Sara Sheridan - Secret of the Sands

‘It’s the little girl,’ Jessop explains. ‘I think the little girl died.’

Chapter Fourteen

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 Jessop being stupid enough to dishonour a woman in a camp where he is receiving hospitality. The doctor is a gentleman in every sense of the word. However, he is delighted that on last sighting at least, Jessop and Jones are alive.

‘And what are you expecting us to do now? Hare off across the desert on a wild-goose chase?’ Haines is incandescent with rage when Wellsted reports to him. ‘The natives are raving. Storytelling round a campfire. And even if it’s true, Jessop and Jones are probably dead by now ,’ he insists. ‘Bound to be. I’d say their guides did for them. That’s what I reckon. Jessop had instruments worth a fortune.’

The captain prefers the certainty of a blood-and-guts beheading by the savages of the ancient sea. Wellsted realises the man has been overly influenced by the fundamentalism of the Wahabis further to the north. Their threatening behaviour, all heavily armed, wild promises of doom, dark beards and flashing eyes are a jumble of aggression that has coloured the captain’s view of every Musselman in the Peninsula. Now he does not appear to grasp the difference between the tribes or at least does not apply any such knowledge to his judgements. Still, the idea of a band of renegade Dhofaris does not hold water with Wellsted if for no other reason than the guides’ bonuses for any trip are always payable on return to the coast.

‘The Dhofaris are business minded and largely liberal,’ he points out.

‘You are dismissed, Lieutenant,’ the captain snaps.

After a week waiting at Aden to no avail, it is clear that Haines is so ill-disposed towards Wellsted that the lieutenant wonders if he ought to have presented his findings as the result of an enquiry made by one of the midshipmen. He keeps his peace for whatever he says only provokes outrage. Still, the captain clearly does not feel comfortable abandoning the search entirely.

‘We will continue to Muscat,’ he announces. ‘There may be news there.’

It is, for everyone on board, a relief to cast off.

After a brief rendezvous with the Benares during which Wellsted is forbidden to attend the officers’ dinner, the sight of Muscat harbour is welcome to every soul aboard the Palinurus, and all for entirely different reasons. The truth is that in the wake of the malaria many of the crew had not anticipated making it back around the Peninsula alive and, having unexpectedly done so, they are only too delighted to be able to avail themselves of the illicit grog shop that trades from the back of one of the old warehouses down on the docks.

Wellsted, however, has not given up on the missing officers and, refusing to discuss the matter with the midshipmen, who have taken to asking him questions they ought to reserve for their commanding officer, the lieutenant obtains leave to go ashore. With the ship safely at anchor and his duties complete, Wellsted strides out from the dock and makes for the office of the Navy’s agent in Muscat, hoping that the man might have some contacts that will help in the search. Haines’ priority is to dispatch a report on a clipper that is to leave for Bombay directly but that, Wellsted cannot help thinking, is more about covering the captain in his decisions than actually finding out what happened to his men.