A Desert Dies

by Michael Asher

  Suddenly, I saw Dagalol stiffen. ‘There are men in the wadi!’ he hissed in a half-whisper. Both men turned their ears to the west and listened intently. ‘Yes, by God!’ Wad Ballal said. There are men with camels!’ The Arabs were up in an instant and there was a metallic click as Dagalol cocked his rifle. Wad Ballal grabbed his torch and club. ‘Abboud! Watch the camels!’ Dagalol shouted. ‘Omar! Get your gun!’ I was already fumbling with my sandals. The boys threw back their covers and ran towards the herd. I snatched my shotgun and some cartridges, but already the two men had plunged into the darkness. I hovered on the perimeter of the camp for a moment, not knowing what Dagalol had intended, crashing a cartridge into the breech of my weapon and snapping it shut. Just then, a camel roared somewhere to the west and suddenly three sharp reports cracked out of the darkness. My heart burst into activity and I ran towards the wadi with my shotgun held ready. I hoped to God that if I had to use the weapon it would not explode in my face as these homemade guns had been known to do.

  There were no more shots; everything seemed quiet. I called out Dagalol’s name and at once saw the flash of a torch from the trees. ‘Omar!’ someone called. ‘Over here!’

  I ran towards the light of the torch and found the two Arabs standing in the bed of sand beyond the trees. They were examining the ground, and in the torchlight I saw that it had been churned up by the feet and bodies of three or four camels. It was littered with fresh droppings and there were dark patches where the animals had stalled. They must have heard me cock the gun,’ Dagalol declared. ‘A moment earlier and I should have got them!’

  ‘They were bandits and no doubt,’ Wad Ballal said.

  Wad Ballal began to follow the tracks leading out of the wadi to the west. For a few moments, he was screened from my sight by the trees and I could follow only the dim circle of the torchlight. Then he came shuffling out of the shadows and held up something. It was a hobbling-loop made of twisted cowhide. ‘It was certainly someone from Darfur,’ Wad Ballal said. The Kordofan tribes do not use this type of ’uqal.’

  ‘Zaghawa!’ Dagalol declared. ‘Without doubt!’

  Abboud appeared, and the four of us walked back to the camp together. The thieves got nothing this time,’ Dagalol said, ‘but they will be back!’ Then he commented, ‘I thought you were never coming, Omar! What happened to you? You must change those foreign sandals for some Arab shoes if you do not want to be caught out here!’

  The next day some Nurab came into our camp at midday. They were quite different in appearance from the Nas Wad Haydar. There were two of them, both carrying old shotguns. One was a tall old man, whippet-slim and naked except for a pair of sirwal and a length of cloth that crossed his torso and fell down his back like a cloak. The other was a tremendously strong-looking Arab with an old jibba, whose sleeves had been cut away to make room for his enormous biceps. Both men were lighter in colour than Dagalol’s family and were much more Arab in appearance, with straggling beards and grey-blue eyes.

  After they had drunk tea, the strong-looking man took me aside, some distance from the camp, and asked for a cartridge for his shotgun. I gave him one, hiding my reluctance, and he put it away in his pocket.

  ‘I have some advice for you,’ he said. ‘Do not stay with Dagalol any longer. He is a bad one. Remember one thing in this country. Never trust a fat Arab!’ And before I could reply, he made off back to the camp, and was soon on his way with his companion.

  That evening came the long-expected meeting. It was held after sunset, when the camels had been brought into a tight circle around our camp. A desultory fire trembled in the hearth, and its poor light reflected on the shirts of the guests who came out of the darkness one by one. They shook hands and sat down with their rifles in front of them. Soon, there were more than twenty Arabs sitting shoulder to shoulder. I recognised the faces of Habjur and his son amongst them, and the tall figure of Haj Hassan with a younger brother called Musa. The last to arrive was the diminutive Ali Wad Hassan. They looked as wild and primitive as savages sitting there in the firelight, but there was nothing primitive about their culture; it was a sophisticated and efficient adaptation to the demands of their environment.

  It was Dagalol who spoke first. He described what had happened the previous night and went on to say that it was time they moved north. ‘Every day we remain here, we run the risk of losing stock,’ he said. Those Zaghawa have no honour and they do not fear God. They will be back! Meanwhile, we must pay much money for water, and half the time the herds go thirsty.’

