He put his hand urgently on the driver’s arm.
‘Hold your horses, you great lummox,’ he shouted. ‘Weary’ Leary, the Kiwi trooper Gerald had borrowed from T patrol, turned the wheel sharply, bringing the truck to a stop just short of the precipice in front.
‘What is it?’ the lieutenant asked from his seat behind.
‘Not sure yet, skipper. Something out there. Give us a moment.’
Chippendale, an Oxford Classics don before hostilities began, scanned and rescanned the landscape ahead. He pursed his lips and murmured something inaudible. That was about as enthusiastic as Chips Chippendale ever got. He passed the glasses back to Gerald, who jumped out onto the slipping surface of the dune.
‘Middle distance, skip. Looks like we’ve found it.’
And so they had. They’d been heading straight for the oasis. Without the storm, they might have gone on further to the north, along their original trajectory, and missed it entirely.
‘Ain Suleiman,’ whispered Gerald. ‘Solomon’s Spring.’
Little did he guess what else lay buried in the great sand sea. A secret much greater than a mere oasis or a hidden city, more portentous than a desert route for the fighting and winning of a war, more deadly than Rommel’s tanks or the battalions of Hitler’s Reich.
A puff of wind lifted a plume of sand lower down the western flank of the great dune. Gerald climbed back into the truck.
‘Let’s go down and take a look,’ he said.
Leary swung the wheel, engaged first gear, and let the Chevvy topple over the crest to start its slow descent back down to the desert floor.
Ain Suleiman waited for them, wrapped in its age-old silence, the most remote of human habitations.
2
Ain Suleiman
The Western Desert
18th May
As they drove down to the oasis, the sleepy settlement burst into vibrant life, woken by the roar of the patrol’s engines. Dogs barked. Men rushed out of low zaribas, wrapping their blue veils over their faces. Others ran from further off, where they’d been tending to the camels. They were followed by women in black shawls, and children of all sizes, some clothed, the youngest naked.
With a jolt, Gerald realised he and his men might be the first outsiders these people had ever set their eyes on, and that the trucks, rushing down from the dune towards them, must seem objects of horror, grim monsters from the depths of whatever hell they believed in. He ordered Leary to stop, and signalled to Bill Donaldson in the following Chevvy to pile on the brakes as well. They slid to a stop, their tyres digging hard into the soft sand, where they sank almost to the axles.
‘Switch off the engine,’ Gerald ordered. In the car behind, Donaldson followed suit. A silence fell, as deep as the ocean and as wide, broken only by the braying of camels and the barking of the dogs. Above the oasis, hundreds of little birds flew in circles. In the west, the sun was changing hue as it began its descent to the heat haze that lay stretched across the horizon.
The skipper stepped out, calling on the others to get down too, without weapons.
‘Don’t do anything to startle them,’ he said. ‘Let me do the talking. Clark, stay here and cover us with the machine gun.’
They walked forward. Gerald went in front, striding confidently toward the group of Tuareg men who had formed a defensive line in front of their women and children. They all wore the tagelmoust, the elaborate indigo-coloured headdress that covers the head and face but for the eyes.
Gerald turned and beckoned Max Chippendale forward.
‘Max, see the Johnny in front? He belongs to the Imashaghen, the ruling class. The shorter man on his right is their Anislem. The preacher. He’s the one to watch out for. If there’s going to be trouble, he’ll be behind it.’
The Tuareg waited patiently for the five soldiers to reach them. They were tall men, lean, with the keen grey eyes of desert travellers. Behind a handful of Imashaghen stood their vassals, while a group of black slaves cowered with the women and children near the huts. Gerald made a swift calculation. The settlement must number around one hundred souls and some thirty camels.
Walking into the oasis, the soldiers, dry after so long in the open sands, felt the air around them change. The desiccated, searing desert heat turned moist and soft, washing their lungs as if in oil from the olive trees that grew on the far side of the little lake. Gerald breathed in deeply. He knew he would only have moments in which to convince the Tuareg leader of their honourable intentions. At the back of his mind, he calculated what proportion of their rations they could afford to hand over as a token of goodwill. Each of the Tuareg men wore a short sword slung across his left thigh, and Gerald knew they were fierce fighters who could use even these simple weapons to great effect. He noticed that two of the Imashaghen carried rifles over their shoulders, Italian Carcano M91/38 carbines.
