Blue Damask (28 page)

     Sonnenby’s hand grasped a rock by her knee and when his shoulders came up, she put her hand under his arm and helped him with the last push to get on their ledge.  He rested a moment, breathing hard.  She offered him the water skin and he took it.  He wiped his chin with the back of his hand and said, “Elsa.”

     “What is happening?”  Marshall moved his legs to give Sonnenby more space.

     Elsa took the water skin from Sonnenby’s hands.  “What?”

     He had deep circles under his eyes and the dust and wind had cut deeper the wrinkles at their corners.  He shook his head, waving the edges of the
keffiyah
he wore.  “I have failed.  These men are some of the Ruwallah Mehmet has rallied.  They are on their way to Deir El Zor.”  He lowered his eyes.  “They insist I accompany them.  Descartes too.”

     “Oh, no,” she whispered.

     Marshall asked in a low voice, “Are you a hostage?”

     Sonnenby nodded without raising his head.  “They say I must show I am with them and not with the English.  It is a win for them either way.  If I am the enemy, I am a hostage.  If I am a friend, they have the advantage of tricking the English into a delayed reaction for my sake.  They only lose if they let me go.”  He glanced up at Marshall.
“They ride to meet the British planes and guns at Deir El Zor.  They think they can do it again and win this time because Mehmet has artillery.  He has captured a German field cannon and a Vickers”

     “They will not,” Marshall said.

     “No.”

     “Then you shouldn’t go.” Elsa knew she sounded petulant.

     Both men made the same noise in their throats.  Sonnenby put a hand on her arm and looked at her.  “I have no choice. This is not about a debate or making a decision.  I am telling you what is going to happen today.  Thank God Mehmet told them you are my wife.  They will leave you alone. Archie, however…”  he paused and shook his head.  “They want you as hostage as well, though I have explained you are injured and cannot travel.  Since now they want you alive they are content to leave you here, but under guard.”  He tipped his head toward the men below the rocks.

     “Elsa,” he turned to her again.  “I am miserable knowing I am the cause of all this for you.  You were supposed to be on a train back to Vienna, not crouched on a rock in the Syrian desert.”

     “I chose to be here.  The responsibility is mine,” she told him, chin high.  “No one tells me what to do.”

     He smiled briefly.  “I have noticed.”  Then he sobered.  “Except that if I am killed in El Zor, these men will take you and give you to Mehmet.  After that it will be up to him to release you or take you deeper into the wilds.”

     “And if he is killed?”  She tried to sound like she was making alternate travel plans.

     His face twisted now and he rubbed it with his hand so she couldn’t see his eyes.  “These men will take you.”

     “Take me where?” She asked.

     “I have asked that they take you to Baghdad and give you to Gertrude Bell.  She will help you get back to Vienna.”  He put his hand down.  “But that doesn’t mean they will do that.  I am so sorry you are involved.”

    Marshall murmured agreement, but no one spoke anymore.  Sonnenby would not look at her.  Elsa went wild.  “I did not come all this way to end up on my back with my feet in the air in some Bedouin tent. 
Zum Teufel mit der Wuste
!
Verdammt noch mal
!”

     Marshall raised an eyebrow.  “Indeed?”

     Sonnenby squeezed her arm.  “I pity the Arab who ends up with you,
Schatze
.  God help him. ”

     Elsa was in high temper now.  She shook off his arm and stood up, towering over both men on the ledge and causing the two Ruwallah below to stop their conversation and look up at her in surprise.

     “I will not permit it!”

     There was a long pause as if they were waiting for her to say more, then Marshall said to Sonnenby, “It is best if you leave now.  Good luck, old man.”

     “You are in good hands, Arch.  Better than I will be.”

     She watched him climb down and walk away.  The two guards watched him go, then looked up at the ledge.  One of them called something up to them.  Marshall shrugged.  “I will guess he told us to stay here.”

