A Hundred Thousand Dragons (31 page)

Jack shrugged.

‘It's no use trying to dismiss it,' said Arthur, leaning forward to add weight to his words. ‘Von Erlangen will get you unless you get him first. If there are three of us, it shortens the odds, wouldn't you say? Say he does – I'm looking on the bright side here – come off worst. What then? The local police aren't happy about you getting involved and they'll probably take a fairly dim view if they've got a corpse on their hands. If we're there, we can testify that you didn't shoot him on sight. I don't know, granted Von Erlangen's record, if it would come to trial but you might find it difficult without our say-so to convince the police you acted in self-defence.'

Isabelle laid her hand on Jack's arm. ‘I don't want you to go alone,' she said quietly. ‘You're right. It is dangerous.'

Jack rested his chin on his hand. He should have anticipated Isabelle and Arthur's reaction, but he hadn't. He knew why he'd been so pleased when he'd spotted their ship in the harbour. In his heart of hearts he thought it was his last chance to say goodbye.

Von Erlangen; his stomach twisted at the thought. It was more than an intelligent apprehension of danger – he was familiar with that – but a disabling, courage-sapping fear. He had to face the man or, deep down inside, be a coward forever. That had fuelled his flight to the East. Freya's death was the spark that lit the fuse.

He'd steeled himself to go it alone, but the presence of his friends would make it all so much easier. It was a seductive offer and he desperately wanted to say yes.

‘Let's go and have dinner,' he said eventually. ‘I want to think this one through.'

The aircraft circled over the jumble of savagely sharp rocks. Twisting into the sun, their colours varying from nearly pure white to deep, angry red, the mountains were as uninviting as the surface of the moon.

When Jack had gone to sleep the previous night, he had been certain he was going alone. He hadn't reckoned on Arthur and Belle standing by the plane when he arrived at the airfield. He hadn't reckoned, either, on how his spirits soared at their insistence. The ship would leave Malta without them and they would rejoin the tour in Egypt; everyone had been informed. All the practical details, which didn't matter a tuppenny damn, had been taken care of.

So they were on board and now, with those savage rocks beneath him, Jack wished he had had the resolve to send them away. He couldn't even promise himself that the RAF would help. Masterson, the Commanding Officer, had taken note of their destination and promised what aid he could. It should, he said, be all right. Should and Could. Not Can and Will. It was all far too conditional for comfort.

He fought with the controls to keep the D.H.9 steady in the heat-drenched air, as, nearly at stalling speed, he droned over the alien landscape. According to his compass readings they should be more or less over the city. There was about an hour of daylight left. If they couldn't find the city in that time, he'd have to land in the desert and resume the search in the morning.

A series of regular shadows set into the rocks caught his eye. Surely they were too uniform to be natural? He saw a perfect semicircle of steps cut out of the walls of the wadi below and a deep line of black snaking through the mountains to the desert beyond. The way in. As at Petra, the ancient masons had used the sheer slopes as their castle and a cleft in the rocks as their gateway. Compared to Petra, the site was tiny. There was nowhere to land inside the circle of rocks, so he banked and flew down the black line, the plane lurching as they flew into the barrier of colder air beyond the cliffs.

Flying as low as he dared, he picked out a landing ground, rose, banked and coasted in. Unconsciously, he held his breath. The surface of shale and sand
looked
all right, but if it was soft, then the wheels would sink on landing, ripping off the undercarriage. Even if they got down safely, without the wheels, they would never take off again. Down . . . bump . . . slide . . . hard ground! Thank God. He taxied the aircraft to the shade of the cliffs and switched off the engine.

As the propeller rumbled to a halt, Jack thankfully took off his flying helmet and rubbed his eyes, which were sore from the glare, took the cap off his canteen and had a much-needed drink. The heat, which had been tempered by the rush of air, struck him like a hammer blow. It must be about a hundred degrees out here and he knew it could get a great deal hotter. Stretching his weary shoulders, he swung himself out of the cockpit as the cabin door opened.

‘Did you see anything?' he asked as Isabelle and Arthur jumped down on to the sand. ‘There's a gorge that runs through the cliffs leading to the city.'

