been piled before him. As he raises it to his lips there is a terrible sound. At first Jessop thinks there has been a stir that has woken the animals but as the ululation starts up in earnest he realises it is the women. They are screaming in chorus. No, not screaming, not really. It is more as if they are singing their screams. A slave enters the tent, slips to the emir’s side and leans, as discreetly as any footman at Windsor Castle, to whisper in the emir’s ear. The couscous stops in midair. The emir’s face, if it is possible, becomes stonier. He looks at Jessop and Jones and Jessop thinks fleetingly that being caught in his gaze is like being a butterfly pinned to a board. He has a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach and a sudden longing for his matchlock, which is safely stowed in his saddle bags, with ample ammunition, ready for the journey they will start before dawn. He wishes fervently that it was nearer to hand.
‘I say,’ says Jones, now outside the tent where he can see the Dhofaris scattering like buckshot into the night. ‘Whatever is going on?’
Jessop makes to rise but a heavy weight bearing down on his shoulders renders it impossible. Suddenly it is as if darkness closes in on the tent, the polished scimitars, like lightning bolts, the only brightness. It is hard to tell exactly how many men are in the shadows drawing their traditional, curved knives.
‘Ibn al-kalb,’ the emir growls. ‘Nazarene ala aeeri. Ya binti. Ya binti.’
‘Your daughter?’ Jessop asks, picking out the word. ‘Why? What has happened?’
‘Ya binti. Ya binti,’ the emir repeats darkly in his distress as the eyes of his son flash in horror and the hideous sound of the keening women in the background grows ever louder and more frantic.
And after that, it all goes dark.
When Jessop and Jones wake again they are bound to each other with a rough cord. Shifting, they each notice that their muscles are stiff and sore and that they are thirsty. The atmosphere in the tent is stifling. Slowly Jessop comes to realise that they are being held on the far side of the settlement and that the tent has been pitched quite deliberately in the full glare of the sun. The Dhofaris have gone, their animals are forfeit and it will be hours before they are given water, never mind food.
‘I don’t understand,’ Jones sinks into self-pity with an ease that does not entirely surprise his fellow officer.
‘It’s the little girl,’ Jessop explains. ‘I think the little girl died.’
The Palinurus waits for more than a week in the blinding heat for the officers to arrive at Aden. While the crew repair the sun-bleached decks, Haines paces and waits with the single-minded bad temper that is now all too familiar to everyone on board.
‘They should have been here at least a week before us,’ he keeps repeating, as if a mistake has been made deliberately, only to bait him.
The Dhofaris at port evade questioning like petulant teenagers and it is clear that there is no measure in pushing any of that tribe for more information for neither violence, nor courtesy nor bribery has any measure of success.
‘I don’t know, sir,’ they say over and over again, denying all knowledge of the British expedition.
A man on the street, a trader, a beggar, an imam, the son of a caliph – it makes no difference who the captain asks or what he offers – they simply smile and wave him off. Frustratingly, there is no way of telling if any of the men at port were part of Jessop and Jones’ expedition as they hired their own hands.
‘I know they are lying, the bastards,’ Haines swears. ‘They know. They just won’t tell us.’
The general consensus is that he is right. But no one is sure what to do about it. After two days of fruitless enquiries, Wellsted steps up.
‘Please, sir,’ he petitions the captain on deck. ‘May I have permission to head inland?’
Haines blusters. The midshipmen look at each other. The hands simply stare at the captain, their shadows cast long in the midday sun. This is the kind of conversation that should be confined in officers’ quarters, but Wellsted is not welcome in the captain’s cabin. Haines is about to berate the lieutenant when he realises where that conversation will lead.
‘If I can get inland I’ll pick up the Bedu,’ Wellsted continues. ‘They’ll know what’s happened. We must try something else, surely.’
The Bedu are the gossips of the desert. Everyone knows that. Haines takes a draw on his pipe and blows the smoke close to Wellsted’s face in defiance. He is determined not to lose his temper in front of the entire ship nor, if it comes to that, his dignity.
‘Yes, and I’ll forfeit you next, Wellsted, and return to port with not one fully trained officer in my crew,’ he sneers as if Wellsted is laying a trap for his reputation.
‘I won’t go far, sir. Just to where the desert meets the coastal territory. It might take two or three days at most. We’re stuck here anyway.’
Haines considers. He looks over the tatty rooftops of Aden and up into the hills. He wishes he had sent Wellsted instead of Jessop on what it is now clear has been a doomed mission.
‘We owe them that at least, sir. An investigation of a couple of days?’
Haines taps out his pipe. He will have to account in Bombay for the decision he makes here, and Wellsted will be in his rights to make it known that he requested permission to search further and that the captain deemed it unnecessary. That might look shabby. Haines tries to think what Moresby would do.
‘Oh very well,’ he snaps. ‘You’ll go alone. No more than two days and the first sign of trouble and you get back here.’
At the camp inland, at the crossroads where the trade from the sea meets the trade from the sands, Wellsted makes his salaams. A white man is a curiosity here, though unlike further north where they are considered a threat, these travellers are men of the world – they have seen most things before. At the oasis news is swapped easily no matter the colour of your skin. After all, only a fool does not want to know what he is travelling into.
Wellsted drinks the obligatory coffee and eats sweet, lush, mujhoolah dates with the other men. The tribesmen laugh at the story of his first attempts to ride a camel and marvel at the length of the journey across the sea from Southampton. Wellsted knows this swapping of tales is an important part of the bond of the campfire. He also knows that the closer in time to an event and closer in geography, the less opportunity there is for hyperbole to take over. So when the men tell him they heard that a party of two infidels, lead by Dhofari guides, have offended the emir and are now taken and at his disposal, he believes them.
‘Do you know their names? What do they look like? Are they alive?’
The Bedu are nonchalant. They sip the coffee slowly and speak without intonation, for noisy or enthusiastic banter is considered low bred. They do not know any names for the Nazarene or if the men are still alive. Their news is a fortnight old at least. Who can tell what might have come to pass by now? One of the men has golden hair though, that much is certain. And (here a shrug of the shoulder) the other hurt the emir’s daughter.
Wellsted cannot imagine
