Tuareg

The four men set off in unison, one to each point of the compass, under strict instructions to move in on the Targui at midnight, to shoot him dead if he resisted arrest and to return by dawn.

Sergeant Major Malik-el-Haideri would not let anyone go in his place and left before the mosquitoes had started up. He followed the tracks that the fugitive had left at the edge of the sebkha and climbed down into it, his rifle over his shoulder, still convinced that the dirty son of the wind had vanished.

He was unable to work out exactly when he had disappeared or where he would have gone to and he wondered how the Targui could have possibly escaped on foot and without water from that enormous erg, when the nearest well was about one hundred kilometers away, near the foothills of the Sidi-el-Madia mountains.

‘One of these days his body will just turn up, burnt to a cinder by the sun, if the hyenas and jackals didn’t get to him first,’ he said to himself. But deep down he was not convinced because the Imohag had told him that he had crossed the “lost land” twice and he was certain that he had not been lying. For the Targui, one hundred kilometers of erg would probably not pose too much of a challenge, although he did not know at that point that if Malik did not find him in the saltpan, he would be waiting for him at the nearest well.

The whole hunt had, for Sergeant Malik, turned into more of a personal vendetta, than simply a case of catching the fugitive in order to avoid intervention from the authorities. The Targui had made fun of him at the oasis, slit the captain’s throat under his very nose, had made him run from one end of the desert to another like an idiot and finally kept him waiting for five days, without knowing exactly what he was waiting for in the first place.

His men were muttering behind his back now as well, of that he was certain. On their return to Adoras they would comment on how the big, tough sergeant major had been taken for a ride by an illiterate Targui. It was not easy to control that bunch at the best of times and if they were no longer terrified of him, which until then they had been, they may well decide to make a run for it. If a captain could be murdered and the murderer get away with it, then there was no reason why they could not do the same to a sergeant and then just disappear. Looking at it from that perspective, his life there would not be worth a handful of dates any more, unless of course, he caught the Targui.

That afternoon Razman ordered his men to head inland, away from the plague of mosquitoes and while his men were taking the tarpaulin down that they had used as a refuge, he looked back one last time to the middle of the saltpan, focusing his binoculars on the officer who was striding determinedly over to the spot that he had become so obsessed with.

The soldiers that had stayed behind did not bother to ask whether the Targui had moved or not any more. The dead did not move and they were all quite convinced that he was.

Maybe the son of the wind had been courageous enough to let the sun fry him alive and over time the salt would cover his body and mummify him along with his camel. They might be discovered in the course of the next one hundred years, completely preserved and people would wonder why on earth a man had gone with his camel to die in such a remote and lonely spot.

Lieutenant Razman smiled to himself at the idea that he may well become a symbol of the Tuareg spirit for centuries to come, long after they had disappeared as a race from the face of the earth.

A proud inmouchar, waiting passively for death in the shadow of his mehari, hunted down by his enemies but secure in the knowledge that it was far more noble and dignified to die in that way, than to surrender and be imprisoned.

‘He’ll become a legend,’ he said. ‘A legend like Omar Muktar or Hamodu… A legend that will make his race proud and he will serve as a reminder to his people that at one time all of the Imohags were like him.’

One of the men’s voices brought him back down to earth.

‘When you’re ready, lieutenant.’

He looked back at the saltpan one last time, started up the vehicle and drove away from the mosquito-plagued area to set up camp in the same place that they had done so on every other night.

While one of the soldiers started to prepare a frugal supper on a small paraffin stove, he switched on the radio and called back to base.

Souad answered almost immediately.

‘Have you got him?’ she asked anxiously.

‘No, not yet?’

There was a long silence and then finally she said quite sincerely.

‘I’d be lying if I said I was sorry… Are you coming back tomorrow?’

‘We haven’t got any choice. The water’s running out.’

‘Take care!’

‘Any news from the camp?’

‘A camel gave birth last night… a girl.’

‘That’s great. See you tomorrow!’

He hung up, but remained there, the microphone still in his hand, lost in thought as he contemplated the grey shroud that had started to envelop the plains.

A camel had been born and he was off in pursuit of a fugitive Targui. It was turning into to an exceptionally busy week at the military post of Tidikem, where months would often go by when nothing happened at all.

He wondered to himself once again if this was how he had imagined it would be when he had enrolled with the military academy; if this was what he had dreamed of when he read Colonel Duperey’s biography — of emulating the man’s heroic deeds and of becoming the new saviour of the Nomadic tribes. In reality there were no longer any Nomadic tribes around Tidikem, since they avoided the outpost and all contact with the military now at all costs, having had such bad experiences at Adoras.

