Sherlock Holmes and the Mummy's Curse (2 page)

* * *

Less than a week later, the pair were on a train heading across France for Marseille, having made the Channel crossing at Folkestone to Boulougne-sur-Mer, following the mail routes. At Marseille they picked up a steamship across the Mediterranean and through the canal to the port of Suez. There, they transferred into a much smaller steamship for the short run down the Red Sea.

The only event which marred the trip occurred when their gear was nearly misrouted to Danzig. Holmes spied their trunks being trundled across the station platform in the wrong direction, however, and quickly accosted the baggage handler, correcting his error.

After that, Holmes was careful to oversee the transfer of their baggage himself, with no further difficulties.

* * *

“Well, Watson,” an exuberant Holmes said as the tiny steamship sidled alongside the dock at Safaga in Egypt, “I should say we have arrived in the desert, without doubt!”

“Indeed we have, Holmes,” Watson agreed, mopping his brow with his kerchief as he patently tried to take it all in. “Look—just here, by the minarets. Why, it’s as flat as any skillet.”

“Only the coastal plain, Watson. Look farther back, over there, well past all the buildings and date palms, about four or five miles in—see the mountains?” Holmes stretched out an arm, pointing. “Those are known simply as the Eastern Mountains—because they are east of the Nile, I suppose.”

“Great Scot, Holmes! I did not realise—! How shall we ever get through all that to Luxor, let alone up the Nile? We should have stopped in Alexandria and taken ship upriver!” Watson’s forehead creased in worry.

“No, no, Watson, never fear! This will indeed be swifter, you have my word. When I made our itinerary, I knew what I was about. There is an established road inland from Safaga to Qina, you see, and thence to Luxor; or we can take a barge from Qina up the Nile to the professor’s dig, which would be my preferred transport, I think. One should never visit the Nile and not take a barge along it! Or at the least, a river launch, as pharaonic barges are in somewhat short supply these days.” An enthusiastic Holmes smiled broadly. “Once we debark here, I must find a telegraph office post-haste and notify the good professor of our imminent arrival; it is likely to take some hours for it to reach his dig site from the telegraph office on his end! Come, Watson, there’s the gangplank!”

* * *

“Holmes, I am really not at all certain which is worse—the heat, or the ride on these deuced beasts!” Watson complained as their small caravan trudged through the dark, jagged mountains westward, two evenings later. “The ride is rough, they smell to high heaven, and this is positively the meanest-spirited creature I have ever encountered!”

“You are the one who thought riding a camel would be ‘romantic,’ old chap, not I,” Holmes retorted cheerfully, rocking along easily with the gait of his desert mount. “And I told you not to stand there staring in its face, no matter how curious you are—they spit when annoyed! When we make camp, you should at least wet your handkerchief and clean your face a bit better. You still have a brown smudge in front of your right ear.”

An irked Watson extracted that same handkerchief from his sleeve, removed his topee, and mopped his brow, drawing the kerchief down his right cheek before glancing briefly at the dark russet smear upon it. Then he reached for his canteen, wet the kerchief, and scrubbed away the offending residue on his cheek before pulling several deep swallows from the canteen. Only then did he reply.

“You cannot tell me that you have expertise riding these nasty-tempered creatures,” he grumbled, tucking the moist kerchief back into his sleeve, against his wrist, where it would provide some cooling effect. “Let alone in these damned mountains.”

“Nonsense, Watson, the mountains of Afghanistan are much higher! And you have been in those before,” Holmes pointed out. “As a matter of fact, I do have some experience on camel-back, from my younger years working under Whitesell at Oxbridge.”

“When I was in Afghanistan, I had rather more on my mind,” Watson retorted, in high dudgeon. “Like not getting shot, for all the good it did me. Nor was it so hot! And nor so dusty! And NOR was I on a benighted, thrice-damned bloody CAMEL!” Just then, his mount let out an offended-sounding bleat.

“Patience, Watson, patience, my dear fellow. And lower your voice; these animals are highly prized by their owners. It would not do to insult them. I know it cannot be pleasant upon your old wounds, but try to relax as much as possible, and simply roll with the beast’s gait; that will be best, I think. This leg of the trip is fortunately short, and we are over halfway through it now. We are, at least, travelling at night, and with plenty of provisions, to include water. Admittedly, it is still very early in the season, so rather warmer than it should be in a few months; nevertheless here we are, and we must deal with it. Be glad we are not travelling in daylight hours, when it would be much, much hotter! In the heat of the day, these mountains can reach upwards of one hundred degrees!”

