Hashish

by Henry De Monfreid

I thought of those Greek cafés of which I had had a glimpse at Suez, and of the bar at the Piraeus. It seemed to me now that all the men in them had had sinister and evil faces. Had I been dreaming, and would I have a painful awakening? The real dangers were now about to begin, and I feared them infinitely more than those of the perilous voyage I had just made. I should have to struggle now against cowardice, cupidity, trickery… a crooked fight amid the filth of a sewer.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Hiding-Place

  At dawn the white lights of Suez faded before the golden glory of the sun, and the town suddenly appeared out of the desert in dazzling clearness. The mountains of Ataqa to the north-west of the bay turned to a vivid rose, and the gulf, smooth as a mirror in the calm of the transparent air, gleamed with delicate mother-of-pearl reflections under the fairy-like delicacy of the sunrise hues. Gradually sky and sea became blue, the land merely ochre, and the north wind began to blow.

  At this moment I noticed a small white sail leaving the coast of Asia. A fishing-boat, I thought, which had been waiting for the wind. I was still more than thirty miles from Suez, and could see nothing clearly yet. The crew took it in turns to climb to the mast-head, each one wanting to be the first to have a good view of this town of which we had been speaking so long, the goal of our voyage, reached after so many struggles. I had decided long before that I would not go into the harbour with my cargo. Though I had passed through the customs at Kosseir, that was no guarantee against a visit from the customs at Suez. In all countries which have only a venéer of civilization, the officials imagine that they establish their prestige in making themselves as much of a nuisance as possible. So I thought I would imitate the turtles, find a deserted beach, and deposit my riches in the sand. The sail I had seen upset my plans; but for it I should have been near the coast already. The best thing to do was to let it pass; after that I should see. I hugged the wind in order to advance as slowly as possible until these tiresome fishermen should have disappeared.

  But, alas, my boutre appeared to interest them, for they came nearer and nearer until they were only two cables’ length off. It was a simple bark with a lateen sail such as I had seen round the liners when we had called in at Suez. I could see the men squatting on the after-deck, their eyes fixed on us. There were six of them, all dressed in blue guellabias, with tight little white turbans on their heads. Then the bark continued towards the north-west, while I let my boutre bear away to get as far as possible in the opposite direction. When she was out of sight I steered for the coast of Asia. The wind was favourable, so I reckoned we should have time to deposit my cases somewhere before darkness fell.

  Already the big petroleum tanks at Port Tewfik could be seen above the horizon, and soon the tops of the masts of the ships in the roads were outlined against the sky. Finally, the white town itself came into view. We had gone as far as was prudent. I steered due east. The coast of Asia was barely ten miles away; we should reach it in an hour and a half. Suddenly a multitude of white sails like a cloud of butterflies born by the wind appeared from the north. They were fishing-boats. Every day they left Suez about midday, as soon as the wind had steadied, and came down to fish on the shores of the gulf fifteen or twenty miles south of the town. In less than three-quarters of an hour they were opposite us, between us and the coast of Asia, and already several of them had lowered their sails and begun fishing. There was no use thinking any more of seeking a hiding-place on this coast. These fishers would not move before the next morning. If I was imprudent enough to start any manoeuvre which might attract their attention, they would realize that my boutre did not belong to the ordinary flotilla of Suez, and next day we should be the staple subject of conversation in all the native cafés frequented by sailors. So I had to go back to where I was. I steered westward in the direction which had been taken by the first boat we had seen that morning. I realized now that this vessel was not like those I had just seen. She differed in form and in tonnage, and her manoeuvres had been rather odd. These boats really were fishing-boats.

  In these countries routine is a law; everything is done in accordance with changeless traditions. Originality is wholly unknown. This applies even to the fishing; each man does not fish according to his own ideas, but according to a local method followed by everybody. I had just had the proof of this in the great number of little boats which had all remained near the coast of Asia. So this solitary vessel had had other business than catching fish. While I fled westward, I reflected: Alexandros was expecting me on the 18th and it was now the 17th. Knowing that I was coming by sea with my precious cargo, he must be thinking that I should soon be putting in an appearance. Could I guess what plots might not have been hatched, if he had babbled to the habitués of those strange cafés he frequented? These idle people had all the time in the world to plot, for they did nothing else. They knew the country, they were in touch with accomplices all over the place, and if they knew my secret, I must seem a ludicrously easy prey.

