The Secret People Read online

  ‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘we’ve made a record?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, nobody else has ever before achieved a shipwreck in the middle of the Sahara desert.’

  Mark smiled too, and his spirits rose astonishingly.

  ‘Come to that,’ he said, ‘I shouldn’t think any girl was ever before kissed on a Saharan island.’

  Mark suffered an uncomfortable dream. He had become, it appeared, a recumbent statue of himself, and was being dusted. A giant maidservant had removed her huge wig of red hair and was using it to whisk his face. She put one hand upon his stone chest for support, and leaned forward to reach the better. The hair irritated his nostrils abominably …

  He woke suddenly. There was still a weight upon his chest, and something was still whisking back and forth across his nose. He sneezed abruptly and sat up, sending a dark form tumbling to the sand. There was a slight scutter before it collected its dignity and became a motionless black shadow in the moonlight. It gave a forth a faintly protesting mew. Mark looked at it unkindly.

  ‘Blast you, cat,’ he said, severely.

  To a cat more used to kicks than words, this appeared a term of endearment. It approached and rubbed its head in a friendly way against his hand.

  The New Sea was glittering with a hard beauty under the moon. A steely path of light stretched before him to the horizon over water which was scarcely rippled. A breeze, so light as hardly to be felt, caused the palm fronds above him to move with a papery rustling. He turned his head and saw with relief that the hulk of the Sun Bird still remained where he had left it.

  A careful examination had proved it in better condition than he had hoped. The explosion had spent itself backward, ripping off the tail so smartly as to leave the main part of the fuselage intact. A few plates aft had been twisted open, revealing the sound-proofing material beneath, but in no part was there any sign of leakage. Reassured, he had insisted that Margaret should sleep on board. He contrived as comfortable a bed as possible for her, and, with the aid of severed control wires, he had improvised what he hoped were safe moorings. They seemed still to be holding.

  He shivered slightly. The fire had dwindled to a few embers, and he leaned forward to build it up. Saharan nights can be chilly, and the fire served the double purpose of giving warmth and providing a signal.

  There was no great likelihood of it being observed, but there remained always the possibility of a French observation plane cruising in this direction. They were used, he knew, to report progress and to effect salvage work upon occasion. The Government had frequently found it necessary to rescue diehards whom not even the threat of inundation had been able to persuade from their ancestral villages until the last moment. Among many of the Arabs, understanding continued to fight with conviction. The French proposals were intelligible enough, but not a reality. Most of them felt that the desert always had been, and always would be; it was eternal. Not until the water crept to their very doors were they convinced. Only then did a howl go up demanding rescue either by Allah or the French Government. There had been a time when all the flying boats of both France and Italy had been pressed into refugee work, but, by now, the evacuation of most of the affected parts was complete.

  With his head tilted back, Mark listened for the drone of an engine, but nothing broke the silence save the quiet stir of the sea and a faint swishing of the palm leaves. He wriggled nearer to the fire and pulled the coats which were doing rug duty more closely about him. Gazing at the revived flames, he fell to considering the general cussedness of things. That the first time the Sun Bird had let him down it should have chosen to do it in this no-man’s-land …

  Still, they had been lucky. If that explosion had occurred over dry land – or even at a good height above the water – it would have meant flowers for two. He thought of a number of well-pointed, nicely tempered phrases which he would joyfully plunge into the makers of ‘Strato-Planes’ when he got home – not that it would do much good, but he would like them to hear just what he thought of them.

  And then there was the radio … Two reputedly unbreakable valves thoroughly broken, and the whole installation useless just when it was most needed …

  The cat interrupted him by brushing past his face and making her way beneath his covering. She curled up comfortably and began to purr like a miniature massage machine.

  ‘Oh, all right, if you insist,’ he told her sleepily, ‘but if you get overlayed, don’t blame me.’

  ‘Hi,’ a voice was saying, ‘what about breakfast?’

