Flashman on the March

I was shud dering weakly as I heard them hauling some heavy article across the trap, and then came the crunch and scrape and foul language of labourers delving in the packed earth. Above that we heard our horses being appraised and their burdens examined, men coming and going, a disgruntled Yusuf reporting that whoever the bastards were who had fled into the night, they were nowhere to be found, demands for rest and food, to which Sadat (who was evidently their captain) retorted that they were riding out as soon as the goods had been safely concealed, and other conversation of the kind you’d expect to hear from marauders discussing the affairs of the day. I wish now that I’d paid closer attention, for there was interesting stuff about the possibility of enlisting gang members as guards for the Metema caravan, or taking a slap at one of the supply depots being established by the godless farangi invaders, but I was in too fine a funk to concern myself with anything but keeping tight hold of Uliba as two interminable hours crawled past, and my heart stopped whenever a footstep came near the trap. Please, dear God, I kept muttering, don’t let any of ’em get curious about the cellar… and I was just beginning to believe they’d do their business and leave us undisturbed when…

“Aye, that’s deep enough. Lift it over.”

“Will it be safe? When do we return for it?”

“When we’ve scouted this farangi army and seen what’s to be had from them… perhaps from Theodore, too. He carries his treasury with him, like enough.”

“What, despoil Theodore? Go rob a lioness of her cubs!”

“Aye, we’d do better to carry our treasury safe to Kassala instead of burying it in this grave of serpents!”

“I hate to leave it here! God knows it cost enough in blood and sweat to get it!”

“Eh, Sadat, let’s have another look before we cover it! Just a look…”

Cries of agreement, and Sadat, the indulgent ass, let them go ahead, there was a crash as of a lid being thrown back, delighted gloating, a warning snarl to Mahmud to take care, and then an almighty clatter of coin being dropped, ringing and rolling across the boards—and, dear Jesus, dropping through the cracks in the trap to the floor of the cellar! Uliba sobbed, my innards did a cart wheel, and recrimination raged overhead,—Mahmud being cursed for an idiot, coins being scraped up, some mean son-of-a-bitch crying that a few had fallen through the trap, Sadat shouting to let ’em alone and get the chest closed and interred, and the mean bastard crying that he was shot if he’d lose them… and throwing back the trapdoor.

Torch-glare suddenly lit up the centre of the cellar, but we were in deep shadow against the side wall, and all that we could see through the open trap was two pairs of boots and robed legs up to the thigh; we must be out of their owners’ line of vision, but if they stooped to look under the floor, would they see us in the gloom? If they descended…

“There they are! By Shaitan, Sadat, if you don’t want ’em, I do!” There must have been a dozen or more dollars glinting on the stony rubble of the floor, and as a booted leg swung over the edge of the trap I caught the glint of steel in Uliba’s hand in the shadows and my hand was on the butt of my Joslyn—for all the good that would do. The second boot swung down…

“Wait, you fool!” roars Sadat, laughing. “Look before you leap, man!”

There was a sudden howl of alarm from the man about to jump, the booted legs shot upwards as he fairly threw himself out of the trap, his mates crowing with mirth, and I stood paralysed between relief and revulsion.

It is the practice of the female scorpion, after giving birth, to carry her young on her back, and even with six of the loathsome little transparent monsters in residence there was still no lack of room on the scaly top of the enormous yellow horror scuttling among the fallen coins. She must have been six disgusting inches long, not counting the great sting curved up and over her ghastly brood—and she wasn’t alone in her nest, either; Papa and a couple of uncles were on hand, and a joyous sight they all were, bless their horny little hides, for they’d saved us from detection and death, no error. Not that they’d have done our intruder any harm through his stout half-boots, but they were a grand discouragement to coin collecting.

The trap was slammed shut to a chorus of jeers and taunts, and we were left in darkness and, in my case, imminent danger of heart failure. I was drenched in sweat, and Uliba was shaking as though with an ague. The danger might have passed, but it hadn’t gone; the force with which the trap had been closed had broken one of its slats, and through the gap I had a view beside which Mama Scorpion would have looked quite charming: the head and shoulders of a Soudani brigand listening to the orders which Sadat was giving for their departure. The odds are you’ll never meet one of the Soudani criminal classes, so I’ll tell you that this representative looked like an indescribably evil cathedral gargoyle, hook nosed and vulpine, with a tuft of beard, a steel cap with chain-mail earguards over black hair falling to his shoulders, and a grinning mouthful of jagged yellow tusks. Happy the bride who wakes up to see that on the pillow, thinks I, and was dam’ glad when he moved out of sight.

