Taj and the Great Camel Trek Read online

  Jess Young bagged four bronze-winged pigeons while we were gone. I didn’t have to pluck them for everyone agreed it was my birthday; Alec did it instead. Peter made a very good birthday and Eid dinner. Besides damper we had pigeon stew. ‘We had dates to eat during Eid in Peshawar,’ Padar said. Jess Young nodded for he knew what they were. Then he crossed to his bedroll for the concertina. I’m glad he didn’t have to leave it at Boundary Dam. They sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and, as I feared, they wanted me to say something. Padar had taught me poems but how would I recite them? I didn’t know the English words. Padar recited a verse that a famous Persian poet called Hafiz wrote:

  A poet is someone who can pour Light into a cup and raise it to nourish your beautiful parched holy mouth.

  The words sparkled like jewels but they didn’t help me. ‘Say your poem in Persian, beta, then the meaning will come.’

  I picked up my mug and pretended I was gulping down my tea but really it was my panic. Then I started. ‘This is a poem about a wild deer.’ I said the first line in Persian and then I could see it in my mind in the words I was learning with Alec. In the end I didn’t have to think about it at all – just a line of Persian and then the line in English.

  Hello, O wild deer of the desert, where are you? For I can see that in this desert is only confusion Having no oasis of joy, no happy green profusion...

  Mr Giles clapped when I finished and the men joined in. Jess Young was looking at me thoughtfully. Then he said, ‘You are a clever chap, aren’t you?’

  I couldn’t think of words to say and Alec answered for me. ‘You sound surprised, Jess.’ Alec smiled at me as if he had taught me the poem himself. Birthdays were good and I wondered why I didn’t remember my mother singing me that birthday song.

  The first of October was a very difficult day in two ways. The first was due to a hot tornado that blew from the west all day. We had to stay in our tents. Tommy and Peter were in the tent with Padar and me, and the pups played around our feet. I felt like a pigeon cooking in one of Peter’s pots in the coals. The tent was open on the ends and let in all kind of dust and grit. We had to eat with a cloth over the food.

  The weather didn’t bother Tommy. He was playing a game with Peter. He had small pieces of bark and stone, leaves, a small bone or two. He laid them out for Peter to see for a few seconds and then he swept them from sight. Peter tried to remember what was there. ‘’Tisn’t fair, Tommy. It weren’t long enough by half – put ’em out longer.’ But Tommy wouldn’t budge, just laughed, while Peter tried again.

  The second difficulty was of a different nature. I was thinking of my mother and, since we were sitting out the storm and I had Padar’s attention, I asked him another question. ‘Why didn’t my mother give me a birthday?’

  I had no idea those simple words would open a gate wide enough for a herd of camels to stampede through. Padar considered me for a while and then began: ‘Your mother was very young when I married her, not many years older than you. She did things mostly as I had always done. She had very few ways of her own. Perhaps she had never had a birthday herself.’

  ‘But didn’t she come from England, the same place as Mr Giles?’

  ‘Not truly. Ireland is different from England. A place so poor the people sent their daughters away to a strange land with no male relative to look after them. I wept when I heard how she had been treated. Whatever hardships we had in Afghanistan we never sent our daughters away. If they became orphans, as your mother did, then their uncle cared for them and found them a husband. Your mother, she was working at the mission near Beltana when I heard of her circumstances and I felt it my duty to look after her.’

  He smiled. ‘She was beautiful, but more so after some good mutton. They only ate potatoes in her country and they even ran out of those.’ Padar shook his head.

  ‘And so she married you.’

  ‘She desired the match.’

  I could imagine that. Padar was a handsome man and he was kind.

  ‘She never prayed as we do. She said she could not stop being a Catholic but she promised to allow you to say your prayers with me. She was a good wife, she never talked to other men. She even liked the camels, especially Sher Khan and Khushi.’

  We were quiet while I built up the courage to ask the next question. Did I dare ask why she left? But I couldn’t for Padar said something that snatched my words away. ‘Two wives I have had and both are gone.’