  In the end, I was quite sure that this ship had been sent to look out for me. But just why? She had undoubtedly been waiting for me, she had come close enough to identify me, and after taking a good look, she had disappeared. Had she gone to warn the coast-guards? No, that would be ridiculous and wouldn’t put anything in Alexandros’ pocket, for the reward given by the customs for information was on the scale of a thaler per oke of hashish captured, whereas if he bought my merchandise, he would have a profit of three or four pounds sterling per oke, that is twenty or thirty times as much. I went off into a long series of suppositions, each as absurd as the rest – a dangerous exercise because it induces auto-suggestion, and often leads to irreparable blunders. Here were the facts:

  A bark had been watching for me and had just ascertained that I was in the gulf. That could not be altered. But this bark supposed that I had my merchandise on board; that I could change, and I should lose no time in doing it. I went on my way, making more or less for the north, so that from a distance I should seem to be heading for Suez, if, as was very probable, I was being watched. But as soon as darkness fell, I crowded on sail and dashed for the coast of Egypt. I did not know the first thing about the nature of this coast. I merely presumed it was deserted, at least at night.

  After the fading of the twilight, a little young moon lingered in the sky, then vanished behind the great range of Ataqa and left us in darkness but for the stars. I kept sounding in order to know when we approached the shore, for we couldn’t make out the low-lying coast at the foot of the mountains. The water grew gradually shallower, and at ten feet we lowered the sails. All the manoeuvres were carried out in the most absolute silence. I had oiled all the pulleys so as to avoid the creaking and rattling which generally accompanies the lowering of sails. Ahmed’s exuberant nature caused him to make enthusiastic exclamations on every occasion, and it needed a resounding box on the ear to silence him. The anchor was cautiously lowered, it dipped under water, found the sand, and there we were motionless, in the midst of a dead calm. We were towing the houri after us. I had had it lowered that afternoon, as it is practically impossible to lower a boat silently. In it I embarked with Abdi and Ali Omar, the only two on whose coolness and courage I could absolutely rely. Abdi always ignored danger, and believed himself invulnerable when he was with me. Ali Omar was genuinely brave, and used his courage with intelligence.

  In spite of the shallowness of the water at the point where we had left the boutre, we were still far from the coast. Long after the silhouette of the boutre had vanished behind us, the land had not yet come into sight. Suddenly, Ali Omar stopped paddling and pointed to a vague dark mass a hundred yards to our left. I had brought my night glasses with me, and I recognized the outline of a ship. Her mast had been removed, probably to allow her to hide more easily. I could see her lateen yard quite plainly jutting out over the stern. It was the boat we had seen that morning. I did not know why she was lurking there dismasted, but of one thing I was very sure, she was not engaged in fishing. At the dis
tance at which we were, our houri, which was very low in the water, could not be seen. Silently we glided to the right and were soon swallowed up in the night. After half a mile of this ghost-like progress the keel of the houri grounded on the sand. We moored it to a paddle fixed upright in the sand, and advanced slowly through the shallow water, stepping delicately so as to make no noise.

  Stinging skates, surprised in their sleep, began swimming through the cloudy water. At the risk of being wounded by their poisonous touch we went on, silent as before. The danger was that we might step on one of these flat fishes, half-buried in the sand, so Abdi insisted on going first to have the honour of brushing these dangerous sleepers out of our way. Indeed, in this way, only one of us risked being stung, and since Abdi wanted to be the one, Ali Omar and I gracefully conceded him the honour. At last we reached firm ground. I had not the faintest idea where we were, for the night was very dark in the shadow of those mountains which blotted out a good part of the sky. Underfoot was gravelly soil, strewn with sharp fragments of shells. Here and there round us were little, whitish dunes, and after that, darkness, silence and the unknown. Through my glasses I could make out other vague outlines of dunes, and it seemed to me that we were on a sandy plain, which was utterly deserted.

