Redcap (17 page)

The new funeral cortège, moving up a dune towards the Tower of Silence from a neighbouring village, had got quite close to the foot of the structure when Shaw stumbled out, a wild, dirty figure, an ‘Indian’ in a shroud. The man who had been brought by the police from afar off to Solli, and who had been committed the day before.

The mourners didn’t wait for one unnecessary moment when the dead man moved stiffly towards them. They left the cart, they left the corpse with its face glaring upward towards the vultures, and they turned about and ran for their lives, shrieking to their Gods to protect them from the evil spirit which possessed that dead body, the body which bore the clear mark of the birds of death but which yet moved towards them, the white shroud gleaming in the dark.

They ran into the little village street, calling out to all they met to run before it was too late. Shaw, listening to their distant voices, acted in instinctive self-preservation despite his feeling of hopelessness. He dropped down behind a big pile of stones, and waited. When nothing happened, he peered cautiously round the hide-out, his nausea and weakness submerging under a new thrill of hope. He could tell by the sounds that the villagers were fleeing, going the other way. Very likely the men, the police, had gone back by now to Port Said; they would see no need to wait really, for they would have been expecting the vultures to take him for dead, and they would be thinking now that he was in fact dead, pecked and torn to ribbons while he was helpless under the drug. Ten minutes later, when all was still quiet, Shaw pulled himself to his feet and went on under cover of the darkness, walking the couple of hundred yards into the village as fast as his condition would allow. When he walked into Solli’s main street, he found the place utterly deserted. There was no sign of life, even the dogs seeming to have run along with the humans.

Evidently the police, as he had hoped, were gone.

He was going to get away with this after all.

When that realization came to him, he seemed to find a new, hidden strength. He walked on, went into the narrow doorway of a hovel off the street, looking for food and drink. Nothing there. But, on a table in the third dwelling, he found a meal which seemed to have been interrupted by the news of his coming. Shaw grinned to himself. He seized a loaf of hard bread, ate ravenously. Some of the loaf he tied in his shroud for use later on. Then he drank deeply, greedily, from an earthenware pitcher, gratefully felt the cold water flow over his face. He sluiced some over his body. After that he felt much better, felt the weakness start to ebb away, knew that whatever happened he had to keep going now. Looking around, he discovered a water-bottle, which he filled from the pitcher and then slung the cord round his neck.

The next thing was transport.

Making for the pool of stagnant, dirty water which gave Solli its only apparent reason for being, in the faint hope that he might find a camel which somebody hadn’t waited to mount, Shaw’s eye was caught by the glitter of the moon on metalwork in the open doorway of a lean-to shed inside a courtyard. He stopped, stared, pulled himself over the low wall and went inside.

Of all things, it was a motor-cycle.

Progress—and Shaw found time to thank God for it—had come to the oasis of Solli. Probably it belonged to some young spark who wasn’t at home and the elders, in their panic, hadn’t been able to work the thing. Unless it was out of juice. Shaking with excitement, Shaw opened the tank, thrust in a handy stick. It was about a quarter full. The canal was . . . how far? Those men had said Solli was between Zagazig and Ismailia, and Shaw knew that those two places were about fifty miles apart, maybe a little less. And Ismailia was on Lake Timsah, hard by the canal itself. So at the outside the canal couldn’t be more than fifty miles away and was almost certainly a lot less. If he could hit the road running alongside the canal, he could run quickly down into Suez—-if the petrol lasted that far—and hope to pick up the liner there, for surely she would have waited a while for him before giving up hope.

Shaw grasped the machine, wheeled it out into the rutted street, got astride and kicked the starter. After two false starts, it roared into noisy, exultant life. That wonderful sound gave him back all the heart he needed.

He raced the machine flat out, roared away from Solli on the road to the north along which they had come earlier. He hoped to find a road crossing it, a road leading into Ismailia. As he passed the Tower of Silence he looked towards the death cart with its load beneath the moon. The vultures were starting in already, not waiting for the tower this time.

Shaw smiled to himself. Somehow, he felt, he must have shaken their faith in human nature.

