Sands of the Scorpion Read online

  Peter grinned and raised the bottle to Beck in a silent toast before putting it up to his mouth, sipping carefully. He then reached out towards Beck to pass him the bottle.

  Neither of them was quite sure what happened next. Whether Peter let go of it early or Beck let it slip through his fingers. But the bottle dropped – as if in slow motion.

  ‘No!’

  Beck was already lunging for it, but too late. The bottle landed on its side and its precious contents splashed out onto the ground. Beck only lost a few seconds before he scooped it up again, but it was long enough. Just a moment ago the bottle had been full of water. Now there was barely a quarter left.

  Peter stooped down, swearing as he helped Beck up. ‘I’m sorry. I . . . I’m so sorry . . . ’ He sounded on the verge of tears.

  Beck stared at him, at the bottle, back at Peter again. His mind was still trying to make sense of how it had happened. For a split second, part of him felt like screaming out loud. But he resisted. It had been an accident. No one’s fault.

  ‘What’s your watch set to again?’

  The question and his matter-of-fact tone seemed to pull Peter back from his guilt trip.

  ‘Uh . . . um . . . thirty minutes.’

  ‘Make it forty from now on.’

  Beck carefully took his one mouthful and screwed the top back on. He put the bottle away in his rucksack, squeezed Peter’s shoulder reassuringly, and together they set off across the salt pan.

  They didn’t talk. There wasn’t water enough for that and there was nothing to say anyway. The situation was too serious for chitchat now.

  Their one blessing was that the going was smooth. They were still on the salt pan. There were no obstacles, though there was always a faint chance that one of them would be too heavy for the crust of the salt pan and would fall through into the poisonous gunk below. Beck reckoned that if all the cars taking part in the Paris-Dakar rally had come this way, then the crust could probably hold two boys.

  It took two more hours to get off the pan. The sun was well down but Beck saw the shape of the landscape change around them in the dark. He felt the difference beneath his feet. It was some comfort. All through the day while they had rested he had been plagued by the thought that maybe they should have pressed on just a little further that morning. But no, stopping back then had been the right choice. They couldn’t have gone on this far in the blazing heat of the day.

  The ground started to rise and fall gently. It was hard and rocky, scattered with fist-sized stones; still quite easy to walk on, and certainly easier than slogging up and down sand dunes. The boys just had to be careful where they put their feet.

  Shortly after they got off the pan they were down to their last mouthfuls of water.

  ‘I can wait.’ Peter’s voice was hoarse. He held the bottle up to the moon so he could just see the precious few drops remaining. ‘I’ll give it a bit longer. We should keep this for an emergency.’

  ‘Pete . . . ’ It came out as a dry whisper. Beck had to swallow to get some moisture and try again before any sound came out. ‘Pete, it’s been an emergency for a while now. Drink it now. Just keep it in your mouth for as long as possible. Try to let it absorb completely. We’ll just go without for a few more hours, then we’ll stop a couple of hours before dawn and set up another dew trap.’ He made himself smile, though it hurt.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve got any pee left . . . ’ Peter murmured, before taking his last sip and passing the nearly empty bottle to Beck to finish.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A night without water seemed twice as long as a night with. It wasn’t long before Beck could hear the sounds of Peter faltering. The occasional missed step, the harsher breathing. Beck found himself constantly drawing a little ahead, just by going at his normal pace. He had to hold himself back. Peter was slowing down.

  But he was still walking.

  Beck stooped down and picked up a couple of pebbles. He rubbed them to get the dirt off, then handed one to Peter.

  ‘Keep this in your mouth. It’ll make you salivate.’

  Peter silently did as he was told. Beck popped his pebble into his own mouth. It felt like it made a difference, even though it didn’t. It wasn’t increasing the amount of water in their bodies but it made their mouths a little wetter. Beck thought wryly: it made dying of thirst slightly more pleasant . . .

