Tony believed in God. Not a gentle or kind God. No, Tony's God was the sort of God who would wreak vengeance on the wrongdoers: the men who have sex with men, the foreigners and the ones who believed in the wrong God. Tony was happy with his God, his God always agreed with Tony. He kept Tony safe.
"Cha, Char, Chai! come on stupid, a bloody cup of tea." Tony got his cup of tea and sat down with Chris his driver who had taken the easy option and chosen a can of Mitsubishi peach juice - easy to point at in the cold unit. "Bloody people, speak to them in their own language and they don't understand a word!" The Toyota was parked outside. The Japaneses still hadn't really got the hang of this technology business. Aa solid little vehicle that owed a debt to the tractor designers at John Deere and Massey Ferguson. It was a pick up with proper axles and, rather unusually, a drill on the back. Not a Black and Decker putting up a shelf drill and not a borehole to the centre of the earth drill. Something in between, something to drill a couple of metres into the desert floor to see what was there.
Breakfast done the two climbed aboard and drove across the tar and down the embankment onto the desert proper. "More or less North today, we'll drive 40 kms in and then start digging" - Tony squinted down the compass sight - "Take your direction from that Holoxylon bush there, I'll keep you on bearing - what's the oddometer say?"
40kms of bumpy but uneventful desert later the Toyota stopped by the side of nothing in particular. Flat, grey, gravelly desert with an odd smattering of little bushes in every direction. Chris climbed out from behind the big steering wheel, set the engine on the drill going and hoisted the rig from its sleeping position to vertical. Once upright out went the stabilisers, he set the auger head turning and gently arranged the whole contraption for digging deep into the sandy gravel. The suspension creaked as the drill lifted the car a few centimetres into the air before the universe reverted to normal and everything settled back in to place. The sun shone, the engine putted and Tony sat on his angler's fold up stool rolling the dirt that came from the auger on a bit of hardboard, spraying it with water from a little bottle to see if it would roll into strips, checking the colour against something like a Dulux colour chart that featured nothing but greys and browns. He probably knew why. On the radio Radio Tehran, broadcasting in English, was recounting the story of how much it had cost to put out the fire in the mound of dung underneath a sloth in the USA. The sound drifted out into the shimmering stillness. Chris watched absolutely nothing at all happen in the landscape as he occasionally pushed or pulled a lever, pressed a button even. "That's two metres, let's pack up and move on."
Compass bearing 357º was not an enthralling route. The pick up bounced across the gravel hitting the occasional pothole or bush. Every kilometre or so they stopped. The stool was unfolded, the water bottle readied and the car creaked again. More of the virgin desert was violated and penetrated. A dozen holes was good going. It was just after noon and they'd left the caff at around 6am. The day was warming up nicely.
"One more for good measure?" asked Tony, "May as well, not a lot going on back at the camp." They set off. Chris glanced at the radio.
The car exploded.
The fire extinguisher broke loose and smashed the windscreen. The two men left their seats, touched the roof and dropped roughly back into place. The water carrier on the bench seat pirouetted past Chris's knee before settling on the rubber matting by the clutch pedal. It started to drip. A thin veil of dust formed a sparkling curtain as it settled back into new nooks and crannies.
"OK?" "Yeah, I'm OK! - what happened - you OK?" It was only a small gully, maybe 50cms deep. Gravity ensured that the car plunged in but one of Newton's other laws, who can remember which one's which? - that one about a body in motion remaining in motion - came into play too and the Toyota climbed out of the hole almost before it had dropped into it. The engine cut out. The two men clambered out and looked at the truck. Apart from the smashed windscreen it looked fine. The engine started too. But when they tried to drive away it all wobbled and creaked and groaned and complained and wouldn't steer. Standing a few metres in front of the car it was easy to see what was wrong. One wheel was pointing towards Mecca and the other towards New Dehli.
"Looks like we're walking then." "Walking, you are joking, we've got 5 litres of water it's 50ºC and it's nearly 60kms to the road!" "God will take care of us" Expletive deleted, in fact lots of expletives deleted, indeed the two colleagues never ever again spoke civilly to each other. Not even a Christmas card.
For now though they were talking. Sitting by the side of the car and waiting for someone seemed like a good option. Shade. No exertion. Tyres to burn and lots of petrol to set them alight should they need to signal to anyone. But Tony was still for walking.
A magic moment. Chris liked car rallying. His mum sent him the Motoring News each week. Sometimes when he collected it from the Post Office in the nearest town the censor had been through it with a big thick felt tip. You wouldn't think there was a lot to censor in the Motoring News but the censor didn't agree and he obviously enjoyed his job. The censor hadn't touched the report about the East African Safari rally. Someone - Mikkola, Makinen or Aaltonen - he couln't remember - had smashed his car up in practice somewhere on a mud track in Kenya. They'd driven home backwards dragging the injured front wheels behind them.
"We came in on a compass bearing, why can't we go out on one? We've only got 5 litres of water but we've got 25 gallons of petrol. As long as it does more than 2 miles to the gallon we're home free." Tony had a quick consult with the Almighty and agreed the plan. Together they bounced the car about until the tailgate was pointing South, pointing home, going back the way they'd come. Tony sat on the back and shouted when they began to drift off line. They bounced the car into position again. The water was soon gone. Dusk lasts no time in Arabia and night came quickly. Chris's grandad told him that when he was in North Africa, fighting Rommel and bartering his army issue vest for eggs, that it was freezing in the desert overnight. It's true, in December it's chilly but this was springtime. The foxes and gerbils squeaked through the night. Every now and then Chris, or Tony, turned on the headlights just to check that the strange shrieks were nothing more sinsiter than a hedgehog losing the grim battle for life.
It was twenty four hours or so since they'd left the café. A bit longer since they'd eaten. They were both peckish and thirsty. They were tired too and bouncing the car around to keep it on bearing became harder and harder and took longer and longer. They considered just driving backwards, going for it. Eventually they'd bump into the road but, only the other day, they hadn't bothered to follow even a rough compass direction home and the journey that had been 70kms from tarmac into the desert took over 150kms on the way home. Going backwards, dragging the front wheels they may run out of fuel even if they went in a reasonably straight line and anyway with the steering shattered they may end up going in a circle. So it wasn't an option, lifting the front of that car up, lining it up on the bearing and dropping it into position was the only option. It got hotter and hotter. They tried the water in the windscreen washer bottle and in the radiator of the drill rig. At first their urine had been quite palatable but there was less and less of it now, and it stank and the colour was wrong.
"I suppose they're looking for us?" "I suppose so but they wouldn't have a clue where we are really" "No." "No planes or helicopters or anything though" "No."
By now they weren't feeling so good. They weren't strong enough to bounce the car, it had to be jacked up, pushed off the jack and lined up. Sometimes that took four or five goes before the line was useable. The last jerry can had been emptied into the petrol tank a while ago. Neither one said anything to the other but both of them knew they weren't going much further. The moon was on the horizon, there were stars beginning to appear, twinkling, night was on the way and suddenly the truck was climbing a really steep and man made slope. The big balloon tyres on the back of the Toyota gripped the tarmac, crossed the white line and bounced past the petrol pumps by the café.
Tony had the head start because he was sitting on the tailgate but Chris wasn't far behind. He hadn't bothered to lock the car and he heard Tony. "Any chance of a cup of tea?" he asked the man behind the counter, "Tea, Cha, Char, Chai - Good God man don't you understand your own bloody language?
Nothing to do with Spain but have a look at my blogs at http://lifeincartagena.blogspot.com or http://lifeinculebron.blogspot.com for something that is
