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‘And what conclusion did you come to?’
‘Okay; the distance is 2800 kilometres – about 1500 nautical miles, which is the unit he’d work in for navigational purposes. It would take him over the Ahaggar about 150 kilometres east of Tam. It would take him right over here, and smack bang over Agadez. Paul wasn’t all that crazy when he went to look at an airplane in the Ahaggar. ’Course he should have checked with someone first – me, for instance – but the idea was good.’
‘Where is all this leading?’
Byrne said, ‘All the planes in that race took the great circle course because a great circle is the shortest distance between two points on the earth’s surface. Now, Agadez lies exactly on that course and so it made a good aiming point. Furthermore, it was a condition of that leg of the race that the planes had to fly low over Agadez – it was a sort of checkpoint. Every plane except two buzzed Agadez and was identified. One of the planes that wasn’t seen at Agadez was Billson’s.’
‘And the other?’
‘Some Italian who got a mite lost. But he arrived in Kano, anyway.’
‘Maybe Peter Billson had weather trouble,’ I said. ‘Forced down.’
‘He was forced down all right,’ agreed Byrne. ‘But not by weather. Paul has checked that out; got meteorological data for the time of flight. He’s been real thorough about this investigation. The weather was good – no sandstorms.’
‘Obsessionally thorough.’
‘Yeah,’ said Byrne. ‘But thorough all the same. Now, when Peter Billson went down it would be likely to be to the north of Agadez, and one thing’s for sure – it wasn’t in the Aïr. There are too many people around here and the plane would have been found. The same applies anywhere north of the Ahaggar. If it went down there it would have been found by some Chaamba bedouin.’
‘So that leaves the Ahaggar and you’re certain it’s not there. You’re talking yourself into a corner.’
He said, ‘When the French were getting ready to blow that atom bomb at Arak they lost three planes in the Ahaggar. I’ve told you about one of them. They gave the Ahaggar a real going-over, both from the air and on the ground. They found three planes which was all they expected to find. I’m pretty sure that if Billson’s plane had been there the French would have found it.’
‘Perhaps they did,’ I said. ‘And didn’t bother to mention it.’
Byrne disagreed. ‘It would have made big news. You don’t suppose Billson was the only record-breaking airman lost in the Sahara, do you? There was a guy called Lancaster went down in 1933 south of Reggan in the Tanezrouft. He wasn’t found until 1962 and it made the headlines.’
I worked it out. ‘Twenty-nine years.’
‘He was still with the plane, and he left a diary,’ said Byrne. ‘It made bad reading. Paul knows all about Lancaster; he knows how long a crashed plane can remain undetected here. That’s why he thinks he can still find his father.’
‘This place where Lancaster crashed – where is it?’
‘In the Tanezrouft, about 200 kilometres south of Reggan. It’s hell country – reg, that’s gravel plain for as far and farther than you can see. I know a bit of what happened to Lancaster because I read about it back in ’62 and Paul has refreshed my memory. Lancaster was flying a light plane and put down at Reggan to refuel. He took off, got into a sandstorm and lost direction; he flew east damn near as far as In Salah before he put down at Aoulef to find out where he was. He’d intended to fly to Gao on the Niger Bend and that was due south, but he’d used up too much fuel so he went back to Reggan. He left next day and after a while his engine quit. So he crashed.’
‘Didn’t they search for him?’
‘Sure they did – by air and ground. I don’t know how good their air search was back in 1933, but they did their best. Trouble was they were looking mostly in the wrong place, towards Gao. Anyway, he had two gallons of water and no more, because he had an air-cooled engine. He died eight days later, and was found twenty-nine years later. That’s the story of Lancaster.’
‘Who found him?’
‘A routine French patrol working out of Bidon Cinq. What the hell they were doing in the Tanezrouft I don’t know. Probably on a vehicle-testing kick – I can think of no other reason for going into that hell hole.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘You’ve made a point. So Peter Billson and his plane can still be in the desert. Are you proposing that we go look for it in this place – the Tanezrouft?’
‘Not goddamn likely,’ said Byrne. ‘I think it possible that Billson went off course. When he disappeared there was a search but, just like Lancaster, he wasn’t found because they weren’t looking in the right place.’
‘And you know the right place, I suppose.’
