Arabian Sands (24 page)

Next day we had difficulty in avoiding several inquisitive Awamir, who at first took us for raiders and gave the alarm. Hamad got in touch with them and said that we were a party of Rashid going to Abu Dhabi. They then invited us to their encampment, saying that they would slaughter a camel for us. Hamad made excuses and this again aroused their suspicions, but when we camped Hamad, al Auf, and Mabkhaut went back to their encampment and spent the night there in order to reassure them. When they returned in the morning they brought us a goatskin full of milk. Three days after leaving Khaba we reached the Batin, and lay up in the dunes near Balagh well. Next morning Hamad, Jadid, and bin Kabina went to the settlements in Liwa to buy food. They took three camels with them, and I told bin Kabina to buy flour, sugar, tea, coffee, butter, dates, and rice if he could get any, and above all to bring back a goat. Our flour was finished, but that evening Musallim produced from his saddle-bags a few handfuls of maize, which we roasted and ate. It was to be the last food we had until the others returned from Liwa three days later. They were three interminable nights and days.

I had almost persuaded myself that I was conditioned to starvation, indifferent to it. After all, I had been hungry for weeks, and even when we had had flour I had had little inclination to eat the charred or sodden lumps which Musallim
had cooked. I used to swallow my portion with even less satisfaction than that with which I eventually voided it. Certainly I thought and talked incessantly of food, but as a prisoner talks of freedom, for I realized that the joints of meat, the piles of rice, and the bowls of steaming gravy which tantalized me could have no reality outside my mind. I had never thought then that I should dream of the crusts which I was rejecting.

For the first day my hunger was only a more insistent feeling of familiar emptiness; something which, like a toothache, I could partly overcome by an effort of will. I woke in the grey dawn craving for food, but by lying on my stomach and pressing down I could achieve a semblance of relief. At least I was warm. Later, as the sun rose, the heat forced me out of my sleeping-bag. I threw my cloak over a bush and lay in the shade and tried to sleep again. I dozed and dreamt of food; I woke and thought of food. I tried to read, but it was difficult to concentrate. A moment’s slackness and I was thinking once more of food. I filled myself with water, and the bitter water, which I did not want, made me feel sick. Eventually it was evening and we gathered round the fire, repeating, ‘Tomorrow they will be back’; and thought of the supplies of food which bin Kabina would bring with him, and of the goat which we should eat. But the next day dragged out till sunset, and they did not come.

I faced another night, and the nights were worse than the days. Now I was cold and could not even sleep, except in snatches. I watched the stars; some of them – Orion, the Pleiades, and the Bear – I knew by name, others only by sight. Slowly they swung overhead and dipped down towards the west, while the bitter wind keened among the dunes. I remembered how I had once awakened with hunger during my first term at school and cried, remembering some chocolate cake which I had been too gorged to eat when my mother had taken me out to tea two days before. Now I was maddened by the thought of the crusts which I had given away in the Uruq al Shaiba. Why had I been such a fool? I could picture the colour and texture, even the shape, of the fragments which I had left.

In the morning I watched Mabkhaut turn the camels out to
graze, and as they shuffled off, spared for a while from the toil which we imposed upon them, I found that I could only think of them as food. I was glad when they were out of sight. Al Auf came over and lay down near me, covering himself with his cloak; I don’t think we spoke. I lay with my eyes shut, insisting to myself, ‘If I were in London I would give anything to be here.’ Then I thought of the jeeps and lorries with which the Locust Officers in the Najd were equipped. So vivid were my thoughts that I could hear the engines, smell the stink of petrol fumes. No, I would rather be here starving as I was than sitting in a chair, replete with food, listening to the wireless, and dependent upon cars to take me through Arabia. I clung desperately to this conviction. It seemed infinitely important. Even to doubt it was to admit defeat, to forswear everything to which I held.

I dozed and heard a camel roaring. I jerked awake, thinking, ‘They have come at last’, but it was only Mabkhaut moving our camels. The shadows lengthened among the sand-hills; the sun had set and we had given up hope when they returned. I saw at once that they had no goat with them. My dream of a large hot stew vanished. We exchanged the formal greetings and asked the formal questions about the news. Then we helped them with the only camel which was loaded. Bin Kabina said wearily, ‘We got nothing. There is nothing to be had in Liwa. We have two packages of bad dates and a little wheat. They would not take our
riyals
– they wanted rupees. At last they took them at the same valuation as rupees, God’s curse on them!’ He had run a long palm-splinter into his foot and was limping. I tried to get it out but it was already too dark to see.

