Tuareg

Corporel Abdel Osman opened his eyes and immediately cursed his bad luck. The sun was already a quarter over the horizon and was heating up the earth, or better said, the white, hard, almost petrified sand on the plain. He sighed as he took in the torturous terrain before him. They had already been camping on it for six days now, in the most unbearable heat that he had ever experienced, in all his thirteen years of service in the desert.

He turned onto his side, tilted his head slightly and looked over at his fat companion, Kader, who was still sleeping and snorting restlessly, as if unconsciously trying to remain in the world of dreams and avoid waking up to the painful reality that surrounded him.

Their orders had been categorical:

‘Remain here and keep watch over the “lost land” until someone comes to look for you. That might be tomorrow, in a month or even a year. Move from here and you will be shot.’

There was a well nearby full of dirty, smelly water that gave them diarrhoea. They had been able to hunt up where the “lost land” ended and the high plateau of the hamada began, with its rough stones and tumble weed and old river channels through which, many thousands of years ago, water would have rushed on its way to the distant Niger and Chad rivers. As good soldiers, they were expected to survive there, in those conditions, for as long as it was considered necessary.

Whoever had given the orders had not taken into consideration the possibility that they might go completely mad in such solitude, in that relentless heat and it was clear that those orders had come from somebody who knew nothing about the Saharan desert.

A drip of sweat, the first of the day, ran down his thick moustache and slipped down his neck and onto his hairy chest. He sat up reluctantly and remained there, his dirty blanket still wrapped around him, squinting into the sun as he searched the white plain mechanically.

Suddenly his heart leaped and he reached for the binoculars, fixing them on a point almost directly ahead of him. Then he shouted out impatiently:

‘Kader! Kader! Wake up you useless son of a bitch!’

Mohamed Kader opened his eyes reluctantly, but without taking the slightest bit of offence to his companion’s abusive language. He had already got used to the fact that the corporal was unable to say his name without throwing in an affectionate insult or two.

‘What the hell is going on?’

‘Look. What do you think that is?’

‘A man and a camel?’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure.’

‘Dead?’

‘It looks like it.’

Captain Abdel Osman, who had been rummaging in the back of the jeep, leant back against the machine gun and looked through his field glasses again, trying to keep them steady, even though his pulse was racing.

‘You’re right,’ he said finally.

‘A man and a camel.’ He paused as he looked around. ‘The other one’s not there.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ the fat man said as he calmly started to gather together the blankets they had been sleeping on and set up the small burner they had been using to cook with in order to make some tea. ‘What’s surprising is that “this one” has managed to get this far.’

Osman looked at him questioningly and a little uncertainly:

‘And what do we do now? I say we go and look for him.’

‘That Targui is very dangerous. Incredibly dangerous…’

Kader, who had finished putting all their stuff into the vehicle, pointed to the machine gun that the other man was leaning on.

‘You point it and I’ll drive. At the slightest movement, you fire.’

His companion hesitated for a moment, then nodded in agreement.

‘It’s better than hanging around here just waiting. If he’s really dead we can get out of here today. Lets go!’

He positioned the gun, while the sweaty and obese Mohamed Kader started up the jeep and they set off slowly towards the two bodies.

When they were about three hundred meters away they stopped. The man in the back picked up his field glasses, while the captain kept his eyes firmly fixed on them.

‘It’s the Targui for sure.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘You can’t see if he’s breathing with all those clothes on. The camel’s dead, it’s started to swell up.’

‘Shall I shoot the bastard?’

Mohamed Kader shook his head. Even though the captain was his superior he was obviously the more intelligent of the two, well known in the regiment for his calm head and cold blood, or better said for his acute laziness.

‘It would be better if we got him out alive. He might be able to tell us where Abdul-el-Kebir is. The commandant would like that.’

‘We might get a promotion.’

‘Maybe,’ the fat guy said unenthusiastically, not even vaguely moved by the idea of a promotion and the possibility of any more responsibility. ‘Or maybe they’ll give us a month’s leave from El-Akab.’

