Empires of Sand

by Empires of Sand (retail) (epub)

* * *

  “Tell me about the Tuareg,” Paul said to Hakeem the night before they left.

  Hakeem nodded gravely, pleased to have been consulted. “It is reliably known, Patron, that all Tuareg customs are vile. They copulate with mountain sheep, men, and women alike. Their men hide their faces because they are too ugly even for their own women to behold. Their women are shameless and go unveiled. They are all thieves and brigands, every one. Even the children. There is no honor among them. They will greet you openly into their tents, steal everything you own while you drink of their hospitality, then murder you as you sleep and leave you for the vultures. They are godless, Patron, even more vile than kafers.”

  Hakeem caught himself and his hand flew to his mouth. “Forgive me, Patron. My tongue runs too fast and forgets my brain. Or is it the other way around? I did not mean—” Paul laughed at the unintended insult and beckoned Hakeem to continue.

  “Their land is enchanted, Patron, filled with the most horrible monsters and terrible droughts. The only use one can make of such a place is to pass through it as quickly as possible, and then to forget it. This is why the Shamba have never bothered to take the land away from them. The Tuareg are accomplished warriors, it is true. Yet, except for the amenokal, the best of them are not as deadly as the weakest of the Shamba.”

  “The amenokal?”

  “Oui, Patron, their sheikh. He is the firstborn of a union between the devil and a Tuareg whore. He stands as tall as a bull mehari. His arms are as big around as the greatest palm tree in Wargla. He has six fingers on each hand. He talks directly with djenoums, as no mortal man can do, and his eyes are the coals of the devil’s own fires.”

  “A remarkable man,” Paul said with a faint smile. He was remembering his aunt’s stories about her brother, who had seemed not at all as Hakeem described.

  “It is also known among the more learned of the Sahara,” Hakeem said, lowering his voice, “that he has two penises.”

  “Two penises? He must be a busy man.”

  “Oui, Patron, he is very busy when not murdering people. One is for his women, the other for his sheep.”

  “Are you afraid of him?”

  At that Hakeem drew himself up and took a deep defiant breath. He was no fighter. He had neither the physique nor the inclination for it, but was suffused with Shamba bravado all the same. “I am unafraid of any man, Patron, most especially the Tuareg,” he lied. “Besides, for the true son of Islam there is nothing to fear. Allah has already written the date of my death upon my forehead. On that date I will die, be it from the bite of a viper or the sword of my enemy. But until that date, Patron, no harm can befall me. Of what, then, is there to be afraid?” His expression glowed with the simple certainty of his faith, although he omitted mentioning it might not be wise to unduly hurry fate by tempting the Tuareg.

  CHAPTER 23

  “We lost four more camels last night, Colonel,” Paul reported. Even in the dim light of the tent, he could see the colonel’s eyes flash in anger. Visiting the colonel even on minor business was inevitably the least pleasant task of an officer’s day. His rages were frightening.

  “And what is it you would like me to do about it, Lieutenant? Is there something about dead camels you can’t handle?”

  “No, sir, of course not. I just thought you’d like to know. They’ve already been butchered. That makes a total of thirty-two so far.”

  “You try my patience, deVries. I can count as well as the next man.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “See to it the guides don’t sell the meat to a passing caravan. They probably poisoned the camels to make a few sous.” The colonel was lying down, trying to still the fires of sciatica that blazed down his backside. He stiffened. “Get Brame,” he gasped.

  Paul found the colonel’s batman, who sighed at the summons. “Another shot,” he muttered. It was an open secret now among the officers. The colonel didn’t trust his officers, or his guides, or anyone else.

  The only companion he trusted was morphine.

  Such secrets could be kept in France, or even in Wargla. But on a journey spent in close quarters they withered quickly. When the caravan was moving Flatters rode on his great white camel, alone out in front of the expedition. He sat stiffly, in agony, and rejected company. When they made camp he rarely emerged from his tent. His moods swung like the temperature, from fire to ice. He could be kind or ferocious. Decisions seemed difficult for him. Simple things that should take little thought seemed to tie him in knots. His eyes were often glazed, his look distracted. He wandered alone among the dunes and the rocks, shuffling painfully and muttering. He paid scant attention when Paul or the other officers spoke to him.