  His eyes opened to the sight of Margaret bending over him. He struggled into a sitting position and blinked at a sun which had evidently been up for some time, then he transferred his gaze back to the girl. She had contrived to make herself scarcely less neat and fresh than she had been at the start.

  ‘How do you do it?’ he asked, feeling his own bristling chin.

  She laughed. ‘A bathe and a comb – but I do wish I’d brought a toothbrush.’

  ‘How’s the head?’

  She shook it, spinning her hair out in the sunlight like a copper-gold halo.

  ‘No sign of an ache – though there’s still a bump like an egg. A sleep and a swim do wonders.’

  The cat emerged. It took a firm stand with its forepaws, extended its hind legs so far that its loins almost touched the ground, and yawned immoderately. Seen by daylight, it was not a very attractive specimen of its kind. The surprising prominence of its eyes and the faded quality of its gingery coat were the two most noticeable characteristics.

  ‘Where on earth did you find that?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘I didn’t; it found me. Planted itself on me – literally.’

  ‘Puss – puss,’ Margaret encouraged.

  The cat regarded her for a solemn moment. It decided to wash its face.

  ‘There’s ingratitude for you,’ said Mark. ‘There’s nothing more egocentric than a cat.’

  ‘Poor thing. They left it behind, and it might have been drowned. Let’s adopt it.’

  ‘If you like – but cats can wait. Let’s see about some food. I’m feeling half-starved.’

  The Sun Bird’s lockers supplied a number of brilliantly labelled tins.

  ‘Grapefruit, tongue, some dates from the trees – oh, we won’t do so badly. But I do wish we’d got some coffee – even the French idea of coffee wouldn’t be too bad now. I hate tea for breakfast.’

  Nevertheless, it was with a comfortable sense of repletion that they leaned back, enjoying cigarettes after the meal. Margaret watched the cat greedily consuming condensed milk.

  ‘I think we’ll call her Bast.’

  ‘Why Bast?’

  ‘You remember. The cat-headed goddess of the Egyptians – why, she may be a descendant of one of the actual cats they used to worship.’

  ‘Highly probable. She has the manner – others might call it nerve. Henceforth, Bast she is.’

  Margaret drew at her cigarette and changed the subject.

  ‘What are we going to do? Just wait here?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ Mark frowned. ‘A patrol is bound to come along sooner or later – but the trouble is that we can’t stay here for very long.’

  ‘The sea?’

  ‘Oh no. That’s all right. The level rises so slowly that it won’t flood this place for weeks, perhaps for months. No. I was thinking of the supply problem. We’ve got a little food, and there are the dates – though we’d soon get mighty sick of them – but the real trouble is drinking water. We’ve only got enough of that to last us two or three days. It really boils down to taking one risk or another. Either we stay here and chance their finding us before the water gives out, or else we try putting to sea in the poor old Sun Bird.’

  ‘Putting to sea?’

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. She’s perfectly watertight. I’m not proposing to be like the people who “went to sea in a sieve, they did”; not my idea of amusement, at all. We ought t
o be able to rig a sail of some kind. With that, and a means of steering, it would only be a matter of going right ahead till we find the shore. The sea’s not really very big yet.’

  Margaret looked uncertain.

  ‘But suppose we land where there’s nothing but desert?’

  ‘I know. That’s the real risk of the thing. The Sun Bird will be safe enough, but we may have to tramp over miles of sand at the end of the trip. What do you think?’

  ‘Well, it’s for you to decide, but if the Sun Bird is all right, it will be better to be doing something than just sitting and waiting, won’t it? Besides, if a plane does happen to come along, it’ll be more likely to see us out in the open than here.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Mark scrambled to his feet and held out a hand to her. ‘Let’s go down to the old bus and see what’s to do about it. Come on, Bast, you too.’

  It proved less difficult than he had anticipated to improvise a sail from a rug. True, it was so heavy that half a gale would be necessary to make it belly out, but it served its purpose by getting in the way of what wind there was. Progress with its help would be slow, but moderately sure. A plank and other bits of jetsam from the island strand could be adapted for use as a rudder.

