大象传媒

DESERT ENCOUNTER
He seemed a man of quick intelligence, robust in his nature. In the melting pot of war,
perhaps the gods ordain that special individuals stay out of the crush, to avoid being
distorted or adulterated by too close contact with humanity or overwhelming circumstance.
In occupied Europe, most likely, this man would have been fighting a losing battle in
some ghetto, or slowly losing human form, changing to a ghastly caricature, with
large shaven bony skull and matchstick limbs, shrunken torso clothed in striped rags,
inmate of a concentration camp.
In this desert setting, there was a cleanness, an austerity which would preserve him.
He would have to contend with desert heat, discomfort, boredom, bites and stings of
crawling and flying creatures; he would drink too much fiery alcohol, but he would
remain whole.
The knife had a broad blade and sharp tip. It shone bright in the lamplight as he
drew it from its sheath with a deliberate movement. The backs of his hands had rufous
hairs and he demonstrated the blade's sharpness on them. He lifted his head and his
eyes sought direct contact with mine. Was it imagination or were his eyes different?
The atmosphere had been friendly as we sat drinking the night away but he was not
smiling now. In a moment of heightened awareness I seemed to see into his mind,
conditioned by the history of his race; millennia of wandering the face of the earth,
centuries of oppression, and, in his own lifetime, precipitous flight from the country of
his birth. I looked again at those unsmiling eyes and a tick of imaginative fear stirred

in me. What if the framework of his mind slipped and he sought redress in this tent
for all the wrongs done to himself and his race?
The paraffin pressure lamp on the tent pole hissed and plopped. I shifted in my seat.
Perspiration streamed down my neck and lost itself clammily in the tucks of khaki
drill round my waistband. The atmosphere was tense. I gulped a mouthful of spirit
from the enamel mug in my hand and as I gulped, the sound seemed thunderous. He
knew, he must know, the trepidation I was feeling. Was it true that any expression of
fear before man, or animal for that matter, calls forth aggression? I was in a funk and
I felt he was aware of it.
With my unsullied mind which had suffered no worse upset in my whole existence
than a gentle introduction through Territorial service to embodiment in the wartime
Army 'for the duration', and after long training, a fierce battle at EI Alamein, our
baptism of fire in the Western desert, lasting a fortnight non stop, which violence had
not yet impinged on my psyche. I had feared only the unknown, the dark menace from
across the frontiers to the North in 'Occupied Europe', with its tales of widespread
torture, its massive enslavement of peoples. Until this moment, in an isolated tent in
the Boulder desert. His expression was unreadable. Was I doing him an injustice? Was I
suffering more from the loneliness than he was?
We had travelled East from Alexandria in Egypt, our destination Iraq, in a
convoy of high canvassed trucks carrying the platoons of infantry of the battalion to which
my Signal troop was attached. We crossed EI Hamad, the desert of Jordan and Syria, a
Journey

in dust clouds raised from the pulverised floor of the desert, which left the platoons
of infantrymen with yellowed faces and parched throats. The road had been macadam but
when this petered out, the track spread, at times fifty yards wide, the direction marked by
black tar barrels stretching ahead. A small huddle of mud walled huts on the route marked
what is now a large university complex. But at that time, the desert stretched pancake-flat
to the horizon on all sides.
We passed groups of tribesmen in robes and soiled white turbans, with hawk-like
features framed in tousled black ringlets. The younger ones smiled, showing white
teeth against their dark skin. Bandoliers criss- crossed their chests, knife hilts showed
from girdles, firearms hung loosely at their sides; ancient weapons, long-barrelled,
rusty, banded with brass or tin. Standing alongside the track they were part of a
different world.
Further on our journey, crossing the Boulder desert, one ofthe section trucks started
to overheat, with ominous clanking sounds from the engine. It seemed that no repair
could be effected on the spot. I made my way up the column to flag down the Adjutant
to whom I was responsible for my actions. He stopped and lifted his goggles from
his dust encrusted face. I asked permission to escort the lame duck to the nearest
Mechanical Aid Post. "Need you go yourself'. He squinted up at me, his eyes slitted
against the glare as he used his handkerchief to wipe the dust from his eyes. "Those
tribesmen we saw might take risks to get hold of service rifles. A slow truck on its
own would be a sitting duck".
He paused for a moment. "Take a fitter's truck with you and rejoin us at tomorrow
night's staging post".