If trouble did break out, he and his men had their service pistols, and Teddy Clark was a steady hand on the Browning. But the last thing he wanted was a massacre. If he had to choose between the lives of his patrol and those of anyone trying to kill them, he knew he could make the choice. But he wasn’t sure if he could live with it afterwards.
‘Al-salam ‘alaykum,’ he called out, using the universal Muslim greeting, and adding in Tamasheq, ‘Ma toulid?’
The man in the centre, inches taller than his brethren, continued to survey him from behind the blue veil, his eyes boring into him, looking neither to right nor left. Gerald stopped and waited for a response.
The Anislem, a Qur’an clutched ostentatiously in his right hand, bent sideways and whispered briefly in his lord’s ear. Behind Gerald, the rest of the patrol had come to a halt. He could almost feel their edginess, or perhaps it was just his own. These were men with whom he’d shared the most intense days of his young life. They had fought together; pissed on the same sand; picked fleas from each others’ bodies and lice from one another’s hair; gone in search of women together in the Berka. They had headed into the desert together time after time, and come out alive again time after time.
Gerald waited patiently for a reply. The men of the desert lived an almost timeless existence, in a world where little changed from year to year, from century to century. No Tuareg would let himself be hurried.
But the headman had made up his mind.
‘‘Alaykum al-salam,’ he responded. ‘Al-khayr ras, al-hamdu li’llah.’
Gerald spoke haltingly, explaining who he was and where he and his men had come from. ‘Min al-Qahira,’ he said, ‘from Cairo.’ Even this deep in the desert, Cairo was a legend. The Tuareg leader listened impassively, neither warmth nor coldness showing in his eyes. The other Imashaghen watched. No one fidgeted or shuffled or raised a hand to swat the flies that buzzed all round them. These were Kel Tamasheq: as straight as guardsmen, they looked ahead without visible emotion.
‘A people have come to this land who are no friends of the Muslims,’ Gerald said. ‘They despise the Arabs because they belong to an inferior race, they hate the blacks because their skins are not white, they look down on the Berbers and the Tibu and the Kel Tamasheq because they ride on camels. In my language, they are called Germans. My people have come here to wage war with them. If they win this war, they will tear down the mosques, and kill the learned, and make slaves of the Muslims. They will send soldiers into the Ténéré, into the deep sands, they will carry off your wives and children to be slaves in the land they come from, where it is always dark and cold.
‘My people are not a Muslim people, but we are the greatest nation on earth, and we have been friends to the Muslims wherever we have gone. We have come here to speak with you. We need your help to fight our war, and we bring tokens of our friendship.’
He went on like this for about ten minutes, and not once did the Tuareg betray their feelings. For all he knew, they might be laughing at him. Or planning how to kill him.
The Anislem, a man of learning who had studied the Qur’anic sciences and the
Traditions of the Prophet in the now-decayed schools of Timbuktu, watched the infidels intently. His rank was clear from the leather wallets he wore slung across his shoulders, containing a copy of the Qur’an and other sacred writings. From his left hand hung an amber rosary, whose beads he turned and twisted through gnarled fingers. His name was Shaykh Harun agg Da’ud, and he had lived for many years among the Kel Adrar at Ghadames further north. He had long served the people of Ain Suleiman, performing marriages, burying the dead, writing down verses of the Qur’an to wear as amulets, inscribing talismans in the ancient Tifinagh script, guarding the secrets of the oasis. He knew that these strangers, like the Italians he’d met in Ghadames and the French he’d seen in Timbuktu, were a threat to his prestige and authority.
When Gerald came to a halt, the headman remained silent for a time. He had heard rumours of a war far to the north, but knew nothing of its currents and did not fear its outcome. Perhaps the stranger was telling the truth, perhaps he lied: he was some sort of unbeliever, after all. These were the first unbelievers he had ever set eyes on.
