But almost every one carried a modern Mauser rifle, as if it were part of him.
None of them said anything. He thought of offering his cigarettes, but they wouldn’t go around. So in the end he just hummed to himself and wandered to the east wall in a gap between tents. In clear weather he could have seen for miles in any direction except to the north where the steep slope rapidly became sheer; it was as if the old monks had been saying Hey there, look at us being lonely. It would have been quite a good place for a fort, if there had been anything to guard except the ravine, about fifty yards off.
Then one of the Arabs came up to him and pointed towards the cellar steps. Ranklin followed obediently.
Down there was one biggish room criss-crossed with heavy arches that made it a collection of dark alcoves. Three primitive oil lamps glowed on the rough-hewn stone and flickered as people passed. Ranklin was led to where Lady Kelso was kneeling and wiping the brow of an old man wrapped in a blanket. He had a grey beard, long grey hair and the eyes in the lined, gaunt face were half-open but not seeing anything.
“Miskal?” he whispered.
She nodded. “I think he’s dying. It could be cancer, I don’t know.”
“Is he in pain?”
“How can you tell with these people? They will be so stoical. And stuffed to the gills with opium. Thank God for that.”
Ranklin looked down at the bundled figure. They seemed to have come so far, and now they had found him . . . he was just this.
She stood up. “I’ve told them that you are my ‘brother in the book of Allah’. It means we can be alone together without it being immoral. It’s more for your sake than mine: they see me as one of Miskal Bey’s old whores and nothing . . .” She let her voice trail off, then rallied: “So I was right about the ransom demand: it wasn’t his idea at all, it was his son Hakim. Oh – and they’ve let the Railway engineers go. A few days ago.”
She had just thrown in the news as an afterthought. Ranklin stared. “They did . . . what?”
“Let them go. It seems that Miskal had a . . . a lucid period and asked who these captives were, and came down on Hakim like a ton of bricks for doing anything as shabby as taking hostages for ransom. And insisted they be let go. So they were.”
Ranklin recovered a little from his daze. “But dammit . . . the Railway must have got them back before we got off the boat. Why did they let us come? Or go on with the ransom?” Fleeting thoughts of Dahlmann and Streibl providing fraudulently for their old age galloped through his mind – and out again. Too many people knew, or soon would.
“We-ell . . .” She hesitated. “Hakim isn’t being very confiding about this; perhaps you’d do better, he speaks pretty fair French. And,” she lowered her voice, “I get the impression he hasn’t got a firm grip on these people. Perhaps it’s his father still being alive, perhaps he just isn’t the man Miskal was.” She said that with feeling. “And I also have the impression he’s still expecting to collect the ransom.”
“For what, for Heaven’s sake?”
Actual shrugging wasn’t what ladies of her generation did; but she looked a shrug.
Ranklin felt trapped, and couldn’t help looking around at the dark corners. “I don’t like this at all. They knew we’d find out they’d deceived us, yet . . . I think Zurga must be close behind and I’m not sure we’re supposed to come out of this alive.”
She took that with complete calm. She had her job – Miskal – and there were twenty-something men to worry about the rest.
Ranklin went back upstairs.
Hakim was standing in the gateway with another Arab, staring back along the plateau. If there was any family resemblance between him and the bundled old man downstairs, Ranklin couldn’t see it, except for the large hooked nose usual among Arabs. Hakim’s face was slightly chubby, and although taller than Ranklin he was shorter than most of the men around. Perhaps that didn’t help his authority, and for that much Ranklin sympathised. His one badge of office seemed to be that he wore both a bandolier and a belt of cartridges – sheer unnecessary weight. That apart, he had a short beard and his age might be anything between thirty and forty; with different races you just couldn’t tell.
“Hakim effendi – je crois que vous parlez francais?”
Hakim worked out what Ranklin had said, nodded and led the way to one of the largest tents. They squatted on a carpet under a part of it held up as an awning, and Hakim called an order towards a group by a smouldering fire. Ranklin offered a cigarette and it was accepted with a grave nod.
“Your journey was good?” Hakim asked in French.
“It was not difficult. I am very sorry to learn of your father’s illness . . .” The small talk went on while they attuned themselves to each other’s accent. French might be beautiful, but it lacked the clarity of German when spoken in such situations.
Finally Hakim said: “You came to plead for the release of the Railway engineers.”
“So we thought. The Railway forgot to tell us they had been let go. But His Majesty’s Government does not mind the delay to the Railway.”
Hakim thought about this. “And your country is a friend of France?”
“On most things, yes.” Hakim should understand friendship being qualified at a diplomatic level – but how did France suddenly get involved? Beirut Bertie? – Ranklin began to sense his – doubtless delicate – footprints.
Hakim asked: “Is the ransom money ready to be paid?”
“I think most of it. But it is not complete. Some person has taken some of the gold and put in lead.”
“Will the real gold be sent?”
“I don’t know – but why should it, if the Railway engineers have been sent back?”
Hakim might have been thinking; equally, he might be deliberately but politely keeping his thoughts to himself.
Ranklin tried another approach: “They have brought in a soldier: Zurga Bey, a colonel, I think.” Hakim showed no sign of recognition. “I believe they plan to kill you all. Your father, too.”
“They have tried already.”
“They won’t make the same mistakes this time. They know about your rifles, they’ve had time to plan. Now they have at least a machine-gun.” But without knowing just what Zurga planned, Ranklin was fencing in the dark. He wanted to be straight with Hakim – within moderation – but most of all he wanted to impress him. And had no feel for what would.
Apparently not a machine-gun. “A machine-gun is just like many rifles, no? And a hundred rifles could not capture this place. Not five hundred.”
As an ex-soldier Miskal might have had a better idea of what a machine-gun could do, but Hakim did have a point: Zurga would need more than machine-guns against walls several feet thick.
A boy, perhaps a servant or slave, brought across a brass tray of small, delicate coffee cups that seemed out of place in those rough-hewn, run-down surroundings. But there was no elaborate ceremony, pouring the first cup into the ground as a libation, such as Ranklin had read about. Hakim murmured something and drank and Ranklin did the same.
“Also,” Hakim said, “they will not attack while you and that woman are here.”
“I think they will. Else why did they let us come when the railwaymen had been released? So I think the Railway would rather we were all killed together. Then they could say you – your father – murdered us and they were just taking revenge to please my Government.”
Hakim scowled and his brown eyes glittered. “They cannot say that!”
“When we are all dead, they can say anything they like.”
Hakim went on scowling, then returned to his earlier conviction: “But they cannot kill us here.”
Ranklin suppressed a sigh. People had roosted smugly in “impregnable” fortresses since time began; meanwhile even flies had learnt better than to sit around while you fetched the swatter.