In Search of the Forty Days Road

by Michael Asher

  ‘I told you that I’d see you later!’ he said. ‘Didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘But you forgot to tell me the way to the wells.’

  ‘God is Generous!’

  ‘Praise be to God.’

  I was satisfied just to have retrieved my camel, and I knew that I owed the Zayadiyya a great debt. Now, at least, I could continue my journey to El Atrun, which was only five days away. I was already well behind schedule, but I was determined to push on as fast as possible. I prepared my equipment, ready to leave for El Atrun the next day. As I was doing so, Rabi’ came up and said that a group of Zaghawa had arrived with some news for me.

  I squatted down with the three men, and Rabi’ brought us water.

  ‘Are you the khawaja who came from Muzbat a few days ago?’ one of them asked.

  I replied that I supposed I was. ‘We’ve just come from Muzbat,’ he went on, ‘and the Camel Corps told us to look out for you. You must return immediately.’

  I was very sceptical, and believed that the Zaghawa had misunderstood the true message.

  ‘Listen, khawaja,’ the tribesman went on, ‘this is serious talk. Mohammed Ja’ali has come back. He told us himself that he wants to see you. It would be better for you to do as he says.’

  My heart sank as I realised the import of his words. Evidently the police chief had returned and discovered that in his absence I had been allowed to slip through. Perhaps he had even had a report from Tina.

  For a moment I considered going the ‘nomad way’, but I sensed that this time it was impossible. I could not evade the authorities forever if I wished to remain in the Sudan. I told the Zaghawa that I would return to Muzbat the next day. For the rest of the evening I felt depressed and disappointed. After all the difficulties and problems I had overcome and the hardships I had experienced, I was still not to reach my destination. I had been robbed, cheated, subjected to danger and abandoned in the desert, only to be stopped on the last stretch of the journey.

  11. CHRISTMAS UNDER GUARD

  THE NEXT MORNING I SET off back towards Muzbat. I had taken careful directions from the Awlad Diqqayn and having traversed the distance once, I felt sure now that I could find my way back without difficulty.

  Travelling on my large bull, I could make much faster progress than on the raba’, and I expected that it would take no more than two days to reach the outpost.

  I set off over the hard-packed mud of the wadi, the camel going at a fast trot as his feet moved like feather dusters over the flaky ground. I was heading for a lone acacia tree on the skyline, which was on my compass bearing, and was one of the few landmarks I could see. Despite his speed, the camel groaned and complained. I should have taken more notice, but I was consumed with irritation at being forced to return, and I put the complaints down to bad temper.

  As I neared the tree, the camel pulled heavily on the headrope, tilting his head downwards, which I knew was the prelude to some wild behaviour. The animal bolted towards the tree, plunging in under its branches with full force, like a burning man plunging into water.

  One of the low boughs struck me across the chest, knocking me out of the saddle. Unfortunately I was wearing a long Arab shirt, which caught on the saddle horn, and for a horrific moment I was suspended from the camel’s back, swinging helplessly above the ground as the camel rubbed the saddle against a thick branch, trying to knock it off. I remember thinking, ‘This is it then!’ For I knew that with one forward kick of the animal’s rear leg my back would be broken. Just then the front saddle horn cracked. There was the sound of rending material as my shirt tore, and I landed on my face. The beast sat down almost at once, and I was able to seize the headrope.

  I must have been a sorry sight, my hands and face bruised and bleeding, my shirt ripped down the whole of its length, my headcloth still suspended somewhere up in the thorns. I coaxed and pulled the animal out from under the branches. Then I saw what was wrong. He was still wearing the iron chain which the old Zaghawi had given me.

  Rabi’, the Zayadi, had helped me to saddle that morning and had set the chain a notch too high so that it was pinching the camel’s chin. I cursed the good intentions of others, and swore that in future no one would saddle my camel except myself. I knew, however, that I myself had fallen short by failing to notice the fault earlier. In my travels, I had often experienced the tricks of camels, but this had been a deliberate and calculated attempt to destroy me. The thought was a sobering one.

