by Levison Wood
Will looked at Ash, and then at me. I guessed it was my turn to do the comforting: ‘It’s fine, mate. We’ve both been to Afghanistan. It’s . . . the same sort of thing.’ Even I could tell I didn’t sound sure. To save my blushes, I pointed after Gordon, the spare camel, who was loping over a sandy hillock, tied by a length of rope to the back of Speke’s saddle. ‘And, look, if you get tired, you can always ride him . . .’
‘I may well do that . . .’
‘Same for you, Will.’ I grinned, and waited for him to bite.
‘Fuck off!’ he said, as I had known he would; and together, we strode off into the West.
‘Ancient Bedouin tomb,’ said Moez, crouching at a series of unnatural mounds, where stones had been placed in a circle and still pierced the sand. Awad had tipped his turban respectfully at them as we had passed, but the camels didn’t seem to have any compunction about munching on the bits of thorn scrub growing from the graves.
We had been walking through the punishing heat for eight hours and, though the day was getting old, the sun was just as fierce. Pausing to rest in the tiny shade of an acacia tree, I drank greedily from my canteen, only to realise that I had, long ago, drunk my day’s fill. According to our thermometer, it had been 56 degrees in the sun, and almost 50 in the shade. ‘We’ll have to be cannier tomorrow,’ I said.
‘Wouldn’t it be better to walk at night?’ asked Ash.
From up on Burton’s back, Ahmad snorted. ‘The camels would break their legs. No,’ he went on, Moez translating, ‘we should walk early, from six till eleven. Then again from four until sunset.’
Will grimaced. ‘Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun . . .’
‘We can still cover 40km a day,’ said Ahmad and, singing to his camel, continued to walk.
We tramped on. Now that the day was fading to dusk, the edge was coming off the heat. The dunes, soft underfoot, gave way with each step; no amount of walking, not even the two thousand miles since the source of the river, could prepare a body for how difficult it was to walk here. Every time the sand touched my feet, my body glistened with new sweat. I seemed to be losing as much water in perspiration as I was drinking.
‘You know,’ said Moez, ‘it’s hard to imagine now, but once, only a few thousand years ago, this was all lush and fertile savannah – and before that, a swamp, or maybe even a vast lake, long before the desert started to form. It isn’t just your footsteps in the sand that fade away – it’s the land itself, changing all the time. This was where the agricultural revolution happened. It was here people started farming for the very first time. There were cattle cults that looked after huge herds, all grazing on rich grasses for as far as the eye can see. Now – only this . . .’
By fall of the first night, we had covered 40km, but drunk twice as much water as we had planned. Our bodies hungered for it. Making camp beside an outcrop of jagged sandstone, we broke open the army ration packs Will had brought along and refuelled. On the edge of camp, Ahmad and Awad began their prayers, then sang to the camels as they fed them sorghum and massaged their necks to aid the digestion.
We ate in silence, so drained by the day that even idle conversation seemed too much. The only sound to disturb the silence of the desert was Ahmad’s song, then the chatter as he and Awad began to play a kind of backgammon using nothing but lines in the sand and camel droppings.
‘Are you listening to this, Lev?’
Moez inclined his head towards the camel handlers, but they were speaking in Arabic, so quickly that I could not perceive a word.
‘What is it?’
‘They’re saying . . .’ He smiled nervously. ‘They’re saying they’ve never been to this part of the Bayuda . . .’
I almost choked on my words. ‘What? But Bala said . . .’
‘Yes, yes, I know – but it seems they always go the same way, along an old caravan route some way south of here. It’s the same way General Gordon took between Metemma and Korti.’
I moved closer to Moez eager that Will and Ash would not hear. ‘But what about the wells?’ I asked, in disbelief. ‘We drank more water than we rationed today. It’s hotter than we thought . . .’
‘They only know Jakdul,’ Moez explained, ‘and the wells south of the volcanic plateau. Up here, well, they can guess, but . . .’
I was about to launch into some tirade when I felt movement on my shoulder; Ash, sensing something was wrong, had joined us.
