In Search of the Forty Days Road

by Michael Asher

  Relieved, I went to collect the fugitive and drove him back to our camp, where I found the others seated around the rekindled fire with the kettle on it. I couched the camel with the others, which ’Ali had evidently brought in, and went to join the men at the fire. They were still chattering away in Zaghawa, but by interjecting here and there, I managed to ascertain their story. They were Awlad Diqqayn Zaghawa, nomads from the Libyan Desert to the north. About a week before, some raiders had stolen four of their camels. They suspected Rizayqat Arabs, but were unsure. They had followed the tracks of the raiders, but finally lost them in the Tagabo Hills. Now they were doing a desperate sweep around dar Zaghawa. They had come upon this wadi in the night and, spotting my camel in the bushes, had gone to investigate. The story sounded rather shaky to me, for this area was a long way from the Tagabo Hills, but ’Ali Ahmed seemed quite at ease with them, and since he had more to lose than I, I gave up worrying and got under my blankets. Still, as I did so, I felt thankful for my deliverance from what could have been a nasty situation. My puny .22 was no match for the rifle of the Zaghawi, and I was glad things had not come to a firefight. I had come too far to leave my bleached bones for the ants in this desolate world beyond the fringes.

  The next day, at dawn, the Awlad Diqqayn rode off south. ’Ali and I carried on northeast, passing over rocky ridges with hard gravel underfoot, where the wind whistled stinging and sharp, drawing back its lips from the jagged canines of the rocks. We descended through an oxbow of a wadi where a deserted village stood, a ghost town of rotting huts, scattered and broken.

  ‘See that, brother!’ ’Ali said. ‘All gone! That was a Zaghawa village. Now there’s not a single tribesman left in the place. They had to go when the water finished.’ I remembered what the forester Farah Yusif had told me about the desiccation of this area.

  A little further on, we came across the temporary huts of some nomadic Zaghawa,who had made a winter camp inside the bed of a wadi. These people had only camels and a few goats: this, I suspected, was the shape of things to come.

  As we reached the top of the valley wall, I saw in the distance the Libyan Desert: a fragment of orange sand shining far beyond the re-entrants of the mountains. Immediately before us lay another wide valley, like the overture of the desert. It was a saucer-shaped hollow, rimmed with ragged black rock, where great reptilian ridges rose out of beds of bright sand. In the very centre lay a tiny patch of pure green, the village of Kornoi, and towering over it like glistening black fangs, the pinnacles of Hajar Kadu. As we picked our way down the valley, a freak wind hit us and I shivered violently. It was approaching noon, yet the temperature was not far above freezing. Remembering the heat which had been my most awesome enemy the previous summer, I was astonished that the desert could be so cold during the day.

  On the valley floor we joined a track which led to Kornoi. On the road was a Zaghawa caravan carrying bags of rock salt into the village, the camel-men muffled in their headcloths and their thick greatcoats.

  Neither ’Ali nor I had any wish to enter the town, however, and we bypassed it, following the track which led to Umm Buru. The next two days were the coldest I had experienced in the Sudan. We traversed many valleys, assaulted by the desert wind which cut into us like a scimitar on their high tops, but we were rewarded by the splendid spectacle of dar Zaghawa. It was a mountain landscape of spinal ridges of polished granite, sculpted by the scathing wind over millennia into a grisly scaffolding of rock. My camel hated this stony, steep going, and twice he went berserk, running off at the gallop, with me desperately clutching the saddle. He was every bit as bad as the bull I had exchanged him for in Tina. On the morning of December 18 we reached the village of Umm Buru. This settlement reflected the changes which had taken place in the area in recent years. It had once been an important and flourishing community, and Guy Moore had kept a house here in the 1930s. Now it was on the decline, mainly because water-sources had dried up, and water had to be brought from far away. ’Ali and I parted outside the village. He was taking the eastern route to Mellit, whereas I was turning north into the Libyan Desert, still hoping to reach El Atrun despite the delays I had suffered. ’Ali told me that my way lay through the tiny outpost town of Muzbat, which had a small section of Camel Corps. I made a mental note to avoid the settlement.

