Over the next few days, a tacit agreement developed between Mr Ambrose and me. We did our best to detest each other during the day, me flinging examples of my ever-growing vocabulary of Arabic swear words at him, he building up a thick wall of silence. But in the night...

In the night, different things happened.

We would lie down next to each other again, and he would fold me in his arms, creating a small cave of warmth for me amidst the cold desolation of the desert around us. The whole night he would hold me like this – and not just for warmth, either. The taste of his lips on mine... Up until then, I hadn't thought it possible for anything to rival the savoury scrumptiousness of solid chocolate. I had been mistaken.

When, in the morning, he returned to his usual cold, standoffish, silent self, I sometimes asked myself whether I hadn't simply dreamed up his night-time alter ego. But then the sun would go down, and the dark shadow of a tall man would stalk towards me.

'Lillian?'

'Yes?'

'Come to me.'

The nights passed. I supposed the days passed too, but recently I had started paying a lot more attention to the former than to the latter. We travelled at a slow crawl through the desert, or maybe we were whizzing through it faster than a racing horse. I didn't really know. In a landscape where everything always changed, blown away by the wind, it was hard to say where you were at any given time and how fast you were moving.

How many days passed before it happened, I didn't know. I only knew that it was an excruciatingly hot day, and the sun was beating down on our heads with red-hot, iron hammers. In other words, a day like any other. That was the day on which it happened.

We were just moving up the side of a dune. Unfortunately, it was the side that lay full in the sunlight. Ambrose was struggling, making grunting noises with every step. I supposed he was having bowel problems. He hadn't produced quite as much shit to burn yesterday as usual. Unfortunately, I couldn't very well ask his namesake to step into the breach.

Suddenly, Ambrose stopped entirely. Blinking, trying to rouse myself out of my heat-induced stupor, I saw something black right in front of me on the glowing sand. It looked like a cross between a crab and a giant spider, with a huge, sharp tail at one end. Wait a minute... I had seen something like this in an encyclopaedia once, hadn't I? What was it called again? A scorpion! Yes, that was it! A scorpion! Wasn't its tail...?

I frowned. Somewhere at the back of my mind I was sure there was something important I had to remember about that tail. But it just didn't want to come to me right then. Was it used in native medicine? Was it a delicacy in French restaurants? Yes, that was probably it! The French ate all kinds of weird stuff.

The scorpion clicked its pincers menacingly. Ambrose took a step backwards.

'Oh, don't be a chicken!' I told the camel. Leaning down towards the scorpion, I told it in a very loud and clear voice: 'Piss off!'

The scorpion hesitated for a moment – then turned, scuttled away and dived into a hole not far away.

'There, you see?' I patted Ambrose's neck. 'No need to get spooked. I'll protect you.'

Only when I reached the top of the dune did I realise that there might be plenty of reason to get spooked. I also realized that I probably hadn't been the reason for the scorpion's sudden retreat underground. Far, far ahead to the southeast I could see a yellowish something, like a sickly bank of clouds, hovering close above the ground. Far too close for it to really be clouds. At first I thought the thing wasn't moving at all, but then I noticed that the distance between it and a solitary rock ahead of us was slowly shrinking. Finally, it reached the rock – and swallowed it up.

I shivered.

'What's that?' I asked.

Youssef appeared next to me like a djinn out of a lamp. Only he didn't come to grant me three wishes. His face was grim. 'That's the devil's breath, baaša.'

'Does it smell?'

'Worse. It bites, and chokes, and buries you alive. That's a sandstorm, baaša. One of the worst I've ever seen.'

I eyed the sickly cloudbank doubtfully. 'It doesn't look like much.'

One corner of Youssef's mouth twitched in a humourless smile. 'It looks more impressive once you get closer, trust me, baaša.'

Quickly, he turned and barked a few orders in Arabic. Hurrying to the top of the dune, men began to dismount and make their camels sit down. Several removed their headscarves and started pouring water over them, others quickly began erecting tents on top of the dune.

'What is this? What is going on?' Bringing his camel to an abrupt halt out of a gallop, Mr Ambrose slid down from the saddle and shot Youssef a menacing look. 'Explain yourself, Youssef.'

In answer, the other man simply pointed towards the sickly-yellow cloud. I realized that already it was not quite so distant anymore.

'Yes?' Mr Ambrose demanded. 'What is it about that thing?'

'It's a sandstorm, Effendi.'

'And?'

'We have to stop, Effendi. To seek shelter until it has passed.'

'Seek shelter?' Mr Ambrose's eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. 'You do not honestly think that I will let this delay me, do you? That I will let a tiny bit of sand stop me from going on?'

The Arab sucked in a breath. 'A tiny bit of sand? Effendi, I...'

'We are going on, Youssef! Not another word.'

'But Effendi...'

Mr Ambrose raised one, long, extended finger, and Youssef fell silent immediately. Taking another breath, he bowed his head. 'Yes, Effendi. As you wish, Effendi.'

'Are you sure that going on is wise?' I dared to ask when we had started down the other side of the dune. 'If he really thinks it's dangerous, shouldn't we listen to him?'

