All Through the Night

DOES no one ever sleep? All through the night the three camels shudder, shuffle, stomp. Wheezing wretches. Our old ram, his hapless stone-white coat matted with sand, shakes. He shakes in his half-sleep.

Today the palm trees were thrashed by the wind and the whirling sand. Fronds like great green wings flapping. Now in the dark they rattle like the devil.

I leave our oxen out of this. Sweet beasts. The soul of each is quiet and slow, but there is no quit in them. They care nothing for Kirghiz cactus and seldom stop to crop the patchy grass. Yes, they suffer the most when we slog through sand. And every day the sun beats down upon them. Yet they draw our carts without complaint. The rifles rattle but the boxed shells are silent. Properly padded. Mortar launchers locked down. The shrapnel bombs secure in cast-iron cylinders. Meanwhile we tell ourselves the sun is but a blade, glinting when we risk a direct look. It’s the same sheen as those lean slants of light you see, here and there, on the mountains far away.

Even the captain says our damn camels are worse than a tribe of Turks. But, do you know, we hear the Bedouins love these louts! They must be mad. Never quiet, ours drag their shadows across the desert. All three with their skulls full of schemes. Winking at their only friends, the flies. Each is a tyrant in its troubled soul.

At midday they took no notice of the wind, though it raised sand clouds glittering red and gold under the sun; not even when the storm lowered, when it swirled, bright and sharp, among us. It nearly blinded us as we drove our caravan into camp. Finding these few trees. The insurgents’ deep well. And what we thought was their commandant’s abandoned tent.

Still we had to rope those shuddering fiends. Drag them with us, keening with contempt. Only to discover the raven-haired woman as she flung open the flap. There she halted, glossy and sullen. Her large sultry eyes shaming us. We dropped the ropes at our feet and approached her.

Straddling the opening—her boots of better leather than ours— she fumbled for the knife hidden in the folds of her blouse. But she slashed the air between us only twice. Then without a word— abruptly—she handed me her fine-hewn blade. Like many at this late stage of our crisis it was carved of bone.

Proud thing. She stood stroking her silken blouse in the broad light so we must see it shimmer. Pursing her lips. Sulking. Her surrender felt more like a slap!

And who was this full-figured woman? Did she draw the vital water for their troops? No, she was their sacrifice. A radio sentry. Her silence gave the signal that we’d seized their well.

Later we heard our captain laughing in her tent.

Now, long past nightfall, the camels allow us no peace, although we long for rest. We ache for it. Nevertheless they amble over.

In vain we feed them a treat of their beloved figs. Listen, then, to those great jaws noisily knocking, as if the creatures were chewing their cud. In time they drop down to their knees, devoutly glum, their bulk bobbling, creaking to a halt over their haunches. Though they settle, each in its own heap, still they torment us—all but those happy two in the tent—with their damned rasping. Yes, and their guttural chock-chocking is no sweeter than a drunkard’s cough.

Finally, collapsed in our midst, the camels ease into their latenight hour of sniveling and spitting.

But see there?

Just beyond the well.

Our oxen doze like low blue hills.