The Strange Land

by Hammond Innes

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He climbed down off the bulldozer. ‘I didn’t think…’ His shoulders moved awkwardly and he made a gesture with his hands that embraced the cliff-face, the whole gorge. ‘I was too excited.’

  Ed White came over to us then. ‘It looks like you really have got the deeds of Kasbah Foum,’ he said.

  Jan nodded.

  ‘I see.’ He stood staring at us for a moment. ‘That makes a difference, doesn’t it?’ He seemed about to say something further, but instead he turned and walked slowly back across the rubble and climbed up on to the driving seat of his bulldozer again. The engine started with a roar and the lumbering machine turned back towards the cliff-face.

  ‘Come on,’ Jan said, gripping my arm. ‘We must see the Caid right away.’

  ‘It’ll be night before we get there.’

  ‘I know, I know. But that may help.’ He glanced back as a beam of light cut the gloom of the gorge. Ed White had switched on his headlights. ‘I was a fool. I forgot all about Kostos coming here at five. Once I got on that bulldozer … It was good to be doing something constructive. I worked with a bulldozer in Germany for a time - before they discovered I had other uses.’ He laughed quickly, nervously. ‘We’ll go and have some tea with Julie. You English are always less pessimistic after you’ve had some tea. Then we’ll go to Kasbah Foum-Skhira.’

  ‘We’ll need a guide,’ I said.

  He didn’t say anything and we walked in silence out of the gorge. The sun had set and a velvet twilight was rapidly descending on the valley. But the palmerie was still visible and I could just make out the brown of the kasbah towers rising above the dusty green of the palms.

  I wished we had visited the place in daylight. ‘If Legard had taken us there it would have been — ‘

  ‘Well, he didn’t,’ Jan said sharply.

  ‘No, but — ‘ There was no point in dwelling on it. The palmerie had faded into the dusk already. Everything was very still. It seemed impossible that the pale surface of the land could ever have been whirled up into the air in a cloud of sand; it looked solid and petrified in the half-light. ‘What are you going to do about White?’ I asked,him. ‘Don’t forget he holds a concession.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll probably come to some agreement. I like him. He’s easy to get on with. He’s a construction engineer and he fits this sort of country. If the Caid confirms my title to the place…” He didn’t finish. I think that the ‘If was too big.

  We walked on in silence and as we neared the camp I saw something move along the darkening bed of the stream. It was a black, compact mass of movement. I strained my eyes and it resolved itself into a herd of goats being driven by a small boy. Jan had seen it, too, and he said, ‘Perhaps the boy would guide us to the kasbah?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘A boy’s no good. He hasn’t the necessary authority. They might not admit us. But if we could get his father …’ I was thinking that a man who had a herd of goats would almost certainly be conservatively minded and a supporter of the Caid’s policy rather than of Ali’s fanaticism. I turned off the track and scrambled down the bank. Jan followed us.

  The boy had stopped now and was watching us nervously. I called to him in his own language to come and speak with us, but he didn’t move. And when we came up to him he stood, regarding us with wide, solemn eyes. He was like a startled animal and at any moment I was afraid he would turn and run. But the goats had stopped and were nibbling at the reed tufts. The boy was watching them all the time and I knew that so long as the goats were there, the boy would remain. They were in his charge and the responsibility was a heavy one, for they represented considerable wealth in this starved, arid land.

  I explained to him that I wanted to speak with his father, but he stared at me out of his large, awed eyes and said nothing. I repeated my request slowly and clearly. He looked at the goats as though he were afraid I might spirit them away by magic whilst I held his gaze with my strange talk. Then his eyes came back to me as though fascinated. Probably I was the first European who had ever spoken to him.

  In the end I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out two hundred franc notes. I held them out to him. He smiled shyly, eagerly, and shook his head. But his eyes remained on the notes. Again I asked him if he would fetch his father for me.

  I knew he understood and I waited. His gaze alternated between my face and the notes in my hand. Then suddenly he leaned forward, swift as a bird, grabbed them from my fingers, and with a little shriek of excitement went scampering away after his goats which had gradually merged into the dusk as they drifted from reed tuft to reed tuft.