He gave me a look. One of those looks. 'Do you know the size of an average grain of sand?'

'No,' I had to admit.

'It is between 0.0024803 and 0.08 inches. Now, think carefully for a moment. Do you think I am going to let myself be stopped by something smaller than the tenth of an inch?'

'Um... no.'

'Indeed, no.'

And that was all he deigned to say on the matter. Maybe he was even right. Maybe it was silly to get anxious just over a bit of sand. But whenever I looked down towards the increasingly fast-approaching clouds of dust in the valley below, I couldn't help getting the impression that it was more than just 'a bit of sand'.

We had just reached the bottom of the hill when the rumbling started.

'What's that?' I called, turning back towards Youssef. 'Thunder?'

'Yes, baaša,' he replied grimly, glaring ahead. 'Out of a thunderstorm that doesn't need lightening to kill.'

The rumbling grew, and soon it evolved into a continuous roar, like the sound coming out of the maul of a dragon too hungry to ever shut its dreaded jaws. Wind began to slap and batter against my thobe, and I had to grip my headscarf to hold it in place. The wind didn't bring any relief from the heat. On the contrary, it was so hot it might make you think the gates of hell had opened.

'It doesn't seem quite so small anymore, does it?' I yelled over the racket. Mr Ambrose was riding only a few paces beside me, but still I had to raise my voice to make myself heard. The cloud in front us was growing larger by the minute now. From where we stood, it looked the height of a small house. A few moments ago it had only seemed to be camel-high. 'What did you say again? 0.0024801 inches?'

'0.0024803' he called back. 'Not 0.0024801.'

'Oh, of course, that makes a hell of a lot of difference!'

No answer.

'If you haven't noticed yet, there seem to be rather a lot of these 0.0024803-inch obstacles which you think are so easy to overcome. Maybe we should stop after all.'

No answer.

'You are a stubborn son of a bachelor!'

'I thought earlier you told me that I was the son of a donkey?'

'That was before I ran out of Arabic insults!'

He turned his head to look at me. I would have said there was a stubborn set to his chin – only, it wouldn't have been the truth. He didn't need to set his chin in a stubborn way. Its mere shape, hard and angular like a block of granite, was already more stubborn than others could ever hope to be.

'We can do this. No discussion. We're going on.'

A gust of hot wind struck us and ripped his top hat from his head. Shooting out, his hand grabbed it just in time before it was driven away over the dunes.

'Tell me...' The roar in my ears had reached such a volume now that I had to roar myself to be heard at all. 'Have you ever been in a sandstorm before?'

Silence. Or rather the absence of speech. With the storm winds wailing all around us, the very idea of silence was unthinkable.

'Well?' My heart started hammering faster. In front of us, the storm was towering higher than the tallest houses of London, now. It seemed like a cloud no longer, but a solid wall of sand, waiting to bury us. 'Have you?'

'No! But I've been in plenty of snowstorms.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning that snow makes you freeze. Sand doesn't. So it can hardly be more dangerous.'

I threw another apprehensive glance ahead. Personally, I wasn't entirely sure about that.

We had reached the bottom of the valley beyond the dune now. In front of us rose a small hill, and down that hill the storm came, buffeting, bashing, slashing, thundering. To my left, I saw a column of sand roar past and swallow a cactus whole. It disappeared from sight, as if it had never been.

'Please, Effendi!' Youssef's voice was higher than usual, and scratchy, too. I realized that my own throat felt increasingly rubbed raw by the sand. Turning, I saw Youssef galloping towards us. 'Please, let us stop! We have to stop moving! The storm isn't dispersing, it's headed right towards us! We cannot...'

The storm bellowed, cutting him off. A moment later, a brownish cloud of stinging vapour drifted between us, and Youssef was gone. Frantically, I opened my mouth and tried to call out, but I caught a full mouth full of sand and choked. Coughing like a maniac, I collapsed over Ambrose's neck. The camel didn't seem bothered in the least by the raging torrents of sand around us.

'Blast! Ruddy stinking skanky hellhole of a...'

I coughed again, and had to close my mouth. Bloody hell! If you couldn't even curse out loud anymore, things were really going down the drain!

Pulling the neckline of my thobe up to cover my mouth and nose, I raised my head a few inches from the stinking camel's neck and tried to see where the others had gotten to. I blinked, thinking for a moment that there was something wrong with my eyes. The others weren't there anymore. Neither were the camels, the mountains, the dunes or even the ground!

Only a tiny circle of space around me had remained halfway visible. Beyond that, all had been swallowed up by a yellowish mist. A mist that was turning darker moment by moment.

Bloody hell? Where's the sun?

It wasn't there anymore. The storm had swallowed it up like everything else. Like everyone else, too.

Oh my God... Everyone?

'Mr Ambrose!'

No answer. Wildly, I looked from right to left – if you could talk of directions in this semi-substantial world of swirling sand. Nothing. Not even the fluttering ends of his black tailcoat.

'Mr Ambrose! Where are you?'

