EXCEPT FROM SLAVES!

By Robin Edwards

Click to read Part I

CHAPTER III - CONTINUED

Before Ivan could speak, she was gone, disappearing like a ghost into the camp. He lay back and closed his eyes certain that the little kindness proved God had not forsaken him.
   No matter how hot the day, after dark the Khizil Khoum grew cold. Exhausted, he slept the whole night on the sandy ground without any covering, not waking until a Turkoman booted his ribs just before dawn. Breakfast was a lump of dried meat that smelled as if it was rotting, and a cup of warm, salty water.
   ‘Make it last,’ his guard sneered. ‘There’ll be no more until tomorrow.’
   They bound his hands and tethered him to a camel with a strong rope. As the sun blazed, the caravan left the camp travelling south into the fiercest quarter of the desert.
   They moved fast, fearing that Russians from the forts along the Syr Darya would send rescue parties in pursuit of their captives. There were many other prisoners, tied like Ivan, spread throughout the caravan. He could see them without being able to talk. Keeping up with the camels, which never changed pace, was desperately hard. The sun grew hotter by the hour, but the prisoners were not given water whilst their captors swigged mockingly in front of them. By noon, swollen tongues filled their mouths.
   When anyone slowed or stumbled, a Turkoman delivered a vicious whack with a lance. Ivan took many blows, always crying out in Russian, never in Turkoman, because he did not want them to know he understood their language.
   Several times, the guards cut the ropes of prisoners who could not keep up, casting them adrift, leaving them to die agonising deaths in the shifting sands. He would never forget their pleading eyes as he shuffled past. Roped to a camel, he could do nothing.
   An hour after the sun was at its highest, they passed a ruined fort. He had studied his father’s maps and because it lay to the east, he knew it must be the deserted town of Iriqbai. The ruins would be a land-mark if ever he escaped. He was studying their shape, when his bare foot struck a half buried rock, sending him spinning to the ground. The camel did not stop, but ploughed on dragging him behind. The scorching sand chafed his knees and elbows as he fought to stand upright. His mouth and eyes were full of sand, when a Turkoman galloped up and he felt the swipe of a lance across his shoulders. The guard screamed at him to get up. His strength was fading fast and his wrists were bleeding as the camel hauled him over the stony ground. More blows rained down on his back and head, and blood flowed as his cheeks scraped the gravely surface.
   He heard another horse and more shouting, and rolled on to his back. Silhouetted against the blazing sun, he saw a new rider grappling with the guard. The Turkoman lashed out, knocking the rider from the saddle.
   As his camel moved on, he watched the Turkoman leap from his horse and raise his lance ready to drive it through the body on the ground.
   ‘Stop!’ The cry was in Turkoman, as a third rider arrived on the scene. ‘Stop it you fool! Put down the spear or there will be no ransom for any of us. If the boy cannot keep up, cut him loose and leave him for the vultures.’
   The guard, angry at having being stopped from killing his attacker, cut Ivan’s ropes with a short sword. The pain in his wrists vanished and he lay on the sand, the caravan moving on without breaking pace.
   ‘You can’t leave him to die!’ a voice shouted, and he thought he must have been dreaming. It was a girl, and the language was Russian, spoken like a Cossack. He raised his head but could see nothing for the blinding sun.
   ‘Let me look after him,’ demanded the voice, showing no sign of fear. ‘Just don’t leave him to die.’
   ‘You Cossacks!’ The Turkoman exclaimed in Russian with a heavy accent. ‘You are too soft. Forget him. Think about yourself?’
   ‘I can look after us both. Let me give him water.’
   The Turkoman laughed. ‘You can give him water from your own bottle. If you bring him with you, there will be no extra rations. We cannot afford to waste water on weaklings like him.’
   Ivan felt the Turkoman’s horse speed past, covering him in a ball of dust. Moments later, gentle hands untied his wrists and forced a water skin to his swollen mouth. He couldn’t see her clearly but heard her pleading with him to get up.
   ‘Please,’ she said, ‘you must. Before they come back to get me. We mustn’t fall too far behind or they will leave you here to die. Get up!’
   Ivan staggered to his knees, took another swig of water and, resting heavily on the girl, managed to struggle upright.
   ‘Now walk! Walk for your life!’
   ‘I can’t see!’ he said.
   ‘Then put your arm around my shoulders and lean your weight on me. I shall be your eyes. Now walk!’
   ‘You’re not a Turkoman,’ said Ivan. ‘I can tell you are a Cossack by the way you speak.’
   ‘I’m a prisoner, like you,’ said the girl. ‘But I am English, and a very long way from my home in the Urals. My name is Anna Brand.’