A Trail Through Time (The Chronicles of St Mary's) (5 page)

I rubbed both hands down my tunic. Nope. That did no good at all, but we were out. We’d had a narrow escape and when Leon said, ‘Back to the pod, I think,’ I didn’t argue.

The streets were deserted. This was good, in that it enabled us to make good speed, and bad, because we were virtually the only people around and therefore, horribly conspicuous.

We slunk from one shadowed doorway to the next. Leon led the way. I followed on behind and watched our backs.

How the hell did they keep finding us? Think about that later. Always deal with the now. Escape first. Questions later.

The pod was visible. Suppose they’d found it. But no – think a minute. If they’d found the pod then they wouldn’t have to waste time chasing us and risking the attention of the Medjay. They could just sit in the shade and wait for us to turn up, as we were bound to do eventually. Surely, the fact they were chasing us through the streets meant they hadn’t found the pod. Unless, of course, they were doing both. Herding us back through the streets to be caught just as we thought we’d made it. I thrust that thought away. Get back safely and
then
deal with whatever problem presented itself.

Chance would be a fine thing.

Chapter Four

We could just make out the pod still snuggled in its little grove of palm trees. The donkey was facing the other way, but otherwise, everything was exactly as before. We only had to trace a path through the latticework of fields, navigate several irrigation ditches, and we were home, but not necessarily dry. Egypt at this time of year is extremely soggy.

‘We’ll circle around,’ said Leon. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

I thought he was being over-cautious and said so. ‘Besides, the Medjay will be giving them something else to think about.’

‘We can’t afford to take any chances,’ he said. ‘We’re the fugitives here. To remain free, we have to be lucky every time. To capture us, they only have to be lucky once.’

Well, since he put it like that …

We zig-zagged our way towards the pod, skirting the big rocks that acted as boundary markers and hopping over the smaller irrigation channels. The bigger ones had rough wooden planks laid across them at irregular intervals.

We nearly made it. I was just coming to believe the Time Police were all still at the temple when, suddenly, they were right in front of us, rising up out of the empty landscape, only about a hundred yards away. Whether deliberately or not, they were between us and the pod. But just two of them. A rear guard, maybe.

‘Run,’ said Leon, and just for once, I did exactly as I was told.

I took off around an enormous fig tree so ancient that it had pupped any number of times and now formed a small plantation all on its own. I pushed through whippy sticks and tripped over roots, emerging near a small wooden structure, purpose unknown.

The important thing was to keep something between them and us. And to deprive them of a clear shot. And to get a long way off as well. And to keep them away from the pod. There’s an art to running for your life, you know. You don’t just take off and hope for the best.

I hurtled out from behind the shed, and finding a nice, clear patch of dryish land ahead of me, tucked in my elbows, tried to ignore the pain in my chest, and went for it. Only to find myself confronted by The Great Drain. One of the main irrigation channels that led directly from the Nile to a series of the big reservoirs scattered around. They carried a lot of water, they were wide, and they were deep.

I turned and ran along the bank, desperately searching for some cover. We weren’t far from the river itself and maybe there would be a boat … anything … I could hear Leon pounding along behind me.

A stand of dead, unharvested corn to my right offered some possibilities, but as I turned towards it, the same two black-clad figures stepped out from between the dry brown stalks, weapons raised. Still between me and the pod.

I skidded to a halt and desperately searched for a way out, but there was nowhere to go. That didn’t stop me. I wasn’t going to give up. They were going to have to come and get me. Veering off away from the canal, I headed directly towards the river. Maybe we could lose ourselves in the papyrus beds.

The mud was treacherous. I slipped and skidded, falling flat on my face.

I heard Leon shout a warning. Looking back, I could see him struggling with the two Time Police. He was unarmed. We had to get away now. The rest of the squad could turn up at any moment. One of them tore free from Leon and aimed his gun at me.

I tried to wriggle away, lost my footing again, and rolled down the muddy bank to fetch up only feet from the river. I should get up. I must get up.

It wasn’t going to happen. I lay on my back, chest heaving.

They had us.

Or perhaps they hadn’t.

I heard shouting above me, and the next minute, a heaving scrum consisting of Leon and two Time Police tumbled over the bank, and came to rest in a panting, muddy heap next to me.

‘Run,’ shouted Leon again, although where he thought I was going to go was anyone’s guess.

