by Jane Arbor
“Not quite correct. It’s Tin Akeloui’s tribe, but they’ve trekked in another direction. It means I must go as far as the borj on the other road, to get a bearing on where to find them. I don’t even know if there’s a road fit for a car, but I can only try.”
“How did you get the message? Did one of them ride in to Tasghala?”
“No. Only as far as the borj. All these outposts have a radio link with Tasghala, and the gardien passed on the call. It seems that dengue has gripped them pretty fiercely, and I shall have to give them all a once-over. Then, on the way back, I’ll arrange from the borj for the hospital cases to be collected tomorrow.”
“What shall I have to do?”
“Act as my chaperon while I attend the womenfolk, mainly. You can take temperatures, swabs, that sort of thing?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Good enough. You should be useful.”
There was silence for a while. Then Roger asked, “How long have you been out here now?”
“Five months. No, nearly six.”
“Almost a veteran of the desert, in fact? Well, well—tempora matantur.”
“I beg your pardon? What did you say?”
“Latin for ‘How times do change.’ For instance, six months ago, who could have envisaged you’d be equal to taking a job like this in your stride?”
“You mean you believed I could?”
He laughed shortly. “That’s a leading question. You’ll agree I gave you the benefit of the doubt by suggesting you could make yourself useful at Pere Foucauld! You haven’t let me down.”
“I’m glad. And I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.” Liz paused. Then, telling herself that he, not she, had struck the personal note, she added, “You didn’t think much of me, did you, that first day, coming over in the plane?”
He appeared to consider the question. “Did I give you that impression?”
“You did, rather. That you thought I was spoiled, and ungrateful to dada, and that I had a chip on my shoulder.”
“Not that I gave you credit for qualities I considered you weren’t using? I thought we discussed Andrew’s need then, and that you were pretty quick on the uptake about what you might do for him.”
“But you called me a grudging little wretch, when I absolutely hated having to take the suggestion from you. You didn’t seem to understand at all that I blamed myself for not having thought of it first.”
“I’m sorry. I take back ‘grudging little wretch.’ It doesn’t apply any longer, and perhaps it never did.” He turned to look at her. “You’ve grown up, Liz, in these six months.”
“Do you think so?”
“Almost beyond recognition, I’d say. For instance, you’ve made a grand job of caring for Andrew and you’ve tackled this hospital orderly business as I hoped, though I couldn’t be sure, you would.”
Liz fought a losing battle against feeling warmed by his praise. “But is growing up just a matter of learning to face up to difficult situations?”
“No, there’s a lot more to it than that, of course. But I’ve always thought that one outward sign that the process is taking place is when you stop doing things out of bravado and call on your real courage instead.”
“But I did resolve to stay in Tasghala out of bravado! If it killed me, in fact, just because I guessed you didn’t believe I would!”
Roger laughed happily. “Well, thanks for the moment of truth! And my other instance—was that mere bravado, too?”
“In a way. But not for quite such a silly reason. By then I thought you were trusting me not to let you down, and so I determined I wouldn’t.”
“My opinion was the goad that drove you that time, too?” He shook his head. “You know, if I altogether believed you, that’d make me feel very humble. But I’m afraid you’re decrying a strength of character I know you’ve got. For another instance—though don’t tell me if you’d rather not—what brought you to the point of persuading Chris Soper to go back to England? You can’t pretend I spurred you on to that!”
“How—how did you know I had anything to do with his agreeing to go?”
“From him, through Fremyet, of course. No one else had been able to budge him from his refusal to go back. But you did. You could have kept him here, but you persuaded him to go. And you couldn’t have done that out of any need to stand well with me.”
“But I knew that at heart he wanted to go. He’d never really fallen out of love with a girl there. He claimed he had, but...”
“He told you he had?”
“Yes.”
“And you’d known about this girl—how long?”
“Oh, always. I mean, since I first met Chris. They’d had a misunderstanding, and it wasn’t until she wrote him out of the blue, after he’d lost his sight, that he admitted he had never forgotten her.”
“So I was wrong, and he didn’t need much persuasion to go back to her?”
“Not so much really. He—”
Roger cut in. “You must forgive me for probing you on something I already knew. What I mean is, Soper had told Fremyet about this girl, and that his change of heart about going to England was because of her. But he added that you had persuaded him, and as that seemed quixotic to a degree on your part, I rather wanted your version.”
“Quixotic? Why? I hardly had to persuade him, but you must see that, as his best chance of saving his sight was to go to England, I had to try.”
“I see that the person you’ve become in the past six months felt she had to. And forget ‘quixotic.’ It wasn’t really the right word. When does he go, by the way?”
“Almost anytime now. As soon as Dr. Fremyet thinks he has quite recovered from his dengue. If we get any notice at all, I was going to have a little party for him before he goes. Perhaps you’d come?”
Roger looked at her oddly. “A party? Would you enjoy that? Would he?”
“Oh, nothing elaborate. Just a quiet get-together among ourselves to wish him bon voyage and good luck and the rest. And I don’t see why he shouldn’t enjoy it. After all, if he doesn’t recover his sight, he’ll probably still have to face the occasional party. And if he is going to get better, a party to celebrate it isn’t out of place, surely?”
