I sighed. 'He's had a harder day than most of us. He's clapped out.'

'It leaves a hole in the line. I'll feel better when the moon comes up.'

We didn't have to wait that long. There was a yell from Konti and a startled cry of 'Hoi! Hoi! Hoi!' as someone strove to quieten a plunging camel. Then a couple of Tuareg came up from behind us, from up the valley. Half of that caravan had got past us without anyone knowing until Konti had bumped into someone.

I sat down, exactly where I was. 'Luke,' I said. 'I'm going to sleep.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

And so I went into Bilma by camel. Paul did, too, but Byrne walked after the first day. Konti walked all the time. These men were seemingly indestructible. Mokhtar had camped where he found us, but we continued the next day and, as Byrne had said, well into the darkness before we camped again.

Then Byrne began to walk, as did all the Tuareg, and I noted his feet were bare. He walked lithely by the side of the camel I rode. I said, 'Is it normal to walk?'

'Yeah.'

'All the way from Agadez to Bilma?'

'And back.' He looked up. 'We're all humble camel drivers – like the Prophet.'

I thought about it, thinking how quickly we had traversed that fastness in the Toyota. 'I would have thought it would be more efficient to use trucks.'

'Oh, sure.' He pointed ahead. 'Bilma produces 4000 tons of salt a year. The whole export job could be done with twenty 20-tonners. If this was Algeria they'd use trucks. The bastards in the Maghreb are nuts on efficiency when it's profitable.'

'Then why not here?'

'Because the Niger government is sensible. A camel can carry a seventh of a ton so, to shift a year's salt you need 28,000 camels. Like I said, a camel is a fragile animal – for every day's work it must have a day's rest. So – three months on the salt trail means another three months' resting-up time and feeding. That's six months, which takes care of the winter season. No one comes across here in summer. So you do have to have 28,000 camels because each makes but one journey. At $180 each that's a capital investment of better than five million dollars. Add harness, wrappings, drivers' pay and all that and you can make it six million.'

'God!' I said. 'It would certainly pay to use trucks.'

'I haven't finished,' said Byrne. 'A camel can last four years in the business, so that means 7000 new animals needed every year. Somebody has to breed them; guys like me, but more usually like Hamiada. What with one thing and another there's two million dollars going to the breeders from the Bilma salt trade. And Bilma's not the only source of salt. In the Western Sahara there's Taoudenni which supplies Timbouctou and the whole Niger Bend a rea – that's much bigger than the Bilma trade.' He looked up at me. 'So it's illegal to carry salt on trucks. It would ruin the traditional economy and destroy the structure of the desert tribes if trucks were allowed.'

'I see,' I said thoughtfully. 'Humanitarianism versus efficiency.' It made sense, but I doubt if a hard-headed City businessman would have agreed.

'Look,' said Byrne. The Kaouar.'

Stretching across the horizon was a well of mountains, blue-hazed with distance. 'Bilma?'

'Bilma,' tie said with satisfaction.

Half a day later I could see welcome tints of green, the first sight of vegetation since leaving Fachi, and soon I could distinguish individual date palms. Byrne hastened ahead to talk to Mokhtar, then came back. 'We won't go into Bilma -not yet,' he said. 'Kissack might be there and so we have to go in carefully. We'll stop at the salt workings at Kalala.'

Kalala proved to be a plain with heaps of soil thrown up from the salt workings. There were many men and more camels as several other caravans were in residence. Our camels were unloaded of their cargo and Byrne pointed out the sights. He indicated the group of men around Mokhtar. 'More Tuareg from the Air. I guess they'll be going back tomorrow. They look ready.' He swung around. Those guys, there, are Kanuri up from Chad. Salt is the most important substance in Africa. If the animals don't get it they go sick. The Kanuri from Chad are cattlemen, so they need salt. So are the Hausa from around Kano in Nigeria.'

'How long has this been going on?'

'I wouldn't know. A thousand years – maybe more. You stay here, Max; see that Paul doesn't wander. I'm going into Bilma to borrow a truck – I want to retrieve the Toyota. Also to see if Kissack is here.'

'Be careful.'

'I'm just another Targui,' he said. 'The veil is useful.'

He went away and I collected Billson and we went to look at the salt workings. Billson had improved a lot Although a long camel ride is not popularly regarded as being a rest cure, there is no doubt that it is when compared to running up and down sand dunes. Mokhtar had provided an ointment of which Byrne approved, and the angry inflammation around Paul's wound had receded.

Paul had improved in spirit, too, and for a man who normally kept a sulky silence he became quite chatty. Maybe the desert had something to do with it.

Looking down at the salt pans was like viewing a less salubrious section of Dante's Inferno. Salt-bearing earth was dug from pits and thrown into evaporating pans where an impure salt was deposited on the surface as the water evaporated under the hot sun. This, laboriously scraped away, was packed into moulds and shaped into pillars about three feet high.

Paul said suddenly, 'You know, it's the first time that bit of the Bible has made sense – about Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt. I've never understood about a pillar of salt until now.'

I thought of the caravan trails across the Sahara and wondered if salt from Bilma had found its way to ancient Israel. It was improbable – the Dead Sea was saltier than other seas – but the method of manufacture was probably old.

We went back to the caravan and rested. The camels were resting, too, and some of them were lying flat on their sides after they had been unloaded. I had never seen camels do that 1 was studying one of them when Mokhtar passed. He saw my interest and struggled for words. After a lot of thought he came out with 'Fatigue – tres fatigue.'

I nodded. If I'd walked for a month, sixteen hours a day, I'd be bloody tired, too. But Mokhtar had walked and he looked as fresh as a daisy. The camel's ribs were showing through its hide. I said, 'It's thin – meagre' I patted my own flank, and repeated, 'Maigre.'

Mokhtar said something in Tamachek which I couldn't understand. Seeing my incomprehension, he took the camel's halter and brought it to its feet. He beckoned, so I followed him as he led the camel about a quarter of a mile to a stone trough which was being laboriously filled with water from a well.

The camel dipped its head and drank. It drank for ten minutes without stopping and filled out before my eyes. It must have drunk more than twenty gallons of water and when it had finished it was as plump and well-conditioned a beast as I'd seen.

Byrne did not come back until mid-morning of the next day, but he came in the Toyota. Apart from the smashed windscreen it looked no different than before it had been shot up, but then, it had looked battered to begin with. A few holes were neither here nor there, and a difference that makes no difference is no difference.

Billson and I were well rested – a good night's sleep does make a difference – but for the first time Byrne looked weary. I said, 'You need sleep.'

He nodded. 'I'll rest this afternoon and sleep tonight, but we have something to do first. Get in.'

I climbed into the Toyota and Byrne let out the clutch. As we drove away a breeze swept through the cab. 'It's going to be draughty from now on,' I said. 'Where are we going?'