After two hours Tuzun woke us. Feeling stiff and stale, we made tea with the last of the water, loaded up, and moved off. Sunrise showed a discouragingly empty world; even the mountains were already lost behind the dust haze which is chronic in the Tarim Basin. We stumbled muzzily on, uncomfortably aware that it would soon be very hot.
Presently we heard a kind of roaring sound. Kini, who had crossed the Kizil Kum and claimed to know something of deserts, said it was the wind in some sand dunes we could see to the north. Happily she was wrong; another half-mile brought us to the lip of a low cliff beneath which a wide stony bed was noisily threaded by the channel of the Cherchen Darya. We scrambled down and watered the animals in a current that was opaque with yellow silt and looked as thick as paint.
Tuzun spoke hopefully of reaching Cherchen that day, and we climbed out of the riverbed for the last lap. The sun was well up now; the heat seemed to us terrific and was in fact considerable. The world around us jigged liquidly in a haze. Before long we hit a bad belt of dunes about a mile wide. The soft sand was cruel going for tired animals; once Number Two lost his balance and collapsed sideways, and we had to unload him before he could rise. When we struggled out again on to hard desert there was not much life left in any of us. We crawled on for an hour or two, but the sun was pitiless and at last Tuzun called a halt on a little bluff above the river.
Here we lay up for five hours, and I disgraced myself by drinking a whole kettle of tea while Kini was bathing in the river. She came back so glowing and self-righteous that in the end I went and bathed too, wallowing in the swift khaki water and speculating lazily about Cherchen. Our ignorance, our chronic lack of advance information, must be unexampled in the annals of modern travel. We had neither of us, before starting, read one in twenty of the books that we ought to have read, and our preconceptions of what a place was going to be like were never based, as they usefully could have been, on the experience of our few but illustrious predecessors in these regions. Cherchen, for all we knew or could find out, might be a walled city, or a cluster of tents, or almost any other variation on the urban theme. This state of affairs reflected discreditably on us but was not without its compensations. It was pleasant, in a way, to be journeying always into the blue, with no Baedeker to eliminate surprise and marshal our first impressions in advance; it was pleasant, now, to be within one march of Cherchen and to have not the very slightest idea what Cherchen was going to look like.
We enjoyed the halt. The felt gave very little shade, and a light wind that had sprung up coated our somnolence with half an inch of sand; but at least we were no longer moving, no longer pressing forward. We dreaded – passionately but surreptitiously, as children dread the end of holidays – the imminent beginning of another night-march of indeterminable length.
At four o’clock, though it was still vindictively hot, we began to load up. The skeleton camels – whose thick wool now appeared, and was, anomalous but who had had no time to shed it – knelt and rose again not without protest. With far-fetched prudence, fearing an examination of our effects like the one in Lanchow, I removed from my bundled overcoat, which came from Samarkand and should properly have clothed a cavalry officer in the Red Army of the Soviet Union, buttons embossed with the hammer and sickle. At half past four we started.
Men and animals moved groggily; this was our fourth stage in thirty-six hours, and even Tuzun, who had started fresh five days ago, showed signs of wear and tear. Very soon we came into dunes again; the animals floundered awkwardly and the march lost momentum. The camels showed signs of distress; one of the donkeys was dead lame and another, from sheer weakness, bowled over like a shot rabbit on a downhill slope. A kind of creeping paralysis was overtaking the expedition.
We knew that we were near Cherchen, but there comes a point, while you are suffering hardship or fatigue, when you cannot see beyond the urgent business of endurance. This point we had reached. We might have been a month’s journey from our goal, instead of a very few hours, for all the difference that its proximity now made to us. We could no more think than we could see beyond the next ridge of dunes; our reprieve, no doubt, had been signed, but we were still in prison. Our minds told us that this was the last lap; but our hearts and our bodies could take only an academic kind of comfort from the assurance. We were absorbed in the task of finishing a difficult stage.
