Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale (35 page)

What the Coco-nut King had just told me revealed the truth to me in a blinding flash. What the whole world calls ‘hashish’ is officially called
‘charas’
in the Indian Empire. I saw how useful this name would be to me, for I could use it in all circumstances where the name ‘hashish’ would
raise insurmountable difficulties. Ternel was right: I had been very lucky to meet him. The word
‘charas’
which he had just uttered decided my future. The vague idea of going to India which I had conceived after my last conversation with Stavro became an unshakable resolution.

That very evening Ternel departed on his luxurious liner. He had played his part as the puppet of destiny which was to engage me on what turned out to be the most extraordinary adventure in my whole life. I kept his address in Bombay. Perhaps it would be useful to me when he returned there, not after making his fortune, but after losing his illusions about the success of tropical drinks in the Tuileries Gardens.

At last I put to sea
en route
for Djibouti. The summer was nearly over, and for three months I had had no news of my family. So this adventure so audaciously begun was ended. It had succeeded probably just because it was so crazy. I had braved dangers because I did not suspect their existence. The extraordinary self-possession which this ignorance had given me had routed all logical forecasts as to the result, and had kept me from falling under suspicion. I had had confidence in the natural following of effects from causes, all the time I had felt I was going towards success. The single example of the finding of the empty packing-case before I reached Kosseir was enough to make me muse on the reality of free will. After so many years of barren struggle, here was success at last. I was homeward bound with a tidy sum of money and with my head humming with plans for increasing it and so realizing the dream of my life – complete independence.

I should have been merry as a sand-boy. I should have been dancing and singing to express my satisfaction. But, no, I felt no joy; I was in a vague condition of mind in which I felt bored, and tried to cheer myself up by thinking of the dangers of the future. We carry our Wandering Jew in our own hearts. No rest, never a halt on the burning road beside
the bubbling spring; only a hasty mouthful of water drunk from cupped hands, and forward again along the dusty path.

It is as if our souls had the power to produce each feeling from its opposite. Joy develops fear and adversity hope. These reactions give a sort of negative state, or rather a neutral state into which we always fall after a short spell of violent emotion. This was how I explained to myself my anxiety and absence of joy after the realization of my dreams. I was unconsciously getting ready to face the dangers before me.

The day after we left Massawa, just as twilight was merging into night, we met a
boutre
coming up from the south. She passed less than a cable’s length from us, and we recognized a large
zaroug
from Tajura. As usual we shouted any news we had to each other. The
nacouda
had been asleep, but he awoke and I saw his tall form in the stern when we had already passed each other and were rapidly separating. He cried:

‘Your son – the white
boutre
– Obock — not found…’

And then the distance became too great, and I heard no more.

‘What?’ I shrieked in my turn, ‘what’s that you’re saying?’

But it was no use: we were too far apart; the wind carried off the sound of human voices and left us isolated in the darkness. I wanted to veer round and go after the
boutre
, to learn the truth about the awful suspicion which had just entered my mind. But they were already more than a mile away. The
zaroug
had a larger spread of sail than we had, and I risked wasting a whole night before finding her. And, after all, perhaps I had misunderstood. I asked my men, but none of them had heard anything exact. I went on towards the south. For a week those few disjointed words hummed in my ears, and I kept trying to think what they could mean. At last I was within the reef of the roads of Obock, where I met a
houri
out line-fishing.

‘What news?’ I cried as we passed.

‘Your son was drowned a month ago. Didn’t you know?’

The brutal phrase struck me to the heart, but I wasn’t surprised. These seven days of anguished worry had already prepared me for the shock. The fisherman told me how it happened.

He had set out with a friend, a young soldier of about his own age, attached to the Wireless Service at Djibouti, on board the
Ibn-el-Bahar
, which I had left at Djibouti. They intended to go and spend Sunday at Obock.

I had strictly forbidden Lucien, my adopted son, to take out this
boutre
, no matter what the weather was like. I was afraid of the sudden gusts of wind so frequent in the hot season, which would be fatal to so light a vessel in inexperienced hands. I hardly dare, admit it, but I could not help thinking that this ship had been marked out for a tragic destiny. I remembered the shipwreck, which had been attributed to the presence of the bad-luck-bringer Djobel on board.

Neither my son nor his friend was a sailor, and they did not realize the very real danger of going out to sea in this season of unsettled weather. They thought I had forbidden them to touch the
boutre
just to show my parental authority, and keep them from enjoying themselves. One of my old sailors, whom I had had to leave behind at Djibouti for matrimonial reasons, helped them to rig up a mast and a sail, and all three set off one Saturday for Obock. The night wind blew them safely along, and they arrived on Sunday morning.

At this season the khamsin rises on the Dankali coast about four in the afternoon, and blows with extreme violence. They meant to leave the same evening, and thought with this favouring wind to reach Djibouti in a few hours. On that particular day the khamsin had been heralded by abnormal sand-clouds, and soon it threw itself on the Gulf with the fury of a hurricane. When my son saw the clouds and whirlwinds of sand he realized that the
boutre
would never hold the sea in such a wind, but the young soldier had come without leave, and he was afraid of being punished if he were not back by Monday morning. He insisted on starting. What had they to fear with a following wind? The Somali sailor made some objections, but the insistence of this European and the indecision of my son overcame them, and he agreed with fatalistic calm to try their luck.

At five o’clock the rash trio set sail taking with them three sacks of coal for the mess kitchen at Djibouti. They had hardly rounded the point of the reef when the storm burst upon them. The sail, though it had been hauled half-way down the mast, bore them onward at delirious speed, and in a flash the
boutre
disappeared into the sandy fog. Less than a mile from shore the sea got very rough, a roll set the ship off her course, and a gust caught her broadside and sent her staggering. Abruptly she turned over. The unlucky soldier could not swim, and instinctively he remained clinging to the
boutre
, whose hull floated on the surface of the water. My son and
the Somali foolishly abandoned the wreck, hoping to be able to reach the coast and give the alarm, so that help could be sent to the unfortunate boy who was drifting out to sea. Each of them took a sack of coal to hold on to, and they began to struggle against wind and wave. In spite of their efforts the whirlwind would have borne them off beyond possibility of return, but a few hours later it died away. The two shipwrecked men swam towards the land; which was about two miles off. For four hours they struggled on, calling to each other at intervals so that they could remain together. At last, just as dawn was breaking, the Somali reached the coastal reef. He called my son a last time, but there was no answer. He then saw the sharks swarming round, and he understood… If he had been one moment longer in the water, nobody would have been left to tell the tale.

In the early morning this sole survivor reached the Residency at Obock, half dead. He dared not at once admit that he had abandoned the soldier clinging to the wreck. He could not have done anything else, and he had acted in the hope of bringing help. However, the fear of questionings by Europeans is so great that the natives seldom dare to tell the whole truth. Perhaps he was ashamed of being alive when his two companions were dead. Perhaps he had other reasons; nobody will ever know. When at last the truth had been wrested from him, many hours had passed, the western monsoon had been blowing violently for a long time, and the wreck to which the unfortunate soldier had been clinging was far out to sea. For three days the two coastguard ships cruised out at sea, but in vain. The sea never gave up what she had taken.

Later, I received a heart-broken letter from a poor old man, postman in a village in Limousin. He still hoped that his only son would be found, since the Administration had written to him merely that he had disappeared. I replied with intentional vagueness, so that hope could die slowly and naturally in the old father’s heart.

Now, when the khamsin blows, the waves seem to me to be rolling the exhausted body of this poor boy along, and I hear his last cry coming from a swirl of blood-stained foam.