July 15, 1936. Forenoon Watch 1120


The Scented Land


Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

~ Winston Churchill


"The question is: where have they gone?" Roger asked as they walked down the length of the Souq for the second time. Peggy had a firm grip of his shoulder and her heart was pounding a little faster.

"Do you think they're all right?"

"Oh, them? Of course," Roger said, but there was a hint of worry in his voice, John's naval cap was clutched in his hand. It was the only trace they had found of them. "He wouldn't' have just left it behind."

One of the merchants was watching them, his face grave and as Roger looked his way, he motioned them over hurriedly, moving back into the shadows of his shop. "Quick, quick."

Peggy recognized him as one of the merchants that had given them all coffee, free of charge. John obviously knew him well and he had been very kind to them, giving them all small souvenirs to remember him by.

Roger was speaking his strange mix of English and Arabic and after a bit, they slowly began to understand each other. Peggy watched as the blood drained from Roger's face.

"What happened?" Peggy demanded, seizing his arm.

"They've been taken," Roger said as he hurriedly saluted the merchant and dragged her out of the shop. "Hurry!"

He forced himself to keep walking and keep smiling and he nudged Peggy. "You look like you've just swallowed a bee; smile."

She smiled, with frightening results. Then they were out of the Souq and Roger was standing up his motor bike where it had fallen.

"Shouldn't we get help?" Peggy asked, ashamed of how her voice shook.

"Can't." Roger said shortly, kicking the thing into life. "We've got to follow at once or they'll vanish. Hop on."

"Where have they gone?"

"We'll find out."

Roger had obviously had some sort of direction from the merchant and there was no time for talking as he gunned the engine and circled around people at a dizzying speed, the bike nearly going over but for both of them frantically keeping it upright.

"Where are we going?" Peggy yelled, trying to hold on to Roger with one arm and Gibber with the other. She still had the camera and she wasn't sure what was thumping her chest harder, it, or her heart.

"The river!" Roger cried.

The streets were growing wider and they came out onto a large plaza, a tall, smooth stone pillar towering into the sky among swaying palm trees, a miniature of the sphinx at its foot.

"That's Pompey's Pillar," Roger explained as they buzzed by it, very nearly overturning on the corner. Peggy hung grimly on.

The street was growing ever wider and the houses were single now, no longer connected in long uneven rows, leaning over narrow, shadowed alleyways. There were more trees; flowering fruit trees intermingled with taller palm trees. They passed a group of women standing by a well, talking and laughing, their pots balanced on their heads. A large and very ancient lorry rattled up the road and they moved to the side to let it pass, Roger watching it as it went by.

Beyond the trees, the land was much flatter and marshier, rushes shivering in the wind that blew low over the land. It seemed like ages as they motored down it, no sound but the growling of the engine beneath them, jarring them both so that Peggy clamped her teeth shut to keep them from rattling loose. They passed people, donkeys, camels and saw beggars sitting by the side of the road, asking for alms. They were on a sort of dike and below them was brown water, artificiality widened like a canal.

"Have you got any money?" Roger asked suddenly, swerving around a pothole and narrowly missing a donkey cart ambling along in front of them.

"A little!" Peggy yelled into his ear.

They topped a little rise and came bumping down to a halt in a little open air market, the air filled with the sweetness of fresh fruit and the sing song of bartering voices. Beyond the awnings and multitude of people balancing baskets on their heads, Peggy saw the dull gleam of the river and several boats moored at a sort of hard. It took her a moment to realize that it was the Nile River.

Roger roared through the middle of the market, his feet dragging on the ground to keep them upright. There was a group of men sitting by their boats, bartering with people over fish and fruit and other things that had been brought down the Nile to be sold.

Roger started talking before he was even off his bike, elbowing his way among the sailors. It was a strange scene, because they had no English and he had very little Arabic and at last, with much gesturing and the promise of money, he managed to learn something.

"They've seen them," he said triumphantly. "They were in that lorry that passed us and took a steam launch up the Nile."

"Who are they?" Peggy asked, pulling at his sleeve. "Are they all right?"

Roger barely heard her. The faces around them had grown hard and suspicious and several of the sailors waved their hands, obviously wishing them away. Roger talked until he was hoarse and at last one of them nodded slowly and gestured him to one side. Money was exchanged and the sailor signalled a younger man seated cross-legged on one of the boats and together, the two of them lifted Roger's motor bike and stowed it aboard.

"They're going to take us up river," Roger said. "I hope you have enough money. I promised them more when we get there."

"Get where?" Peggy asked.

"Where ever they are." Roger said. "Come on."

