“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. 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 jerrycans 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 Hasan 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 hightailed their way over the horizon.
Isobel said, “Who is this Amenokal you mentioned?”
“These are the real Tuareg, the comparatively untouched. They’ve got three tribes, the Kel Rela, the Tégéhé Mellet and the Taitoq, each headed by a warrior clan which gives its name to the tribe as a whole. The chief of the Kel Rela clan is also chief of the Kel Rela tribe and automatically paramount chief, or Amenokal, of the whole confederation. His name is Melchizedek.”
“Do you think you can win him over?” Isobel said.
“He’s a smart old boy. I had some dealings with him over a year ago. Gave him a TV set in the way of a present, hoping he’d tune in on some of our Reunited Nations propaganda. He’s probably the most conservative of the Tuareg leaders.”
Her eyebrows went up. “And you expect to bring him around to the most liberal scheme to hit North Africa since Hannibal?”
He looked at her from the side of his eyes and grinned. “Remember Roosevelt, the American president?”
“Hardly.”
“Well, you’ve read about him. He came into office at a time when the country was going to economic pot by the minute. Some of the measures he and his so-called brain trust took were immediately hailed by his enemies as socialistic. In answer, Roosevelt told them that in times of social stress the true conservative is a liberal, since to preserve, you have to reform. If Roosevelt hadn’t done the things he did, back in the 1930s, you probably would have seen some real changes in the American socio-economic system. Roosevelt didn’t undermine the social system of the time, he preserved it.”
“Then, according to you, Roosevelt was a conservative,” she said mockingly.
Crawford laughed. “I’ll go even further,” he said. “When social changes are pending and for whatever reason are not brought about, then reaction is the inevitable alternative. At such a time then—when sweeping socio-economic change is called for—any reform measures proposed are concealed measures of reaction, since they tend to maintain the status quo.”
“Holly mackerel,” Cliff protested. “Accept that and Roosevelt was not only not a liberal, but a reactionary. Stop tearing down my childhood heroes.”
Isobel said, “Let’s get back to this Amenokal guy. You think he’s smart enough to see his only chance is in going along with …”
Homer Crawford pointed ahead and a little to the right. “We’ll soon find out. This is a favorite encampment of his. With luck, he’ll be there. If we can win him over, we’ve come a long way.”
“And if we can’t?” Isobel said, her eyebrows raised again.
“Then it’s unfortunate that there are only three of us,” Homer said simply, without looking at her.
There were possibly no more than a hundred Tuareg in all in the nomad encampment of goat leather tents when the solar-powered hovercraft drew up.
When the air-cushion vehicle stopped before the largest tent, Crawford said beneath his breath, “The Amenokal is here, all right. Cliff, watch your teguelmoust. If any of these people see more than your eyes, your standing has dropped to a contemptible zero.”
The husky Californian secured the lightweight cotton, combination veil and turban well up over his face. Earlier, Crawford had shown him how to wind the ten-foot long, indigo-blue cloth around the head and features.