  He tried to pass the time by thinking ahead. Water. They needed water. There was the dew trap he could set, and they would try the Bedouin trick he had mentioned to Peter – turning over stones before sunrise to catch the condensation. Maybe they would find more damp sand they could squeeze water from.

  There were options. There were always options. There had to be, because if they didn’t find anything, in twenty-four hours he and Peter would be dead.

  Peter stumbled into him and sagged. Beck put an arm round his shoulders to hold him up. They kept walking, though it was hard to say who was supporting who.

  Keep us alive . . .

  It was a return to his earlier prayer.

  What’s it going to be? he thought. Another oasis?

  As far as Beck was concerned, though, his prayer was an on-going affair. He hadn’t meant Please save our lives this once. He had meant Please save us permanently. Please get us out of this desert.

  His prayers blended into his thoughts, his thoughts into footsteps. Keep walking. Keep moving. Never give up.

  But they were slowing. Minute by minute they were getting weaker and more delirious.

  A camel-shaped rock loomed up in the dark ahead of them.

  ‘A camel,’ he mumbled. Yeah, that would do.

  A dead camel’s guts provided an astonishing amount of water. It pooled between the linings of its many stomachs. Or you could cut open the rumen, the first part of the camel’s gut where its food waited to be digested. The contents of a rumen were disgusting and stinking, but you could get fluid out of it.

  A live camel was even better, because it probably had a human owner somewhere nearby . . .

  The camel-shaped rock moved. It took Beck’s water-starved brain a moment to realize why.

  Then his eyes adjusted and he saw it really was a camel. It had lifted up its head to check the two strange creatures shuffling towards it out of the desert. It was tied by a halter to a small tree. A smaller dark shape next to it was a mule, which seemed equally suspicious of their approach. It challenged them loudly.

  Hee-haw!

  And the dark shape behind them was – Beck’s heart sang – a tent! It was a larger version of their parachute shelter, with straight, rectangular sides. And suddenly the boys were transfixed by a powerful torch beam.

  A man spoke, but Beck couldn’t make out the words.

  ‘Salaam alaikum,’ Beck gasped. The traditional Islamic greeting: ‘Peace be upon you.’ At least he could remember that much.

  There was a silence.

  Then Beck stammered, ‘We – we need help . . . ’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  ‘Hey, Beck!’ Peter called from above. Beck squinted up. His friend was outlined against the blue sky, perched at the front of the camel’s saddle. He swayed a little from side to side as the camel walked, then grinned down at Beck. ‘I can almost see England from up here!’

  The camel walked with an awkward, rolling gait. Its expression was lofty and superior, as if it had been personally responsible for saving the two boys. And even though it looked like it was wrapped in moulting fur ripped off another beast, Beck thought it was the most beautiful creature on earth.

  He smiled: he was glad his friend was so much recovered. But the smile was a little grim because he had another immediate concern. The mule was profoundly uncomfortable.

  The desert nomad, their rescuer, their saviour, sat behind Peter. He said something – Beck couldn’t make it out. Peter replied and the man laughed.

  The man was called Anwar and he was a Berber. Beck had worked that much out. He had a dark moustache and shrewd eyes, t
houghtful but friendly, set in a tanned, weathered face. Because of his headscarf that was about all they could see of his features.

  Some time during the previous twenty-four hours they must have crossed the invisible border into Morocco. This part of North Africa had once been run jointly by Spain and France, and Anwar spoke French with a heavy Berber accent. This didn’t help Beck at all, who had enough difficulty following French with a French accent. They could communicate a few words but that was all.

  It was pure fluke that Anwar had been where he was. Fluke or fate. He had intended to be back at his village by now. He was a trader, carrying goods across the desert. His mule had picked up a limp – a thorn in his foot, which Anwar had removed – and he was giving it a day to get better before he finished the journey.