“I am thankful for that much,” Watson admitted. “But… are we certain that there are no highway robbers in these mountains?” He glanced around in unease at the rugged landscape, the sharp edges of the dark mountain scarps illumined a pale silver by the light of a waxing crescent moon, low in the west. The sandy road ahead gleamed a pale gold in that same light. The camels in front of them kicked up a tawny cloud of dust with each plodding footstep, which did not settle until well after the entire caravan had passed; Watson could taste it upon his lips, which felt gritty.

“…Not entirely, no,” Holmes conceded then, sparing a surreptitious glance at their surroundings himself—not, Watson suspected, that he had been unobservant before; that would have been totally out of character for Holmes. “One can never be completely sure of such things, in such places as this. But I should think it is unlikely, given so much exploration in and around Luxor—this is one of the most direct routes to maritime shipping, as it happens. And it is an ancient road, having seen its own archaeological digs, as has its terminus on the Nile: Qina was known as Kaine by the ancient Greeks, and Maximianopolis to the Romans, and evidently was, or is, an eastern bank offshoot of the ancient Egyptian city of Ta-ynt-netert
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, or Tantere. So there has been much digging in the region. Traffic through these parts is heavy enough, with sufficient numbers of antiquities passing through, that even if the Egyptian authorities did not provide for such, which they do, I have it to understand that a rather prestigious group of archaeologists, including our host, have banded together to ensure this route is well-guarded. Or at least as much as is possible, in the circumstances.” He paused, then placed a casual hand on his hip, before resting its opposite on a rather thick leather strap, part of the camel’s harness; it widened substantially at the end underneath Holmes’ hand, and might almost have been a hidden holster for a rifle, or a shotgun. “Nevertheless, things happen. Which is why we are hardly… undefended, ourselves.”

Watson brushed his own hip in response, then paused in thought. Finally he glanced around to see who might be nearby, then turned and leaned forward to speak privately to Holmes, whose camel was slightly ahead and to one side. Holmes, in response, twisted a bit in the saddle, the better to face the doctor.

“The choice of our camel-puller was not random happenstance, was it, Holmes?” Watson kept his voice low.

“No indeed, it was not. Omar was known to me, back in the day, as a very trustworthy young camel-puller. Now he is a full-fledged caravaneer, though still young for his status: he owns most of these camels, and is very proud of the fact. Not that he has his own formal caravanserai as yet, though I am uncertain that the terrain is suited to it in any event. More, he remembered me from the time when we were both lads, and promised that both I and my, er, mildly invalided friend—pardon me, Watson, but I played up the nature of your injuries, and for good reason, as I desired you to have the best, most comfortable mount possible, in the circumstances—would arrive safely at Professor Whitesell’s dig camp. In fact, he pledged it upon his camel train, which is saying a good bit. Look, up there at the head of the file—he is himself leading us, though he did not have to; as the owner, he could have hired someone, and normally would have done.”

Watson was touched by this rare evidence of Holmes’ consideration, though he hid it carefully. “But the rest of the handlers?”

“Are hand-picked, known and trusted by Omar. And all are well-armed. We two, our baggage, and some half-dozen crates of imported goods, comprise the whole of his caravan’s lading on this trip. We are quite as safe as if we were in the midst of the British Army phalanx. Never fear. By this time to-morrow, we shall be safely at Qina, and may transition back to normal hours, as the trip up the Nile will be during the day, more comfortable, and much cooler on account of the water. I am sorry you are in pain, my friend, but our only other transport option was a dogcart pulled by a donkey, which would have been slower, dustier, and much rougher over mountain roads. Not even the most careless of antiquities experts would trust his treasures to such a conveyance; how much the more my closest friend, whose injuries still cause him pain?”

Watson never said another word about the discomfort of his mount.

* * *

At dawn they camped; as they knew from the previous morning, the heat increased rapidly after sunrise, making it difficult to sleep. So instead, Holmes and Watson sat companionably on camp stools in the shade at the door of their tent, extracted pipes and tobacco, and puffed upon the soothing herb in the congenial silence that befitted a friendship such as theirs.