Isabelle shook her head, feeling the skin on her face tighten. Automatically, she went to wipe her forehead, then realized there was nothing to wipe. The dry heat of the desert sucked up any moisture immediately. She gazed up at the towering cliffs looming over them. ‘Not a thing, Jack. It just looked like a range of mountains to me.'

‘I'm not surprised. It takes a bit of experience to spot things from the air.'

‘What now?' asked Arthur.

Jack glanced at the sky. ‘We haven't got a lot of daylight left so we'd better make the most of it. The first thing to do is find the entrance to the gorge. If Von Erlangen's arrived, I want to know about it.'

Taking their rifles, they walked to where the gorge split the rocks. If they hadn't flown over it, it would have been incredible to suppose it was anything more than a narrow fissure that would peter out within a few feet. ‘No one's been here for a very long time,' said Jack in satisfaction, examining the ground.

‘It's too late to explore tonight, I suppose?' asked Isabelle.

‘Far too late,' said Jack. ‘I don't want to be stranded in the gorge in the dark. Besides that, we've got work to do. The plane's all right at the moment but if we have to leave her in the full sun tomorrow, it'll play havoc with the fabric. I can rig up a shelter with a tarpaulin but let's scout round and see if we can find some natural shade.'

Clinging to the shade, they set off round the base of the cliffs. Isabelle was silenced by the gaunt, wild beauty of the landscape. The desert, quivering in the heat, stretched away to the horizon in an endless expanse of reds, browns and yellows. Out there were more rocks and crags, their shapes made uncertain by the shifting air grilling in the sun. It seemed incredible that back home there were April showers and blustery winds and it was possible to feel cold.

They walked for about ten minutes or so before they came to a cavernous overhang in the rock. ‘This is perfect,' said Jack approvingly, stepping into the echoing space. ‘There's plenty of room for the plane.' He stopped sharply, then relaxed.

‘What is it?' asked Arthur.

Jack turned to him with a grin. ‘For a moment I thought there was a wild animal in here, a lynx or something.' He pointed to the back of the cave where the rocks were streaked with faintly glowing yellowish-white bands. ‘It looked like a cat's eyes, but it's only light from the rocks. There must be an outcrop of natural phosphorus. It's fairly common in the desert.'

‘I can see why you thought it was an animal,' said Isabelle, coming cautiously into the cave. ‘I hadn't thought of lynxes. What's bothering me is the thought of scorpions. I hate big beetles and cockroaches and huge rustly things with too many legs, but scorpions are really loathsome.'

‘You've certainly got to watch out for them,' said Jack. ‘However, if you're careful to knock your shoes out before you put them on and don't stick your hand into holes, it should be all right. It's not only scorpions you've got to be wary of though, there are poisonous snakes and spiders, too. Don't touch the rocks, Belle!'

She turned with her hand outstretched. ‘Why not?'

‘It's probably all right, but phosphorus can give a nasty burn. There's no point taking unnecessary risks.'

She dropped her hand with a rueful grin. ‘I'm going to have the jumps if this keeps up. What with lynxes, scorpions, poisonous things and burning rocks, I'll be a nervous wreck. Why don't you taxi the plane here and we can make camp? We can get a fire going and have something to eat. I'm hungry.'

‘All right,' said Jack with a yawn. ‘Before we make ourselves comfortable, though, I want to make sure we've got a runway prepared in case we need to take off in a hurry.' He looked out of the mouth of the overhang. ‘This'll be all right, as long as I avoid the obvious boulders and crags. With any luck, most of the rocks are loose. I've got a crowbar in the cabin. We'll be able to shift them without much trouble.'

It was well over an hour later before they finally settled down to a meal of tinned stew, washed down with hot tea laced with tinned sweetened milk. ‘That was good,' said Jack with a yawn, wiping round his plate with a piece of bread. He was desperately tired. It had been a long flight and clearing the runway had been exhausting. ‘I suppose we'd better keep a lookout.'

‘You take the last watch,' said Arthur, who could see his friend's eyes drooping. ‘That's the easiest one,' he explained to Isabelle.

