Love Is Dangerous Read online

  “By the Hand of Fatima,” Bing repeated. “I ask your silence. Say nothing, do nothing, see nothing.”

  They stared at him, but none of the servants screamed.

  Then he opened the door at the far end of the kitchen and followed by Melina started to move swiftly down a long passage. Melina felt as if she must force her legs to follow him, expecting to hear a yell and to find the guards pounding after them. But there was only silence!

  Bing seemed to know his way without hesitation and she guessed that Ahmed or his father had given him a shrewd idea of the layout of the house.

  There was a narrow staircase and they climbed it to the first floor. Just for a moment Bing paused and as he did so they heard a child’s voice cry out in French,

  “Don’t touch me! Leave me alone! Don’t – hit me again I – pray you!”

  Bing was at the door where the cry came from in two strides. He pulled it open and Melina saw over his shoulder a man with his back to them, his arm raised, a thin narrow whip in his hand.

  Bing sprang before the man could turn round.

  His hand was over his mouth, his other arm across his neck and he was bending him backwards – backwards, until his neck must break. She had a quick impression of Bing’s face as she had seen it once before – the face of the devil!

  But she did not look, she ran to the child who was standing against the wall, the tears running down his face. She put her arms round him and held him close.

  “Don’t cry,” she said in French. “It’s all right. I am taking you to your Mama.”

  “To Mama, now?”

  She felt the excitement run through his thin little body.

  “Yes, yes, but you must be very quiet. You must not breathe. We have to escape from this place. Will you hide in this basket?”

  Only a child who had known danger and understood it, Melina thought, could have reacted so quickly.

  The little boy did not murmur. He got at once into the basket that Melina opened on the floor beside him.

  “Lie down,” she prompted and, even as she said the words, she heard a dull thump behind her and knew that Bing had killed the guard.

  She tried not to think of it, to remember only the child and the tears on his face.

  “Quickly! Quickly!” she urged.

  He obeyed her, lying down, and now Bing was at their side speaking in French, soothing, commanding words that the little boy seemed only too ready to obey.

  He picked up the crate, carrying it sideways so that the child was on his back.

  And then he was moving down the stairs and Melina was following him, having first shut the door, leaving the dead guard inside.

  They hurried down the passage into the kitchen. Melina was terrified that they would find the outside guards waiting for them, but instead the kitchen was empty.

  There was no one there. The servants had all gone.

  Bing pointed to the board on the table.

  “Put it on your head,” he said.

  He lifted the child in the crate carefully onto his own head.

  “Don’t hurry,” he whispered. “Take it easily.”

  Melina drew a deep breath. They were out in the sunshine. The dog was still lying in the courtyard only raising a lazy leg to scratch himself. The goat was still bleating in the distance.

  She hardly dared to glance towards the guards, but when she did so they were still there. The sunlight was glinting on the knife and the other man was lighting a cigarette. The man with the knife glanced up. He said something that sounded rude, although perhaps it was intended as a joke.

  Bing bade him ‘good day’ in Arabic and then they were through the arched doorway, moving down the broad street.

  They turned to the left and then, still walking without undue effort, they reached another and wider street.

  There an open car was waiting.

  Bing laid the crate with the child on the back seat.

  He opened the door for Melina and then stepped into the driver’s seat.

  If there was anyone in attendance they did not see them, but for the moment Melina was concerned only in their not being followed.

  A man rounded the corner in the direction from which they had come and her heart gave a sudden leap of fear, but it was only a native moving about his own business.

  Bing started up the engine. Now they were moving slowly down the street, passing water carriers and men bringing in piles of merchandise to the market stalls.

  They had reached the Djemaa El Fna.

  Bing started to hoot his horn and to drive more quickly.

  They passed the gardens where they had sheltered for what seemed to Melina an aeon of time.

  Now they had left the marketplace and the native houses behind and were in the broader and less populated streets with better class houses.

  “We’ve done it!” Melina cried. “We’ve done it! Oh, Bing! We’ve done it!”

  “Not quite yet,” he answered. “Get the child out of the crate and let him sit beside us. You’ll have to do it while we’re moving. I cannot stop.”

  As he spoke, he put his foot on the accelerator and the car leapt forward.

  Chapter 12

  The little boy nestled close to Melina when she put her arm round him.

  “You are all right now,” she told him in French. “We are taking you to your mother and father.”

  “Those men were bad, very bad,” he answered in a high childish voice. “They beat me and said that tomorrow they were going to kill me.”

  Melina glanced over his head towards Bing who was concentrating on getting every ounce of speed out of the car.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked in English. “Tomorrow! We were only just in time.”

  “I knew that,” he answered briefly and she wondered why he had kept the knowledge to himself and not let her share the anxiety as to how quickly the sands of time were running out.

  “I was brave,” the small boy went on. “I cried a lot, I-I couldn’t help it, but I knew that Papa – would send soldiers to rescue me.”

  He looked up at Melina and then at Bing.