I scrambled to my feet and prepared to break a few land speed records. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of them grope for his weapon and threw myself to the ground.

I don’t know what happened behind me. I only know what happened in front of me.

The Nile boiled.

At least, that’s what it looked like to me. A great expanse of water jumped and bubbled. Trying to disregard the stabbing, disabling pain in my chest, I stared at the bouncing water because that’s not something you see every day. And while I was staring, what looked like every crocodile in Upper Egypt rose slowly to the surface, peered at us over its nostrils, and decided it was lunchtime.

The Nile crocodile. An apex predator. Aggressive. Powerful. Huge. Old males can be anything up to eighteen feet in length. They eat pretty well everything. They’re agile and they can run. Actually, they can lift themselves up and gallop. There’s no point in fleeing because they’ll chase you down. People are terrified of them and rightly so. They spend their days sunning on the mudflats, apparently in some sort of coma, until a person or an animal comes down to drink and then one or more will erupt from the water and drag them under.

In times of stress, male crocodiles can produce infrasonic sounds so powerful that they cause the water to vibrate and that was what I was looking at now. Vibrating water. But on this occasion, it wasn’t the crocodiles. The idiot Time Police had fired their sonic weapons – on wide-beam, judging by the great expanse of dancing water.

God knows what normally goes on inside those great, ugly heads – the crocodiles’ I mean, not the Time Police’s – but now, at this moment, they were definitely not happy. Whether they regarded us as a challenge or lunch, a worryingly large number were starting to converge on our particular muddy bank.

‘Shit,’ said the Time Police. In stereo.

‘Shit,’ said Leon.

I didn’t say anything. I’m a veteran. I was saving my breath for running.

You had to hand it to the Time Police. These people were dedicated. Even when it looked as if we were all the main course on today’s menu, they were still trying to take us in. They both aimed their stupid weapons at us.

I heard Leon say, ‘I really wouldn’t fire those again if I were you. Let’s just call this one a score draw, shall we, and all of us get out of here.’

The first of the crocodiles were lifting themselves out of the water. I stared, fascinated. They were huge and armoured, and, when they’re threatened, they turn their heads and cough. A bit like a St Mary’s medical.

And then we were all running.

My wobbly legs were slipping and skidding all over the place. I was disoriented. My heart pounded and I could barely see straight. I had no idea who or what was behind me. I didn’t dare take my eyes off the rough ground ahead. At any moment, I expected to be seized and dragged down into the muddy water because crocs don’t bite you in half and eat you straight away. They drag you underwater, roll you over and over and over until you drown, or all your bones break and your limbs drop off, and then they wedge you under a rock or log until you’re ripe and ready.
Then
they eat you.

I pushed my way through coarse, razor-sharp grass that ripped painfully at my arms and legs. Somewhere along the way, we’d shed the Time Police. I’d no idea what they were up to. Running for their lives if they had any sense. There were crocs everywhere, slithering off the mud banks, appearing out of reed beds, hauling themselves out of the water, jaws gaping. What a lot of teeth for just one animal.

Leon caught me up, seized my hand, and then we really ran. We hurdled ditches. We splashed through the mud. Somewhere along the way, I lost my flip-flops and I still feel terrible about that because I just know that, one day, an archaeologist is going to unearth their remains, and I’m going to be in such trouble. Although at the time, I certainly didn’t care enough to go back and look for them.

We turned away from the Nile, dropping to a slow jog, because I was fighting for every painful breath. Egypt swam hazily around me and I couldn’t get my balance. The pod was less than one hundred yards away. We were nearly there.

He stopped and looked around at the empty landscape. ‘You go on ahead. Check the coast is clear. I’ll watch our backs, but I think we’re safe now.’

He turned and fell straight into the Great Drain.

Even by St Mary’s standards, we really weren’t having a good day.

I’m ashamed to say my first thought was, ‘Well, at least it wasn’t me this time,’ because my track record for getting from A to B without experiencing a major catastrophe at C was not so good. And then I thought it was funny.

I said, ‘What are you doing down there?’ and got that special exasperated look.

‘I told you to get back to the pod. Don’t you ever listen?’

‘Sorry? What did you say?’

He was clinging to the bank, about two feet down, covered in glistening Nile mud. Even as I watched, he slid a few more inches. He scrabbled with his feet and slid a few more.

