Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'We've got water,' I said. 'Enough for six litres each a day. The crossing should take
eight days. If it's any longer, well . . .' I paused. 'Awad and Ahmad travel this way all the
time. They know the desert like the backs of their hands. That's why they're coming with
me. The camel trader Bala promised it.'
'Oh well,' said Ash, 'if he
promised
it . . .'
'Do you know,' Moez began, 'if we make this crossing, we'll be the first to cross the
Bayuda by foot at the height of summer. That would be a miraculous thing.'
'You see, Lev,' Will chipped in, 'there might be a world-first for you in this expedition
after all . . .'
'Wait a minute,' said Ash. '
Why
has nobody done it before?'
The thought had dawned on me too.
'Oh,' said Moez, 'the Bedouin know the desert too well to risk such a thing . . .'
Long into the night, we sat staring into the blackness over the desert. Only when our fire
had finally flickered out did we turn in ourselves. I barely slept that night, lost in thoughts
of the desert to come.
In the morning, Awad and Ahmad were waiting for us on the outskirts of Kadabas; Gor-
don, Speke and Burton already saddled and laden down with the packs and jerry cans we
would be dragging into the desert as supplies. On the outskirts of the village, we said our
goodbyes to the old man, who still insisted we return. As the village gradually dwindled
and disappeared behind us, masked by a mirage of heat and knolls of sand, the sun was
flooding the desert with a golden sheen. This land we were walking into looked solemn
and quiet, as alien to man as the stars above. We hesitated before going on. It is only nat-
ural, I suppose, to hesitate on the threshold of stepping into the unknown. So, on the edge
of the desert, three white men stood in nervous anticipation, unused to the emptiness of the
horizon. Moez, Nubian to his core, and Awad and Ahmad, Bedouin through and through,
strode off without a second thought.
'Come on,
Ingleez
!' shouted Awad, from his saddle atop Burton. 'You'll be blacker than
a
Beja
if you stand around in the sun all day. Get walking!'
'Gentlemen,' said Ash, 'we're about to walk across a small, but not insignificant, chunk
of the Sahara Desert. We don't know where the wells are, we've only got enough food for
eight days, and there is a bloody great volcano in the way. Do we really know what we're
doing?'
Will looked at Ash, and then at me. I guessed it was my turn to do the comforting: 'It's
fine, mate. We've both been to Afghanistan. It's . . . the same sort of thing.' Even I could
tell I didn't sound sure. To save my blushes, I pointed after Gordon, the spare camel, who
was loping over a sandy hillock, tied by a length of rope to the back of Speke's saddle.
'And, look, if you get tired, you can always ride him . . .'
'I may well do that . . .'