‘Did I hear that right? Awad and Ahmad have never been this way? They don’t even know where the wells are?’ Aghast, he turned over his shoulder. ‘Are you listening to this, Will?’
Always one to get stuck into a bit of controversy, Will left his ration pack and strode over. ‘What’s going on? Wait, let me guess . . . Lev is lost?’
‘Worse!’ spat Ash. ‘The camel guides haven’t a clue where they’re going.’
Will’s face changed; where once he had been keen to poke fun, now he looked sombre. ‘That’s . . . not good, Lev,’ he said, in earnest. ‘Are we being incredibly arrogant here? Three men who’ve never crossed deserts before, and two guides who don’t know the way . . .’
It was Will’s concern that, finally, made me pause. Will was usually game for any ridiculous idea; if he was questioning the sanity of a project, there had to be a good reason. I stared into the blackness of the desert, where the light of a million stars lit only rolling dunes and outcrops of thorn. The prospect of not finding a well out here was unthinkable. The old adage of ‘three days without water, three weeks without food’ didn’t apply in a land as inhospitable as this. In the heat we had walked through today, we wouldn’t last twelve hours without water; we’d be as dead as the shrivelled donkey carcasses we’d seen outside Kadabas before the day was through.
‘Look,’ I said, half to convince myself, ‘it’ll be okay. We have enough water for three, maybe four days – that should get us almost half way. And, if the worst happens, well, the river’s never more than 40km away. That’s only a day’s walk. If things get low, that’s what we do – we head for the river.’
‘Yes,’ said Moez, with a hint of cynicism, ‘and hope the soldiers from the dam don’t notice when we drop our heads to drink.’
Though Will seemed pacified, the look on Ash’s face had only hardened. He stared at me, mortified. ‘I don’t really have a choice, do I?’ he said. ‘Lev, I’m just going to have to trust that you won’t kill me . . .’
As Will and Ash settled back down, I stared at Awad and Ahmad. In the starlight, they looked particularly roguish, spreading out their camp. Neither one of them seemed the least bit perturbed; perhaps there was a lesson to learn from that.
‘They must be confident they’ll find a well,’ I said, reassured by their calmness.
‘No.’ Moez grinned. ‘They’re just confident they can be the first to jump on a camel and get to the river . . .’
‘But, Moez, there are only three camels.’
‘And six of us.’ He grinned. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, right?’
We were up with the dawn but, by 6.30am, the temperature was already 28 degrees, and quickly getting worse. By the time we had covered our first three kilometres, it was inching towards 40; then it exploded, past 40, 45 and 50. When we broke for water, Moez pressed the thermometer to the sand and recorded a high of 62.
It was our second day and we had already used almost half of our water.
We made a midday camp, stretching the tarpaulin over thorny acacia for shade, and resigned ourselves to waiting out the worst of the day’s heat – but by the time the camp was established and we were closing our eyes, desperate to conserve what energy we had, the camels began to grow skittish. When I looked round, Moez was stripping off his turban and rebinding it around his face. That was the first signal that something bad was coming; the second was the wall of brown hardening on the horizon.
I turned to Will and Ash. ‘Haboob,’ I said. ‘Look, do what Moez does, and try not to panic. We just h
ave to wait it out.’
The brown line on the horizon seemed small, but what we were seeing was only the first wave of a tide of dust and sand rampaging our way. I had seen haboobs before, but only from the comfort of a camp along the roadside, where adobe walls could shelter us from the onslaught. What we were looking at was none other than a land tsunami – a vicious maelstrom that tore up everything in its path, gathering up sand, earth, grit, and moulding it into a single, unstoppable wave. In the time it had taken me to explain it to Will and Ash, the line had already darkened. As it grew closer, it seemed to swell, more and more distinct from the desert floor. Now it was a vast phalanx of filth, stark against the clear blue sky.
The wind was already picking up. Unwrapping my turban, I bound it around my mouth, covering my nostrils. This, I knew, would be the only way to breathe once the storm arrived. Moez had unearthed pairs of sand goggles and was handing them round – but, no sooner had I donned them than the first dust devils, tiny whirling dervishes of grit, hurtled into the camp, like heralds of the storm. Awad and Ahmad rushed to rope the camels together, while Will, Ash and I gathered our packs.
