Sandstorm Page 5

  *

  Churchill’s relationship with Sterling had begun at precisely 4.35 p.m. on 15 February when the telephone had rung just as Churchill was locking up his office in Borough High Street. Normally Churchill didn’t shut up shop until five, but there had been nothing doing all that day — nothing for the past two weeks, actually — and finally there’d seemed no point in keeping up appearances.

  He’d sent his secretary, Madge, home at three, and since she hadn’t been paid for a month, Churchill wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d never come back. For a time they had had a cosy affaire going and plenty of time to indulge in it on the office couch. Churchill was married to Sonja, a dark-haired, attractive, pint-sized woman, but didn’t believe men were made to be monogamous — at least, not himself. Actually he blamed his mother for his own promiscuity. She’d been an extraordinarily beautiful woman, and a wonderful artiste, who had treated him as if he were the most special person on earth. Somehow, no one quite managed to live up to his mother’s standards.

  His wife, Sonja, had finally walked out on him ten days before, saying she was going back to her mother’s. She’d grown tired of Churchill’s promises that something better was just round the corner. As she had packed her case, her mouth set with grim determination, Churchill had held her arm gently in his big hand. ‘What about for better or for worse?’ he’d asked.

  Sonja laughed bitterly, her dark eyes flashing. ‘Promises don’t pay the rent,’ she said.

  ‘Just hang on a bit longer,’ Churchill had begged her. ‘There’s a big job coming up any day now.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And pigs might fly.’

  Since Sonja had walked out, the affaire with Madge had somehow diminished in intensity. It had begun to dawn on him that the forbidden fruit lost its flavour once it was un-forbidden.

  For a moment Churchill had been tempted to leave the ringing phone, then he turned and unlocked the door again. He realized that he hoped the caller was Sonja, ringing to tell him that everything was all right and they could start again.

  He lifted the receiver. A rather nasal, slightly high-pitched male voice asked, ‘Mr Churchill?’

  ‘Yes,’ Churchill assented. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘My name is George Bridger Sterling.’

  Churchill sniffed. ‘How can I help you, Mr Sterling?’

  ‘Your name was given to me by a friend.’

  There was a pause, and Churchill realized that the man on the other end of the line was finding it difficult to go on. ‘Do you need help finding a lost relative?’ he asked coaxingly.

  ‘Yes. My son disappeared.’

  ‘He was lost in the war?’

  ‘No. He’s — or he was — only a boy. Fourteen years old.’

  ‘When did it happen?’

  There was another pause. ‘In nineteen forty-six,’ Sterling said. There was an intake of breath as if he intended to add something. Then he paused again.

  Churchill scratched his head. ‘That’s still a heck of a long time ago, Mr Sterling,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to say this, but the likelihood is that your son is—’

  ‘Dead, I know. I faced that a long while ago. But some new evidence has come up, and I have to know for certain.’

  ‘Have you tried the police?’

  There was a longer pause from the other end. ‘The police can’t help with this. My son disappeared in Morocco.’

  Churchill sighed. There was really no question about whether he would take the job — it was the one he’d been waiting for, the one he’d told Sonja was just around the corner, and there was no way he could turn it down. He was an old enough hand not to seem too eager, though. ‘I usually do lost Forces personnel,’ he said.

  ‘I realize that, but I understand you know Morocco well.’

  ‘I’d hardly say “know”. I was stationed there for a time at the end of the war, yes, but I can’t say I’m the world’s expert. Who gave you my name?’

  ‘Vernon Dakin, my business partner.’

  ‘Ah yes, Mr Dakin — Major Dakin, wasn’t it? We’ve met at various functions — he’s a friend of a couple of my clients. I remember now, Dakin runs a string of chemists’ shops called Dakin & Sterling. I take it you’re the Sterling?’

  Sterling ignored the question. ‘Can I rely on your discretion, Mr Churchill?’ he asked.

  ‘The relationship between a private investigator and his client is sacrosanct. Think of yourself as a confessor with his priest.’

  ‘I’m not a Catholic. Not even a practising Christian. I’ve never been to confession and am never likely to.’

  ‘Maybe it was a bad analogy. Think of a lawyer and his client or a doctor and his patient.’