  We watched him rounding them up with shrill cries of Aiya, Aiya, driving them towards the ruined kasbah. ‘Will he bring his father to us?’ Jan asked.

  ‘I think so,’ I said, and we went on to the caravan.

  We had just settled down to tea when the boy’s figure went flying past, bare feet scuttering over the sand, scarcely seeming to touch the ground; a small, flickering shadow in the gathering dusk.

  I turned the bus then and switched on the sidelights, and soon afterwards the boy appeared with his father. He was an oldish man, tall and slightly stooped, with a long, pale face heavily lined with years of sun and sand. We exchanged greetings and I invited him into the caravan. He sent the boy off and, after slipping his feet out of his sandals, he climbed in and seated himself cross-legged on the berth. From an inner pocket he produced the two hundred franc notes I had given his son and held them out to me. ‘My son is not to be paid for bringing his father to you, sidi,’ he said.

  I insisted that he return the money to the boy and then Julie brought the coffee I had asked her to make and we talked. His name was Moha and he was the chief of a small village at this end of the palmerie. He was a man of some substance, with fifty goats and more than a hundred palm trees, and he had a daughter married to the son of the Khailifa, the Sultan’s representative at Foum-Skhira. He talked about the failure of the date harvest and how a year ago French experts had examined the trees and then the ‘machine like a bird had arrived and covered the date palms with smoke’.

  ‘And didn’t it do any good?’ I asked.

  ‘Insh’ Allah!’ He shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

  But the smile didn’t extend to his hard, grey eyes. ‘The French officer has told us that it is the only hope for the trees and we believe him because he is wise and like a father to us. But this year I have no dates, sidi. No man is sure any more.’

  It was the perfect situation for a man like Ali to exploit. I asked him if he knew that the Caid’s son had returned to Foum-Skhira. He nodded and I was conscious of a stillness about him, a sudden mental wariness. His eyes were hooded by the pale lids and the curved, predatory beak of his nose made him look like an old hawk.

  ‘Do you know why he has returned?’ I asked. But he didn’t answer. He had finished his third cup of coffee and, according to Berber etiquette, he would now take his leave. ‘You are a friend of Caid Hassan,’ I said.

  He nodded, gathering his djellaba about him.

  ‘We wish to see him tonight. It is important. Will you take us to him?’

  ‘He is a sick man, sidi.’

  ‘I know. But we have to see him. Will you take us?’

  ‘Tomorrow perhaps.’

  ‘No.’ I said. ‘It must be tonight. At least guide us as far as the kasbah.’

  He stared at me, his eyes narrowed slightly. Then he shook his head. ‘He is sick,’ he repeated.

  Jan got up then. ‘Ask him,’ he said, ‘whether he was here when Lieutenant Duprez drank tea with Caid Hassan between the lines.’

  The Berber’s eyes lit up suddenly as I asked him the question. ‘lyyeh, sidi. I was there.’

  I told him then that Jan had been Duprez’s friend, that he had been with him when he died, and he stared at Jan, smiling and bowing as though greeting him for the first time. ‘He has a message for Caid Hassan from Capitaine Duprez,’ I added. ‘It is important.’ And then I asked him ag
ain if he’d take us to the kasbah.

  He got to his feet then. ‘Very well.’ He nodded. ‘I will take you to Caid Hassan.’

  I opened the door for him and he stepped out into the night.

  Jan followed him. Julie caught hold of my arm. ‘Do you have to go with him, Philip?’

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘Ed White will be down from the gorge soon and — ‘

  ‘It’s not that,’ she said quickly. She was staring up at me. Then she turned away. ‘Well, be careful. This place isn’t like the mountain villages round Enfida.’ She picked up the coffee things and went through into the kitchenette.

  I stepped down to the ground and closed the door. The little lit world of the caravan seemed suddenly small and remote, an oasis of light in the desert of darkness that surrounded it. The sky was clear and the bright starlight showed us the shape of the mountains crouched above the camp. The sound of White’s bulldozer came down to us from the gorge. There was no wind, but already the air was cold, with that still, frosted cold of a land where the soil had no humus to absorb and retain the heat of the sun.