  Anwar’s instincts as a desert dweller had taken over the moment the boys stumbled out of the desert. He had given them water out of a chipped enamel bowl decorated with geometric designs. Peter had tried to get the entire bowlful down in a couple of seconds. Anwar had stopped him gently and shown him how to sip it slowly. Give the water time to absorb, to soak in. It really would be counterproductive to drink it so fast that your body rejected it and you threw it back up again. That water had been the sweetest taste Beck had ever had in his mouth.

  After the water, camel milk. Not so long ago this had been inside the camel, though Anwar served it from a bottle made of goatskin. It was thick and creamy and energy-giving. Then, with their stomachs satisfied, Anwar had let them nibble some solid food – some rough bread and bits of cooked meat.

  ‘What, no scorpion?’ Peter had mumbled sleepily. Not long after that, he and Beck were both rolled up in a pair of rugs and slumbering in a corner of the tent. The tent wasn’t really large enough for the three of them and Anwar insisted on sleeping outside, by the fire. This embarrassed them no end, but Beck knew it was simply the Berber way. When it came to hospitality, guests took priority. It was their custom, and Beck and Peter acknowledged it gratefully with their hands held together in front of their faces, as if praying. Anwar smiled warmly and left them alone in the tent.

  That night they slept like babies, warm, fed and safe.

  Anwar’s village was about five miles away, he told them. By dawn the camp had been packed up and stowed on the back and sides of the camel, along with all his trade goods. The camel saddle was like a square four-legged stool with curved legs, and it perched in front of the camel’s hump. It really didn’t look like it should stay there, but it did. That was where Anwar and Peter now rode, while Beck took the mule. It had a very sharp backbone which seemed to be very slowly sawing him in half. He almost felt he would rather be walking . . .

  The village came into view a couple of hours later. It emerged out of the heat haze with the Atlas Mountains looming large above it. Walls built out of sand-coloured blocks of stone surrounded low, single-storey dwellings. At first glance it looked almost deserted – no one was moving around outside much in the heat of the day.

  But there was life. Here a woman carrying a basket, there a couple of children playing in the shade of a wall. A short distance away a small group of men armed with sticks wandered casually around the outskirts of the village.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Peter called down.

  ‘Snake hunting,’ Beck guessed. ‘They probably do it all the time.’

  Unexpectedly, Anwar added a comment. It sounded like ‘Ser-pon’, followed by another torrent of words that Beck couldn’t make out.

  ‘That’s “snake” in French,’ Peter translated. His French was proving much better than Beck’s. ‘Serpent means snake.’

  ‘Well, this village is here because there’s shade and food and water,’ Beck told him, ‘so of course the snakes come here too. There’s one particular kind of snake, the horned viper, that’s especially hard to spot. It hides in the sand with just its eyes showing, and it’s sand-coloured. I heard once of a child who got bitten on the finger, and to save his life they had to cut the finger off right away before his blood could carry the venom into his heart.’

  As they approached the village, they heard the men calling to each other excitedly. ‘Looks like they might have one, Beck!’ Peter shouted.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The men spread out to surround a bush, jabbing at the ground around it with their sticks. One of them darted forward suddenly and pressed his stick to the ground, while another drew a knife and slashed down with it. A moment later the second man held up a thin, wriggling form about half a metre long.

  Another couple of villagers started to dig with their sticks.

  ‘They’ll bury the head,’ Beck told Peter. ‘It can still bite out of reflex.’

  ‘And I suppose we get to eat the body,’ Peter said, sounding none too enthusiastic.

  ‘Probably not – which is a shame because roast snake is a lot nicer than roast scorpion! They would think of it like eating a dead enemy. They’ll treat it with great respect.’

  Soon other villagers started to appear, drawn towards the new arrivals. The snake hunters drifted over as well. Presumably they all knew Anwar and had been expecting him back. But his appearance out of the desert accompanied by two European boys was arousing great curiosity. By the time the camel and the mule reached the edge of the village there was quite a crowd to meet them.

  The village looked like it had barely changed in the last thousand years. There were clues here and there, though. One of the houses had some sort of aerial on the roof; Beck couldn’t see anything that looked like a telephone line, but you never knew. Hope was rising within him. It only took one person with a mobile phone or radio, and they could be back in touch with the world again. Someone could even get word to Uncle Al about where they were.

