Sergeant Sabah

One night in the summer after an extremely hot day, Jose and I were out having a walk in a cooler place outside away from home; this was the time of the day that the desert was actually much cooler, refreshing and pleasant.

It was also around the time that in the neighbourhoods of the Sahara people, they would bring their children and some food to have dinner outside. The time was in fact already quite late. 

We walked down almost to the cemetery on the outskirts of the town, under the moon we saw a group of young Sahara people gathering around in a crowd. As we passed through this group of people we actually saw a motionless Spanish soldier was lying on the floor, although his face was still very red but he looked dead. He had a big beard, wore a pair of riding boots and from his army uniform, we knew he was from the Desert Corps but there wasn’t any identifiable rank on his clothes.

He might have been lying there for a long time, the crowd around him were shouting in Arabic, playing tricks, spitting on him and they even stepped on his hand and were pulling his boots. One of the Sahara guys was wearing the Spanish soldier’s military cap playing drunk like a clown.

Against a soldier who could offer no resistance, the Sahara people were bold and presumptuous.

“Jose, quickly bring the car here.” I spoke to Jose with a low voice nervously looking around; I really hoped that there was another soldier or a Spanish civilian walking past but there were no other people around.

Jose ran back for the car and I kept staring at the gun on the soldier’s waist, if someone tried to touch his gun, I would scream out but I couldn’t figure out what should I do next.

That was the period of the time that the young people from the Sahara had already organised ‘Polisario People’s Liberation Line’ in the Western Sahara desert and their head quarters was located in Algeria. Almost all the young people in the town had set their hearts on them. Also the Desert Corps were seen as the deadly enemy of the local people here. At the time there had already been some extremely high tension between the Spanish and the Sahara people.

When Jose rushed up with the car here, we made a way through the crowd and dragged this drunken soldier to the car; this guy was a big strong fellow, it wasn’t easy to lift him into the car. By the time we settled him in on the back seat, we were already sweating all over; we shut the door while apologising and slowly drove away from the crowd but the roof of our car still hit a few times by people’s fists.

We were headed towards the nearby entrance of the Desert Corps, around the camp was extremely quiet and Jose was speedily driving the car too fast.

“Jose, flash your lights and press the horn, stop the car some distance away; we don’t know the password, our intentions may be misunderstood.”

Jose stopped the car far away from the guards, we quickly got out from our car and shouted in Spanish: “We are sending a drunk person to you, come to check it out!”

Two guards came running forwards, their guns had been immediately loaded and were pointing at us; we indicated to the inside the car without moving.

The two guards looked inside and they knew him of course, they immediately went inside the car and lifted him out while saying: “Him again!”

That was the moment, a searchlight shone on us from the high wall; I was very scared by the atmosphere and quickly went back to the car.

When Jose was about to drive off, the two guards made a salute to us and said: “Thank you! Home country man!”

On the way home, my heart still shuddered; it was the first time in my life that a gun had been pointed at me. Although it was our own forces, it still made me incredibly nervous. 

For the next few days, I was still thinking about that heavy precautions at the vigilant camp and the drunken soldier.

Not long after that, some colleagues of Jose came to visit our home. I poured out a big jar of milk from the fridge to show some hospitality to our guests.

These people saw the cold milk and quickly finished it all like drinking water, I rushed back to open another two cardboard cartons of milk.

“Echo, what are you going to do if we all drink up your milk?” Those two people looked at the milk with worry and felt embarrassed to keep drinking it.

“Don’t worry, just drink it up! You don’t usually have milk to drink.”

Food in the desert was the main subject of the conversation, the guests wouldn’t be satisfied until they had asked where the all the food was sourced from. 

When in the afternoon Jose’s colleagues finished all my cartons of milk but still saw by my face that I was not concerned at all, they finally asked me where it had come from.

“Huh! I know a place to buy it.” I smugly held back the story.

“Please tell us where!”

“Oh! You can’t go there and purchase it, if you want to drink milk, you have to come to our home!”

“We want a lot of it, Echo, please tell us!”

“I bought them from the Desert Corps cafeteria.”

“The military camp? You, a woman all by yourself went to the military camp to buy food?” They were shouting out loud with a stupefying look.

“Aren’t members of the army families also shopping there too? Of course I go there.”

“But you are just a normal civilian, you don’t qualify for it!”

“The people in the desert are different from the town, military and civilian are the same.” I said it with a laugh.

“Do the soldiers treat you politely?

