“I understand,” said Ka, sitting up so straight his hair almost caught in down-hanging thorns.
“I understand, sir.”
“Sir.”
“And you know who I am?”
Ka shook his head. Somehow that was enough.
“Colonel Abad,” said the Colonel, introducing himself. “You’ve heard of me?”
Oh yes. Ka grinned stupidly at the badge on his shirt. Those shades, the cigar, that black beard. The Colonel.
“Where are you exactly?”
The boy looked round him. Cliffs tight on both sides of the river and white-headed vultures overhead. But then there were always vultures circling thermals over this stretch of the Nile. Above the vultures, made smaller both by reality and distance, hovered raptors. Black-winged kites, most probably.
Sarah’s felucca was tied at the river’s bend, on the side where floodwater flowed less fast and silt almost buried rocks that were pale and strangely square. Three thousand years earlier, during the flood season, a cargo boat had run aground there. Staying with his freshly hewn sandstone, the captain had sent slaves downriver to get help. He died in the night waiting for their return, killed by an adder as he sat by a small fire lit to keep jackals at bay.
Colonel Abad knew these things. The hieroglyphs of the pharaohs cartouched below their statues, the genera of birds and animals, even the molecular structure of each rock that made up the crumbling cliffs and temples, statues and ruins.
Ka could identify concrete, sandstone and polycrete, the frothy stuff that set hard and could be coated with sand or gravel, provided any covering was whacked on before the crete had time to dry. Both sides used it to make HQs that blended into any background.
“We’re upriver from the camp,” Ka said, “on a bend near low cliffs . . . And we haven’t eaten all day,” he added as an afterthought.
“You got grenades?”
“Yes,” said Ka. At least Saul had. Zac, Sarah and Bec had two rifles, a knife and a pistol between them. He had the plastic gun. What his dead lieutenant called a doublePup. He didn’t like it very much.
“Swap it,” said Colonel Abad. “First chance you get. Right . . .” The radio crackled for a second. “Listen up. Food first. That means losing a grenade to the river. Get Saul to throw and Bec and Zac to collect the fish . . . All of them.”
“Do we eat them raw?”
“Sushi.” The voice sounded amused. “Only if you want. Personally I’d suggest a small fire and usually I’d recommend dry twigs, but today we want smoke, don’t we?”
“Do we?”
“Oh yes,” said the voice, “very definitely.”
Ka shuffled backward, then stopped when his foot hit Sarah’s shoulder. The girl didn’t move but she did glare, waiting while Ka edged sideways to give her space. They were alone together in the desert, on an important mission . . . That was how Ka had explained it to the others.
“Accident,” said Ka.
Sarah nodded. Opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, then shut it. She had perfect teeth, Ka realized. Tourist’s teeth. All in a neat line and with no chipped edges.
“How old are you?” He’d asked the question without thinking. “I mean, really?” He knew Sarah said she was fourteen but then he said he was thirteen.
“Fifteen,” Sarah said firmly.
“Me too . . .” Ka smiled, then shrugged. Questions were never welcome, he should have known that. Ka just wanted to be the one who persuaded her to open up and talk. Already he could describe how she looked without looking. Hair as black as her eyes, braided into long plaits. Her skin somewhere between dark chocolate and purple, not café noir like his. She’d taken grief for that in the camp; grief, comments and idle slaps. Mostly from the older girls.
There were more girls than boys in the Ragged Army. That was because they fought better, according to Saul, having more to fear if captured. Although Saul was the only person Ka had ever heard say this and, besides, both sides chopped off the hands of those who wouldn’t change and it was hard to think of much worse than that.
“What are you thinking?”
“About these,” said Ka and flexed his fingers. “Sometimes . . . about being captured.”
Sarah nodded. “Right,” she said. “Scare yourself, why don’t you?”
Sighting along the barrel of her rifle, she began to tighten her finger on the trigger.
“Not yet,” protested Ka. He had orders from Colonel Abad and he intended to obey them. “I’ll tell you when.”
“I can do it from here,” Sarah said crossly.
“I’m sure you can,” Ka agreed, “but the Colonel . . .”
He’d told Sarah about Colonel Abad. He’d told them all. No one any of them knew had ever seen the man in the flesh, but even having talked to the Colonel by radio raised Ka’s importance with the others.
“The Colonel?”
Ka had nodded.
“He spoke to you?” Zac’s small face had been bright with wonder.
“Yes, he wants me to go on reconnaissance . . .” Ka stumbled over the word. “After we’ve all eaten.” Ka gave them their new ranks, pretending not to see the anger in Saul’s eyes. “You,” he said to Saul, “throw your grenade into the river and we’ll grab the fish as they float to the surface.”
“It’s my last one.” Saul’s voice was suspicious.
“You were the person complaining you were hungry.” Which was true enough. He’d complained louder than anyone. “Throw it into the middle,” Ka ordered.
“Wait.” That was Sarah.
Ka stared at her until she looked away, suddenly unsure. “I mean,” she said quietly, “perhaps you think he should throw it over there.” Sarah pointed to a gravel spit a hundred paces up river. “So we can catch the fish as they float towards us.”
Agree with her, said a voice in his head.
“You’re right,” said Ka. “That’s a much better idea.”
“Really?” Sarah suddenly looked more unsure than ever.
The explosion boiled the river and echoed off the cliff face, sending egrets skywards in a wheeling cloud. In total they collected fifty-three fish, with Ka just missing a loglike Nile catfish that came to the surface, then rolled over and sank. Most of the catch were fat perch sporting heavy lines like makeup around their eyes. And mixed in with the perch were a handful of deep blue talapia.
Sarah told the others that talapia collected a better price at market but, to Ka at least, both fish tasted equally good. In a flourish that surprised everyone, Bec ripped handfuls of leaves from a spindly bush and stuffed them inside the gutted perch before letting Sarah bake them on her smoking fire pit.
“Corporal Bec is in charge until I get back,” Ka announced when everyone had eaten more than they should. “Sarah comes with me. The rest of you remain here.”
“Says who?”