  Mark, looking back at his handiwork from the shore whither he had waded to collect a final supply of dates, laughed aloud. Many an odd ship had sailed the seas, but few craft odder than the transformed Sun Bird. It was a very good thing she was safer than she looked. If she had been an ordinary plane, now – but in that case neither Margaret nor himself would have been alive …

  ‘Come on, Bast, you’re ship’s cat from now on,’ he said, picking her up and placing her upon his shoulder.

  He gathered an armful of possessions and dates, and began to wade back.

  The ex-control-wire mooring lines were hauled aboard; the ex-control-wire mainsheet shortened, and the good ship Sun Bird began slowly to move. Gradually she picked up, sliding reluctantly away from the shore.

  ‘We’re off,’ said Margaret delightedly.

  ‘Magnificent,’ Mark agreed. ‘We must be making almost a knot, and twice that in leeway. Just wait till we get clear of the island and can run before the wind. We’ll show a turn of speed which would make snails blink.’

  The two sat aft, perching none too steadily upon the polished, curving surface of the fuselage. Bast, unable to find any foothold save on the very crown, had been banished to the cabin for her own safety.

  ‘It’s lucky,’ said Mark, ‘that neither of us has any devoted relatives waiting for us at the Hôtel de l’Etoile – they’d be getting a bit restive by now, and at this rate we mayn’t be home for weeks.’

  Margaret looked up from her occupation of making a sunshade out of an old newspaper, and nodded.

  ‘They certainly would. As it is, I suppose nobody’s taking any interest except the manager who’ll want his money, and a few romantic people who are now spreading a report that we’ve eloped or that you’ve abducted me.’

  Some two hours later, Mark sat alone at the helm. Margaret was below, contriving a meal. The lightest of breezes continued to move the Sun Bird, though at a distressing dawdle. Only the gentlest ripples troubled the surface of the water; their faint clopping against the bows and Margaret’s voice raised in expostulation were the only sounds.

  ‘Really, Bast,’ she was saying, ‘you’re not quite a lady, are you? And on the very best cushion, too. I’m ashamed of you. If you dare to –’

  A sudden noise occurred astern. A thud, a roar of falling water, followed by a great splashing. Mark looked behind him. He was just in time to see the spray from the impact of two waves falling back upon foaming froth. There were a few moments of uncertain agitation, and then the troubled water began to swirl. From its slow first turns it began to speed up until it dipped conically at the centre. The froth disappeared. The water circled yet faster, the sides of the deepening cone looking hard, like dark glass.

  He put the tiller hard over in an effort to keep clear of the whirlpool, but its influence was extending. Already he could feel the drag of it, and the wind was too light to hold against it. The Sun Bird rocked, seemed for a second to hesitate and then gave up. Reluctantly she answered to the pull of the water and began to drift astern. A sudden terrifying roar broke out. Margaret’s head appeared through the doorway.

  ‘What – ?’ she began.

  ‘Look out!’ Mark shouted. ‘I’m coming down.’

  He slid swiftly down the side of the hull, swung himself through the opening and slammed the door behind him.

  ‘What was it? It sounded like all the baths in creation running out at once.’

  ‘Look there!’ He pointed through the window, and together they peered out.

  The Sun Bird was beginning to travel fast, close to the edge of the whirlpool. They could look right down into the hollow of spinning water.

  ‘The bottom must have given way. Caves or something like that below.’

  ‘Do you think – ?’

  ‘Can’t say. There may be enough force to drag us down. Perhaps we’ll just spin in the middle till it fills up.’

  He drew her back from the window. She turned very wide eyes to stare into his.

  ‘Oh, Mark, if –’

  ‘Come on. We’ve got to strap ourselves into our seats. There’ll be a hell of a mix-up in here if we do go down. Quick now.’

  They both slid hastily into their seats and fumbled for the buckles of the broad webbing belts. The Sun Bird was circling the wall of water at a prodigious pace. She tore spirally down it to spin like a top at the centre. Mark hoped desperately. Would she …? Would she …?

