The Strange Land

CHAPTER TWO

Though we had parked in the lee of the Foreign Legion fort, the sand still found its way into the interior of the bus. I would have liked some sleep, but sleep was impossible. We just sat and watched the sand whirl past the windscreen, sifting like water over the long snout of the bonnet. A jeep passed us, battling against the swirling clouds of sand like a little mechanical toy. Legard was at the wheel, muffled in his Spahis cloak. He was driving towards the mountains.

‘Why did he have to go to Agdz?’ asked Jan. ‘He said he couldn’t leave the Post until the food trucks arrived.’

‘Well, I’m glad I haven’t got to drive through this in an open jeep,’ Julie said.

‘He’ll be clear of it in the mountains,’ I pointed out.

‘Why don’t we go to the mountains then?’

I glanced round at her. She had her eyes closed and she looked tired. ‘We could go back into the house,’ I suggested.

‘No, we can’t sleep there. Besides, we need some food.’

‘All right. I’ll drive up to the foot of the mountains then.’ I leaned forward and pressed the starter button.

‘Why not go to the Kasbah Foum?’ Jan suggested.

‘If you like.’

It wasn’t easy driving. Sand was sifting along the ground so thick that it was difficult to see the piste. It was like driving through a dead world. But at length the palm trees thinned, and as we climbed towards Kasbah Foum,’ the weight of the sand lessened. Soon we could see the mountains, a vague shadow looming up ahead of us like a heavy cloud formation photographed in sepia. There was the watch tower and the ruined city, and there, straight ahead of us, was the kasbah and the dark gash of the gorge.

In that queer half-light the place looked inhospitable, almost hostile. There was a deadness about it. The tumbled graveyard of the ancient city seemed to be spilling down the hill on to the kasbah. The gorge was a yawning cavity in the mountains, remote and sinister. I glanced at Jan. Those last lines of Browning’s came into my mind: And yet dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, and blew. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.

I pulled up close to White’s tent and switched off the engine. The camp was deserted, but from the entrance to the gorge came the sound of a bulldozer working, carried to us faintly on the wind. ‘We’ll have some food and then you’d better get some sleep,’ I told Julie.

As soon as we had finished lunch, Jan left us, walking quickly up the track to the gorge. To Julie and me who watched him go, he looked a small and pathetically lonely figure against the immensity of the mountains. ‘What will happen to him?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

Her hand touched my arm. ‘How deeply are you involved, Philip?’

‘With the police?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t get more than ten years,’ I said, trying to make a joke of it. But her eyes looked worried. ‘Get some sleep,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to be done about it now.’

She hesitated, and then she nodded and went through into her compartment of the caravan. I stretched myself out on the berth behind the driving seat and pulled a rug over me. I must have slept, for I woke up with a start to the sound of a car drawing up alongside. It was a jeep and for a moment I thought it was Legard. But then I saw there was a Berber at the wheel, and it was Kostos who climbed out of the passenger seat. He saw me and waved his podgy hand.

‘Lat’am. Where is Wade gone to?’

‘Wade?’ And then I laughed because the name sounded so odd now. I pointed up to the mouth of the gorge and he nodded and climbed back into the jeep which shot off up the track. I glanced at my watch. It was just after five. The wind had died away and all the sky over the palmerie was shot with red and gold and a soft blue violet as the sun sank.

I pulled on my shoes and hurried up the track. The gorge was already beginning to get dark and there was a damp chill about the place. It echoed to the thunder of machines and as I rounded the base of the slide, I saw that both bulldozers were in operation. White was driving one and Jan the other, as though they had settled their differences and gone into partnership.

The jeep was parked close to the point where the rubble was being tipped into the water. Beside it stood Kostos and the Berber driver. The Berber, in his white djellaba with the hood drawn up over his head, seemed so natural, so much a part of the scene, that he emphasized the incongruity of the European in his crumpled suit and the great, blundering machines. Every time Jan’s bulldozer rumbled past him, Kostos moved forward, shouting and gesticulating in his endeavour to make himself heard above the roar of the diesel engine. As I came up, Jan stopped and switched off his engine. Seeing this, White stopped his engine, too, and in the sudden silence the Greek’s voice, raised to a scream to make himself heard, was like the cry of some wild bird.

‘… do not stop, we will leave at once, do you hear?’ Kostos was waving his plump hands and his face was red with the effort of shouting. It was rather comic.

And then I saw that the Berber standing beside him was Ali d’Es-Skhira.

‘We would like to talk to you privately,’ Kostos said.

‘Anything you have to say, you can say to me here,’ Jan answered.

Kostos hesitated, glancing quickly round at White and myself. The movements of his head were jerky. ‘Well, what have you decided?’ His voice sounded small and peevish against the silence of rock and cliff and water.

Jan didn’t say anything. He stared down at Kostos from his seat at the bulldozer, and his gaze shifted to Ali. The only sound was the soft tinkle of water seeping through rock.

‘Come on now,’ Kostos said. ‘You make your mind up, eh?’

‘I’ve made up my mind. The answer is No.’

Ali took Kostos by the arm and they conferred together in a whisper. And all the time Ali was looking at Jan. Finally he spoke to him in French. ‘You are not the man I am expecting to meet here.’

‘No,’ Jan said. ‘He’s dead.’

Ali nodded his head. His face showed no surprise. ‘But you have the deeds of Kasbah Foum?’

‘Yes.’

Again Kostos and Ali conferred together. ‘C’est fa.’ Ali nodded and folded his hands in the sleeves of his djellaba. ‘My friend says that the original offer still stands,’ Kostos announced. ‘For the papers, five hundred thousand francs.’

There was a silence. Nobody moved, nobody said anything. It was like a tableau. Then Ali turned his head slowly and gazed at the cliff face, now rapidly being cleared of debris. His features were impassive. Only his eyes betrayed his interest. They were dark and brown, but they gleamed in the fading light.

He glanced at Jan, staring at him as though to imprint the shape of his face on his mind. Then he turned without a word and climbed into a jeep. Kostos hesitated, looking from one to the other of us uncertainly. He seemed nervous, almost reluctant to leave. He was a European, and I suddenly got the impression he was uneasy. Then he turned, ducking his head in a quick, awkward movement, and scuttled back to the jeep, his thin-soled shoes making a frail, scraping sound on the rocks. The jeep drove off and we watched it go, not moving or speaking until the sound of it died away and was lost in the stillness.

‘He. knows now,’ Jan said to me.

I nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘The wind has dropped, hasn’t it?’ His voice trembled slightly. ‘I think we should try and see the Caid right away.’

‘We should have gone before,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Of course. But it seemed a pity that this bulldozer should not be operating. And we’re so close to the entrance now.’ There was warmth and excitement in his voice again. ‘White doesn’t know the exact location of the entrance. But I do. Marcel gave me bearings. Another two days’ work …’ He stopped there, his excitement damped by my silence. ‘What’s the matter, Philip? You’re worried about Ali. Is that it?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s a pity we didn’t see the Caid this afternoon. So long as Ali thought you were Wade, there was no reason for him to oppose the visit. But now … it may be dangerous.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He climbed down off the bulldozer. ‘I didn’t think…’ His shoulders moved awkwardly and he made a gesture with his hands that embraced the cliff-face, the whole gorge. ‘I was too excited.’

Ed White came over to us then. ‘It looks like you really have got the deeds of Kasbah Foum,’ he said.

Jan nodded.

‘I see.’ He stood staring at us for a moment. ‘That makes a difference, doesn’t it?’ He seemed about to say something further, but instead he turned and walked slowly back across the rubble and climbed up on to the driving seat of his bulldozer again. The engine started with a roar and the lumbering machine turned back towards the cliff-face.

‘Come on,’ Jan said, gripping my arm. ‘We must see the Caid right away.’

‘It’ll be night before we get there.’

‘I know, I know. But that may help.’ He glanced back as a beam of light cut the gloom of the gorge. Ed White had switched on his headlights. ‘I was a fool. I forgot all about Kostos coming here at five. Once I got on that bulldozer … It was good to be doing something constructive. I worked with a bulldozer in Germany for a time — before they discovered I had other uses.’ He laughed quickly, nervously. ‘We’ll go and have some tea with Julie. You English are always less pessimistic after you’ve had some tea. Then we’ll go to Kasbah Foum-Skhira.’

‘We’ll need a guide,’ I said.