He kept up his speed and sent the motor-cycle flying in a storm of sand and dust along the road, a sweaty, dirt-streaked figure bent low over the handlebars, a grotesque sight in his shroud as the garment billowed out behind him in the wind made by his passing. Some distance along he hit the hoped-for roadway leading off to the right, and he turned along it, trusting that it was the one which would take him into Ismailia. Luck was with him, for he had struck the road from Bargum, and it wasn’t long after that that he saw the waterway ahead, saw the lighted superstructures of ships passing along. It was a north-bound convoy in transit, just entering the northern sector of the canal as it came out from Lake Timsah. There was no sign of any shipping bound south, but then the next convoy from Port Said would not leave until midnight. There was still a chance of catching the liner.

Shaw ditched the motorcycle just before he hit the canal road a little to the north of Ismailia. There was in fact little petrol left in the tank now, and the best thing would be to try to jump a lorry—he could get away with that all right in the darkness and with his knowledge of the language.

He was walking along the roadway, making for the town, when he saw a car coming up in a cloud of dust from the direction of Suez. He saw it clearly, because the headlights of a car coming from the opposite direction were playing on to it. He gave it little more than a casual glance, intending to keep out of its way more than anything else . . . until he saw its number-plate.

He recognized it as bearing an American registration. Very likely that car belonged to a Canal Authority’s pilot.

Shaw stepped into the road, waving frantically.

The car swerved and the driver put his hand on the siren and kept it there. Shaw moved across, planted himself firmly in the car’s path. It pulled up, the driver leaned out. He cursed at Shaw. He was a burly, red-faced man bearing the stamp of the sailor and Shaw felt that his guess had been the right one. Besides, the oaths were unmistakably American. Shaw held up his hand and grinned. He said,

“Sorry. I only wanted to ask you something.”

The driver gaped at him. “What in hell’s name are you?” he asked incredulously.

“British subject,” Shaw told him briefly. “Name’s Shaw, Commander Shaw of the British Navy.” He looked down at his shroud. “This rig’s against me, I know, but I can’t go into details . . . I’d like to know if the
New South Wales
is still in the canal.”

“She’s not. She’s gone through.”

Shaw’s heart sank. “Has she cleared Suez Roads?”

“Uh-huh. She was in the last southbound convoy, next ahead of the ship I was taking through.” The pilot peered closer at Shaw. He demanded, “Say, what is all this, huh?”

“We’ll skip that, if you don’t mind.” Shaw thought fast. “Will you take my word for it that it’s desperately important I get to a British Consul as fast as possible? It’s a matter of international importance.” He looked direct at the man in the car, conscious of his unprepossessing appearance as the shroud flapped about him in a light breeze, of his face, bruised and swollen from the blows given him by the police in Solli. He asked, “Can I get in? I suppose you’re going to Port Said?”

The American gave him a long look, nodded, jerked the door open. “Get in,” he said briefly. “I’m going right through.”

“Thanks.” Shaw climbed in. As the driver started up he looked sideways at Shaw.

He said, “You’re the guy the
New South Wales
left behind, aren’t you?”

“You’ve heard about that?”

“Sure I’ve heard about that!” The voice was very unfriendly. “You realize she missed a convoy all because of you? We heard you were dead.” He breathed heavily. “Some people . . . bloody thoughtlessness! I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but I’ve a darn good mind to hand you over to the local authorities just the same.”

“On the face of it,” Shaw said quietly, “I don’t think I’d blame you if you did try doing just that. But I’ll guarantee you wouldn’t succeed, chum!” He raised his voice as the pilot interrupted. “Just a moment . . . ever been in command of your own ship?”

“Uh-huh. Five years. And I wouldn’t have missed a convoy for a bloody passenger, not on your life I wouldn’t!”

“Exactly. And neither would the Master of the
New South Wales
.”

“Come again? I don’t get you.”

“Don’t you?” Shaw murmured. “What I’m trying to say is, that the Captain wouldn’t have waited unless he had some good reason—unless it was important that I should get aboard. He wouldn’t have waited for—well, just for any passenger. Now d’you see?”

There was a pause; then the pilot said slowly, “Okay, I get you. Or do I? Sorry. Could be that you’ve been having a rough time, I guess, huh?” He glanced at Shaw. “Or would you rather say no more about it?”