‘No, but think of this. Lancaster’s plane was found by the French. For all we know it might have been seen much earlier by, say, some Hartani or even a Targui. But why would they want to report it? It would mean nothing to them. Don’t forget, this plane crashed only three years after the final battle between the French and the Tuareg when the French got the upper hand at last. The Tuareg felt they didn’t owe the French a goddamn thing. Sure, if they’d found Lancaster alive they’d have brought him out, but they wouldn’t care much about a dead guy in a dead plane.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Spit it out. What are you getting at?’
Byrne said, ‘Would you put up, say, five camels to help find Paul’s old man?’
The question was so unexpected that I blinked with astonishment and I suppose I was testy. ‘What the devil do you mean?’
‘I mean put up the price of five camels.’
‘How much is a camel worth?’ I asked suspiciously.
Byrne scratched his jaw through his veil. ‘An ordinary pack camel will go for about a hundred pounds sterling. A reasonable Mehari will fetch between a hundred fifty and two hundred.’ He laughed. ‘You couldn’t buy Yendjelan for a thousand. Okay, let’s say five hundred.’
‘You want me to put up £500,’ I said carefully. ‘To find Paul’s father.’
‘I’d put up the same,’ he said. ‘In camels.’
‘So now we have ten camels,’ I said. ‘How do they help? Do we ride them spaced a hundred yards apart in a sweep of the bloody Sahara?’
‘No,’ said Byrne calmly. ‘They’re a reward for a sighting of a plane that crashed in 1936 – payable when we’re taken to see it.’
It was a good idea provided I was willing to fork out £500 to help Paul Billson, which wasn’t a cast-iron certainty. A good idea but for one thing – the time element. I said, ‘For God’s sake! How long will it take for news of this reward to get around? Two months? Three months? I don’t have that much time to spend here, and if I go, then Billson goes, even if I have to do what Hesther suggested – club him and put him in a sack.’
Byrne laughed quietly. ‘You don’t know much about the desert. There are trucks going up from Agadez to Tam every day – two days’ journey at the most. Those truck drivers waste no time in sight-seeing; they’ve seen it already. From Tam to In Salah – another day. From Agadez east to Bilma – two days. From Bilma to Djanet in the Tassili n’ Ajjer – two more days driving fast. In six days minimum I can get news to all the important oases in the desert. The whole Sahara is a big sounding-board if the news is important enough.’
I was sceptical. ‘Word of mouth?’
‘Word of mouth – hell!’ Byrne snorted. ‘Ten thousand leaflets handed out. Printed in Arabic, of course. Those who can’t read will go to the public letter-writers for a reading as soon as they hear of a ten-camel reward.’
‘You’re crazy,’ I said. I looked around at the thorn trees and the browsing camels. ‘Where the blazes are you going to get ten thousand leaflets printed here?’
‘I’ll draw it up tonight,’ he said. ‘Then have them Xeroxed in Agadez. They have a machine in the bank.’ He leaned forward and peered at me. ‘Something the matter?’ he enquired gently.
‘No,’ I said weakly. ‘Nothing the matter. It’s just the idea of blanketing the Sahara with leaflets seems a bit weird. You’ve never worked for J. Walter Thompson, have you?’
‘Who’s he?’
‘A small advertising agency back in the States – and elsewhere.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘If you ever leave the desert I’d apply for a job with him. You’d do well.’
‘You’re nuts!’ he said. ‘Well, what about it?’
I started to laugh. Between chuckles I said, ‘All right … I’ll do it … but it won’t be for Paul Billson. It’ll be worth it just to say I’ve done a saturation advertising campaign in the Sahara.’
Byrne wagged his head. ‘Okay – I don’t care why you do it so long as you do it.’
‘What do I do?’ I said. ‘Give you a cheque?’
‘Now what in hell would I do with a cheque?’ he asked. ‘I’ll put up your half and you get the cash to Hesther in Algiers as and when you can.’ He paused. ‘Pity we don’t have pictures of the plane. Paul had some but they went up with the Land-Rover.’
‘I can help there. I got some photocopies from the Aeronautical Department of the Science Museum in London. Not Billson’s plane but one exactly like it.’
‘Good,’ said Byrne. ‘We’ll put those on the hand-out. Or maybe drawings might be better.’ He adjusted his veil and stood up. ‘There’s one thing you maybe haven’t thought of.’
‘What’s that?’