  That day I pressed on and on, seeing no one, and after darkness fell I found myself in a great black basin, leading my camel by the headrope under the glimmer of the stars. I realised suddenly that it was Christmas Eve. At home there would have been beer and sherry and good cheer, bells ringing in the villages of my native Lincolnshire, carol services and parties, fairy lights on the trees and presents wrapped in coloured paper. Here I was in another dimension, with one hand leading a camel which had that day tried to kill me, and holding a compass in the other. My party that evening was just for two, myself and my reluctant four-footed guest, whom I treated to all the dry grass he could eat while I sat by a campfire, wrapped in my blanket, and drank sweet tea.

  Christmas morning was cold and raw, like the ’asida I ate to celebrate its coming as I moved off over the plain. After some hours I saw a herd of camels and some goats, and as I approached I noticed that they were being guarded by three young boys who rode tiny, immature camels.

  They were of the Awlad Diqqayn, and told me that Muzbat was close, then gave me a bowl of camels’ milk to drink. They asked for tea and sugar, which I let them take from my saddlebag, then, remembering that it was Christmas, gave them each a small sum of money, and rode away rather pleased that I had had the opportunity of giving someone a Christmas present.

  Within the hour I was sloping in under the heraz trees of Wadi Muzbat. The place seemed almost deserted, as I couched the camel by the broken-down police post. At once Medani appeared, and with him a stout, rather simple-looking man who wore the chevrons of a sergeant on his sleeve. We went through the usual greetings. The sergeant, whom Medani introduced to me, was Mohammed Ja’ali, chief of the shorta in Muzbat. I told him that his message had reached me in Malemal Hosh.

  ‘The situation is this,’ Mohammed Ja’ali explained. ‘An officer arrived from Kutum on a tour of inspection, and heard about you. He gave orders that you should go to Kutum immediately.’

  ‘But Kutum is the opposite way from Gineina. I will be late for my work if I go there.’

  ‘His orders were clear.’

  ‘You mean I must go?’

  ‘You have no choice.’

  ‘Then I’m under arrest!’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked at the good-humoured, broad-faced Medani, and wondered how much of a rocketing he had received for letting me go. Mohammed Ja’ali took me to his office, and I stood before his desk looking awkward, and feeling humiliated. Mohammed explained that I had no means of identity and no permission to be here. The officer suspected that I might be a spy or a guerrilla of some kind from Chad, the border of which was only a few miles away. Then he told me something I did not know. In the last week, Habri’s forces, the ones supported by the Sudan, had been pushed out of Chad by a combined army of Chadians, Libyans, and foreign mercenaries. Gineina, Kulbus, and Tina were full of refugees: in Gineina alone they numbered eight thousand, and Habri had set up an emergency HQ there. I had, by pure chance, become involved in an international situation. Mohammed Ja’ali added that if it made me feel any better, he did not believe that I was a spy, but orders were orders.

  He explained that we would leave the next day for Kutum, and would travel with a guide of the local Awlad Diqqayn, named Ahmed. That evening I saddled up and, accompanied by Hassan and Medani, travelled down the wadi to some wooden cabins, which were the winter quarters of some Awlad Diqqayn. Here we found Ahmed, who welcomed me
avidly. In other circumstances I should have enjoyed talking to this spirited man. As it was I could not avoid a slight sense of resentment at being a prisoner. After eating, I was shown to a place to sleep inside the brushwood cabin, and the two troopers lay down on either side of me, with rifles near at hand. I could not suppress a feeling of amusement that all this was intended for me. Nevertheless I wrote in my diary that Christmas night: ‘Christmas under guard. In a nomad’s cabin in Wadi Muzbat. Outside the wind is blowing off the desert. Tomorrow being escorted to Kutum. Merry bloody Christmas!’

  I had been in the situation of being a prisoner only twice before: once when I had been caught speeding on my motorcycle, during student days, and the second during a ‘resistance to interrogation’ exercise in the Special Air Service Regiment. Both had been humiliating experiences, the latter worse than the former, despite the fact that it was only simulation. I had been punched and kicked, pushed into cold water, made to stand on tiptoes for hours with a sack over my head. The four days I spent under guard of the Camel Corps, however, bore only the faintest resemblance to these previous experiences of custody.