"I would. And thanks.” Shaw sat back in relief, pulled his shroud round his body. The night air was chilly, but it wasn’t as chilly, as terrible, as it had been at the top of that tower. Shaw could still feel his flesh crawling at the thought of that, could still feel the pain of the open beak-wounds too. They drove on fast, without saying much, and they were soon into the outskirts of Port Said and then it was not long before they pulled up at the offices of the British Consul. Shaw thanked the pilot, who drove away, and then he went inside and found an Egyptian clerk.

The clerk tried to eject the weird, filthy figure who kept insisting he was Commander Shaw, Commander Shaw whom the clerk knew to be dead. The Consul, he said, was not in the office at this hour. Shaw snapped, “Then find him, and find him fast. I’ll wait.” Angrily he sat on a chair in the waiting-room. The clerk dithered. Shaw said threateningly, “If you don’t so something quick, I’ll personally see that you’re kicked out of the Consulate for good.”

The young man looked at him sharply, carefully, then shrugged his thin shoulders and sighed. The man spoke perfect English and he carried an air of authority . . . but how could a dead man . . . he shrugged again. Stranger things had happened in the Consulate before now. He picked up a telephone, spoke into it volubly.

Half an hour later the Consul arrived, glanced at Shaw, went into a huddle with the clerk in his private office and then Shaw was brought in and the clerk disappeared.

The Consul, who was a short, pleasant man with a ready smile, asked, “Have you any means of identification, of proving what you say?”

“None. Why don’t you contact the Ambassador in Cairo? I’ve an idea he’ll know all about me.”

The official gave him a keen look. He murmured, “If you are Shaw, we’re not exactly in total ignorance about you here, old man. You’d better tell me everything in detail.” After Shaw had gone through everything that had happened since he’d come ashore from the liner, the Consul asked him a number of pertinent questions about the ship and he appeared satisfied with the answers. He said, “All right, Shaw. I believe you. As it happens, I’ve already been in touch with the Cairo Embassy about you and I understand they’ve had word from some V.I.P. in London. They were extremely worried about your ‘death,’ I might add!” He smiled. “Come to that, so was I. Just give me time to make some arrangements, and then I hope we can put you on your way by air.” He added, “It’ll have to be a bit of a wangle. I don’t say you’ve necessarily broken any of the local laws by coming back to life—but you’re a trifle unpopular with the authorities, or you would be if it was known you were alive.”

The Consul made several telephone calls, and while he was doing this he turned Shaw over to the clerk and told the latter to see to it that the Commander had a wash and a meal and some decent clothing, also some attention for his injuries. And within a couple of hours a refreshed and reinvigorated Shaw was sent for again and told that a car was waiting to rush him to Cairo and he’d better hurry. Just before he was smuggled into the car, the Consul had a word with him and told him that efforts would be made to find out the political affiliations of the policemen who had taken him off, and of the local agents of Ycecold Refrigeration, but held out little hope that anything would in fact be achieved. Then, a minute later, the car was speeding out for Cairo and the British Embassy. Shaw took this opportunity to have a nap in the car: on arrival in Cairo he was taken to the Ambassador himself, to whom he made a full report of proceedings for transmission to Latymer in London. The Naval Attache fixed him up with a new revolver, and soon he was rushed in another closed car to the airport; within ten minutes of his arrival there he was airborne, heading out for Aden; and a signal had gone out to the Master of the
New South Wales
informing him of Shaw’s re-appearance.

Judith was tremendously happy and relieved when Sir Donald gave her the news, and when Shaw rejoined the liner she was waiting at the head of the accommodation-ladder as his boat from Steamer Point came alongside. For his part he was vastly relieved to find her safe and sound, and to hear that nothing had happened during his absence. After a word with the girl, he spoke to the senior man of the MAPIACCIND guard who told him all was well with REDCAP.

A few minutes later he was reporting to the Captain.

He told Sir Donald the whole story. He said, “I’m sure Andersson gave those louts the tip—told them to start the fun. I think we ought to have an unofficial copy of any cables he sends or receives from now on, sir. Can that be done?”