The captain was spurred own.

‘Right, let’s move in!’

Once the were no more than fifty meters away they were able to see that the Targui did not have a weapon on or near his body and that his hands were open and perfectly visible. It was as if he had fallen down about ten meters away from the camel that he had been trying to follow, his strength having finally failed him.

They stopped some seven meters away from them, pointing the machine gun at his chest and ready to fire at the slightest movement. Mohamed Kader jumped out of his seat, picked up his submachine gun and circling around the camel so as not to be in Captain Osman’s line of fire, went over to the Targui, whose turban had fallen to one side and onto his dirty veil.

The fat man stuck his gun into the recumbent body, which did not move or make a sound. He then prodded him again with the butt of his gun and finally knelt down in order to listen to his heartbeat.

The captain who was still in the car by the machine gun was starting to get impatient:

‘What’s going on? Is he dead or alive?’

‘More dead than alive. He’s hardly breathing and he’s completely dehydrated. If we don’t give him any water he won’t last another six hours.’

‘Check him over!’

He did so carefully. ‘He hasn’t got any weapons on him,’ he assured him and then stopped as he opened up a leather bag and a cascade of gold and diamonds fell out onto the sand. ‘Fuck!’ he exclaimed.

Captain Abdel Osman jumped out of the vehicle and in the blink of an eye was at his side, grabbing at the money and handfuls of large stones that lay all around them.

‘What’s this? This son of a bitch is rich! Fucking rich!’ Mohamed Kader put his gun to one side as he put everything back in the bag again, then, without lifting his head up he said:

‘Only he knows about this.’ He paused. ‘And us now.’

‘What are you trying to say,’ he said, looking at him straight on.

‘Are you completely stupid? If we hand him over alive they might give us one month’s leave, but once he’s recovered he’ll want his money back and it won’t be long before the commandant comes looking for us.’

He paused. ‘What would happen if say, we hadn’t found the body for another few hours?’

‘Have you got it in you to leave a fellow dying like this?’

‘We’d be doing him a favour,’ he noted. ‘What do you think is going to happen to him once they get hold of him after everything he’s done? They’ll beat the shit out of him and end up hanging him. Or not?’

‘This isn’t my scene. I just do what I’m told.’ He leaned over to pull down the veil that covered the unconscious man’s face, which was haggard and lined and half covered with a wiry, white beard that made him look even older. He wanted to turn away but there was something about his face that puzzled him and suddenly he shouted out:

‘This guy’s not the Targui! This is Abdul-el-Kebir!’

In a flash it dawned on him that they were still in danger and he went to grab his weapon, but almost simultaneously two shots, only two, rang through the air. Captain Abdel Osman and the soldier Mohamed Kader flew through the air, as if they had been picked up by an invisible hand and fell back to the ground, the first one falling straight onto Abdul-el-Kebir’s body and the second man falling flat on his face.

A few seconds passed in silence. The captain tilted his head painfully, saw the face of his companion with a hole through his forehead and felt a sharp pain sear through his chest, mouth and stomach, but he still managed to turn over so that his face was upturned, in order to find out who had shot them

He could not see a soul. The plain continued on as always to infinity, desolate and flat, with no possible hiding place for a marksman. But suddenly, before his very eyes, which were already starting to blur over, a half-naked, tall, strong, man covered in blood, like a being from another world, a gun held firmly in his hand, emerged from the dead camel’s belly.

Once he had checked that the man who was still alive no longer presented any danger to him, he walked around the animal, over to the fat man and pushed his gun away with his foot. Then he walked quickly over to the jeep, which he proceeded to search frantically, until he found the water bottle and then drank from it at length, all the while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the wounded man.

He drank and drank, allowing the liquid to run down his throat and his chest, glugging it back until he almost choked, but continuing to drink as if his life depended on it. Finally and only once he had drank the last drop, he let out a loud belch and leant for a minute against the spare tyre, in order to regain his breath after the huge effort.