  They were taken into a hut that was one of a pair of buildings in a small enclosure. There they were left with a change of clothes – boy-sized Berber robes – and pots of water, and the very strong hint that they should wash before anything else. Beck dreaded to think how they must smell. They grabbed the opportunity.

  When they were done there was a polite tap at the door. Anwar poked his head in and beckoned to them. They followed him outside, feeling a little self-conscious in their new clothes. Waiting modestly outside was a woman about the same age as Mrs Chalobah.

  ‘I understand you are British, yes?’ she asked in English. She smiled when she saw their reaction of surprise and relief. ‘I am Tahiyah. I have son who work near coast,’ she explained. ‘Many English tourists. I have work myself sometimes there. You tell how you come here?’

  And so they told their story, sitting in the shade of a tree, sipping sweet tea and eating a kind of wafer soaked in butter and honey.

  Their story was received with much gesturing and exclamations at all the key moments. When they mentioned the oasis, there was a lot of wise nodding and nudging each other, though Beck wasn’t sure why. He was more interested to see that he had guessed right about the phones. Even before they finished talking, he saw at least two guys take phones from their robes and go off a short distance, where they relayed the story with many grand gestures and, Beck suspected, a lot of exaggeration.

  One man came and tapped Tahiyah on the shoulder and whispered into her ear. She smiled a broad smile at the two boys.

  ‘We are talk to police in Marrakech,’ she said. ‘They are come tomorrow to find you. They say they hear about two boys missing. They say they amaze you alive!’

  ‘Yup,’ Beck said. He didn’t want to mention the doubt in his heart.

  Peter glanced sidelong at him. ‘What is it, Beck?’

  Beck looked back at him in surprise. ‘What’s what?’

  ‘There’s something bothering you.’

  Beck sighed. ‘Well, all those guys jabbering away on their phones . . . Who else has heard we’re here?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I remember what Mrs Chalobah said about the smugglers. She said, “Their web of evil spreads over the entire continent
.” We’re still on the continent, Pete. I’m just worried that it won’t just be the good guys who come to find us.’

  ‘Do not worry!’ Tahiyah exclaimed. Beck started: they had been talking quietly and he hadn’t expected her to follow their conversation. ‘You do not worry. We do not welcome thieves!’

  Beck smiled. He appreciated her reassuring words. But these were good, kind people and he didn’t want to bring any trouble down on them. The sooner they were safe with the Marrakech police, the better. But that wouldn’t be until tomorrow. And a lot could happen in the desert in twenty-four hours.

  * * *

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. They tried to teach some English words to the crowd of children who followed them everywhere, but the kids just cracked up with laughter whenever they heard Peter and Beck’s English accents. The wonderful atmosphere in the village – the feeling of warmth and respect wherever they went – did them more good than a week’s holiday. It was exactly what they needed to help their recovery – along with the endless supply of sweet tea and local delicacies.

  Later in the day they set out to explore the rest of the village. Peter was back in journalist mode. He wanted to capture the place from every angle.

  The hut where they had changed seemed to be the village guest house, and it was their temporary home.

  ‘I wonder what’s in here?’ Peter said as they passed one of the other small rooms in their enclosure.

  ‘No!’ Beck yelped, but Peter had pushed the door open and peered in before he could stop him. It was full of pots and pans and bits of junk. The place was obviously used for storage.

  Peter looked round at his friend, puzzled. ‘What?’

  Beck crouched down and pointed at some wavy lines on the ground. They were etched into the top layer of sand next to the door. ‘That is a snake track.’

  Peter looked in horror at the hut he had been about to enter, then backed quickly away.

  ‘They’ll have swept this whole area clean this morning,’ Beck went on, ‘but a snake has definitely been here at some point.’ He examined the track more closely. ‘Basically, don’t go in after dark.’