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“Morning, miss,” said young Davis, holding the door for me. When he declared, “Don’t you look nice!” I accepted the compliment without argument.
The Churchills and Detective Sergeant Thompson had gone ahead earlier with the Coxes, Davis said, and so I had the grand car to myself. The weather had turned fresh and cool overnight. At home I’d have called it Canadian air, and it made my wool worsted suit seem as perfect as the morning. When we arrived at the staging ground, it became apparent that there was no British consensus about what to wear for this event. Miss Bell was off smoking by herself, dressed for the Arctic in high-topped button shoes and an ankle-length woolen coat with a huge fur collar that hid her neck. Her dark felt hat was squashed-looking and small, quite unlike the wide straw sun hat Lady Cox was wearing.
“There is something infuriating about a man’s wardrobe,” Lady Cox remarked, fussing with the woolen cloak she’d pulled over a long day dress. “The only question he ever has to ask is, ‘Di
The men, however, were as variously attired as the ladies. Several were in uniform, but headgear ranged from topee to field cap. Colonel Lawrence, Sergeant Thompson, and Lord Cox wore ordinary suits and neckties, their trilbies’ small brims turned up all round. Only the burly Winston Churchill had a topcoat on, and its added bulk made him look more than ever like Mr. Toad of Toad Hall.
“I considered a bedsheet and a pillowcase,” he rumbled, “but Lawrence told me it was not the done thing.”
“You just didn’t want to compete with me,” his wife teased, Clementine herself being swathed top to bottom in a head scarf and white canvas driving duster as voluminous as Arab robes. “I should have consulted with you, Miss Shanklin. A golfing suit is such a good idea! I brought knickerbockers but—” She glanced toward Miss Bell and leaned over to whisper, “I was afraid to wear them.”
The atmosphere was festive and may have been fueled by something other than tea. Already giddy, I shook my head and smiled a demurral at the dour and thin-faced native who presented a brass tray offering me one of the little cups.
A few yards away stood several large male pack camels. Laden with equipment boxes, wicker lunch baskets, and rolled carpets, the animals produced a constant bizarre gargling noise unlike anything I’d ever heard before. The smaller riding camels crouched nearby with ropes wrapped around their folded knees to prevent them getting to their feet. Dozing with long-lashed eyes half-closed, they seemed serenely indifferent to the bustle around them. Their only movement was to lower their heads now and then to rub their chins against the ground.
Seeing me, Sergeant Thompson trudged through the sand, looking profoundly doubtful about this mode of transportation. “Tried to talk him into driving to Sakhara,” Thompson said, glowering at Winston, who’d gone off to speak with Lawrence. “He’s like a child. ‘Oh, goody! Camels!’ They’re picturesque from a distance, but when you get up close? Filthy, vile, stinking brutes.”
“Attar of camel is unlikely to gain commercial acceptance,” I agreed, but really? I was as thrilled as Winston by the prospect of riding one.
Each of us was led to a mount and informed of the animal’s name. Mine was Dahabeah, an austere and self-contained individual whose six-foot-long neck was slung with colorful woven lavalieres that jingled with tiny silver bells. Two camel boys gripped her tasseled halter on either side and looked at me expectantly.
Dahabeah herself snaked her head out of reach when I tried to make friends by scratching behind her ears. One side of her split upper lip curled in distaste. What do you take me for? she seemed to ask. Some sort of horse? And then she spat.
A week—a day, an hour—earlier, I would have shrunk from her, convinced of my own inadequacy. Instead, I laughed, transformed by a kiss and a man who had pronounced me handsome, accomplished, and brave.
“Hold here, madams,” the nearer boy instructed. “Yes, and sit, so! Very fine, madams! Very comfortable, yes?”
“Comfortable” was not the word that came to mind, but I smiled anyway and looked around to see how the others were doing. The ladies and most of the men sat sidesaddle. Winston, by contrast, had arranged himself astride, his thick legs gripping at a substantial hump while his feet, in street shoes and spats, dangled. This did not promise to be an effective tactic; Colonel Lawrence was resisting an anticipatory grin. He himself appeared to be sitting at home in an easy chair: legs crossed at the ankles, feet resting on his camel’s left shoulder as though it were a hassock.
I settled myself the same way and tugged my skirt down to cover myself a bit better. “Hold tight, madams!” the bigger boy warned and slipped the tether from Dahabeah’s knees.
Released, she lurched and rocked upright, back legs rising high before her forelegs straightened. All around me, women gave little shrieks that carried far in the still, cool air. Even a few of the men shouted their surprise. Miss Bell rolled her eyes at our amateur attempts to regain balance, but Lawrence laughed and traded amused commentary with a number of marvelously robed Arab dignitaries, who were evidently going to accompany us on horseback.
Lady Cox immediately demanded to be let down. “I am far too old and spoiled for this nonsense. I shall go by auto and meet you there.”
Beside me, Sergeant Thompson looked as though he’d have joined her, had the humiliation of such a decision been less than mortal. He confined himself to muttering his own peculiar dialect of “French” while his camel jacked herself upright. The motion very nearly pitched Thompson onto the ground. It would have been quite a fall, Thompson himself being an exceedingly tall man perched at a great height on a camel much larger than my own.
“Nothing to grab but sky,” he snarled, fear making him angry. “How the hell do you steer this thing?”
“Pull this, I think!” I held up a light cord that ran from the forward pommel to the camel’s right nostril.
Thompson tugged on his, but the effect was not as hoped. Rather than circling clockwise, the animal swiveled her head around to look directly back at him with an expression so alarming, the policeman felt for his pistol by reflex.
In the midst of all this European incompetence, the Arab horsemen called out advice, which Lawrence translated, sometimes. “The camels know where they’re going,” he said. “Relax and give them their heads.”
That was easier said than done, of course, but after a certain amount of circling and roaring, the lead animal finally plodded off toward the pyramids on padded feet the size of di
All of us who were new to the experience concentrated mightily on keeping our seats while trying to discover some predictable pattern to the herky-jerky rhythm. After a few minutes, I was confident enough to raise my eyes and joke to Sergeant Thompson, “I feel like a cooked noodle!”
Thompson made no reply, in English or in French, for his entire attention had shifted from his own plight to that of Mr. Churchill. I followed Thompson’s horrified gaze some twenty yards ahead. There, with stately slowness, His Brita