  ‘I am not with you!’ Haj Hassan cut in. There is plenty of trouble in Kordofan and Darfur with the Zayadiyya. They are worse than the Zaghawa.’

  ‘Do not bother about the Zayadiyya, brother,’ Dagalol said. ‘They are our friends.’

  They may be your friends,’ the other said, with heavy and sarcastic emphasis, ‘but they are not mine. I have no love for the Zayadiyya.’

  I sensed under these words a deep resentment that referred to something I did not know about. I thought about the words of the Nurabi earlier that day and wondered if there was a connection.

  ‘We must be patient,’ Haj Hassan continued. ‘You have no patience, brother. It is better to stay here where there is grazing than to go back to nothing, just because we want cow’s milk and porridge!’ Oagalol snapped back angrily, ‘You are the one for the cows,

  not I!’

  Suddenly the booming voice of Habjur chimed in, ‘God knows I hate this land of blacks! But I am not going to see my camels grow thin because of a few slaves of the Zaghawa. No, by God! l am going to stay here and fight them. I may be old, but I can still shoot, by the life of the Prophet!’

  Before he had finished, the piping voice of Ali Wad Hassan interrupted him, saying that if they did not move now, then there would be no grazing left on the way to Kordofan. Someone else said that many of the other Kababish tribes were already moving back. Another Arab with an uncut, frizzy mop of hair declared that he supported the Haj. Everyone seemed to talk at once, and the discussion continued for what seemed like hours, shuttling back and forth between the two opinions.

  In the end it was the rhetoric of Haj Hassan and the power of old Habjur that carried the day. Dagalol agreed sulkily to wait until there was more definite news from the north. ‘But there will be trouble, I tell you, brothers!’ was his last word. In the event he was proved right.

  I knew that this decision meant that I should have to travel north alone. I decided to set off the following day. That night I told Dagalol I was leaving, and thanked him for his hospitality. Whatever his shortcomings, and whatever the mystery surrounding him, he had not fallen short in his duties as my host. It was under his instruction that I had learned my first lessons about the Kababish. He told me that I was welcome to visit him in his damar at Umm Qozayn, and wished me good luck. ‘But take care in the north,’ he said. ‘Do not sleep alone on the road. Always sleep with people. There are many bandits there, by God!’

  I was up at first light the next day and saddling Wad al ’Atiga. Dagalol presented me with a skin of sour milk that he tied on the rear horn of my saddle. Then he shook hands and said, ‘Go in the safekeeping of God.’

  I trotted my camel through the brakes of acacia and climbed a high ridge from which I could see the hills around the village of Wada’a, which lay across my path. Far away to the south I made out the herds of Nas Wad Haydar already moving out of their overnight camps. I had been with them only a matter of weeks, yet it seemed like a lifetime. For a few moments I watched them, tiny white dots on the vast landscape, moving in perfect harmony with the days and the seasons.

  Then I flicked the rump of my camel and rode down towards the green fields of Wada’a.

  _____2._____

  Good Things in Humble Guises

  The jerboa, or desert rat, is one of the

  most successful desert-dwellers. It can

  live its life without ever drinking, breaking

  down the dry plant material w
hich it

  eats to manufacture its own water.

  Henri Lhote, ‘When the Sahara was Green’,

  The World’s Lost Mysteries, 1976

  NORTH OF WADA’ A, THE LANDSCAPE changed with dramatic suddenness. Here, the surface was a sheet of bone-dry clay, cracked and lifeless, through which the stalks of the acacias groped like petrified claws. The land was desolate. Gone were the mat of tribulus and the baobab trees. The edge of moisture in the air was replaced by wafts of choking dust, and the heat, reflected from the bare soil, was scorching. The familiar birds were no longer to be seen in the desiccated branches, and beneath their split and twisted roots lay the skeletons of dead cattle and donkeys.