Half an hour later, a boy—Omar’s youngest, as they had discovered the day before—brought them small trays containing their meals: hot shawarma made of stuffed
aish
, a kind of pita or pocket-bread filled with roast mutton and mint, lightly smeared with tahini; and the thick, syrupy-sweet coffee of the region on the side. Sticky pieces of baklava, liberally soaked with honey and carefully wrapped in parchment, baked by Omar’s wife before their departure from Safaga, rounded out the meal. It was hardly a feast, but it was flavourful and sustaining, and as Holmes pointed out, it was as good as it was likely to get in that remote part of the world. Hungry, Watson tucked it away with alacrity, Holmes rather less so, as was his wont; and even Watson decided it was tasty. “Though,” he admitted, “the mutton could have been a bit younger. It was a tad tough.”

“Then it would have been breeding stock, and a source of fleece,” Holmes replied, using a piece of the parchment to wipe honey from his lips. “Here, the sheep are only eaten when they are too old and infirm to continue producing. When you are finished, Watson, let us fetch our canteens and go to the water tank and fill them.”

“Then what?”

“Sleep if we can; smoke, if we cannot.”

“And to-night
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we reach the Nile?”

“We do.”

* * *

But they did not. When Holmes woke that evening shortly after sundown, it was with a decided feeling of malaise; at the sound of retching, he turned his head to see Watson kneeling on the tarpaulin floor next to the other folding cot in the twilight, eructing into the bucket intended for his tobacco ash with some violence. The sight sent an unpleasant wave of nausea through Holmes’ own gut. The smell, a moment later, only intensified the sensation.

When he could catch his breath for being sick, Watson looked up at Holmes.

“How… how are you faring, Holmes?”

“I… have been better,” the detective admitted, sitting up slowly in his camp cot and putting a hand to his belly. “Spoiled food?”

“Most like-likely,” Watson panted. “I have already had to rush to what passes for a latrine outside the camp—twice. The diarrhoea is severe, and quick of onset. Forgive my indelicacy, but most of the camp is in the same condition, and it does not do in the circumstances to sugar-coat the matter. Thank God for a pit in the sand, or we should be in foul shape. I’m surprised you have not had similar issues already.”

“I did not eat as much for dinner, if you will recall. My appetite, you know, is generally less than yours anyway, as I am thinner; and the heat tends to decrease it further. But that does not mean…” he broke off as a troublesome cramp gripped his belly, “…that I will be unaffected.”

“Where?” Watson abruptly bent back over the bucket, gagging, but nothing came up. Most likely, the detective considered, watching, there was nothing left to come up. “Show me. Where?”

“Where what?” Holmes asked, wondering if some part of the statement had been lost in the dry heaves.

“Where in… in your gut? I saw you… wince.”

“Ah.” Wordlessly, Holmes pointed in the general vicinity of his solar plexus.

“Good, it is still high,” Watson declared, waving a hand at his medical bag in the corner. “In there. Go. Find the… the paregoric. And… and a dosing cup.”

Holmes immediately moved to the bag and rummaged within, tossing over his shoulder, “Cholera?”

“I… I think n-not,” Watson panted, evidently fighting off another wave of nausea. “No m-muscular cramping, no unduly w-watery ex-excreta…”

“Good Lord, Watson,” Holmes remarked fervently, coming up with the paregoric. “There is enough in here for an army.”

“A-and more in my trunk,” he murmured, stammering slightly in his inability to ward off the swells of reverse peristalsis. “I c-came prepared. I’ve b-been in backwater lands be-before, as y-you so re-recently pointed o-out. It sh-oould d-do for the diarrhoea and nau-nausea, too. Here.”

Holmes handed over the bottle and dose cup; Watson measured out a dose and handed it back to Holmes.

“Down the hatch,” Watson ordered. Holmes shot the medicine, then grimaced, smacking his mouth in distaste.

“Bleh,” the detective muttered. “That was disagreeable.”

“Not nearly as much as t-the alternative! Here. My turn. I… ugh. I have to get better, or I-I cannot p-possibly treat t-the entire cara-caravan.” He measured his own dose and took it, then hung his head over the bucket as the bitter taste of the paregoric itself, mingled with a sugar syrup to render it more palatable, nauseated him once more.