Feisal dumped the luggage in on top of me and turned to John. ‘How much money have we?’
‘A couple of hundred pounds. Why?’
‘We’re going to need more supplies. Water, blankets, petrol. No, don’t argue, just listen. The moon will be down before long and I daren’t risk driving this route in the dark. We’ll have to hole up somewhere for the rest of the night, and probably all day tomorrow. I presume you don’t want to arrive in broad daylight?’
John began, ‘It’s only thirty or forty miles – ’
‘As the vulture flies. You’ve never done this. I have. You don’t know this country. I do.’
The moonlight drained all the colour from John’s face. It looked like bleached bone. I said impulsively, ‘You’ve got to get some rest before we go much farther, John.’
He turned on me. ‘I told you to keep quiet.’
‘Keep quiet yourself. Feisal, how long – ’
Feisal waved his hands wildly. ‘Don’t ask. Don’t ask any more questions, either of you. Leave this to me.’
Our reluctant ally was becoming more reluctant by the minute, but – in exchange for all the money we possessed – he grudgingly produced a few jerricans of gas, a couple of blankets – taken off a donkey, to judge by the smell – several bottles of water, and a six-pack of what turned out to be fizzy lemon-flavoured soda. Our departure was not marked by formal farewells. I started to say thank you, but the man just shook his head and trudged off.
After a few abortive coughs the engine started. The racket was appalling. It must have roused every sleeper who wasn’t already awake, but not a light showed in any of the windows.
I popped the top of a can and poured half a cup of lemonade down my front when Feisal threw the jeep into gear. We went bouncing off across the plain; there may have been a track of sorts, but you couldn’t prove it by me. I clenched my teeth to keep from biting my tongue and refrained from comment. I knew why Feisal was proceeding at such an uncomfortable speed. We had to get well away from the village and into hiding before morning, and the moon was setting. I had an unpleasant feeling I also knew why Feisal didn’t want to drive in the dark, and that suspicion was confirmed when I saw we were heading straight for the cliffs that rose sheer ahead. They call them wadis – canyons, cut by water, in the ramparts of the high desert. Flash floods and natural erosion have littered the uneven ground with rubble varying from pebbles to Chevy-sized boulders. The one into which Feisal drove, without slackening speed, was fairly wide at first, and there was a track of sorts through the centre. The boulders weren’t much bigger than toasters. We hit every one of them. I bit my tongue.
Before long the moonlight faded as the canyon narrowed and the cliffs closed in on either side. Feisal switched on the headlights. They didn’t help much. One had burned out and the other was about to go. Feisal went on a little farther and then stopped, with a jolt that jarred my back teeth together. He turned off the lights and the ignition.
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘The terrain gets rougher from here on. I don’t want to break an axle.’
‘Rougher?’ I croaked.
Our voices echoed eerily in the silence. It was so dark I couldn’t even see their outlines, but I heard the springs creak when John shifted his weight.
‘How much farther?’ he asked, in a voice flat with fatigue.
‘Irrelevant.’ Feisal sounded equally exhausted. ‘We can’t go on tonight. Let’s get some rest. Hand out a couple of those blankets, Vicky. You can curl up in the backseat.’
‘Curl up is right,’ I said. ‘I’d rather sleep on a rock.’
Which was precisely what I did. Feisal cleared away some of the bigger boulders, leaving a space just wide enough for the three of us to lie down, huddling together for warmth. I expected John would make some rude comment about bundling but he didn’t speak at all. He was trying to keep his teeth from chattering, I think. We were all shivering; the air was cold and the blankets were too thin to be much use. Without discussing the subject aloud, Feisal and I put John between us. He fell asleep immediately. Not even the hard ground and the stench of donkey and the cold could keep my eyes open, but as I drifted off I was thinking longingly of Suzi’s great big furry white coat.
Against all the odds I slept for over six hours. It was the heat that woke me, the heat and a sensation of vague discomfort. When I pried my sticky eyes open I realized I had shifted position during the night; John’s head was on my shoulder and my left arm, which was around him, had gone numb. He looked like one of the better- preserved mummies, skin stretched tight over cheekbones and forehead, eyelids shrivelled and sunken, lips cracked.
I heard a gurgling sound and looked up through my loosened hair to see Feisal standing over me. His appearance wasn’t much of an improvement over John’s – or, I suspected, my own. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he offered me the bottle of water. I swallowed, or tried to – my throat was as dry as the sandy dust – and shook my head.
John slept for another half hour. When he opened his eyes I croaked out a cheery ‘Good morning.’ Removing himself from my limp embrace, he sat up and lowered his head onto his hands.
‘Did I ever mention,’ he said, ‘that one of your least lovable characteristics is that you are so bloody cheerful early in the morning?’
‘You’re usually pretty bloody cheerful yourself.’
He lifted his head. ‘On the occasions to which you refer I had excellent reasons to be – ’
‘Stop it,’ Feisal ordered. ‘Come and have breakfast, such as it is.’
Water and dry bread, oranges and hard-boiled eggs was what it was. There was no way of heating water even if we had had coffee or tea with us, which we didn’t. Chewing on the hard bread, I studied our surroundings: stony desert underfoot, steep rocky walls around. There wasn’t so much as a blade of grass, much less a tree, dead or alive. The pale limestone of the cliff opposite dazzled in the sunlight.
‘At least it’s not raining,’ I said.
John gave me a look in which amusement and exasperation were mingled. Feisal was not amused.
‘Pray it doesn’t. We don’t have much rain here, but when it comes it comes hard and the water is all funnelled through these wadis. A flash flood would be the end of us.’
‘Say something positive,’ I suggested.
‘I’m trying my damnedest,’ Feisal said morosely. ‘All right, let’s take stock of where we stand.’ Clearing a patch of sand with a sweep of his hand, he took a pen from his pocket and used the blunt end to sketch a rough map. ‘Here’s the river, here’s the wadi we’re in. And this is the one we’re heading for. It passes the Hatnub Quarries and comes out eventually into the Amarna plain near the southern tombs.’
I studied the sketch doubtfully. ‘The two wadis don’t connect.’
‘Not according to the standard maps, no. But it’s barely possible to get a vehicle through,’ Feisal said, rubbing his prickly chin. ‘At least it was five years ago. I can’t be more specific about the route because it’s too hard to describe. If anything happens to me – ’
‘It will happen to all of us,’ John said evenly. ‘At this point you’re the least expendable member of the party. More precious than diamonds, more precious – ’
‘Than gold,’ I said. ‘One point for me.’
John grinned, or tried to. Feisal rolled his eyes.
‘You two are a pair, I’ll say that. Can’t you keep your minds on essentials?’
Laughter is one of the two things that make life worthwhile. Another of John’s sententious sayings, delivered one morning after he had demonstrated the importance of the other one. He was right on both counts. There are times when you have to laugh to keep from screaming, and if I’m in a tight spot I’d rather be with someone who makes bad jokes instead of big dramatic scenes.
‘If anything happens,’ Feisal repeated, ‘keep heading west.’
John’s hand obliterated the sketch. ‘Forget that. Will we make it today?’
‘We’ll have to,’ Feisal said curtly. ‘With luck, sometime this afternoon. That’s the next question. We don’t want to come bursting onto the scene while the site is crowded with tourists and guides and guards, do we?’
‘No,’ John agreed. ‘Let’s set our ETA at nine p.m., when people will be inside eating and watching telly.’
‘We’ve missed Schmidt,’ I said.
My voice was steady, I think, but John said, with unexpected gentleness, ‘Don’t worry about him, Vicky. I have a feeling we’ve both underestimated the old boy rather badly, and even if they catch up with him they won’t