“Very well indeed, much better than the people in the town.” 

“If you buy milk for us, would it be a problem?”

“No problem, let me have your list of how many cartons you want tomorrow!”

The next day when Jose got off from work, he gave me a list for the milk that was requested. The list also included eight single man’s names, everyone wanted me to supply them ten boxes of milk for every week, totally eighty boxes together.

I bite my lip when looking at the list, the big talk had already been done; I needed to buy eighty boxes milk from the military camp and it would be difficult to do so.

In this situation, I would rather lose face and buy them all in one go; it was better and less shameful to go there once to buy all the eighty boxes and never show up after that than buy ten each day.

The day after, I went to the cafeteria and bought a big package that contained ten cartons of fresh milk; I asked someone to help me out and to put them in the corner, then walked for awhile and returned back to buy another box, put it to the corner again and waited a few moments then went back to buy again; it took me four times coming and going to the cafeteria; the little soldier stood at the counter already felt a headache from it.

“Echo, how many times you still need to go in and out of here?”

“Just four more times, please be patient with me.”

“Why don’t you buy them all at one time? You want to buy milk don’t you?”

“One time doesn’t conform to the rules, I want it quite a lot.” I was embarrassedly replied.

“It doesn’t matter, I am going to give you all you want to buy now, may I ask you why you buy so many milk at one time please?”

“This isn’t all for myself, somebody sent me here to buy it.”

When I had piled up eight big boxes of milk and was about to call a taxi, a jeep went past and stopped next to me. I looked up with surprise at the soldier in the vehicle, wasn’t he the drunk guy that we took back to the military camp the other night?

He was tall, strong and bursting with energy, wearing very well fitting uniform but I couldn’t figured his age out under his big beard. His eyes were shape, looking the people over with intense and domineering manner. The buttons on his shirt were opened up down to the third button on his chest, crew cut short hair and on his green military cap was pinned his rank, a Sergeant.

I looked at him up and down intensely because I hadn’t had a clear good look of him the other night.

He didn’t wait for me to speak to him, just jumped off from his vehicle and lifted up my small mountain of boxes one by one to his car, I saw the milk had been put in the car, I didn’t hesitate any more just got in on the front seat of his car.

“I am living in the cemetery area.” I said to him with a polite manner.

“I know where you live.” He replied to me with a rough voice while he started the engine.

We didn’t say a word on the way whilst driving, he drove very steady and both his hands held firmly on the steering wheel; when the car was passing past the cemetery, I turned my head the other way and looked at the view to avoid any embarrassment of him recalling himself as drunk and being picked up by us the other night.

When the car arrived where I lived, he stopped the car slowly; I quickly jumped out before him because I didn’t want to trouble this sergeant to carry the milk for me, I called out to my friend Shalun loudly from the nearby convenience store.

Shalun heard my call and immediately rushed out in his flip flops from the store with a humble smile.

When he ran up to the front of the jeep and found a military man standing next to me, he suddenly looked blank for a moment, then quickly started to pick up the boxes from the car as if he had just seen a fierce god.

That moment the sergeant who gave me a lift home saw Shalun, he looked up and also saw Shalun’s store. Suddenly he stared at me with a despising look. I immediately knew that he had misunderstood me, my face blushed and I clumsily explained myself: “This milk isn’t for reselling, really! Please trust me, I only……” 

He stepped wildly towards to his car, he made a big thump on the steering wheel with his hand; at first he seemed want to say something but didn’t, then he starting the car and was about to go.

Just at that moment, I actually came to my senses and I rushed up to him: “Thank you very much sergeant! May I have you name please?”

He was staring at me as if he was very patient with me and lightly said: “For the friend of Sahara, I don’t have a name.”

He put his foot down after what he said and the car shot quickly away.

I looked at the dust blankly and felt an unspoken upset in my heart, by mistake, I was wrongly being accused without being given a chance to give an explanation, and I asked his name was refused rudely.

“Shalun, do you know that man?” I turned back to ask Shalun.

“Yes.” He said it with a lower voice.

“Why are you so scared of the Desert Corps, you are really not the rebel forces?” 

“Not about that, this Sergeant hates all the Sahara people.”

“How do you know he hates you?”

“Everybody knows, only you don’t know about it.”

I looked at Shalun intently, Shalun never talked any gossip, he must have had his reasons to say such a thing.

Since I was been misunderstood for buying that large amount of milk, I felt very ashamed and for a very long time didn’t dare to shop at the military cafeteria again.