  “You’re not soldiers, are you?” he asked and his voice was disappointed.

  “It’s more exciting being rescued this way,” Melina said consolingly. “And you were a very brave boy to jump into the chicken crate so quickly without arguing. If you had not done that, we might never have taken you away.”

  “I was frightened – at being on top of his head,” the child answered, pointing at Bing.

  “What is your name?” Melina asked, thinking it a mistake to go on talking about the danger that was past.

  “My name is Mohammed,” he answered. “Papa says that all eldest sons are called Mohammed. But Mama calls me Suki.”

  “I shall call you Suki then,” Melina smiled, “because it’s much easier to say than Mohammed. Now, Suki, why don’t you go to sleep? We have a long journey ahead of us and you will want to feel well and not tired when you reach your Mama.”

  “I’ll try,” the little boy said obediently, snuggling himself closer against Melina and closing his eyes.

  She looked down at his small dark head and thought how gentle and confiding he was. Children were so vulnerable and she could hardly bear to think of what he had suffered and what he must have gone through in the hands of those brutes.

  She was glad now that Bing had killed the guard who was whipping him. She had thought when Bing killed the man who had jumped at him from the tree in Tangier that she could never bear to look in his face again and see that expression of revenge and triumph that resulted in what she termed to herself as ‘the expression of the devil’.

  But now she knew that she was no longer afraid. What Bing had done was right in the circumstances, however much one might condemn it on ethical grounds.

  If they had not rescued the boy today, he would have died tomorrow and nothing could be more horrible, more bestial, than the sacrifice of a small innocent child for political intere
sts.

  She looked at Bing’s profile and thought with a sudden melting of her heart how magnificent he had been over all this. No one else would have attempted such an operation without official support and only someone like Bing, she thought, would have been successful.

  The car was moving at what seemed to be a very fast pace down the long straight road, which stretched interminably into the distance. But she realised that other cars, particularly Moulay Ibrahim’s, could go quicker and she wondered how long it would be before the dead guard was found and Moulay Ibrahim informed of what had happened.

  She wanted to question Bing, but she knew that not only would he be impatient at having to answer her, but also that it was very difficult to talk at the speed they were travelling.

  There was a certain amount of traffic on the road but not much. However, there were, moving along on the caravan tracks that ran parallel with the modem tarmac road, numbers of families travelling in their traditional fashion with camels and goats, mules and donkeys with the men sitting high on the backs of their animals, the women and children walking beside them.

  They must have gone about sixty miles when the road began to descend into a valley. When they were halfway down it they saw a man in a white robe standing in the middle of the road waving his arm wildly.

  “Get the child on the floor,” Bing said tersely, “and cover him up.”

  Hastily and without argument Melina did as she was told, covering him with her djellabah, for she had nothing else and whispering to him to keep quiet.

  “What’s – happening?” Suki asked sleepily.

  “You have to hide for a moment or two,” Melina replied. “Don’t speak, don’t move. I am going to cover you up so that no one will see you.”

  The child was acquiescent and obedient and she raised her head to see that they were approaching the gesticulating man and in a few seconds would be past him.

  Bing slowed down a little and with a little start, Melina realised that he was driving with his left hand while in his right he held a small revolver.

  “If anything happens keep your head down and then crouch down on the floor,” Bing said quickly.

  A moment later, because they were still travelling at a fast speed, the man in white was stepping out of the way to let them pass.

  “By the Hand of Fatima!” he shouted and Bing jammed on the brakes.

  Only by putting both her hands quickly onto the dashboard did Melina save herself from being thrown against the windscreen. Bing turned his head, the revolver still in his hand, as the man came running up.

  “By the Hand of Fatima, sir,” he repeated. “I was waiting for you.”

  “How do you know who we are?” Bing asked sharply.

  “My cousin, Ahmed, telephoned me,” the man replied. “But a quarter-of-an-hour ago my brother also received a telephone message. We are a house divided, sir. He is one of Moulay Ibrahim’s men.”

  Bing slowly put his revolver back into his pocket.

  “They are waiting for us?” he asked.

  The man pointed ahead.

  “Down there, sir, in the village. There are about ten of them.”

  “What is the name of this village?” Bing asked.

  “El-Guelb,” the man replied. “But not all, like my brother, follow Moulay Ibrahim. Many are loyal, as I am, to the King.”

  “Is there any other road?” Bing asked.

  “There is a track, sir. It is rough and meant for camels but if you will allow me to direct you – ”

  “Jump in behind,” Bing commanded him, “and show me where I turn off.”

  The man scrambled into the back of the car.

  Bing looked at his watch.

  “We have been about an hour on the journey,” he said to Melina in English. “If Moulay Ibrahim telephoned about a quarter-of-an-hour ago, that means we have nearly forty-five minutes start.”

  “Will it be long enough?” Melina asked.

  “That remains to be seen,” Bing answered enigmatically.

  The track was rough and it was impossible to travel at any speed. They were forced to drive inland for two or three miles before they swung round in a circle so as to return to the main road.

