In Praise of Savagery (12 page)

‘This man, this foreigner who has entered, unbidden, the lands of the Asaimara …’

‘This man,’ the dancers repeated, ‘this foreigner …’

The soldiers surreptitiously checked their rifles. Each of the fifteen of them had been issued by the Government with just fifteen bullets each.

There were, by now, several hundred Asaimara in the camp, all waiting to hear what the
janili
had to say.

The mathematics were not favourable.

‘God,’ said the
janili
, as the dancers echoed his words, ‘has sent this man to us. He has brought us back our Hangadaala. He has averted for us a great trouble with the Government. But for his visit, they would have come and fought with us. Let us welcome him into our land. And let us conduct him safely onto his destination.’

And with this he turned back to the circle and the clapping and chanting began once again.

Later on Thesiger was introduced to a much-scarred old man who had been shot in the upper arm above the elbow and the bone shattered, and who had, besides, several spear wounds, all of which were in the process of healing. This man, he was told, was the sole survivor of the deputation of old men recently sent to the Adoimara, the deputation who had been welcomed with singing and dancing, feasted and then set upon. He had, perhaps, heard the story?

He had.

Not that the Asaimara had any intention of doing any such thing to Thesiger or to his party in this case, he was hastily reassured; for had he not brought them their Hangadaala? And for as
long as Miriam Muhammad remained free, and safe and sound, then for that long would they be welcomed and given all possible assistance to ease their passage to Aussa.

Thus it was that that night, in the dead of night, after the feasting and the dancing, after the
janili’
s prophecies and the meeting with the massacre-survivor, Miriam Muhammad decided to leave Omar’s tent, in which he had been staying, and to take a walk in the cool night air.

Perhaps it was to do with Miriam Muhammad’s powers to find and bring water to his land; perhaps it was to do with the lateness of the hour, or the darkness round about; or the befuddling of his senses by age or by the excesses of feasting, but whatever the reason, he walked straight from the tent and over the edge of the river-cliff, falling fifteen feet down and landing with a splash in the deep waters of the Awash, waking the lazy crocodiles on the river’s edge, which, sensing prey, dragged themselves down into the water and began to make their way towards him.

The Hangadaala came to the surface and called out, splashing with his hands and feet as he tried to outswim the beasts.

The noise alerted the Abyssinian sentries, who, rushing over to see what the commotion was, and realising who had fallen, and the consequences for them all if he were to be eaten, dived in and dragged him out, just as the crocodiles were almost upon him.

The next day, Miriam Muhammad announced that he no longer intended to travel onto Aussa, as had originally been planned. Instead, he would go to his home village, a few miles away, and remain there.

Nothing that could be said would persuade him otherwise.

But he wished Thesiger and his party the very best of luck.

The sun climbed high into the sky over the barren land; and as it did so, so my strength left me; and with my strength my spirit also, and I felt a great weight of depression upon my shoulders, and a sense of pointlessness and worthlessness.

My throat was drier than I had ever known it, and sore and ulcerated with it. We had little water between us, and thirst was constant and all-consuming, and besides what we carried there was no more to be had until we reached the wells. Each hour I allowed myself a small mouthful from my bottle, but it did little to help.

The walking, meanwhile, was monotonous and endless on these days: hour after hour with no shade and little to be seen but sand and stones and the occasional low thorn bush.

I had begun, also, to lose my appetite, particularly in the heat of the day. All I wanted was water, cool water, and I could find no pleasure in food, nor any point in trying to get it down.

As a result I began to lose weight, and to lose it quite dramatically. Each day I would wake up noticeably thinner than the day before, so that my shorts, which had fitted at the start, began to hang on me and I had to tighten my belt by a notch at a time, sometimes twice in a day.

For reasons that he could not fathom, Thesiger had been sick all that night, violently sick, and the tent reeked of it.

He was awakened by a soldier at the tent-flap, calling his name.

He had been calling his name for some time, this soldier, and also prodding at his foot.

He rolled over and pulled his covers around him, calling to the man to go away and to come back later.

The soldier half-turned as if to do so but two others behind him nudged him in the back and pointed into the tent. There was a brief, urgently whispered conversation between them with a number of gesticulations, and then the first soldier knelt down and put his head through the tent door.

He apologised for any inconvenience he might be causing. However, there were important matters that needed to be mentioned, and changes to the situation to be taken into account. He was speaking on behalf of the entire company, who had discussed the matter at some length and all come to a collective decision, which they were quite certain about.

It was, he said, to do with the matter of Miriam Muhammad.

This matter was problematic, in terms of the guaranteeing of safe passage, and the passing through hostile territory with—as
the gentleman himself knew—no more than fifteen rounds per head. Which was not many—not many at all. Being a shooting man himself, the gentleman would no doubt be all too aware of that fact. And all things considered, it would be best not to continue with the expedition, under the present circumstances, but perhaps to go home and come back another time, when Miriam Muhammad had changed his mind.

Either way, he said, the soldiers had decided among themselves that they would proceed no further, and that was their final word on the matter.

One day we set off around dawn, as we always did; but as we walked on through the morning the sun did not rise as it had before—or rather, it did, but the sky was overcast and the weather cool, and grey clouds began to gather, low in the sky.

The darker and more slate-grey the sky became, the more my mood lifted and the more I felt the energy and the enthusiasm flooding back into me. I found that when I walked I did not get tired, as I had before; nor did my head feel light and dizzy or my throat sore; and everything, even the sand, seemed to take on a new fascination.

Even the constant raging thirst of the desert, and the meagre supplies of water we carried with which to quench it, seemed matters of little consequence; opportunities, rather, to talk endlessly about the lemon sorbets we would consume when we went home, and the glasses of ice-cube lemonade and suchlike.