  I rode Wad al ’Atiga at a trot. Continually he turned his head left and right, searching for a mouthful of succulent grass in the arid landscape. Nowhere did there seem to be a rash of grass or a single tree in leaf. There were patterns in the earth where men had planted crops but the sorghum and millet had not germinated. Many of the villages I passed looked broken and deserted. The straw huts were derelict, bleached grey by the sun and toppled over by the wind. The places had the look of ghost towns, stranded on the hard shoulder of the earth where cultivation would sustain them no longer.

  No rain had fallen here for months. The farmers of the Berti and Mima tribes had abandoned their villages and moved south into the skirts of Jabal Marra. I wondered how those who remained managed to survive in this waterless land.

  As soon as night came, I made camp amongst the acacias. After I unloaded, I hobbled my camel with the gayd, hoping that he might find a few withered leaves to appease his hunger. I set about making a small fire to brew some tea in the way I had learned from the Arabs. I collected three stones and laid them in a triangular pattern then searched for a handful of dry straw to kindle the fire. It was difficult to find: only the brittle and less woody straw burned fiercely enough to ignite the wood. There was none underfoot and I eventually took some from an old bird’s nest in a tree, as I had seen the Arabs do. I picked up a few tiny pieces of bone-dry wood and laid them on the straw in between the stones of my hearth. Then I set a match to the kindling, lighting the straw from beneath and lifting it so that the draught would spread the flame. When the tiny pieces of timber caught fire, I slowly added larger and larger pieces until the flames were hot enough to burn the two or three branches I had collected. Each stage of the process had to be carried out with a ritualistic attention to detail, for if the kindling was rushed, the fire would be smothered, which was extremely irritating after a hard day in the saddle.

  I made tea and drank three cups, then began to look around for Wad al ’Atiga. He was nowhere to be seen. Thinking that I should soon spot him, I skirted around the bushes on the perimeter of the camp. Nowhere could I make out the camel’s dark shape, nor could I hear his chomping. I picked up my shotgun and made a wide circle around the camp. The moon was out, casting an eerie silver light over the silent landscape. The dead acacias stretched for miles, and in the moonlight there was nothing to distinguish one from another. Within a few metres I was totally disorientated and had to search for my footmarks in the grey dust in order to retrace my steps.

  I stared into the night and listened carefully. No sound reached my ears. I skirted around once more, and found the track of what I thought was a hobbled camel. I began to follow it. The track wound in and out of the trees, half circling around, then twisting east and west. I followed it for about ten minutes until it performed a double-helix around a tundub tree and turned back in the direction from which I had come. My heart sinking, I hurried back towards my camp, realising that I had been following the wrong track. Again I could not locate the camp. The colourless night disguished any feature that would allow me to navigate. Painstakingly, I found my own tracks once more, and followed them to where my saddle and equipment lay, next to the burned-out fire.

  I knew that my only chance lay in finding the camel’s tracks, otherwise I would search the whole night and find nothing. But I now saw that there were scores of camel tracks around me. An Arab guide would have been able to spot Wad al ’Atiga’s hoofmarks at once, and indeed would have scoffed at me as a fool for not knowing the distinct prints of my own camel. I still lacked this skill, and could barely tell the difference between the marks of a hobbled camel and a loose one. I selected a particularly visible track, which seemed fresh, and began to follow it south, armed with my torch and my shotgun.

  I was so intent on the trail that I did not see the huts of the Mirna village until I was almost on them. Suddenly a dog barked and I looked up to see a nest of six or seven grass buildings in the darkness. There were people here. I caught the scent of woodsmoke and glimpsed the flickering light of a fire inside one of the stockades. A few steps further on and I noticed the figures of two young women, clearly silhouetted in the moonlight. I hurried towards them, hoping desperately that they had seen my camel. I had scarcely opened my mouth to ask, when one of them let out a piercing scream, and shouted, ‘The devil! The devil!’ The other girl screamed too, and both took to their heels and charged off towards the nearest compound at a sprint, still yelling, ‘The devil!’ and ignoring my protests.

  This reaction was a little disconcerting, and I stood still for a few minutes, wondering what to do. I had no wish to frighten these people further, especially as fear could be very dangerous, yet I was desperate for their help. I decided to approach the compound and behave as humbly as possible.