  I watched the Bedayi as he drove his camels away to the east. If anyone criticised the Bedayatt again in my presence, I would tell them of this man, who was one of the most agreeable companions I have ever travelled with, without the constant suspicion I had experienced amongst other people.

  That night I camped alone near Umm Buru. A freezing haboob whipped down from the hills to the north, and I erected my tent for the first time, since there was no wadi for protection. In the morning I set my compass, and walked with my camel up the winding side of the valley and into the scarlet hills. As I reached the top of the valley and prepared to mount, an astonishing sight met my eyes. Forty or fifty camels were tied head to tail in the largest caravan I had ever seen, led by men on horses who were cloaked in white from head to foot, with only their eyes showing through the slits in their cloaks. The camels moved silently and swiftly almost as if they were not touching the ground, and the strangely spectral figures of the men gave the caravan the atmosphere of a ghostly visitation. As it came nearer, I hailed the men. They were Awlad Diqqayn Zaghawa from Muzbat and were travelling to Kulbus to buy millet. They pointed out to me the direction of Muzbat and began to disappear into the valley. I wished suddenly that I was travelling with them, rather than taking this lonely road without a companion.

  Just before sunset on that day I spotted a village, set on the crest of a knoll, and suddenly, smelling woodsmoke, my camel bolted. I fought to bring him under control, and as we neared the village, an old man came out, grabbing my headrope and forcing the camel to kneel.

  ‘That’s a bad camel, by God the Great! He’s strong all right, very strong, but he’ll throw you one day,’ the old man said. ‘He wants the company of other camels; he’s a fully grown adult. He seems afraid of the cold too. You be careful of him!’

  I looked around at the village, and saw to my surprise that most of it was in ruins, like the ones I had seen previously. Only the old man’s house seemed to be in good repair with a freshly made stockade of grass.

  ‘Where are all the people?’ I asked.

  ‘Gone!’ he replied. ‘All gone off to Libya, or south to the towns, to El Fasher or Kutum, or Mellit. I’m the only one left now, me and my daughters. I was the shaykh of this place. I could leave like the others, but I’ve been here most of my life.’

  ‘God is generous.’

  ‘Yes, God is generous.’

  He told me again to be careful of the camel, and disappeared into the house for a moment, reappearing with a steel chain device, known as silsil in Arabic. It consisted of a V-shaped piece of iron which fitted over the animal’s head.

  ‘This will do the trick!’ the old Zaghawi said. ‘They don’t like it, and it keeps them quiet.’

  He began to show me how to fit the contraption over the camel’s jaw. I thought it cruel, as it worked on a principle of squeezing the animal’s jaw. I knew that no Arab would be seen dead using one of these, since they said it was only used by those who were ‘afraid’ of the camel. I decided to humour the old man, however, as I could always remove the device later, and certainly the animal seemed more docile after it was fitted, though he screamed and fretted as it was being put on. I understood why some tribes in the Sudan rode the female instead of the bull. Fully grown bulls are strong and hardy, and mine was exceptionally so, but they are also inclined to be wilful, and can be dangerous.

  I was hoping that the old Zaghawi would offer me hospitality that night, but for once, it seemed, he had become fond of his splendid isolation, and still lacking the gall to impose myself, I pressed on, riding fast into the gilded glow of twilight. Not long after dark I made
camp alone in a wadi.

  In the morning I carried on towards Muzbat. The weather was still sharp, but had warmed a little as I crossed another chain of intersecting valleys. In the early afternoon I emerged from a wadi clothed in ushur shrub, when a leather pad dropped from my saddle. Grumbling with irritation, I dropped from the camel’s back and bent to pick it up. Just as I did so, two camel-riders broke from the wadi behind me. They were riding loose-legged calves and moving fast. Both were dressed in old blue greatcoats and headcloths, as most tribesmen wore in winter, but I noticed that each had a Heckler-Koch automatic slung from his saddle. So unexpectedly had they appeared that I was taken by surprise. My pistol was way out of reach, in the canvas holdall attached to the saddle. My heart sank as the distance between us narrowed. If this was the ‘enemy’—and I could not believe anyone but bandits would sport their arms so openly—then I was lost. As the riders halted their camels near me, I saw that they were young men, with the dark, rounded faces of the Saharan tribes. One of them, a rather cheerful-looking youth with a smooth, open face, greeted me, then said, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ I answered aggressively, not willing to drop my guard merely because of appearances. Suddenly the other rider unbuttoned his coat, and beneath it I caught a glimpse of a green uniform. ‘Because we are the Camel Corps,’ he said.