  ‘So I can take it you accept the job?’

  Churchill chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Whoa, hold your horses, old boy,’ he said. ‘I need to know a bit more about it.’

  ‘Then we should meet. I’m at Kew. Can you come here?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now?’

  Churchill grunted. ‘Well, it’s a bit short notice ...’ he began.

  ‘Get a taxi,’ Sterling said.

  ‘I’m in Borough. A taxi is going to cost.’

  ‘Don’t worry about the money. Got a pen?’

  ‘Yes.’ Churchill groped on his desk for a pencil and scribbled down the address that Sterling gave him on the margin of the Daily Express.

  ‘Thirty minutes,’ Sterling said, and hung up.

  Churchill put the phone down and made a ‘V for Victory’ sign, and glanced triumphantly in the mirror. ‘Now this is not the end,’ he growled at his reflection. ‘It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.’

  He was about to go out again, when he hesitated, turned around and unlocked the drawer of his desk. He took out the loaded .38 Smith & Wesson revolver concealed there, and stuffed it in his pocket.

  *

  Every day followed the same routine. The Arabs would be up before dawn, rousing the camels, feeding them grain in nosebags, growling at each other in guttural voices. Churchill and Sterling would roll out of their sleeping bags, splash a little water over their faces and hands, and join the others by the fire for tea. As the sun rose, turning the campsite into a mandala of grotesque shadows, the caravan would form, and Sheikh Mafoudh would lead them off, shambling towards yet another horizon. For the first hours they tramped alongside the camels, then, as the day grew hotter, they would couch their animals and ride for the rest of the morning, halting at noon for a rest and a meal.

  For the first few days they passed black tents in the distance, and occasionally tiny mud-built cabins amid clumps of tamarisk trees. After that, there was nothing but the endless plain of stone, sand and gravel, sandy arroyos, seams of dunes like the scales of goldfish, jagged spurs of rock that rose out of the hammada like vast monuments. Day blended imperceptibly into day, each one almost interchangeable, and Sterling grew increasingly footsore, weary, thirsty and ragged as the monotony gnawed away at his soul. The filth irritated him, the flies, the constant shouting of the Arabs, the smell of the camels, the total lack of privacy. In the desert there was no hiding place. Everything he did was watched and, he suspected, commented on and judged. One evening at dinner, Sheikh Mafoudh had asked why he carried no weapon. Churchill, he pointed out, wore his Smith & Wesson openly in a holster on his belt, why not Sterling? There was an awkward silence, which even the loquacious Churchill couldn’t cover up.

  ‘I’m not a fighter, that’s all,’ Sterling said.

  ‘But how can that be?’ Mafoudh demanded in Arabic. ‘You are an Englishman and the English are warriors.’

  ‘Not at all. I’m not a warrior.’

  Mafoudh made a scoffing noise. ‘What are you then?’ he demanded. ‘Znaga?’

  ‘He is a wise man,’ Churchill cut in. ‘A marabout.’

  Mafoudh seemed to accept this, but afterwards Sterling noticed a definite coolness towards him on the part of the camel-men. Mafoudh ad
opted a sneering tone when addressing him, dropping hints about ‘yellow-bellies’ and ‘weak peoples’.

  It was ironic, Sterling thought, that most of these men had broken away from old lives in which they’d had inferior status in order to become warriors. He’d been born a ‘warrior’ — at least in their eyes — and had rejected it.

  On the fifth morning they awoke to find the horizon occluded by a pall of dust, and a sharp wind raking fragments of dust across their faces. Mafoudh sniffed the air. ‘Smell!’ he said. ‘See! There is a storm coming — an irifi. It will reach us before noon.’

  They loaded the camels and moved out as usual, tramping into the tentacles of dust that were already thrashing across the landscape. By mid-morning they could see a wall of thick dust moving across the horizon like a fast-encroaching fire. The sky had gone dark, and was filled with a single giant black cloud, like a vast hand poised to pluck them from the face of the earth. Only minutes after they mounted their camels, the storm hit them, smashing into the caravan like a shock wave, almost bowling the camels over. The screech and rasp of the wind was deafening, the wind so violent that it seemed to Sterling that the planet itself was in upheaval, a live organism trying with all its power to buck them off. They leaned into their saddles, turning their heads out of the wind, forcing the camels onwards. Soon, though, Sheikh Mafoudh reined in, his mount turning immediately out of the storm.

