Footprints in the Desert

by Maha Akhtar

  “That’s a rather morbid explanation,” Charles commented from under his cap.

  “But isn’t it true?” Nassim asked.

  “Sort of, I suppose,” Charles continued, still pretending to nap.

  “But what happens if my uniform gets torn and I borrow Rabih’s,” Hisham said, “and I get killed, then whoever finds me will think I’m Rabih and will tell his family he’s dead.”

  “And that has happened,” Charles confirmed. “They try to be very careful about it, but in a war like this, it’s inevitable.”

  “But that’s terrible,” Nassim said.

  “So, Charles, I bet the girls love a man in uniform … ,” Hisham interjected.

  Charles grinned, his cap still on his eyes.

  “They do, eh!” Hisham said excitedly. “Heh, heh! What do you think of that, brother?” he gently punched Nassim in the arm.

  “You have such a one-track mind.” Nassim turned to him and went back to poring over the small leather notebook he was writing in.

  “What is that?” Hisham asked, admiring the reflection of his uniform in the window.

  “A diary.”

  “Since when did you start keeping a diary?”

  “I’ve just started.”

  Hisham raised his eyebrows.

  “I might keep one too,” he added.

  Silence fell in the car. Apart from the voices of a couple of soldiers, everyone, it seemed, was dozing or napping.

  “How far is it to Suez?” Hisham asked.

  “About eighty-seven miles,” Rabih said.

  “What do we do after that?”

  “After that, we cross the Sinai by camel.” Charles sat up and adjusted his cap.

  “All these guys will come with us?” Hisham asked.

  “No … ,” Charles clarified. “The soldiers stay in Suez, but my men come with us to Aqaba.”

  “What does your group do?” Rabih asked.

  “We’re all part of the British Army, but we’re trained to do special operations …”

  “What happens to the soldiers in Suez?” Nassim asked.

  “They won’t stay in Suez,” Charles said. “They’ll go north to Beersheba in Palestine and hook up with Murray.”

  “It’s been tough going for Murray in the Sinai, hasn’t it?” Rabih said.

  “It has,” Charles agreed. “He’s tried to take Gaza twice now, but hasn’t been able to … yet. I’ve heard they may bring Allenby in.”

  Charles excused himself and left to go talk to his colleagues. Salah dozed. Rabih moved next to the window and leaned against it, idly staring out at the countryside that whizzed by in a screen of steam that rose from the bottom of the locomotive. Hisham crossed his arms across his chest and leaned his head back against the back of the bench, staring at the ceiling. And Nassim continued poring over his map, making copious notes in his notebook.

  A couple of hours later, the train chugged noisily into the city of Suez. Nassim stuck his head out of the window as they approached the station, the train whistling as it pulled up along the crowded platform.

  “This is it, boys!” Charles said. He hoisted his backpack over his shoulder and climbed down from the train. Outside on the platform, he waved to a small, wiry man dressed in Bedouin robes.

  “Gentlemen, this is Hammoudi, our guide,” he announced, after giving the man a big hug. “He knows the Sinai like no one.”

  “Do you think he’ll teach us to ride a camel?” Hisham whispered to Nassim as they followed him out the station.

  “Have you really never ridden a camel before?” Nassim hissed.

  “No!” Hisham said. “I’ve lived in El-Khalili all my life. Where would I have ridden a camel?”

  “There are camels in the souk.”

  “And they belong to the people who come to the souk, do their business, and leave,” Hisham retorted. “They don’t exactly rent their camels out for rides like at a fairground.”

  “Come on!” Nassim clapped him on the back. “You’ll learn. It’s not hard.”

  Hisham made a face at his friend’s back, rushing after the little group when he realized he would be left behind if he didn’t keep up.

  “All right, everyone here knows the drill!” Charles addressed his team at the military barracks in Suez. “We travel by night. We rest by day. We leave tonight. Any questions? Good! Platoon dismissed!” Charles stood at ease. “Everyone back here in three hours. We have to be mounted and ready to move out before the sun dips.

  “Now, Nassim and Hisham,” he said, approaching them. “Hammoudi here is going to give you a quick lesson in camel riding.”

