Secret of the Sands. Sara Sheridan

has never seen the sea before and it takes her by surprise. The Indian Ocean is a startling blue, and the unrelenting African sunshine plays on its surface so that, for all the world, the water could be studded with diamonds or, perhaps, stars. It is the sound that is most striking though – the movement of the waves as they roll onto the sand is like the voice of a great god. The slavers allow the group to stop a moment and the slaves turn towards what Zena calls in her mind, the Giant Blue. She is so stunned by the majesty of it that she is almost glad they have brought her here and stares rapt at the water as goosebumps rise down her arm at the great booming rush of the waves.

      It is undeniably beautiful, though some of the others are afraid and one or two let out a scream. The slavers stare openly at the faces of their cargo. This feels like a ritual – something they know to do and the group spends a moment in silence as, after the initial fear, an air of reverent awe descends upon the villagers. These people worship rainclouds and sunshine, they give offerings to the god of thunder, but the phenomenon before them now is so huge that it is almost beyond comprehension. It is as if they have been brought to the very edge of the world. The slavers have stolen the youngest of each tribe and, apart from Zena, who at seventeen summers is one of the older captives, not one child in the party has even heard of the sea.

      I had no idea it was so, so … The words trail in her mind for she cannot decide which ones to use to describe the shimmering vision before her. As she grasps for an adjective, one of the boys breaks away from the group, free from his bonds since that morning when the slavers clearly decided they had broken enough spirits to simply herd the villagers without having to slow the party by keeping them tied. They watch him whooping with joy as he runs, long-limbed, into the water, falling face down on the bounty for they have been dry-mouthed for days. Water has been in short supply since they left the village. The boy realises, too late, that the sea is salt. Two of the slavers trudge wearily into the surf and pull him out. Laughing, they slap him soundly and he folds on the sand so you’d hardly believe he’d bounced so elegantly into the water.

      ‘It will poison you, you fool.’

      Zena is perturbed. The sea is so beautiful it is strange it should be deadly – no one has ever mentioned that before. But then she is learning that in life, away from all she has known, things generally are not what they seem. Not so far.

      Kasim and Ibn Mohammed wave the party on. Zena hears Kasim say, ‘I always wonder which one will be the brave child.’

      Ibn Mohammed only stares. ‘The foolish child, surely. That boy will be dead before the trip is done.’

      The men agree on this as if it is a simple matter of fact, something they have seen many times before. Zena wonders if curiosity in these circumstances is always fatal? Or is it the boy’s propensity for action – the very fact that he tried to help himself that will doom him? She shudders in the sunshine. What on earth are they walking towards? What do these men in dark robes have in mind? Now the ropes are untied, she is not sure what it is that is stopping her from running back into the undergrowth and making for home, where those left behind will surely have buried her uncle, resurrected what was left of the village and, in the sensible way of her family, got on with their lives. She is afraid and yet something here is fascinating – she likes the water. She is enticed by the prospect of seeing the wider world – a place she has already been privileged to hear about but has never visited. Zena glances inland despite herself and then focuses on the movement of her feet. The slavers are watching all the time. They sleep in shifts and can smell dissention, or perhaps courage. You need only pitch in the wrong direction or trip and they will flog you. Kasim’s eyes sparkle and Ibn Mohammed, for the most part, maintains his cold outward appearance. She has never met people so removed from those around them. The whole party is cowed and the Arabs need only give an order for everyone to jump to action. The men’s authority is impressive.

      I will stay, she decides, feeling sick in the pit of her belly. It is important to Zena to pretend she has a choice.

       Chapter Five

      To the east, on the ocean, the atmosphere aboard the Palinurus has become intolerable on more than one count since the departure of Dr Jessop and First Lieutenant Jones from the complement of officers. If only the damn malaria had taken Wellsted instead of any of the others, Captain Haines curses to himself. However much Haines hates losing good men to the fever, even as he is damning his only surviving lieutenant’s good health, he feels a wave of shame. He does not admit that the reason he is so angry is because he wanted to achieve what Wellsted has done and write a memoir of their trip so far. Instead, he blusters that the lieutenant is an upstart who has behaved abominably. Still, the captain has to grudgingly allow that perhaps to wish Wellsted dead is too harsh.

      The mortalities were unexpected, of course – if Haines had known that a fever was about to break out, he would never have sent Jessop onto the jabel. Choosing him for the mission, Haines can’t help thinking, was an unfortunate mistake. Had he been aboard, the doctor might have been able to save at least some of the crew from the sickness. But the man was keen and how was Haines to know what was going to happen? Generally, this side of Africa, if a chap survives his first weeks in Bombay, he tends to be fine. The dead men, of course, wherever their souls may be, probably don’t believe that anymore. In only a few days, over half the Palinurus’ officers and a third of the crew have died. However, despite the losses and the weather, the Palinurus is still making progress along the coast, the chart is coming along, the soundings are accurate and the brig has so far not run into a single French vessel. Nonetheless, the captain has a strong sense of duty for his men’s welfare, the stricken cadavers buried at sea weigh on his mind and he blames himself. Still, rather than think on it too deeply, he diverts his inner invective towards his only remaining senior officer.

      It was only a few days before the malaria outbreak that the captain found by chance the package that contained Wellsted’s memoir while he was checking the mail going off the vessel. Damn cheek! Now he wishes he had stopped its dispatch, but at the time he felt so wounded at what the lieutenant had written, so terribly shocked at the man’s blatant use of other officers’ experiences and discoveries that he went into some kind of shock and simply parcelled up the damn thing again and sent it on its way, for his overwhelming emotion, at first, was that he wanted rid of it.

      The book Haines intended to write about the trip would have used, of course, much the same material, but as captain he considers that his right. Haines envisioned reporting to the Royal Society as the head of the expedition and doling out credit where it was due to his talented officers whose dedication, he had decided on wording it, was a credit to both the expedition and the Bombay Marine. He’d have credited Wellsted, of course. However, the lieutenant’s manuscript has squarely put paid to any such grandiose dreams and Haines wishes he could recall the parcel, which by now will no doubt have cleared the Red Sea and, safe aboard a company ship, be dispatched westwards to London. What rankles the captain most is that Wellsted did not dedicate the tome to him. In an unheard of lapse of etiquette, the lieutenant barely mentioned any of the other men on board, least of all the illustrious Haines. Worst of all, he is entirely unapologetic, which only makes Haines even more furious. When the hell did the man find the time to write a damn book, anyway?

      A knock on the cabin door interrupts Haines’ furious train of thought. Three midshipmen hover in the doorway, boys of eleven, twelve and thirteen years of age, dressed in pale breeches and smart, brass-buttoned, navy jackets. Their hair is uniformly the colour of wet sand and they look so alike that they could be brothers, though really they are only brothers in arms. Haines notes to himself that they have been through a great deal, these boys and they are good lads. They have seen, between them, too many cadavers the last few days. As the captain motions them into the room, by far the largest on the ship, the boys seem suddenly taller as if growing into the space. Each of them silently hopes that one day he will be man enough to be called captain.

      ‘Ah. Dinner. Yes,’ says Haines.

      Jardine, the captain’s portly, Scottish steward follows the deputation, closing the door behind him with an unexpectedly