  He beckoned to Churchill, who nudged his camel closer. Sterling followed, and all three leaned close across their saddles, forming a tiny bubble against the storm.

  ‘We have to stop,’ the sheikh hissed. ‘I can’t find the way in the irifi. We will get lost.’

  ‘But what about water?’ Churchill yelled. ‘We only have enough for a day. If the storm goes on longer, we’ll die.’

  ‘God is generous!’ Mafoudh shouted. ‘We all die when the time comes.’

  ‘No!’ Sterling bawled. He pulled the prismatic compass from the pocket of his coat. ‘We can go on with this.’

  Mafoudh swept sand out of his eyes and stared at it, then at Churchill. ‘He is a crazy man,’ he said.

  ‘You sure you can use that thing?’ Churchill demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ Sterling yelled. ‘I’ve been keeping tabs on our direction just in case.’

  ‘All right,’ Churchill said. ‘Lead on MacDuff!’

  Sterling took the lead position, balancing the compass in his hand. The next two hours were among the most difficult he had ever experienced. The sound of the wind alone was terrifying, the airborne sand lashed at their faces, the power of the storm threatening constantly to hurl them out of the saddle. There was no respite, even for a moment, and the camels fought their riders, trying to turn aside, so that Sterling always had to jerk his mount’s head in the right direction. It was exhausting work. The sand built up on their faces, working its way into their eyes, mouth, nostrils and ears, penetrating every layer of clothing with the persistence of water.

  Suddenly there was a shout from the rear. Sterling didn’t hear it at first, until Churchill spurred his mount beside him and grabbed his arm. ‘Hamdu is missing!’ he bawled. ‘His camel is here, but he’s gone!’ Sterling halted his mount, which turned its back to the storm gratefully.

  ‘How?’ he asked. ‘When was he last seen?’

  The camel-men had already formed a huddle, their camels pressing shoulder to shoulder, backs to the wind. They looked persecuted and fearful, Sterling thought.

  ‘Last time I saw him was when you took over as guide,’ Mafoudh shouted in Arabic.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Sterling spat. ‘That’s hours ago.’

  ‘Leave him,’ Mafoudh bawled. ‘We go on.’

  For a moment Sterling listened to the howl of the storm and shivered.

  ‘Alone in this he’ll die,’ he yelled.

  ‘It is the Will of God!’ Mafoudh protested. ‘If we go back we all die. He’s only a slave, after all. What does a slave matter? We all die when it is time — the Almighty has decreed it. What does one life matter more or less?’

  Sterling’s camel jerked its head suddenly, and he drew back the head-rope to restrain it. ‘It matters,’ he hissed angrily. ‘If it doesn’t matter, what are we doing here?’

  He brought his camel-stick down smartly on the camel’s rump and it shot forward.

  Mafoudh put out a bony hand and grabbed his head-rope. ‘Where are you going, crazy man?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’m going to get Hamdu,’ Sterling shouted. ‘Let go of my camel!’

  ‘You crazy!’ Mafoudh yelled in broken English. ‘You die. Mebbe we all die. Tell him, Captain!’

  He shot a glance at Churchill, who was looking on, perturbed. ‘He’s right, George,’ Churchill shouted. ‘You’ll never find him in this.’

  ‘Then I’ll die,’ Sterling growled. He ripped his head-rope smartly from the sheikh’s hand. ‘Get out of my way!’ he hissed.

  Mafoudh looked as if he would protest, but something in Sterling’s demeanour stopped him. ‘Crazy fool!’ he said. ‘The English Znaga will bring back the worthless slave. Ha! Ha! If we’d stopped like I said back there, Hamdu would not have got lost. By God, this is your fault, Englishman!’

  ‘Yes,’ Sterling spat. ‘Then it’s only right I go back for him.’ He brushed dust out of his eyes and stared at Churchill. ‘Wait here,’ he ordered. ‘If I’m not back in an hour, you continue to the next well, all right? You’ve got a compass, Eric. You can lead, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but ...’