‘If the guy who shot Paul is still around he might get to know of these leaflets if he has local connections. If he does he’ll be drawn down here like a hornet to a honey-pot. It might turn out real interesting.’
It might indeed!
NINETEEN
When Paul Billson heard what we were going to do he took it as his due. He didn’t even thank us, and I could have picked him up and shaken him as you would try to shake sense into a puppy. But that was the man, and he wasn’t going to change. Byrne settled down to draw up his leaflet and I wandered away to think about things – mostly about Byrne, because I was fed up with thinking about Paul.
From what I had seen of Byrne’s camels he seemed to take pride in breeding a superior animal. If his information on the price of camels was correct and a pack camel would cost £100, then it would be reasonable to assume that his might average, say, £150. That would make him worth £45,000 in stock alone, regardless of his other interests. He had said he ran salt caravans; I didn’t know if that was profitable but I assumed it was. Then there was whatever he got from Hesther Raulier for looking after her affairs in the desert, and there were probably other sources of income.
It seemed likely that Byrne was a wealthy man in his society. I don’t know how far the Tuareg had been forced into a cash economy – I had seen very little money changing hands – but even on a barter basis Byrne would be rich by desert standards.
Next day Byrne and I went into Agadez, Paul staying behind on Byrne’s insistence. ‘I don’t want you seen in Agadez,’ he said. ‘You’d stand out like the Tree of Ténéré. You spend the day here – and stay put. Understand?’
Paul understood. It wasn’t what Byrne said, it was the way he said it that drove it home into Paul’s skull.
As we drove away Byrne said, ‘And Hamiada will see that he stays put.’ There was a touch of amusement in his voice.
I said, ‘What was that you said about a tree?’
‘The Tree of Ténéré?’ He pointed east. ‘It’s out there. Only tree I’ve ever heard of being put on the maps. It’s on your map – take a look.’
So I did, and there it was – L’Arbre du Ténéré, about a hundred and sixty miles north-east of Agadez in the Erg du Ténéré, an area marked yellow on the map – the colour of sand. ‘Why should a tree be marked?’
‘There’s not another tree in any direction for about fifty kilometres,’ said Byrne. ‘It’s the most isolated tree in the world. Even so, a fool French truck driver ran into it back in 1960. It’s old – been there for hundreds of years. There’s a well there, but the water’s not too good.’
So the map indicated – eau trés mauvaise à 40 m.
It was a little over a hundred miles to Agadez over roughish country. Even though we were able to pick up speed over the last forty miles of reasonable track it took us five hours, averaging twenty miles an hour for the whole trip.
Agadez seemed a prosperous little town by Saharan standards. It even had a mosque, something I had not seen in Tam. We parked the truck outside the Hotel de l’Aīr and went inside to have a beer, then Byrne went to the bank to have his leaflets printed. Before he left he said, ‘You might like to do some shopping; it’s better here than in Tam. Got any money?’
It occurred to me that Byrne was laying out considerable sums during our travels and he would need recompense. I dug out my wallet and checked it. I had the equivalent of about a hundred pounds in Algerian currency, another four hundred in travellers’ cheques and a small case stuffed with credit cards.
Byrne looked at my offerings and said, ‘None of that is much use here. You give anyone a strange piece of paper or a bit of plastic and he’ll laugh at you.’ He produced a small wad of local currency. ‘Here. Don’t worry, I’ll bill you when you leave, and you can settle it with Hesther in Algiers.’
And I had to make do with that.
I walked along the dusty street and found that American influence had even penetrated as far as Agadez – there was a supermarket! Not that an American would have recognized it as such but it was passable, although the stock of European-style clothing was limited. I bought a pair of Levi’s and a couple of shirts and stocked up with two cartons of English cigarettes. Then I blinked at an array of Scotch whisky, not so much in astonishment that it was there at all but at the price, which was two-thirds the London price. I bought two bottles.
I took my booty and stowed it in the Toyota, then had another beer in the hotel while waiting for Byrne. When he came back we took the Toyota to a filling station to refuel and there, standing next to the pumps, was a giraffe.
I stared at it incredulously. ‘For God’s sake! What the hell …’
The giraffe bent its neck and looked down at us with mild eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Byrne. ‘Haven’t you seen a giraffe before?’
‘Not at a filling station.’
Byrne didn’t seem in the least surprised. ‘I’ll be a little while here. This is where we start the distribution of our message.’