  Several other men joined them who swore, either in Arabic or in a mixture of French and English, that they were loyal to the King and ready to help in any way possible.

  Nearly twenty minutes must have passed before they finally came back onto the main road and a signpost told them that they were one hundred and twenty miles from Casablanca.

  Bing thanked the first man who had said that he was Ahmed’s cousin.

  “Delay Moulay Ibrahim if you can,” he said. “A puncture, if possible, anything so long as we have time to reach Casablanca before he catches up with us.”

  “I understand, sir,” Ahmed’s cousin said, grinning as if it was all a huge joke.

  Amid cries of good wishes and a great waving of hands Bing manoeuvred the car onto the road and they were off again.

  Now he seemed to crouch over the wheel, coaxing the engine into a performance that it had never dreamed of giving when it had been made.

  Suki climbed up beside Melina again and seemed content to half-doze in her arms, occasionally asking plaintively how long it would be before he saw his Papa and Mama.

  On and on, they went! Melina kept turning her head expecting to see a great Mercedes roaring down upon them, but there appeared to be nothing behind save the cars they passed.

  She felt somehow as if they would go on driving like this for all eternity – the desert on either side of them, the sudden glimpses of farms, the occasional modern house, small villages through which they rushed with a complete disregard for traffic regulations. And then they were on and on again along the straight modern road leading to the coast.

  *

  When finally they reached the outskirts of Casablanca, Melina could hardly believe that their destination was really in sight.

  She wanted to cry out once again that they had done it, but something in the set of Bing’s grim mouth and steady concentration of his eyes told her that he did not wish to talk.

  There was still a chance that they might be stopped, still a chance that victory might be snatched from them at the eleventh hour.

  They swung away from the town and now Melina saw a notice as they flashed past and knew where they were going – the airport!

  Even as she realised their intention there was a sudden sound of racing engines and she saw that two motor-bicyclists wearing Army uniform had come up alongside them.

  For a moment she questioned whether they were friend or foe and then she saw the salute they gave Bing and realised that they were indeed friends.

  She felt some of the tension leave her as she saw the motor-bicyclists forge ahead. A gate of the airport marked No Admittance was swung open and they were on the landing ground and travelling, still at great speed, down a runway.

  Suddenly Melina saw ahead the great silver wings of an airliner and the magic letters, ‘B. E. A.’

  In a few seconds the car drew to a standstill.

  A distinguished man wearing European clothes broke away from a number of attendants, soldiers and aides-de-camp and ran forward. The tears were running down his face as he took Bing’s hand in his and then held out his arms to Suki.

  “Papa! Papa!” the small boy screamed, scrambling over Melina’s lap to kiss his father.

  He picked up the child in his arms and, apparently incapable of words, carried him, almost running, towards the aeroplane. A woman, obviously a Moroccan, but dressed in the latest Parisian fashion, was standing at the top of the gangway.

  She, too, was weeping as the small boy scrambled up the steps and rushed into her arms. They turned and waved to the men waiting below, then the steps were wheeled away, the door of the liner was slammed to and the aeroplane started to taxi down the runway.

  Only as it moved off, Melina, with tears in her eyes, turned from looking at this moving human drama
towards Bing.

  He was lying back against the driving seat and for a moment he looked utterly and completely exhausted. His hands were limp at his sides and they, perhaps more than anything else, told her of the nervous tension he had been through in the last twenty-four hours.

  But, as Suki’s father came hurrying towards the car, Bing jumped out and went to meet him.

  “Two minutes more and the plane would have gone,” he said, the words coming almost incoherently between his lips. “They held it for twenty minutes, they would not have been able to do so any longer.”

  The tears were still running down his cheeks and he pulled himself together with a tremendous effort.

  “We must not stay here talking,” he said. “Come with me. Leave your car. It will be seen to.”

  He snapped his fingers and one of the soldiers hovering in the background made a gesture towards another big limousine that was parked at the side of the airport buildings. It drove up and they all climbed into it. They all three sat in the back seat. A soldier sat in the front beside the driver and the two motor-bicyclists roared up to ride on either side of the car.

  “Bing! What can I say to you?” the Moroccan asked in broken tones as they moved away.

  “Don’t say anything,” Bing answered. “We had a bit of luck, that was all. I want to introduce you to Melina Lindsay who has been more wonderful than I can ever say. Her father was Sir Frederick Lindsay, you have heard me speak of him, Mohammed?”

  “But, of course,” the Minister answered. “Sir Frederick Lindsay was a very great man.”

  He bent forward to take Melina’s hand.

  “How can I ever thank you for what you have done for me in saving my son?”

  “It was Bing who did everything,” Melina answered shyly.

  The Minister unashamedly wiped the tears from his eyes.

  “My wife and I had begun to believe it was hopeless,” he said. “But she had more faith than I had, Bing. She made them hold the aeroplane even when the officials said it was impossible and that they must move off according to schedule. She was so sure that you would come.”