Adam Palmer - The Moses Legacy

They pushed the door open and Daniel rushed round to the other side to help free Mansoor’s hand, gently guiding it through so that the sharp metal didn’t tear into the flesh any further.

But it was already clear from the blood pouring out that an artery had been opened. Mansoor sat down and lifted his arm above the level of his heart while Daniel applied arterial pressure using his belt to stem the flow of blood.

‘I still can’t get a signal,’ said Gabrielle, frantically moving her mobile phone this way and that in the hope of getting it to work. She tried the same with Daniel’s phone, and Mansoor’s, but she was unable to get a signal.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.

‘You’ll have to walk. Go that way,’ said Mansoor, pointing west towards the Nile Valley. ‘Leave me here and get help.’

‘We have to take you with us,’ said Daniel, brushing off Mansoor’s selflessness.

‘We haven’t got a stretcher.’

‘You can still walk, can’t you?’

‘I can still walk, but I’d only slow you down.’

Daniel looked at Gabrielle. She had been panicking before when she thought that they were going to spend their last few days dying of starvation in the unused tomb of an ancient pharaoh, but now that her own life was no longer under threat, her concern turned to her former teacher.

‘Are you sure you won’t be in any danger here?’

He looked around and pointed this way and that contemptuously. ‘My dear girl, do you see any predators around here? Any lions or tigers, perhaps? Or maybe a wild camel?’

It was true that male camels could become violent to the point of killing during the mating season, if anything got between them and the fertile females, but aside from that, there was no danger out here in the desert.

‘I’m sorry. I was just concerned.’

She was none too bothered by his irascible response. She knew his character very well after all these years.

‘I’ll be all right, just as long as you get help. Make sure you tell them my exact location.’

‘Should we ask them to use a helicopter?’ asked Daniel, suddenly feeling unsure.

‘They’ll know what to do!’ snapped Mansoor. ‘Just tell them my circumstances. Now go!’

For a split second, Daniel and Gabrielle hesitated, meeting each other’s eyes, as if seeking the other’s approval for what might seem like a callous act. Then Daniel took the initiative, nodded and set off, followed a second or two later by Gabrielle.

‘Wait!’ Mansoor cried out.

They froze and turned to see the Egyptian holding out his mobile phone.

‘Take my phone. Keep checking it. As soon as you get a signal, call the number I’ve keyed into it. It’s the nearest hospital.’

‘We can do that on our phones,’ said Daniel. ‘Just give us the number.’

‘My phone is better in these conditions. Also the pair of you kept checking your e-mail, like little Western nerds. You’re probably low on juice.’

‘But we can’t leave you without a phone,’ said Gabrielle, her voice weak with guilt.

‘A phone doesn’t do me any good without a signal.’ He held out the mobile to Daniel. ‘Now, get going! And make it quick.’

And with that, they were off. It was one of those walks that seemed to become less tiring as it continued. After the first couple of hundred yards, they already felt sore, perhaps because of muscle cramps. They had spent several hours immobile in the tomb and when they came out into the open, the night air was cooler than they had expected now the sun had gone in. But as they continued and their muscles warmed up, it became easier.

But it was the psychological exhaustion that made it truly tiring – the thought of how much depended on them getting help in time. Also Daniel felt worn-out at the thought of how long they would have to walk even to get to the edge of the Nile Valley. It was a five-mile walk, but the terrain was rough and Daniel knew that even at their current brisk pace it would take them at least an hour. It wasn’t so much the prospect of an hour’s walk that worried him: it was concern for what would happen to Mansoor in the meantime.

How long did he have? How rapidly was he losing blood?

Daniel looked over at Gabrielle and saw from the look on her face that she too was concerned. Without any exchange of words, she seemed to pick up on his suggestion and whipped out her phone. The look in her eyes said it all even before she put it away again. He tried to get a signal with his, but had no more luck, and Mansoor’s proved no better, despite his confidence.

They carried on more in desperation than hope, Gabrielle taking the lead.

‘I wish I’d followed my nephews’ advice and got into shape sooner,’ said Daniel, trying to make light of the situation.

‘You’re pretty fit,’ said Gabrielle.

‘Not like you.’

‘Flattery, flattery.’

He quickened his pace and lengthened his stride to catch up with her, just in time to catch the smile on her face before it vanished.

‘You know, I always wanted to be like you,’ she said.

‘What? A man?’

‘Ha fuckin’ ha. No, I mean when I used to visit Uncle Harrison during the summer… when you were working on your dissertation.’

‘So how come you went into Egyptology instead of Semitic languages?’

‘That came later. No, at the time, I wanted to be a magician.’

‘A magician?’

‘Yes. Remember all those tricks you did with cards and coins and all that?’

‘Oh, yeah. That was something I did at school. It was the only way I could make friends. I didn’t know you were interested in that.’

‘Oh God, yes! I used to spend hours practising… hoping I could be as good as you.’

‘And were you?’

‘Did I ever show you my magic skills?’

‘Not as far as I recall.’

‘Then there’s your answer. Rest assured, Daniel, if I’d thought I could have impressed you in those days, I would have done.’

He remembered that she had had a bit of a crush on him in those days. She was fifteen when he first started work on his PhD. He had got into University College London’s Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the age of sixteen and graduated with a First in Language and Culture. At twenty he had gone on to do a direct doctorate at Cambridge under Harrison Carmichael. Gabrielle lived in Vienna, but spent her summers in Cambridge with her uncle, while her widowed mother travelled.

Daniel was well aware at the time that Gabrielle had a crush on him. He remembered all too well the constant flirting, the dressing up to look older, the ostentatious way she used to swish past him in a short skirt, desperately trying to catch his attention. He had to admit to himself that at times his eye did rove and his imagination was aroused. But she was a girl on the cusp of womanhood and he was an adult. To take it beyond the occasional acknowledgement of her flirting would have been as improper as it was illegal.

So he had played it cool and somewhere along the line she had grown out of him.

Half an hour into the walk, they tried the mobile phones again. This time, Gabrielle’s face lit up, so that even before she made eye contact with Daniel, he knew that the news was good.

She spoke urgently into the phone and when she was finished, she turned to Daniel with a beaming smile on her face.

‘They’re on their way.’

‘I heard. Did they say which hospital they’re taking him to?’

‘Luxor. But only because it’s nearer.’

‘Okay, well, let’s keep going till we make it to the valley, then see if we can get some sort of transport.’

Gabrielle nodded.

In the quarter of an hour that followed, they heard a helicopter in the distance and glanced at each other for encouragement. Privately, Daniel still had concerns. Would they arrive on time? Was Mansoor still alive?