  “What? Now?” Hisham looked terrified.

  Hisham looked up at the sky and put his hands together. “Dear God!”

  “Come on, Hisham!” Salah put his arm congenially around the younger man. “Camels are not that bad.”

  “Yeah … they bite people!”

  “Look, Hisham,” Salah said, “before we go any further, I need to know that you’re ready. This is not a game and it is not about how many women you get wearing a uniform.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “This is war. It’s serious. I can’t guarantee that you won’t get hurt. I can’t guarantee that you’ll come back alive.”

  Hisham looked embarrassed.

  “If you’re doing this because Nassim is,” Salah said, “that is not enough of a reason to go to Aqaba.”

  “I’m not,” Hisham said, studying his toes.

  “Look boy, when you fight for something, when you commit to giving your life for it, you have to believe it. It would be a waste of your life to throw it away on something you don’t feel really matters to you,” Charles added.

  Hisham remained silent.

  “Do you believe in the Arab Revolt?” Charles asked.

  Hisham nodded.

  “And you know what it stands for?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you feel strongly enough about a free Arab nation to go out and maybe have to give your life for the cause.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, then buck up, stop whining, and go do it. Dismissed, soldier.”

  That evening, just when the sun started to set, a caravan set out across the desert. A total of a dozen camels in single file padded over the dunes, starting the hundred-and-fifty-mile trek to the Gulf of Aqaba.

  Salah looked back at Hisham.

  “Are you all right?” he cried out, giving him the thumbs-up sign, uncertain that he had heard him. Hisham returned the thumbs-up.

  Salah looked out at the scenery. It took his breath away. The desert stretched out like a wavy, sandy sea in front of him. Behind him, the sun was setting, its fading light changing the colors of the dunes from sandy blonde to deep chocolate and orange. There were occasional rocks and a few limestone hills dotting the landscape, but nothing else. Above, the sky was still blue with a few stray clouds.

  “How long until we get to Eilat?” Salah asked Charles when they stopped in the early hours of the morning near a well for a short break.

  “In a week, maybe a bit more.” Charles came and joined him on the sand around the fire that Hammoudi had started to keep away the chill of the desert night.

  “It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?” Charles looked up into the star-covered sky, taking a sip from a small flask.

  “Yes,” Salah agreed, taking a drag of a cigarette he had just lit.

  “The desert can’t be claimed or owned,” Charles said. “Here you don’t belong to anyone or to any country. You become one with the desert. It’s a place that demands your complete faith because you disappear into it and it can keep you alive or destroy you.”

  “Whiskey?” Charles offered his flask to Salah.

  “I don’t mind if I do.”

  “Things going to be okay with Noura?”

  “She was pretty angry.”

  “But you know that you are right. This is no place for a woman,” Charles reassured him.

  “No
ura’s tough.”

  “I know, but still. It’s harsh out here. And it’s going to get harsher once we start north.”

  “She’ll calm down.”

  “What about Fatmeh?” Salah added. “How did she take the news?”

  “I’m a soldier, Salah. This is my job.”

  While Salah and Charles sat chatting around the fire, Rabih was sitting at the top of a sand dune, looking up at the stars, calmly smoking a cigarette.

  “Ya Allah!” he heard Hisham’s voice.

  Rabih rolled his eyes. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts.

  “Rabih!” Hisham said, surprised to see him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came up here to look at the stars.” Rabih took a deep drag of his cigarette.

  Hisham sat down heavily next to Rabih. “My ass hurts,” he said. “Does yours?”

  Rabih shook his head.

  “You’re thinking about Tante Rania, aren’t you?” Hisham asked.

  Rabih continued to smoke silently.

  “Why are women so weird?” he mused.

  Rabih turned his head to look at him and stared back up at the sky.

  “Why do they play these silly games?” Hisham continued. “They say ‘no’ when they mean ‘yes,’ they say ‘yes,’ when they mean ‘maybe,’ and they say ‘maybe’ when they mean ‘no.’ Why can’t they say what they mean?”

  “You really think that?” Rabih asked him, breaking into a smile.

