Amazir

by Tom Gamble

  ‘Not a bullet, Harry. A splinter of rock.’

  ‘It hurts like hell!’ ranted Summerfield. He felt himself explode with rage ‘Those fucking Frog bastards!’

  ‘Harry!’ Badr, his eyes wide, motioned for him to remain calm.

  ‘How fucking dare they!’ roared Summerfield, beyond reasoning, lifting himself off the ground. ‘How fucking dare they!’ From the fear of a few seconds ago, he stood up, his hand working furiously on the bolt as he fired off three rounds oblivious to the whizzing, buzzing bullets flying past him from below. And then his legs crumbled from under him and Badr was pinning him down.

  ‘You’re mad, Englishman! You’ll be killed!’ He raised his hand again, gesturing for his men to pull back.

  ‘And Ali? We can’t leave him,’ wrestled Summerfield.

  ‘Ali will not speak.’

  ‘You said—’

  ‘Ali is dead,’ said Badr, coldly.

  ‘Dead?’ Summerfield stared into Badr’s eyes. ‘What…?’

  ‘I had to, Harry. It is the rule. Poor Ali. Come now!’

  And before Summerfield could speak, Badr had hauled him backwards, out of their position and was tugging him back to a second line of fire.

  The combat seemed to last an eternity. It was a game of hide and seek. The French troops advanced, Badr and his men shot at them and they disappeared only to reappear closer than before. Again they moved back, without losses. There was silence for a while and Summerfield imagined the French troops must be recuperating from the hard climb. But the real reason for the lull soon became apparent: the drone of an approaching aeroplane filled the valley getting closer. They saw it roughly two kilometres away, a silver-winged bi-plane like something out of World War I.

  ‘Don’t be duped, Harry,’ said Badr, sensing Summerfield’s smile of irony. ‘That thing has machine guns on it—and probably bombs too.’

  ‘It’s a disaster, Badr—a fucking disaster.’

  ‘It usually is,’ said Badr. This time it was himself who smiled ironically. ‘I wonder where Saïd and his men are. They were to join up with Toubfil on the eastern slope.’ No sooner had he said this, when a muted shout was heard. One of Badr’s men had signalled the approach of a messenger. A shape crawled into the depression where Badr and Summerfield lay. Once again it was Rahul, his face creased with severity under a mask of dust. He had a blue, blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his left hand. Summerfield thought he observed a lack of thumb and his stomach squirmed.

  ‘Orders from Toubfil,’ rasped Rahul, his voice in tatters. ‘Pull back silently and disperse. All groups to return home.’

  ‘And Saïd?’

  Rahul jerked his bandaged stump towards the opposite hill, almost a kilometre away. The French bi-plane glittered for a second and then disappeared into the cleft of the valley. Moments later, the faint metallic tat-tat-tat of its machine-guns reached them. Rahul hawked and spat grimly. ‘Saïd will play with the aeroplane for a while before darkness comes.’

  Over the next hour, Badr’s men moved back in twos and threes, back over the crest of their slope and melted into the valley beyond. The firing was sporadic, the main interest having moved to the events happening in the next valley where French light artillery had now joined the roving aeroplane in rooting out Saïd and his men.

  Once out of range of French marksmen, Badr tended to Summerfield’s back. It was a small, horizontal wound, roughly half an inch wide—nothing serious, though painful enough when Badr extracted the shard of stone and rubbed a herbal mixture on the oozing blood. It took all of five minutes and then Badr hauled Summerfield to his feet, took his rifle and headed him westwards.

  They walked in silence, their spirits muted. It took time for Summerfield to be able to look his friend in the eyes for what had happened to Ali. Terrible as it was, he finished by convincing himself that Ali had met with a quicker and safer death than if he had been captured.

  Summerfield followed Badr into the night, the stinging sensation in his back a sorry reminder of events. Altogether, it was an empty, rather shameful end to his first taste of combat. He had shown though, if not through courage but anger, that he could face hostile fire and moreover, shoot at men—French soldiers—he had previously had no reason or desire to harm. It perplexed Summerfield: he had been willing to fight in Spain for a greater, wider cause and all that he had experienced over the last few days was a very personal affair indeed.