  ‘Ah,’ I said vaguely, not knowing quite what to do next, wondering whether the revelation was good or bad for me. I hoped sincerely that these troopers had not followed me from Tina. ‘I’m going to Muzbat,’ I said.

  ‘That’s where we’re going,’ said the broad-faced man. ‘We can go together. Come on, ride!’

  I had little alternative but to join them. As we rode the troopers chatted away amiably, but between the bouts of conversation, I found my mind wandering to the possible consequences of being asked for my certificate of permission to travel. I had not even a passport or an identity card. I had left Tina illegally, and for all I knew there could be a warrant out for my arrest. If so, then neither of the troopers seemed aware of it. The broad-faced man, whose name was Medani, pointed out to me places of interest, telling me the names of mountains and valleys and the various small animals which scuttled across our path. If it had not been for the fear of detection hanging over me, I should very much have enjoyed this journey. Medani was of the Berti, and the other trooper, more silent but no less friendly, was called Hassan, of the local Awlad Diqqayn clan.

  We arrived at Muzbat that afternoon, coming pell-mell down the ridge that overlooked the settlement. It was very much as I had expected: a wide wadi of soft sand, along the side of which stood a few cracked and yellowed plaster buildings. Beyond them the razor-edged wind blew over a bleak and empty landscape, which stretched to the horizon on every side. The wadi was full of camels, of every possible size, shape, and colour. They were being watered at boreholes in the sand by some men, almost the same colour as myself, who wore thickly matted wavy hair and long beards, and whose rough clothing told me at once that they were Arabs. Medani told me that they were Kababish of the Atawiyya clan. There were other tribes in the wadi too, dark skinned, beardless men of the Bedayatt and the local Awlad Diqqayn Zaghawa. It was fascinating to see these two races, the Arabs and the Saharans, working shoulder to shoulder at the wells, both races descended from peoples who had been at home in this environment for millennia, yet who were quite distinct in manner, language, and culture.

  I understood why they were such deadly enemies. The Arabs and the others kept apart from each other, although here at the wells there seemed to be a truce whilst each tribe went about the work of watering. If Tina had been the last of civilisation, then Muzbat was a desert crossroads. El Atrun was only six days from here, and Wadi Howar, the outer limits of the Rizayqat migrations, only two days. Medani, Hassan, and I couched our camels outside the almost derelict shell of the police post. Although I was still waiting for the bomb to drop, the troopers treated me like an honoured guest. When I asked where they had been on their camels, Medani told me that they had been scouring the area for a camel-thief of the Bedayatt, whom they had had secure in their one cell. The man had apparently escaped in the night and disappeared into the desert. When Medani showed me the tiny window near the roof from which he had escaped, I guessed that he must have been a man of some determination, or a great deal of money! Luckily for me, the senior rank in Muzbat, a sergeant called Mohammed Ja’ali, was not present, and neither Hassan nor Medani were keen on paperwork. I imagined that the situation would change when he returned, and I was anxious to continue to El Atrun as soon as possible. I stayed with the troopers that night and the next day found in the wadi some Awlad Diqqayn who were travelling to the desert wells at Malemal Hosh, two days’ journey away. I had wanted to travel to the wells at Wakhaym instead, since this was on a direct route to El Atrun, but I could not afford to delay longer in case of discovery.

  That evening, therefore, I set off with the Awlad Diqqayn, who were driving four fat cow camels in milk. They were smooth-faced men in the typical Zaghawa mould, wearing elaborately piled headcloths and long white shirts. The Zaghawa seemed always to dress as if they were going to a banquet, whereas the Arabs dressed roughly. I preferred the Arab style, for to me, riding a camel in a jellablyya was like riding a motorcycle in a dinner suit. All the Awlad Diqqayn carried rifles, though they were careful not to take these out of their specially elongated saddlebags, until they were well outside the town. Three of them were brothers: Jiddu Mahmoud Biddi and his brothers, Mohammed and Atayeb; the others, Juma Mustafa and Esa Abdallah, were cousins. Jiddu was the most talkative of the five. He told me that Bir Biddi, a small oasis in the desert near the Libyan border, was named after his grandfather. If this was true, then he was the descendant of the most famous of all Bedayatt guides, Biddi Audi.

