Homer turned to her. "You're also part of headquarters staff. The
Tuareg women aren't dominated by their men. They still have a strong
element of descent in the matrilinear line and women aren't
second-class citizens. You'll work on pressuring them. Do you speak
Tamaheq?"
"Of course."
Homer Crawford looked up into the sky, swept it. The day was rapidly
coming to an end and nowhere does day become night so quickly as in
the ergs of the Sahara.
"Let's get underway," Crawford said. "Time's a wastin'."
* * * * *
The range of the Ahaggar Tuareg was once known, under French
administration, as the Annexe du Hoggar, and was the most difficult
area ever subdued by French arms--if it was ever subdued. At the
battle of Tit on May 7, 1902 the Camel Corps, under Cottenest, broke
the combined military power of the Tuareg confederations, but this
meant no more than that the tribes and clans carried on nomadic
warfare in smaller units.
The Ahaggar covers roughly an area the size of Pennsylvania, New York,
Virginia and Maryland combined, and supports a population of possibly
twelve thousand, which includes about forty-five hundred Tuareg, four
thousand Negro serf-slaves, and some thirty-five hundred scorned
sedentary Haratin workers. The balance of the population consists of a
handful of Enaden smiths and a small number of Arab shopkeepers in the
largest of the sedentary centers. Europeans and other whites are all
but unknown.
It is the end of the world.
Contrary to Hollywood-inspired belief, the Sahara does not consist
principally of sand dunes, although these, too, are present, and all
but impassable even to camels. Traffic, through the millennia, has
held to the endless stretches of gravelly plains and the rock ribbed
plateaus which cover most of the desert. The great sandy wastes or
ergs cover roughly a fifth of the entire Sahara, and possibly two
thirds of this area consists of the rolling sandy plains dotted
occasionally with dunes. The remaining third, or about one fifteenth
of the total Sahara, is characterized by the dune formations of
popular imagination.
It was through this latter area that Homer Crawford, now with but one
hover-lorry, and accompanied by Isobel Cunningham and Clifford
Jackson, was heading.
For although the spectacular major dune formations of the Great Erg
have defied wheeled vehicles since the era of the Carthaginian
chariots, and even the desert born camel limits his daily travel in
them to but a few miles, the modern hovercraft, atop its air cushion
jets, finds them of only passing difficulty to traverse. And the
hovercraft leaves no trail.
Cliff Jackson scowled out at the identical scenery. Identical for more
than two hundred miles. For twice that distance, they had seen no
other life. No animal, no bird, not a sprig of cactus. This was the
Great Erg.
He muttered, "This country is so dry even the morning dew is
dehydrated."
Isobel laughed--she, too, had never experienced this country before.
"Why, Cliff, you made a funny!"
They were sitting three across in the front seat, with Homer Crawford
at the wheel, and now all three were dressed in the costume of the Kel
Rela tribe of the Ahaggar Tuareg confederation. In the back of the
lorry were the jerry-cans of water and the supplies that meant the
difference between life and mummification from sun and heat.
Cliff turned suddenly to the driver. "Why here?" he said bitterly.
"Why pick this for a base of operations? Why not Mopti? Ten thousand
Sudanese demonstrated for El Hassan there less than two weeks ago.
You'd have them in the palm of your hand."
Homer didn't look up from his work at wheel, lift and acceleration
levers. To achieve maximum speed over the dunes, you worked constantly
at directing motion not only horizontally but vertically.
He said, "And the twenty and one enemies of the El Hassan movement
would have had us in their palms. Our followers in Mopti can take care
of themselves. If this movement is ever going to be worth anything,
the local characters are going to have to get into the act. The
current big thing is not to allow El Hassan and his immediate troupe
to be eliminated before full activities can get under way. For the
present, we're hiding out until we can gather forces enough to free
Tamanrasset."
"Hiding out is right," Cliff snorted. "I have a sneaking suspicion
that not only will they never find us, but we'll never find them
again."
Homer laughed. "As a matter of fact, we're not so far right now from
Silet where there's a certain amount of water--if you dig for it--and
a certain amount of the yellowish grass and woody shrubs that the
bedouin depend on. With luck, we'll find the Amenokal of the Tuareg
there."
"Amenokal?"
"Paramount chief of the Ahaggar Tuaregs."
* * * * *
The dunes began to fall away and with the butt of his left hand
Crawford struck the acceleration lever. He could make more time now
when less of his attention was drawn to the ups and downs of erg
travel.
Patches of thorny bush began to appear, and after a time a small herd
of gazelle were flushed and high tailed their way over the horizon.