Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale (11 page)

Monsieur Poilut was an old servant of his company. I don’t mean old in years, for he was a Creole who boasted of eternal youth. But he belonged to the heroic days when lieutenants of the Royal Navy commanded the company’s liners, haughty and supercilious creatures who did not deign to be aware of anything that went on lower than the bridge. In those happy times there was a constellation of pursers of a race now, alas, extinct, but whose memory will live for ever. The private trading in which the crew was allowed to indulge had become a regular and carefully organized traffic. The most profitable deals were carried
through under the cloak of the sale of Japanese tea-services, glass-ware, canaries and aspidistras for landladies. The facts that the Far Eastern and Indian Ocean liners called in at Egyptian ports, and that they docked at Marseilles beside ships from the Near East, were marvellously helpful to sundry small transhipments and to the smuggling of hashish. The deck, restaurant and engine-room staffs had the monopoly of this smuggling. The pursers put on smoked glasses and suddenly lost all sense of smell, and everything was for the best in the best of all possible companies. So really it was hardly surprising if Monsieur Poilut grumbled a little at the way I was upsetting such hoary customs. I was very glad that my unexpected return had permitted me to learn about the hue and cry that he was starting after me. The echoes might get as far as Egypt and might make a devil of a lot of trouble for me. It behoved me to be on my guard, and especially to try to avert suspicion.

The only thing that might save me was the extreme improbability of anyone’s making the long voyage from Djibouti to Suez in such a small sailing-ship. Then, too, Monsieur Poilut declared that this open announcing of my intentions was just a bluff to provide an alibi, and that I was really engaged on very different business in a very different place. Other people might be taken in, but he was too old a fox to be deceived by such tricks.

I had the luck to meet young Ali Coubeche on the quay. It was he who supplied the company’s liners with meat and vegetables. Naturally, then, he was on very friendly terms with all the pursers. With Monsieur Poilut his friendship was specially warm, not to say tropical, so I had only to give him to understand that my ship and cargo were really going in quite a different direction to be quite sure that Monsieur Poilut would be informed of it that very evening.

I set sail just before nightfall, and thanks to exceptionally good weather out at sea, did not put in at Obock. A fair south-west wind brought me
rapidly in sight of the Swaba islands at sunrise. This is a chain of six volcanic islets which were probably thrown up by the same commotion as opened up the Red Sea in the Quaternary period. Two of these islets are about three hundred feet above sea-level and golden-brown in colour. In the strait between them, the current makes formidable eddies, which in places break and swirl in dangerous fashion. This strait is a perpetual battlefield, where the fishes devour each other in the struggle for life.

As we approached, schools of tiny fish pursued by carnivorous monsters bounded out of the water with the unanimous rhythm of a troop of ballet-dancers, as if moved by a single spring. Flocks of birds hovering in the air pounced on them with a deafening screaming and beating of wings, and the clamour re-echoed from the steep cliffs of the island on either side. Hundreds of little holes were hollowed in the rocky walls, making them look like gigantic sponges. In these holes the sea-birds build their nests. You can see them at the entrance to their dwellings, generally the males, which bring fish to feed the young, or the female sitting on her eggs. If you fire a shot into the air, it re-echoes like a thunderclap, and a cloud of white birds emerges from these cells like a swarm of bees.

I risked passing through the whirlpool in this strait in the hope of catching some fish. The wind was favourable enough to allow me to do this and still be able to control the currents and steer without danger at a good distance from the rocks. One of the islands, part of the crater of a former volcano, was crescent-shaped, and I knew that wrecks were often thrown up on the little sheltered beach in the curve. Everybody knows the passionate interest sailors take in wrecks.