  We rode for only about two hours, and in the moonlight came upon a huge circle of camels. In the centre of the circle stood a single tent, from which came the glow of a fire. This was the encampment of some Atawiyya Kababish, who had watered that day in Muzbat. We did not enter the camp directly, but found a comfortable place at a polite distance from the camp, where we unpacked our equipment and made a fire. I was surprised that, with all the wide desert to choose from, the Awlad Diqqayn should prefer to camp so near to another group, but I discovered on subsequent journeys that it was always the custom to camp near others, even if they were enemies. It was a two-way thing, for it allowed each party to keep the other in his sights; far more to be feared was the raider who came secretly in the night.

  Soon after we had made camp, the Arabs came out to greet us. There were five of them, all brothers, and with a striking family resemblance. They had fair skin, large semitic noses, and long, unkempt hair, which was ‘soft’ like that of Europeans. They wore thick, uncut beards, sirwel, and a motley array of tattered shirts and waistcoats. Each wore a dagger and carried a rifle. Most of these, I noticed, were British Lee-Enfields .3o3, one of the most accurate rifles ever made, and for these conditions probably better than some of the automatic weapons. The Zaghawa carried the Belgian FN, similar to the SLR I had used in the army, though there were other automatics.

  Both tribes seemed to love weapons, constantly examining them and taking them apart. I amazed the company by stripping down an FN in a few seconds, a thing I had done so many times I could literally have done it blindfold. I grinned when I saw that the inside of the weapon was filthy: Zaghawa arms drill evidently did not include cleaning.

  ‘It’s filthy, brother!’ I said to Juma, the owner of the rifle, trying to reproduce my arms-instructor voice. The man looked at me in amazement, but said nothing. I guessed that if he tried to fire it in this state it would jam after the first shot. The Arabs were wiser with their bolt-action rifles, which were less likely to jam.

  The Atawiyya brought us bowl after bowl of fresh camels’ milk, and we ate their rough ’asida with camel-milk gravy, while the two tri
bes chatted away. It interested me to watch these two races interacting at such close quarters. They had a great deal in common, though much of what they said was tribal one-upmanship; for instance, they compared current bride prices, the Kababish saying that they must pay nine camels and the Awlad Diqqayn immediately answering that they had to pay twelve. I astonished both sides by saying that my tribe paid nothing. Towards the end of the evening, the Arabs entertained us with their musical poetry, known as dobbayt. The songs spoke of everyday things—camels, grazing, the desert, beautiful girls. I realised that what I was hearing was a direct continuation of the oral tradition that had flourished amongst the Arabs since pre-Islamic times; the finest flowering of language amongst a people who could neither read nor write.

  Some time later, the talk as always shifted to bandits and camel-stealing. The Awlad Diqqayn pooh-poohed any suggestion that there should be camel-thieves in this area. After the Atawiyya had left, I asked Jiddu if it would not be better to bring the camels into the camp, for they had wandered out of sight and would be easy prey for raiders.

  Jiddu laughed and said, ‘Don’t worry about raiders! The Awlad Diqqayn are the only raiders here! Your camel has Bedayatt markings, no? No one will steal that, or any camel with Zaghawa brands.’

  At the time I was affected by the jocular way in which he said this, but had I considered it more carefully, I might have had some premonition about the events of the coming day.

  As we set off in the morning, the desert opened like a book on all sides: hundreds of miles of boundless sand punctuated by rocks and the occasional clump of trees. Again, my camel was difficult to control. It would not respond to my tugs on the bridle, and continually pulled against me.

  Jiddu noticed that I was having some trouble, and said, ‘That camel is no good for riding. It will throw you!’

  I could not help thinking he was right, in view of some of the hair-raising experiences I had suffered near Umm Buru.