Peggy felt strangely surreal as she followed Roger into one of the tall-masted river boats moored by the bank of the river. There were eyes painted on the curving bow ("so they can see where they're going," Roger said) and there was a liberal coat of sky blue paint over the hull. Chanting in the sunlight, the sailor and his son slowly raised the great patched mainsail and Peggy was half surprised to see that it was a lateen rig, just like Amazon's.

"Are you sure we're doing right?" Peggy asked, anther surge of nervousness washing over her as the sail slowly billowed out, the sheet catching it with a jerk. The vessel suddenly seemed to come alive, heeling very slightly as she moved against the current.

"Too late to ask now," Roger said, seating himself and Gibber on one of the thwarts, trying to make room for his feet among a pile of glass and rope buoys.

~o*o~

Nancy blinked at the dull light that was painting the wooden floor through the latticework in the window. She was laying half propped against the wall, desperately trying to spit the gag out of her mouth. She had tried to shout, but they had stuffed an evil smelling rag into her mouth and through she had struggled they had been too strong.

They had carried her out into the alley behind the Souq and she saw men, armed, just before they wrapped a blindfold around her eyes. She saw John, limp as they dragged him out into the street and let him lie. There was blood on his face.

She wasn't dead sure what had followed after that. They may have blindfolded her and gagged her, but she could still hear. They threw her somewhere among rolled up rugs, she could feel them brushing her face, course and scented. It was a lorry, she knew, when it roared into life, whining as the driver let out the clutch, and backfiring angrily.

After that, she could only hear the shifting of gears and the stream of talk from her driver whenever they had to stop. Her wrists were tied behind her and she shifted, trying to get comfortable. She could hear breathing next to her and she could only hope it was John.

Had hours passed? Or only minutes? It seemed forever that they roared along, steadily down shifting as they went up hills. Then there was some time when she knew they were on a flat because the driver never shifted at all. She brushed her face against the rugs, trying to get the blindfold off, but it had been knotted into her hair and it wouldn't come loose.

Presently, there was a horrible screech of brakes and she saw muted light through the cloth over her face. Somebody grabbed her ankle and she kicked as hard as she could, struggling desperately as hands dragged her out of the bed of the lorry and dropped her on the ground. She lay there, gasping for breath, then she was being carried along again.

They loaded her on a boat; she could tell by the way it shifted under them as they stepped aboard. There was the steady hiss of a steam engine and some sort of awning overhead casting a shadow and presently they were chugging along. Something touched her foot and she kicked at it and was gratified by a cry of pain. Somebody seized her roughly and propped her somewhere else, among a pile of shifting things that smelled of leather.

"Gaugh," she said, trying her best to say John's name. She only heard muffled voices.

After that, nothing happened for a long time and she closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing. She heard steady ticking next to her and with a sudden surge of hope; she thought it might be John's wrist watch.

"Gaugh!" she tried again.

Then she heard something else, a soft tapping. For a moment she thought it was something to do with the steam engine that huffed along, radiating heat, a few feet from her; but this was not steady. She listened, her ears pricking to it as it repeated again and again.

Then with a rush of hope, she recognized it as a call sign of the Royal Navy.

Hurriedly she tapped back, the heel of her shoe making contact with the bulwarks.

The tapping started again, muffled by the sound of the engine. She lost some of it, but carefully she pieced it together.

Are you all right?

It was! It was! John was somewhere close and he was Morsing her. Her heart pounded as she tapped back.

Yes, You?

Fine.

Who are they?

She heard raised voices; there was a dull thud, a soft groan and the Morsing stopped abruptly. She only caught part of it.

Smug-

Smug? Desperately she wished she could see.

She laid there for an age, her joints beginning to ache horribly as her weight came down on her bound arms behind her. She tried to shift again, but someone pushed her back and she kicked out. At last they got the hint and propped her in a different position.

The watch ticked on and the voices ran together overhead, muffled by the chugging of the engine. Where were Peggy and Roger? She asked the darkness. They would get help, they must get help! What was happening? It seemed that hours passed before the boat grounded gently and slowly the chugging ceased.

They had carried them up here, in this dim room with the latticework over the window. They had taken off the blindfold and cut the ropes around her wrists. There were a pile of boxes at the other end of the room, all tumbling over each other, black in the shadows and next to them was a heavy inlaid chest, by the smell, made of cedar.

Nancy sat up and saw that John was next to her, lying on the floor. His eyes were closed and as she shifted her hand, she realized that they had been handcuffed together. Her other hand was free and she tore the gage out of her mouth.

