I pictured us as four ants toiling across a sand-box in a children’s playground. At mid-morning, when we stopped to take on water, I said, ‘To think I liked building sand castles when I was a kid.’
Byrne chuckled. ‘I remember a drawing I once saw, a cartoon, you know. It was in a magazine Daisy Wakefield had up in Tam. There was a detachment of the Foreign Legion doing a march across country like this, and one guy is saying to the other, “I joined the Legion to forget her, but her name is Sandra.” I thought that was real funny.’
‘I’m glad you’re keeping your sense of humour.’
Billson was doing all right. He didn’t say much, but kept up with us just in front of Konti. I had the idea that Byrne had detailed Konti as rearguard to keep an eye on Paul. Although he kept up with us I doubt if he’d have been able to if he still had water to carry. His wound was troubling him; not that he complained about it, but I noticed he favoured his right arm when he took a tumble and fell.
There wasn’t much point in stopping long at midday because we had nothing to eat and only needed to drink water. Byrne said, ‘Okay, Max; take off your pack.’
We had drunk from my jerrican at the mid-morning stop, so I said, ‘No; you take off yours.’
The wrinkles about his eyes deepened as he stared at me, but then he said obligingly, ‘Okay.’ So we lightened his load by a few pounds between us.
That day I found I was glad to be wearing the Tuareg veil and the rest of the fancy dress. I could see that Paul, apart from anything else, was beginning to suffer from exposure whereas I was protected.
The rest of the day until sunset passed in a blur of exhaustion. Up one side, down the other, and still another one to come. Against the grain of the land, Byrne had said. It was a good descriptive phrase and I was now really beginning to find how good it was.
I fell into a blind, mindless rhythm and a chant was created in my mind—what the Germans call an ‘earworm’—something that goes round and round in your head and you can’t get rid of it.
One bloody foot before the next bloody foot. One bloody dune after the next bloody dune. One bloody foot before the next bloody foot. One bloody dune after the next bloody dune. One bloody
…It went on and on and on…
Maybe it helped me.
And so it went on for hour after hour until I staggered into Byrne who had stopped. So did my bloody foot. ‘We made it just in time.’ He looked at the sun. ‘Three-quarters of an hour to nightfall.’
‘We’re there?’ I said thickly, and looked down the side of the dune. The valley bottom didn’t look much different than any of the others we’d crossed.
‘Yeah. Mokhtar will be coming along there.’
I looked around. ‘Where’s Billson?’
‘Maybe a quarter-mile back. Konti’s looking after him. Let’s go down.’
When we got to the bottom I looked up and saw Paul and Konti silhouetted against the sky at the top of the dune. ‘You mean we can rest now?’
‘No,’ said Byrne relentlessly. He started to walk up the valley so I followed. I was tired but at least this was reasonably level ground and I didn’t have to go up and down. The dunes began to close in on either side and then the valley widened. Byrne stopped. ‘This is the place. How wide would you say this valley is?’
‘Quarter of a mile.’
‘More. Six hundred yards. I want three trenches dug going up and down the valley. Each maybe ten yards long but I’d like more.’
That sounded like work and I wasn’t in the mood for it. ‘How deep?’
‘Not much; just so that your feet can recognize it in the dark. We’re all going to stand sentry tonight.’
The idea was simple and good. The trenches divided the width of the valley into four equal parts and the four of us would patrol back and forth, each on our 150-yard stretch. When our feet encountered a trench we’d know it was time to turn around smartly and go back, just like a sentry in front of Buck House. If the caravan was coming through, then statistically it was highly likely that one of us was going to run into a camel. And the walking would keep us awake.
I began to dig where Byrne indicated, heaping the soft sand aside with my hands because I had nothing else to dig with. But first I unloaded the jerrican and had some water. Billson and Konti came down and were put to work, and by nightfall we had done all we could do, not to Byrne’s satisfaction but that couldn’t be helped.
Then came the patrolling back and forth across the width of the valley, each in our own sector. I was weary and the slow trudge in the thick sand didn’t help. Every so often my feet encountered the edge of the trench and I turned to go back. Say three hundred yards for the round trip, about six to the mile. I wondered how many miles I was going to walk that night. Still, it was better than the bloody dunes.
On a couple of occasions at a trench I met Byrne and we exchanged a word before we turned and went our opposite ways. If we could have synchronized our speeds we could have met every time, but there was no way of doing that in the darkness.
The night wore on and my pace became slower. I was desperately tired and it was only because I had to walk that I kept awake, although sometimes I wonder if at times I wasn’t walking in my sleep. But the walking and a few hunger pangs kept me going.