As I rounded the point and came in sight of the little bay, I saw a naked man running towards us over the sand, waving his loin-cloth. There was only a slight breeze and the sea was very calm, so I was able to approach and anchor without danger in the greenish water, through which gleamed the sandy bottom. The man was a Dankali from Obock, a turtle fisher. His companion, who had gone off in a small boat to fetch water and provisions, had not reappeared, and for ten days he had been there alone, living on raw crabs, and passing whole days immersed in the water in order to stave off the tortures of thirst. The raw crabs were precious for the same reason, for the liquid they contain is much less
salty than sea-water. Their serum, like that of all animals, whether they live on land or in water, has a relatively feeble saline content, which never varies. It is comprehensible, therefore, that its assimilation retards the dehydration of the human organism, which is death from thirst. But the unfortunate fellow was reduced to skin and bone; he was terrible to look at with his prominent cheek-bones and hollow eyes, and what he intended to be a joyous smile looked like the grimace of a death’s head. As soon as he climbed on board, we had to restrain him from hurting himself by drinking too much water. He realized the danger, and had the courage to drink only a mouthful or two. Then we had boiling-hot tea prepared for him. His name was Youssouf. If he had not told us he was twenty-five years old, we should never have been able to assign an age to him, so drawn with starvation was his face. He had come to the island with his brother to fish for turtles.

When they are about to lay their eggs, the sea turtles land on this island at full moon when the tides are highest, for they know that as no other animal comes here they will not be disturbed. If they see the smallest trace in the sand, they go off again to seek a more secure retreat. The sand must be absolutely virgin, giving proof of complete solitude, before this prudent animal will venture to lay its eggs in it. The fisher therefore takes great care to walk only where the sea will efface his footprints. He goes and lies under a rock, in the black shadow thrown by the moon, and for whole nights he lies motionless and silent, watching the water rise gradually higher on the sand.

No sound can be heard but the regular breaking of the waves on those barren rocks. Who could guess, in this solitude, that a man was watching and waiting for his prey? The stars slowly wheel round the sky, and the moon rises ever higher. The bay is soon flooded with its light, and the sand gleams dazzling white against the black basalt of the rocks. Then a dark form emerges from a fringe of foam, and is left gleaming like a wet stone on the beach. The following wave foams over it, then retires, leaving it a little higher on the sand. Soon it is entirely out of the water, and is seen to be an enormous turtle. Her tiny head moves restlessly from side to side as she inspects her surroundings, then heavily, helping herself along with her flippers, she drags herself to a sandbank above the highwater mark. Silently she scoops out a place, and soon her shell sinks down until it is hardly visible. Then she remains motionless, merged into
the sand. If one did not know she was there, one could never find her, but the silent watcher has never taken his eyes off her. He does not stir; the turtle must be allowed to lay her eggs. This takes about an hour. When she has finished, she shakes herself, covers up the eggs with sand and makes for the sea, going backwards so that she can efface the traces of her nocturnal visit with her flippers. At this moment the fisher rushes from his hiding-place and, seizing the turtle, turns her suddenly over on her back. Generally, they come in large numbers, and they have to be turned over very quickly, for once they are alarmed, they manage to drag themselves at a fair speed towards the sea, aided by the steepness of the shore. They are left to lay because the fisherman wants their eggs. They are a precious food, for the yolk, after suitable treatment, becomes hard and will keep indefinitely.

Youssouf went and fetched the fruits of his two months’ fishing, a little bag of tortoise-shell taken from a score of turtles captured on moonlit nights. I was immediately struck by the expression on this man’s face. There was something aloof and noble in it, and when he spoke, his words revealed a mind of exceptional quality. He had the far-seeing look of a man who contemplates things which are hidden from the herd.

I followed him to the little grotto where he had slept and where he had hidden his little fortune. In it were only his sack of tortoise-shell, an old wooden dish, and some empty tins which had contained the precious water. The cave was fairly big. The light penetrated but dimly into it, and for a few minutes I could not make out a thing. The entrance was cluttered up with innumerable bits of rag, either white or bleached by the weather, hung on reeds that were stuck into fissures in the rock. Each of them was knotted in the same way, and contained a little aromatic wood (
boukour
). They were offerings to the divinity which still haunted this place, as it had done in pagan times, for all Mohammed could do. Farther in, little heaps of ashes on flat stones showed where perfumed resins had been burnt. All the fishers who had passed through this island had thus left evidence of their secret adherence to their primitive religion, which still lingers in their minds.