The noise of the departing column faded and silence descended. I stood savouring my
release from convoy discipline. The sky was a hard blue. I screwed up my eyes to
counter the glare, The silence was palpable. I lingered, unwilling to break the spell of
this primeval scene of unmitigated harshness. Somewhere, somehow, there had to be
some purpose in all this emptiness. Perhaps in the seeking lay the answer.
I turned at last to organise my small convoy, pulling back onto the track, leading in my
jeep and waiting until the lame duck, clanking in protest, came up behind, followed
by the fitter's truck. The heat shimmered over the stony track, only slightly mitigated
by our slow passage.
Darkness gave relief from the heat of the day as we drove with dimmed
headlights along the track. A long time later, it seemed, lights bobbed in the darkness
ahead; men with hurricane lamps, we found as we came closer. Then more lights as
we reached the Aid Post; a cluster of tents, the dark shapes of trucks, a large
tarpaulin suspended horizontally on poles. This was the workshop, sheltered from the
sun by its awning.
We rolled to a stop and the mechanics clustered round us, clothed in sweat-stained
khaki drill, some of them shirtless in the hot night. Mostly they seemed to have
large mops of hair, in apparent defiance of the requirement for 'short back and sides'
as laid down by the army. There was a difficulty immediately. None of them spoke
in a recognisable tongue. The faulty engine clanked and then was silent as the driver
switched off the ignition. The noise of an engine with a collapsed big end bearing seems
to be a universal language however, and a mechanic took over from the driver. He
drove the truck under the tarpaulin and stopped the engine with its constant clanking.

The trouble of course, was in the sump and there was no inspection pit to make the
repaIr easy.
The mechanic crawled underneath on an outspread canvas sheet with an inspection
lamp and a handful of tools. The lights by now had drawn a cloud of winged insects
from the wann black darkness without, and these pinged against the cylindrical
glass of the lamps, throwing wild shadows across the pools of radiance. There were
creeping things toolmaking for the light. The mechanic was on his back, his anus
and shoulders bare, a target for bites and stings. His loathing for the creatures was
evident. His helplessness acted on us, drawing us in a protective ring round the
canvas sheet. We made a game of it, jocular as we thwarted the creepy crawlies.
A scorpion seemed determined to find a resting-place under the mechanic's shoulder
blades. Its speed of travel over the ground made it menacing; its appearance made it
loathsome, bone coloured like a human skull. I kicked it aside once as it ran in, its tail
over its back weaving about as though seeking its prey as it recovered and moved slewly
forward again towards the light. My attention was distracted momentarily as I watched
the mechanic at work and I was only just in time to stop its next rush. I kicked it aside
again and crushed it into the ground beneath my heel. I turned back to the circle of faces
round the vehicle, hearing the clink of tools from beneath, the breathing and occasional
grunts of effort, the smell of hot metal and oil.
A small night breeze blew against my face and the menace of the outer darkness
pressed on me. I felt vulnerable, silhouetted against the light, and turned from the truck.
The darkness enveloped me in a wann cloak, the spiced night air pressing on my face
like soft velvet. My imagination took me to distant places, to desert cities rearing high

mud walls above burning sands, to vast empty distances untrammelled by frontiers.
Above, the brightness of the stars pricked the bowl ofthe sky. The war raging over
two continents seemed remote; more interesting was the varied group of individuals
here, refugees from Nazism, too vulnerable as Jews to take part in fighting Germans
in the field.
I joined the sergeant in charge of the post. His bulk was generous, clothed in khaki
drill, sweat-stained, his hair and beard a flaming red; a rufous Jew, proclaiming the
mixed genes of his ancestry. He spoke a language about which I remained clueless
throughout.
In the tent I sat on the other side of his camp table under a pressure lamp suspended
on the tent pole. He poured araq, a colourless fiery liquid, into two mugs. We talked
as we drank, and understood not a word of each other's utterances. We were willing
enough, making up for our inability to communicate verbally by the quality and
abundance of our smiles, helped undoubtedly by the araq. What nationality did he
Claim? Rumanian, Hungarian, Austrian? He could be one of any half dozen Central
'European nationalities and I searched in vain for a clue. He sat across the table from me,
a stranger, vital, barbaric, save for his responsiveness. A faint wind stirred the canvas
and the warm scented air assailed my nostrils again. At a distance, the lights of the
repair bay shone, obscured at intervals by dark silhouettes. The normal familiar world
seemed remote.
The night wore on. I dozed several times, waking with a start. The sergeant kept my
glass filled to the brim. I drank a lot of araq but my mind stayed clear. The lamp hissed
and plopped, whilst moths with singed wings plummeted onto the table. My companion