  I knocked at the closed gate and shouted, ‘Peace be on you, people of the house!’ At first there was no sound, but after a few minutes a bent and bearded old man shuffled towards the gate, carrying a woodcutter’s axe over his shoulder. He shook hands with me gingerly and eyed my shotgun. I explained as well as I could that I had lost my camel. After a moment the old man said, ‘He has not come this way. That track you followed must be an old one.’ Then with no further hesitation, he asked me where my camp was and declared, ‘The camel will be found. Come, let us go!’

  Moments later, we were tracing my steps back towards my small taya. I felt much more confident now this man was with me. I knew that he was a villager, yet he seemed quite sure that he could find the animal. ‘I am from the Mirna,’ he told me, ‘but I was brought up as a herdsman for the Kababish. I know the tracks of camels very well, better than some of the nomads. Tonight, we are blessed because the moon is out. If there were no moon, it would be difficult. With the moonlight—if God wills—we shall have no trouble.’

  He told me that his name was Hamud.

  When we reached my camp, Hamud examined the place where I had couched Wad al ’Atiga then began walking in a series of tight circles around the camp, his path slowly widening, his eyes always riveted to the ground.

  ‘Here!’ he said suddenly. This is it!’ I looked down with him, but I could make out no more than the faintest broken crust of sand. I wondered how he could possibly be sure. He darted off towards the bushes and I followed closely. Fifty metres away he began circling an acacia tree that bore a few wrinkled leaves, again widening the circle as he walked. Then he darted off again at a different angle to another tree, a few yards away, where he employed the same circling technique. ‘A camel wanders from tree to tree when he is hungry,’ Hamud told me. ‘He will never go in a straight line.’

  Many minutes went by as the little man, bending over the ground like a tracker-dog, shuffled quickly from tree to tree. Several times, he lost the trail and had to return to the previous tree and begin circling again. I tried vainly to follow the tracks as he did, but the surface was hard and I could rarely make out more than the vague outline of a padmark. ‘You see,’ he commented, ‘the trees are bare. Your camel is hungry, that is all. He is searching for food.’ I was weary after my long ride, and my brain was unreceptive and unable to take in all the small lessons I might have learned. At times, I began to doubt if we should ever find the camel.

  After what seemed like hours, Hamud said, ‘Hah! There he is! Thank God that
we caught him. He has broken the hobble!’ The camel was browsing calmly in a thorn tree not more than ten metres from where we stood, yet I had not spotted him. The hobbling rope hung loosely from one of his legs. The old man walked carefully up to him, and refastened the gayd. The camel did not stop eating. ‘See, you did not tie it properly,’ the man said. ‘It had only come undone! You will lose him again if you do not tie it properly!’ I felt embarrassed, but tremendously relieved. ‘It will take a long time to get him back to the camp,’ I said.

  ‘We will not take him hobbled,’ Hamud replied. ‘We will lead him.’

  ‘But I did not bring the headrope.’

  ‘No matter,’ the Mimawi said, staring around him. He selected a tree, then began digging in the soil beneath it with his axe. He uncovered a long, rope-like coil of root and stripped it out of the earth, severing it with the axe. It was about seven feet long. He fashioned it into a rough bridle and fitted it over the head of the camel. That will make it easier for us,’ he said. ‘You can find almost everything in the bush if you look for it!’

  I should never have been able to find my camp alone. The thorn trees were a maze without exit or entrance. But Hamud led the camel back with unerring certainty and without even glancing at the tracks he had followed.

  Back in the camp I rekindled the fire and made more tea. The old man sat on my sheepskin and stared into the flames. His face was black and as wrinkled as an old waterskin, yet his eyes shone with life. ‘Are all the Mirna skilled as trackers?’ I asked him. ‘Not all,’ he said. ‘But those who have worked for the Kababish know everything about the tracks and the hunt.’ He explained how the track of a laden camel differed from that of an unladen one by the depth of the prints. ‘The prints you followed to my village were those of a heavily laden camel,’ he chuckled. ‘They could not possibly have belonged to your animal.’ Then he told me how the veins and wrinkles that could be seen on a day-old track faded quickly, becoming more obscure every day until only the vague outline was left. ‘Much depends on the weather conditions: the wind and the rain,’ he said. ‘You must be careful to remember the changes in the weather when you read a track.’