  First of all, Medani and Hassan were the most considerate custodians one could have asked for, and gave the impression that they were performing an odious, yet necessary, duty. Secondly, our way was lighted by the presence of Ahmed’s sister, a pretty girl called Hawa, who wanted to go to the market in Kutum. She was a slim-limbed creature, black as a firepot, with a full, rounded figure and short braided hair, smeared with butter. She had flashing white teeth, bright eyes, and a lively manner, and was evidently excited by the prospect of visiting the ‘big town’, which was the only place of any size which she had seen. Ahmed asked if she could ride with me, as my camel was the strongest, and when I assented, she brought out a small leather sling which she strung from the rear horn of my saddle. Even my ill-tempered bull seemed to lose some of its wildness, as if it were aware of the delicateness of this jewel of a girl. Her presence eased the tensions of the journey, and I was much taken by her, as were the Camel Corps men, for they lost no opportunity to talk to her.

  We spent almost all the first day searching for the troopers’ camels, which had been taken out into the qoz to graze by some Awlad Diqqayn. This meant that Ahmed and I had to carry their saddles while they walked, scouring the desert for two animals with government brands. It was almost sunset by the time they were found and saddled, and we set off towards Kutum.

  At nights we camped in the qoz, and the delectable Hawa would make ’asida. Always, though, she slept apart from the men, and ate alone out of her own bowl. Slowly, we moved higher into the hills which surrounded Kutum, through Wadi Jinaiq, a twisting watercourse which ran through a shallow valley, ringed by black rock walls, where the mountains had been sculpted by time into strange phallic shapes. In the lush greenery of the wadi bed, hundreds of camels were grazing, ‘Like locusts!’ Ahmed said. Most of them belonged to the Mahriyya, whose tents we often saw nestled along the banks of the wadi. The area was teeming with gazelle, and throughout the journey Medani and Hassan were keen to shoot some meat. Whenever someone sighted gazelle, one of the troopers would dismount and run towards them with great excitement. Some time later, a salvo of shots would ring across the desert, but each time he would return crestfallen and empty handed, saying, ‘They were too far away!’ or ‘They moved too fast!’ I could not disguise my grin on one occasion when Medani returned in this manner. He began to clear his weapon.

  Suddenly there was a sharp crack and a bullet whistled past my ear. The grin was wiped off my face, like a wet rag on the chalk of a blackboard.

  ‘God! Careful!’ I said.

  ‘Rifle jammed, by God!’

  After that I was most circumspect whenever the men handled their weapons, and made sure that I was at a safe distance, out of the line of fire.

  The landscape became steadily richer as we approached Kutum, and I saw that the wadis were alive with acacia and tamarisk, mango, and lime, and even the tall, haloed trunks of date palms. We passed through the villages of Desa and Khereir, and on the fourth day, very early in the morning, joined with a caravan of the Zaghawa which was going into the town of Kutum.

  I found it a place of beauty. It was set on the banks of its wadi, which was clothed in trees. On the northern side of the creek were the grass huts and houses of the townspeople, and on the opposite side stood the yellow government buildings of the administration, which had stood here since colonial days. We left our camels in the wadi with Ahmed, and I was escorted to the police station for questioning. My worst fear was that I would be repatriated. I was guiltily aware that I had behaved irresponsibly in leaving Tina secretly, but I knew that if I always allowed myself to be governed by bureaucracy, I should never be able to travel in the remote areas that I craved.

  The cell had one window, barred and covered in mosquito-netting and through it, in a blaze of sunlight, I could see an expanse of sand and a thick acacia tree. Two boys were playing beneath the tree. They were as black as pitch, and their clothes in ragged shreds. Their game, as always in the Sudan, seemed to consist of a competition to make the most ear-piercing screech.

  Beyond the children, up the steep slope of the wadi bank, I could make out the squat outline of the old British colonial headquarters, its shock of home-counties thatch looking grey but intact. This very building, I knew, had been used by those two almost legendary characters of the Sudan’s recent history—Guy Moore and Wilfred Thesiger.