Sudden sprays of grit arced up from the floor, slicing across my face. As I turned away and cowered, the dust devil flurried up from the ground, clawing at the tarpaulin strung in the acacia. There was already sand inside my goggles, sand inside my turban, riming my lips. I waited for the barrage to die down, and then looked up. The roiling wall that had seemed so many miles away was now almost upon us, bearing down. The desert was being plunged into premature night, as the storm blocked out the sun.
‘How long is this going to last?’ cried Ash.
I stole a look at Ahmad and Awad. As ever, they seemed completely unperturbed, finding a way to stake the camels down. Yet again, it was their calmness that gave me confidence.
‘Try and get some rest,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be a long one.’
In that same moment, the wall of dust cascaded over us, drawing a veil between me, Will and Ash. All around, the world was a frenzy of yellow and brown. I could see no more than a few paces in every direction, locked into a raging bubble in the middle of the storm. Now, with my eyes burning, my throat rasping, there was nothing to do but wait.
By the time the haboob had passed, the day was old. In the relative cool of evening, we walked west, until darkness returned. In camp that night, we took inventory of our supplies: enough food to last all the way across the Bayuda; water for only another two days. Perhaps we could make it for three if we rationed it, but the memory of Matt Power still lived with me, and the thought of rationing water in this heat did not fill me with confidence. There were at least six days between here and the end of the desert. Somehow – whether Awad and Ahmad could lead us there or not – we would have to find a well.
The next day felt hotter than the last, even though the thermometer showed the same temperature. It was the burgeoning fear that made it feel so much more intense. Every time I lifted the water to my lips, every time I saw Will or Ash sate themselves, the thought blossomed in the back of my head: that was another gulp, another sip, closer to our supplies running dry.
And still, all around, only the same featureless land.
By mid-afternoon, the sky was darkening again. In an instant, the wind picked up. Instinctively, we reached for our turbans, anticipating the worst. Behind sand goggles, I shied from the raking wind. For twenty minutes, the dust devil lashed at us – but when, at last, it subsided, what remained were not clouds of dust. They were simply clouds. Swollen, grey reefs hung over the desert, giving this barren landscape an even more ethereal appearance. Moments later, the temperature plummeted; a soothing cool breeze floated down from the north. Moez and I exchanged a curious look. Awad and Ahmad looked to the sky and smiled.
A great crash tore the silence apart, and sheet lightning lit up our surrounds. Thunder reverberated in the vaults above, rolling over distant mountaintops. On the horizon, the sky was black. ‘It’s rain,’ said Moez, ‘and it’s coming this way . . .’
Torrents of water were drenching the parched horizon, sweeping inexorably towards us. We watched in wonder. It was Ash who felt it first: a cold, fat globule of rain fell from the shifting clouds, to land on his upturned hand. Here, in the middle of the Sahara, we let the rain wash over us and opened up our mouths to the skies.
Fifteen minutes later, as suddenly as it had come, the rain was gone. The sun, fierce as ever, reappeared from behind retreating clouds, bathing the desert in its merciless light. Wondering if this had been a strange mirage, we tramped on – but there was no illusion in how those brief rains had transformed the desert. Flash floods demarked the depressions where ancient waterways used to flow, the dry riverbeds given a brief, second chance at life. Water gushed along tiny tributaries. The acacia bushes, normally so brown, had in an instant become green. Flowers sprouted and shoots opened on bushes and desert melon. Lizards lapped up droplets from rocky outcrops and – as if out of nowhere – a plethora of rabbits had appeared.
The camels, fluttering their eyelashes, drank from puddles and grazed on the sudden flourishes of green. And, for a time, there was more spring to our steps, more buoyancy as we followed the trail into the west.
Only hours later, the water had all been sucked into the greedy sands. Gone were the fledgling rivers, back the ancient riverbeds. Gone, the flocks of rabbits come up to gorge on the new greenery; back the cracked feeling in the back of my throat, and nervous looks at the jerry cans hanging from Burton’s saddle. For a brief moment, we had danced in the rain of a Saharan thunderstorm – but, like everything in this inhospitable land, it had only been the gods of the desert taunting us with the promise of water.