Gerald whispered to Leary, telling him to go back to the trucks with Bill Donaldson, and to bring several items back with them. The silence continued.
When they returned, Leary and Donaldson carried an armful apiece. They laid their offerings on the ground in front of the headman, and stepped back. One by one, Gerald presented an odd mixture of military supplies: two pairs of chapplies, the desert sandals every trooper was issued with; a spare Jerry can; a pair of sand goggles for the headman; the desert stove from Donaldson’s vehicle; a folding tent; and a selection of desert rations.
Last of all, Gerald unstrapped his Smith and Wesson .38 and handed it, holster and all, to the headman.
‘I will teach you how to fire and reload it,’ he said.
The headman did not move. Even the poorest Tuareg had his pride. Gerald waited. On the dunes, sand danced in a light breeze. The fronds on the palm trees whispered. Somewhere, a child cried raucously. It would not be hard to take this place by force, thought Gerald. Each Chevvy carried two air-cooled .30 Browning machine guns. A Waffen-SS commander might have used them. Gerald fervently prayed he would not have to.
The Tuareg leader stretched out his hand and took the weapon.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It is much appreciated. As are all these gifts.’
‘There will be more and better if you will give us your help.’
‘My name is Si Musa agg Isa Iskakkghan. I am lord of this oasis. You and your men are welcome to stay. As for these other matters, we shall talk of them later.’
At that moment, a young woman who had been standing with the others in the rear came running forward. She was visibly distressed, and when Gerald looked more closely, he saw that some of the other women were agitated too.
‘Si Musa,’ she called out. ‘Ask the strangers if they have brought medicine. Perhaps they will know how to save our son.’
Si Musa did not turn to look at her. The woman was dark-skinned and pretty, with flashing teeth and large eyes that were red from weeping.
‘Go back to the women, A’isha,’ her husband said. ‘Shaykh Harun has prayed for our child. He will pray again later. If it is God’s will, Yaqub will live. If not, he will die.’
But A’isha did not budge.
‘Let the strangers prove their power, Si Musa. If our child lives, it will be God’s way of showing you that they can be trusted. If he dies…’ she sighed ‘…then they will have to leave.’
Back among the dwellings, the crying of the child redoubled in force. The later sunlight raked the oasis like a purple claw. In the distance, the sand shimmered, conjuring up a mirage, as if crenellated castles danced on the skyline where the dunes and the sky met one another.
Si Musa, inwardly as frightened for his son and heir as his wife, conceded. He turned on his heel and walked back to the encampment, his wife following. Gerald signalled to Donaldson. Donaldson, apart from his driving and navigational skills, was the patrol’s medic. He was a Scot who’d been studying medicine at Edinburgh when war broke out.
‘What’s up, skipper?’ he asked.
‘Fetch the first-aid kit, Bill. Be quick about it. Their child is sick.’
In the headman’s hut, it took only moments for Donaldson to make his diagnosis. The air was cooling as night approached, but he could still feel sweat trickling from his forehead.
‘Tetanus,’ he announced. ‘Quite advanced, by the look of it. The jaw’s rigid, and the bairn has lost weight, I daresay. Ask the mother how long it is since he got the wound.’
He pointed to a wide, unhealed cut on the boy’s forearm. It was red and puffy, and the child – he seemed between one and a half and two – had clearly made matters worse by scratching it.
Gerald asked, but no one could tell him exactly how long. In the desert, they counted seasons and years and sometimes months; but days and weeks meant nothing.
In one corner, the holy man had insinuated himself. He watched, his eyes never straying far from the dying child. Beneath his breath, he murmured something, whether a prayer or a curse, Gerald could not tell.
Donaldson unwrapped a glass vial of antitoxin and injected it into the child’s arm. The mother, already hopeless, made no protest. Si Musa watched the priest, his shrewd eyes seeking out what was hidden in the old man’s heart.