I found a strange charm in these ancient rites, and I took care not to touch any of those small offerings, which yet had a certain grandeur, for they expressed all the weakness, fear and anxiety of man in face of the elements. This cavern was a very strange place, and must have struck
awe into the simple souls of the solitary men who had come there. The walls were of dead madrepores in tree or fan forms, in the midst of which were scattered giant fossil shells. All this rock had once been vividly alive. It had possessed that mysterious spark which had been transmitted to me also, and which even at that moment was animating me.

I imagined a half-naked Dankali fisherman leaving his
pirogue
on the beach and kneeling there, watching the faint blue smoke rise from a pinch of incense in his primitive perfuming-pan. He would see all round him genii listening to his prayers, and his fears would leave him, since he was no longer alone. As for me, alas, I was a barbarian, and could see nothing but life petrified and extinguished for ever. I had lost that wonderful faculty for seeing a god in every mystery of nature.

Youssouf told us that about twelve days before, one night while he and his brother Mhamed were waiting for the turtles, they had heard voices on the sea. Soon after, several men could be seen swimming towards their island. When they landed, they saw that they were Somalis, and they immediately supposed they had been wrecked. The unfortunate men were utterly exhausted, and some of them, once they had touched the shore, remained unconscious on the sand, worn out by their supreme effort. They were not very terrible, seeing the state they were in, and inspired pity rather than fear. There were ten of them. They told a vague story of shipwreck. Eight of them had not yet come ashore, but it was in vain that their comrades halloed into the night; their hails remained unanswered. The missing men had probably been carried away by the current which had to be crossed before the island could be reached.

Youssouf and his brother had given all the provisions they had to these famished men, and next day Mhamed had embarked them in his big
pirogue
to transport them to the mainland. He reckoned that he would be back with water and stores in two days at most, for the Somalis had managed to save their money by carrying it in their belts, and had promised to buy food at the post of Angar to replace the provisions the two fishers had given them. So Youssouf had been left alone on the island with ten litres of water. He would get food from the sea, and even if he had to fast for a couple of days, that wouldn’t worry him at all. But during the day, while he was looking for fish among the rocks at low tide, he had found a corpse jammed in a ragged crevice. The head had already been eaten, as is nearly always the case when the body has not
been devoured by the sharks. The man was naked save for a girdle round the loins. Hermit crabs swarmed over it, eating the flesh which was already decomposed. Youssouf had dragged the corpse ashore to give it a burial fit for one of the faithful, and had buried it in the sand, head turned towards the Prophet’s tomb. The leather girdle contained ten gold coins and a vague pulp which could still be recognized as having once been banknotes of the Bank of Djibouti. On his wrist, the dead man had a small aluminium medal. The Dankali showed it to me; it was a soldier’s identity disc, with his name and regimental number.

I had no longer any doubt that those so-called ship-wrecked mariners were deserters. Very likely they were the men who had been arrested in Eritrea, whom the unfortunate Voiron had been setting out to fetch from Raheita the day he was murdered. I explained this to Youssouf, and he became very thoughtful, and asked me if I would take him to some point on the Dankali coast. What I had just told him had made him very uneasy about his brother’s fate, and he wanted to set out immediately to find out what had become of him. The only possible explanation of his long absence was that he had met with a violent death. Somalis have generally very little scruple about flinging an inconvenient Dankali overboard. The man who had saved their lives might talk when they arrived at the French post of Angar, and suspicions might be aroused. The deserters knew that a reward had been offered for their capture, and they had probably decided to get rid of their benefactor so that he would not yield to the temptation of betraying them. They had therefore paid their debt of gratitude by sending him immediately to the paradise of the faithful.