  We eagerly investigated to see if the soil was suitable for the proposed burying of our goods. At every step we took forward, we felt the sand with our hands to discover its nature, and I had the disagreeable impression that though my hands touched gravel, my feet were gradually sinking in as if there was mud underneath it. I made an effort to free myself, and sank farther in. The oozing mud was soon up to my knees, and I was still sinking. Luckily there was a dune very near, and I managed to reach it before my legs were completely imprisoned. There, the ground was solid. Abdi and Ali Omar had had the same experience. We had to retreat, for we were on shifting sands whose depths I did not know. We happened to find the traces of our footprints and followed them safely back to the sea. We had had the luck to land just where there was a strip of solid ground in the middle of a quagmire. If we had landed at another point, I don’t know how we should have come out of the adventure.

  We had some trouble in finding the pirogue, owing to the darkness, and it was one o’clock in the morning when we got back on board. I still had time to hoist the sails and be out of sight before dawn, for I was most uneasy at the presence of the other ship, though I tried to find a normal explanation for it. By seven o’clock in the morning we had crossed the gulf and anchored on the Asiatic coast, three cables’ lengths from an absolutely deserted beach to the south of Ras Sudr. The fishing-boats had disappeared; they must have gone back to Suez before dawn, and I knew they would not return before midday.

  The sand on the beach was firm and dry, and went up in a gentle slope towards a little rocky wall twenty yards from the sea. This was the boundary of a desert plain. At the foot of this little cliff, which was only about fourteen feet high, I dug a hole in which to put my eight cases. While the men were hollowing it out, I examined every inch of this plain through the telescope, right up to the chain of mountains away in the east. I left a man on guard on a small mound and came back to where the men were digging. During this time, the cabin-boy had amused himself by picking bil-bils off the rocks which emerged from the water, for the tide was out. These bivalves were exceptionally big, which led me to suppose that no one fished them here. Naturally, I opened some of them from idle curiosity, and to my great surprise found several small pearls embedded in the flesh. Probably it was not known in this country that these bivalves contained pearls. I made a mental note of this fact for future use; for the moment we were too busy arranging for the bringing of our goods to land to bother about anything else.

  We could not get all these cumbersome cases into the houri, indeed, it could only take one at a time, which meant that the disembarking of the hashish would take too long. But since they were zinc-lined, why should I bother putting the cases in a pirogue? Why not just throw them into the sea? They would float, and helped along by the sea breeze swimmers could easily push them towards the shore. In a few minutes my cargo was in the sea, and the crew, in the highest spirits, frolicked through the water, pushing the cases before them. When we were about to lower them into the hole prepared for them, I was surprised to smell the familiar odour of hashish, and I noticed, on examination, that the salt water which dripped from them was strongly impregnated with this odour.

  In a flash I realized what had happened. What a disaster; the water had seeped into the cases! Perhaps they had been badly soldered, or more probably the heat at Djibouti had dilated the cold air which had been enclosed at Steno, thus opening the joinings. All my merchandise was perhaps spoilt, for I remembered that Petros had particularly warned me not to let the hashish get wet. There was no time to be lost; the most imminent danger was the spoiling of the hashish. We ripped open the cases, which now seemed too securely closed for our taste: we were in such a hurry to rend them apart. Only one was still all right; the other seven had let in water and all the little sacks were soaked. But the sun was already high in the heavens, and briskly dried the four hundred packets spread neatly out on the sand. It was quite an imposing display. I just thought of the thunderstruck joy of a company of coastguards, if they had happened to pass at this moment.