He didn’t say anything and we walked in silence out of the gorge. The sun had set and a velvet twilight was rapidly descending on the valley. But the palmerie was still visible and I could just make out the brown of the kasbah towers rising above the dusty green of the palms.

I wished we had visited the place in daylight. ‘If Legard had taken us there it would have been — ‘

‘Well, he didn’t,’ Jan said sharply.

‘No, but — ‘ There was no point in dwelling on it. The palmerie had faded into the dusk already. Everything was very still. It seemed impossible that the pale surface of the land could ever have been whirled up into the air in a cloud of sand; it looked solid and petrified in the half-light. ‘What are you going to do about White?’ I asked,him. ‘Don’t forget he holds a concession.’

‘Oh, we’ll probably come to some agreement. I like him. He’s easy to get on with. He’s a construction engineer and he fits this sort of country. If the Caid confirms my title to the place…” He didn’t finish. I think that the ‘If was too big.

We walked on in silence and as we neared the camp I saw something move along the darkening bed of the stream. It was a black, compact mass of movement. I strained my eyes and it resolved itself into a herd of goats being driven by a small boy. Jan had seen it, too, and he said, ‘Perhaps the boy would guide us to the kasbah?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘A boy’s no good. He hasn’t the necessary authority. They might not admit us. But if we could get his father …’ I was thinking that a man who had a herd of goats would almost certainly be conservatively minded and a supporter of the Caid’s policy rather than of Ali’s fanaticism. I turned off the track and scrambled down the bank. Jan followed us.

The boy had stopped now and was watching us nervously. I called to him in his own language to come and speak with us, but he didn’t move. And when we came up to him he stood, regarding us with wide, solemn eyes. He was like a startled animal and at any moment I was afraid he would turn and run. But the goats had stopped and were nibbling at the reed tufts. The boy was watching them all the time and I knew that so long as the goats were there, the boy would remain. They were in his charge and the responsibility was a heavy one, for they represented considerable wealth in this starved, arid land.

I explained to him that I wanted to speak with his father, but he stared at me out of his large, awed eyes and said nothing. I repeated my request slowly and clearly. He looked at the goats as though he were afraid I might spirit them away by magic whilst I held his gaze with my strange talk. Then his eyes came back to me as though fascinated. Probably I was the first European who had ever spoken to him.

In the end I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out two hundred franc notes. I held them out to him. He smiled shyly, eagerly, and shook his head. But his eyes remained on the notes. Again I asked him if he would fetch his father for me.

I knew he understood and I waited. His gaze alternated between my face and the notes in my hand. Then suddenly he leaned forward, swift as a bird, grabbed them from my fingers, and with a little shriek of excitement went scampering away after his goats which had gradually merged into the dusk as they drifted from reed tuft to reed tuft.

We watched him rounding them up with shrill cries of Aiya, Aiya, driving them towards the ruined kasbah. ‘Will he bring his father to us?’ Jan asked.

‘I think so,’ I said, and we went on to the caravan.

We had just settled down to tea when the boy’s figure went flying past, bare feet scuttering over the sand, scarcely seeming to touch the ground; a small, flickering shadow in the gathering dusk.

I turned the bus then and switched on the sidelights, and soon afterwards the boy appeared with his father. He was an oldish man, tall and slightly stooped, with a long, pale face heavily lined with years of sun and sand. We exchanged greetings and I invited him into the caravan. He sent the boy off and, after slipping his feet out of his sandals, he climbed in and seated himself cross-legged on the berth. From an inner pocket he produced the two hundred franc notes I had given his son and held them out to me. ‘My son is not to be paid for bringing his father to you, sidi,’ he said.

I insisted that he return the money to the boy and then Julie brought the coffee I had asked her to make and we talked. His name was Moha and he was the chief of a small village at this end of the palmerie. He was a man of some substance, with fifty goats and more than a hundred palm trees, and he had a daughter married to the son of the Khailifa, the Sultan’s representative at Foum-Skhira. He talked about the failure of the date harvest and how a year ago French experts had examined the trees and then the ‘machine like a bird had arrived and covered the date palms with smoke’.

‘And didn’t it do any good?’ I asked.

‘Insh’ Allah!’ He shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

But the smile didn’t extend to his hard, grey eyes. ‘The French officer has told us that it is the only hope for the trees and we believe him because he is wise and like a father to us. But this year I have no dates, sidi. No man is sure any more.’

It was the perfect situation for a man like Ali to exploit. I asked him if he knew that the Caid’s son had returned to Foum-Skhira. He nodded and I was conscious of a stillness about him, a sudden mental wariness. His eyes were hooded by the pale lids and the curved, predatory beak of his nose made him look like an old hawk.

‘Do you know why he has returned?’ I asked. But he didn’t answer. He had finished his third cup of coffee and, according to Berber etiquette, he would now take his leave. ‘You are a friend of Caid Hassan,’ I said.

He nodded, gathering his djellaba about him.

‘We wish to see him tonight. It is important. Will you take us to him?’

‘He is a sick man, sidi.’

‘I know. But we have to see him. Will you take us?’

‘Tomorrow perhaps.’

‘No.’ I said. ‘It must be tonight. At least guide us as far as the kasbah.’

He stared at me, his eyes narrowed slightly. Then he shook his head. ‘He is sick,’ he repeated.

Jan got up then. ‘Ask him,’ he said, ‘whether he was here when Lieutenant Duprez drank tea with Caid Hassan between the lines.’

The Berber’s eyes lit up suddenly as I asked him the question. ‘lyyeh, sidi. I was there.’

I told him then that Jan had been Duprez’s friend, that he had been with him when he died, and he stared at Jan, smiling and bowing as though greeting him for the first time. ‘He has a message for Caid Hassan from Capitaine Duprez,’ I added. ‘It is important.’ And then I asked him again if he’d take us to the kasbah.

He got to his feet then. ‘Very well.’ He nodded. ‘I will take you to Caid Hassan.’

I opened the door for him and he stepped out into the night.

Jan followed him. Julie caught hold of my arm. ‘Do you have to go with him, Philip?’

‘You’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘Ed White will be down from the gorge soon and — ‘

‘It’s not that,’ she said quickly. She was staring up at me. Then she turned away. ‘Well, be careful. This place isn’t like the mountain villages round Enfida.’ She picked up the coffee things and went through into the kitchenette.

I stepped down to the ground and closed the door. The little lit world of the caravan seemed suddenly small and remote, an oasis of light in the desert of darkness that surrounded it. The sky was clear and the bright starlight showed us the shape of the mountains crouched above the camp. The sound of White’s bulldozer came down to us from the gorge. There was no wind, but already the air was cold, with that still, frosted cold of a land where the soil had no humus to absorb and retain the heat of the sun.

We followed the piste down until, looking over my shoulder, the bus was no more than a yellow pinpoint of light in the immense black shadow of the mountains. Then we entered the palmerie and the trees hid even that small indication of human existence. We were alone in a cold, alien world.

It was very dark under the palms and we stumbled along countless small earth banks built to retain the water in the cultivated patches where millet would be grown. But finally we came out on to the bank of a deep irrigation ditch. The path was like a switch-back, but the going was easier. Occasionally a star was reflected below us. It was the only indication that there was water in the ditch. We followed the glimmering white of Moha’s djellaba through a world of almost complete blackness. All my eyes consciously saw was the still, fantastic shapes of the palm fronds standing darkly against the stars. My feet seemed to develop a sense and a feel for the ground. They found their way by a sort of instinct that was quite divorced from the control of my brain.

We came to a bridge of palm trunks spanning the ditch and there our guide told us to wait whilst he went into his village. We could hear him beating on the wooden door of his house and there was a dog barking. Then there was silence again. ‘I suppose you’ve got the deeds with you?’ Though I kept my voice to a whisper, the sound of it seemed loud.

‘Yes,’ Jan said. ‘And Marcel’s letter.’

I didn’t say anything. I was thinking that the only documents establishing his claim to Kasbah Foum were on him at this moment. I didn’t like it. If the guide sent a runner on ahead of us … If Ali knew … I felt a shiver run down my spine. It was cold and very quiet standing there on the edge of that ditch in the palmerie. It was like being in a dead world.