I encountered Byrne again, and he said, ‘Have you seen Konti?’
‘We met a couple of patrols ago. He’s awake, if that’s what’s worrying you.’
‘It’s not. I should be finding Billson, and I’m not.’
I sighed. ‘He’s had a harder day than most of us. He’s clapped out.’
‘It leaves a hole in the line. I’ll feel better when the moon comes up.’
We didn’t have to wait that long. There was a yell from Konti and a startled cry of
‘Hai! Hai! Hai!’
as someone strove to quieten a plunging camel. Then a couple of Tuareg came up from
behind
us, from up the valley. Half of that caravan had got past us without anyone knowing until Konti had bumped into someone.
I sat down, exactly where I was. ‘Luke,’ I said. ‘I’m going to sleep.’
And so I went into Bilma by camel. Paul did, too, but Byrne walked after the first day. Konti walked all the time. These men were seemingly indestructible. Mokhtar had camped where he found us, but we continued the next day and, as Byrne had said, well into the darkness before we camped again.
Then Byrne began to walk, as did all the Tuareg, and I noted his feet were bare. He walked lithely by the side of the camel I rode. I said, ‘Is it normal to walk?’
‘Yeah.’
‘All the way from Agadez to Bilma?’
‘And back.’ He looked up. ‘We’re all humble camel drivers—like the Prophet.’
I thought about it, thinking how quickly we had traversed that vastness in the Toyota. ‘I would have thought it would be more efficient to use trucks.’
‘Oh, sure.’ He pointed ahead. ‘Bilma produces 4000 tons of salt a year. The whole export job could be done with twenty 20-tonners. If this was Algeria they’d use trucks. The bastards in the Maghreb are nuts on efficiency when it’s profitable.’
‘Then why not here?’
‘Because the Niger government is sensible. A camel can carry a seventh of a ton so, to shift a year’s salt you need
28,000 camels. Like I said, a camel is a fragile animal—for every day’s work it must have a day’s rest. So—three months on the salt trail means another three months’ resting-up time and feeding. That’s six months, which takes care of the winter season. No one comes across here in summer. So you do have to have 28,000 camels because each makes but one journey. At $180 each that’s a capital investment of better than five million dollars. Add harness, wrappings, drivers’ pay and all that and you can make it six million.’
‘God!’ I said. ‘It would certainly pay to use trucks.’
‘I haven’t finished,’ said Byrne. ‘A camel can last four years in the business, so that means 7000 new animals needed every year. Somebody has to breed them; guys like me, but more usually like Hamiada. What with one thing and another there’s two million dollars going to the breeders from the Bilma salt trade. And Bilma’s not the only source of salt. In the Western Sahara there’s Taoudenni which supplies Timbouctou and the whole Niger Bend area—that’s much bigger than the Bilma trade.’ He looked up at me. ‘So it’s illegal to carry salt on trucks. It would ruin the traditional economy and destroy the structure of the desert tribes if trucks were allowed.’
‘I see,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Humanitarianism versus efficiency.’ It made sense, but I doubt if a hard-headed City businessman would have agreed.
‘Look,’ said Byrne. ‘The Kaouar.’
Stretching across the horizon was a wall of mountains, blue-hazed with distance. ‘Bilma?’
‘Bilma,’ he said with satisfaction.
Half a day later I could see welcome tints of green, the first sight of vegetation since leaving Fachi, and soon I could distinguish individual date palms. Byrne hastened ahead to talk to Mokhtar, then came back. ‘We won’t go into Bilma—not yet,’ he said. ‘Kissack might be there and so we have to go in carefully. We’ll stop at the salt workings at Kalala.’
Kalala proved to be a plain with heaps of soil thrown up from the salt workings. There were many men and more camels as several other caravans were in residence. Our camels were unloaded of their cargo and Byrne pointed out the sights. He indicated the group of men around Mokhtar. ‘More Tuareg from the Aīr. I guess they’ll be going back tomorrow. They look ready.’ He swung around. ‘Those guys, there, are Kanuri up from Chad. Salt is the most important substance in Africa. If the animals don’t get it they go sick. The Kanuri from Chad are cattlemen, so they need salt. So are the Hausa from around Kano in Nigeria.’
‘How long has this been going on?’
‘I wouldn’t know. A thousand years—maybe more. You stay here, Max; see that Paul doesn’t wander. I’m going into Bilma to borrow a truck—I want to retrieve the Toyota. Also to see if Kissack is here.’
‘Be careful.’
‘I’m just another Targui,’ he said. ‘The veil is useful.’