  “Yeah, I do. Why can’t they be straightforward like us? It would just be so much easier.”

  Rabih chuckled.

  “Can I have a cigarette?” Hisham asked.

  “You sure you want one?” Rabih asked, pulling out a packet from his breast pocket.

  Hisham nodded.

  They sat together silently smoking.

  “Rabih, what does it mean when you can’t see the stars anymore?” Hisham was lying on his side, his head propped up on his hand.

  “What do you mean?”

  “See over there.” Hisham pointed towards the horizon. “There are no stars there.”

  Rabih sat up and peered into the distance. Suddenly, he jumped up. “God help us!”

  “What? What’s wrong?” Hisham stood up.

  “Hisham … run!” Rabih said urgently. “Come on!”

  “What?”

  The two ran down the sand dune, sinking into the sand, tumbling down to the bottom. Rabih ran toward the little group sitting around the fire near the well.

  “Sandstorm!” he screamed.

  For a split second, no one moved.

  “Move!” Rabih shouted. “Cover the well! Take cover!”

  “Rabih!” Charles said loudly. “Take care of Nassim and Hisham. Salah and I will help Hammoudi with the animals.”

  “Where do we shelter, Rabih?” Nassim asked, his voice shaking.

  Rabih looked around. There was nothing. “Cover your faces,” he ordered. “Now look, I am going to tie us all together and we have to keep moving. We can’t stop. If you do, the sand will build up around us and lock us in. We will all suffocate.”

  “What are the others going to do?” Hisham asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rabih tied Hisham’s hands to Nassim’s.

  “And the camels?”

  “Camels are used to it … I’m sure Hammoudi has been through this and knows how to handle them.”

  “Now, be careful … don’t open your mouths,” Rabih told them, just before the sand rolled in.

  Suddenly and without warning, the storm was upon them. The sound of the wind was deafening. Columns of sand whirled around like individual tornadoes, and more sand flowed along the ground like a rising river. It felt as though the entire surface of the earth was rising. Pebbles struck their knees, their ankles, their faces. Grains of fine sand found their way into their clothes. The sky was completely invisible and they couldn’t even see their own hands in front of them.

  “How long is this going to go on?” Hisham screamed, trying to make himself heard. But he couldn’t say anymore. His throat filled immediately with sand and he began to cough violently. He tried to swallow but he couldn’t. He tried to spit, but he just got more sand in his mouth. Suddenly, he felt he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t get any oxygen. Every time he tried, it was sand.

  “Nassim! Nassim!” he thought he heard Rabih’s voice in the wind. “I can’t hold you.”

  Hisham was starting to lose consciousness when he felt hands around his neck and a leather water skin was pressed to his lips. “Drink and spit,” he heard a voice say. Hisham tried, but he couldn’t. He was suffocating. He began to feel weaker and weaker until everything went black.

  The sun was high in the sky when Rabih opened his eyes. He shut them again quickly when a few grains of sand got in. He used his headscarf to clean his face as best he could. He looked around. He saw a mound covered by sand to his left and quickly scrambled over. It was Nassim. Oh God! Rabih sank back on his heels, tears smarting his eyes. Hisham … where’s Hisham? Please … I can’t have lost both of them.

  Rabih walked around under the hot sun. Every time he saw an embankment or a small hill, he ran to it and started digging with his hands. He prayed silently. But Rabih couldn’t find him. The sun was slowly moving toward midday. The sand would soon be scorching. He had to somehow find Charles and the rest of the party. I’ll just sit down here for a minute, Rabih thought. His head was spinning. His eyesight was getting blurry. He blinked but he still couldn’t focus. He started to feel nauseous and weak. His heart was beating furiously and he felt his entire body break out in sweat. He couldn’t see, even though he knew his eyes were open. Suddenly, as the blood drained from his head, he fell on his knees and, before he could do anything about it, he lost consciousness.

  Slowly, Rabih opened his eyes. He was able to make out shapes hovering over him, but he could not make out what they were. He heard sounds, but they were unintelligible, ranging from whispers to screams. They didn’t even sound human. Rabih floated back into oblivion.

