I retch violently, spewing potatoes and carrots on the desert floor (probably the most moisture to have fallen in that spot for years). When it’s over I feel a soothing hand on my brow. It’s Khalihena, tall, grave, the oldest and quietest of the drivers, who gazes down at me with wise concern through a pair of thick tortoiseshellrimmed glasses. He holds out a bottle of water and motions me to wash my face.
I feel too ill to be embarrassed, and ridiculously touched that he should be the one to take care of me like this.
Though the Moroccans and the Polisario have observed a ceasefire for the last eleven years, they have not become friends, and as both sides have troops in positions near to the wall, we have to approach with the utmost caution, accompanied now by two armed pick-up trucks. Then it’s a scramble up a slope dazzlingly rich in fossilised fish, plants and other evidence of the old once-fertile Sahara. From a ridge at the top we look down over a mile-wide no-man’s-land that separates the two sides. There’s no question of going any further, as the Moroccans have mined the border.
I realise that this wall, an abomination to the Polisario, keeping them, as it does, from their own land, also defines them and inspires them and, in their eyes, legitimises their struggle. There can be no question of a contest between equals. The Polisario army numbers around 20,000 men, but despite the ceasefire it’s kept in readiness. To see them at work we are driven from the wall to the HQ of the Second Army District, in a cleverly camouflaged position protected by monumental rocks, strangely weathered and smoothed, like a hillside of Henry Moores.
In the lee of these boulders are mud-brick huts, with corrugated metal roofs, and the occasional Russian-built tank pulled in close for safety. On a parade ground, marked by small stones laid out in neat rows and painted white, the flag of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic flutters above three more tanks and four pick-ups fitted with anti-aircraft guns. A massive curved rock, resembling the head of a whale, juts out on a rise overlooking the parade ground, and beneath it a narrow entrance leads into the belly of the whale, a deep cave lined with carpets and cushions which is the nerve centre of this particular army post.
I’m still in the grip of whatever microbe is ravaging my system, so I retreat to the coolest corner of the cave and sit out a lunch of salad, goat and oranges, thinking of the only two things that appeal in these circumstances, sleep and death.
Unfortunately, neither is an option, as the commander of the Second Army District has made himself available for interview. He’s a man of dignified composure and stern, hawk-like eye, who gives nothing much away. How does he keep up morale when there has been no war to fight for thirteen years? No problem, he claims. They are all committed to the struggle for free expression for the Saharawi people. And they have sophisticated weaponry. When I press him for more details this seems to mean the ageing tanks from Eastern Europe and the fortified Toyota pick-ups drawn up below.
Later, he and I walk out to inspect the troops. They are a ragged band, small in number, an assortment of ages wearing an assortment of uniforms. One has green espadrilles instead of army boots. Unless the Polisario is hiding some crack force from us, their military potential, even for guerrilla fighting, seems negligible.
The heat rises and my system continues to reject whatever is in there that it doesn’t like. Once outside the cave, there is no escape or comfort. The skies are cloudless. The heat and the constant dusty wind scour my skin and turn my throat to sandpaper. There is no toilet but the desert, and as I crouch behind boulders feeling utterly miserable I am filled with desperate admiration for the soldiers who have endured conditions like these for years and a formless anger at those who make it necessary for them to do it.
It’s a two-hour drive back to the barracks in Tfariti. I have to ask them to stop once again but this time I’m bent double with nothing to show for it. Everyone else turns their back, but Khalihena comes over to me once again, pours me some water, motions to his mouth and repeats in his soft French, ‘Mange, mange‘.
When I get back to the barracks, I take his advice, and thanks to a combination of Pepto Bismol, acupressure recommended by Basil and fresh bread and cheese, I steady the system and fall into a long deep sleep.
Day Twenty
TFARITI TO MEJIK
Though in my memory the fort on the hill will always be a sick room, I leave Tfariti with the optimism that always attends a departure and the prospect of a new destination.
Bachir aims to travel another 200 miles to the southwest, setting up camp for the night before moving on tomorrow to the rendezvous with our Mauritanian team at a place called Mejik.
Through the cracked glass of our windscreen we can see the relatively green landscape around Tfariti revert rapidly to stony desert. Despite the lack of cover, there always seems to be something out there, a solitary tree, a trotting herd of wild donkeys, even a skeletally thin dog that sniffs at us as we go by. And always the wind, sweeping across, sifting the sand, smoothing the rocks, leaching the rough ground and exposing the fossilised remains of a previous, very different Sahara, which, as recently as 10,000 years ago, was a grassland full of wild animals.
We stop for lunch in the shade and cover of a fallen acacia tree. Bachir rubs some resin off the bark and tells me to taste it. A sharp, cleansing, minty freshness.
‘Arabic gum. Very good for all kinds of intoxication.’
I know the name well. Over the centuries, fortunes have been made from gum arabic, and it’s still high on any list of West African exports. A preservative for food, it’s also used for pharmaceuticals and making inks. It’s rather satisfying to find something so precious in the wood the chef is gathering to make our fire.
The fire is started by rubbing twigs together, then larger branches are laid on. Mohammed Salim, one of the drivers, face old and weathered, cheekbones cantilevered out, skin pulled tight as a drum, is sifting through the sand for camel droppings. So good is the camel at absorbing and re-using what it eats that these come out as small, regular-sized, dark brown pellets, referred to by the experts as nuggets. Quickly hardened by the sun, they make ideal pieces for a board game. Mohammed marks out a grid of squares in the sand and lays the pellets out like draughts. Najim, who he’s challenged to a game, breaks twigs to use as his men. So the game of dhaemon, a sort of desert draughts, begins. As it warms up, Mohammed Salim becomes more and more excited, emitting a string of cries, shrieks, theatrical screams, imprecations and histrionic submissions to Allah, occasionally catching our eye and cracking a conspiratorial smile. Najim plays the straight man, not that he has much option, and wins the game.
Lunch is far behind us when, amongst swirling dust, tussocky grass and severely decreasing visibility, Bachir brings his lead vehicle to a halt and consults, rather anxiously, with Haboub, the most dashing of the drivers. There’s much kneeling and peering off into the soupy dust clouds. Are we lost? Bachir’s reply, intended to be reassuring, rapidly becomes one of our favourite sayings, to be used often in times of deep crisis.
‘No we are not lost. We just cannot find the place.’
He suggests that we drive on after dark and try to reach Mejik. No-one complains, but there is an unspoken anxiety amongst us. Given the combination of dust clouds, pitch darkness and lack of any identifiable road or track, how good is our chance of finding Mejik?