A shadow moved in the darkness. It was our guide, the white of his djellaba almost hidden by the blanket he had wrapped round himself. He led us on along the top of the ditch without a word and soon we caught the faint beat of tam-tams far ahead. The sound was a guide to our progress and as we neared Ksar Foum-Skhira the harsh, — lilting chant of the singers joined the rhythmic beating of the drums. Yaiee-ya Yaiee-ya Yaiee Yai-i… Yaiee-ya Yaiee-ya Yai-ee Yai-i-ee. The chant was repeated over and over again with only slight variations. It was insistent like the drumming of the wind or the singing of a sand storm.

We reached a well with its pole uplifted against the stars and then we were on a beaten track with walls on either side. And when we came out into the open again, the noise of the tam-tams and the singing was suddenly very loud. Aiee-ya Aiee-ya Aiee-yaiee-ya. We were close under the walls of Ksar Foum Skhira now and there were people about. I breathed a sigh of relief. Aiee-ya Aiee-ya Aiee-yaiee-ya.

We crossed an open space and ahead of us, on a slight rise, the darker bulk of the kasbah showed in the darkness. We passed through the arched gateway of an outer wall, crossed an open courtyard of sand and came to the main entrance, barred by a wooden door. Our guide beat upon the wood and the noise seemed very loud, for the kasbah had the stillness of a place that had been deserted for a long time. A kid bleated softly somewhere in the darkness and from near the outer wall came the rude belching of a camel. A light showed through a crack and then the wooden securing bar was lifted and the door was pulled back with a creak of hinges. A swarthy, bearded man, his head swathed in a turban, stared at us suspiciously. He carried a carbide lamp in his hand — an elementary light made of a metal container with a long spout rising from it, at the end of which was a two-inch jet of flame that wavered in the draught.

Our guide explained that we wished to see the Caid. The thick, guttural sounds of the Arab dialect were tossed back and forth between them. ‘My companion,’ I said, indicating Jan, ‘was a friend of Capitaine Duprez. He has a message for Caid Hassan.’

The turbaned porter held the flame high so that he could see us. The light gleamed on his brown, inquisitive eyes. Then he nodded and stood aside for us to enter. The door closed behind us, the wooden securing bar was dropped into place and, with a quick little gesture that was part welcome and part a request to follow him, the keeper of the gate led us into the black cavern of a passageway. From nails on the wall he took two more carbide lights. The place was like an underground tunnel, dank and chill with walls and roof of mud so that it looked as though it had been hewn out of the earth.

We passed a rectangular opening that was a doorway leading to a courtyard. I had a glimpse of stars and the outline of one of the kasbah towers. We turned left here into another passageway. A yellow gleam of light showed at the end of it. It was the entrance to a room and, as we went by, I saw the glow of a brazier and figures huddled round it. The only lights were the carbide flames flickering from their wall hooks. Steps led upwards then — a staircase that followed the square walls of a tower. And suddenly we were out in the open on a roof top. Below us stretched the darkness of the palmerie and away to the right the shadowy bulk of the walled village of Ksar Foum-Skhira, from which gleamed little points of light — the gleam of braziers and flickering flame lights in rooms that had only holes in the walls for windows.

We crossed the roof top and entered the open doorway of another tower. There was a shallow flight of earthen stairs and then we were in a square room with two thick window embrasures, the small, square openings of which were closed by broken wooden shutters. The place was very cold and had a musty smell. It was completely bare. The floor was of hard-packed earth and the walls of dried mud. The ceiling was high, raftered with the soft wood of palm stems. The man who had brought us here lit the two carbide lamps, hung them on hooks provided in the walls and then left us without a word, taking our guide with him.

It was bitterly cold. The temperature was just on freezing and a little wind was driving in through the cracks in the shutters and the carbide flames flickered wildly. ‘They’ll bring cushions and rugs in a minute,’ I said.

Jan nodded, glancing uneasily about him. ‘Can I smoke?’

‘Yes.’

He brought out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. The only sound was the whistle of the wind in the chinks of the shutter and the singing from the village and the beat of the drums, which was so clear that they might have been in the courtyard below. Ai-yai-yee Ai-yai-yee Ya-ee Ya-ee Yai-i.

‘There’s a fire in Ksar Foum-Skhira,’ Jan said.

I went over and peered through one of the broken shutters. In some courtyard of the village flames were flickering in a lurid glow that lit up the corner of a tower and the piled-up walls of some houses. ‘They have to have a fire to heat the drums and so stretch the hides to the required pitch,’ I said.

The drums were beating faster now. The tempo of the singing increased, became shriller and then stopped abruptly. The drums went on for a few seconds and then ceased on a beat. In the sudden silence we heard the murmur of voices below us in the kasbah and then the scuffle of sandals on the stairs. Men crowded into the room, their arms piled with cushions and silks and hand-woven rugs. A big square of carpet was spread out on the earthen floor, the cushions were arranged round it and draped with rugs and silks. A brazier was brought, a red glow of warmth, and stood in the corner. A copper kettle was set on it. A great silver tray was placed on a low table that was barely six inches from the ground. Coloured glasses were carefully arranged and a silver tea chest and a white cone of sugar were placed beside it.

One of the men who had carried these things up was Moha and I reminded him that we were relying upon him to guide us back. He nodded and disappeared with the rest of the men. The room was suddenly empty again. We sat down cross-legged on the cushions and waited.

The minutes ticked slowly by. I found myself wishing the singing would start again in the village. Harsh and primitive though it was, at least it was a reminder that there were human beings around. The kasbah seemed quiet as the grave.

But at last there was movement again on the stairs and then an old man entered, walking slowly. He wore a spotlessly white djellaba of soft wool, the hood neatly arranged to frame his features. His beard was white and rather sparse, cut like a goatee, but extending along the line of the jaw almost to the ears. His skin was pale, far paler than mine, and his eyes were a steely blue. He was of pure Berber stock, unmixed with Arab or any of the desert races that so dilute the Berber blood of the south. ‘Merhba bikum!’ His gesture of greeting had great dignity. He motioned us to sit and he himself sank on to a cushion, folding up neatly and gracefully despite his age. Summoning one of the two men who had entered with him, he bade him make the tea for his guests, at the same time apologising to us in French for not doing it himself. He then made us a little speech of welcome in a frail voice that only occasionally paused to search for the right word. ‘You should have given warning that you were coming to visit me,’ he finished reproachfully. ‘I would have arranged a difa for you.’

‘It is very kind of you,’ I replied. ‘But things are difficult for you now.’

‘Yes, I know. But for our friends it is still possible to entertain them as I would wish. It is my people who suffer.’ He paused and then said, ‘You were with Monsieur le Capitaine this morning?’

I nodded.

‘Did he say when the food would arrive for my people?’

I explained about the two trucks that had broken down.

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ he said. ‘But why does he have to go to Agdz? Is he gone to bring the food here?’

I couldn’t tell him that Legard had gone to Agdz because of us. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he has gone to bring the food trucks.’

‘Good. But he must come soon. The people lose so much of their supplies in the disaster of the souk.’ He said this to himself rather than to us, nodding his head slightly. His age showed then, for he looked suddenly peevish and irritable.

‘They’ll be here tomorrow, I expect,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘Insh’ Allah!

‘I believe your son is here in Foum Skhira?’ I said.

‘My eldest son, you mean? Ali?’ He nodded. ‘Oui. There is dancing in his honour in Ksar Foum-Skhira tonight. You know him perhaps?’ His eyes had clouded.

‘Yes, I met him in Tangier.’

The pale lids closed almost wearily. In those dropped lids I saw suddenly a similarity between the son and his father. He sighed and changed the subject, talking about the rains and how the souk had been destroyed. And then the tea was made and the hot, sweet, mint-smelling glasses were placed in our hands. ‘Alors,’ the Caid said, ‘you say that you are friends of the Capitaine Duprez.’

I explained that it was Jan who was Duprez’s friend and that he had been with him when he died. The old man nodded and motioned the men, standing like shadows in the doorway, to withdraw. Only the man seated behind the silver-laden tea tray remained. He was small-bodied with a cast in one eye, but he had the old man’s features and he was called Hassan, so that I presumed he was one of the Caid’s sons.

‘Now,’ the Caid said. ‘You have come to talk with me about Kasbah Foum, eh?’

I nodded to Jan to go ahead, and he told him how he had met Duprez, how they had worked together against the Germans in Essen and how Duprez had died there.

The old Caid shook his head and sighed. ‘It is a sad end for him,’ he said.

