Tuareg

Captain Kaleb-el-Fasi always slept in until the sun began to scorch the tin roof of his cabin which, having been built it in the shadiest part of the palm grove, was usually around nine-o’clock in the morning. Unless that was, he had already been woken up by the clattering noise of dates falling onto the roof’s metal slats.

He would say his prayers then plunge into the trough of the largest well, which was about two metres away from his door. It was there that Sergeant Malik usually briefed him on the day ahead and informed him of what was going on at the outpost, which was invariably very little.

But that morning his subordinate was a little chattier than usual, buoyed by an enthusiasm that was quite unlike him.

‘That Targui is going in search of the “great caravan,”’ he said.

The captain looked at him as if he was waiting for him to say something else, then asked:

‘And…?’

‘I asked him to take me with him, but he didn’t want to.’

‘He’s not as crazy as I thought then. Since when have you been interested in the “great caravan” anyway?’

‘Ever since I heard about it. They say that it carried merchandise worth about ten million francs in those days. These days the ivory and jewels it was rumoured to be carrying would be worth triple that.’

‘A lot of people have died going in search of it.’

‘They were just a bunch of opportunists who failed to take a scientific approach to the organisation of an expedition of this kind and simply did not have the appropriate equipment or the logistical back up to make it.’

Capitain Kaleb-el-Fasi looked at him long and hard as if he were about to severely reprimand him.

‘Are you trying to suggest that we should use army equipment and our men to search for this caravan?’ he asked in mock surprise.

‘Why not?’ came his sincere reply. ‘They’re always sending us on senseless expeditions in search of new wells, worthless stones or to study the tribes. On one occasion a bunch of engineers had us wandering around in search of petrol for six months.’

‘And you found it.’

‘Yes, but how did it benefit us? It was exhausting and exasperating; the troops suffered from ill-health and three men were blown to pieces in a jeep loaded with dynamite.’

‘They were orders from the top.’

‘I know but you have the authority to send me on any mission you want; survival exercises, for example, in the “lost lands.” Imagine if we came back with a fortune! Half for the army, half for us and the troops. Don’t you think that if it was well distributed, it might even soften up a few generals?’

His superior did not respond for a moment, ducking his head underwater where he remained for a few seconds, as if reflecting on the proposal, then came up and said, without looking at him:

‘We could be locked up for what you’re proposing.’

‘And what difference would that make? Being banged up here or inside a cell. It’s just a bit hotter here that’s all. But less so than the in “lost lands” maybe.’

‘Are you that desperate?’

‘No more than you are. If we don’t do something we’ll never get out of here and you know it. One of these days these bastards will get the “cafard” and turn on us.’

‘We haven’t done a bad job at keeping them under control so far.’

‘Yeah, with a lot of luck,’ the well-built man admitted. ‘But when is our luck going to start running out? We’ll be old men soon, we won’t have the energy any more and they’ll just walk all over us.’

Capitain Kaleb-el-Fasi, commander-in-chief of the lost military outpost at Adoras, or the “Devil’s Ass”, as they called it in the army, tilted his head back and contemplated the palm trees that were completely still in the absence of any breeze and the blue, almost white sky that hurt his eyes just to look at it.

He thought of his family; of his wife who had petitioned for divorce and got it because of his conviction; of his sons who had never written to him; of his friends and companions who had erased him from their memory, despite having sung his praises for many years. Then his thoughts drifted to the circle of robbers, murderers and drug addicts who all hated him to death and who would gladly stick a bayonet in his back or a grenade under his bed

‘What do you need?’ he said without turning round, trying to make his voice sound completely uninterested.

‘A lorry, a jeep and five men. I’ll take Mubarrak-ben-Sad as well, the Targui guide and I’ll need camels.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘Four months. But we’ll be in radio contact every week.’

This time he turned to look at him.

‘You cannot force anyone to go with you. If you don’t come back they’ll have my head.’

‘I know who’ll come with me willingly and who won’t blabber. It’s best that the ones that stay behind don’t know anything.’

The captain got slowly out of the water, slipped into some short, wide-legged trousers, put on his nails and let the hot air dry his body, shaking his head sceptically:

‘I think you’re as mad as that Targui,’ he said. ‘But maybe it’s preferable to sticking around here and waiting to die.’

He paused then said: ‘We’ll have to come up with a reasonable argument for such a long trip,’ he said smiling, then added: ‘In case you don’t come back.’

Malik grinned triumphantly, although he had always known that he would win him over. Ever since the Targui had disappeared from view, very early that morning amongst the dunes, he had been working out how best he could present his plan and the more he had thought about it, the more convinced he had become that he would get permission to do it.

They walked off together towards the orderly room, then with a slight smile, he said:

‘I’d already thought about that.’ The other man stopped to look at him.

‘Slaves.’

‘Slaves?’

‘The Targui that left this morning might easily have brought us news of the slave trade and a caravan heading our way and in to our territory. Slave trafficking is increasing at an alarming rate again.’

