The Strange Land

by Hammond Innes

  In his view the people who had built it had come in from the desert. ‘It’s a very complicated history down here in the south. And it isn’t helped by the fact that it’s been passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation. Some of the officers of the AI have done some good work on reconstructing it, but I guess nobody will ever really know. Basically, it’s quite simple though,’ he added. ‘Nomadic tribes move in from the desert, become date farmers and goatherds in the palmeries, get soft and then themselves fall victim to another wave of tough guys coming in from the desert. It’s a cycle that went on repeating itself. But the people who built this city, they were something bigger. As you see, they built in stone.’

  He had been staring up at the ruins as he talked, but now I saw his gaze shift to the track running into the gorge. It had become very hot and the whole place seemed to brood in the shimmering light.

  ‘And what about the kasbah?’ Julie asked.

  The kasbah? Oh, that’s later. Much later. It was the first kasbah built here in the valley. Legard says it was originally called Kasbah Foum-Skhira. Then, when the palmerie developed and they built a bigger kasbah and a new village, they called that Kasbah Foum-Skhira, and the deserted fort here became just Kasbah Foum. To differentiate between the two, I guess.’

  Jan leaned forward and touched my arm. He had the deeds of Kasbah Foum in his hands. ‘Will you check through this and see if it says how far the properly extends?’ he asked me.

  It took me some time to decipher it, for the ink was very faint in places. As far as I could tell, it took in all the shoulder of the mountains on which the watch tower and the kasbah and the old city stood. It took in both sides of the stream from well below the camp and included the whole of the entrance to the gorge.

  ‘How far back into the gorge does it extend?’ Jan asked.

  ‘As far as the first bend.’

  He nodded. ‘Good!’ And then he looked across at White who had been watching us curiously. ‘You know Caid Hassan, I suppose?’

  ‘Is that the old Caid at Foum-Skhira ?’

  ‘Yes. Have you met him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But it is Caid Hassan. I mean, it’s the same Caid that ruled here before the war?’

  ‘Oh, sure. Legard says he’s been Caid here for more than forty years.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ Jan folded the deeds up and put them back in their envelope. Then he got to his feet. ‘Come on, Philip. Now we’ll go and look at the place.’

  ‘Just a moment,’ White said.

  Jan turned to face him.

  ‘You say you’re Kavan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did Wade get in touch with you?’

  ‘Yes. But I wouldn’t let him have the deeds.’

  ‘I see.’ He stared at Jan, frowning again. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t write me again and let me know.’ He said it more to himself than to Jan and then he gave a quick tug to the waistband of his trousers and turned away as though dismissing the whole matter. ‘Go on up there if you want to,’ he said.

  But as we went back up the track, I glanced back and saw him standing by his tent, watching us. His face had a sullen, worried look. Julie had noticed it, too. ‘He’s like a child with a toy,’ she said. And then she added, ‘But the odd thing is, he’s glad we’ve come. He doesn’t want to be here alone.’

  We had a look at the kasbah first. It was built with its back against a section of the old city wall. The sand had drifted in from the desert, piling against the walls, and there were goat droppings everywhere, dried and powdery. There was nothing of interest there. We climbed down to the track and walked up it into the entrance to the gorge. ‘Do you know where the mine entrance was?’ I asked Jan.

  He nodded, his eyes searching the dark cavern of the gorge, comparing it with the mental picture he had been given. We crossed the sharp-cut line between sun and shade, and immediately we were in a damp, chill world of cliffs and tumbled rock. Ahead of us, in a crook of a bend, stood a plantation of fig trees, their stems twisted and gnarled and white like silver. And on a ledge above, a little almond tree clung in a froth of white blossom.

  All above us to the right was a great spill of rock. The track had been slashed through the base of it and the debris shovelled into the bed of the stream, damming it up to form a lake. The water was still and reddish in colour. Skirting the base of the slide, we came upon two bulldozers, white with dust. They looked insignificant in that huge, natural chasm - forlorn pieces of man-made machinery. They had been cutting into the slide to expose the face of a shallow cliff of grey rock, piling the rubble out into the lake so that there was a big artificial platform.