I nodded wordlessly and watched the giraffe amble away up the main street of Agadez. As Byrne opened the door I said, ‘Hang on. Satisfy my curiosity.’
‘What about?’
I pointed. ‘That bloody giraffe.’
‘Oh, that. It’s from the zoo. They let it out every morning, and it goes back every night to feed.’
‘Oh!’ Well, it was an explanation.
We arrived back at Byrne’s place in the Aīr the next day, having camped on the way. I was getting to like those nightly camps. The peace was incredible and there was nothing more arduous to think about than the best place to make the fire and the best place to sleep after testing the wind direction. It was a long way from the busy – and now meaningless – activities of Stafford Security Consultants Ltd.
At that particular camp I offered Byrne a scotch, but he shook his head. ‘I don’t touch the hard stuff, just have the occasional beer.’
I said, ‘I can’t get over the fact that it’s cheaper than in England.’
‘No tax on it,’ he said. ‘In England you need a lot of money to build essentials like Concorde airplanes so your taxes are high.’ His tone was sardonic. ‘Out here who needs it?’ He picked up the bottle. ‘This stuff is brought up from Nigeria, mostly for the tourist trade. Same with the cigarettes. Might even have come up on the back of a camel.’
The whisky tasted good, but after the first I found I didn’t want another. I said, ‘The most incredible thing today was that bloody giraffe.’
‘Civilized people hereabouts,’ said Byrne. ‘Don’t like to keep things in cages. Same with camels.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, a Tuareg-trained camel is worth more than one trained by an Arab, all other things being equal. A Targui is kinder about it and the camel responds. Real nice people.’
Looking up at the stars that night I thought a lot about that.
After that nothing very much happened except that I got a new suit of clothes and learned how to ride a camel, and the two were connected. Byrne was going out to inspect his herd, and when I arrived for my camel-riding lesson in jeans he shook his head solemnly. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I really don’t think so.’
And so I dressed like a Targui – loose, baggy trousers in black cotton cloth fitting tight around the ankles, a white gandoura, the Tuareg gown, and another blue gandoura on top of that. There was a djellaba too, to be worn in cold weather or at night. Literally topping it off was the chech, twenty feet of black cotton, about eighteen inches wide, which Byrne painstakingly showed me how to arrange.
When I was dressed in all my finery I felt a bit of a fool and very self-conscious, but that wore off quickly because no one else took any notice except Billson and I didn’t give a damn for his opinion. He wouldn’t change his clothing nor ride a camel; I think he had slightly Empire notions about ‘going native’.
A camel, I found, is not steered from the mouth like a horse. Once in the saddle, the Tuareg saddle with its armchair back and high cross-shaped pommel, you put your bare feet on the animal’s neck and guide it by rubbing one side or the other. Being on a camel when it rises to its feet is the nearest thing to being in an earthquake and quite alarming until one gets used to it.
Byrne, Hamiada and I set out with two pack camels for the grazing grounds near Telouess and were going to be away for over a week, Byrne commenting that he could not reasonably expect any reaction from his leaflet campaign for at least a fortnight. He had arranged with the owner of the filling station for the distribution of the leaflets in packets of 500 to the twenty most important oases south of the Atlas mountains.
‘And it’ll take that time to bring Paul up to the mark,’ he said. ‘Because one thing is certain – if we find that airplane it’s going to be in some of the lousiest country you’ve ever seen, else the French would have found it years ago.’
What Billson did while we were away I don’t know. I never found out and I didn’t ask.
Looking back, I think those days spent wandering in the Aīr was the most idyllic time of my life. The pace was slow, geared to the stride of a camel, and the land was wide and empty. One fell into an easy rhythm, governed not by the needs of other men but by the passage of the sun across the sky, the empty belly, the natural requirements of the beast one was riding.
We found Byrne’s herd and he looked at the animals and found their condition good. They were looked after by a family of Tuareg headed by a man called Radbane. ‘These people are of the Kel Ilbakan,’ said Byrne. ‘A vassal tribe from south of Agadez. They graze their stock here in the winter and help me with mine.’
We accepted Radbane’s hospitality and stayed at his camp for two days, and then struck west, skirting the base of a mountain called Bagzans. We were striking camp on the ninth day out of Timia when Hamiada gave a shout and pointed. We had visitors; three camels were approaching, two with riders. As they came closer Byrne said, ‘That’s Billson.’