  I wondered ruefully and very unfairly if my reception in Kutum, a town I had often longed to visit, would have been different had these two still been in office.

  Now, sitting in my cell, I felt suddenly apprehensive about what was to come. My guards had not warned me what I should expect. Though I was not in physical fear of the forthcoming interrogation, I was worried that this might mean the end of my wanderings in the Sudan.

  ‘Min wayn inta? Where are you from, you?’

  My interrogator spat out the last word as if it were something distasteful to him, and I watched the small fleck of spittle which accompanied it as it landed on the table in front of me. He was a lean, spare man, very black with finely chiselled features and a mop of frizzly hair which sat like a cap on the back of his skull. He wore the uniform of a captain of police, immaculately pressed. I guessed from his features that he was not a local Darfuri, but from one of the Arab-Nubian river tribes who are almost a ruling élite in the Sudan.

  ‘Shaghal shinu inta? What do you work at?’

  I answered that I was a British teacher, based in Gineina, but my Arabic stumbled out, and he gave me no chance to complete the sentence.

  ‘What have you come here for? And why did you come by camel? Khawajas don’t ride camels. If you are British, show me your passport and visas.’

  I had no papers, I argued; the police in Gineina had given me none. My passport was in Khartoum, to have the visa renewed. The captain regarded me disbelievingly.

  ‘No one is allowed to travel without papers. It is forbidden. Now, where are your papers?’

  ‘I have no papers. And so it continued with interminable monotony. I felt sure that the officer must realise that I was telling the truth, for I mentioned the names of people I knew, and described places with which I was familiar. Still, I had no papers. He seemed unduly keen on extolling the possible punishments for spying, which seemed to include everything from incarceration to being taken out and shot.

  ‘But you have notes,’ he said suddenly. ‘The Camel Corps troopers saw you making notes.’

  I explained that I had a diary and some other notes in my saddlebags.

  ‘Then why, by God, didn’t you bring them? You knew you’d be questioned.’

  He sighed and called to a trooper who had been waiting outside. The man shuffled in, his tattered and ill-fitting uniform in marked contrast with that of his superior. He saluted sloppily.

  �
��Take this man to his camel and bring back his papers. All of them. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, ya sayyidi.’

  It was a short walk to the wadi, where the Zaghawa guide, Ahmed, was minding my camel and equipment. From the police post it was a striking sight: a wide swath of pale golden sand winding beneath cohorts of huge heraz trees and lined with date palms which leaned over at curious angles. It was market-day in Kutum and the wadi bed was filled by literally hundreds of camels belonging to the local tribes.

  Between the ranks of the couched animals the tribesmen had piled their luggage, and the smoke of many fires curled upwards from the sandy floor. Scores of people from a dozen different tribes moved in ever-changing patterns around the mud-brick and timber stalls of the marketplace.

  As we approached the wadi, a horrific thought struck me. My papers were in a canvas holdall inside my saddlebag, and in the same holdall was the .22 revolver. The discovery of the pistol in my luggage would do little to alleviate suspicion of my being a spy. I had thought it miraculous that the Camel Corps had not searched me, but I had virtually forgotten about the weapon since my arrest. If, as he had been ordered, the policeman took all my papers, the gun would almost certainly be found. We found Ahmed amongst the legions of tribesmen, and he stood up to greet us, shaking hands with the policeman.

  ‘Is everything all right, Makil?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve got to take some things to the captain,’ I answered.

  I turned to my saddlebag with a sinking feeling, when something unexpected happened. Ahmed said a word to the trooper in the Zaghawa dialect, which I did not understand. The officer launched suddenly into a dialogue in the same language. The two men greeted for a second time, touching each other on the shoulder as was the custom amongst close friends or relatives. I guessed that they had discovered a family relationship, for they continued talking animatedly.

  While they were occupied in this way, I seized my chance. I quickly found the holdall, opened it, removed the diary and a sheaf of notes and replaced it without hesitation.