No answer. There was the roar of the storm and, other than that, utter silence.

Curse him! If he's just keeping quiet to irritate me right now, I'm going to strangle him!

But what else could I do? How could I know for sure?

Well... there was one thing.

'Dick, my darling? Dick, my darling come to me!'

No answer.

All right, he really couldn't hear me. If he could, he would have definitely complained. Now, panic was really beginning to set in, and that didn't make the problem of breathing any easier. With my breath speeding up, more and more sand rasped down my throat.

'Ambrose! Ambrose, where are you, you bloody bastard!'

'Grumph? Grumph!' came the answer from underneath me.

I gave the camel a kick. 'Shut up! I didn't mean you!'

Taking my kick as friendly encouragement, Ambrose the camel hastened his steps. He seemed perfectly ready for a nice afternoon stroll through a stand storm. I let him go where he wanted. I was more than busy enough clinging on to him and trying to find something, anything in the darkening maelstrom around me that pointed to a sign of life.

Suddenly, there it was! A speck of black among the yellow-brown torrents.

'Mr Ambrose!'

Did I hear an answer? I couldn't be sure. Not over the roaring of the storm.

'Mr Ambrose, it's me! It's m–'

Another violent fit of coughing overcame me. When it was over, the spot of black was gone.

Bloody hell! You can't go on like this, Lilly!

No, I couldn't. But what else could I do?

You can stop and think for a second, dolt! Think about the men! What did they do when Youssef ordered them to prepare for the sandstorm?

Of course! Ripping my water bottle from the camel's saddle, I screwed it open and started pouring. In my haste, I wasn't careful: I emptied almost half its contents over the piece of cloth covering my mouth and nose before my sense returned and I remembered that I still had to have something to drink later on. But still, the relief was immediate: Instead of forcing its way through the cloth into my throat, tiny particles of dust started to cling to the wetness outside.

'Mr Ambrose!' With new energy, I started shouting, clutching the wet cloth over my face. 'Mr Ambrose, where are you?' Driving the camel forward, I raced further into the storm, to where I thought I had last seen a hint of his black tailcoat. 'Mr Ambrose!'

No answer.

Of course not! Why would he deign to say anything, when he is so well practiced at keeping his lips nailed shut? It's only his life that is in danger, after all! No reason to suddenly become unnecessarily vocal!

Then I saw it: a bit to my left, hardly visible through the roaring sands around me, a tattered piece of black cloth waved at me, like a black snake wagging the end of its tail. Did snakes have tails? This one did, anyway! One tail of a tailcoat!

There he was: Mr Ambrose, striding along as if the sandstorm blasting into his face were a mere annoyance. Somehow, he had managed to misplace his camel in the storm, but no matter. His powerful long legs were pumping, carrying him forward, his eyes were narrowed to slits, his top hat was somehow, miraculously, still on his granite head. He looked as if he could go on like this for hours.

And then he fell.

'Mr Ambrose!'

Whether he heard my cry I knew not. His knees gave way beneath him, and he slammed his hands into the sand, trying to hold himself at least half upright. His chest was heaving, racked with coughs I couldn't hear over the cacophony of storm and singing sand.

'Mr Ambrose!'

This time, he did hear me. Turning his head, he glared at me, as cold as he had ever done. I swear, for just a moment, particles of ice mixed with the particles of sand between us.

'Stay – where – you – are!'

For just a moment, his voice drowned out the thunder of the wind. The power of the command nearly knocked me backwards off my camel. Then I gritted my teeth, and glared right back at him.

Stay?

Ha! Not bloody likely!

I tried to spur my camel on to move faster. Anger flared in his eyes. He tried to push himself up, to get to his feet. He actually managed to raise himself up a few inches. For a moment, he remained like this, a fallen Titan rebelling against his fate, Prometheus about to be bound – then his strength gave way and he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

'No! Mr Ambrose!'

As if in triumph, the sand storm gave a ravenous howl, and a gust of sand blasted between us. His form faded into the whirling mass of 0.0024803-inch pebbles and vanished from sight.

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My Dear Lords, Ladies & Gentlemen,

I've got fantastic news for all of you! My latest story, Black Diaries , is about to launch, with the first chapter scheduled to be posted to celebrate the coming LAUNCH of the RADISH FICTION APP on ANDROID which will take place in only JUST A FEW HOURS! :-)

So please keep your cellphones & other mobile devices at hand! Quite soon, you shall be able to read the latest chapters of both "In the Eye of the Storm" & "Black Diaries" via the Radish Fiction App, for just a few cents per chapter. A great big "thank you" to all those among you who decided to spend their hard-earned money on my professional writing attempts, and thus supporting my dream of becoming a professional writer! You're bringing me a big step closer to greatest goal! :)

I shall provide you with links to the Android edition of the Radish Fiction App on my social media pages (Twitter, Facebook, & Google Plus) as soon as I have it, so please keep open your eyes & ears! You'll find all the different links to my various social media accounts in my bio on my wattpad profile!

Yours Truly

Sir Rob