“I don’t think you need fear he won’t be cured in England. Fremyet has every faith that he will. But I’d rather you counted me out of your farewell conversazione, all the same.”
Liz frowned. “Do you mean you think it isn’t in the best of taste, considering?”
“ ‘Considering,’ ” he flung at her violently, mimicking her tone, “I think it’s in haywire taste. But that’s just my opinion. It’s your idea and your party—better leave it at that.”
They did—in a silence punctuated by desultory talk—until they reached the borj.
The gardien was expecting them, waiting to give Roger directions for finding the Tuaregs’ new camp.
“How far is it?” Roger asked.
“Thirty-five, forty kilometers, perhaps.”
“So far? What is the track like?”
“Good reg in places; deep fechfech here and there. You are carrying sandmats?”
Roger jerked his head toward the car trunk. “Yes, I never travel without them.”
“Good. Not that they’ll be necessary if you recognize the fechfech in time and put on a good speed.”
“We’re likely to be coming back well after dark. Is the road marked?”
“There are stone cairns part of the way, not all. But I’ll show you. After that hill—pointing to a jagged shape on the horizon—keep left where several tracks fork. From there on your whole bearing should be to the left. There’s a valley of outcrops and loose boulders to avoid; a danger of fechfech on the floor of it; then a long stretch of reg where you will make good going.” The man outlined the whole way in rough detail, and Roger nodded.
As they prepared to set out again, Roger said, “If we should happen to run into trouble, could you come out for us?” he asked.
The gardien shook his head. “Impossible, monsieur. I may not leave the radio post, you understand.”
“No, I thought not. Well, we’ll manage all right, I’ve no doubt.” And with a sketched salute to the man Roger started the car.
They followed the road without much difficulty, though Roger had constantly to swerve to avoid scattered rocks, and often had to gamble on rediscovering the track in places where all marked signs of it were obliterated. His driving was superb; he seemed able to sense from afar the warning signs of deep, treacherous fechfech ahead, and then he put on a bold, confident speed or plowed through the banks of sand lining the road in order to find a parallel course that offered a firmer surface. The car bogged down once very briefly. But with Roger’s foot hard down on the accelerator it had no chance to settle, and was soon charging ahead again.
They came upon the Tuareg encampment almost unexpectedly, in a tiny oasis of date palms, ringed about a few brackish ponds. Only the Tuareg tents occupied the place now. But there were signs that less nomadic people had lived there, in a communal well hung with bullock horns and in the crumbling walls of deserted mud huts which the Tuareg scorned to use. They preferred their goatskin and sackcloth, and the untrammeled freedom to ride away when hard necessity moved them on.
As before, a crowd of stragglers gathered to watch Roger and Liz alight. A messenger was ready to take Roger to Tin Akeloui’s tent, and after that he and Liz were busy for nearly two hours.
Roger saw all the certain cases of dengue first, gave treatment and advice and noted the ones that would need hospital care. Then he saw everyone else in the camp, warned any suspects to isolate themselves and firmly resisted the pleadings of the rest for pills and injections.
“They love injections,” he told Liz as he packed away his gear. “The results are apt to be quick and spectacular, so that the whole thing smacks of the medicine-man stuff they understand. In fact, you could often inject with water, and be pretty sure that faith would do the rest for you.”
Night had fallen long before they set out on the return journey. There was no moon, but the sky was clear and star studded; any darker outline stood out against it. Occasionally Roger asked Liz to confirm that they had passed this or that outcrop of rock or patch of tamarisk on the way out.. But for the most part he drove fast and in silence, having told her he hoped to be back in Tasghala before midnight.
They were still many kilometers short of the borj when the headlights raked out toward their next natural landmark, a low ridge of rock appearing to bar the way ahead. But both remembered there was more than one gap through it, and though there was no marked road of approach to it—just a churned-up sea of ridged sand—they agreed on which gap they had used with safety on the outward journey.
They were both wrong.
Roger put on all the speed the car could muster as, in front of the gap, the choppy ridges were higher and the troughs between them were deeper. Sand swirled about the car and spat upon the windshield as they smashed through the gap, only to come upon a stretch of fechfech worse than any they had yet encountered. Under Roger’s desperate pressure the car lurched and dragged itself forward, shuddered, lurched again into a deep hole, out once more and into another, and so to the inevitable full stop.
Forgivably Roger swore once, then turned to Liz. “Wrong gap, after all. We never pushed through this lot on the way out.”
“No. What do we do now?”
“You stay where you are. I’ll get out and prospect, see how deeply we’re sanded in, how far we’ll have to struggle to the next bit of reg. I’ll be back.”
He took a flashlight from a door pocket and was gone some time. When he returned he went to the trunk of the car before rejoining Liz inside.
He said, “Well, we’re not on an even keel. The back wheels are sunk nearly a foot lower than the front, and there’s soft sand for more than two feet down. I’ve scrabbled to find out. There’s shallower stuff forty yards ahead, and after that this track converges with the right one.”
“Forty yards of this! Must we dig ourselves out? Can you get the car to move at all?”