  I had made up my mind once and for all, and would take the consequences, whatever they were. I would risk my life in this affair, and was determined not to be captured tamely. The sacks would take at least an hour to dry. If anyone happened to pass during this time and threatened to bother us, I would stop him, by ruse if I could, but by force if necessary, for I was very sincerely determined to see this business through, cost what it might. This decision taken, I immediately recovered all my serenity. I kept with me Abdi, Ali Omar and two Dankalis, with all the arms which were on board, and Mhamed Moussa returned to the boutre with the rest of the crew. He had orders to get ready to put to sea, and to run south before the wind, then to beat up northwards. I kept the pirogue with me to go and join him out at sea whenever our work was finished, if Fate allowed us to finish it. I sent away the boutre because I did not want to attract attention to the point on the beach where we were. If any excisemen, or even innocent passers-by, were to come along the coast, they would naturally follow the little path which ran parallel to the shore on the top of the little cliff, some fifty yards back from where we were. If they saw a ship at anchor, they would naturally approach the edge of the cliff in order to hail it, or simply to get a nearer view, whereas if there was nothing on the sea or on the part of the beach visible from the path – for our merchandise, being right under the foot of the cliff, could not be seen from it – they would have no reason for going out of their way.

  I dragged the pirogue up the beach and hid it under the cliff. Our sail had now disappeared, everything was calm in the limpid morning air, and as far as the eye could reach over the sandy plain, there was no sign of life. Out at sea, cargo boats passed by, indifferent to everything but the route they must follow. We carefully turned over all the sacks so that they could dry through and through. Ali Omar kept watch, lying on the top of the cliff. Suddenly he rose and glided towards us, wearing an anxious expression. My heart gave a horrid jump, as if I had been stabbed.

  ‘You have seen something?’ I asked.

  ‘Not on land, but over there a steamer which is not a cargo is coming down from Suez, keeping very close to the coast.’

  From where I was, only the smoke from her funnel was visible. I climbed up the cliff, and sure enough I saw the yellow funnel of a little vessel with a single mast. I could not see the hull, but the funnel, clearly shown up by the sun, was obviously yellow, denoting a coastguard. They were certainly inspecting the coast, and would be sure to have powerful telescopes. I had the empty cases piled into the trench, and since I was afraid we should not have time to pack the sacks into them, I had the latter covered with a thin layer of sand. From a distance they would thus be invisible to
anyone who did not know they were there. We ourselves crouched down in the space left in the trench, so that nothing remained to attract the eye to this spot.

  The steamer approached, very rapidly now, and her white hull confirmed that she was a coastguard. I could even see the big searchlight on the top of the foresail, and her war flag on the gaff. She was following the coast less than a mile out. What a lucky inspiration I had had in sending away my ship! Half an hour later, her presence would have compromised everything, hopelessly, too, for there would be no question of engaging battle with a warship. When she was just opposite us, I was afraid she was going to stop. I thought I could hear all our hearts hammering in our chests. But the white foam churned up by her stem rolled on, she passed… she was gone… she had seen nothing.

  ‘Al amdul illah,’ sighed my men.

  I had passed an agonizing five minutes, but once the danger was past our luck seemed to me miraculous, yet at the same time quite natural. I felt as if I had never for a moment really believed that a catastrophe was possible. A sort of presentiment had assured me that all would go well. I remembered the case we had found floating on the sea. Why had Destiny sent it to me if my enterprise was not going to succeed? Fortunate optimism, thanks to which I could keep up my courage in trying moments. But this respite to our anxiety did not last long. I had my eyes fixed on our sail, away out at sea to the south. The coastguard had seen it too, and seemed to be making for it. Was she going to take it into her head to hail her? In that case, the absence of the captain and four of the crew would seem a little curious, if the ledger was looked at. What explanation would Mhamed Moussa give? Even if he said we had all died of cholera that would complicate the situation frightfully, and goodness knows what would be the end of it all. However, the gravest danger, and the most immediate, was past. We hastened to profit by this fact, and bury the accursed sacks, which were now dry. Rapidly we arranged them in their cases and at last the sand covered everything with its secret mantle. But as often happens when things are unpacked, we could not get them all in. Perhaps the merchandise had swollen a little. I had twelve little sacks over. I decided to keep them with me; they could act as samples, so that I could arrange the sale of all the hashish as soon as I arrived. They went into quite a small parcel, which could easily be disposed of in case of danger.