  Jan made straight for the cliff face White had been exposing. ‘This is the spot,’ he said. ‘He’s almost reached it. Marcel said the mine shaft was at the base of this cliff.’ He looked back at the towering cliff that formed the opposite side of the gorge as though to check his bearings. ‘Yes.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Another few days and he would have exposed the entrance.’ He stood there, staring at the cliff. ‘Marcel should have been here,’ he murmured. ‘He should have been the person to open it up, not an American. He would have opened it up and used it to help the people here.’ His eyes were clouded. In his mind he was back in that cellar in Essen.

  ‘What’s this?’ Julie asked, holding out a lump of rock to him. I think she wanted to distract him from his thoughts.

  He stared down at it. One half of the rock was a strong reddish colour. ‘Iron oxide,’ he said. ‘What you’d probably call red ochre.’ He moved back a little way, staring up at the slope of the slide above us. ‘It looks as though it’s fallen from up there.’ He pointed high up the slope to a crumbling cliff from which much of the slide had come. ‘I hope there isn’t another fall whilst we’re — ‘ He stopped, turning to face the entrance to the gorge, his head on one side, listening.

  A car was coming up the track from the camp. We couldn’t see it because of the slide, but the sound of its engine was thrown back to us by the cliff opposite, beating in upon the stillness of the gorge. It grew rapidly louder. And then a jeep appeared, roaring and bumping round the base of the slide. It stopped beside the second bulldozer and a European got out. He wore a light grey suit with a brown muffler round his neck and a wide-brimmed town hat.

  It was Kostos. His suit was crumpled and dirty, and his narrow, pointed shoes were covered with a white film of dust. He looked uncomfortable and his city clothes seemed out of place against the towering background of the gorge.

  ‘So! It is you, Lat’am, eh?’ He glanced at Julie, and then his small, dark eyes fastened on Jan. ‘Hah!’ He was suddenly smiling. ‘For a minute I do not recognise you without your beard.’

  ‘How did you know we were here?’ I asked him.

  He tapped the side of his nose, smiling. He was so close to me that I could see the skin peeling from his cracked lips and the individual hairs of stiff stubble that darkened his chin. ‘Not a sparrow falls, eh? Even ‘ere in the desert.’

  ‘Well, what do you want?’

  ‘What do I want? Don’t try to be stupid with me, Lat’am. You know what I want.’ He moved across to Jan, leaning slightly forward and speaking confidentially as though he might be overhead. ‘Come now, my friend. The papers. They are of no use to you. You cannot make claim to this place just because you have Duprez’s papers. Duprez is dead and any successor to the ownership of the property must be confirmed by Caid Hassan.’

  ‘I know that,’ Jan said.

  Kostos chuckled. ‘Maybe you know it now. But you do not know it when you take the papers from that poor devil Kavan, eh?’

  ‘What makes you think I took the papers from him?’ I think that at that moment Jan was amused that the Greek still took him for Wade.

  Kostos looked at him and there was a little gleam of triumph in his eyes. ‘You do not kill a man for nothing, my friend.’ His tone was gentle, like a kitten’s purr.

  ‘Kill a man!’ Jan stare
d at him with shocked surprise. Knowing how it had happened and that it was an accident, the idea that he might be charged with murder was still quite beyond his grasp.

  ‘You don’t suggest Kavan fell overboard from your boat, do you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jan’s face was suddenly white. ‘Who told you anyone fell overboard?’

  ‘So! You do not listen to the radio, eh?’

  ‘No, we haven’t got one,’ I said. ‘But we saw the newspaper report. It was inaccurate.’

  Kostos spun round on me. ‘You keep out of this, Lat’am. It is nothing to concern you. I make you an offer in Tangier. You remember? That is finish. You lie to me. But now I have a stronger hand, you see, an’ I deal direct.’ He turned back to Jan. ‘This is a new development, my friend. The body of Dr Jan Kavan, Czech refugee scientist, has been washed up on the coast of Portugal. This is what the radio said. It is two nights ago and they give your description - all very accurate, except for the beard which is gone now.’ He moved a little closer to Jan. ‘The police would be interested to know what motive you had.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Jan’s body was rigid, his mouth slightly open.

  ‘If I tell them about the deeds you get from Kavan, then they know it is murder - they know you push him overboard.’