  We followed the piste down until, looking over my shoulder, the bus was no more than a yellow pinpoint of light in the immense black shadow of the mountains. Then we entered the palmerie and the trees hid even that small indication of human existence. We were alone in a cold, alien world.

  It was very dark under the palms and we stumbled along countless small earth banks built to retain the water in the cultivated patches where millet would be grown. But finally we came out on to the bank of a deep irrigation ditch. The path was like a switch-back, but the going was easier. Occasionally a star was reflected below us. It was the only indication that there was water in the ditch. We followed the glimmering white of Moha’s djellaba through a world of almost complete blackness. All my eyes consciously saw was the still, fantastic shapes of the palm fronds standing darkly against the stars. My feet seemed to develop a sense and a feel for the ground. They found their way by a sort of instinct that was quite divorced from the control of my brain.

  We came to a bridge of palm trunks spanning the ditch and there our guide told us to wait whilst he went into his village. We could hear him beating on the wooden door of his house and there was a dog barking. Then there was silence again. ‘I suppose you’ve got the deeds with you?’ Though I kept my voice to a whisper, the sound of it seemed loud.

  ‘Yes,’ Jan said. ‘And Marcel’s letter.’

  I didn’t say anything. I was thinking that the only documents establishing his claim to Kasbah Foum were on him at this moment. I didn’t like it. If the guide sent a runner on ahead of us … If Ali knew … I felt a shiver run down my spine. It was cold and very quiet standing there on the edge of that ditch in the palmerie. It was like being in a dead world.

  A shadow moved in the darkness. It was our guide, the white of his djellaba almost hidden by the blanket he had wrapped round himself. He led us on along the top of the ditch without a word and soon we caught the faint beat of tam-tams far ahead. The sound was a guide to our progress and as we neared Ksar Foum-Skhira the harsh,- lilting chant of the singers joined the rhythmic beating of the drums. Yaiee-ya Yaiee-ya Yaiee Yai-i… Yaiee-ya Yaiee-ya Yai-ee Yai-i-ee. The chant was repeated over and over again with only slight variations. It was insistent like the drumming of the wind or the singing of a sand storm.

  We reached a well with its pole uplifted against the stars and then we were on a beaten track with walls on either side. And when we came out into the open again, the noise of the tam-tams and the singing was suddenly very loud. Aiee-ya Aiee-ya Aiee-yaiee-ya. We were close under the walls of Ksar Foum Skhira now and there were people about. I breathed a sigh of relief. Aiee-ya Aiee-ya Aiee-yaiee-ya.

  We crossed an open space and ahead of us, on a slight rise, the darker bulk of the kasbah showed in the darkness. We passed through the arched gateway of an outer wall, crossed an open courtyard of sand and came to the main entrance, barred by a wooden door. Our guide beat upon the wood and the noise seemed very loud, for the kasbah had the stillness of a place that had been deserted for a long time. A kid bleated softly somewhere in the darkness and from near the outer wall came the rude belching of a camel. A light showed through a crack and then the wooden securing bar was lifted and the door was pulled back with a creak of hinges. A swarthy, bearded man, his head swathed in a turban, stared at us suspiciously. He carried a carbide lamp in his hand - an elementary light made of a metal container with a long spout rising from it, at the end of which was a two-inch jet of flame that wavered in the draught.

  Our guide explained that we wished to see the Caid. The thick, guttural sounds of the Arab dialect were tossed back and forth between them. ‘My companion,’ I said, indicating Jan, ‘was a friend of Capitaine Duprez. He has a message for Caid Hassan.’

  The turbaned porter held the flame high so that he could see us. The light gleamed on his brown, inquisitive eyes. Then he nodded and stood aside for us to enter. The door closed behind us, the wooden securing bar was dropped into place and, with a quick little gesture that was part welcome and part a request to follow him, the keeper of the gate led us into the black cavern of a passageway. From nails on the wall he took two more carbide lights. The place was like an underground tunnel, dank and chill with walls and roof of mud so that it looked as though it had been hewn out of the earth.