     Elsa was still so angry she couldn’t move.  As the adrenaline drained away she realized she wasn’t angry.  She was frightened.  She sank down to the ledge again and pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them to her.  This was difficult to do in the blue damask, but defying the constriction of the dress at least made her feel like she was defying
something
.  It was important not to feel helpless.  She held that thought while she listened to the camp get ready to leave the rocks and the well for Deir El Zor.

     She listened to the camels bellow and the horses neigh.  She listened to the rattle and rustle of saddles and leather and the voices of men calling to one another.  There was a pause, a battle cry, and then the sound of galloping hooves and the padded feet of many camels that soon faded.  Then the sun rose and she and Marshall pressed themselves into the shade until it nearly disappeared at noon.  She was still frightened.

     On the third day she and Marshall climbed down from the rocks.  Their guards waved their arms and said something in Arabic but Elsa ignored them.  She trudged wearily toward the well, her scarf politely wrapped around her head and shoulders, the water skin over one arm.  When the Bedouin saw what she was doing one of them spoke sharply and snatched the skin from her.  She let him have it.  He took it to the well and filled it for her.  Perhaps he thought she would fall in.  She watched him with tired eyes and an even more tired spirit.  Marshall stood beside her, weak and dejected.

     The guards did not think two days was too long to wait, but Elsa was feeling as if she would like to just start walking toward Baghdad.  If she dropped, desiccated, before she arrived, so be it.  An arrow in her back?  A javelin through her liver?  Great.   She had never had so much sun on her in her life.  It dried up everything.  Even her resolve.

     The Bedouin dropped the skin on the ground and said something.  She moved to pick it up and he moved out of her way.  She rolled her eyes with the last bit of disgust she could summon.  “
Zum Teufel
,” she said under her breath.

     “You have sent them all to the devil many times, Miss Schluss.”  Marshall’s voice was dispirited as well.  “But the bastards are still here.”

     She handed him the bag.  “Have some water, Mr. Marshall.”

     “
Danke
,” he said.

     She twisted her mouth into a grimace, but he couldn’t see her through the veil.  “I cannot bear this one minute longer.”

    “There is always the Luminal,” he said.

     “For us or for them?”  She considered this for the first time.  “There are two of them and only one hypodermic.”

     He laughed as he tied the edge of the bag with the thong.  “We get the other one with something else.”

     “Yes,” she mumbled.  “I could wander off and that would cause one to come after me.  You could stab the other with the Luminal.”

     “And then?  Your Arab comes back with you and finds his friend either unconscious or raving about how the
jinn
are coming to eat him alive.”

     “Let me think about it.”

     “You are crazy, Nurse Schluss.”

     She nodded, agreeing with him.  “I can figure this out.”

     He sat down in the spear of shade of one of the boulders and set the bag of water near his leg.  “No you cannot.   Both of us are easy to kill. And you have no experience in battle.  You have never killed a man.”

     “Neither have you, Mr. Marshall.”

     He blew air out through his lips in agreement.  “Sit down.  You are making them nervous pacing about like that.”

     She sat next to him with a ripping sound that told them both the blue damask was suffering as much as they were from the climate and terrain.  “We have what we need to free ourselves,” she told him.  “We are both educated at University.  We are literate.  We know things they do not know, about things like hypodermics and barbiturates.”

     “And opiates.  Don’t forget the laudanum.”

     “That won’t take them down.”

     “Will it make them sleepy?”

     She turned to look at him.  He gave her a little half smile and tapped the water skin.

     “What if they make us drink it instead?”

     “Unlikely.”

     “What if they only drink from their own water skin?”

     She tapped her chin with a forefinger.  “Even drowsy they are stronger and the laudanum would be too dilute.”

     “Stronger, but easier to confuse.  These Arabs are superstitious.  And cemented in their culture.  I am thinking if we drug them enough, then you can appear before them like Lady Godiva.  Raise your arms above your head and give them a great mighty Wagnerian battle cry.”  He tilted his head toward her and gave her a knowing look.  “They will piss themselves.  They will be shocked long enough for me to stab them in the back with their own daggers.  They won’t even know I am there.”  He gave a little chuckle.  He wasn’t serious and she laughed in spite of herself.

