Hammond Innes - The Strange Land

She hesitated, and then she nodded and went through into her compartment of the caravan. I stretched myself out on the berth behind the driving seat and pulled a rug over me. I must have slept, for I woke up with a start to the sound of a car drawing up alongside. It was a jeep and for a moment I thought it was Legard. But then I saw there was a Berber at the wheel, and it was Kostos who climbed out of the passenger seat. He saw me and waved his podgy hand.

‘Lat’am. Where is Wade gone to?’

‘Wade?’ And then I laughed because the name sounded so odd now. I pointed up to the mouth of the gorge and he nodded and climbed back into the jeep which shot off up the track. I glanced at my watch. It was just after five. The wind had died away and all the sky over the palmerie was shot with red and gold and a soft blue violet as the sun sank.

I pulled on my shoes and hurried up the track. The gorge was already beginning to get dark and there was a damp chill about the place. It echoed to the thunder of machines and as I rounded the base of the slide, I saw that both bulldozers were in operation. White was driving one and Jan the other, as though they had settled their differences and gone into partnership.

The jeep was parked close to the point where the rubble was being tipped into the water. Beside it stood Kostos and the Berber driver. The Berber, in his white djellaba with the hood drawn up over his head, seemed so natural, so much a part of the scene, that he emphasized the incongruity of the European in his crumpled suit and the great, blundering machines. Every time Jan’s bulldozer rumbled past him, Kostos moved forward, shouting and gesticulating in his endeavour to make himself heard above the roar of the diesel engine. As I came up, Jan stopped and switched off his engine. Seeing this, White stopped his engine, too, and in the sudden silence the Greek’s voice, raised to a scream to make himself heard, was like the cry of some wild bird.

‘… do not stop, we will leave at once, do you hear?’ Kostos was waving his plump hands and his face was red with the effort of shouting. It was rather comic.

And then I saw that the Berber standing beside him was Ali d’Es-Skhira.

‘We would like to talk to you privately,’ Kostos said.

‘Anything you have to say, you can say to me here,’ Jan answered.

Kostos hesitated, glancing quickly round at White and myself. The movements of his head were jerky. ‘Well, what have you decided?’ His voice sounded small and peevish against the silence of rock and cliff and water.

Jan didn’t say anything. He stared down at Kostos from his seat at the bulldozer, and his gaze shifted to Ali. The only sound was the soft tinkle of water seeping through rock.

‘Come on now,’ Kostos said. ‘You make your mind up, eh?’

‘I’ve made up my mind. The answer is No.’

Ali took Kostos by the arm and they conferred together in a whisper. And all the time Ali was looking at Jan. Finally he spoke to him in French. ‘You are not the man I am expecting to meet here.’

‘No,’ Jan said. ‘He’s dead.’

Ali nodded his head. His face showed no surprise. ‘But you have the deeds of Kasbah Foum?’

‘Yes.’

Again Kostos and Ali conferred together. ‘C’est fa.’ Ali nodded and folded his hands in the sleeves of his djellaba. ‘My friend says that the original offer still stands,’ Kostos announced. ‘For the papers, five hundred thousand francs.’

There was a silence. Nobody moved, nobody said anything. It was like a tableau. Then Ali turned his head slowly and gazed at the cliff face, now rapidly being cleared of debris. His features were impassive. Only his eyes betrayed his interest. They were dark and brown, but they gleamed in the fading light.

He glanced at Jan, staring at him as though to imprint the shape of his face on his mind. Then he turned without a word and climbed into a jeep. Kostos hesitated, looking from one to the other of us uncertainly. He seemed nervous, almost reluctant to leave. He was a European, and I suddenly got the impression he was uneasy. Then he turned, ducking his head in a quick, awkward movement, and scuttled back to the jeep, his thin-soled shoes making a frail, scraping sound on the rocks. The jeep drove off and we watched it go, not moving or speaking until the sound of it died away and was lost in the stillness.

‘He. knows now,’ Jan said to me.

I nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘The wind has dropped, hasn’t it?’ His voice trembled slightly. ‘I think we should try and see the Caid right away.’

‘We should have gone before,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Of course. But it seemed a pity that this bulldozer should not be operating. And we’re so close to the entrance now.’ There was warmth and excitement in his voice again. ‘White doesn’t know the exact location of the entrance. But I do. Marcel gave me bearings. Another two days’ work …’ He stopped there, his excitement damped by my silence. ‘What’s the matter, Philip? You’re worried about Ali. Is that it?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s a pity we didn’t see the Caid this afternoon. So long as Ali thought you were Wade, there was no reason for him to oppose the visit. But now … it may be dangerous.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He climbed down off the bulldozer. ‘I didn’t think…’ His shoulders moved awkwardly and he made a gesture with his hands that embraced the cliff-face, the whole gorge. ‘I was too excited.’

Ed White came over to us then. ‘It looks like you really have got the deeds of Kasbah Foum,’ he said.

Jan nodded.

‘I see.’ He stood staring at us for a moment. ‘That makes a difference, doesn’t it?’ He seemed about to say something further, but instead he turned and walked slowly back across the rubble and climbed up on to the driving seat of his bulldozer again. The engine started with a roar and the lumbering machine turned back towards the cliff-face.

‘Come on,’ Jan said, gripping my arm. ‘We must see the Caid right away.’

‘It’ll be night before we get there.’

‘I know, I know. But that may help.’ He glanced back as a beam of light cut the gloom of the gorge. Ed White had switched on his headlights. ‘I was a fool. I forgot all about Kostos coming here at five. Once I got on that bulldozer … It was good to be doing something constructive. I worked with a bulldozer in Germany for a time — before they discovered I had other uses.’ He laughed quickly, nervously. ‘We’ll go and have some tea with Julie. You English are always less pessimistic after you’ve had some tea. Then we’ll go to Kasbah Foum-Skhira.’

‘We’ll need a guide,’ I said.

He didn’t say anything and we walked in silence out of the gorge. The sun had set and a velvet twilight was rapidly descending on the valley. But the palmerie was still visible and I could just make out the brown of the kasbah towers rising above the dusty green of the palms.

I wished we had visited the place in daylight. ‘If Legard had taken us there it would have been — ‘

‘Well, he didn’t,’ Jan said sharply.

‘No, but — ‘ There was no point in dwelling on it. The palmerie had faded into the dusk already. Everything was very still. It seemed impossible that the pale surface of the land could ever have been whirled up into the air in a cloud of sand; it looked solid and petrified in the half-light. ‘What are you going to do about White?’ I asked,him. ‘Don’t forget he holds a concession.’

‘Oh, we’ll probably come to some agreement. I like him. He’s easy to get on with. He’s a construction engineer and he fits this sort of country. If the Caid confirms my title to the place…” He didn’t finish. I think that the ‘If was too big.

We walked on in silence and as we neared the camp I saw something move along the darkening bed of the stream. It was a black, compact mass of movement. I strained my eyes and it resolved itself into a herd of goats being driven by a small boy. Jan had seen it, too, and he said, ‘Perhaps the boy would guide us to the kasbah?’