  It was Remy who had broached the unbroachable with Paul, his superior officer. Only the bond between them kept Paul from reprimanding him, that and the fact that Remy had echoed his own fears.

  “The colonel should have stayed in Paris,” Remy growled, watching as Brame entered the colonel’s tent. “I don’t know what made him try this with a bad back. He’s obviously got a strong will, but the morphine could get us all killed.”

  Paul nodded grimly. “He’s off his mind half the time, and impossible the rest.”

  “Yesterday he told me three different times in the space of an hour to have his camel saddled, and then later on he didn’t remember,” Remy said. “I heard him ask Brame who’d done it. Then he lost his journal, the one he scribbles in all night. He raised hell about it. Turned everything upside down in his tent. He accused Brame of hiding it. It was in his saddle pack all the time.”

  Reluctantly, Paul was coming to the realization that the colonel was unfit for duty. “The rest of us will just have to make up for him.” After the colonel the senior officer was Captain Masson. Lieutenant Dianous, closest to Paul in rank, was cold but efficient. Pobeguin and Dennery were NCOs whose desert experience was vast. And, of course, there was Remy Cavour, who knew nothing of the Sahara but was a battle-hardened soldier with good instincts.

  “I’ve had to do that before,” Remy said. “A bad business. It’s like expecting the body to carry on after the guillotine’s done its work.”

  By late January the expedition was hundreds of kilometers to the south of Wargla. The engineers carried on their survey work, making endless notes about the terrain. At night they hunched over their tables and by lantern light fixed their position on the detailed maps they were preparing.

  They passed the gorge of Amguid, with still no sign or word from the Tuareg, into whose country they were passing without permission. The silence of the Tuareg bred superstition and fear. At night the Shamba were jumpy, the tirailleurs wary. Wild shots were fired at ghosts and fears. When they camped near the dunes and the wind blew, a strange humming could be heard in the darkness among the distant sands. “It is the laughter of the djenoum,” the Shamba said. “The howling of the Angel of Death.” The floor of the desert in front of them was filled with tracks, suggesting that a large group of riders preceded them. Speculation ran rampant. “It’s the Tuareg,” Remy muttered. “Why don’t they show themselves? They’re toying with us.”

  Weeks had passed that way. The guides, Iforass Tuareg who had been hired in Wargla, kept to themselves. They lived far to the southwest, between Gao and Timbuktu, and were normally on friendly terms with the Hoggar Tuareg. They were reclusive, almost sullen, and even they feared treachery. At the wells of El Hadjadj the master of a caravan passing in the opposite direction shook his finger at the colonel. “Ahitagel views all foreigners with hatred, and your mission with distrust,” he said. “It is the course of wisdom to return the way you came.”

  “Nonsense,” the colonel told his officers that night, “message after message has reassured the amenokal that we mean no harm. He will let us pass. We have come too far for any other outcome. We will pass.”

  “The tirailleurs’ morale is low, Colonel,” said Captain Masson. “Several have been reprimanded for arguing that we turn back—”

 
“I don’t want to hear it!” shrieked the colonel, his face shaking with fury. “To the devil with their morale! You keep their filthy tongues in check! You will shoot any man who talks this way. Do you hear me?” he shouted at his officers. “Do you hear me?”

  Two days later the amenokal’s answer came on the heels of the eight Iforass Tuareg guides. Normally they rode far in front of the expedition, obscure flecks on the horizon. Captain Masson saw something and drew up his mount. He shaded his eyes, peering forward. The guides were no longer distant, but were riding toward him at a fast trot, all eight of them, quickly growing larger as they approached. They had never done such a thing. The colonel was just catching up. The other officers, Dianous and deVries, pulled alongside.

  “It seems,” said Masson, peering through field glasses, “that we are about to meet the amenokal. Thirty-two, heavily armed. Spears, shields, swords. Some rifles, I think. I can’t tell what else.” Behind the guides, much closer now, was a ghostly tall line of blue and gold. From the distance they looked unreal and otherworldly, the superheated air twisting and weaving their figures. The captain handed the glasses to Colonel Flatters.

