Tuareg. Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa

      Gazel wrapped himself up in his blanket, rested his head on his saddle, looked around him one last time at the huts and the line of vehicles parked up underneath a canvas make-shift garage, then fell asleep.

      Dawn found him at the top of the highest and most heavily laden palm tree, throwing down heavy bunches of mature dates. He stuffed his sack with them, filled up his gerbas with water and then saddled up his mehari, who protested loudly, preferring to remain in the shade, near the well.

      The soldiers had started to appear, urinating against the dunes and washing their faces in a water trough next to the biggest of the wells. Sargeant Malik-el-Haideri came out of his quarters and walked over towards him, his stride quick and confident.

      ‘Are you going?’ he asked, even though his question was, to all intents and purposes, pointless. ‘I thought you wanted to rest for a few days.’

      ‘I am not tired.’

      ‘I can see that. And I’m sorry that is the case. It’s good to talk with a stranger, this bunch of losers don’t think about anything other than stealing or women.’

      Gazel did not reply, being too busy securing the saddlebags so that they would not fall off with the swinging motion of the camel some five hundred meters into their journey and Malik gave him a hand on the other side of the animal, as he asked:

      ‘If the captain gave me permission, would you take me with you in your search for the “great caravan?”’

      The Targui shook his head:

      ‘The “lost lands” are no place for a man like you. Only the Imohag can go there.’

      ‘I could bring three camels with me. We would be able to take more water and provisions with us. There’s enough money in that caravan. I could give some to the captain and with the rest I’d buy my transfer out of here and I’d still have enough to survive on for the rest of my life. Take me with you!’

      ‘No.’

      Sargeant Malik did not insist but looked over at the palm trees, the huts and the sand dunes, that enclosed them on all four sides. The dunes that imprisoned the outpost were like the bars on a cell, forever threatening to bury them alive.

      ‘Eleven years more of this!’ he grumbled to himself. ‘If I manage to survive that long, I’ll be an old man, and they’ll still have taken away my right to retirement and a pension. Where will I go?’

      He turned to the Targui once again. ‘Would it not be better to die with some dignity in the desert, in the belief that a bit of luck might change everything?’

      ‘Maybe.’

      ‘It’s what you’re trying to do isn’t it? You’d rather risk your life than spend the rest of it lugging bricks back and forth?’

      ‘I am a Targui, you are not…’

      ‘Oh go to hell with your stupid racial pride!’ he protested angrily. ‘You think you are superior just because you’ve put up with the heat and the thirst since you were a child. I’ve had to put up with this bunch of wasters here but I’m not sure who is worse. Go then! When I want to look for the “great caravan” I’ll do so alone. I don’t need you.’

      Gazel smiled behind his veil, but not so the other man could see, encouraged his camel to stand up and went off slowly, leading him by the halter.

      Sargeant Malik-el-Haideri watched him disappear into the labyrinth of narrow passages that wound through the dunes, south of their make-shift road, then turned away and headed over to the biggest of the huts.

      Captain Kaleb-el-Fasi always slept in until the sun began to scorch the tin roof of his cabin which, having been built it in the shadiest part of the palm grove, was usually around nine-o’clock in the morning. Unless that was, he had already been woken up by the clattering noise of dates falling onto the roof’s metal slats.

      He would say his prayers then plunge into the trough of the largest well, which was about two metres away from his door. It was there that Sargeant Malik usually briefed him on the day ahead and informed him of what was going on at the outpost, which was invariably very little.

      But that morning his subordinate was a little chattier than usual, buoyed by an enthusiasm that was quite unlike him.

      ‘That Targui is going in search of the “great caravan,”’ he said.

      The captain looked at him as if he was waiting for him to say something else, then asked:

      ‘And…?’

      ‘I asked him to take me with him, but he didn’t want to.’

      ‘He’s not as crazy as I thought then. Since when have you been interested in the “great caravan” anyway?’

      ‘Ever since I heard about it. They say that it carried merchandise worth about ten million francs in those days. These days the ivory and jewels it was rumoured to be carrying would be worth triple that.’

      ‘A lot of people have died going in search of it.’

      ‘They were just a bunch of opportunists who failed to take a scientific approach to the organisation of an expedition of this kind and simply did not have the appropriate equipment or the logistical back up to make it.’

      Capitain Kaleb-el-Fasi looked at him long and hard as if he were about to severely reprimand him.

      ‘Are you trying to suggest that we should use army equipment and our men to search for this caravan?’ he asked in mock surprise.

      ‘Why not?’ came his sincere reply. ‘They’re always sending us on senseless expeditions in search of new wells, worthless stones or to study the tribes. On one occasion a bunch of engineers had us wandering around in search of petrol for six months.’

      ‘And you found it.’

      ‘Yes, but how did it benefit us? It was exhausting and exasperating; the troops suffered from ill-health and three men were blown to pieces in a jeep loaded with dynamite.’

      ‘They were orders from the top.’

      ‘I know but you have the authority to send me on any mission you want; survival exercises, for example, in the “lost lands.” Imagine if we came back with a fortune! Half for the army, half for us and the troops. Don’t you think that if it was well distributed, it might even soften up a few generals?’

      His superior did not respond for a moment, ducking his head underwater where he remained for a few seconds, as if reflecting on the proposal, then came up and said, without looking at him:

      ‘We could be locked up for what you’re proposing.’

      ‘And what difference would that make? Being banged up here or inside a cell. It’s just a bit hotter here that’s all. But less so than the in “lost lands” maybe.’

      ‘Are you that desperate?’

      ‘No more than you are. If we don’t do something we’ll never get out of here and you know it. One of these days these bastards will get the “cafard” and turn on us.’

      ‘We haven’t done a bad job at keeping them under control so far.’

      ‘Yeah, with a lot of luck,’ the well-built man admitted. ‘But when is our luck going to start running out? We’ll be old men soon, we won’t have the energy any more and they’ll just walk all over us.’

      Capitain Kaleb-el-Fasi, commander-in-chief of the lost military outpost at Adoras, or the “Devil’s Ass”, as they called it in the army, tilted his head back and contemplated the palm trees that were completely still in the absence of any breeze and the blue, almost white sky that hurt his eyes just to look at it.

      He thought of his family; of his wife who had petitioned for divorce and got it because of his conviction; of his sons who had never written to him; of his friends and companions who had erased him from their memory, despite