     “I can actually sing that part of act three,” she told him.  “I learned it as a girl in school for a play.”

     “Good, then.  We have a plan.”

     “No, we don’t.  Don’t be silly.  I am not going to stand naked in this sun, even for one minute.  I will ruin my complexion.”

     “Are you content to wait here another week?  What if the battle ended in defeat?  What if no one comes back?  Are you willing to be a prisoner?”

     Elsa sobered.  “No.  Not willing.  But without knowing what is happening in Deir El Zor…”  She turned to him, serious.  “If we are successful, and kill both our guards take their camels and begin the long ride to Baghdad, what happens when the returning army finds our Arabs dead?  Stabbed in the back?  And us gone?  We will be hunted down.  We will get lost.”  She pointed to wide expanse of desert and steppe.  “Do you have a compass?  Do you know where Baghdad is?”

     “I begin to feel that death at the hand of God is better than death at the hand of a Bedouin.”  He touched the bandage on his neck.

     “You may be ransomed.  I will not,” she reminded him. “I am worth more sold to God knows where, or to whom.”

     “Listen to us, choosing our manner of death.”  He unwrapped the water skin and took another drink.

     She shrugged.  “It is the best we can hope for.”

     “No it is not.  We can hope that Sonnenby returns with camels.”

     Elsa wagged her head.  “True.  If the Arabs win, Lord Sonnenby returns with camels.  If the English win, Lord Sonnenby returns with camels.”  Then she turned to Marshall.  “But if he dies, we die.  Tell me the odds.”

     Marshall spread his hands.  “Two years ago the Arabs attacked El Zor, burning the barracks, tearing down the store room, stealing rifles and blowing up what they could.  They captured a barge and sunk it in the Euphrates.  They did all this before the English came in with air support, strafing them and dropping bombs.  Then the machine guns arrived.  The Bedouin remember this, they know what waits for them.  I would put odds in favor of us.  But even so, Sonnenby may be struck down.  Any man could be.  Now we must figure the odds for the dead on either side.  Since he is on both sides, odds are double against him.”

     She closed her eyes.  “How much time do we have before we must make a decision?”

     “Deir El Zor is one day away due west.  They have been there two days already.  We have planes in Aleppo, Damascus and Palmyra.  Air attack could have been there in hours.  The trucks would take a day, maybe two of they wasted too much time loading them.”  He thought some more.  “The Bedouin would have one day, maybe, before our ground forces arrived.  They were probably met with planes when they got there.”

     “I have been looking to the west for three nights.  I have not seen fire on the horizon,” she said.

     “It is too far.  You could not see even an explosion.”

     She put a hand out and he gave her the water skin.  “I say we wait one more day, then.”  She unwrapped the corner and took a drink.

     “And then?”

     “I load the hypo with the Luminal.  We take them down.”

     He grinned.  “He calls you ‘Brunhilde’, you know.”

     She nodded.  “I know.”

The next day seemed endless.  She tried to sleep some of it away, but could not be comfortable in the heat and the sand, even in the shade.  The flies bit hard whenever she was careless enough to expose any of her flesh.  On the other hand, Marshall improved steadily.  He was benefitting from the forced rest.  She changed his bandage using strips from the white blouse in her briefcase.  The wound was angry-looking and still swollen but was not weeping.  It had a dark crust over the stitching.  Elsa attributed the lack of infection to the high quality of the whiskey with which she had doused him.

     He touched the bandage when she was finished.  “Thank you for this,” he said.

     She put her things away.  The Luminal and the hypodermic lay in the corner of the case.  “Tonight.  If he is not back.”  She glanced up at him and saw Marshall was worried.  She looked at their guards relaxing in the shade, their two camels couched near them chewing their cud peacefully.  One of the men looked up at the western horizon and said something.  The other leaped to his feet and shaded his eyes.