  She canted. The water rose dark over the windows. She swung abruptly, nose down. There was sudden, complete darkness inside. A sense of weightless dropping. Down and down …

  3

  A watch would have told that the Sun Bird did not fall for many seconds – but seconds, infinitely drawn, mean nothing. She fell for an eternity. Uncannily like those dreams of Mark’s childhood when he had slid faster and faster down a stair-rail which had neither beginning nor end. There was the same sense of plunging weightlessness, the same awful apprehension of the end.

  But the end, when it did come was, like so many ends, an anticlimax. There was a back pull as though brakes of unthinkable power had been applied to the full. The webbing safety belts were put to a strain which crushed the breath from their wearers’ bodies. Mark could hear himself giving out involuntary, uncouth grunts. For a moment he feared that the belt might give and send him hurtling forward against the window, to smash or to be smashed. But the fabric held and the pressure swiftly eased. Presently he could draw a needed breath. Then abruptly the force reversed and they were thrust deep into their seats. ‘Coming up again,’ he told himself. The Sun Bird, carried to the depths by the fall, was rising bubble-like.

  She broke the surface, spun like an ill-balanced top and was carried away broadside. He sat up and prepared to loosen the belt, but even as his fingers reached the buckle there came a thunder of water on the roof, loud despite the sound-proofing. The craft rolled like a floating barrel and sank again, rose again, and drifted back once more beneath the falls. She spun, twisted, rose and fell, like a wood chip beneath a weir. The brains of the two within swirled giddily.

  ‘Nothing to do but hope,’ Mark told himself. ‘Bound to float free sooner or later … My God, to think that they pay for things like this at fun-fairs … Hope I’m not going to be ill.’

  At last came a bump and a slight grating along one side. They could feel a slow, deliberate swinging. Mark waited for a moment, then:

  ‘We’re out of it,’ he cried, unbuckling the strap. ‘Where’s that light switch?’

  The small ceiling bulb revealed Margaret’s slight form still sunk in the seat. She made a feeble attempt to smile at him.

  ‘But I do feel sick,’ she said plaintively.

  ‘I’ll bet you do. Just wait a minute while I find that flask.’
<
br />   Bast emerged from the safe hiding of some corner, and stood looking at them from bemused, greenish-yellow eyes. She gave an unhappy mew and advanced towards Margaret. How she had contrived to remain undamaged was an unsolvable feline mystery.

  The brandy which Mark at length produced had an immediate effect, not only of settling, but of heartening. Margaret loosed her safety belt and stood up. She staggered slightly.

  ‘The ill treatment, not the drink,’ she explained. ‘Where are we? It’s all dark outside.’

  ‘Heaven only knows,’ Mark managed, with an effect of lightness. ‘A cave, I should think, but it’s a mighty big one to take a fall like that.’ He pushed over a switch. ‘Damn, the headlight’s not working. Now where the devil did I stow those spare bulbs?’

  He was convinced in his own mind that the end was not far off. The water from above would plunge down until the cave was filled. The Sun Bird would rise until she met the roof and could rise no more. The water would close round her, trapping them helplessly. The air in the storage cylinders would last them a few hours, and then …

  ‘Ah, got ’em,’ he said.

  They were being rocked jerkily, swinging in a way which suggested that they were caught in a current, but the darkness outside was too intense to give even a hint of their surroundings. He crossed the cabin and opened the back of the headlight set above the front windows.

  ‘Now,’ he said, snapping it shut again with the new bulb in place, ‘we’ll be able to see just what we’ve fallen into.’

  A brilliant beam slashed into the blackness. About them was swiftly flowing water, bearing them along. A few yards to the left was a rock-wall passing with surprising swiftness. Mark switched the light ahead, but there was little to be seen save the water swirling beside the rock until it disappeared into obscurity. To the right also the water stretched out beyond the lamp’s range. Far above them the upsweeping curve of a rocky roof could be dimly seen.

  Mark’s spirits rose. At least, catastrophe seemed less imminent.