After a long time had passed, I bumped into that little soldier from the military cafeterias on the street, he said that they thought I have gone and asked me why I didn’t shop there anymore. When I heard that they didn’t have the wrong idea about me, I was very happy and went shopping there again.

I must had carried bad luck around with me, the first day I went back to the military cafeteria for grocery shopping, that Sergeant was stepped in with his riding boots on. I bite my lip nervously looking at him, he gave me a nod and said: “Good afternoon!” Then he went up to the counter.

As for someone who so disliked Sahara people, I would consider them a ‘racist’ and I wouldn’t bother to socialise with them. I stood next to him and I didn’t take any notice on him again, just concentrated on giving my shopping list to the little soldier.

It was after I paid the bill, I discovered the Sergeant had a large tattoo on his arm; there was a row of writing---‘Austria’s Don Juan’ under a deep blue tacky love heart.

I felt very strange, I thought there must be a woman’s name under the tacky love heart of the tattoo but it looked like it was a man’s name.

“Hey! Who was Austria’s Don Juan? What does that means?” When the Sergeant had gone, I asked the little soldier on the counter.

“Oh! It was the name of a military camp in the old days.”

“It isn’t a person’s name?”

“It is the name of the famous Juan Carlos the first. During his tenure in history, it was the period of time when Austria and Spain were united, the Corps named a military camp after him, it was a long time ago in the past.”

“But, that Sergeant has this name tattooed on his arm!”

I said loudly whilst taking the change and walking out of the front door of the cafeteria. What I didn’t expect was that the Sergeant would actually be waiting for me outside. When he saw me, he looked down and started following me, walking a few steps behind he said: “Thank you to you and your husband for the other night.”

“What’s that for?” I asked him with confusion.

“You took me back, I-----I was drunk.”

“Oh! That was long time ago!”

This man was so strange, suddenly thanking me for a thing that I had already forgotten, why didn’t he thank me when he gave me a lift the last time? 

“May I ask you, why the Sahara people are rumoured that you hate them?” I very recklessly asked him.

“I hate them.” His eyes were looking at me very hard and he actually surprised me with that sort of straight answer.

“This world has good people and also bad ones, it doesn’t mean that is a race is especially bad.” I naively said the words anybody would say. 

The Sergeant’s eyes were fixed on a big group of Sahara people on the sandy ground, his face turned intensely frightening as if his hate became a flame that was terribly burning him alive. I stopped any more my tedious talking, just looking at him blankly.

When he came back to what appeared to be his normal self after a moment of time, he heavily nodded his head to me and stepped away.

This tattooed sergeant still hadn’t told me his name. His arm was tattooed with a name of a camping site and why was the site a long forgotten military camp?

One day, our Sahara friend Ali invited us to a place which was over a hundred miles away from the town, the parents of Ali lived there in a big tent. Ali was a Taxi driver in the town and could merely visit his parents at the weekends. 

The place that Ali’s parents lived was called ‘Messer’, it was possibly a very wide river from thousands or millions of years ago, after it dried out, the gorge like river banks became broken rock like the Grand Canyon, there were a few palm trees in the middle of the old river bed and some spring water constantly bubbling up, it was a very small oasis in the desert. In such a vast dessert, a place with good fresh water but only few inhabitants living there in their tents, that made me feel puzzled. 

Under the cool evening wind, we sat outside the tent with Ali’s father. The dear old man was leisurely smoking his long pipe. At the time, the red broken rock looked magnificently grand under the glowing sunset and the first lonely star was just rising up at the end of the horizon.

Ali’s mother was holding a large plate of ‘Cousca’ and the strong sweet tea for us to taste.

I used my hand to pat the ‘Cousca’ into a greyish floured dough and put it in my mouth.

The experience of sitting down under the spectacular beauty of the landscape in front of us, while eating the Saharan food seemed fittingly appropriate.

“It is a great place and it has a spring, why is there almost no one living here?” I was asking the old man curiously.

“It had its pitch time and was lively in the past, that’s why this place has been named ‘Messer’, but after the tragedy happened, all the people who lived here have gone and the new ones of course aren’t willing to live here, it’s just few of us still holding on living in his place.”

“What tragedy? How come I don’t know about it? Was it a plague to the camels?” I kept asking the old man.

The old man looked at me, still sucking his long pipe but his mind suddenly was lost somewhere and he was staring far away from the sand.

“Killing! Homicide! The blood was running like rivers and the people so scared to touch the water from the spring afterwards.”