"John!" she whispered, bending over him. Desperately she picked up his limp hand and felt for his pulse... there it was, fluttering under her cold fingers. "John! Wake up!"

She shook him as hard as she could, pulling on his shoulder to make him sit up, but he was a dead weight and she could not move him. Desperately she looked around, whishing for cold water to revive him. The room was empty except for the violin cases... violin cases?

That's what they looked like.

There was a moan next to her and John moved his hand to touch his forehead gently.

"John!" she exclaimed, bending down again.

"I'm going to be court marshalled for this," he said thickly. "You know, absent without leave and all that."

"John!" she felt like laughing and crying all at once as he slowly sat up, breathing hard.

"Banging me on the head once is bad enough," he moaned, "but twice? I wonder if I have a concussion."

He felt his head again.

"Look here," Nancy said, getting a hold of herself. "Do you think you could use your other hand? We don't both need to feel your head."

"Are we handcuffed?" John exclaimed and Nancy's hand was jerked violently as he raised his arm. "Oh, lovely. Can you shinny out of it?"

She tried, working her hand around the metal bracelet, but her hands had swollen and it was very tight. Then he muttered an exclamation and she saw that his other hand was handcuffed to the leg of the chest that stood next to them. They were effectively locked in.

"Can we lift it?" John asked, climbing to his knees to inspect the chest. It was very large and Nancy knew it would be heavy.

"Let's try," she said stoutly.

They took their positions at the end of it.

"Ready?" John asked, "One, two, three, lift!"

The thing seemed to weight a ton and Nancy felt something give in her back, then it came down again with a thump.

"Did you get it?"

"Yes," John said, standing up. "I think they underestimated the strength of an Amazon pirate."

"And a naval officer," Nancy added with a laugh as they stood up.

John walked to the window, unthinkingly dragging her with him. He craned his head to see out of the latticework that covered it and Nancy stood beside him just glimpsing another old building opposite them, glowing like a collage through the ornate holes in the lattice.

"I wonder where we are," John said at last, turning away to survey the room. "Are those violin cases?"

"That's what I thought." Nancy said, following his gaze.

They were perfectly ordinary violin cases, lots of them; all heaped up at the other end of the room. They went over to look at them more closely, running their hands over dark leather.

"What could be smuggled in a violin case?" John asked, shifting through the pile.

"Smuggled?" Nancy asked, looking up at him quickly. "Is that what you were trying to say?"

"I don't know what else it would be," John said. "I thought guns, but why violins?"

Nancy picked up the closest one and flipped back the catches, opening the lid. Her jaw dropped and she pushed it into John's hands.

The inside of the case had been modified and it was obvious that it had never been meant to house a violin. Where the violin ought to have been there was a smooth oak stock and below it, a metal barrel. It only took Nancy a moment before she realized that it was a gun and a strange one at that.

"Thompson submachine gun," John said at once; all ready, he was taking the pieces out of the case and assembling them. "I didn't go to gunnery school for nothing."

He stood there, staring at it in his hands, "This is what they're smuggling, then. All the way from America. They're expensive little things."

Slowly, he took it apart again and set the case back on top of the pile. He glanced at Nancy, "We're going to have to get out of here."

"I've been thinking that," Nancy said dryly. "Any ideas, skipper?"

John glanced at the window, then back at her, "Not at the moment. How about you?"

Nancy shook her head.

They went to sit down again, as another wave of dizziness washed over John. They could hear voices in the passage outside their door and they watched as the light grew dimmer in the room. The shadow of the latticework window slowly shifted across the ancient polished floor as the sun sank towards the horizon.

Nancy could just see a marbled sky through the lattice, turning gold, then silver as the light went away the way the tide does at the edge of the ocean. She glanced up at John and saw that he was staring at her. He looked down abruptly, twisting the handcuff around his wrist, when she caught his gaze.

"It's funny they haven't robbed us," John said at last. "I still have my watch and all my money."

"I've got my bag," Nancy said, picking it up where it was laying on the floor. She looked through it and ascertained that nothing was missing, not even the mummified cat. It gazed at her steadily in the gloom, its ancient painted face sombre and strange.

It had seen more lives than hers.


Author's Note: For now on, posting will be sped up a great deal because I am running out of time. I would be extremely thankful if my readers would try giving me some constructive criticism. I want to know what you like and what you don't like; for example: how do you like my style? Do you think the characters are well developed? How is the pacing of the story?

Thank you,

~Psyche

Guest1: Andrew is an invention of ours, a last addition to the Walker Family. He is talked about more in some of our other S&A stories.