  We passed a rectangular opening that was a doorway leading to a courtyard. I had a glimpse of stars and the outline of one of the kasbah towers. We turned left here into another passageway. A yellow gleam of light showed at the end of it. It was the entrance to a room and, as we went by, I saw the glow of a brazier and figures huddled round it. The only lights were the carbide flames flickering from their wall hooks. Steps led upwards then - a staircase that followed the square walls of a tower. And suddenly we were out in the open on a roof top. Below us stretched the darkness of the palmerie and away to the right the shadowy bulk of the walled village of Ksar Foum-Skhira, from which gleamed little points of light - the gleam of braziers and flickering flame lights in rooms that had only holes in the walls for windows.

  We crossed the roof top and entered the open doorway of another tower. There was a shallow flight of earthen stairs and then we were in a square room with two thick window embrasures, the small, square openings of which were closed by broken wooden shutters. The place was very cold and had a musty smell. It was completely bare. The floor was of hard-packed earth and the walls of dried mud. The ceiling was high, raftered with the soft wood of palm stems. The man who had brought us here lit the two carbide lamps, hung them on hooks provided in the walls and then left us without a word, taking our guide with him.

  It was bitterly cold. The temperature was just on freezing and a little wind was driving in through the cracks in the shutters and the carbide flames flickered wildly. ‘They’ll bring cushions and rugs in a minute,’ I said.

  Jan nodded, glancing uneasily about him. ‘Can I smoke?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He brought out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. The only sound was the whistle of the wind in the chinks of the shutter and the singing from the village and the beat of the drums, which was so clear that they might have been in the courtyard below. Ai-yai-yee Ai-yai-yee Ya-ee Ya-ee Yai-i.

  ‘There’s a fire in Ksar Foum-Skhira,’ Jan said.

  I went over and peered through one of the broken shutters. In some courtyard of the village flames were flickering in a lurid glow that lit up the corner of a tower and the piled-up walls of some houses. ‘They have to have a fire to heat the drums and so stretch the hides to the required pitch,’ I said.

  The drums were beating faster now. The tempo of the singing increased, became shriller and then stopped abruptly. The drums went on for a few seconds and then ceased on a beat. In the sudden silence we heard the murmur of voices below us in the kasbah and then the scuffle of sandals on the stairs. Men crowded into the room, their arms piled with cushions an
d silks and hand-woven rugs. A big square of carpet was spread out on the earthen floor, the cushions were arranged round it and draped with rugs and silks. A brazier was brought, a red glow of warmth, and stood in the corner. A copper kettle was set on it. A great silver tray was placed on a low table that was barely six inches from the ground. Coloured glasses were carefully arranged and a silver tea chest and a white cone of sugar were placed beside it.

  One of the men who had carried these things up was Moha and I reminded him that we were relying upon him to guide us back. He nodded and disappeared with the rest of the men. The room was suddenly empty again. We sat down cross-legged on the cushions and waited.

  The minutes ticked slowly by. I found myself wishing the singing would start again in the village. Harsh and primitive though it was, at least it was a reminder that there were human beings around. The kasbah seemed quiet as the grave.

  But at last there was movement again on the stairs and then an old man entered, walking slowly. He wore a spotlessly white djellaba of soft wool, the hood neatly arranged to frame his features. His beard was white and rather sparse, cut like a goatee, but extending along the line of the jaw almost to the ears. His skin was pale, far paler than mine, and his eyes were a steely blue. He was of pure Berber stock, unmixed with Arab or any of the desert races that so dilute the Berber blood of the south. ‘Merhba bikum!’ His gesture of greeting had great dignity. He motioned us to sit and he himself sank on to a cushion, folding up neatly and gracefully despite his age. Summoning one of the two men who had entered with him, he bade him make the tea for his guests, at the same time apologising to us in French for not doing it himself. He then made us a little speech of welcome in a frail voice that only occasionally paused to search for the right word. ‘You should have given warning that you were coming to visit me,’ he finished reproachfully. ‘I would have arranged a difa for you.’

  ‘It is very kind of you,’ I replied. ‘But things are difficult for you now.’