“Who killed who? What was happening?” I couldn’t help but edge myself closer to Jose, the voice that came out from the old man’s mouth was so mysterious and full of horror. The night, was coming in so suddenly.

“The Sahara people killed the soldiers from the Desert Corps.” The old man had spoken lowly while looking at Jose and me.

“Sixteen years ago, ‘Messer’ was a land with a beautiful oasis, even wheat could grow here and the seed from the palm trees were covered all over the ground; drinking water was never short, the Sahara people shepherded almost all their goats and camels to travel all the way to here, they set up their tents and were living here for good……” The old man continued talking.

“That was the time; the Sahara didn’t belong to anyone, whoever came here wasn’t breaking any law.” I broke in his conversation.

“Yes, yes, please let me finish…..” The old man made a hand signal.

“The Desert Corps had come, the Sahara people weren’t allowing them to use any water here; both sides were always arguing because of the water, after that…..”

I saw the old man wasn’t continuing, I rushed to ask him: “What happened after that?”

“After that, a group of Saharan men sneaked inside the military camp at night and attacked them while they were still sleeping. In just one night, they killed all the people inside the camp, everyone in the camp all killed by knives.”

My eyes opened widely and were looking at the old man by the fire. I asked him with a lower voice: “Did you say, they are all murdered? The whole camp was slaughtered just by the knives of the Saharan men?”

“There was only one Sergeant who survived, that night he was drunk and fell over outside the camp; when he woke up, all his fellows were dead not even one alive.”

“Did you live here when it happened?” Another question almost slipped out my mouth: “Did you join in the killing too?”

“How could that possibly happen, the Desert Corps are the best military soldiers.” Jose said.

“They didn’t foresee that, at that time they was too busy to attending to their duties and there weren’t enough guards allocated for them; they never thought that the Saharan people would kill them with knives.”

“Where was the military camp at the time?” I asked the old man.

“It was there!”

The old man pointed over from the spring; apart from the sandy ground, there wasn’t any trace of the people who used to live there.

“Since then, nobody liked to live here anymore; the murderers have all escaped and a great piece of green oasis here has become deserted after all.”

The old man looked down to smoke his pipe, the nightfall had arrived and the wind was suddenly blowing strongly around making crying sounds. The palm trees were shaking like mad, the posts of the tent were also making some calling like noise.

I looked up in the dark, staring at the place far away where the Desert corps had once camped sixteen years ago. I imagined a group of Spanish soldiers in their uniforms, fighting with the wrapped headed Saharan men who all lifted their knives in the air and one by one the soldiers were falling down under the knives of the attackers, it was in a slow motion just like in the movies, piles of people were crawling on the ground and bleeding blood on the sand.

Hundreds of hands helplessly stretched out in the sky, the silent shouting of countless blood covered faces calling for help, but within in the darkness and wind, only could be heard the sounds of laughing from the death which was echoing in this isolated land….

I was shocked and blinked my eyes to restore my vision, everything disappeared, the surroundings here was just as peaceful as before. We were silent in front of the fire.

I felt cold suddenly and was feeling blue; it wasn’t just a tragedy like the old man said, it was a massacre in cold blood!

“That sergeant who’s the only survivor ….does he have a tattoo on his arm and is always intensely staring the Sahara people like a wolf?” I lightly asked.

“The soldiers back there in the military camp formed a solid friendship together, I will never forget the face of that sergeant after he woke up from being drunk, he was crazily throwing himself down on his brother’s bodies and shaking himself like a mad man.” 

I suddenly thought of that sergeant who had a tattoo on his arm.

“Do you know his name?” I was asked.

“After what happened, he was relocated to the camp in the town.

Since then he has refused to say his name to anyone, he said that all his brothers in the camp have died, is he worthy to have a name himself? Everyone just calls him Sergeant.” 

Although it had happened many years ago, it still made me chilled to my bones when I thought of what had happened; the far away sandy ground seemed twisting.

“Lets go to bed! Its already nightfall.” Jose said loudly and turned around to go inside to the tent without any word.

This tragedy had become history, almost no one would mention about it in the town.

My heart jumped every time I saw that Sergeant. After all these years and months when would the pain from this sort of heartbreaking memory become faded from his heart?

About a year ago, this piece of forgotten land in the desert got complicated; North Morocco and South Mauritania wanted to divide the Spanish Sahara desert. The desert itself had it’s own organised rebels who were exiled in Algeria, they wanted independence but the Spanish government was hesitating and had an ambiguous attitude, it wasn’t sure to give it up or to continue holding on to this territory in which they had already expend a lot of effort.

