea-chest and the hussif that lay within, and they dipped and filled, dipped and filled until no man could drink again and even the camels turned away.
'Come, we shall do very well,' said Jack, 'Shall we not, Doctor?'
'I believe we may,' said Stephen, 'particularly those among us who breathe through their noses, to prevent the dispersion of the moist humours, who hold a small pebble in their mouths, and who refrain from pissing and idle chat; the others may fall by the wayside.'
A deep strong voice from the dunes came almost immediately after these words: Uhu, uhu. It certainly checked all idle chat, but after a pause there was a good deal of low, earnest talking and presently the bosun approached Mowett. Then Mowett came to Jack and said, 'Sir, the men are wondering whether the chaplain might ask a blessing on our march.'