We opened a package of dates and ate. They were of poor quality and coated with sand, but there were plenty of them. Later we made porridge from the wheat, squeezing some dates into it to give it a flavour. After we had fed, al Auf said, ‘If this is all we are going to have we shall soon be too weak to get on our camels.’ We were a depressed and ill-tempered party that evening.

The past three days had been an ordeal, worse for the others than for me, since, but for me, they could have ridden to the
nearest tents and fed. However, we had not suffered the final agony of doubt. We had known that the others would return and bring us food. We had thought of this food, talked of this food, dreamt of this food. A feast of rich and savoury meat, the reward of our endurance. Now all we had was this. Some wizened dates, coated with sand, and a mess of boiled grain. There was not even enough of it. We had to get back across Arabia, travelling secretly, and we had enough food for ten days if we were economical. I had eaten tonight, but I was starving. I wondered how much longer I should be able to face this fare. We
must
, get more food. AI Auf said, ‘We must get hold of a camel and eat that’, and I thought of living for a month on sun-dried camel’s meat and nothing else. Hamad suggested that we should lie up near Ibri in the Wadi el Ain, and send a party into Ibri to buy food. He said, ‘It is one of the biggest towns in Oman. You will get everything you want there.’ With difficulty I refrained from pointing out that he had said this of Liwa.

Musallim interrupted and said that we could not possibly go into the Dura country; the Dura had heard about my visit to Mughshin last year and had warned the Bait Kathir not to bring any Christians into their territory. AI Auf asked him impatiently where in that case he did propose to go. They started to wrangle. I joined in and reminded Musallim that we had always planned to return through the Dura country. Excitedly he turned towards me and, flogging the ground with his camel-stick to give emphasis to his words, shouted: ‘Go through it? Yes, if we must, quickly and secretly, but through the uninhabited country near the sands. We never agreed to hang about in the Dura country, nor to go near Ibri. By God, it is madness! Don’t you know that there is one of the Imam’s governors there. He is the Riqaishi. Have you never heard of the Riqaishi? What do you suppose he will do if he hears there is a Christian in his country? He hates all infidels. I have been there. Listen, Umbarak, I know him. God help you, Umbarak, if he gets hold of you. Don’t think that Oman is like the desert here. It is a settled country – villages and towns, and the Imam rules it all through his governors, and the worst of them all is the Riqaishi. The Dura, yes; Bedu like ourselves;
our enemies, but we might smuggle you quickly through their land. But hang about there – no; and to go near Ibri would be madness. Do you hear? The first people who saw you, Umbarak, would go straight off and tell the Riqaishi.’

Al Auf asked him quietly, ‘What do you want to do?’ and Musallim stormed, ‘God, I don’t know. I only know I am not going near Ibri.’ I asked him if he wanted to return to Salala by the way we had come, and added, ‘It will be great fun, with worn-out camels and no food.’ He shouted back that it would not be worse than going to Ibri. Exasperated by this stupidity, al Auf turned away muttering There is no god but God’, while Musallim and I continued to wrangle until Mabkhaut and Hamad intervened to calm us.

Eventually we agreed that we must get food from Ibri and that meanwhile we would buy a camel from the Rashid who were ahead of us in the Rabadh, so that we should have an extra camel with us to eat if we were in trouble. Hamad said, ‘You must conceal the fact that Umbarak is a Christian.’ Mabkhaut suggested that I should pretend that I was a
saiyid
from the Hadhramaut, since no one would ever mistake me for a Bedu. I protested, ‘That is no good; as a
saiyid
. I should get involved in religious discussions. I should certainly be expected to pray, which I don’t know how to do; they would probably even expect me to lead their prayers. A nice mess I should make of that.’ The others laughed and agreed that this suggestion would not work. I said, ‘While we are in the sands here I had better be an Aden townsman who has been living with the tribes and is now on his way to Abu Dhabi. When we get to Oman I will say I am a Syrian who has been visiting Riyadh and that I am now on my way to Salala.’ Bin Kabina asked, ‘What is a Syrian?’ and I said, ‘If you don’t know what a Syrian is I don’t suppose the Duru will either. Certainly they will never have seen one.’