I lay on the bank, reached down for him, and that was when I realised we had a real problem because there was no way I could pull him out. The sides were too steep and his flailing feet just couldn’t get a purchase. Every time he tried, he slipped that bit deeper into the ditch, and the bottom was a concoction of shallow, dirty water and thick, black, sticky mud. Once he slithered down into that, I knew he’d never get out because not too far away, a half-buried dead dog and a few rat skeletons told their own story.

He couldn’t climb out and I didn’t have the strength to pull him out. All I could do was just hold on and take the strain for a while.

It doesn’t sound that serious, but it was, because today was a holiday and there was no one around to help.

I lay on my stomach in the warm mud. The air smelled of hot, wet earth and, apart from the frogs, everything was quiet. The landscape was empty of people. Not even the Time Police. I suppose it was too much to hope they’d been eaten. Even the donkey seemed to have pushed off.

Tomorrow would be a working day, however, and someone would open the equivalent of a sluice and the water would come roaring up – or down – the channel and he’d be whirled away. If I’d managed to hang on to him through the night.

And if the crocodiles didn’t come.

I was face down, head and shoulders overhanging the edge, holding on to his wrists with both hands. He kept his head and stopped kicking and flailing around, because both he and I were muddy, and it would be so easy for his own weight to pull him through my grip. To fall into that quicksand of mud and slimy water far below.

I closed my mind to panic and lifted my head again, trying to see if there was anyone around to help. Anyone would do. Even the two sodding Time Police, whose fault all this was. Where are the bloody police when you actually need them? A part of my mind wondered if they’d been recalled to assist with the Medjay.

He lifted his head and said calmly, ‘I’m going to try to find some sort of foothold.’

‘Gently does it.’

I could feel him scrabbling around but all that happened was that part of the side fell away and we were worse off than before, because now I could feel myself slipping. His weight, apart from pulling my arms from their sockets, was slowly dragging me over the edge with him, and he knew it.

He lifted his head.

‘Let me go.’

‘No.’

I felt myself slip another inch and tried to will all my weight backwards. That didn’t work at all.

‘Lucy, let me go.’

He’d never called me that before. Leon’s private name for me. My thoughts took this particularly inappropriate moment to wonder when I’d stopped thinking of him as
the other Leon
. When I’d finally accepted him as my Leon. Because that’s such a useful thing to think about when you’re hanging over the edge of a fatally deep ditch, looking at a prolonged and unpleasant death.

I said, ‘Shut up, Leon.’

‘Lucy …’

I clenched my teeth against the pain and said, ‘Not going to happen so just shut up.’

Before he could say anything else, I lifted my head and shouted for help. I don’t know why I did it – I knew everyone was at the festival, but I wasn’t going to let him die and if he was going to die then I wasn’t interested in the future at all. Blood was pumping into my hanging head so I probably wasn’t thinking very clearly.

I slipped another inch. The edge of the ditch was crumbling. And another inch. I tried wedging my knees into the mud. That didn’t work, either.

The fiery pain in my arms and shoulders was unbearable. I knew, physically, I couldn’t hold on much longer.

And then the mud moved. At first, I thought I had imagined it, but no. The mud was moving. Two, no, three crocodiles were working their way up the ditch. The one in front was huge, obviously the alpha male. They didn’t appear to be in any hurry, but they covered the ground deceptively quickly. Half wading, half swimming, they were heading directly for us. They didn’t have to do anything. They just had to wait.

I shouted again. And again.

Someone answered.

I didn’t dare try to twist around to see who it was. I didn’t dare move at all. Because this was it … I was sliding over the edge… and we would both slither down to the crocodiles awaiting us at the bottom …

I both felt and heard running footsteps. I shouted again. I was desperate now, because I was going. … I could feel myself going … I was slipping through the mud. Leon was shouting at me to let go. I was just shouting. Because whoever was coming was going to be just half a second too late to save us …

An arm seized Leon. On the other side of me, another arm reached down for him. The overwhelming weight was gone. I wriggled backwards to give them room to hoist him up.

They were two slaves. Skinny but muscular. Naked apart from their loincloths. They hauled him up and out, no problem at all, and we all sat, muddy and breathless in the warm evening sun and looked at each other.

We had no money to give them. We owned nothing but the clothes that we now didn’t have the strength to stand up in. We had no words with which to thank them, but there’s a universal sign language. We place our hands over our hearts and bowed our heads. They smiled and bowed theirs. Then they picked up their bundles and departed. Just like that.