  It was a long, desolate return to the valley. On the second evening, they met up with Toubfil and a group of ten of his men. They ate together, relieved to have different company and swapped stories of the fighting. Toubfil had strayed from his position opposite Badr under pressure from the French advance and when mortar shells began coughing and exploding around them, had ordered a retreat. His men had scattered, melting into the maquis and the gorges that were a feature of those parts. Toubfil, together with his ten faithfuls, had pushed through an encircling French patrol, killing a sergeant in the process and had then followed a dried out riverbed to an isolated farm. They had kept their distance, for another group of men were billeted there along with a French officer and three Legionnaire scouts. Toubfil hadn’t tarried in making a wide circle around the hamlet, but not before he and his men had seen the disturbing sight of a tall, heavily built Arab with oddly crooked hands, pawing over a map with the French officer. A cripple, said Toubfil and one of his men said the Berber word for scarecrow and added devil for good measure.

  On hearing this, Summerfield looked directly at Badr, but the young man refused to return his stare. Instead, Badr breathed deeply and spoke to Toubfil.

  ‘So the devil is working for the Vichy French? Did you see his face?’

  Toubfil spat and shook his head.

  ‘The monster had a hood covering his head—though I will remember his hands when I see him. My dagger will remove them for him.’

  ‘Unless they remove you first,’ said Badr, grimly.

  At last, four days after the failed ambush, Summerfield followed Badr, Toubfil and the men over the last crest, past the lookout posts and into their valley. It seemed sweet and sunlit and welcoming and an audible heave of relief came from the men as they set down a zigzagging path towards the distant Kasbah. Little by little a crowd gathered as they approached and Summerfield spotted Raja looking keenly at Badr among the returning men with deep and satisfied eyes.

  47

  Le Guédec had been right. The hunting lodge was far from anything: a man-made oddity drawn with the lines of a city-dweller, nestled in a large, wooded hollow on a valley side with no other sign of life as far as the eye could see. A man had been waiting for them at a point where it was obvious a vehicle could go no further—Le Guédec must have arranged things in advance with typical precision. Lefèvre had abandoned the car, hiding it in a copse of trees and covering it with brushwood with the help of Le Guédec’s guide. A gruelling five-hour climb up a steep and eroded goat track had finally led them to the lodge. It was larger than Jeanne had imagined.

  There was a main building—a two-story affair with a spacious patio that was covered by a sagging wooden awning to keep out the sun in the hot months. It had obviously been unfrequented for quite some time—two maybe three years—for the paint was a pale, whitish pink, speckled and flaking like a sunburnt skin. There were two bedrooms, thick with dust. The curtains looked as though they’d been gnawed at by animals and hung in jaundiced tatters. When Soumia opened the shutters, they saw that the floors were littered with the husks of long-dead insects of every sort—flies, beetles, spiders, dragonflies and some strange, unknown creatures that must have been indigenous to the mountains. Downstairs, the small dining room and living room that looked out into the terrace were even filthier. Huge strands of dust, like lank cobwebs, sagged and swung from ceiling to floor, over the wooden chairs and the leather sofa—God knows how Le Guédec had managed to bring it here—traps for hundreds of dead flies. There were droppings everywhere—mice and rats—the disembowell
ed cushion on the sofa evidence of their presence and lastly, by the fireplace, the skeleton of a bird with a mummified head, feathers sticking oddly at angles from the carcass.

  Outside, some twenty yards or so to the right, two, long, low-lying huts served as servants quarters, tool sheds, kitchens and stables for the mules that Le Guédec must have used to ferry provisions to the lodge and return his hunting trophies to the foothills. The cluster of buildings had been built among a score or so of pine and nut trees, and at the bottom of the wooded hollow was a small, bubbling spring that formed a pool before trickling through a niche in the rock and disappearing downwards towards the valley floor. A two-metre-wide pathway of smoothened rock and pebbles leading down the mountainside indicated that in the winter months the spring probably gushed with force and formed a waterfall.