‘He was serving France,’ Jan pointed out.

‘Mais oui. He always served France. He was a Frenchman. But he should have died here. This was his home and my people were his people also. He was a fine man.’ Remembering what Ali had told me, I was surprised at the warmth in the old man’s voice.

The man behind the tea table rose and replenished our glasses. ‘It is many years ago then that Monsieur le Capitaine died.’ There was a hard shrewdness in the old man’s eyes as he stared at Jan. ‘Why is it only now that you come to tell me how it happened?’

Jan tried to explain why he had not come before, what his life had been since the war, but it was clear that the Caid didn’t really understand. He was not ignorant of the world beyond Foum-Skhira, but to him it was a French world. The complications of other European powers were largely outside his knowledge. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you have come because the tall, fair man from America with the big machines is arrived to work at Kasbah Foum.’

‘No,’ Jan said. ‘I came because I had to. I did not know about the American.’ He produced the battered envelope and another smaller envelope containing the letter from Duprez. The Caid waved it aside. ‘I have been told,’ he said, ‘that you are not the man to whom Capitaine Duprez handed the papers. It has been suggested that you killed the man to whom he gave them. First, before I see the letter Capitaine Duprez wrote, you must give proof that you are in reality the man who was with my friend when he died.’

‘How can I do that?’ Jan asked. ‘What can I tell you that will prove it to you?’

The old man thought for a moment. ‘Tell me exactly how he looked and what he told you of his talks with me.’

For several minutes Jan talked, telling him about Marcel Duprez quoting long speeches that Duprez had made to him, about the Caid, about Foum-Skhira, about the Berbers and the country of the south. Only occasionally the Caid interrupted him to clarify a word or to ask a question. Jan was still talking when there was a disturbance at the foot of the stairs below the room where we were seated. Several men were talking, quickly, angrily, in Berber, and then there was the light patter of sandals on the earthen stairway.

The Caid turned his head towards the entrance, his forehead contracted in a frown.

The footsteps ceased. The figure of a man stood in the doorway. His brown djellaba merged into the black rectangle of the entrance so that he was no more than a vague shape in the darkness. His face was hidden in the hood of his djellaba, but his eyes caught the light of the carbide flames and glinted, as did the curved silver knife at his waist; the eyes and the knife were all that was visible of him. ‘Skun ya? Who is that?’ the Caid demanded.

‘Ali.’ And the man stepped forward into the light, his head and body only slightly bowed in respect for his father.

‘Why do you disturb me? Can you not see that I have guests?’ The Caid’s voice quavered slightly.

‘It is because you have guests that I have come,’ Ali d’Es-Skhira answered. He had moved to his father’s side, towering over the old man who seemed suddenly shrunken and much older.

‘Where have you been? What trouble have you been stirring up among the people?’ The old man’s voice sounded frail and peevish. And when Ali did not answer, he said to him, ‘Go. I will talk with you later.’

But Ali did not move. Tangier and his own rebellious nature seemed to have destroyed all the respect and obedience due from a Berber son to his father. He pointed to us and said, ‘These men come like thieves in the night, O Sidi, to steal from us the wealth of Kasbah Foum.’ He was still speaking in the Arab dialect and his voice throbbed with violence. ‘They are evil men and your people have need of their share of the wealth the foreigner may find in the gorge. Do not be deceived by them. They are thieves.’

‘We are not thieves,’ I answered him in his own tongue, and his eyes blazed at me in the flickering light as he realised that I had understood.

‘You thought that my friend was the man you had employed to purchase the deeds of Kasbah Foum,’ I continued, still speaking the Arab dialect. ‘But this afternoon, when you came to the gorge, you realised that he was not that man, but the true friend of Capitaine Duprez. That is why you have come here now in haste — because you are afraid that your father will discover the truth and will know that this man is the man Duprez chose to prevent you from using Kasbah Foum for your own selfish purposes and not for the benefit of the people of Foum-Skhira, It is you, Si Ali, who are the liar and the thief.’

He took a step forward, his sudden in-drawn breath sounding loud in the stillness of the room. ‘It is the talk of a man who is not sure of himself, sidi,’ he said to his father and gave a quick laugh.

Caid Hassan’s eyes were closed, his body relaxed as though trying to gather energy together inside himself. At length he turned to Jan and opened his eyes. ‘You have told me much that has convinced me,’ he said, speaking in French again. ‘Alors, monsieur, one final thing Did my friend tell you how it happened that I gave him Kasbah Foum?’

‘Oui’,’ Jan said.

‘Then tell me the whole story, and I shall be convinced.’

‘You took tea with him in the middle of the battle,’ Jan said. ‘It was then that you first learned of his interest in Kasbah Foum and the ruined city.’ The old man nodded and Jan continued.

It had been in the spring of 1934, at the very end of the pacification. The tribes of the district of Foum-Skhira were particularly warlike. Their resistance under Caid Hassan had been stubborn and the fighting had dragged on. Marcel Duprez, then a lieutenant, was among the French forces. He had been an officer of the AI in Algeria and four years before he had come in alone from the desert to prepare the way for the pacification and persuade the tribes that resistance would be pointless. He knew them all. One afternoon, when both sides had withdrawn after a day of particularly savage fighting, he had calmly walked out into the no man’s land between the two forces, accompanied by two Legionnaires. They were unarmed and all they carried was the paraphernalia for making tea.

He had set his brazier down midway between the two forces and, after quietly performing the ceremony of the making of the tea, had called upon Hassan and his chiefs to come and drink it with him. And they had come, knowing the officer and admiring his bravery. And over the tea table he had persuaded the Caid and his chiefs that the French must win in the end and that there was no point in continuing the fight. He had then talked about their history and, in particular, the history of the ruined city. As the sun was setting, terms were agreed, but for the sake of his young warriors’ pride Caid Hassan had insisted on continuing the battle for one more day, though it was decided that the fighting should not be pressed by either side. Duprez had then gone back to the Legion’s lines and all next day the two forces fired on each other with a great deal of noise, but little loss of life. And in the evening Hassan had come to capitulate.

‘You were taken to the tent of the general commanding the Legionnaires,’ Jan added. ‘But you refused to surrender to him. You said you would only surrender to the officer who had come out and served tea to you. They told you that Marcel Duprez had been wounded in the day’s fighting. When you heard this, you insisted on being taken to the hospital tent where he lay, and there, with the general looking on, you surrendered to Lieutenant Duprez.’ Jan stopped there and stared at the Caid. ‘That is how Marcel told it to me. It was because of his interest in the place and his plans that you gave him Kasbah Foum. Also, he loved your people.’

The Caid glanced up at his son. ‘Well, Ali, is that correct?’ he asked.

Ail said nothing. His face was impassive, but his eyes glinted angrily in the flickering light.

‘Say whether it is correct or not,’ the Caid said, and there was an edge to his voice.

‘It proves nothing,’ Ali answered. ‘Legard or the Commandant at Agdz could have told the story to him.’

‘And all the other things he has told me?’ The Caid stared up at his son and I was conscious again of the tension between them. Then he held out his hand to Jan. ‘Give me the letter Capitaine Duprez wrote.’

Jan handed him the letter. Lights were brought and placed at the Caid’s feet and, whilst he bent forward to read the letter, our glasses were refilled for the third time. The Caid held the letter in such a way that his son. leaning down over his shoulder, could not read it, and when he had finished it, he folded it up and slipped it inside his djellaba. ‘This is not a simple matter,’ he said, speaking slowly in French. ‘There is an old belief that silver was once mined at Kasbah Foum and that belief has been revived because of this American. I had hoped that it would be Capitaine Duprez who developed that place. He would have used it for the benefit of the people here. He had plans for hospitals and schools. I had hoped that perhaps I was giving him the means to make those plans come to life. But now he is dead and you are here in his place. How do I know I can trust you?’

Jan’s eyes were steady as they met the old man’s gaze. ‘I have come to live here,’ he said quietly. ‘Morocco is my home now. I have no home anywhere else in the world.’ He leaned forward slightly, a note of earnestness in his voice. ‘If there is wealth at Kasbah Foum, it shall be developed for the benefit of the people here. That is what I promised Marcel, and I shall keep my promise.’

He had spoken seriously and with force. The old man nodded. But he was still uncertain. ‘You are not a Frenchman,’ he said. ‘And you have only recently arrived in Morocco.’ He hesitated and then added, ‘What you say may be the truth at this moment. But a man easily changes his mind when his roots are not deep in the soil of his promise.’

