The First Casualty

50

Lieutenant Commander James Whitefoot Andrews, USN (Ret.), noted Timbuktu ran not on horsepower but donkey power. Donkeys pulled two-wheeled carts loaded high with bags of grain, charcoal, or vegetables. Donkeys carried bulging sacks across their backs. Men rode donkeys, their sandals nearly touching the sandy streets as they urged their diminutive mounts on with thin whips cut from branches.

An occasional mud-splattered truck roared by, trailing clouds of blue smoke, its muffler little more than a memory. Noise and air pollution maybe, but the trucks did not leave something for the unwary to step in.

Young boys in what Andrews guessed were school uniforms chattered like monkeys as they dashed by for the first class of the day, each laden with a knapsack.

In the square to his right, brightly striped fabric provided shade to women in garish-colored hijabs who squatted beside clay pots of what looked like fish or hunks of meat. There was no effort at refrigeration. Was Andrews only imagining he could hear the buzz of the clouds of flies attracted to the display? Other pots contained rice and vegetables not all of which he could identify. Babies, naked and semi-naked, dozed in mothers’ arms while those slightly older chased one another noisily through stalls of weavers, fruit grocers, knife sharpeners, and bakers’ ovens. The sound was a babel of voices, each trying to be heard above the others as merchants haggled with customers. The smell of charcoal, fresh dung, rotting vegetation, and human sweat hung in the air like an early morning fog.

He paused a moment, unslinging a camera from his shoulder. He framed a picture. Then from a slightly different angle. His subjects were colorful and exotic, so much so he might even like to keep the images being recorded on the camera’s card. If it even had a card.

He was focusing on a woman taking something out of a mud-brick oven when two figures in white blurred in the lens. Irritated, he lowered the camera. Two men in what he would describe as Bedouin dress were carefully sorting through a collection of cheap beads on strings in front of a wrinkled woman who gestured wildly extolling the virtues of her wares.

Andrews knew next to nothing about Bedouins, but he’d bet a bottle of reasonably good scotch they didn’t wear beads. Pretending to ignore them, he moved about the bazar, snapping pictures in what he hoped looked like a professional manner. Wherever he moved, the two positioned themselves so he was between them, classic surveillance technique.

Seeming only interested in what he could catch in his lens, Andrews carefully noted the available alleys and doorways. He could probably give these guys the slip, but to what end? Suddenly disappearing was not something a man on a legitimate mission would do. Better to continue the charade.

Leaving the bazar, Andrews walked purposefully toward Djinguereber, the Great Mosque, whose twin minarets were already visible. Like Sankore, this structure was largely built of earth although the northern facade and one minaret had been repaired in the 1960s with limestone blocks rendered with mud, according to the Google site he had called up earlier. Also like the Sankore Mosque, Djinguereber had been built in the fourteenth century. The two, along with the Sidi Yahya Mosque, had formed the University of Sankore.

The narrow street, lined with mud and mud-brick buildings, made a perfect frame for a photograph of the building as its earthen walls were turning a rich chocolate brown in the morning’s sun. His two escorts, one on either side of the street, were making no efforts to conceal their interest in him. Ineptness or threat?

Andrews reached the wall of the mosque just as the last worshipers completed their ablutions, entered one of the three courtyards, and disappeared into the building. His two uninvited companions made a show of washing face, hands, and feet, but demonstrated no immediate intent to enter the prayer service. He resigned himself to their company.