Then he took another water bottle and walked over to Abdul-el-Kebir, held his head up and made him drink as best he could, even though most of the water ended up all over his face, rather than down his throat.

Then he wet his face and turned to the wounded man:

‘Do you want water?’ Corporal Osman nodded. The Targui went over to him and grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him into the shade of the vehicle where he gave him some water and even helped him drink it.

‘I think you are going to die,’ he said. ‘You need a doctor and there isn’t one anywhere near here.’

Osman nodded and then asked with difficulty:

‘Are you Gazel? I should have remembered that old hunting trick you used. But the clothes, the turban and the veil confused me.’

‘That was my intention.’

‘How could you be so sure that we would come?’

‘I saw you with the first light of day and I had time to prepare myself.’

‘Did you kill the camel? Did you find the “great caravan?”’ Gazel nodded and looked back over his shoulders.

‘It’s back there, three days walk from here.’

The other man shook his head in amazement almost in disbelief. Finally he closed his eyes and his breathing became laboured. Then he was silent and ten minutes later he was dead.

Gazel remained still, squatting down before him in quiet respect of his agony and only once the man’s head had dropped onto his chest did he get up and using the last of his energy, dragged Abdul-el-Kebir into the back of the vehicle.

He rested for a while because the exertion had been too much for him, then stripped the unconscious Abdul of his clothes, his veil and his turban and got dressed again.

When he had finished, he sat down exhausted. He drank again and then lay down in the shadow of the jeep, next to the body of Captain Osman and fell asleep immediately.

He woke up three hours later to the cries of the first vultures.

Some had already pulled out the entrails of the dead beast, while others were moving towards the dead soldiers tentatively.

He looked up at the sky. There were already dozens of birds of prey up there even though they were still keeping to the edge of the “lost land.” It was as if they had appeared by magic from out of the tumbleweed and bushes of the nearby hamada.

Their presence worried him. A circle of vultures in the sky could be seen for many kilometers around and he did not know how far away the next patrol point was.

He looked at the sand. It was hard and even though there were pick axes and spades in the back of the vehicle he did not feel capable of digging a hole big enough for two bodies and one camel. Then he studied Abdul’s face and saw that he was breathing more easily, but was still, however, some way off from regaining consciousness. He gave him water again and checked that there were two full cans still, as well as one full of petrol and another with food. He meditated for some time. He knew that he had to get out of there as soon as possible but he had no idea how to work the jeep, which in his hands was nothing more than a useless pile of metal.

He tried to remember. Lieutenant Razman had been driving an identical one and he had watched how he had pulled the steering wheel from one side to the next and how he had pushed the pedals on the floor and constantly moved a stick with a black ball on the end that was over on his right.

He sat down in the driver’s seat and imitated all of the lieutenant’s movements, turning the wheel and pressing down hard on the brake pedals, the gear and accelerator pedals and pushing the black ball from side to side, but the engine still did not make a sound.

Then he realised that they were the movements you needed to drive the vehicle with, but first of all he had to start the engine.

He leaned over and studied the small sticks, keys, buttons and indicators on the control panel. He beeped the horn, which startled the vultures and he managed to squirt the windscreen with water, which was immediately wiped down by two mechanical arms, but there was still no sound of the engine.

Finally, he saw a key inside a lock. He took it out, but nothing happened and then put it back in, still with no luck. Then he tried to turn it and the mechanical monster revved to life, coughed three times, jumped along for a while then became silent once again.

His eyes lit up as he realised that he was on the right track.

He turned the key with one hand and moved the wheel like a madman with the other, but the result was the same, just splutters, shudders and silence.

He tried the key with the brake. Nothing.

The key with the pedal. Nothing.

Then using the key with the right hand pedal, the motor suddenly roared to life and continued purring gently as he eased the pressure off slowly.

He then tried out the brake, the clutch, the accelerator, the handbrake, the indicators and just as he was about to give up, the vehicle jumped forward, the back wheels running over Captain Osman, stopping three meters further on.