The sun began to set. The donkeys tottered along very reluctantly, and the tired camels wore that kind of dignity which you associate with defeat; it was clear that we should not make Cherchen that night. Then, suddenly, from the top of a high dune, my eye caught a strip of queer eruptions on the horizon to the north-west; the skyline, for months either flat and featureless or jagged and stark, was here pimpled with something that did not suggest a geological formation. I got out my field-glasses . . .
It was like spying on another planet. The green of the trees, with the approach of dusk, had turned a soft and bluish grey; but they were trees beyond a doubt – a deep, serried phalanx, pricked here and there with the lance-heads of tall poplars. For all that we had been expecting a phenomenon, it was incredible; we had grown so accustomed to the life of nomads in an empty winter world that we had not bargained for so concrete, so delightful an intimation of spring and domesticity. The peaceful and luxuriant silhouette before us suggested a kind of life to which we had overlong been strangers.
French pilot and writer. During a commercial crossing of the Libyan desert his aircraft crashed, leaving himself and his co-pilot 250 miles from habitation. This experience he recounted in Wind, Sand and Stars (1939) but it also led to his famous allegorical children’s story, Le Petit Prince (1942), about a boy from another planet who befriends an airman stranded in the desert. Saint-Exupéry was posted missing after a reconnaissance flight in the Second World War.
A man can go nineteen hours without water, and what have we drunk since last night? A few drops of dew at dawn. But the north-east wind is still blowing, still slowing up the process of our evaporation. To it, also, we owe the continued accumulation of high clouds. If only they would drift straight overhead and break into rain! But it never rains in the desert.
‘Look here, Prévot. Let’s rip up one of the parachutes and spread the sections out on the ground, weighed down with stones. If the wind stays in the same quarter till morning, they’ll catch the dew and we can wring them out into one of the tanks.’
We spread six triangular sections of parachute under the stars, and Prévot unhooked a fuel tank. This was as much as we could do for ourselves till dawn. But, miracle of miracles! Prévot had come upon an orange while working over the tank. We share it, and though it was little enough to men who could have used a few gallons of sweet water, still I was overcome with relief.
Stretched out beside the fire I looked at the glowing fruit and said to myself that men did not know what an orange was. ‘Here we are, condemned to death,’ I said to myself, ‘and still the certainty of dying cannot compare with the pleasure I am feeling. The joy I take from this half of an orange which I am holding in my hand is one of the greatest joys I have ever known.’
I lay flat on my back, sucking my orange and counting the shooting stars. Here I was, for one minute infinitely happy. ‘Nobody can know anything of the world in which the individual moves and has his being,’ I reflected. ‘There is no guessing it. Only the man locked up in it can know what it is.’
For the first time I understood the cigarette and glass of rum that are handed to the criminal about to be executed. I used to think that for a man to accept these wretched gifts at the foot of the gallows was beneath human dignity. Now I was learning that he took pleasure from them. People thought him courageous when he smiled as he smoked or drank. I knew now that he smiled because the taste gave him pleasure. People could not see that his perspective had changed, and that for him the last hour of his life was a life in itself.
We collected an enormous quantity of water – perhaps as much as two quarts. Never again would we be t
hirsty! We were saved; we had a liquid to drink!
I dipped my tin cup into the tank and brought up a beautifully yellow-green liquid the first mouthful of which nauseated me so that despite my thirst I had to catch my breath before swallowing it. I would have swallowed mud, I swear; but this taste of poisonous metal cut keener than thirst.
I glanced at Prévot and saw him going round and round with his eyes fixed to the ground as if looking for something. Suddenly he leaned forward and began to vomit without interrupting his spinning. Half a minute later it was my turn. I was seized by such convulsions that I went down on my knees and dug my fingers into the sand while I puked. Neither of us spoke, and for a quarter of an hour we remained thus shaken, bringing up nothing but a little bile.
