The Gobi Desert (14 page)

‘This is our programme for this afternoon. We need to make a count as exact as possible of all the caves and caverns in the area, within a perimeter of at least a couple of miles. We'll split up into three groups. The first will keep watch over the animals and the camp. The second, under my direction, will examine the whole of the northern area. The third, led by you, Michel . . . . . . ‘

‘If you don't mind, I prefer to stay in the camp today. I'm tired,' I said drily.

There was a silence. Everyone looked at me in amazement. Sanders more so than the others. This was the first time that anyone had dared to talk to him like that. The way in which he replied only added to the general astonishment.

‘All right, as you wish!' he said in a tone almost resembling humility. ‘It's true you've been doing a lot these past few days. Try and rest as much as you can. Welowski will be in command instead of you. We mustn't delay in setting off, lads. Now it's starting to snow again, which won't make things any easier for us. And there is this dammed mist, almost as dense as it was this morning. Kiss, shut up, you wretched animal! Welowski, listen to me. As soon as you get to that little hill over there on the left . . . . . Are you listening to me? What's the matter? Look at me, for God's sake!'

What was the matter? It was a very simple little detail. At that moment Welowski was preoccupied with something totally different. It was his turn to see, to understand. His mouth gaping, his eyes open impossibly wide, he was standing, completely incapable of making a move, and staring. . . . . .

Staring at what? I didn't need to turn round, as I had done a few hours earlier, to know what it was. I left this matter to the others, to everyone else, if they liked. Once again, to each his own! And I surprised myself by saying for the second time: ‘All the same, even in somewhere like Fouzan where you don't have all modcons, life in the big cities is still good!'

And then just at that moment, in the snow and the mist which were weaving their terrible shroud of darkness around us, there rang out a deep roar, a roar which seemed to roll like the sea as far as the horizon. Everywhere was shaken, the very entrails of the ground shuddered. No, Sanders had not lied! Compared with this, the roar of our Mikado was nothing more than some poor little bleat . . . . .

‘Ahong! . . . . . Ahong! . . . . ‘

All the same, the most agreeable thing about Sanders was that there wasn't a single precaution that he didn't take against any danger, or simply against any obstacle, which we might have to deal with. Sometimes he pretended in vain to act on a whim or, as he had just done in front of the men, to put on an act as a hothead, and it was just at those times when in reality his head remained at its most cool. It only needed a slight nudge to reignite his enthusiasm and to keep him on track. Even if it didn't stand out, you could see that nothing had been left to chance, that everything had been rigorously calculated. And the reassurance that you got from that was always welcome, believe me!

I spent that afternoon at the camp making a series of observations. The two little groups – Welowski to the south, Sanders to the north – had set off straightaway after the formidable adversary, with whom our struggle had now engaged, had found it suitable to show itself again, only to disappear, almost immediately, as had happened at the time of its first appearance. I must say that at that rather delicate moment, everyone had demonstrated a composure and a commitment which were fully deserving of praise. Jokes and laughter suddenly dried up, for example, and you had the impression that they wouldn't come back again soon.

*

The idea that we were proposing, of taking alive an enormous beast such as the one which we had just caught a glimpse of, was likely to make the hair of even the bravest person stand on end. When you think of the trouble and the danger involved in the capture of just an ordinary tiger! The following lines, which I borrow from the book by Nicholas Baikov, will suffice to give an insight of that: ‘First of all' he wrote ‘we used traps in the form of cages, with a dog or a piglet as bait; but seeing that the tiger rarely let itself be taken in this trap, we decided to throw nets over the animal. You proceed in the following fashion: you lay some fresh tracks of meat and let out a pack of vicious dogs, which form a circle around the animal. The hunters then approach it and one of them allows himself to be struck by the animal and throws himself flat on his face in the snow. At the same time two of his companions throw a net like a bag over the head and chest of the tiger, and quickly tighten up the ends. Taken like this the tiger abandons the hunter lying on the ground and tries to get out of the net, which naturally makes his situation worse. Finally, you wrap it up in the net as if it was a calf, tie it up with rope, and carry it to its destination.'

You can see how rudimentary all this was. Fortunately, the method that Sanders had devised was more practical since, however devoted to him we might have been, I couldn't see which one of us would be disposed to play the role of the hunter who lets himself fall to the ground like that. Besides, who could claim such a method would be successful when dealing with a tiger such as the one we were up against? You only had to refer back once again to the book by Baikov to realise the pointlessness of any attempt of that sort. ‘You can only use this method', wrote my distinguished fellow-countryman, ‘with young subjects less than three years old, and weighing not more than fifty kilogrammes since, when dealing with older tigers, their colossal strength, their agility and their weight, almost always make the efforts of the hunters futile, even if they are about ten in number.' So what can one say about the capture of an animal which Sanders had just that same morning estimated to weigh half a ton, at the very least?