  Exhaustion from the journey—a harrowing experience of fear, worry and ravines that had made her stomach turn to jelly—turned to determination as Jeanne witnessed her mother breaking down at the sight of their new and rudimentary lodgings. It was the final drop, of course, the detail that made the strain of the past few days manifest itself in a fit of uncontrollable sobbing. But it had been her mother first and it gave Jeanne something to turn her mind away from her own desperation.

  Their initial discovery over, she helped Soumia make tea and sat her mother on the terrace in one of the wooden chairs while they set energetically about the cleaning with a couple of old brooms found in the servants’ quarters. Here, Jeanne’s father was engaged in conversation with Le Guédec’s man, probably organising supplies, she imagined. Money was exchanged. Glancing up from her work, Jeanne saw a long faded red bundle being handed over and, as part of the material flapped away in the breeze, the nut brown, polished stock of a hunting rifle flashed momentarily in the sunlight. For some reason it sent Jeanne’s thoughts momentarily spinning towards Jim and she felt a stab of panic in her chest—Jim who must be going mad with worry, looking for them, uncertain. Thankfully, she was wrenched away from the painful thoughts by a sudden shriek from Soumia. Another dead animal had been uncovered—the dusty, petrified carcass of a snake.

  ‘Oh, M’moiselle!’ fretted Soumia, as Jeanne disposed of the husk with wary though angry strokes of her broom. ‘I want to go back to Marrakesh. I don’t want to sleep alone in the stables with all the creepy crawlies!’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Soumia!’ scolded Jeanne. ‘Of course we’re not going to let you sleep out in the outhouses. How could you possibly think you wouldn’t stay with us here?’

  ‘Really?’ Soumia’s face wore an exaggerated grimace of surprise mixed with gratitude. ‘Really, M’moiselle? I don’t believe you—Monsieur Lefèvre—’

  Jeanne shook her head in exasperation. ‘You remember those tictonic plagues, Soumia? Plates, in fact, and it wasn’t tictonic, either, but—’

  ‘The one’s you studied at the Académie, oh Lord!’

  ‘Well, these mountains are made up of them. They might pull apart any minute, Soumia. If you slept in the outhouses, then there’s a risk the earth might split open and you’d disappear!’

  ‘Oh!’ shrieked Soumia, bringing her hands to her head. ‘Ohhh!’

  ‘That’s why you’re going to sleep here—with us! After all, who would do the serving?’

  ‘Oh, thank you, M’moiselle. Thank you!’ replied Soumia, oblivious to the irony.

  ‘Now let’s finish off our job, Soumia,’ said Jeanne, conscious that her voice had grown huskier, more authoritative.

  ‘And I shall help,’ came a voice from the doors to the patio. It was Mme Lefèvre, her mother, her face ruddy and streaked with dried up tears.

  ‘Mother—’

  ‘No—I’m fine now, Jeanne. Thank you. I feel so silly—just a little over-tiredness.’ And then, as if recognising her daughter’s command of the situation: ‘Tell me what to do now.’

  Two hours later, after several trips to the spring and back with buckets of water and much dusting, sweeping and scrubbing, the main room and its adjoining study were as clean as could be. Jeanne called for a downing of tools and arched her aching back, pausing for a second to peer into the large wall mirror Soumia had just finished washing. She giggled. Was it the light or the dust or fatigue that made her hair look streak with silvery hair?

  ‘Mother, Soumia—look, I’m as old as you are now!’

  Soumia laughed. Her mother said: ‘Cheeky girl!’ and they went outside to tea that Le Guédec’s man had prepared.

  Lefèvre joined them. There was a loaf of bread and a half-opened tin of concentrated milk to accompany the thick, black mountain brew. Jeanne ate without much concern for manners and heard her mother tutting in the background. Her father sighed, as if to silence his spouse and Jeanne could almost hear the words there are more serious problems to worry about, chérie, escape his lips.

  Lefèvre tried to sound reassuring and made a pun about the three-star comfort of the place. Then, on a more serious note, ‘We’ll be fine, here. Le Guédec’s man—Hattim is his name—’ the guide momentarily looked up and flicked a glance at them—‘is here to bring us supplies. His family lives over in the next valley and can provide us food. I’m paying for it of course,’ added Lefèvre, as though the fact added to the strength of the agreement. ‘And we have a gun, if necessary. For hunting,’ he continued, quickly meeting the three women’s eyes.