After a time it passed and all I felt was a vague, distant nausea. But our last hope had fled. Whether our bad luck was due to a sizing on the parachute or to the magnesium lining of the tank, I never found out. Certain it was that we needed either another set of cloths or another receptacle.
Well, it was broad daylight and time we were on our way. This time we should strike out as fast as we could, leave this cursed plateau, and tramp till we dropped in our tracks . . .
I don’t remember anything about that day. I remember only my haste. I was hurrying desperately towards something – towards some finality. I remember also that I walked with my eyes to the ground, for the mirages were more than I could bear. From time to time we would correct our course by the compass, and now and again we would lie down to catch our breath. I remember having flung away my waterproof, which I had held on to as covering for the night. That is as much as I recall about the day. Of what happened when the chill of evening came, I remember more. But during the day I had simply turned to sand and was a being without mind.
When the sun set we decided to make camp. Oh, I knew as well as anybody that we should push on, that this one waterless night would finish us off. But we had brought along the bits of parachute, and if the poison was not in the sizing, we might get a sip of water next morning. Once again we spread our trap for the dew under the stars.
But the sky in the north was cloudless. The wind no longer had the same taste on the lip. It had moved into another quarter. Something was rustling against us, but this time it seemed to be the desert itself. The wild beast was stalking us, had us in its power. I could feel its breath in my face, could feel it lick my face and hands. Suppose I walked on: at the best I could do five or six miles more. Remember that in three days I had covered one hundred miles, practically without water.
And then, just as we stopped, Prévot said:
‘I swear to you I see a lake!’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘Have you ever heard of a mirage after sunset?’ he challenged.
I didn’t seem able to answer him. I had long ago given up believing my own eyes. Perhaps it was not a mirage; but in that case it was a hallucination. How could Prévot go on believing? But he was stubborn about it.
‘It’s only twenty minutes off. I’ll go have a look.’
His mulishness got on my nerves.
‘Go ahead!’ I shouted. ‘Take your little constitutional. Nothing better for a man. But let me tell you, if your lake exists it is salt. And whether it’s salt or not, it’s a devil of a way off. And besides, there is no damned lake!’
Prévot was already on his way, his eyes glassy. I knew the strength of these irresistible obsessions. I was thinking: ‘There are somnambulists who walk straight into locomotives.’ And I knew that Prévot would not come back. He would be seized by the vertigo of empty space and would be unable to turn back. And then he would keel over. He somewhere, and I somewhere else. Not that it was important . . .
Night fell. The moon had swollen since I last saw it. Prévot was still not back. I stretched out on my back and turned these few data over in my mind. A familiar impression came over me, and I tried to seize it. I was . . . I was . . . I was at sea. I was on a ship going to South America and was stretched out, exactly like this, on the boat deck. The tip of the mast was swaying to and fro, very slowly, among the stars. That mast was missing tonight, but again I was at sea, bound for a port I was to make without raising a finger. Slave traders had flung me on this ship.
I thought of Prévot who was still not back. Not once had I heard him complain. That was a good thing. To hear him whine would have been unbearable. Prévot was a man.
What was that? Five hundred yards ahead of me I could see the light of his lamp. He had lost his way. I had no lamp with which to signal back. I stood up and shouted, but he could not hear me.
A second lamp, and then a third! God in Heaven! It was a search party and it was me they were hunting!
‘Hi! Hi!’ I shouted.
But they had not heard me. The three lamps were still signalling me.
‘Tonight I am sane,’ I said to myself. ‘I am relaxed. I am not out of my head. Those are certainly three lamps and they are about five hundred yards off.’ I stared at them and shouted again, and again I gathered that they could not hear me.
Then, for the first and only time, I was really seized with panic. I could still run, I thought. ‘Wait! Wait!’ I screamed. They seemed to be turning away from me, going off, hunting me elsewhere! And I stood tottering, tottering on the brink of life when there were arms out there ready to catch me! I shouted and screamed again and again.
They had heard me! An answering shout had come. I was strangling, suffocating, but I ran on, shouting as I ran, until I saw Prévot and keeled over.