“I could in time—if I had anything but my bare hands as tools, or if I had sandmats to ease under the wheels.”
“Sandmats? But I thought you said—”
Roger nodded.
“I did. But incautiously I left the trunk unlocked while we were at the camp, and I’m afraid the mats may have taken someone’s fancy as flooring for a tent. There were a couple of baker’s rakes, too. They’re better than any shovel or spade for clearing sand from under the wheels.”
“You mean they’ve been stolen?”
“Ah, you can’t quite judge Eastern ideas on ‘mine and thine’ by our Western code. Besides, the Tuareg aren’t sneak thieves. They’re too proud of their lineage. I’d rather think the things were admired and ‘borrowed’ for a while. Probably the next time I go out to the camp, I shan’t even have to inquire for my property. It’ll be handed over to me with all courtesy and not ill feeling expected. Meanwhile, we don’t dig ourselves out because we can’t, and you’re at full liberty to blame me for my crass idiocy in leaving the trunk open.”
Liz said quickly, “You couldn’t have known! But isn’t there any way of getting the car clear?”
“None, short of getting under it and shouldering it forty yards or so! Even with rakes, you have to work like beavers to ease it onto the mats inch by inch before the sand falls in again and undoes all your work. Liz, my dear—” he laid a hand on hers, not guessing how she thrilled to the casual touch “—I’m desperately sorry, but I’m afraid we stay put. At best until first light, when I may be able to improvise some kind of tool; at worst, until someone else comes to dig us out.”
“We’re here for the rest of the night?”
“That at least, I’m afraid.” Holding her look unreadably, he asked, “Don’t you think our reputations can take the strain?”
Liz flushed. “We—we couldn’t help it, after all...”
“And we’re certainly not going to be put on the defensive about it. Leave that to me,” he cut in crisply. “Meanwhile, let’s assess the situation. I couldn’t give the gardien a deadline of time at which to expect us back, as I didn’t know how long we should be at the camp. But soon, if not already, he’ll be on the watch for us, and after that let’s hope he’ll have the gumption to radio Tasghala.”
“There’s dada—he’ll be expecting us back.”
“Yes. I couldn’t give him a firm hour, either—only that I’d see you safely home. But he’s our best bet. He’ll be the first to worry. The only snag is that, as he knows and as I told the gardien I always travel with digging-out gear, they may conclude we’re lost rather than simply bogged down, and so decide it would be quicker in the end to wait until dawn and then send a chopper to look for us.”
“A chopper? Oh—a helicopter. But we’re not lost, are we?”
“No. We’re on the beam all right. But either way, whether we’re rescued by road or by air, I’m afraid we’ve got a few cold, uncomfortable hours in front of us.”
“I’m not cold.”
“You probably will be before the sun gets up. It can be bitter. Are you hungry? Thirsty? I can offer you some marching chocolate, and if you like we could make some tea on a little solid-fuel stove I always carry.”
“Tea? Have you any water?”
“A thermos flaskful. Only one mug, though. We’ll have to share.”
They brewed their tiny ration of tea on the hinged flap of the trunk and drank it inside the car. Over it, they got onto the subject of man’s constant preoccupation with the need of water, and Liz asked, puzzled, “This time the Tuareg have chosen an oasis where there is water. But what did they do for it at their other camp, where there seemed to be nothing but rocks and the bare desert for miles around?”
“Ah, there they had come upon a foggara. Their camels, who have an unfailing instinct for the whereabouts of water, may even have led them to it. You’ll
remember that you and I had a difference of opinion under the lee of the hills they had chosen for shelter?”
“Yes, I remember.” Liz wondered whether he had deliberately embarrassed her. But he went on evenly.
“Well, they weren’t really hills, but enormous sand dunes that can act as colossal dew reservoirs. The dew percolates through them and collects in fissures of rock below ground level, and centuries ago the dunes were tunneled and primitive well shafts were sunk to the water level. They were called foggaras; they still work, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t go on giving water forever. And anyhow, the desert is only waterless on top.”
“Is it?”
“The experts think so now. Among other arguments, they say the rivers flowing down from Atlas must collect somewhere, and that it’s only a matter of a few years until an endless source of water is tapped. And then the Sahara will really come into its own.”
“You do believe in the desert, don’t you?” asked Liz quietly.
“I do. I must.” Roger stubbed out his cigarette and flicked it out into the darkness. “I’ve given most of my professional life to it, and I’ve got to believe it holds all my future.”
“You want it to? You love it enough?”
“I want it to, yes. When I marry, I hope I shall do so here. And if I don’t marry...”
“But you’re going to, aren’t you?” The chasm had yawned, and Liz had plunged headily into it—into the queer compulsion to force from him the news she had expected to hear by now from Beth.
“Let’s say it’s on the lap of the gods and may have to remain there.”
Liz felt she had gone too far to draw back now. She must know! “But—but I thought it was practically settled!” she stammered. “I mean, Beth...”
“Beth? What has she to do with it?”
“Why—why, everything, surely!”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“Asking you, I suppose. Oh, dear—I don’t know! Telling you, too. I mean, everyone in Tasghala thinks you’ll marry Beth eventually.”