I subsided, tried to close my mind to everything going on around me, and endure. It was all I could do. Occasionally, I would shake my head fractionally, dislodging sand and grit, trying to protect my face as best as could.
Unbelievably, the noise of the wind increased. A sudden buffet caught us both unawares. I heard Ronan shout something and suddenly, he wasn’t there. I didn’t stop to think – I just automatically grabbed at him. I felt some kind of cloth – his T-shirt, I think. I seized whatever it was and hung on, but now we’d both changed our position slightly and the tiny, but vitally important shelter we’d had from our rock was gone.
I felt Ronan shift in the wind. I reached out blindly with my other hand. I couldn’t see a thing. I found his arm. I hung on to him and he to me. Together, we were too heavy to blow away. Ladies – before heading to the gym you might want to consider hanging on to that baby weight. Very useful in preventing you being blown away in an unexpected desert sandstorm. Just saying.
More sand started to pile up around us. We crouched together, hanging on to each other for grim death – and a grim death it was likely to be if this didn’t let up
soon.
I lost all track of time. Every breath hurt. My arms felt as if they were being pulled from their sockets. Wind, sand, and sound tore at us. Our skin was on fire. Well, mine definitely was and it seemed safe to assume Ronan didn’t have some special dispensation. I was suffocating. I kept trying to lift my head out of the sand. It was coming down faster than I could clear it. It was in my mouth. I started to cough which didn’t help at all. Ronan wrapped both arms around me and pulled me close. The shelter of his body helped a little. Huge amounts of sand were whirling around us. It was as if the entire desert was trying to pick itself up and take itself off somewhere else. I buried my head in his chest. He was sheltering me so I wrapped my arms around his head to try to give him what protection I could and we just endured.
It ended as abruptly as it had begun. It wasn’t exactly that one moment there was shrieking wind and sand and the next moment the sun came out, but we were both aware that the storm was passing.
There was no sun – the air was still full of dirty brown grit and sand – but the wind had moved on. Chasing and catching a Pharaoh’s army who, almost certainly, were breathing their last at this very moment.
I found myself lying on my side, half buried. If it hadn’t been for the protection of the rock, we would have been completely covered. I twisted my head out of the sand and slowly unwrapped my arms from around Ronan’s head. He rolled off me with a groan and lay very still.
I coughed, spat sand, and coughed some more. ‘So – not dead then?’
He began to cough, as I had done. ‘No thanks to you. You’re a bloody madwoman. You do know that, don’t you?’
‘It’s been mentioned, once or twice.’
I lay back and concentrated just on not breathing in great lumps of desert.
I’d saved him. He’d saved me. God, this was embarrassing.
I sat up, shedding sand everywhere and looked around me. Clouds of fine dust still swirled around us, but I could see the sun trying to break through. It would be hot again soon.
I dug around and located a strap, pulled at it and my backpack came free. I shook off the sand, opened it up, and pulled out my flask of water. The way I felt, there wasn’t enough water in the entire world to quench my thirst, but he’d saved me, and you have to pay your debts.
He looked surprised.
‘Age before beauty,’ I said, just in case he thought I harboured kindly feelings towards him.
He grinned, cracking the sand that had settled on his face and in his hair. He meticulously took only two swigs and passed it back. I appreciated the thought, took my own two swigs, and passed it back again.
We leaned back against the rock, passing the flask between us, and saying nothing. Time passed, but I don’t think either of us was in any rush.
I don’t know when I first noticed it. I was absently staring out across the desert when I realised there was a problem with the sand. It was still blowing everywhere – sadly, that’s what sand does – but there was a small patch, slightly more than a hundred yards away, where it wasn’t blowing quite right. As if it was blowing around something. Something I couldn’t see.
There were two possibilities and both were good.
The first was that this was Ronan’s pod and that, finally, I had its location. The second was that this was Leon’s pod. As I mentioned, his pod has a camouflage device. High-def cameras feed info to the computer, which projects an image back again, making the pod virtually invisible. It sometimes has a bit of a problem with complicated backgrounds like leafy jungles, but a simple desert background would cause it no problems at all.
We have, occasionally, considered fitting similar devices to our own pods, but there are a number of arguments against this, not least because we often need to make a hasty exit. Imagine a group of historians – not the clearest thinkers at the best of times – racing in ever expanding circles shouting, ‘Where the bloody hell is the pod?’ as sundry armies, severe meteorological conditions, horrendous seismic activities and other catastrophes rain down upon them. To say nothing of a couple of harmless contemporaries walking smack into the side of an invisible pod after a night in the pub. So, on balance, we reckon we’re safer without it.
I tried not to smile. I should have guessed. Of course Dr Bairstow would send back-up. He hadn’t told me and that was fair enough. But I wasn’t alone. Leon – and, I suspected, Major Guthrie too, were out here with me, keeping an eye on things. I didn’t need them, but it was good to know they were here.
Not wanting Ronan to see where I was looking, I leaned back and closed my eyes. I was here at his invitation. I would leave him to take the initiative. And so, like an idiot, I sat in the desert and did nothing as the seconds counted down to disaster.
Finally, he handed me back the empty canteen. ‘Appreciated.’
‘You’re welcome. So – what now?’
He turned to face me. ‘I have two plans, actually. The first entails…’ He broke off to stare past me. ‘Who…?’
I twisted around.
From nowhere, I could see hazy black figures running towards us through the dust. I felt my mouth fall open with shock. No. No, no, no. This was so wrong. This wasn’t supposed to happen. They weren’t supposed to be here. This would ruin everything.
That patch of anomalous sand hadn’t been Ronan’s pod. It hadn’t been Leon’s either. It had been the Time Police. Waiting until it was safe to emerge and arrest us both.
I opened my mouth to warn him.
At the same time, I saw the realisation cross his face. He had been betrayed.
I stretched out a hand and said quickly, ‘No – it wasn’t St Mary’s,’ but it was too late. Too late to explain. Too late for everything.
He wrenched out his gun. His face was white. I could see the blue veins at his temples. His eyes were dark and empty and terrifying in a way I cannot describe. My stomach turned over. Suddenly, I was very, very afraid.
He said quietly and far more chillingly than screaming threats could ever be, ‘You traitorous ----’ using a really bad word. Hauling me to my feet, he raised his gun, jamming the barrel against my right eye.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. I was going to die. I could feel my heart beating in my throat and the blood pounding in my head. I was going to die. Out here. In this blistering heat and emptiness. I was going to die.
And then, apparently he had second thoughts, because he lowered the gun again.