Thirst is a terrible thing. It destroys you from the inside out.
Throughout the next day, I watched our supplies dwindling. When you have water, you take it for granted – but when you don’t, not only does it ruin your body; it ruins your mind, planting ugly thoughts, poisoning every corner of your being. To begin with, you try to comprehend what it might be like to die of thirst. That’s when the panic sets in. Your mouth gets dry, your tongue refuses to move, your gums grow numb. Your lips, already cracked and peeling, stick together, sealing your words within. In silence, you look at your companions – old friends, new friends, trusted guides – and begin to wonder if they feel the same. I found myself jealously watching the water bottle in Moez’s hand. Was he as desperate as me? Did he have more water? Was Ash keeping some of his secretly hidden away, a salve against the end? Was Will? Would any of them share with me if I was dry, if I begged them? Would I do the same for them? Such are the thoughts that were taking root in me as, by the end of our fourth day, we drank down to our last few litres.
It is a myth that camels can go weeks without water. In the heat of the Sahara, they can barely survive more than four days. We’d watered Burton, Speke and Gordon well before embarking, and watered them every evening since – but, tonight, there was nothing for our camel friends. What little we had left had to sustain us humans until we could find a well.
‘We need those camels,’ said Ash as we ate rations beneath the brilliant silver light of the moon. ‘They’re carrying everything. Food, medical kit, all the technical gear. Without them, we’re shafted.’
As I did every time nerves threatened to overwhelm me, I looked to Awad and Ahmad – but even they seemed subdued tonight. There was no gleam in their eyes, no ribald joke or song. ‘If we don’t find a well tomorrow,’ I said, ‘that’s it. Soldiers or no soldiers, we have to head for the river.’
In silence, our column of men marched across the desert.
I paused, lifting my canteen to my lips, thought better of it, and hung it at my side again. Moments later, Ash and Will had caught up. They were staring, bewildered, at Moez, who – as ever, walked contentedly to our rear.
‘How does he do it?’ Will asked.
‘The man’s a machine,’ muttered Ash.
As he passed, Moez onl
y smiled, looking at the burnt-lobster faces around him. I had not seen Moez take a drink in long hours and – in contrast to Will and Ash – not a bead of sweat glistened on his face.
Awad and Ahmad had re-joined the procession, along with the camels, an hour before. Late last night, Will had pored over his Russian maps and, highlighting a blue dot not far from where we camped, had sent the Bedouin out in search of a well. But when they returned, their faces told the story: there was no water here; if there had ever been a well at all, it had long been dry and subsumed by the sand.
‘They don’t seem to give a shit,’ said Will. Perversely, he seemed to be relishing the thought of a close call with death.
‘We’d better not die, Wood,’ said Ash.
I wanted to tell him we wouldn’t, but I had seen death already on this voyage.
By midday, the sand dunes had ebbed away and we marched across a plain of grey and black. Jagged black stone stretched out before us, capturing the heat of the sun and searing the soles of our shoes. In the distance, a line of gleaming purple mountains marked the heart of the desert. These, Moez told us, were the volcanoes of the Bayuda. Innumerable peaks rose up, shimmering in the haze. All in all, there were ninety volcanoes of differing sizes across the plateau, fifteen rising taller than the rest to claw at the sky.
‘Are we going to get burnt to death, too?’ asked Ash.
‘They’re dormant,’ said Moez. ‘In fact . . .’
‘In fact, what?’
I stopped dead. The same thing had occurred to me as to Moez. ‘If we head straight for the highest peak, there ought to be a gorge down into the volcano itself.’
‘And?’ said Ash.
‘It’s our best chance at finding natural water.’
The mountains, in their enormity, took an age to reach, the wavering heat obscuring their true size and range. One mile turned into two, then three into four, and it was not until twenty miles of silence had passed that we stood in their shadows. Even Awad and Ahmad had ceased to sing today.