  ‘Monsieur? Will we be here long?’ asked Soumia. ‘Those tictonic plates, insects and snakes, sleeping…’ she began, only to fall silent at the frown appearing on Lefèvre’s face.

  ‘Whatever is she babbling about?’ said Lefèvre, shaking his head. ‘We’ll be here for as long as it takes,’ he continued, answering what he thought was her concern. ‘You’ll have to put up with the insects and snakes. And as for tictonic plates?’ he shook his head again and looked to Jeanne for assistance.

  ‘Soumia is worried about being obliged to sleep in the outhouses, Daddy.’

  ‘Of course not,’ waved Lefèvre. ‘You’ll sleep in the main house with Jeanne. The important thing is to remain together.’ Soumia let out her breath, a kind of exhaled thank you and Jeanne thought she saw the trace of a smile on her father’s lips. She had never seen him like this before and it suddenly occurred to her in a strange awakening truth that quite apart from being a senior official, a man and an administrator, he was a person, her father, someone who might have feelings after all. Lefèvre seemed to notice her regard, for he looked at her, a little puzzled, a little embarrassed. ‘And James—Jim—will surely find us,’ he said.

  ‘Do you really think so, Daddy?’ Jeanne sat up and the eagerness in her voice betrayed her desperation.

  ‘He’s a very capable sort,’ said Lefèvre, keeping a professional edge to his voice. ‘He has connections and the advantage of being American. What’s more—I’m sure he’d want to get back to his darling fiancée as quickly as possible! Who wouldn’t?’

  ‘That would be—be the answer to my dreams,’ said Jeanne, unable to contain her thoughts.

  ‘But when that will be, we can’t be sure,’ warned her father. ‘The thing is to remain calm and concentrate on our time here. I’m quite sure we’ll see winter come and we have to prepare ourselves for that. It can be very hostile here.’

  ‘There’s certainly a lot of cleaning and repairing to do,’ joined in Mme Lefèvre, breezily. ‘A month at least!’

  ‘This is my main expectation,’ said Lefèvre, brushing aside his wife’s light remark. ‘The fact that Jim Wilding, with his influence and above all his passport, can accompany us safely out of here.’

  ‘But where?’ added Mme Lefèvre.

  Lefèvre shrugged. ‘I supposed I’d have to try to get to England; or more practically, Chad. Bassouin mentioned that De Gaulle had ordered the gathering of Free French forces there. As for yourselves—my deepest hope is that James will put you on an American ship and sail you to the United States, far away from this unpleasant mess.’

  ‘Poor Monsieur Bassouin,’ s
aid Jeanne, distantly. ‘He didn’t get away, I fear.’

  ‘Poor France,’ echoed Lefèvre, continuing with his train of thought. ‘Our Lady torn in two…There will be unmentionable crimes before she is able, once again, to be one. Unmentionable crimes…’

  48

  September turned to October and the myriad of little fields and orchards in the great valley failed to ripen. From his dwelling, Summerfield noticed the tribe’s people rising with the Morning Prayer only to stand and gaze at the expanse of cultivation, a silent hope in their hearts, their eyes straining to see if the crops had fattened in the night.

  Calling by one day, Raja shook her head in exaggeration and fretted. Copying the older womenfolk, her voice went into a high-pitch warble. ‘The olives are like lifeless marbles, the carrots like toys for a girl’s doll, the wheat as stringy as the unkempt grass in old Aïcha’s shame of a garden, the apples only fit to rust metal!’

  Summerfield, raising his eyebrows at the young woman’s theatrical show, though at the same time conscious that worry was nagging at everyone’s mind, nodded in sympathy.

  ‘This will be a dried meat winter if it continues for any longer,’ he said. ‘People have to eat and the flocks will be decimated.’

  ‘What do you know?’ said Raja, suddenly turning against him. Her face scowled with anger and she raised her chin—another exaggerated gesture, playing adult. ‘Ha! An Englishman with his rain and parks and overfed stomach!’

  ‘What?’ Summerfield couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Why do you scold me so, Raja? Have I not expressed concern? I am one of you now—a member of the tribe that must eat the fruit of this valley!’