‘I know, but they are mainly headed for the Red Sea or to countries where they are still allowed in.’

‘That’s true,’ Malik replied. ‘But what’s to stop us from trying to verify a report that we can later claim was just a false alarm?’ his said, breaking into an ironic smile. ‘Surely they’d just commend us for our conscientious nature and spirit of sacrifice.’

They walked over to the office, which was just a wide room with two tables in it and already stiflingly hot, even though it was still early. The captain went straight over to a large-scale map of the area that covered the entire back wall.

‘I always wondered how you got yourself sent to this hole in the first place, you being as smart as you are. Where will you start the search?’

Malik pointed straight to a huge yellow patch with a white space in the middle of it that was devoid of any paths, camel tracks, wells, or settlements.

‘Here, right in the middle of Tikdabra. The caravan should logically have avoided Tikdabra by going north and bypassing it. But if they took a wrong turn, and went into the dunes they would have found themselves in this bit of the “lost lands,” and it would already have been too late by then to turn back. They would have had no choice other than to try and reach the Muley-el-Akbar wells, but they never made it.’

‘That’s just one theory. It could have been there as much as anywhere else.’

‘Maybe. But they aren’t in any other part,’ he pointed out. ‘The whole of the Tikdabra area has been thoroughly searched. To the east and west of it. But no one has ever dared to search Tikdabra itself. Or at least those who’ve tried, never came back.’

The captain estimated the size in a glance:

“Over fifteen hundred square kilometers of dunes and stony ground. You’d have as much chance of finding a white flea in a herd of meharis.’

His reply was concise:

‘I’ve got eleven years to look for it.’

The captain sat down on an old chair made out of gazelle leather, rummaged around for a cigarette and then lit it slowly, concentrating his attention on the map that had been hanging there since he had first arrived at Adoras and that he knew like the back of his hand. He knew the desert well and what it meant to go into an erg like Tikdabra, which consisted of an uninterrupted line of very high dunes that went on and on like a sea of giant waves. It was a lethal trap full of quick sand where men and camels could suddenly find themselves buried chest deep. The dunes were like towers that appeared to surround, by way of protection, an immense plain without horizons. This terrain was as flat as the flattest of tables, onto which the sun beat down relentlessly, making it difficult to see or breathe and boiling the blood of men and animals alike.

‘Not even a lizard could survive there,’ he said eventually. ‘Whoever decides to go with you is already restless enough, so you’ll be doing me a favour by getting them off my back.’ He opened the small safe that was fixed to the floor, hidden under some floorboards under the table. He counted the money in there and shook his head. ‘You’ll have to requisition some camels from the Bedouin people,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got enough money to buy any more and you can’t take ours with you.’

‘Mubarrak will help me get hold of some.’ He walked towards the door. ‘With your permission, I’ll go and talk to my men.’

He nodded in response to his salute, closed the box up again and sat there very still, his feet on the table, contemplating the map. He smiled, pleased that he had decided to accept the proposal. If it all went to worms, he would lose six men, a Targui guide and two vehicles. But nobody was going to give him a hard time for something that in those latitudes was, up to a point, fairly normal behaviour. There were a lot of patrols that just disappeared, maybe due to a guide’s mistake, a vehicle breaking down or an axle snapping, which turned routine journeys into unavoidable tragedies. This fact was actually taken into account when the dregs of the country’s prisons and camps were sent over to Adoras, the truth being that these men were not expected to return to civilization, because Society itself did not want them in its midst any longer. Once they were out there, nobody really cared if they stabbed each other to death, died of fevers, or got lost on routine patrols, or indeed, disappeared in search of a mythical treasure.

“The great caravan” was out there somewhere towards the south, everyone was agreed on that and it could not have just disappeared completely. The most valuable part of the merchandise was also sure to be intact still, despite the years gone by, or centuries even. With just a tiny piece of that cargo, Captain Kaleb-el-Fasi could leave Adoras for good and move back to France, to Cannes and to the ‘Hotel Majestic’ where he had spent some of the best times of his life. A place where he had enjoyed the company of a beautiful shop assistant who worked in a boutique on Rue Antibes and who he had promised to return to one day, although that was many years ago now.

In the afternoons they would open up the huge windows that overlooked the swimming pool at La Croisette and the beach and make love facing the sea until it got dark. Then they would amble down to have supper at Le Moulin de Mougens, El Oasis, or Chez Félix, ending up in the casino to risk everything they had on a number eight.

He was paying a high price now for those days, too high, he thought. It was not the desert that really got to him, or the heat and the monotony, but the memories that haunted him and the painful knowledge that if one day he did get out of Adoras, he would be too old to enjoy all those things again — the hotels, the restaurants or the girls in Cannes.

He stayed there for a while lost in his memories, letting the sweat run off his body as the intense heat turned the camp into a raging inferno. He was waiting for his batman to arrive with the tray of greasy and repulsive couscous that he ate every day without ever feeling hungry. This was his daily diet, along with a few gulps of warm, slightly salty, cloudy water that still gave him diarrhoea, despite the fact he had been drinking it for many years.