‘I have come to live here,’ Jan repeated. ‘Morocco is my country now.’

The Caid glanced up at his son and then stared at Jan. It was as though he were weighing up the two men in his mind. There was a long silence. Finally he said, ‘Allah be my guide in this. It shall be as Capitaine Duprez wished it. I will give you — ‘

‘No.’ All’s hand descended on his father’s shoulder, gripping hold of it, digging his powerful fingers into the old flesh. ‘These men are strangers. They want the silver. Nothing more. They do not love our people.’

‘I do not believe it,’ the old man said, trying vainly to pluck his son’s hand from his shoulder.

‘Do this thing,’ Ali said, ‘and, as Allah is my witness, there will be trouble among the people.’

I stared at the scene with a sense of shock, scarcely able to believe that this was a son speaking to his father. In strict Berber etiquette the man should be as a child in the presence of his father, even to the point of making a request through an intermediary. Yet Ali’s manner was openly hostile, even contemptuous. The others in the room had noticed it, too. They were whispering and muttering among themselves whilst the two men — father and son — stared at each other. They were like two adversaries who had battled a long time. Finally the Caid gave a little sigh and his eyes, as they turned away, had the vacancy of the very old; it was as though they looked beyond the flickering walls, back through the dim vistas of the past. Slowly he pulled himself to his feet. Ali made no move to help him. His face was cruel with the look of satisfaction. ‘My father is tired,’ he said in French. ‘I must ask you to leave and permit him to rest.’

We waited for the Caid to speak. He stood there a long time, staring into vacancy. And all he said in the end was, ‘Yes, I am tired now. We will talk of this some other day.’

Jan-started to say something, but Ali silenced him with a gesture. He took his father’s arm and led him out. The Caid did not protest. But he paused in the doorway and looked back. His eyes fastened on Jan. And suddenly they weren’t vacant any more. They were intensely alive as though he were examining Jan’s features for a sign by which he could come to a decision. ‘Barak allaho fik!’ he murmured. ‘Allah bless you!’ His voice was gentle, like a monk saying a benediction. And then he was gone.

They brought lights and escorted us down the narrow stairs, across the open space of the roof top and into the bowels of the kasbah. A hand gripped my arm in the half dark. ‘I don’t like it,’ Jan whispered. ‘Ali is in control here.’

His words echoed my thoughts. We were in the dark tunnel of the entrance passage now. It was intensely cold and I tried to convince myself that that was why I was trembling. We passed the rectangular gap lit by the red glow of the brazier. Figures were huddled around it, as they had been when we arrived. They did not seem to have moved. It was just a brief glimpse and then the carbide flames were flickering on blank walls again, silhouetting the cowled, shadowy figures round us.

With a sense of relief I heard the scrape of the securing bar, the creak of the heavy wooden door. There was a rush of fresh air, a murmur of polite farewells, and then we were out in the cold, bright glitter of the star-studded night.

I turned, surprised that we were, in fact, outside the kasbah. For a moment the carbide flares lit the passageway and the swarthy, aquiline faces of our escorts, framed in the cowls of their djellabas. They were outlined for an instant, motionless like a tableau, and then the door thudded to and we were alone. It was only then, whilst the wooden securing bar was being dropped into place, that I realised we had been shown out without our guide.

Jan had noticed it, too. ‘Where’s Moha?’ he asked. His voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘Do you think…’ He didn’t finish the sentence, but I saw his hand reach into his breast pocket to make sure he still had the deeds there. ‘Do you remember the way back?’ he asked.

‘I think I can find it,’ I said. We had started to walk across the courtyard. We reached the archway and there ahead of us was the dark, towering shape of Ksar Foum-Skhira. There was no singing now. The village seemed as quiet as the grave. We came to the first of the wells and then we were under the shadow of the walls.

We stopped there as though by mutual consent and stood listening. There was no breath of wind and in the stillness my ears picked up small sounds — the grunt of a camel, the cry of a child; sounds that were innocent and yet, because they were not of our own world, disconcerting. ‘Do we have to go back through the palmerie?’ Jan said. ‘Couldn’t we cut across the Post and get on to the piste?’

The thought had been in my own mind, too. We both of us felt the need for open country round us. ‘All right,’ I said and we turned back, skirting the walls of Ksar Foum-Skhira, moving slowly, feeling our way in the darkness. Once we stumbled into a caravan of hobbled camels who champed and belched in the darkness, shifting their positions with nervous grunts.

We were on the south side of the village now and the going was slow, for we were in an area of intense cultivation and all the ground was criss-crossed with small earthworks about a foot high to retain the water when the irrigation ditches were allowed to flood. The palms thinned out and we were suddenly in soft sand. Here the desert had moved in on the palmerie, killing the trees and half burying them in steep dunes. We were a long time getting through the dunes, but at last we came out on to hard, flat desert and there, straight ahead of us, were the walls of the ruined souk.

After that we had no difficulty in finding the piste. We struck away from it to the right, making straight for Kasbah Foum, taking our bearing from the shape of the mountains hunched against the stars. The going was rough and uneven and we stumbled repeatedly over stones or fought our way through patches of dry, brittle scrub. It seemed a long time before we saw the faint glimmer of light that marked the position of the camp. We made steadily towards it and gradually the light separated into two lights and we could see the shape of the bus and, beyond it, the tents.

We couldn’t have been more than two or three hundred yards away, when there was a sudden cry — a yell that rose to a scream; high-pitched, sudden and frightening. It was cut off abruptly. I checked at the sound of it and in the same instant the headlights of the bus were switched on. They cut a great swath through the desert night and figures leapt to view, a huddle of Berber men bending over something on the sand of the piste. They straightened up and stood like frozen figures caught in some fearful act that should have remained cloaked by the night.

The horn began to blare then and they broke and ran. I was running, too, now. I shouted something — something in English. I caught a glimpse of White peering out of his tent. There was a stab of flame and the crack of a gun. Then he started to run. We were all running — running towards a still body that lay in a tight bundle on the piste. By the time I reached it, the man’s assailants — three or four of them — had vanished into the darkness that lay outside the beam of the headlights.

The body lying on the piste was alive. I saw that at a glance. The man was breathing heavily, his heaving chest thrusting the air out in great gasping sobs. But there was blood on the sand. ‘I didn’t hit him,’ Ed White panted. ‘I fired over their heads to scare them.’

‘Of course,’ I said and turned the man over.

It was our missing guide — Moha. There was a cut above his right eye that extended across his forehead and into his hair. It looked as though a stone had hit him. But down by his waist his djellaba had been ripped open with a knife and there was more blood. Jan thrust me aside, tearing the djellaba apart to expose the torn flesh of the man’s buttocks. He examined the wound quickly and then nodded and said, ‘He’s all right. Just a flesh wound.’ He sat back on his haunches, staring at the inert body. The man was still panting as though he had just flopped down after winning a race. ‘Why did they attack him?’ he asked, twisting his head round and looking up at me.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘We’d better get him up to the camp.’

As we lifted him up, I saw he had something tightly clutched in his right hand. It was a roll of paper. I prised the fingers from their grip on it and then we carried him to the larger of the two tents, where we laid him on one of the camp beds. Julie joined us there, carrying a bowl of water and some bandages. Whilst she set to work to bathe the man’s wounds, I took the crumpled paper over to the pressure lamp. It was written in Arabic, the writing thin and shaky, but recognisably the same as the writing on the deeds of Kasbah Foum. It was signed Caid El-Hassan d’Es-Skhira.

I touched Jan on the shoulder as he bent over the knife wound in Moha’s body. ‘Here’s the answer to your question,’ I said. ‘He was attacked because he was bringing you this.’

‘What is it?’

‘Confirmation of your title to Kasbah Foum.’

‘But I thought the Caid — ‘ He almost snatched the paper from me and stood staring down at the writing.

‘Does this mean Kasbah Foum belongs to me?’ he asked, and he held the paper out to me so that I could read it.

‘Yes,’ I said, peering over his shoulder. ‘The letter states quite clearly that the Caid agrees to Duprez’s choice of a successor to the title and requests the authorities to make the necessary registration. It further states that so long as you live, neither he nor any member of his family shall have any interest in the property.’ I hesitated.