  Sterling lifted his compass. ‘You’re going two hundred and thirty degrees,’ he yelled. ‘Southwest by south.’ He shifted the scale on his own compass, setting it on a back bearing. Then he belted his camel’s flank again and shot off into the storm. Seconds later he was out of sight.

  The storm closed in around him, enveloping him in its folds, but it was behind him now and he could feel it at his back, pushing him on. The camel seemed to feel it too, and began to step out, thinking it was going home. Sterling was glad of this — he was still a novice at camel-handling, but the beast’s homing instinct seemed to keep it on his bearing almost exactly. The wind screeched beside him, coming in gusts, now allowing a momentary glimpse of the larger landscape, now shutting him in once again. Sterling did not know exactly what had made him turn back — he was a complete stranger to the desert and he’d hated almost every minute of it so far. It was the thought of a man dying alone in the desolation that had decided him, he realized. It reminded him of what might have been Billy’s fate.

  He held his watch up to his eyes and saw that he’d been gone almost half an hour. Riding back into the wind would be slower, so unless he turned back now the caravan would go on without him, at least to the next well. Sterling knew that finding a well he’d never seen before in this storm was going to be far more difficult than travelling on a bearing. If he didn’t turn now he might never see them again. But he could not leave Hamdu to die, he thought, and in the end Mafoudh was right. If he hadn’t insisted on travelling by compass, the fellow wouldn’t have been lost at all. After a while he held up his watch again. Now he had been gone forty minutes — too late to catch up with the others unless he turned right now and raced back. He stopped his camel, hesitating. The storm howled in his ears, wailing like a cacophony of banshees. What he did now, he thought, might condemn a man to death. He was about to jerk the camel’s head back into the storm, when he glanced up to see something dark looming out of the sand-mist. At once Sterling shifted his camel to face the dark thing. ‘Hamdu?’ he roared. ‘Hamdu, is that you?’

  Sterling urged the camel forwards a few paces and saw that the dark figure was indeed Hamdu, his eyes almost blinded by the sand, his head-cloth lost, his face contorted with terror, pain and thirst. When he saw Sterling he froze, rooted to the spot as if he’d seen a ghost. ‘Alhamdulillah! Thanks be to God!’ he mumbled.

  Sterling made his camel kneel and helped the ex-slave onto its rump, behind the saddle. ‘Hang on!’ was all he could
think to say. As soon as the camel rose, he tapped its rear leg with his stick and headed it in the direction from which he had come.

  *

  The camel-men sat close together, in the lee of the couched camels, heads drooping, cloaks and scarves covering their heads. ‘How long has he been gone?’ Sheikh Mafoudh asked.

  Churchill peered at his watch. ‘It’s almost an hour,’ he said.

  ‘Your friend is a crazy man,’ Mafoudh said. ‘Why did you bring him here, Captain? He’ll get us all killed. He’ll never find Hamdu, not in this. I say let Hamdu go. These slaves are no good in the desert. Maybe he fell asleep, fell off his camel and hit his head. Your friend — he’ll never come back now. Better we go on.’

  Churchill shifted uneasily, wishing he’d prevented Sterling from going back. He could have used force; in fact he couldn’t think why he hadn’t. It was just that, for a moment, Sterling had seemed full of confidence and authority, fully in charge of his own fate. Churchill looked at his watch. Sterling had been away an hour now, and Mafoudh was right — there was little chance of him getting back.

  That bloody fool, he thought suddenly. He’s gone and ruined everything now. There’s a hell of a lot riding on this.

  ‘Give him another few minutes,’ he told the sheikh. ‘You never know.’

  ‘God is generous,’ Mafoudh said, scratching a crust of sand out of his eyes.

  There was silence but for the roaring of the storm. The minutes ticked past. Finally, Sheikh Mafoudh poked Churchill’s leg with his camel-stick, and the big man looked at his watch. It was an hour and fifteen minutes since Sterling had disappeared. ‘Come on,’ the sheikh said. ‘He’s not coming back now.’

  The men got to their feet awkwardly, muffling their heads, cursing the storm, and trying to rouse the camels and turn them once more into the wind.