Presently they left the nave, and we heard them mounting up, but by mutual consent (and not a word said) we stayed put until dawn, by which time we reckoned they’d be well away. It was not comfortable, for with those fine specimens of Buthus Arachnidae rustling about on the floor we daren’t sit or lie down, and while like the Soudani we were well shod against their stings, I found myself wondering if the horrid little buggers could climb or jump. [34] My legs were painfully cramped by the time daylight began to filter through the broken trap, but after chafing some life into them and satisfying myself that all seemed quiet Chez Scorpio, I took three hasty strides, hurled back the trap, and swung myself out. Uliba followed quickly—and there we were, chilled to the bone at dawn in an empty church in a ghost city and not a thing to bless our selves with except the clobber we stood in, my Joslyn and cartridge-belt, and Uliba’s knife. Our horses were gone with the saddle-bags containing all our food, gear, spare kit, and dollars, and we were a day’s march from Lake Tana and heaven knew how far from Queen Masteeat’s camp.

“Well, at least we can put our finances in order,” says I. “Like old Ali Baba, we’ve lain doggo while the Forty Thieves cached their loot; now all we have to do is find it and fill our pockets.” She hadn’t heard the old tale, so I told it to her while we fossicked about—she was much taken with Morgiana’s boiling the robbers in oil, I remember. The cache was easy to find under a layer of rubble by the wall of the nave, and at the cost of skinned fingers and broken nails we clawed up the loose earth to reveal a stout iron-shod chest. It wasn’t locked, and when I heaved up the lid we were looking at a sizeable fortune in Maria Theresas, jewellery, wrought precious metal, gold pieces of a currency unknown to me, and carved ivory. We filled my pockets and her wallets with the gourshis, a hundred dollars apiece or thereabouts, and reluctantly abandoned the rest except for a fine ebony-hafted Damascus scim itar which I took, and various jewelled bangles, necklaces, and a gold fillet and veil which Uliba fell on with cries of delight—she was a very feminine Amazon, really, preening herself in a polished silver hand mirror and gloating as she threw it and other choice pieces into the cellar so that the Soudanis would have to brave the scorpions to retrieve them, and lamenting that we couldn’t capture the female and her young and enclose them in the chest before we reburied it, thus ensuring a jolly surprise for the returning robbers. Quite splendid in her malice, she was; I’d not have been surprised if her braids had stood on end and hissed at me.

Being famished, and not knowing how soon the Soudanis might come back, we made speedy tracks out of Gondar. From a vantage point on the south wall of the ruined palace we could survey the country as far as Lake Tana some forty miles away, a distant gleam of silver in the morning sun, its forested shore stretching away into the haze. The sooner we were under cover in those woods, the better, so we travelled at the Highlander’s pace, a mile at the trot and a mile at the stride followed by a moment’s rest standing, and then away again. Uliba ran like a Diana and I like a labouring bullock, but not too bad for forty-five, and within the hour we were in sight of a village of the plain called Azez, which I supposed we should avoid, but Uliba said the time for concealment was past now that we were afoot, and besides we’d get no news of Masteeat if we continued to skulk in rocks and bushes.

“We must seek it out, in a safe place where there are safe people to question. No, not in the village.” We had stopped in a grove some way short of the little cluster of thatched huts, and she was shading her eyes to scan the low hills beyond. “There should be a monastery over yonder, of monks of St Antonius the Hermit… if the wars have passed them by. Monks know everything…”

“And if they recognise you? They could pass word to this fellow Gobayzy who’s after you, or even to Theodore—”

“We’ve seen no trace of Gobayzy, no one will recognise me this far south, and Theodore has no more bitter enemy than the Church since he plundered and murdered at Metraha last summer. Anyway, we have no choice, so come, and keep your ears open for the monastery bell.”