  When he next opened his eyes, there were no shapes or sounds. He groaned and tried to move. Suddenly, the shapes were back.

  “Rabih!” he heard his name, but it sounded like an echo in a large, empty room. “Can you open your eyes?”

  Rabih tried to open his eyes wide.

  “Rabih do you know who you are?” a voice sounded.

  Rabih nodded.

  “He’s all right,” the voice pronounced. “He’s coming around.”

  Rabih felt cold liquid wetting his lips and he slowly licked them. He felt water trickle into his mouth. It felt good as it spread across his tongue, moistening it, making it come alive again. Slowly, the shapes in front of Rabih’s eyes began to take a form. It was Hammoudi. Rabih tried to lift his head, but the Bedouin forced him back down. Rabih watched as he took a small glass vial out of the inside of his robes, popped it open and put it to Rabih’s lips. “Drink,” he ordered. Rabih didn’t have the strength to argue. Whatever the mixture was, it tasted vile, but in moments, he could feel his blood circulating again, the oxygen rushing to nourish his brain.

  “He will sleep now,” Rabih heard Hammoudi say. “When he comes to, he will be fine.”

  Rabih’s eyes closed again.

  When he opened them again, Salah was sitting next to him.

  “What happened?”

  “Severe dehydration and near suffocation.”

  Rabih closed his eyes and reopened them, relieved.

  “Where are we?”

  “Near an oasis due north of Saint Catherine’s Monastery.”

  “Did we lose any time?”

  “No,” Salah shook his head. “We carried you on a stretcher hoisted between two camels. We’ll be in Eilat in two days.”

  Rabih nodded.

  “Salah … I lost them. Both of them.”

  “Yes.”

  Rabih tried to sit up, but immediately felt dizzy.

  “Easy now, brother.”

 
“There was nothing you or anyone could have done. A sandstorm is a sandstorm.”

  “I could have held onto them …”

  “You can’t blame yourself …”

  “What a waste of young lives,” Rabih turned away in dismay. He lay back down on the camp cot and stared up at the roof of the striped tent.

  “I’m sorry, Salah,’ Rabih put his head in his hands. “I am so sorry.”

  The following afternoon, just before reaching Eilat, a port on the northernmost tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, they came across a small encampment of Bedouin tents next to an inland oasis where Charles halted the caravan and dismounted.

  “Well, well, well!” A man dressed in Bedouin, desert robes came out of one of the tents and stood smiling, his arms across his chest. He wore a big white headdress held in place with a black, braided agal around the crown, a long white tunic, and a white linen cloak. A sword and dagger hung from a belt at his waist.

  “Hello, boys!” Lawrence walked toward Charles, Salah, and Rabih. “Come on in. How was the trip?”

  “Long. We ran into a sandstorm just after we left Suez.”

  “To start a journey in a sandstorm is good luck, you know,” Lawrence said.

  “Not this time, Lawrence,” Salah said sadly. “We lost Nassim, and Hisham … one of my boys from the El-Khalili.”

  “Oh dear.” Lawrence bit his bottom lip. “I’m sorry.”

  “So what’s the plan, Sir?” Charles asked.

  “We’re going to give the Turks a taste of their own medicine.” Lawrence rubbed his hands with glee. “We’ll plant a few tulips and light up the skies over Ottoman Syria. You all ready to leave?”

  They nodded.

  “We leave at 23:00 hours.” Lawrence opened the flap of the tent. “In the meantime, let me introduce you to Auda Abu Tayi.”

  Auda abu Tayi was a formidable man. He was short, standing no more than five feet six inches tall, but muscular and very strong. Despite his height, he had a huge presence and charisma. He was dark-skinned, had curly black hair that was always covered with a white headscarf, and sported a slim moustache and a beard that was trimmed razor thin along his very angular jaw line. But the most intimidating thing about Auda was his stare. He had a pair of piercing blue eyes that glinted like steel and forced even the toughest of men to look away. He was a skilled swordsman, quick with his dagger, and an accomplished camel rider. When he fought, he was cold and fearless and had earned a reputation of being the most formidable warrior in the Hejaz. He’d been married twenty-eight times.