He went away and I collected Billson and we went to look at the salt workings. Billson had improved a lot. Although a long camel ride is not popularly regarded as being a rest cure, there is no doubt that it is when compared to running up and down sand dunes. Mokhtar had provided an ointment of which Byrne approved, and the angry inflamation around Paul’s wound had receded.
Paul had improved in spirit, too, and for a man who normally kept a sulky silence he became quite chatty. Maybe the desert had something to do with it.
Looking down at the salt pans was like viewing a less salubrious section of Dante’s Inferno. Salt-bearing earth was dug from pits and thrown into evaporating pans where an impure salt was deposited on the surface as the water evaporated under the hot sun. This, laboriously scraped away, was
packed into moulds and shaped into pillars about three feet high.
Paul said suddenly, ‘You know, it’s the first time that bit of the Bible has made sense—about Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt. I’ve never understood about a pillar of salt until now.’
I thought of the caravan trails across the Sahara and wondered if salt from Bilma had found its way to ancient Israel. It was improbable—the Dead Sea was saltier than other seas—but the method of manufacture was probably old.
We went back to the caravan and rested. The camels were resting, too, and some of them were lying flat on their sides after they had been unloaded. I had never seen camels do that. I was studying one of them when Mokhtar passed. He saw my interest and struggled for words. After a lot of thought he came out with
‘Fatigué—très fatigué.’
I nodded. If I’d walked for a month, sixteen hours a day, I’d be bloody tired, too. But Mokhtar had walked and he looked as fresh as a daisy. The camel’s ribs were showing through its hide. I said, ‘It’s thin—
maigre.’
I patted my own flank, and repeated,
‘Maigre.’
Mokhtar said something in Tamachek which I couldn’t understand. Seeing my incomprehension, he took the camel’s halter and brought it to its feet. He beckoned, so I followed him as he led the camel about a quarter of a mile to a stone trough which was being laboriously filled with water from a well.
The camel dipped its head and drank. It drank for ten minutes without stopping and filled out before my eyes. It must have drunk more than twenty gallons of water and when it had finished it was as plump and well-conditioned a beast as I’d seen.
Byrne did not come back until mid-morning of the next day, but he came in the Toyota. Apart from the smashed
wind-screen it looked no different than before it had been shot up, but then, it had looked battered to begin with. A few holes were neither here nor there, and a difference that makes no difference is no difference.
Billson and I were well rested—a good night’s sleep does make a difference—but for the first time Byrne looked weary. I said, ‘You need sleep.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll rest this afternoon and sleep tonight, but we have something to do first. Get in.’
I climbed into the Toyota and Byrne let out the clutch. As we drove away a breeze swept through the cab. ‘It’s going to be draughty from now on,’ I said. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To waylay a gang of tourists,’ he said to my surprise. ‘How’s your German?’
‘Adequate—no more.’
‘Maybe it’ll do. Kissack’s in Bilma. He took Bailly to what passes for a hospital and spun a yarn about an auto accident to explain Bailly’s foot. It passed because there’s no doctor. Bailly is being flown out tomorrow.’
‘He could hardly report being assaulted—not after what he did to us. But why don’t we report to the police?’
‘And how would we explain you? You’re in Niger illegally.’ Byrne shook his head decisively. ‘Hell, we’d be tied up for months, with or without you. Besides, I’d like to settle with Kissack myself and in my own way.’
‘So where do German tourists come in?’
‘It struck me that Kissack doesn’t know about you.’
I thought about that and found it was probably true. I hadn’t told anyone in England where I was going. As far as anyone knew I was sunning myself in Jamaica, as Charlie Malleson had suggested, instead of doing the same in an improbable place like Bilma. And even though I had been close enough to Kissack to touch him he only knew me as an anonymous Targui. The only times he had seen me were
in the Hotel de l’Aïr and over the sights of a rifle in the Ténéré.
Byrne said, ‘I want to put you next to Kissack. Find out what he’s doing.’
‘But the German tourists?’
‘I was talking to a Ténéré guide, a Targui I know called Rhossi. He says there’s a German crowd coming in from the north and they should be hitting Bilma this afternoon—he’s going to take them across the Ténéré. It’s a government regulation that all tour groups must have a guide in the Ténéré.’
I wasn’t surprised. ‘So?’
‘There aren’t many Europeans in Bilma so you can’t just walk in to chat with Kissack. The local law would spot you and want to see your papers. But if you arrive with a gang of Germans you can merge into the background. I’m going to drop you about five miles out of Bilma and you can bum a lift.’