It was a sad fact that these military men had no idea how to communicate with these natives, who in turn regarded them as shameless foreigners who requisitioned their camels, occupied their wells and hassled their women.

Night had fallen on the stony plains, the first hyena cackled in the distance and a splattering of stars blinked timidly in a sky that would very soon be awash with them, in a blazing and resplendent display that one could never tire of admiring. It was the stars on these calm nights that had kept him going through those long, tedious and desperate days. “The Tuareg prick the stars with their spears to light up their way…” It was a beautiful desert saying; just a phrase, but coined by somebody who knew the desert and those stars well; who knew what it meant to sit in contemplation of them, so close to hand, for hours on end. He had been fascinated by three things, since he was a child: fire; the sea crashing on the rocks at the bottom of a cliff and stars in a cloudless sky. Looking into a fire made him forget even to think, looking at the sea sparked off memories of his childhood and contemplating the night made him feel at peace with himself, with the past, the present and almost at peace with his own future.

And then suddenly, from out of the shadows, came the dead man walking and the first thing he saw was the metallic glisten of his rifle.

They stared at him, hardly daring to believe their eyes. This was no salt statue in the centre of the sebkha, but the Targui, there, right in front of them, his weapon pointing directly at them and a regulation revolver hanging at his waist. From the expression in his eyes, the only part of his face that was exposed, they could tell that he was ready to pull the trigger at the first sign of danger.

‘Water!’ he demanded.

He nodded and one of the soldiers held out his water bottle to him, his hand trembling. The Targui took a few steps back, lifted up his veil a little and without taking his eyes off them and with one hand on his rifle, he drank thirstily.

The lieutenant started to edge towards his holster that was on the driver’s seat of the car, but the rifle swung round towards him and he saw how his finger tensed on the trigger simultaneously. He remained very still, regretting his move as it dawned on him that it was not worth risking his life simply to avenge Captain Kaleb.

‘I thought you were dead,’ he said.

‘I know,’ the Targui said, once he had finished drinking. ‘I thought so too at one point…’ He stretched out his hand, grabbed one of the soldier’s plates and started to eat, lifting up his litham only slightly with his fingers. ‘But I am an Imohag,’ he pointed out. ‘The desert respects me.’

‘I can see that. Anyone else would have died. What are you going to do now?’

Gazel looked over to the jeep.

‘Take me to the Sidi-el-Madia Mountains. No one will find me there.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘I’ll kill you and get one of them to take me.’

‘Nobody will do that unless I order it.’

He looked at him as if unable to process the stupidity of what he had just said.

‘They won’t listen to you if you are dead,’ he pointed out. ‘I’ve got nothing against them… or you.’

He paused before saying calmly: ‘It is wise to recognise when you have won and when you have lost. And you have lost.’

Lieutenant Razman nodded in agreement:

‘You are right,’ he admitted. ‘I have lost. As soon as it’s dawn I’ll take you to the Sidi-el-Madia.’

‘At dawn? No. Now!’

‘Now,’ he said in a surprised tone. ‘It’s bad enough navigating through the erg during the day. The stones slash the tyres and smash the axles, we won’t even make a kilometre at night.’

The Targui took some time to reply. He had snatched a second plate from one of the soldiers and sat on the floor with his legs crossed and his weapon leaning against his knees, barely chewing and eating so fast that he almost choked. ‘Listen,’ he warned. ‘If we get to the Sidi-el-Madia, you will live. If we don’t get there I will kill you, even if none of this is your fault.’ He let him think about what he had said and then added: ‘And remember I am an inmouchar and I will always keep my word.’

One of the soldiers, who was barely more than a boy, spoke up:

‘Watch it lieutenant. He’s mad and looks like he’ll do what he says.’

The Targui said nothing, but just looked at him hard and finally, pointing his weapon at him said:

‘Undress!’

‘What did you say?’ the boy asked, aghast.

‘Get undressed…’ Then he pointed to another of the men. ‘You too.’

They hesitated in protest but the Targui’s voice held such authority that they realised they had no option and started to slowly remove their uniforms.

‘Your boots too…’

They left them all in front of Gazel, who picked them up with one hand and threw them into the back of the vehicle. He got into it and nodded to Razman.

‘The moon is out,’ he said. ‘Lets go!’