I then asked him about Liwa. He said: ‘There are palms, good ones, and quite a lot of them on the dunes above the salt-flats. The houses are of mats and palm fronds. I never saw a mud house. The villagers were all either Manasir or Bani Yas, an unfriendly lot. One slave noticed at once that the
pads under my camel’s saddle were made of coconut fibre and not of palm fibre. He called out, “This boy is from the south. He does not belong to the same party as the other two. He is probably with some raiders who are hiding somewhere and has come in to get food for them. They would all have come in if they were honest men.” I told them that I was with two other Rashid, who had come north to fight for Al bu Falah, and that one of them had fever and that the other had remained to look after him.’

Mabkhaut exclaimed, ‘They are devils, these slaves; they notice everything.’

Bin Kabina went on: ‘By God, I would like to lift some of their camels, not that the ones I saw were worth taking. They are a wretched crowd, these villagers, not like the people at Salala. Their women refused even to grind our corn. Bad luck to them. I had to borrow a grindstone and do it myself after dark.’

I knew that this was a woman’s job and that he would have been ashamed to be seen doing it. I asked what he had been given to eat, and he laughed and said, ‘Bread, dates, and a stew made from skinks.’ He was always sickened by lizard-meat. This started a discussion on what was lawful food. Arabs never distinguished between what is eatable and what is not, but always between food which is lawful and food which is forbidden. No Muslim may eat pork, blood, or the flesh of an animal which has not had its throat cut while it was still alive. Most of them will not eat meat slaughtered by anyone other than a Muslim, or by a boy who is still uncircumsised, although in Syria Muslims will eat meat killed by a Christian or a Druze. Otherwise the definition of what is lawful varies endlessly and in every place, and usually bears little relation to reason. I asked if a fox was lawful food, and Hamad explained to me that sand foxes were, but mountain foxes were not. They agreed that eagles were lawful, but ravens were forbidden, unless they were eaten as medicine to cure stomachache. Musallim said that the Duru ate the wild donkeys which lived in their country, and the others expressed incredulity and disgust. I said I would far rather eat a donkey than a wild cat, which al Auf had just declared was lawful meat. The
differences which had arisen between us a short while ago were forgotten.

Among these people arguments frequently become impassioned, but usually the excitement dies away as quickly as it arises. Men who were screaming at each other, ready apparently to resort to violence, will sit happily together a short while later drinking coffee. As a rule Bedu do not nurse a grievance, but if they think that their personal honour has been slighted they immediately become vindictive, bent on vengeance. Strike a Bedu and he will kill you either then or later. It is easy for strangers to give offence without meaning to do so. I once put my hand on the back of bin Kabina’s neck and he turned on me and asked furiously if I took him for a slave. I had no idea that I had done anything wrong.

In the morning our camp was enveloped in thick mist. I could just make out an
abal
bush less than twenty yards from where I lay; beyond it was a drifting whiteness, dank as sea fog. Suddenly, somewhere, a camel roared, indicating that a human being had approached it. I felt for my rifle and glanced round to see if anyone was missing. Bin Kabina was puffing at a smoking pile of sticks; Musallim was piling lumps of dates on a tray; Hamad and Jadid were praying; and I realized it must be Mabkhaut and al Auf with the camels. I got up. The cloak which had covered my sleeping-bag was drenched. Each night for the past week we had had this soaking dew, the result of the northerly winds which carried the moisture inland from the Persian Gulf. I had noticed that in the southern Sands dew and morning mist coincided with a southerly wind off the Arabian Sea. I do not think that much dew falls in the Empty Quarter itself, but nearer the coast the dew must freshen the herbage. I was always astounded when al Auf maintained that dew burnt it up.

Hamad now volunteered to accompany us as far as Ibri, an offer which we gladly accepted since he knew the Sands and the present distribution of the tribes. He said that we had better keep along the southern edge of Liwa, where the country was at present empty. Normally the salt-flats south of Liwa were filled with camel herds belonging to the Manasir, but recently they had been raided by a force from Dibai and had
suffered losses. Now most of the Manasir were assembled farther to the west. Hamad explained to me that the Manasir pastured their camels on salt-bushes, which made them very thirsty, so that they had to be watered three or even four times a day. In consequence they were tied to the neighbourhood of the wells. Salt-bushes were little affected by drought and provided abundant and permanent grazing on the flats around Liwa. Our own camels would not eat these bushes, and bin Kabina asked if we should find anything for them on our route. He said, ‘The wretched animals don’t deserve any more starvation. It has made me miserable to watch their suffering.’ Hamad assured him that we should find enough for them during the next few days and plenty as soon as we reached Rabadh. We therefore agreed to his suggestion.