  ‘No.’ The denial burst from Jan’s mouth. ‘I didn’t push him. It was an accident. And it wasn’t — ‘ He checked himself as though a thought had suddenly occurred to him.

  ‘Now, perhaps you understand, eh?’ Kostos was smiling. ‘We make a deal. You and I. You give me the papers and I keep silent. Maybe I help you get out of Morocco safe. But if you do not give me the papers, then I — ‘ He stopped and turned at the sound of footsteps echoing along the cliffs of the gorge.

  It was White. He wore an old fleece-lined flying jacket, open at the front to expose the dirty white of his T-shirt. ‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded. And then he recognised Kostos.

  ‘Oh, so you two have got together, have you?’

  Kostos smiled and looked across at Jan. ‘Yes. That is just about what we do, eh?’ He jerked the muffler tighter round his neck. ‘I give you to tonight, my friend. I will be ‘ere — ‘ he glanced at his heavy gold wrist-watch - ‘at five o’clock. If you do not meet me then, ready to come to an agreement, then I will know what to do, eh?’ He smiled and nodded and walked back to the jeep. The engine started with a roar that reverberated through the gorge and then he went bumping and slithering over the rocks at the base of the slide and was lost to sight.

  ‘Who was that frightful little man?’ Julie asked. ‘What did he mean about — ‘

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ I said quickly. I was looking at White, wondering how much he had heard.

  He seemed to hesitate a moment. And then he half shrugged his shoulders and turned and walked over to the nearest bulldozer, his tall, slim-hipped body moving easily, rhythmically as though he belonged in this wild place.

  ‘White!’ I called after him. ‘Do you know how we contact the Caid?’

  But he climbed on to the seat of the bulldozer without replying, and a moment later the engine started with a shattering roar. The tracks moved and the dull, rock-burnished steel of the blade dropped to the ground, scooped a pile of rock out of the slide and thrust it to the edge of the dumping ground. The gorge echoed to the splash and rumble of a ton of rock spilling down the slope into the water.

  I tapped Jan on the shoulder. ‘We’d better go down and see Capitaine Legard at the Post. He’ll take us to the Caid.’ I had to shout to make myself heard above the reverberating roar of the bulldozer.

  He nodded and we went back down the track to the camp. ‘Do you think it is true, what Kostos said?’ he said.

  ‘He’d hardly have invented it,’ I said.

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ He looked worried. ‘It must be Wade’s body that was washed up. But why should they mistake Wade for me?’

  ‘Don’t forget they’re convinced Wade is alive,’ I pointed out. ‘And your papers showed that you aren’t unalike. The body wouldn’t have been in too good shape.’ I hesitated and then said, ‘Was Wade wearing any of your clothing?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He hesitated. ‘He could be. You know what it’s like in a yacht - oilskins, windbreakers, sweaters, everything gets mixed up. One’s too tired … Maybe he was wearing something of mine.’ He said it slowly, considering the matter, and he walked with quick, nervous strides, his eyes fixed on the ground. ‘If it’s true what Kostos said,’ he murmured half to himself, ‘then officially I’m dead.’

  ‘You’ll have to explain that it’s Wade’s body that’s been found in Portugal,’ I told him. ‘And you’ll have to explain how he died.’

  ‘That means publicity.’ The words seemed to be jerked out of him. ‘There mustn’t be any publicity. It was publicity that started it last time. I told you that. I must keep my name out of the papers. At all costs there mustn’t be any publicity.’

  ‘That can’t be helped.’ I said. ‘The man’s body has been found and his death will have to be explained.’

  He didn’t seem to hear me. ‘If I’m dead,’ he murmured to himself, ‘then it’s Wade who is alive. It’s as simple as that.’ He said it almost wonderingly. And then he strode on ahead until we came to the camp. He seemed to want to be alone.

  And when we drove down the piste towards Foum-Skhira he was strangely silent. It was a queer day now. It seemed to have changed. The strength and clarity had gone out of the sun and the sky was no longer blue, but opaque and hazy. A little wind had sprung up from the mountains and it blew the dust from our wheels out in streamers in front of us. We stopped at the house where the Tricolour flew. There was a sign-board half-hidden by sand. One arrow pointed to the mountains - Agdz, 44kms.; the other south towards the desert - Tombouctou, 50js…. Fifty days! A dog raced out to meet us as we stopped. He stood barking at us furiously, a big, rangy animal, oddly reminiscent of the medieval hunting dogs depicted on old tapestries.