‘What is it?’ he asked quickly.

‘He doesn’t mention your name anywhere. He simply refers to you as “the bearer of the deeds”.’

‘Probably he couldn’t remember my name.’ He was holding the paper tightly in his hand as though afraid it might vanish. ‘Does it make any difference, do you think?’

‘I don’t imagine so. You have the deeds and you have his letter confirming the title. It should be all right.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t understand, Philip. I never thought he’d agree to it so quickly. I thought he’d want to talk to Legard and make some enquiries … What do you think made him do it in such a hurry?’

The man on the camp bed groaned and moved. I turned and saw that he had recovered consciousness. ‘Maybe that’s your answer,’ I said. ‘The old man knows his son only too well.’

There was a movement in the entrance to the tent. It was the goat boy from the old Kasbah, Moha’s son. He stood there with wide, shocked eyes, staring at his father. Then he looked at us and there was anger and fear on his small, immature features. It was best that the boy knew the truth of it and I asked his father what happened.

Apparently Moha had received a message from the Caid to attend him in his room. He had found him alone on his couch writing a letter. This he had handed to Moha with instructions that it should be delivered to us with all possible speed. He had left with it at once, but, as he came through the palmerie, he realised that he was being followed. He was past his village then and all he could do was run on in the hope of reaching our camp before his pursuers caught up with him. He had almost made it.

We patched him up as best we could and then drove him down the piste to the nearest point to his village and escorted him to his house. Afterwards we drove back to the camp and had a meal. That night I insisted on Jan moving into Ed White’s tent. The American was the only one of us who had a gun. I had Julie lock herself in her own compartment and I was just settling down in the passenger seat where I should be within easy reach of the controls, when the door was flung open. It was Jan. He was half-undressed. ‘What is it?’ I said, for he was excited about something.

‘This.’ He threw something into my lap.

It was a small blue book — a British passport. And when I opened it I saw that it was Wade’s. ‘Where did you get this?’ I asked him.

‘It was in my suitcase.’

‘But — ‘ I stared at it. ‘How could it be in your suitcase?’

‘I think Kostos must have put it there this morning. You remember there was nobody at the camp that first time he came here. We were up in the gorge.’

‘But why should he return it to you like that?’

‘I don’t know. That’s what I wanted to ask you.’

It occurred to me then that Kostos, suspecting Jan of murder, was getting rid of the one piece of evidence that involved him.

I didn’t tell Jan this, but long after he’d gone back to the tent I was still thinking about it.

The passenger seat made an uncomfortable bed and I slept little. Nothing happened during the night and when dawn broke and showed me the empty expanse of desert leading down to the palmerie, I transferred myself to the bunk and slept through till almost midday.

By the time I had washed and shaved and had some coffee, Jan and Ed White were coming down out of the gorge for their midday meal. They were talking together and laughing as though they had known each other all their lives. Julie came out of the cook tent and stood beside me, looking up the track, watching them approach. ‘I’m glad,’ she said. I glanced at her and she added, ‘If Ed hadn’t been as nice as he is … it could have been horrible here if they’d hated each other. They’re so completely unalike.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘They have things in common. They’re both strangers in a new country. And there’s the mine. They’re both absorbed in Kasbah Foum.’

‘Philip!’ Jan’s voice reached me on the light breeze. He seemed excited. ‘We’ve found it,’ he shouted to me. ‘We’ve found the entrance to the mine. There’s just one corner of it exposed now, but by tomorrow we’ll have cleared it entirely.’

‘Fine,’ I said and sat down on the step of the bus and lit a cigarette, looking down across the sand and the dusty green of the palmerie to the Post gleaming white in a sudden shaft of sunlight. I was thinking that Legard would be back and wishing I had Jan’s power of concentration, his ability to shut his mind to everything but the immediate problem.

‘Jan’s right,’ Ed said. His eyes, too, were aglint with excitement. ‘I guess we’ll have the entrance fully exposed by tomorrow. After that, all we’ve got to do is to clear the rock fall inside the shaft.’

Their enthusiasm should have been infectious. But I felt strangely flat. Whether it was the place or just the fact that I saw the situation too clearly, I don’t know, but my gaze kept turning away from the gorge down the piste towards the Post.

It was an odd sort of day, almost English. Julie had laid the table out in the open under the fly of the big tent. The air was cool, despite the periodic bursts of sunshine, and there was a lot of cloud about, especially towards the west, where it was banked up in great cotton-wool piles of cumulus. ‘I’ve been ransacking your stores,’ Julie said to Ed. ‘I opened up some of your tinned turkey. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Why should I?’ Ed laughed. ‘That’s what it’s there for — to be eaten. Besides I owe you people a debt of gratitude anyway. If Jan hadn’t turned up when he did, it would have been a week or more before I found the entrance.’

Julie was standing over the table. ‘You boys are so interested in what you’re doing, I’ll bet you haven’t any idea why I’m serving a turkey dinner.’ There was laughter in her eyes.

Jan stared at her with a puzzled frown. It was Ed who suddenly laughed out loud. ‘I got it,’ he cried. ‘I got it.’ And he thumped the table with his fist. ‘By God, it’s Christmas Day.’ And he jumped to his feet and dived into his tent, coming out with a bottle of cognac. ‘Merry Christmas!’ He was laughing as he held the bottle up.

‘Do you mean it’s the twenty-fifth today?’ Jan’s voice sounded surprised, as though time had crept up on him unawares.

Julie put her hand on his shoulder. ‘And tomorrow will be the twenty-sixth. Your wife will be in Ouarzazate tomorrow. Remember?’

He nodded. ‘Tomorrow.’ He repeated the word as though it were something unattainable and I saw him glance towards the Post.

Julie turned to Ed. ‘Afterwards, I’ll drive you down to the Post. There’s probably some mail for you.’

‘Oh, don’t bother.’ He turned to Jan. ‘We got more important things to talk about.’

‘But you must have your mail on Christmas Day,’ Julie said. ‘There’ll probably be some presents — ‘

Something in the expression on his face stopped her. He was standing with the bottle in his hand looking round at the tent. ‘I’ve been too much of a rolling stone, I guess. And I’ve no family anyway.’ He came over to the table. ‘Come on, let’s have a drink.’ And he began to pour us each a cognac.

We drank a toast and then we started to feed. Every now and then Jan glanced uneasily down the piste towards the palmerie. It was as though he were waiting for something to happen, for tomorrow — the future — to catch up with him.

About halfway through the meal he suddenly stopped eating, his eyes staring down towards Foum-Skhira. I turned in my seat and saw a little puff of sand scurrying along the edge of the palmerie. It was a French truck driving fast along the piste towards us. ‘Do you think Legard is back?’ he asked me.

The truck drew up by the tent in a cloud of sand. The bearded orderly from the Post was at the wheel. ‘Bureau,’ he shouted, pointing urgently towards Foum Skhira.

I got up and went over to him. ‘Who wants us to go to the Bureau?’ I asked the Berber.

But he insisted on sticking to his limited French. ‘Bureau,’ he repeated. ‘Vite, vite, monsieur.’ It was clear that for official business he regarded French as the only language to talk to Europeans.

I asked him again who wanted us, whether Legard was back, but he remained obstinately silent, merely repeating, ‘Bureau, monsieur.’

‘fa va,’ I said and went back to the others. ‘I think we’d better go and see what’s happened,’ I told Jan.

He nodded and we continued our meal in silence, whilst the orderly sat stolidly waiting for us in his truck. When we had finished I got to my feet. ‘I’ll drive you down, shall I?’ Julie said. Ed sat watching us. His freckled face was puckered in a frown. Jan drew me to one side. ‘I’m just going to have a word with Ed,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll join you. We’ve come to an understanding — a sort of gentleman’s agreement. I want him to realise that whatever Legard’s instructions about me, he’s free to go ahead on his own.’ He turned back to the table then, and Julie and I went out to the bus.

As we climbed in, she said, ‘I’ve got something for you, Philip. I wanted to give it to you before the meal, but I couldn’t because of Ed.’ She went through into her section of the caravan and came out carrying one of George’s canvases. She turned it round so that I could see it. It was a painting of the ravine at Enfida, showing the Mission house as a small white building above the green of the olive trees. ‘It’s just to remind you of us — to hang in your room when you build your new Mission.’