‘I'll take the first one,' she offered. ‘I don't feel very sleepy yet.'

The two men settled down in the cabin of the aeroplane. Isabelle, who had worked hard clearing the rocks, scrubbed the plates clean by scouring them with sand, put some more camel-thorn on the fire and made herself another cup of tea. Nursing the hot liquid between her hands, she was surprised how grateful she was for the warmth. Jack had warned them how cold the desert could be at night and he was right. There was no moon but the stars were brilliant enough to see far across the sands. Very far . . .

She sat up with a guilty jerk, the empty cup falling from her hands. She had been hovering on the edge of sleep and had fallen into a waking dream. For some reason she had been thinking of the seaside and boats. Not big ocean liners or cruise ships, but trips from the pier at Brighton. Had she heard something? A Brighton boat? That was crazy.

The wind shifted and, although she listened intently, she couldn't catch any other noise than the wind sighing through the rocks and the occasional flat, staccato bark of a desert fox far in the distance. She couldn't understand it.

‘Boats?' said Jack when, considerably before dawn, they were breakfasting on hot coffee, tinned ham and bread. ‘You were dreaming.'

‘I don't think I was asleep exactly,' she said doubtfully.

‘Of course you were,' said Jack with a laugh. ‘Let's leave a cache of food and water buried at the back of the cave. It'll be a lot cooler there than left in the plane all day.'

‘It's hard to believe how hot it'll get,' said Isabelle, shivering with cold.

The temperature had plummeted in the night and the air was chilly, which, in view of the loads they had to carry, was just as well. They all had packs slung over their shoulders with enough supplies to see them through the day, plus rifles and ammunition.

As they came to the entrance of the gorge, the sun was colouring the eastern sky. Jack smiled in relief as he knelt down, looking at the undisturbed shale, sand and rock. Von Erlangen should be along soon, but it was good to know they'd beaten him to it.

It was cold in the gorge, cold enough to make a brisk walk a pleasure. Above them the sky had turned to a pillar-box slit of blinding, impossible blue. Here, hundreds of feet below, it was nearly dark. It was a real shock when, a quarter of an hour or so later, the gorge bellied out to form a space about twenty feet across. Sunlight caught the walls obliquely, splashing the ground, catching and reflecting light from a carpet of quartz. It was like looking at a field of diamonds.

‘It's beautiful,' breathed Isabelle. The rocks caught her voice and echoed it back in hundreds of tiny fragments.

‘I bet this was a whirlpool thousands of years ago,' said Jack softly. It seemed wrong to speak loudly. ‘Look how smooth the rocks are, twisting round and up. It still might be a whirlpool. It rains in the winter and this would trap the water into a flood.'

‘It's as if we're at the bottom of an enormous well,' said Arthur.

Isabelle caught hold of his hand. ‘Don't, Arthur. That's rather frightening, somehow.'

They walked forward, their footsteps crunching over the quartz, but on the other side of the sunlit space they faced a problem. The trail divided into two, separated by a tall, narrow boss of rock. Jack shrugged. ‘One way's as good as another, I suppose. We can always come back.'

‘That's true . . .' Arthur began, when Isabelle gave a cry of excitement.

‘The horse's head rock! Can't you see it? It's the horse's head rock from the code! It's the rock dividing the two paths. If you look at it from here it's just like a horse's head.'

Arthur glanced up and was immediately struck by the resemblance. ‘So it is, if you think of a horse as being about a hundred and fifty feet high. Well done, Isabelle. The nose sort of points the way, doesn't it?'

They walked for another ten minutes before they came out of the gorge.

Before them, the valley of the Nabateans lay open to the sun. The site, as Jack had seen from the air, was small, a natural arena in a roughly circular bowl in the surrounding rocks.

Across an ancient pavement stood a temple carved from white rock so bright it hurt their eyes to look at it. Four pillars supported a pediment that rioted with figures petrified in a moment of time. A man with a lion's head stood in the middle, surrounded by a crowd of worshippers. A sunburst shone round him and he had his arms raised to catch the solar disc. On either side of the temple entrance were a series of open doorways carved into the rock, their mouths black in the brilliant sun. The tombs?