The lieutenant looked over at his men, who were completely naked and he was overcome with a sudden urge to rebel. For a few seconds he felt inclined to challenge him and even exchanged a conspiratorial look with his soldiers, but they shook their heads and the youngest one said despondently:

‘Don’t worry about us, lieutenant. Ajamuk will come and get us.’

‘But you’ll die of exposure before dawn.’ He turned to Gazel. ‘Leave them a blanket or something.’

The Targui looked as if he might concede, but then appeared to change his mind and said jokingly:

‘Tell them to bury themselves in the sand. It’ll keep them warm and it’s good for their figures.’

Razman saluted them reluctantly, started up the engine and put his headlights on. He felt the end of the gun poking into his ribs.

‘Without lights!’

He turned them off, but shook his head despairingly:

‘You’re mad…!’ he muttered. ‘Completely mad.’

He waited until his eyes had become used to the darkness again and then set off slowly, leaning forward as much as he could to try and see any obstacles along the way. It was a slow and difficult journey for the first three hours, until Gazel gave him permission to turn on the headlights, which meant that they were able to pick up a bit of speed, at which point one of the tyres burst.

The lieutenant sweated and cursed as he changed it, watched over all the while by the barrel of a gun and it took everything in his power not to take advantage of the situation; to chuck his spanner away and get into a bare-fisted fight that might put an end, once and for all, to the embarrassing situation.

But he knew that the Targui was bigger and stronger than he was and even if he had managed to get hold of his rifle, the enemy still had a revolver, a sword and a dagger.

All he could do was wave goodbye to any kind of promotion and pray that things would not get any more complicated. To be killed at twenty-eight by somebody whose ideas he fundamentally agreed with would be astoundingly stupid and he knew it.

On the dot of midnight the four men converged on the dead camel and it was of no surprise to anyone that their prey had fled. Sergeant Malik-el-Haideri took advantage of the occasion to start cursing loudly. He cursed the Targui and somewhat more emphatically the ‘stupid lieutenant’ who had let himself be fooled like a bare-faced beginner.

‘What are we going to do now?’ one of the soldiers said, disconcertedly.

‘I don’t know what the lieutenant will do, but with or without his consent I’m going to drive over to the Sidi-el-Madia well. That son of a bitch might be a Targui, but he can’t possibly carry on without having drunk any water for so many days.’

A veteran that had been studying the mehari’s body to the light of his lantern, pointed to the gash in his stomach.

‘He’s got water,’ he said. ‘A repellent water that would kill most people, but the Tuareg are able to survive on this. He also drank its blood.’ He paused and then added in an assured tone: ‘We’ll never find him…’

Sergeant Major Malik-el-Haideri did not respond, looked back at the dead animal then turned around and started walking back towards his vehicle. From the level of decomposition, he calculated that the camel must have been dead for about forty-eight hours, which meant that the Targui would have sacrificed it two nights ago. If he had got on his way immediately, which he doubted, then he would have quite an advantage over them. If he had stayed for one more day there, just so they relaxed their watch a little more, then he could not have got very far, which meant that there may still have been time to catch up with him.

He knew that they were unlikely to catch him in the erg, because without his mount he could bury himself in the sand as soon as he saw a vehicle approaching. Even so, the water from the camel’s stomach would not last another day before turning putrid and the fugitive would be in urgent need of fresh supplies.

In the gullies and mountain valleys of the massif you might scoop out a few drops of earthy, salty liquid, which would be enough to help a traveller who had wandered into its labyrinth of endless rocky slopes on his way, but would never be enough to survive from.

If they took over the well then it would force the Targui to hand himself over or otherwise condemn himself to a certain death. Unconsciously he started walking faster and to his surprise found himself almost running to the jeep, so great was his desire to catch him. The moon had sunk below the horizon, but his sense of direction was almost as good as a nomad, having lived for so many years in the desert, so that by the time he had reached the bank and scrambled up it, he still had a good hour before dawn. He ran over to his men, cursing the mosquitoes that were already flying towards him furiously.

Startled by the sudden commotion, his men surrounded him.

‘What happened?’ asked the black man, Ali.

‘What do you think’s happened? He’s gone.’

‘So what are we going to do now?’

The sergeant did not answer. He had taken out his radio apparatus and was calling it insistently.

‘Lieutenant! Can you hear me lieutenant?’ After he had tried getting through five times unsuccessfully, he swore loudly then started up the car:

‘He’s that stupid that I think he’s actually fallen sleep… Let’s go!’

He sped off, bouncing along the edge of the saltpan, heading straight for the northeast, his men hanging onto the sides of the vehicle for dear life.