Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
There was something thrilling about it all. As flashlights carved
through the rushing cloud of quartz, a shouted debate of
disembodied voices heightened the wildness: Should we try to get
out before it got any worse? Were we safer staying put? Had anyone
checked on the camels?
'I'm not moving!' Bentley shouted to someone. 'I'm not taking
forty thousand dollars' worth of Leica shit out into this!'
We decided to tough it out where we were, zipping up flyleaves,
anchoring anything loose with luggage. Lying back with the fury
throbbing at our flimsy canvas walls, I felt like a foetus imprisoned
in a malevolent womb, to be disgorged any moment into a world of
perpetual night and tempest. Perversely, I was delighted, shriven.
Sleep must have come, as it always does eventually, even to
prisoners. I awoke from infernal nightmares to find a world all the
calmer after its mighty temper tantrum. In a pre-dawn aura, the
desert lay once more serene, the morning star a cool magnesium
flare fired far up into the steel-blue east like a message of reassurance
from the universe. Our place in it was secure once more. The cruel,
barbaric wind of several hours before that had wanted to tear our
hearts out and erase all works of man had worn itself down to a
humble, geriatric breeze licking penitently at the coral flames of
our breakfast fire.
'Big storm,' said Girdhar, concealing a smile. 'I think you much
frighten, hah?'
Bentley and I gave him macho shrugs.
'No fear,' he reassured us. 'Only wind, only sand. Possible only
to live or to die.
We
live.' He nodded to emphasise this warrior's
truth.
'That's a pretty black and white philosophy you've got there, pal,'
said Bentley. 'Where does crippled or blinded fit in?'
'Still you
live
,' the cameleer replied. 'Blind man, cripple man -
still living. Dead man dead.
Finish
.' He slapped his hands.
As the sun's huge, florid head peered over the horizon, looking
as if it had had a rough night itself, and a thousand black shadows,
sharp as swords, slid out from beneath stones and rocks, we were
saddling up again. Girdhar silently passed me an extra blanket for
padding.