‘I note that I was not wrong in calculating on the large side,' he had been quick to add. In saying this he was referring to the gigantic cage which we know about, and which took up two thirds of the lorry in which he and I were living. Youen, the cook, who had stayed behind with me to keep guard at the camp, was busy methodically unloading our cargo of tinned food. The confidence with which Sanders had ordered him to do so seemed to me, I must admit, to be so presumptuous that it sent a chill up my spine. Never mind that despite the dimensions of this formidable prison, Kublai risked being far too big for it. For the moment that was the least of my problems. First of all we had somehow to get him to enter it.

So as to give myself a bit more confidence for this task – without of course hoping to achieve Sanders' wonderful sense of calm – I spent the rest of the day making an inventory of the contents of crates in which, all lovingly packed up, were the magnificent contraptions which any moment now would be put into action. What with all these nets which were both supple and rigid at the same time, an extraordinary amalgam of silk and metal, I admired once again the prodigious ingenuity of this system of pulleys which would allow a young girl single-handedly to immobilise any sort of gigantic beast, and the power and simplicity of the miniature crane which would be used to tighten the net once the main operation had succeeded, and which would raise the monster, trussed up like that, into the air, and then lower it into the cage, with all the care which it was due. I was careful not to leave out of this list the mysterious and narrow case, in the shape of a box for holding swords, and which out of all these instruments contained the ones in which Sanders had applied perhaps the best of his inventive genius: long sticks at the end of which were cardboard cylinders, and which were a simple form of rockets; and then a sort of slender syringe, made of thick glass and also very long, about a metre in length. Alongside were about a dozen ampoules, full of a crimson liquid, on the properties of which Sanders, in the explanations which he had deigned to grant me, had up until now always been most secretive.

*

Clouds raced across the sky, parallel to the ground and torn to shreds in the furious wind like wool from a flock of sheep. Shortly before nightfall the wind suddenly dropped, and we were able to see the countryside. This was something else I could have done without. The meagre reserves of courage which I had managed to build up since the early afternoon, by pulling myself together as much as I could, evaporated in a moment. And yet I should have got used to it by now, got used to that hideous immensity, to that silence which held all the rumours of vanished caravans, to those crevasses full of snow adorned with the tinge of ghostly moonlight in winter, to those steep slopes and hillsides full of the same sort of gaiety found in disused quarries or in caves for ancient bones, to the desert, to the desolation, to the emptiness, in fact to the Gobi, to that indifferent grandeur whose unique secret is a monotony which cannot be disturbed.

It was getting dark when Sanders and Welowski returned to the camp. They had linked up some hundreds of metres from the camp and had already exchanged the results of their searches. From the beaming expression on Sanders' face I gathered that these results were good.

‘Youen my friend, we're starving. You've had nothing to do all day except to prepare our dinner. I hope you are going to surpass yourself. Open a bottle of vodka, and let's open that jar of apricot jam. Be quick about it, good man! We must be as fresh as a daisy for tomorrow, it's going to be a big day.'

They really were superb, our men, calm, serene, decisive. The somewhat uncoordinated enthusiasm of the afternoon was replaced by a sort of alacrity which was both cold and efficient. You could see that in the gleam in their eyes, as well as in the appetite with which everybody did justice to a dinner, a dinner which had never been so successful.

‘Is everything clear?' asked Sanders, when the last mouthful had gone. ‘Tomorrow morning will be devoted to fitting the crampons. You all know how important that is. Welowski, I'll come with you as we agreed. As for Neratov, who was with me this afternoon, he already knows what he has to do, and where he has to go. Michel will go with him.'

He added, in a mocking but good-natured tone: ‘If he has recovered from his indisposition.'

Feeling a bit ashamed, I kept quiet. Sanders took me by the arm.

‘Now let's get to the lorries, everybody,' he ordered. ‘A quarter of an hour from now, I don't want to hear a sound from anyone, except for the sentry. You and I Michel, we have a bit more work to do. I need to give you my instructions for tomorrow, after I've brought you up-to-date with what we've done today.'

His leather jacket was all wet. He hung it up on the back of a chair, then lit a lantern and put it on the little folding table between his couch and mine. The dim glow gradually lit up the interior of the lorry. At the back the gigantic cage emerged, empty of the stacks of tin cans with which it had been cluttered up only this morning. Its massive bars shone in the darkness with a sinister blue light. The cage was divided into two parts by an internal sliding grille, which would be used to keep the animal penned up in one compartment, while we cleaned the other compartment.