He frowned, and I knew why. It would need something urgent to get Billson up on to a camel.
They came up to the camp and I noted that Billson’s camel was on a leading rein held by the Targui who accompanied him. The camels sank to their knees and Billson rocked violently in the saddle. He slid to the ground painfully, still incongruously dressed in his city suit, now worn and weary. His face was grey with fatigue and he was obviously saddle-sore. I had been, too, but it had worn off.
I said, ‘Come over here, Paul, and sit down.’ Byrne and Hamiada were talking to the Targui. I dug into my saddlebag and brought out the bottle of whisky which was still half full. I poured some into one of the small brass cups we used for mint tea and gave it to Paul. It was something he appreciated and, for once, he said, ‘Thanks.’
‘What are you doing out here?’ I asked.
‘I saw him,’ he said.
‘Who did you see?’
‘The man who shot me. He was in Timia asking questions, and then came on to Byrne’s place.’ He paused. ‘In the Range-Rover.’
‘And you saw him? To recognize him?’
Paul nodded. ‘I was bored – I had no one to talk to – so I went down among the Tuareg. There’s a man who can speak a little French, about as much as me, but we can get on. I was outside his hut when I saw the Range-Rover coming so I ducked inside. The walls are only of reeds, there are plenty of cracks to look through. Yes, I saw him – and I knew him.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘No; he had the other man with him.’
‘Then what happened?’ I looked up. Byrne had come over and was listening.
‘He started to talk to the people, asking questions.’
‘In Tamachek?’ asked Byrne abruptly.
‘No, in French. He didn’t get very far until he spoke to the man I’d been with.’
‘That would be old Bukrum,’ said Byrne. ‘He was in the Camel Corps when the French were here. Go on.’
‘They just talked to the old man for a bit, then they went away. Bukrum said they asked him if there were any Europeans about. They described me – my clothes.’ His fingers plucked at his jacket. ‘Bukrum told them nothing.’
Byrne smiled grimly. ‘He was told to say nothing – they all were. Can you describe these men?’
‘The man who asked the questions – the one who shot me – he was nearly six feet but not big, if you see what I mean. He was thin. Fair hair, very sunburned. The other was shorter but broader. Dark hair, sallow complexion.’
‘Both in European clothes?’
‘Yes.’ Paul eased his legs painfully. ‘Bukrum and I had a talk. He said he’d better send me to you because the men might come back. He said you’d be where wheels wouldn’t go.’
I looked at the jumble of rocks about the slopes of Bagzans. Bukrum had been right. I said, ‘I’ve asked this question before but I’ll ask it again. Can you think of any reason – any conceivable reason – why two men should be looking for you in the Sahara in order to kill you?’
‘I don’t know!’ said Paul in a shout. ‘For Christ’s sake, I don’t know!’
I looked at Byrne and shrugged. Byrne said, ‘Hamiada and I will go to Timia and nose around. We’ll make better time on our own.’ He pointed to the Targui who was talking to Hamiada. ‘His name is Azelouane; he’s Bukrum’s son. He’ll take you to a place in the hills behind Timia and you stay there until I send for you. There’s water there, so you’ll be all right.’ He looked at the three camels which Azelouane had brought. ‘You stay here today; those beasts need resting. Move off at first light tomorrow.’
Within ten minutes he and Hamiada were mounted and on their way.
It took us two days to get to the place in the hills behind Timia so, with the day’s enforced rest, that was three days. There was a pool of water which Azelouane called a guelta. He, too, had a small smattering of French so we could talk in a minimal way with the help of a lot of hand language. We were there for three more days before Byrne came.
During this time Billson was morose. He was a very frightened man and showed it. Having a hole put in you with intent to kill tends to take the pith out of a man, but Paul had not really been scared until now. Probably he had reasoned that it was a case of mistaken identity and it was over, his attacker having given him up for dead after burning the Land-Rover. The knowledge that he was still being pursued really shook him and ate at his guts. He kept muttering, ‘Why me? Why me?’ He found no answer and neither did I. He also got rid of the rest of my whisky in short order.
Byrne arrived late at night, riding tall on Yendjelan and coming out of the darkness like a ghost. Yendjelan sank to her knees, protesting noisily as all camels do, and he slid from the saddle. Azelouane unsaddled her while I brewed up some hot tea for Byrne. It was a cold night.