  It took me a moment to comprehend what he had said. ‘Two? What do you mean, Padar?’

  He regarded me. ‘In Peshawar I had a wife. We had a son.’

  I had a brother?

  ‘Then I heard my wife had died and my brother adopted Jamil – he would be as old as Alec now.’ Padar was quiet and I thought of the way Alec could never do a thing wrong in Padar’s eyes.

  ‘You’ve never been back.’ I didn’t mean it to sound accusing but Padar sighed.

  ‘I sent money to them, there was not enough to save for a passage on a ship.’

  ‘Will I ever see him, my brother?’

  ‘Inshallah. Perhaps you will become a successful trader. Perhaps you will return and see your family, and say salaam from Saleh and bring back an Afghan wife. I was always sorry I wasn’t allowed to bring my family when I first came but the opportunity for work was good.’

  ‘If you had brought them you wouldn’t have had me.’

  He smiled. ‘Perhaps not and I could not imagine a life without you in it, Taj.’ I was still reeling from hearing such news that it took me a moment to register his next comment. ‘Nor could your mother.’

  My mother? It wasn’t true. I realised I’d shouted it aloud. ‘That’s not true!’

  Padar pulled up his head in shock: I rarely raised my voice to him in anger.

  ‘Taj?’

  ‘My mother left. She didn’t love me or she wouldn’t have gone.’

  Padar’s eyebrows grew close. I watched him carefully; I wasn’t going to let him tell me nice words to calm me down. Now I wanted an answer. But he was perplexed. ‘What do you mean, beta? You think she had a choice?’

  I breathed slower. ‘She didn’t?’

  ‘No one chooses their time.’

  A glimmer of understanding came, but I didn’t truly want to know. It was what I always didn’t want to know. I vaguely remembered Peter listening, but I didn’t care. ‘She left to visit friends.’

  ‘Yes, she did, but–’

  ‘See? She never came back, never loved me enough to return.’

  I couldn’t stay there any longer and as I ran out into the storm I saw an inkling of why she didn’t return, the knowledge I had always run away from. Not long after my mother had left, a few weeks perhaps, I came into the hut. Padar had been weeping; the tracks were still on his face. ‘Has Mother come back?’ I asked, and he shook his head. He was calling my name as I ran out the door.

  The wind was wild and I hid behind Mustara. It was what Emmeline and I did in the dust storm in early May. A cold nose pushed into my hand; Asad had followed me. Mustara grunted. His nostrils were closed to the dust; one set of his eyelids were shut but he could still see me. I burrowed in until the wind died a little.

  Later, Padar’s hand on my head stirred me. ‘Beta, I thought you knew. When you wouldn’t talk about it I thought you understood, but perhaps you were too young, after all.’ Then Padar wept. He knelt and clutched me to him. He said sorry and I felt the warm shaking of him, giving me a truer memory, for mine was faulty.

  When we drew apart Padar said, ‘I am sorry that due to my cowardice you believe your mother did not love you. She did, very much. She would have returned if she could.’

  ‘What happened?’ It was just a whisper but I finally wanted to know even if the listening hurt.

  ‘Your mother was happy that day – she was visiting friends at the mission. While she was there s
ome Wirangu people came in with the typhoid fever and she helped nurse them. She became ill also. She never recovered. They told me when they could, but it was too late. They had already buried her. When I tried to tell you, you ran off.’

  ‘It was because I thought she didn’t want to come back and I didn’t want to hear it.’

  ‘And I thought you fled because you knew she had died and didn’t want the words spoken. I told myself I would leave it until you were ready. It is a very sorry thing.’ I hugged him again.

  ‘Your mother loved you very much – she sang you songs.’

  ‘Cockles and mussels?’

  ‘So you did remember – I wondered.’ He frowned. ‘It is a difficult song for me, not only because she sang it but because it tells her story, for truly she was a fisherman’s daughter and she died of a fever.’

  The wind had lost its force though it was still blowing dust around. Tommy emerged from the tent with Dyabun at his heels and stared at us for a while before he went to the kitchen tent to help Peter clean up the dirt.