  “Order the tirailleurs abreast, Captain. Arms sheathed. Draw in the caravan.”

  “Dianous, deVries, see to it.”

  Pulses racing, the two lieutenants moved at once, passing orders to Cavour, Dennery, and Pobeguin, the five of them then riding back through the long column of men and animals, shouting instructions, pulling the caravan into order. Word of the approaching Tuareg flashed like lightning up and down the line. The riflemen formed a line to the rear of the officers, perpendicular to the long caravan behind them, still engaged in the bedlam of trying to close ranks. The camel tenders bullied the pack animals into a tight group behind the tirailleurs, their voices cursing and shouting as they sought quick order. It was a noisy formation, but carried out quickly. For months they had talked of little else but the men who now rode toward them. Now that they were to meet face-to-face, they wasted no time.

  The line of Tuareg was ten meters from the French when a man riding near the right side halted. The others followed suit, and the line stopped as if one. The shroud of its dust nearly swallowed the group from view.

  Paul watched carefully as the two formations settled to order. Only the camels moved, adjusting their positions, snorting and stretching their necks. The men atop them on both sides sat motionless, studying their opposing numbers. The dust dissipated at last, and the camels settled down. And then there was silence.

  The colonel sat erect on his great white mount, ceremonial saber at his side. He carried no other arms but a pistol in its holster. His officers were behind him, near the center. Behind them, the Algerian tirailleurs sat at uneasy attention. They had no uniforms but the desert dress to which they were accustomed. Most wore turbans that might have been white at one time, but which were rarely washed and had become varying shades of tan and brown. Others wore fezzes, red and cocked at odd angles on their heads. The variety of their dirty costumes gave them the appearance of a ragtag band of desert ruffians. The image was belied by their faces, hard and desert-worn, and by the deadly black barrels of the Gras rifles glinting dully in the sun. Behind the tirailleurs were the blood enemies of the Tuareg, the Shamba cameleers – masters of the northern deserts, called the Haab el Reeh, the Breath of Wind.

  Paul was fascinated by the contrast between the two forces. There was nothing remotely scruffy about the Tuareg. In a proud, straight line astride their camels sat the blue men of the Sahara, the Hoggar Tuareg, the noble Ihaggaren, tall and magnificent and swathed in indigo and black. To a man their faces were invisible, covered by the veils drawn up over their mouths and noses. Where most of the Shamba applied their turbans casually, as afterthought, the Tuareg applied their lithams as adornments, as art. The long cotton sheshes were richly dyed in various colors, but all of them were dark. Meters of the soft material were wrapped around their heads, under their chins, the ends draped back over their shoulders or hanging in graceful folds over their chests. Their skin, as much as could be seen of it, was lighter than that of the Algerians who sat across from them. Their eyes were just about all that could be seen of them. Many wore great cloaks of blue, seamed at the shoulder with a hole for the neck and arms but open at the front, the edges delicately embroidered. Others wore finely decorated robes that hung to their calves. Their pants could barely be seen for the robes, but were dark in color and long. Their feet bore leather sandals.

  More than half the Tuareg carried rifles, but the weapons could hardly be compared to the Gras. A variety of bores danced in the sun, old muzzle-loaders, flintlocks, or percussion weapons, some nearly a century old. After the rifles, their weapons were more uniform. They hefted shields of tough antelope hide, finely tooled and drawn taut over wood bracing, and brass-tipped spears carried point up, the long wooden shafts intricately carved with linear patterns. All wore swords, big and double-edged, sheathed in leather scabbards. Daggers were hidden beneath every robe, strapped to forearms or hung from neck sheaths. Sabers were slung on the opposite sides from the swords, their blades long and curved, for striking and cutting.

  Their number was but a third that of the French expedition, but their sheer presence overwhelmed that of the larger force. Paul saw the men who inhabited the stories of his childhood, and they were everything he had imagined. They were formidable and fierce, proud to the point of arrogance, aristocrats of the Sahara. Where the French simply sat upon their camels, the Tuareg were enthroned upon theirs. Paul could see why they struck such fear into their enemies. Atop their fine racing meharis, armed with fearsome weapons, the Tuareg were larger than life, seemingly invincible. That a man could not see their faces added to the awe and fed the fear.

