Away to the south the horizon was blurred, the white of the sky turning sepia. In moments the sand had lifted from the surface, rustling against the bonnet of the Land-Rover, millions of grains on the move, a drift waist high and the broken twigs of dry shrubs blowing against the windscreen. And then it hit us, the sky darkening, the desert world turned suddenly brown. I stopped then. I couldn’t see a thing, only the sand like brown smoke, the howl of the wind, the noise rasping at the aluminium panels like the sound of a train as I cut the engine. Nothing to do now but sit in the tight-closed Land-Rover, handkerchiefs tied round our mouths and nostrils, wrapped in the hot protection of our blankets, the noise indescribably vicious. And nothing visible through the windscreen but the sand pouring like a sea, the occasional wreck of desert vegetation uprooted and whirling by.
We didn’t talk. We just sat huddled there, desperately trying to breathe, while the sand got into our nose and ears, into our clothes, and the floorboards were gradually covered inches deep with the brown wash of the storm. The noise. … I don’t know which was worse, the clogging, insufferable sand or the noise. And it went on and on, the hot wind blistering and abrasive, the minutes dragging into hours. To look at it was to get one’s eyeballs seared with grit, and as we sweated, the sand clung to our bodies, a perpetual irritant.
It lasted all day, and then died in the evening as quickly as it had started. From nil visibility and daylight drab as a nut-brown night, suddenly there was stillness, the sun showing as a faint pale circle there in the west and the desert taking shape around us. It was like breaking surface after being half-drowned in the brown tide of a swollen river. Another moment, and everything was still, not a sound in the world, and the air becoming crystal clear in the slanting sun. Far away to the north anvil tips of cu-nim showed above the horizon.
We shook ourselves out and had some water, the first we had had for over six hours. We were dried up, desiccated, exhausted by the battering. The tepid water cleaned our mouths, but did little to refresh us. We opened a tin of baked beans and wolfed them cold. I would have given anything for a bath. Kennie’s skin was coated red with dust and sweat. I was the same and we couldn’t even wash our faces. Instead, I lit a cigarette, my nerves crying out for it more than food, even though my nostrils were still clogged with sand.
It was then, as I inhaled the first long drag of that cigarette, staring at the clear, impersonal hostility of the desert, that I saw it. Away to the north-east, just short of the horizon, like a rock awash in a petrified sea. I thought it must be the Winnecke Rock and I called to Kennie, who had started clearing the sand out of the back of the Rover. But then I realized it couldn’t be the Winnecke. The sun was slanting, a softer light, the desert golden red, the white heat of the sky paling to an ephemeral blue, and my eyes were tired. ‘That’s not a rock,’ he said. And in that instant I saw it for what it really was, a vehicle hull-down below a ridge of sand, just the rectangle of the canopy showing.
I moved to the driving seat, but he stopped me. ‘Better top the rad up first.’
We did that and cleaned some of the sand off the engine. Then I turned the ignition key and for a long minute the starter whined and nothing happened. Sand, I thought. My God! All this way, and then, just when we’d sighted him … The engine coughed, lost itself, then coughed again and roared into life. Sweat trickled between my shoulder blades. Kennie swung himself in beside me, grinning with relief. ‘Bit of luck that.’ We were both of us grinning as I put her into gear and headed north-east across the line of the next ridge.
I had forgotten to put her in four-wheel drive and within minutes we were up to our axle in a fresh sand drift. Heat exhaustion slowed us badly and it took a long time to dig ourselves out and get moving again, everything an appalling effort. Kennie drove the rest of the way, the sun sinking to the horizon, the flaming ball of it reddening the desert to the colour of blood, the cu-nim gone from the horizon ahead and the sky to the east taking on that egg-shell greenish tint of evening. It was a Land-Rover all right, stuck halfway up a dune, its bonnet raised and facing east. A canopy had been rigged against one side of it, and as we neared it, I could see a solitary figure in a broad-brimmed hat collecting vegetation for a fire. No sign of anybody else.
We drew up in the trough below the sandridge on which it had stalled and a figure emerged from the lean-to shelter and staggered to his feet. Tall and stooped, he was instantly recognizable. I got out and went to meet him. ‘You, is it?’ There was no welcome in his voice, only tiredness, a touch of resentment even. ‘What d’you want?’ His voice was slower than ever, a little slurred with the effort of speaking.
‘I came to look for you.’
‘No need. I’m perfectly able to look after myself.’
I glanced at the Land-Rover, nettled by his reaction to our arrival. ‘Trouble?’ I asked, nodding at the lifted bonnet.
‘Sand in the fuel line, that’s all. I’ll deal with it — later.’ The weariness in his voice was very apparent, his body swaying slightly with exhaustion and Tom standing defensively a few yards off, the black face below the wide hat wrinkled in a puzzled frown.
The sun was almost gone now, a red wound gaping along the horizon to the west. I turned to Kennie. ‘Better see if you can fix it before the light goes.’
‘Did you send that plane out looking for me?’ There was a distinct note of hostility in Ed Garrety’s voice.
‘No.’
‘Who did then?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
He nodded slowly, then looked about him and folded his long thin legs, collapsing on to a bare patch of sand. He said something to Tom, who answered, ‘Yes, boss,’ and set about getting a fire going. ‘We’ll have a brew-up together, then we’ll see,’ Ed Garrety murmured. ‘Come and sit down.’ He patted the sand beside him. ‘You look tired. Not used to the desert, eh?’
I sat down beside him, both of us silent for a long time. The sun had gone, the sky a lurid blaze of colour, except in the east where it was already darkening to the velvet purple of dusk. There were questions I wanted to ask, but I didn’t know how to begin and so I remained silent, and he said softly, ‘You would I
play upon me — you would pluck out the heart of my mystery.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘But you’re no Guildenstern come to trick me. You’re honest. Or I believe you are.’ He peered at me, still with that tired smile, his face wanned by the sunset colours so that the skin below the stubble no longer had that parchment look. ‘But I don’t know your motive, do I? Why are you here?’
‘To get you back home.’
‘Think I can’t make it on my own?’
‘Janet’s worried.’
‘Ah, yes. Janet.’ He paused.
‘I read the letter you wrote her.’
‘That was a private letter.’ The hostility was back in his voice.
I told him how one of the boys had woken me in the night. ‘Janet had gone to Lynn Park looking for you. The house was empty. I read it because I wanted to find out what had happened to you.’
‘And you followed me, knowing I wanted to do this on my own.’