I looked at her, feeling a sudden lump in my throat. I took a step forward and then stopped. ‘But you’ve so few of his paintings. I couldn’t possibly — ‘

‘Please. I want you to have it. He would have wanted it, too. I told you, he was doing a painting for you when — when it happened.’

She held the canvas out to me and I took it, still staring at her. Her eyes were wide and close to tears. A pulse beat in her throat. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ I murmured. ‘I haven’t words to thank you.’

‘Just remember where I have asked you to hang it.’

I looked down at the painting, not knowing how to tell her what I felt. And then Jan came in. Julie went past me to the driving seat and started the engine. We drove past the tent where Ed White sat alone and down the piste towards Foum Skhira, the orderly trailing us in his truck.

The day had clouded over completely now and the wind was getting up so that all the sky beyond the palmerie was brown with sand. It was like it had been the day before. But the wind was from the other direction now and as we ran along the edge of the palmerie, we were sheltered from the drifting sand and all we experienced of the rising wind was the thrashing of the palm fronds as the soft, springy trunks bent under the thrust of it, though away to the left, between us and the mountains, the sand was on the move everywhere. We didn’t catch the full force of it again until we drove past the remains of the souk and out into the open space between Ksar Foum-Skhira and the forts. And here, besides the sand, the windscreen became spotted with rain.

There was a Citroen parked outside the Bureau and we drew up beside it. ‘That’s not Legard’s car,’ Jan said. ‘He had a jeep.’

‘Maybe somebody gave him a lift back,’ I said. But I noticed as we walked past it that it wasn’t an Army car. Under its white coating of dust it was black. I had a sudden sense of being trapped and glanced quickly at Jan. He was frowning and his eyes were looking around him uneasily.

The orderly hurried past us, his cloak flapping in the wind. We followed him into the passageway of the Bureau. He went straight to Legard’s office, knocked and went in. I hesitated, trying to catch what was being said, but they spoke softly. And then the orderly emerged again and beckoned to us.

Julie went in first and then Jan. They both stopped and there was a look of shocked surprise on Jan’s face. Then I, too, was inside the office and the sense of being trapped was overpowering.

It wasn’t Legard sitting at the desk in there. It was Bilvidic.

He rose as he saw Julie. ‘Mademoiselle Corrigan?’ he asked.

Julie nodded. ‘We were expecting to see Capitaine Legard.’

‘Ah yes. But he stayed to organise his food trucks. My name is Bilvidic, of the Surete in Casablanca.’ He paused and regarded Jan, who had turned automatically towards the door as though seeking escape. But the door had closed and, standing against it, was a man who was obviously a policeman in plain clothes. He was tall, thick-set, with sallow features and a flattened nose. Bilvidic motioned Julie to a seat. ‘Tell me, Mademoiselle Corrigan, how long have you known this gentleman?’ He indicated Jan.

‘Not very long,’ Julie answered. ‘Why?’

‘And all the time you have known him as Dr Kavan?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you agreed to drive him down here to Foum-Skhira?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Miss Corrigan has nothing to do with this business,’

I said quickly. ‘If you want to ask questions, please put them to me.’

‘Very well, monsieur. Since you wish it.’ Bilvidic’s grey eyes stared at me frostily over their little pouches. ‘Why did you lie to me? Why do you say this man has flown from England? You knew that we would check.’

I looked across at Jan. But he didn’t say anything. He was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, his head slightly bowed; quite still like a man considering a problem.

Bilvidic, waiting, produced his pack of American cigarettes and lit himself one. ‘Eh bien,’ he said, and sat down on the corner of the desk and inhaled the smoke from his cigarette. ‘Since you do not wish to talk, I will tell you what we have been doing. First we check with Paris and London. There is no Dr Kavan leaving London Airport on the night of the eighteenth. There is no Dr Kavan leaving Orly Airport in Paris for Casablanca on the morning of the nineteenth.’ He glanced at Jan. ‘But you were on that flight from Tangier to Casablanca and you are shown on the list of passengers as having booked through from Paris.’ He made little clicking noises with his tongue and his eyes switched to me. ‘Why did you do it, Monsieur Latham? It was stupid of you. Now you must come to Casablanca for questioning.’ He turned to Jan. ‘Alors, monsieur. Your name is Roland Tregareth Wade, yes? And you are the owner of the yacht that is wrecked near Tangier on the night of the eighteenth.’

I waited for Jan to deny it, but he didn’t speak.

‘What’s the charge?’ I asked and my voice sounded nervous for I thought it would be murder.

But Bilvidic said, ‘There is no charge. He is being held for questioning. That is all. And we have to be in Casablanca by the morning.’

‘By tomorrow morning?’ It was over three hundred miles across the mountains. ‘It means driving all night. If there’s no charge, surely it isn’t as urgent — ‘

‘My headquarters insist that we are there by the morning.’

‘But why?’

‘It is nothing to do with us, monsieur. I do not wish to drive through the night any more than you do. Nor do I enjoy being here in the desert for Christmas Day,’ he added sharply. ‘It is because of the British authorities. This man’ — he nodded towards Jan — ‘has been masquerading as Dr Kavan. They insist that the matter of his identity is resolved immediately. If you do not like it, then you have only your government to blame.’

‘But I tell you he is Dr Kavan.’

‘Non, wow.’ He shook his head. ‘It is no good, monsieur. Undoubtedly he is Wade.’ He tapped a sheaf of notes that lay in front of him on the desk. ‘You see, the body of Dr Jan Kavan was washed up on the coast of Portugal near Cape St Vincent four days ago.’

There was a sudden silence in the room. Jan had moved forward slightly as though to ask a question. But now his eyes were fixed on the floor again. I was conscious of the tenseness of his body.

Bilvidic rose and moved behind the desk. ‘Tell me, monsieur, how much did Kavan tell you about himself when he applied for the post of doctor at your Mission?’

‘Not very much,’ I said. ‘Just that he was a qualified doctor and that — ‘

‘He did not tell you he was a famous scientist? Ah, well then, you would not appreciate the interest this matter has aroused. It is in all the British papers. But now that his body has been discovered his disappearance is no longer a mystery.’

‘If you’re certain the body was from the Gay Juliet, then it is Wade’s body.’ I looked across at Jan. Why the devil didn’t he say something? ‘What makes them think it’s Kavan’s?’ I asked Bilvidic.

‘It is definite, monsieur. We have a full report at headquarters. The state of the body, of course, was not good. But the general description is exact, and he is wearing a windbreaker purchased in Durham, which is where Kavan worked. It even had the name Kavan on it and in the pocket is a watch inscribed in Czech which was given to Kavan by his wife.’ He shook his head. ‘There is absolutely no doubt, monsieur. But the British insist that we check the identity of your friend here, and. also there is the matter of illegal entry into Morocco.’

‘Listen, monsieur,’ I said. ‘I assure you that this man is Kavan. There were two men on the boat — Kavan and Wade. It was Kavan I pulled out of the sea at Jews’ Bay.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Tell me one thing,’ he said. ‘Did you ever meet this Dr Kavan — when you engaged him to be your doctor, for instance?’

‘No. It was all arranged by letter.’

‘Exactly. In fact, you have never seen the real Dr Kavan. You have no idea what he looks like.’

‘I assure you — ‘

But he cut me short, leaning quickly forward. ‘Have you had occasion to call on this gentleman’s services as a doctor?’

‘No, not personally, but when — ‘

‘So you do not know if he is a doctor or not. Have you ever heard him speak Czech?’ I looked across at Kavan. ‘Well, have you, monsieur? Has he ever spoken one word of Czech since you have known him?’

‘It’s no use, Philip,’ Jan said quietly, speaking in English.

‘Oh, don’t be a fool. All you’ve got to do is talk to him in your own language.’

‘I know.’

‘Don’t you realise what this may lead to?’

He didn’t answer me, but turned away towards the window and stood there, staring out at the drab expanse of rainswept sand. He seemed suddenly to have withdrawn from the room.

I was angry and a little scared. ‘Are you crazy?’ And when he still said nothing, I turned back to Bilvidic. ‘I give you my word that this man is Kavan,’ I told him in French.

He frowned, annoyed at my insistence. ‘You admit, monsieur, that he is the man you rescued from the sea at Tangier?’

I nodded.

‘And he is also the man who shared your room at the Hotel Malabata, the man you put on the plane at Tangier Airport?’

‘Yes.’