Sanders worked the mechanism then penetrated into the cage. He walked up and down a few times, back and forth and from side to side, rubbing his hand with a childish glee.

‘The nursery is ready, all right! Now all it needs is its little doll. Just think, tomorrow evening, it could be here, the little angel! What a party we'll have then, eh, Michel! But let's be serious. There's our little chore first. Let's deal with that quickly, then straight to bed, OK?'

*

Fitting the crampons, which was to take place the next morning and which he had already told me about so often, was in fact an operation on which depended to a large extent the success of our expedition. It was on the crampons that we would stretch the net, in which we then had somehow to get the monster to ensnare itself. One of these thick steel hooks which had been badly secured, had almost jeopardised the capture of the Mikado. On several occasions Sanders had insisted on showing me how to do this properly, depending on the different types of rock in which they had to be fastened. He wanted to go over this subject once more, while at the same time summarising for me what he had discovered that afternoon, as well as what Welowski had found. During the meal we had talked about various other matters.

‘Two caves, do you hear, we found two caves which are probably used as a lair for the beast which you know about. Me, I'm certain of the one I found, the footprints going in and coming out leave me in no doubt about that. Welowski says he is equally certain about the cave he examined. I trust him, but I'm going to take a look there all the same. That's why I'm going with him tomorrow morning, and I'll take all the necessary equipment with us. If our comrade is right, that will prove that Kublai is someone who looks after himself well, and that he has two pieds-a-terre instead of just one. So we will have another opportunity to get in touch with him, that's all. While I'm with Welowski, you will be with Neratov. I'm sure that once you are on the ground you will manage perfectly well, but I'd rather tell you beforehand a little bit about what's going to happen. Let's take things in order. Have a look in my jacket pocket, will you? You'll find my pen and some paper. Pass them to me and take a piece of paper for yourself. Amongst everything which I'm going to give you, there may be one or two details which you will need to make a note of. If you write something down it remains in your head more clearly than if you just listen to it.'

This was the best side of Sanders. Clarity, logic, method, nothing was missing. The best that one could do at these moments was to say
amen
to everything, and to put yourself squarely, without holding back, on his side. Everybody found it to their benefit, and I was the first to accept such confident good sense as well as such clear-sighted authority.

‘Take a close look at this sketch here. No, don't bother to make a copy, you can take this. It's a diagram of the entrance to the cave which I found, the one which I have good reason to believe is where the game will be played out. When it comes to knocking something in, Neratov can hit hard. Aided by Kailar, who doesn't pull his punches either, he will soon have the crampons fixed as securely as they need to be. Just make sure, as I've always told them, that they cover their hammers properly with wet cloths, so as not to wake up everything round about. I'm more concerned about exactly where the crampons should be fixed. Fortunately you will be there and it's about this that I want to make some points to you. First of all, write this down: 1, 1
bis;
2, 2
bis,
2
ter;
then 3 and 3
bis
only: 3; finally, 4 alone, without
bis
or
ter.
In all, if we've got this right, that makes eight crampons. Three in the ground, which is the most difficult job because the rock is the most resistant; three on the left side; and two above . . . . I repeat, two above. Is that clear? But what are you doing, why aren't you writing anything down?'

No, I wasn't writing anything, or rather, I wasn't writing any more. I was looking at Sanders. And he was looking at me. He turned very pale.

‘What's the matter?' he tried to mumble. ‘You're not writing anything? What's up? What's the matter with you?'

There were a few moments of terrible silence. It was me who broke the silence, very gently, so much so that I didn't recognise the sound of my own voice:

‘Sanders,' I said, ‘do you really like black oat crepes with kirsch as much as that?'

*

I said
Sanders,
not
Mr Sanders,
as I usually do, an unheard-of insolence for which he was careful not to ask me the reason. I think I had made my point. He continued to look at me with an almost stupid expression. But what could he object to? He could see that I had in my hand the sheet of paper that I had taken from his jacket pocket just a moment earlier, and on one side of which I had started to write down the figures which he was dictating to me. Absent-mindedly and without any premeditation, I had turned the piece of paper over and on the other side I had just read what it was that prompted my question.

It was a menu from the Hotel Myako, a dinner menu from Saturday 2 March this year, exactly two days before I had first met Sanders. There was nothing special about this menu, except that someone had written at the bottom, in the nicest red ink, the following note:
Black oat crepes with kirsch, extra.