  ‘Look!’ Julie cried. ‘A baby gazelle.’ It was in a wire enclosure; a small deer, beautifully marked with long, straight horns.

  A Berber servant came to the door of the house and stared at us. I called out to him, asking for Capitaine Legard, and he pointed to the fort, telling us to go to the Bureau.

  The sun had disappeared completely now. Yet there was no cloud. It seemed to have been overlaid by an atmospheric miasma. It had become very cold and the wind had risen further, driving little sifting runnels of sand before it. The whole great open space between the two forts seemed to be on the move as the powder-dry top surface of sand drifted along the ground. We were shown into the captain’s office by an immensely large, black-bearded orderly wearing a turban and a blue cloak. He was a Tuareg, one of the Blue Men of the desert.

  By comparison, Legard seemed small and insignificant. He was short and stocky with sallow, tired features. There was no heating in the stone-floored office and he sat huddled behind the desk in a torn and dusty greatcoat with no insignia of rank on the shoulders. A khaki scarf was muffled round his neck. He glanced at Julie and then pulled himself to his feet, staring at us in silence from behind thick-lensed, hornrimmed glasses. The glasses caught the light so that it was impossible to see the expression of his eyes. But I felt he resented our intrusion. Moreover, though he might look insignificant, he conveyed a sense of power, as though whatever he wore or however ill he looked, he was conscious of being the ruler in this place.

  Faced with the authority of the man, Jan remained silent, leaving me to explain who we were and why we had come to Foum Skhira. ‘We hoped you would be willing to take us to see the Caid Hassan,’ I added.

  ‘Caid Hassan is an old man now,’ he said. ‘Old and sick.’ He got Julie a chair and went back to his seat behind the desk. ‘Also, you come at a bad time.’ He made little explosive noises with his lips and stared at Jan. ‘So! You are now the owner of Kasbah Foum, eh?’

  ‘It has to be confirmed by the Caid,�
�� Jan said.

  ‘C’est ca.’

  He stared at us from the protection of his glasses and the stillness of the room seemed to crowd in on us. His hostility and the chill drabness of the office with its bare, map-lined walls had a depressing effect on me.

  ‘And if the Caid confirms your title, what do you intend to do about this American?’ He said ‘this American’ with undisguised contempt.

  ‘I understand he’s been granted a mining concession,’ Jan said.

  Capitaine Legard grunted. The grunt seemed to express what he thought of people in Rabat who granted mining concessions in his territory. There was silence again, and then he said, ‘You have documents to prove your ownership of the property, monsieur?’

  Jan produced once more the crumpled envelope and passed it across the desk. Legard pulled out the deeds and examined them. Then he glanced at the covering letter. He read it slowly, carefully. Then he looked up at Jan. This letter is from Marcel Duprez?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jan cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps you knew him, Monsieur le Capitaine?’

  ‘Now. But everybody has heard of him. Capitaine Marcel Duprez was one of the finest officers of les Affaires Indigenes.’ There was sudden warmth in his tone. ‘Tell me, monsieur, how was it he came to leave you this property? Are you a relative?’

  Briefly Jan explained how the war had brought them together and the part Duprez had played in helping him to get information out to the British. And as he talked, I saw Legard’s face soften and relax. ‘And you were with him when he died?’ he asked. And when Jan had described the scene in that cellar in Essen, Legard nodded his head slowly. ‘He was a fine man,’ he said quietly. ‘I am sorry he died like that. He was what the men who sit at desks in Rabat call an officer of the bled - of the country. It seems that he was not an executive type but only a leader of the people. He understood the Berbers as few of us will ever understand them. If he had not been half-dead with dysentery and undergoing a cure in France, the Germans would never have captured him.’ He shrugged his shoulders and again those little explosive noises blew his lips out. He glanced at his watch and got quickly to his feet. He seemed suddenly alert and full of vigour. ‘Alors. We will go back to the house. We will have a drink and you will perhaps tell me the full story. Then I will phone mon commandant. He will be interested. He served with Duprez. He was with him when they took Foum-Skhira. Duprez told you the story of that, eh?’