‘And yet you still insist that he is Kavan?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very well.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Then we will settle it finally.’ He nodded to the plain-clothes man standing against the door, and he opened it and disappeared. There was a momentary silence as we waited, and then footsteps sounded on the bare concrete of the passage. There was the man’s heavy tread, and also the shorter, lighter tap of a woman’s heels.

We were all of us facing the door as it was thrust open and she entered. It was Karen Kavan and she stopped in the doorway, her face frozen with the shock of seeing us there. Her gaze went straight to Jan. But he made no move. He just stood there, looking at her, his face expressionless. She turned to me then. There was a desperate, bewildered look in her eyes — it was as though she was pleading for me to tell her what to do.

And then Bilvidic’s voice cut the stillness of the room. ‘One question, madame.’ He pointed t6 Jan. ‘Is this man your husband?’

I saw her hesitate. I thought she was going to tell him the truth. But then Jan turned away again towards the window and her face froze so that there was no sign of recognition in it. ‘No.’ She was looking straight at the detective, her face white and strained, just as it had been in the cafe by the waterfront in Tangier, and she was twisting at the gold band of her wedding ring. Her features might have been chiselled out of stone, they were so controlled.

‘Have you ever seen him before?’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was scarcely above a whisper.

‘What is his name, please?’

Again the momentary hesitation. ‘So far as I know it is Monsieur Wade.’

‘Thank you.’ Bilvidic nodded and the plain-clothes man opened the door for her. She paused a moment. Then she went quickly out, and Jan made no move to stop her going. He had turned at the sound of her footsteps, that was all, and he stood there, staring at the open doorway through which she had passed, his face empty of all expression. I couldn’t stand it.

‘For God’s sake!’ I cried. ‘Tell them who you are. Have them bring your wife back again. Don’t you see what you’re doing to her?’

I had spoken in English, but he replied in French. ‘It is useless.’ His voice was harsher now, suddenly determined.

I stared at him. If he had just said one word to her, I turned to Bilvidic. ‘Monsieur. I want you to bring the girl back. These two — ‘

‘Philip!’ Jan’s voice was suddenly angry. ‘This is nothing to do with you. Keep out of it. You hear?’ He turned to Bilvidic and said in French: ‘You say I’m not under arrest?’

‘No.’

‘I have important work to do here. We’re opening up a silver mine. Since I’m not under arrest, is there any reason why I should have to come to Casablanca with you?’

Bilvidic shrugged his shoulders and smiled coldly. ‘If you refuse to accompany me voluntarily, then I have orders to arrest you on a charge of entering Maroc under another man’s name and with another man’s papers.’

‘I see.’ Jan hesitated and then turned towards the door. ‘Very well. The sooner we get started the better,’ he said-and his voice sounded tense. I listened to his footsteps going slowly down the passage. He didn’t pause as he went out to the waiting car.

‘Monsieur?’ Bilvidic was looking at me. His assistant came in and he ordered him to fellow Jan. I glanced at Julie. She was looking pale and a little scared.

‘What do you want me to do, Philip?’ Her voice trembled slightly. ‘There must be something I can do?’

‘Do you think you could drive the bus alone as far as Ouarzazate?’

‘Of course.’

‘Go to the gite d’etapes there and phone the British Consul at Rabat. Tell him the whole thing. Make him understand that this man is Dr Kavan.’

‘But how do you know — ‘ She stopped abruptly. But she had said enough. I suddenly realised that she, too, wasn’t certain about Jan’s identity. ‘I’m worried about you,’ she said. ‘Not him.’

‘Just do as I ask.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, of course. And then I’ll come on to Casa.’

‘It’s too long a drive.’

‘I’ll leave the bus at Ouarzazate and come on by CTM.’ And then she smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be there to bail you out.’

Bilvidic must have understood the gist of what we had been saying. ‘If you are going to Ouarzazate, mademoiselle,’ he said, ‘then perhaps you will be so kind as to take Madame Kavan with you. She also has to go to Ouarzazate …’

I slipped out of the office and walked down the passage. I had seen Karen standing by the open door of one of the other offices. She heard me coming towards her and turned. Then she went back into the office. When I reached the door she was standing by the window, staring out at the desert. She couldn’t see the car from there. She was staring out at nothing, deliberately trying to avoid me. She was quite still and her face was set hard like a mask.

I went over to her. ‘Why on earth did you say he was Wade?’ I said. ‘Can’t you see it doesn’t matter any more? You’re safe. You’re both of you safe. There was no point in it.’ She stared at me as though I were a stranger to her. ‘For goodness’ sake tell them the truth. I don’t know what Jan’s idea is, but it’ll only land him in real trouble. Come back now and tell Bilvidic who Jan is.’

But she made no move. ‘If that is what he wants, he would have spoken to me.’ She said it flatly and without hope.

‘He doesn’t understand,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s doing. A body has been found in Portugal and sooner or later the police will — ‘

‘It is my husband’s body.’ Her voice was toneless as though she was repeating something in her sleep.

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ I said, and I caught hold of her and turned her towards me. ‘Go out to the car and talk to him. Tell Bilvidic the truth.’

She stared up at me, her eyes wide with sudden hostility. I thought for a moment she was going to struggle, but then her body went slack under my hands and her eyes were blank. It was as though she had withdrawn completely inside herself. ‘Don’t you understand?’ I cried, shaking her. ‘If you let the police go on thinking he’s Wade, he’ll face a serious charge. Wade had a motive for killing your husband. For God’s sake tell them who he is.’

But she said nothing and her face remained quite blank. I let her go then with a feeling of hopelessness. Years of living in a police state had taught her this one refuge — silence. But surely there was some way I could persuade her. ‘You’re not in Czechoslovakia now,’ I said. ‘Please try and understand that I want to help you.’

She remained quite still, her lips tight shut. It was as though I hadn’t spoken. She was as obstinately silent as Jan had been earlier. I felt a sense of futility and exasperation. ‘Can’t you understand how the police — ‘ I stopped there, for footsteps sounded in the passage.

‘You are ready, monsieur?’ It was Bilvidic. He had paused by the open door, waiting for me. I glanced at Karen. There were tears welling from the corners of her eyes. I was shocked. I’d never seen her cry before. ‘Tell him now,’ I said.

But she turned her head away. It was a movement of denial, a final refusal. ‘Come, monsieur,’ Bilvidic said.

I turned then and went to the door. There was nothing more I could do. ‘Madame,’ Bilvidic said, speaking to Karen. ‘I have arranged with Mademoiselle Corrigan for you to travel with her. There is not room for more than four in the Citroen. She will take you to Ouarzazate.’

Thank you, monsieur.’ Her voice was no more than a whisper.

Bilvidic hesitated. Then he touched my arm and led me out to the car. ‘La pauvre petite,’ he said and his voice was softened by sudden pity for her. ‘She had hoped so much that her husband wasn’t dead.’

I didn’t say anything. There was no longer any point. The two of them together had effectively convinced Bilvidic. I was glad Karen was going with Julie, It might help, and anyway it meant that she and Jan wouldn’t be sitting side-by-side for hours on end in the enclosed space of the car stubbornly refusing to acknowledge each other. When we reached the Citroen Jan was already seated in the back with the second police officer. It was raining and the wind was thrashing through the palmerie. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The forts, the souk, the track leading down to Ksar Foum-Skhira — it was all empty and lifeless.

‘It is strange weather for this country,’ Bilvidic said. ‘I have never known such a winter.’ He said it for the sake of making conversation. He motioned me into the passenger seat and went round to the other side of the car. He glanced towards the mountains, his eyes

THE STRANGE LAND

shuttered against the rain. Then he shrugged his shoulders and climbed in behind the wheel.

Jan was sitting, staring straight in front of him. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t seem to be looking at anything. His eyes were quite blank and he seemed to have withdrawn inside himself as his wife had done and again I was conscious of this as something learned in a country that was outside of my experience, in a police state. It was as though the line of mental contact between us had been suddenly cut.

The engine roared and we swung round, slithering on the wet sand, spraying it up behind us. I glanced back and saw Julie and Karen walking out towards the bus. I looked at Jan again. But he hadn’t moved. He was staring straight ahead; not at the piste, nor at the mountains — rather at the future that was in his mind. A jagged line of lightning stabbed the darkness of the sky above the gorge and the noise of thunder went rumbling through the hills. Then the rain came down and the mountains were blotted out.