  Paul sat rigidly in his saddle studying the eyes one pair at a time, looking for a hint of familiarity. His gaze traveled the line, one slit after another. He wondered whether he would know Moussa’s eyes after so long, or whether Moussa would know him. But if Moussa was among them he gave no sign.

  One of the Tuareg moved slowly forward, the same man who had stopped the march. No rank could be distinguished among them, except that a drum was strapped to the back of his saddle. It was the tobol, the drum of authority. He nudged his camel with his feet, while the colonel, using his reins, rode forward as well. As he began to move, he said, almost inaudibly, “Madani, forward.”

  El Madani, a grizzled NCO, left his position among the ranks of the other Algerians, drawing up to the left and slightly to the rear of Flatters. The colonel spoke Arabic but liked to use an interpreter, to make certain he missed no meaning. El Madani was a veteran whose father had been a merchant in Akabli, a caravan crossroads. As a boy he had learned the Tuareg language, which he could also read, and his French was flawless.

  The Targui spoke first. “I am Attici,” he said. “I extend the greetings of the Lord Amenokai.”

  As El Madani repeated the words to Colonel Flatters, Attici reached beneath his robe and withdrew a paper, rolled and tied with a fine leather string. He leaned forward, ignoring Madani’s outstretched hand, and passed it directly to Flatters. He waited in silence as the colonel opened it. The message was written with ink of camel urine and charcoal. The colonel glanced at the message, then passed it to El Madani.

  As the tirailleur studied it, Flatters said, “I am Lieutenant Colonel Paul Flatters, and bring the peaceful greetings and gifts of the government of the Republic of France to the Amenokal Ahitagel and the people of the Hoggar.”

  El Madani looked up from his reading and translated, adding lord before the amenokal’s name. When he finished, he read the amenokal’s message to the colonel.

  “The road to the south is not safe,” he read. “There is trouble. The Sudanese killed a whole caravan from Tripoli because they thought there were Christians among them. Take the most direct road, for we do not care to see you come into our ariwans.”

  Attici spoke again. “The Lord Amenokal is to the south,
near Abalessa,” he said. “He has sent his able emissary Chikkat to lead you through the Hoggar.” Attici indicated the guide in the line of Tuareg. “He knows the way as well as Ahitagel himself. He and three others will guide you. Your own guides are not welcome, and must leave immediately.”

  There was no stir among the Iforass guides. They had expected as much.

  “We agree,” El Madani said for the colonel, “and thank you for your hospitality.”

  Paul nudged his mehari forward and stopped next to the colonel. He spoke so softly that not even El Madani could hear. “Begging the colonel’s pardon, sir, I wonder if you might inquire after my aunt and cousin. I think it would be of use—”

  “Not now, deVries,” Flatters snapped. “Later, when we are near their camps.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Paul returned to his position as El Madani was inviting the Tuareg to share a meal. “The colonel would be honored to invite you to stay with us and—”

  Without listening to the rest, Attici abruptly moved forward through the line of tirailleurs, stopping in front of two magnificent yellow Tibesti she-camels being tended by a Shamba, who regarded him with undisguised hatred.

  “These are gifts for the Lord Amenokal,” Attici said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “The colonel will present camels and horses personally—” El Madani began to say, but Attici already had the reins, and was leading the camels away. The Shamba tender moved as if to block his way, but the colonel waved him off. Without responding to the invitation or acknowledging the gift, Attici rode back through the line of his men. All but four, the new guides, turned to follow, and the Tuareg were gone as quickly as they had appeared.

  “Sassy bastards,” Remy said.

  The Iforass huddled with Pobeguin to collect their pay, and then they too disappeared, to the west.

  It all happened so quickly, Paul marveled.

  And almost as quickly, the pessimism that had dogged the caravan evaporated as well. Their doubts about the colonel were unfounded. The man knew what he was doing after all. The Tuareg had answered.