  The wind stopped the next morning and the weather was cooler. Since camels don’t drink when you want them to, Alec and Mr Tietkens took three camels loaded with water to leave in canvas troughs covered with tarpaulins twenty-five miles away; the camels could fill up on the way. ‘Can I go too?’ I asked Padar.

  He looked at me kindly but he shook his head. ‘There is much work to do.’ Didn’t he know I needed to get away? It was strange to be in a desert and still feel it closing in on me. I comforted myself by finding Mustara.

  Mustara and Asad were funny to watch. Mustara brought his long neck down and pretended to bite Asad, but Asad hung onto Mustara’s neck until he was lifted up high. Mustara tried to shake him off, but Asad yapped and dug his claws in. It sounded as if he was laughing. When Mustara finally threw Asad off and he landed between Mustara’s legs, Mustara didn’t step on him. That’s how I knew Mustara liked him. Salmah would have crushed him with her feet so I kept Asad away from her, and from Rani and the older bulls too.

  Alec said I should try to write more words for myself while he was away. This is what I wrote:

  Sunday, 3 October 1875.

  It is lonely without Alec. Tommy sat with me at the fire. He played a game with me. Today I saw a hawk, a crow, a magpie and a pigeon. And a scorpion. Mustara is big now and he likes Asad. They play games.

  I didn’t write anything about my mother, I kept the knowledge close inside me. It made me feel warm in a place I had been cold for too long.

  Many things happened the next day: only some were good. Tommy found some long sword-like weapons and brought five of them to camp. They were flat and made from wood and decorated with carvings. Some of the swords were seven feet long. I have heard stories of people being speared by such a weapon. It was very disturbing to see them. Jess Young was very interested and he kept a look out all day on the sandhills with his gun.

  Peter did the shooting this time since Jess Young was busy keeping watch. He shot a different bird – like a crow except it was grey. So we had that in soup with our damper in the evening.

  Tommy found a nest of scorpions. They strutted into our camp as though we had food they’d like. They had an interesting track on the sand, and Asad thought they would be good to play with but I made sure he kept his distance from those swaying tails.

  Perhaps because my attention was on the scorpions I didn’t sense the other danger. It was Tommy who caught my attention. ‘Taj.’ He motioned to me to keep still, yet he didn’t look worried, and then I heard the sound of scales scraping across the sand. Asad barked joyfully. The snake was so close; if I had kept moving in its direction I could have been bitten. Asad had it by the tail when Mr Giles hurried over.

  ‘We have to catch it. I can bottle it and show Adelaide what a desert snake is like. Taj, you head it off.’ But it was Tommy who rushed to help Mr Giles; I had never learnt my father’s skill with snakes.

  Both the dogs joined in. Tommy and Mr Giles seemed to be having fun but I watched from a distance. I think the pups got in Tommy’s way, for the snake slid away with just one bloody bite in his tail. ‘I wanted to methylate him, but it appears he has other ideas – an interview with his undertaker perhaps?’ Mr Giles sat down heavily, but he was laughing with Tommy.

  There was nothing I did that pleased Mr Giles as much as the things Tommy could do. But I was thankful that this time Tommy warned me.

  That evening Padar decided to teach Tommy about the moon. ‘The moon travel east to west, he like the sun – sun travel west too.’

  Tommy shook his head. ‘Moon go the other way.’

  ‘Never,’ Padar said. ‘How could that be?’

  Peter Nicholls was asked. ‘Good Lord, I don’t know. It must go the same as the sun. It sets in the west, don’t it?’

  So Tommy asked Mr Giles. Jess Young had his smirk in place when Mr Giles answered. ‘The moon goes the opposite way to the sun, Tommy.’

  Tommy sighed with satisfaction. ‘I told Saleh.’

  Mr Tietkens was laughing by then and I thought Padar would have been used to Mr Giles enough to know he was joking, but still he became upset. ‘How can you say such a thing, Mr Gile? The moon, he special, and goes the same way as the sun.’