What were those tracks? What made this bush lean so, when there was no wind?

And also food, and what was for lunch, and indeed for dinner?

Dried goat and
ugali
, was it? Who would have thought?

But beggars, as they say, cannot be choosers.

Now, onward.

I am built for miserable weather, I think.

I think that I am built for grey skies and for drizzle, and for the rain plastering my hair to my forehead and dripping off my nose onto sodden clothes.

And the soft earth and the smell of woodland, also, and the mossy pools by the wayside.

I remember.

I remember, once, the foot of a wooded bank, and the ground deep in autumn leaves, russet and yellow, and sitting still, very still, and hearing a rustle and a commotion among the leaves a little way up, and a woodmouse, it was, came scurrying down, and lost its footing and rolled, once, twice, three times, to land at my feet. It shook itself, and looked up at me. Black eyes, like small beads. Whiskers. Front feet, pink, pushed out forwards, ready to spring back. For a little while we remained fixed, just so; and then there was a rustle higher up. I flicked my eyes up, briefly; and in that instant the woodmouse had darted away.

It went, I think, into a bramble bush a little way down; but I cannot be sure.

It did not rain.

It did not rain but that was fine.

It was all fine.

We walked well for five hours without stopping and covered a fair amount of ground, and as we went we saw the shape of a mountain appear at the horizon.

Mount Kulal.

Goat tracks in the sand, meanwhile.

A while later, two men in loincloths in the distance, carrying spears.

Further still and we came to a cluster of thorn trees, where goats and sheep were gathered in great numbers around a deep well, where seven men passed up water hand to hand in tin buckets, singing their water-song.

This place was called Intahe.

There was grazing for our camels to be had by the wells at Intahe, and the desert before had been lacking in it, and so, although it was only mid-afternoon, we made our camp there, while they ate their fill.

Our Rendille whiled away the time exchanging news with the men at the well, and with playing a game that involved a wooden board carved with two rows of cups, between which stones were moved.

The exchange of news took the form of extended monologues, with each man taking his turn to hold forth, while the others listened patiently for as long as the speaker cared to go on, while they marked the end of each of his sentences by exclaiming ‘o-oh!’ and ‘e-eh!’ alternately.

Frazer, Andy and I drank water, and splashed our hair and faces with it, and having some to spare, we also cleaned our teeth. And then we drank more water, cool and sweet from the well.

Then we spread out our sleeping-bags beneath a tree and lay back and watched the men talk and play their game.

A cow gave birth just in front of where we lay, and licked the mucus from her calf, and nudged the calf with her nose as it struggled to stand.

A while later, Osman took us to see a pile of earth, and beside it a deep hole, some sixty-five feet deep, by my reckoning. He said that a man had recently dug this in the hope of finding water, but without success.

How long it had taken him, I don’t know.

But if the general pace of life we saw at Intahe was anything to go by, then quite some time, I reckon; what with all the talking and the playing of board-games and everything.

And I reckon that if you or I were to take it into our heads, where we live, to attempt something similar—I don’t know, dig up the back garden looking for water or oil or buried treasure or something, armed with a rudimentary shovel and prepared to dig down as far as it takes for as long as it takes, then we’d probably need to make arrangements of some sort, to get it done. At the very least we’d need to take some time off work; get permission from the local authority planning department and Health and Safety people, all those sorts of things. Field the complaints from the neighbours, perhaps.

Whereas at Intahe—well, a man would just go out and dig: ten feet, twenty, thirty or more. And from time to time people might take a break from their herding or whatever to gather round and peer over the edge for a while, and stand and exchange views on the likelihood or otherwise of there being any water at the end of it all. And so it would go on.

I think, also, of how we came to be there in the first place. How we got our guides. How, on the very day of our arrival at Ilaut, Kibiriti had wandered into the Rendille encampment, and in a matter of minutes had managed to find two men who, at the drop of a hat, had agreed to spend a couple of weeks taking us 200-odd miles across the desert. Just like that.

It’s how much time these people seem to have to do with as they please.

About a thousand hours a year is how much, to put a number on it.

It’s been worked out.

Your typical pastoralist—your Samburu, your Rendille, your Turkana—he has a thousand hours more free time on his hands than you do, if you’re in any way typical of the ‘modern’ world. And if you are in any way typical, then you will probably spend around 230 days a year in the office or the factory or wherever it is that you work. In which case a thousand extra free hours would work out for you at just over four hours a day to spend doing something else other than working. It would be like knocking off around lunchtime every day, rather than staying for the afternoon. And that would be every single working day for the whole of your life.

As for the pastoralists, so too for the hunter-gatherers: the Hiwi of South America spend an average of three hours a day doing what they have to do to get by. The Yanomami of the Amazon, meanwhile, get through their day’s work in even less time: two hours and forty-eight minutes.

Our closest animal cousins, the apes and monkeys, they work just a touch harder: scientists say they spend around four and a half hours a day at the daily grind of eating fleas off each other and peeling bananas with their toes, or whatever else it is that counts for work in monkey-world. And then they’re done.

If there is a ‘natural’ working day, a working day for which humankind evolved, then my bet is that these are all far closer to it than is the ‘civilised’ nine to five. Or even the 8:30 to 5:30, or the 8:30 to 6:00, or whatever it is that we all work these days. And not to mention the fact that the average ‘lunch hour’ in my part of the world now lasts twenty-two minutes, so they say, and consists, mostly, of a pre-packed supermarket sandwich in a cardboard and cellophane box, consumed at one’s desk while looking up stuff on the internet.

‘Primitive affluence’ is a phrase that’s been used to describe what it is that people like the Rendille have.