When I could speak again I said: ‘Whew! When I saw all those lights . . .’
‘What lights?’
God in Heaven, it was true! He was alone!
This time I was beyond despair. I was filled with a sort of dumb fury.
‘What about your lake?’ I rasped.
‘As fast as I moved towards it, it moved back. I walked after it for about half an hour. Then it seemed still too far away, so I came back. But I am positive, now, that it is a lake.’
‘You’re crazy. Absolutely crazy. Why did you do it? Tell me. Why?’
What had he done? Why had he done it? I was ready to weep with indignation, yet I scarcely knew why I was so indignant. Prévot mumbled his excuse:
‘I felt I had to find some water. You . . . your lips were awfully pale.’
Well! My anger died within me. I passed my hand over my forehead as if I were waking out of sleep. I was suddenly sad. I said:
‘There was no mistake about it. I saw them as clearly as I see you now. Three lights there were. I tell you, Prévot, I saw them!’
Prévot made no comment.
‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘I guess we’re in a bad way.’
In this air devoid of moisture the soil is swift to give off its temperature. It was already very cold. I stood up and stamped about. But soon a violent fit of trembling came over me. My dehydrated blood was moving sluggishly and I was pierced by a freezing chill which was not merely the chill of night. My teeth were chattering and my whole body had begun to twitch. My hand shook so that I could not hold an electric torch. I who had never been sensitive to cold was about to die of cold. What a strange effect thirst can have!
Somewhere, tired of carrying it in the sun, I had let my waterproof drop. Now the wind was growing bitter and I was learning that in the desert there is no place of refuge. The desert is as smooth as marble. By day it throws no shadow; by night it hands you over naked to the wind. Not a tree, not a hedge, not a rock behind which I could seek shelter. The wind was charging me like a troop of cavalry across open country. I turned and twisted to escape it: I lay down, stood up, lay down again, and still I was exposed to its freezing lash. I had no strength to run from the assassin and under the sabre-stroke I tumbled to my knees, my head between my hands.
A little later I pieced these bits together and remembered that I had struggled to my feet and had started to walk on, shivering as I went. I had started forward wondering where I w
as and then I had heard Prévot. His shouting had jolted me into consciousness.
I went back towards him, still trembling from head to foot – quivering with the attack of hiccups that was convulsing my whole body. To myself I said: ‘It isn’t the cold. It’s something else. It’s the end.’ The simple fact was that I hadn’t enough water in me. I had tramped too far yesterday and the day before when I was off by myself, and I was dehydrated.
The thought of dying of the cold hurt me. I preferred the phantoms of my mind, the cross, the trees, the lamps. At least they would have killed me by enchantment. But to be whipped to death like a slave! . . .
Confound it! Down on my knees again! We had with us a little store of medicines – a hundred grammes of ninety per cent alcohol, the same of pure ether, and a small bottle of iodine. I tried to swallow a little of the ether: it was like swallowing a knife. Then I tried the alcohol: it contracted my gullet. I dug a pit in the sand, lay down in it, and flung handfuls of sand over me until all but my face was buried in it.
Prévot was able to collect a few twigs, and he lit a fire which soon burnt itself out. He wouldn’t bury himself in the sand, but preferred to stamp round and round in a circle. That was foolish.
My throat stayed shut, and though I knew that was a bad sign, I felt better. I felt calm. I felt a peace that was beyond all hope. Once more, despite myself, I was journeying, trussed up on the deck of my slave ship under the stars. It seemed to me that I was perhaps not in such a bad pass after all.
So long as I lay absolutely motionless, I no longer felt the cold. This allowed me to forget my body buried in the sand. I said to myself that I would not budge an inch, and would therefore never suffer again. As a matter of fact, we really suffer very little. Back of all these torments there is the orchestration of fatigue or of delirium, and we live on in a kind of picture book, a slightly cruel fairy tale.
Survivor: The Autobiography Page 43