Then, when the sun’s rays started to pound down relentlessly and became so suffocating that not even a mosquito dared take to the air, he crossed the empty palm grove slowly and sought refuge once again in his hut, leaving the doors and windows wide open to ensure that he did not miss out on even the slightest whisper of a breeze outside.

It was the gaila hour, the sacred siesta hour in the desert, when for four hours during the day’s most intense heat, man and beast alike would lie still in the shade so as not to become dehydrated or knocked out by sunstroke.

The soldiers were already asleep in their huts and only the sentry remained standing upright, protected by the shade of a lean-to. He struggled, as he squinted into the glaring light, often unsuccessfully, to keep his eyes open just enough to stop him from falling asleep.

An hour later and the Adoras military post was deadly quiet, as if it had been deserted. The hand on the thermometer in the shade (since it would have probably exploded in the sun), was dangerously close to fifty degrees centigrade and the plumes at the top of the palm trees were so still in the absence of any wind that you might not think they were real at all, but paintings, pencilled into the sky.

Their mouths wide open and their faces covered in sweat, exhausted and broken, like lifeless dolls, the men snored in their beds, crushed by the heat, incapable of even brushing off the mosquitoes that landed on their tongues in search of moisture. Somebody shouted in his sleep, or rather cried out as if in pain. One of the corporals woke up with a start, his eyes dilated with fear, having dreamt that he was suffocating.

A skeletal black man who was wide awake in the corner of the room watched him until he calmed down and went back to sleep again. His mind was racing with thoughts, as it had done since the moment the sergeant had told him in confidence that they would be setting off, in a few days time, on a crazy adventure to the most inhospitable place on earth in search of a lost caravan.

They would probably not come back alive, but that was surely better than shovelling sand day in and day out, until eventually they were shovelling sand over his dead body.

Captain Kaleb-el-Fasi was also asleep and snoring gently in his hut, dreaming of the lost caravan and its treasures. So deep was his sleep that he did not stir when a tall shadow crossed the threshold. A man slipped into the room without a sound, went over to his bed, leaned an old, heavy rifle up against the wall — a souvenir from when the Senussi had risen up against the French and the Italians — and placed a long, sharp dagger very carefully just under his chin.

Gazel Sayah sat down on the edge of the straw mattress and pressing the weapon against him, clapped his hand firmly across the mouth of the sleeping man.

The captain’s right hand shot out automatically towards the revolver that he always kept on the floor next to the bed head, but the Targui pushed it gently away with his foot, whilst leaning still closer into him.

He whispered hoarsely:

‘You make a sound and I’ll slit your throat.’

He waited until he could tell from the man’s eyes that he had understood and then very slowly he allowed him some air, without taking any pressure off the knife. A trickle of blood ran down the terrified captain’s neck, mixing with the sweat that was dripping off his chest.

‘Do you know who I am?’

He nodded.

‘Why did you kill my guest?’

He swallowed, finally managing to whisper an answer:

‘They were orders. Very strict orders. The young boy had to die. But not the other one.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

He pushed the tip of the knife in further.

‘Why?’ the Targui asked again.

‘I don’t know, I promise you,’ he almost sobbed. ‘I get an order and I have to obey. I have no choice.’

‘Who gave you that order?’

‘The governor of the province.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Hassan-ben-Koufra.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘In El-Akab.’

‘And the other one… the older man? Where is he?’

‘How should I know? They took him away, that’s all I know.’

‘Why?’

Captain Kaleb-el-Fasi did not answer. Maybe he realised that he had already said too much; maybe he was tired of the game; maybe he really did not know the answer. He was also desperately trying to work out how he could get away from the intruder, who clearly meant business and what the hell, he wondered, were his men doing and why were they not coming to his rescue.

The Targui was getting impatient. He pressed down harder on the knife and with his left hand he gripped his throat tightly, stopping a cry of pain that was trying to escape.

‘Who is that old man?’ he insisted. ‘Why did they take him away?’

‘He is Abdul-el-Kebir,’

he said in a tone of voice that insinuated that was all he should need to know. Then he realised that the name meant nothing to the intruder, who was still waiting for further clarification.

‘You don’t know who Abdul-el-Kebir is?’

‘I’ve never heard of him.’

‘He’s a murderer. A filthy murderer and you’re risking your life for him.’

‘He was my guest.’

‘That doesn’t stop him from being a murderer.’

‘Him being a murderer does not stop him from being my guest. Only I had the right to judge that.’

Then with a flick of his wrist he slashed the captain’s jugular with one clean movement.

He observed the brief agony of his victim, cleaned his hands on the dirty sheet, picked up the revolver and the rifle and made his way to the door.

The sentry was asleep, in exactly the same position as before and there was still no sign of life or any breeze that might disturb the stillness of the deserted palm grove. He slipped away, moving deftly from tree to tree, then climbed up on to one of the dunes with practised agility and disappeared, as if he had been swallowed up by the sand.