It would work. Any party of Europeans would give a lone European hitch-hiker a lift for a few miles. ‘What do I tell them?’
‘Hell, tell them anything you like. No. There’s some rock carvings about seven miles out just off the road. Tell them that you walked out of Bilma to look at them, but now you’re tired and you’d appreciate a lift back.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You’d better see the carvings.’
So we went to look at rock carvings up the rough track north of Bilma. I suppose they were more engravings than carvings, cut into the vertical sides of rocks but not too deeply. The subjects were interesting; there were many cattle with spreading horns, a rider on a horse which was unmistakably a stallion though the rider was depicted as a mere stick figure, and, surprisingly, an elephant drawn with a fluent line which Picasso would have been proud of.
‘An elephant?’
‘Why not?’ asked Byrne. ‘Where do you suppose Hannibal got the elephants to cross the Alps?’
That question had never troubled me.
Byrne said, ‘The North African elephant went extinct about two thousand years ago. I’ve seen skeletons, though. They were midgets—about half the size of an Indian elephant.’
I looked at the barren waste around us; there wasn’t enough vegetation to support a half-sized rabbit. I looked back at the engraving. ‘How old?’
‘Maybe three thousand years. Not as old as the paintings in the Tassili.’ He pointed to a series of marks—crosses, circles, squares and dots. ‘That’s more recent; it’s Tifinagh, the written form of Tamachek.’
‘What does it say?’
‘I wouldn’t know; I can’t read it.’ He smiled. ‘Probably something like “I love Lucy”, or “Kilroy was here”. You’d better change your clothes.’
So I reverted to being a European and the clothing seemed oddly restricting after the freedom of a
gandoura.
As Byrne drove back to the track he said, ‘The tour leader will probably collect all the passports and take them into the fort for inspection. He won’t ask for yours, of course. Just mingle with the group enough so it looks as though you’re one of them. They’ll split up to have a look at Bilma pretty soon and that gives you your chance to hunt up Kissack.’
‘That’s all right as long as the cops don’t do a head count.’ Byrne shook his head at that. ‘Where am I likely to find Kissack?’
‘Anywhere—look for the Range-Rover—but there’s a broken-down shack that calls itself a restaurant. You might find him there. Anyway, it’s a chance to have a beer.’
He dropped me by the side of the track and drove away after thoughtfully leaving a small canteen of water which looked as though it had started life in the British army.
The German group pitched up three hours later, eighteen people in four long-wheelbase Land-Rovers. I stood up and held out my hand as the first Land-Rover came up, and it drew to a halt. My German, learned when I was with the Army of the Rhine, was about as grammatical as Byrne’s French, but just as serviceable. No foreigner minds you speaking his language badly providing you make the attempt. Excepting the French, of course.
The driver of the first Land-Rover was the group leader, and he willingly agreed to take me into Bilma if I didn’t mind a squash in the front seat. He looked at me curiously. ‘What are you doing out here?’
‘I walked out from Bilma to look at some rock engravings.’ I smiled. ‘I’d rather not walk back.’
‘Didn’t know there were any around here. Plenty up north at the Col des Chandeliers. Where are they?’
‘About three kilometres back, just off the track.’
‘Can you show me? My people would be interested.’
‘Of course; only too glad.’
So we went back to look at the engravings, and I reflected that it was just as well that Byrne had taken me there. We spent twenty minutes there, the Germans clicking away busily with their Japanese cameras. They were a mixed lot ranging from teenagers to old folk and I wondered what had brought them into the desert. It certainly wasn’t the normal package deal.
Less than half an hour after that we were driving up the long slope which leads to the fort in Bilma. The Land—Rovers parked with Teutonic precision in a neat rank just by the gate and I opened the door. ‘Thanks for the lift.’
He nodded. ‘Helmut Shaeffer. Perhaps we will have a beer in the restaurant, eh?’
‘I’m Max Stafford. That’s a good idea. Where is the restaurant?’
‘Don’t you know?’ There was surprise in his voice.
‘I haven’t seen much of Bilma itself. We got in late last night.’
‘Oh.’ He pointed down the slope and to the right. ‘Over there; you can’t miss it.’
As Byrne had predicted, he began collecting passports. I lingered, talking with a middle-aged man who discoursed on the wonders he had seen in the north. Shaeffer took the pile of passports into the fort and the group began to break up. I wandered off casually following a trio heading in the general direction of the restaurant.
It was as Byrne had described it; a broken-down shack. The Germans looked at the sun-blasted sign and the peeling walls and muttered dubiously, then made up their minds and went inside. I followed closely on their heels.