  Mr Giles laughed too. ‘Anyone would think I was trying to convert you to Christianity, Saleh. Look at Tommy – he knows enough about the stars and the planets, the sun and the moon, just like you and me.’ Sometimes Mr Giles said surprising things; it was as if he was telling Padar not to worry about Tommy even if he didn’t know the right path of the moon, for he could find his way in the desert himself. It made me remember how Tommy found all those water places. He didn’t use the sun like Mr Giles, or the moon like Padar, he sang songs. It was as if the songs and the land itself guided him.

  I checked my bedroll carefully before sleeping that night. The thought of that snake made me shudder. I also didn’t want to get bitten by a scorpion and lose my finger like Padar. Asad licked my nose and settled down with me, but I knew he would get out in the night to pee.

  In the morning I couldn’t find Asad. I checked to see if he was playing with Mustara. He wasn’t with Dyabun either, for he was nosing around near the cold campfire. Peter’s kitchen area was my first place to check as both pups liked Peter and his scraps of dried beef. ‘Have you seen Asad?’

  ‘No, Taj. Have you tried in the scrub?’

  It was Jess Young who found Asad. The pup was under a bush near my bed roll, hidden from view. But he was lifeless, beside him a dead scorpion.

  ‘Looks as though he saved you from a sting, Taj. And he managed to kill the scorpion after it stung him.’ Jess Young was kinder than I thought he would be. He rested his hand on my shoulder. ‘A hound once saved my life too, Taj, at the sacrifice of his own.’

  I didn’t think I would feel so much. I was the desert after a dust storm had blown through, desolate and dry. Jess Young must have told the others for Padar came and took the pup and buried him in the sand. I went to Padar and helped put the rocks on top of the grave. Asad had been my friend for so short a time.

  It was a strange feeling for Padar and me. Neither of us had buried my mother and having spoken about that so recently brought it to mind. It felt as though we were finally able to do so and I wept more than I would have for Asad. The others watching must have thought I loved my pup very much to show such grief, but you never know what is happening inside people.

  Tommy came to say sorry. He stood staring at me. I didn’t want him there. Everything went well for Tommy. He was always happy. Mr Giles loved him; he could find water and follow tracks. I didn’t want his sympathy when he still had a pup of his own. A voice inside me said I was being unfair but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t be happy I was saved from a scorpion. So I ignored Tommy until he went away.

  Regardless of losing a pup and d
iscovering my mother had died and that I had a brother on the other side of the world, I was still on an exploring expedition and expected to do my work. Alec and Mr Tietkens returned and even though Asad was only just buried we had to leave Queen Victoria Spring. We headed straight for Mount Churchman but I didn’t notice much going on about me. Alec said how sorry he was when he heard about the pup, and I managed a small smile for him. I spent the day in confusion: sad one minute, the next, glad I was loved by my mother. I even wondered what my brother, Jamil, was like. Would he be like Alec? Perhaps I could write him a letter.

  That night we camped in the scrubs and sandhills where Alec and Mr Tietkens had left the troughs of water. It was just enough to fill up the camels. Jess Young was interested in the eucalyptus trees with yellow bark. He collected some flowers and added them to his collection of plant samples.

  Mustara kept giving me kisses on my head and blowing around my ears. He knew I was sad about Asad. It was generous of him when he had lost a friend as well.

  The next day we camped at the base of a hill. It was the first hill we had seen in 800 miles since Mount Finke. Mr Giles said the hill was 200 feet high. ‘It’s made of granite,’ he said. ‘Sometimes where there is granite there is water, like at Wynbring.’

  I wasn’t as interested as I should have been. I helped search among the large granite rocks but, as usual, there was no water.

  Tommy found some wallaby traps made of long lines of sticks and bushes. ‘Them wallabies get hunted, then he come alongside the fence. He try jump out but end up in trap.’ Tommy made a slapping noise with his hands. ‘Then he get bumped on the head.’

  I wished we’d found a wallaby. It would make a change from salty dried beef. I daydreamed about Padar’s mutton curries.