talked and I listened. Sometimes I made a contribution. I spoke about England and my
family. He listened and smiled, apparently delighted that I had two sisters and
both parents still alive and that I came from the industrial North of England, but I am
sure he did not understand what I said.

Beyond him I could see the open tent door and the darkness stretching out beyond.
To the South, I knew, was the Empty Quarter, the Rub al Khali, fourteen hundred miles
of desert to the Indian Ocean. East, beyond our destinationlBaghdad, two thousand
miles of mountainous territory to the Himalayas. North and West was more desert.
It would be difficult to find a place more remote from the restraints of civilisation.
I gathered my thoughts for some sort of action to conquer my fear. I raised my mug in
a smiling salute. Across the table he loomed, large, vital, unfathomable. The moment
seemed to hang in the balance. I downed my drink almost convulsively. The
emotional tension inside me grew to unbearable proportions. I felt the whole world
would explode at any moment.
With a quick movement he flung his knife into the ground where it stood
quivering, and, whilst the lamp over our heads threw the shadow of is base on the
table, he threw back his head and laughed out loud, leaning back in his chair until
it creaked under the strain. He recovered and leaned forward to fill our mugs to the
brim and we drank once again to each other.
He got up from his chair at last and we left the tent, stumbling as our eyes adjusted
to the darkness outside, and our alcohol- induced unbalance disappeared. Guided by the

lights of the repair bay, we made our way across the camp to the trucks, ready for the
road now. We shook hands and talked as incomprehensibly as before. I climbed into
my jeep. A cool pre- dawn wind blew through the open side across my face, helping to
clear the fumes of alcohol. I leaned forward and started the engine. A grey rift lightened
the sky across the eastern horizon and a boulder ridge near at hand showed up dark and
menacing. My small convoy formed up and as full dawn came and the darkness rolled
away, we set offto catch up with the main convoy, my thoughts already turning to the
journey ahead, leaving behind a Mechanical Aid Post bereft of mystery and menace.
Clearly, down through the years, I see my rufous sergeant, vital, hirsute, with an
intelligence to which my own responded. My own intelligence!! Ah, an unusual
independence, a modicum of power over the lives of others; those years when all my
material needs were provided for, a mere trickle of creative thought needed each day
to keep my troop occupied and doing their individual tasks efficiently; what need had
there been for my intelligence? Safer far to leave it tucked out of harm's way 'for
the duration'. But, for the whole ofthat short nocturnal interlude it flowered, save
when my imagination ran riot, stimulated by more vital links than those of mere
speech.
What has happened to my night's companion? Did he survive to become the owner
of a garage chain spanning the highways of a rebuilt Europe? A most unlikely future.
Did he build highways and bridges or design cars in some vast industrial complex
to help rebuild and revitalise a post-war Europe? Perhaps he became a university
Professor in Mittel Europe or Israel. He may be a world famous musician, a sculptor,
an artist. My imagination knows no limits. My fancy, and it cannot be more than fancy,
would settle for one of these.

I am never likely to meet him again, and if! do, how will I recognise him? His muscles
will be slacker, his frame rounded, his face lined by age. But, and here, and again my
inner certainty comes to the fore, his intelligence, his aura of wholeness will still shine
out as it did that night in the tent in the desert.
Was he unaware, I wonder, of the momentary terror with which he filled the heart of
a callow Englishman. Or- upon reflection- did he know, and recognise the cause?

Neville Fane Brown.

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