     Elsa nudged Marshall with her foot until he was looking too.  Dust.  There was dust everywhere, but dust on the horizon carried a message.  It was in a special language of the desert, the dialect changed by the season.  Descartes had told her that sometimes such a cloud meant a rain storm beyond the horizon was approaching.  Others meant a sandstorm might blow over in the next hour and scour an unprepared traveler, driving shards of tiny rocks into the eyes and ears and mouth until it seemed the very earth was trying to choke you to death.  Sometimes it was just a dust devil.  Upward currents of hot air that spiraled to the sky in a twisting ribbon of yellow dirt.  Harmless enough, but larger ones could be frightening enough cause the natives to drop in prayer.

     This bit of dust was small.  The dust moved in the shape of a wedge to the side, not upwards.  This was a man.  Just one.  Maybe two.  Maybe three.  No more than three or the shape of the dust would have swirled into more of a rectangle instead of a triangle and been thicker near the ground.  She moved closer to the edge of the rocks, looking.  One of the guards spoke harshly to her and she took a step back.

     The two guards had their camels up.  One of them mounted and rode a few meters toward the dust cloud.  The other climbed the stones to get a better perspective.

     “They don’t seem to worry we will escape,” Marshall said.

     “They know there is nowhere to run on foot.  I am in a long dress and you are injured.  Like you said, we are easy to kill.”

     The two men shouted to each other, then settled in to wait.  Elsa and Marshall took a few steps at a time, until they were standing in the sun, side by side facing the approaching riders.  They could see now that three camels were raising the dust, and that all three of the camels had riders.  The camels were coming at a gallop, and this too was a message in the desert.  A gallop meant urgency only.  One ran toward battle and away from it.  One did not gallop a camel across the wastes for hours.  The camels probably had not been goaded to hurry until their riders could see the black spires of the basalt outcropping that marked this well.  A thirsty man would trot towards a well.  Gallop even.  Or men being chased.  Or charging.

     Elsa turned to look at her captors.  They could read this message as well.  What could not be conveyed by the riders was whether or not their kinsmen had won the battle against the English.  A victory might send three riders back to collect them so they might join in the victory feast.  A defeat might send the last three survivors fleeing back to their women and children.   The two Arabs had come together in front of the black stones, their eyes on the approaching riders.

     Elsa said to Marshall, “They do not seem to getting ready for a welcome.”

     “Do you think it is Sonnenby?”  Marshall was squinting.

     Elsa’s eyes were better than his at a distance. “I do.  I think I can see Descartes’ hat.”  She felt weak with relief.  One of the Bedouin had mounted his camel and was leading the other toward his comrade.  They spoke to each other as they settled in the saddles and moved the halter rope side to side.  They both carried rifles which they took from its strapping-place on the camel saddle.  They primed them.

     “Definitely not a welcome.”  Marshall began to back up toward the rocks.

     “I will not let them shoot him,” Elsa clenched her fists.  She had not waited interminable days in heat and worry and biting flies to have Sonnenby’s return marred with his murder.  She began to march toward the two Bedouin until one of them lowered the rifle at her and shouted.  She stopped.  “What are you doing!” she screamed at them.

     The sand at her feet blew up and over her legs as the crack of a rifle shot echoed over and around the rocks.  She covered her ears.  He hadn’t missed.  He was warning her.  The other Bedouin noticed Marshall retreating to the shelter of the rocks.  He whacked his camel with the long goad and turned the animal toward the Englishman.  The man with the rifle reloaded from the crossed straps of ammunition across his chest.

     Elsa backed away, wondering why the sight of the returning camels caused the Arabs to decide it was time to attack the prisoners.   Perhaps their leader had told them to kill the Europeans if the entire raiding party did not arrive together.  If Descartes had been wearing a head cloth instead of a fedora they might not have known the nationality of the approaching riders from such a distance.  She backed further.

     The other Bedouin and his camel disappeared behind the rocks.  She wondered if she could make it back to the ledge before he could shoot her.  And wouldn’t he be more interested in pointing his rifle at Sonnenby and Descartes?  The approaching riders had been tipped off by that shot.  They must know things had gone bad.