Michael Pearce - The Fig Tree Murder

‘Privilege?’ said Owen. ‘It doesn’t usually get me very far. But I’ve met these blokes before.’

‘Not privilege,’ said Mahmoud, frowning. ‘The way these people muck you around!’

Mahmoud lived continually in the hope of a better, brighter Egypt. He worked for it with all his energy; and he couldn’t understand why other people didn’t do the same.

The buggy was empty apart from tools and water. Owen and Mahmoud settled down and the two-man crew began pumping the vehicle along.

In the cuttings the track had escaped the drift of the sand, but out in the open it had obviously had to be cleared away. Fresh piles of sand lay beside the track.

Out in the desert the wind was still blowing. Puffs of sand raced the buggy along the track, rising up sometimes into a cloud and then dying down again before scudding on at knee-high level.

The crew pulled their headdresses across their faces.

‘It’s a waste of time clearing all this,’ one said. ‘It’ll soon be back.’

There was plenty of sand on the line already and the buggy slowed appreciably. The piles beside the track grew in size.

Ahead of them they could see men working on the line. The buggy came to a stop just short of them.

‘This is as far as we go,’ the men said.

The Belgian foreman came towards them.

‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ he said. ‘A fine business this is!’ He went up to the buggy and peered in. ‘Got the picks?’ He moved some of the tools. ‘They’ve sent us more bloody spades!’ he said disgustedly. ‘Picks!’ he said to the buggy men. ‘I asked for picks! The sand’s packed hard. Go back and tell them. Tell Mustapha: I want picks, picks! I’ve got to loosen the sand.’

The buggy men shrugged and got back into the buggy. A moment or two later it moved off again, slowly.

‘This bloody country!’ said the Belgian.

Owen and Mahmoud walked up the line to where the men were working. Great, deep drifts of sand lay across the track. The men were shovelling it aside with wooden spades. It was hard work and the sweat was running down their faces.

‘They’ve been working all morning,’ said the foreman. ‘You can’t expect them to go on all day. They’re supposed to be sending me another shift. When I saw the buggy I thought it was them coming. You didn’t see any signs, did you?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Owen.

‘Well, I’m going to give them a spell in a moment or two,’ said the foreman. ‘Let them brew up. Water’s all very well but you want something with a bit of bite in it, if you’re working like this. That’s so, isn’t it, Abdul?’ he said to one of the workmen. The man straightened up and smiled.

‘You want something to take away the taste of the sand,’ he said. He resumed shovelling.

‘They work hard,’ said the Belgian defensively. ‘I’ve never said they didn’t.’

He looked out across the desert.

‘I was hoping the wind would drop,’ he said.

‘It doesn’t look like it,’ said Owen, uncomfortably aware of the particles of sand stinging his face.

‘What will you do if it gets up?’ asked Mahmoud.

‘That’s just what I’m wondering,’ said the foreman.

A new layer of sand, blown in by the wind, was already covering the track that had previously been cleared.

‘We’ll have to get them back if it gets any worse,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some more men working further up the line. It’ll need two trips.’ He looked out across the desert. ‘Maybe it won’t come to that,’ he said. ‘I hope not. We’ve got to get this line finished.’ The wind now seemed to be dying down again.

‘I’ve got to go up the line,’ said the foreman. He looked at Owen and Mahmoud. ‘What were you here for, anyway?’

‘We were hoping to go to Matariya.’

The foreman looked dubious.

‘I don’t know if that’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘Ever been caught in a dust storm?’

‘Yes,’ said Owen.

‘Well, you’ll know what I mean.’

‘There’s more wind out here than there was in the city,’ said Mahmoud.

‘There’s more wind than there was when I came out first thing. If I were you I wouldn’t risk it. Catch the next buggy back. You lot,’ he called to the workmen, ‘can take a spell. Twenty minutes, mind! No longer!’

He marched off. The men put down their spades with alacrity and gathered in the lee of a small dune. Someone brought out a primus stove and put a kettle on it.

Mahmoud looked at Owen.

‘He’s probably right,’ said Owen.

Mahmoud nodded.

‘The buggy will be back in a bit,’ said the workmen. ‘Come over here out of the wind.’

Owen and Mahmoud lay down beside them on the dune. Several of the workmen took out coloured handkerchiefs and unwrapped bread and onions, which they offered hospitably to Owen and Mahmoud. They declined the food but accepted the hot black tea.

‘Hard work,’ said Mahmoud sympathetically.

‘It is that,’ said his neighbour.

‘The worst thing is,’ said one of the other men, ‘that we’re going to have to do it all again.’

‘This wind, you mean?’

‘It’s not going to amount to anything,’ said one of the other workmen, looking at the sky. ‘It’ll be easy enough to sweep it off the rails.’

‘We don’t want it too easy,’ said someone. ‘The longer this job lasts, the better.’

‘That’s not what the Belgians think!’ said someone.

They all laughed.

‘It’s get-it-all-done-in-a-hurry with them!’

‘That’s why they want this Friday-working.’

‘I don’t agree with that. It’s not going to make much difference to them, but it makes a lot of difference to us. You don’t want back-breaking working every day!’

There was a mutter of agreement.

‘You want to be able to sleep it off, don’t you? I mean, six days a week is all very well, you can cope with that. It doesn’t go on forever, after all. But if you’re doing it every day without a break, it gets on top of you.’

‘There’s not much you can do about it, though, is there? It’s all very well Wahid saying come out on strike, but where will that get us?’

Owen noticed now that Wahid, their spokesman on the previous occasion he had talked to them, wasn’t there.

‘You’ve got to do something!’

‘I don’t know there’s a lot you can do. If you walk out, all they’ll do is get somebody else in.’

‘They might not be so keen. Not if it’s Friday-working.’

‘There’s plenty who’d jump at the chance. It’s only for a month or two, isn’t it? And you get extra money.’

‘You work extra for it, though, don’t you?’

‘There are plenty who wouldn’t mind that. We’ve done all the work; why should we give them the money?’

There was a general mutter of agreement.

‘You’ve got to do something, though.’

‘Yes, but what?’

‘We should get Wahid to speak to them. In everybody’s name.’

‘A fat lot of good that would do! Where did it get Ibrahim that time?’

‘At least he made the point.’

‘Yes, but where did it get us? They went on just the same as they’d always done. If you don’t like it, they said, you know what you can do.’

‘I don’t reckon it’d be so easy for them to say that this time. They’ve got to get the job done quickly. That’s what all this is about.’

‘They’re more likely to get rid of us, then, aren’t they?’

‘No, they’re not. It’d take time to get other men in.’

‘Not that much time. About a day, I’d say. And anyway, where would that get us? Out of a job!’

The discussion continued, not very animatedly. On the whole the workmen seemed resigned to the prospect of Friday-working.