When they left the hut, the sun was setting like a ball of liquid fire, its hues of crimson, rose, gold and turquoise shredded by a billion spores of fine sand that turned them to greens and ochres, vermilions and russets. Fires were lit, using camel dung for fuel. The desert stove was rolled out, and Skinner got it going, surrounded by a bevy of giggling Tuareg women who had never seen a man sully his hands with domestic labour.
A camel was singled out and slaughtered, its hide stripped and set aside, its carcass cut into six parts, and everything that was not eaten preserved for other functions. Bread was baked on fires laid on the sand. Soon, a smell of cooking meat filled the cold night air. Leary showed his hosts how to grill the meat on the petrol-fuelled desert stove. Gerald ordered more rations broken out and made ready for the meal. Bully beef, tinned peaches, rice, potatoes, ten cans of baked beans – great sacrifices that they knew they would regret in the days to come.
In the hut, the baby fell asleep. Donaldson looked tense. He said it would be touch and go, and feared the consequences of his having attempted to treat the child at all.
Elsewhere through the encampment, families were preparing less palatable meals. Tonight’s banquet was a sort of state dinner, reserved for the Imashaghen and their guests. The Anislem chose not to partake of the infidel fare, declaring it haram and forbidden to Muslims, but he was overruled by Si Musa, who said the food had come from Egypt and that the Egyptians were a Muslim people. Shaykh Harun slunk away to find food more fitting his status, but Gerald noticed that he moved back again under cover of darkness, and remained on the edge of the circle, no doubt listening intently to all that was said.
They ate well. What would have seemed poor rations in another time and place made a great feast for poor desert dwellers and soldiers. The camel was stringy, the meat was undercooked, and sand had drifted into everything. But no one complained. They washed the gritty food down with green tea, brewed three times, each brew weaker and sweeter than the one before.
The conversation was choppy, limited by the great linguistic gulf that separated the soldiers from the Tuareg. Questions were relayed through Gerald and Si Musa, answers given in the same way. It was cumbersome, but both parties gained a little understanding of one another. Throughout the meal, however, all participants were aware of a dull underlying tension, of the silence that emanated from the headman’s hut, of the baby that did not cry and whose death might at any moment be pronounced. The Tuareg passed round pinches of snuff from little containers they carried round their necks, and Donaldson raided the cigarette ration, handing over packs of Senior Service coffin nails as though they were s
weeties. Some of the Tuareg had smoked before, others subsided into fits of coughing.
There was music afterwards, and dancing, the men in one group, the women in another, their swaying movements lit by fires fuelled by dung laced with petrol. Beneath a sky so packed with stars it seemed a dome of silver and ebony, the sharp percussive notes of the tindi drum echoed through the sands like gunshots, softened only by the gentle scraping of two imzads. And then, out of nowhere, appeared a man wearing a white veil and carrying a flute. One by one, the dancers stopped and the instruments fell silent. The flute player began to play, softly at first, then with growing vigour, as if he wooed the stars; and as he played an ochre moon appeared above the horizon and rose into the shining firmament. As it climbed into the night sky, it shed its ochre tones and grew silver like the stars.
The music stopped, everyone clapped, and it was time for bed. The flute player came across to Gerald, and said he looked forward to speaking at greater length in the morning. It was Si Musa. Gerald said goodnight, and explained that he and his men planned to spend the night, as they always did, next to their vehicles.
They moved the Chevvys onto flat ground on the other side of the oasis from the Tuareg huts.
‘Time for a powwow, gentlemen,’ said Gerald as soon as they’d checked things over and were rolling out their sleeping bags on the sand. It was bitterly cold: the day’s heat had long vanished. Moonlight lay across the dunes, giving them the appearance of sheets of ice. Wrapped up in their Tropal coats, the men were tired and cold and looking forward to getting back to Cairo. A groan went up as Gerald spoke. Powwows could stretch into the night.
‘We’ve got to radio back to base tonight. If anything happens to us, this will all have been wasted if we don’t get the coordinates through. We’ll take an astrofix now. The rest of you can be setting the aerials up.’
Spear of Destiny Page 3