O Jerusalem

“Are they perhaps items left over from the war? Perhaps having to do with the work El Aurens did on the Turkish railroads?” I knew instantly what he was working around: Colonel Lawrence was already a legend, famous for his guerrilla raids on the railways of the desert, laying explosives under the tracks and setting them off beneath a passing supply train to tip it neatly into the sand.

The smuggler slapped his thigh in delight. “Do you wish some as well, my friend? I have a plentiful supply, and truth to tell the stuff is no good for mining salt. It is much too dangerous, can be heard halfway to Jaffa, and furthermore it blows the salt all over the countryside.”

“I do not wish any today, but perhaps in the future. Tell me, this firengi, this foreigner, has he already bought from you? Taken his purchases away with him?” Delicately Holmes placed another gold coin on top of the other, tapping it into alignment with his fingernail.

“I regret to say that he has. A week or more ago.”

“Which day might that have been?”

The smuggler hesitated, and Holmes’ fingers hovered over the last coin.

“The night of the new moon.”

“Which way did he go when he left you?”

“In the direction of Hebron. He and two other men, with three horses and five donkeys.”

A third gold round joined the pile. “How much did he buy from you?”

“He wanted everything I had, but I only sold him twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five? These are the one-pound sticks?” Holmes asked, sounding disappointed.

“These were bundles. Ten one-pound sticks bound together. And three detonators, of course.”

“Of course. Two hundred fifty pounds of dynamite,” said Holmes in a light voice. “With that, a man could surely remove a great deal of salt. I thank you, my friend. Would you please receive this, as a payment towards the salt I shall ask you to send me? There will be no hurry about it.”

Mr Bashir hesitated briefly, then took the coins and swiftly tucked them away. More coffee, a couple of rather subdued stories, and he stood up to leave. Ali rose to walk with the smuggler to his horse, but Holmes waved him back, and accompanied the portly little trader.

They stood talking for several minutes on the far side of the horse, then Mr Bashir mounted and rode away, but not before I saw Holmes press another golden coin into the man’s hand. He came back to the fire smiling to himself.

“What did he not wish to tell us all?” I asked him.

“Ah,” said Holmes, dropping to the carpet and beginning to fill his pipe. “It appears that while this stranger, this firengi from the north, was concluding his business with the good Mr Bashir, one of Mr Bashir’s colleagues—I assume a son, as he was so embarrassed about the breach of hospitality—took the opportunity to glance through the man’s bags, and happened to see, among other things, a revolver, a sniper’s rifle with an enviable sight, and a monk’s habit.”

He reached for a coal with the tongs, enjoying the effect of his dropped remark. Ali was much absorbed by the presence of a rifle, although frankly I had assumed the man would have had one. But a monk’s habit?

“Was he certain? About the habit?” I asked.

“Mr Bashir’s people are Christian Arabs. I am satisfied that his son knows what a monk looks like. Mahmoud,” Holmes said, interrupting Ali’s muttered exclamations of revenge, “where would you go, if you wished to find a monk in a habit?”

“There are many monks in the land. Many monasteries.”

“Not as many as there were in times past,” I commented.

“This may be true. Still, there are monasteries in the Sinai, St Catherine’s being the most famous. There are the monasteries of St Gerasimo and St John and St George near Jericho, Mar Elyas and Mar Sabas and St Theodosius; Latrun, St Elijah, and in Jerusalem itself another St Elyas. Also St Mark’s, the Monastery of the Cross, the Abyssinian monastery, the Armenian monastery, the—”

“Enough,” said Holmes. “We are looking for a monastery within one or two days’ journey from here on horse, in a lonely place, preferably in or west of the Ghor. A place a stranger could visit for a day or two without causing comment or disruption. A place…” He paused, tapping his pipe stem against his lower teeth and staring vacantly at the edge of the water a stone’s throw away. “A place with beehives. ”

Ali looked at him dubiously, but Mahmoud simply recited, “Mar Sabas, St George, St Gerasimo, St John, the Mount of Temptation, and Mar Elyas.”

Holmes took his map from his robe and spread it on the ground. “Show me.”

Mar Sabas was to the north-west of us, in the hills between the Dead Sea and Jerusalem. The monastery of St Gerasimo was in the land between Jericho and the northern tip of the sea, with St John on the path worn by pilgrims between Jericho and the river Jordan to the east. St George was in a wadi to the west of Jericho, near the old road leading up to Jerusalem, the Mount of Temptation was to the north of Jericho, and Mar Elyas lay south of Jerusalem, off the Bethlehem road.

“There are of course many others, in the towns or else hermitages that do not permit visitors. These six meet your description. Although,” Mahmoud added with a faint air of apology, “I will say I am not certain that the Mount of Temptation has bees, and none of them would be an easy matter to reach in a day.”

“These will do as a start.” Holmes folded up the map and returned it to his robe. “We start for Mar Sabas tomorrow, then, and after that we shall sge.”

“It is yet early,” suggested Ali. “If we start now we will be at the monastery by nightfall tomorrow.”

“No,” said Holmes, settling back onto the warm, salt-rimed sand. “We are comfortable here, and besides, Russell has yet to swim in the Dead Sea. One cannot come all this way and fail to float in the waters.” With all the appearance of a holiday maker he lay back on the beach, dug his shoulders back and forth in the sand to shape a hollow, and tipped his bearded features to the sun. Ali and Mahmoud looked at him sourly, obviously wondering what hidden purpose the man had in staying on here. Holmes opened one eye.

“Did you say something, Russell?”

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

“Good. You might go and fill the water-skin, then, if you have nothing better to do than sit and snort.” He dropped his head back onto the sand and closed his eyes.

I kept my face straight until my back was to them, then allowed myself to grin all the way to the spring. Holmes, ever the dramatist, would tell us all what he had in mind for the evening when he was good and ready.

Imagine my surprise, then, when darkness fell, the moon rose, and Holmes made no move to follow Mr Bashir or cross over to question the Bedouin encampment on the opposite bank. The haze that had lain over the sea all day dispersed with evening, and the reflection of the half-full moon was a bright, faintly quivering line stretched across the still sea, before Holmes stirred.

“So, Russell. Are you ready to bathe?”

I was completely nonplused. “You were serious?”

“I am always serious.”

Any number of answers to that rose to mind, but I kept them to myself. “I have no bathing costume,” I objected, which I knew was ridiculous even as I said it.

“Russell, I shall stand guard and keep Ali and Mahmoud from ravishing your young body.”

The words hung in the air as heavy as the sarcasm in his voice, and made me uncomfortably aware of all the males in the world around me. I tried to stifle my discomfort by looking out at the sea, dark and flat. Portions of my skin had not felt the touch of water in days, and God alone knew how long it would be before I had the next opportunity. My scalp cried out to be free of its confining wrap. I stood up.

“May I have the soap, please?”

Holmes was as good as his word, turning his back while I scuttled through the pale moonlight between clothing and water. I scrubbed deliciously with soap and sand, rinsed everything and scrubbed again. The salt-heavy water stung ferociously at my myriad cuts and blisters, and I did not actually feel much cleaner, but when I judged the dirt gone and the dye threatened, I tossed the bar of hard soap up onto the dry sand and launched myself out into the sea.