The vultures flapped around bad temperedly.

He started the whole process again and advanced another two meters. He carried on like that until the evening fell and when he finally decided to stop, he had only managed to put about one hundred metres between himself, the vultures and the dead.

He ate and drank, then made a soup of biscuits, water and honey, which he tried to make Abdul swallow and then the minute night fell he lay down on one of the blankets on the ground and fell into a deep sleep.

This time it was not the vultures that woke him in the early hours of dawn, but the cries of the hyenas and jackals, arguing over the carcasses. He listened for a while to them fighting, to the crunching of bones and the sound of meat being torn off the carcasses.

Gazel hated hyenas. He could put up with vultures and jackals but he had felt an uncontrollable aversion to hyenas ever since he had been a boy and found one morning that they had killed a newborn goat and his mother. They were repellent, stinking beasts that were cowards, traitors, dirty and cruel and in large groups, capable of killing an unarmed man. Why Allah had put them on this earth was something he had often asked himself.

He went over to Abdul who was sleeping deeply and breathing normally now. He gave him some more to drink and then sat down again to wait for the day to arrive, mulling over the fact that he, Gazel Sayah, would go down in the history of the desert and become a legend, as the first man to conquer the “lost land” of Tikdabra.

And maybe one day they would find out that he too had discovered the “great caravan.”

The “great caravan!” They might have made it had one of their guides veered just slightly south, but Allah had not wished it so and only Allah knew what sins they were being punished for and why their lives had ended in that horrific way. He was in charge of giving out life and death and the only thing to do was accept it gracefully and Gazel thanked Him for showing such benevolence towards them and for saving him and his guest.

‘Insh. Allah!’

He thought that they were probably in another country by now, out of danger, but the soldiers would still be their enemies and he did not feel that they had reached safety yet.

But there was no escape. The last camel was now being devoured by carrion beasts and Abdul-el-Kebir would not be walking for a few days yet. Only that lump of inanimate metal would save him now and take them away from danger. He felt suddenly very angry at his ignorance and impotence.

The simplest soldiers, the dirtiest Bedouin and even a freed Akli who had spent a couple of months with the French, knew how to get even bigger vehicles moving forward than that one and drove heavy lorries weighed down with cement. But Gazel, inmouchar, revered for his intelligence, his courage and his cunning, was like a stupid child in front of that undecipherable piece of twisted machinery. He loathed possessions, they were like the enemy to him and his nomadic life meant that he only possessed maybe two dozen objects, the bare essentials and even those he instinctively rejected. As a free man and solitary hunter all he really needed were his weapons, his water gerba and the harnesses for his mount. The days he had spent in El-Akab, waiting to capture Ben-Koufra, had been distressing, as he witnessed a world where real Tuareg men, who had once been as austere as him, were addicted to “things,” or objects that they had never previously heard of, let alone had any use for. These “things,” however, had apparently become as indispensable to them, as water and air.

The car and being carried by it from one location to another, for no apparent reason, had become, as far as he could work out, one of those indispensable objects. Young nomads were no longer content, as their fathers had been, to journey for days and weeks across the plains, in no hurry and free of stress, aware that their destination would still be there at the end of the road, as it would be for centuries to come, however slowly they travelled.

Now, by some strange twist of fate, Gazel who hated and despised these objects, who felt repulsed by every kind of mechanized vehicle, found himself at the mercy of a machine upon which his and his guest’s life now depended. He cursed his ignorance for not being able to make it run across the plain towards a freedom that now lay within their grasp.

Dawn arrived. The hyenas and jackals had fled, but the vultures were still there in their dozens, invading the skies with their dance of death, using their strong beaks to rip the flesh off the two men and the beast, who only twenty-four hours ago had been full of life. Their presence, there on the edge of the hamada, was like an announcement to the world that once again, in the “lost land” of Tikdabra, there had been another human tragedy.