In this sort of intensive time, if a Spanish soldier went out on his own he would be murdered; the water from the well had been poisoned, there was a bomb founded inside the school’s vehicle, the mine company had been set on fire, a worker on the night shift was found hanging dead on a wire, landmines had destroy passing cars on the road at the outskirts of the town…..

The never ending riots made the town a horror, the government immediately closed the schools and evacuated children back to Spain, it declared a curfew at nights. Tanks were patrolling the town and barbed wire fencing was put around all the military institutions.

The most terrifying thing was that Spain had enemies on three sides of the border, Jose and I did not have any great concerns at that time so we didn’t make any move; he went to work as usual and I stayed at home; because of being afraid of the bombing in the public places, we rarely went out apart from going out to post letters and doing the grocery shopping. 

In this normally quiet little town, people started selling their furniture for cheap prices, the doors at the airlines companies had long queues everyday for grabbing tickets; the cinema and shops all closed; the Spanish civil servants who stayed here were all given guns.

This all generated an unreasonably tense atmosphere that made the little town very anxious even though a war had not started yet.

One afternoon, I went to the town to buy a Spanish newspaper, I wanted to know what the government intended to do about this piece of land. The papers didn’t say much, it said the same old thing as every other day; I slowly walked home with frustration; on the way home, I saw many coffins had been put on military vehicles and were heading to the cemetery, I was surprised and thought they had started to fight with the Moroccans at the border.

The road I took to walk home had to pass through the cemetery. Saharan people had two big plots of land for their own cemeteries

The cemetery for the Desert Corps was in the public one surrounded by a white painted wall with a big black iron gate. Inside the wall there were rows of crosses and under the crosses were flat tomb stones. At the time when I walked pass it, the cemetery gate was open, the graves on the first row had already been dug out, many soldiers from the Desert Corps were moving out their brothers bodies one by one then putting them inside the new coffins.  

I finally understood it when I saw what was going on here. For a long time the Spanish government was not willing to announce the decision, but the Desert Corps lived in the desert and they were the type of soldiers that when they died they would be buried in the desert too; now they were digging the dead out and taking them home with them, it showed that Spain finally was going to give up this piece of land!

The horrible thing was, after a dead body had been buried for so many years in the dry sandy soil, it wasn’t a pile of bones but a mummified corpse. 

The people from the Corps lifted them up carefully under the strong beaming sun, then cautiously put them back into the new coffins, nailed the tops and attached the stripe of papers before moved them onto the vehicles.

When the coffins were about to be moved out, the crowds made room for them, I was being pushed inside to the public cemetery, at that time I saw the Sergeant without a name was sitting in the shade under the wall.

It was not that uncomfortable to see the dead bodies, it was just the sharp noise of the nailing of the coffins and suddenly seeing the Sergeant, that made me uneasy and that also recalled to me that night when he was drunk laying on the ground, the place also was nearby the cemetery; it was such a tragedy from many years ago and time hadn’t made his wound slow fade away?

When the third row of grave stones were being moved, this Sergeant stood up and it seemed that he had been waiting a long time for this moment.

He stepped forward and jumped down into the burial hole, using his bare hands he lifted the body out like a lover, slowly and gently holding it in his arms; he quietly looked at the body’s face which had already dried up, the sergeant’s face didn’t show any hatred or anger; I only saw in his face just tenderness, close to a deep sadness.

While everyone was waiting for the Sergeant to put the body in a new coffin; he stood right there under the burning sun as if he had forgotten this world.

“It’s his own brother, he was killed at that incident.” One soldier lightly talked to the one who was holding the cross.

It felt time had frozen for a century long, at the end the Sergeant headed to the coffin and he put this already dead for sixteen years family in the new coffin as tending a baby, he finally set his brother carefully to the bed for an eternal sleep.

When the Sergeant passed by, I turned away my head; I didn’t want him to mistake me for a bystander who stuck their noises into someone else’s business. He stopped when he walked past the Saharan people and they pulled their children along and scattered away. 

Row after row of the coffins containing the brothers from the ground were transported to the airport. Only the tidy crosses were left behind here and they shone dazzling white under the sun.

One clear morning, Jose was working an early morning shift and he had left home at five in the morning. Because the situation outside had already deteriorated and I needed the car to take some parcels to town, we had agreed that he would take the coach to work and leave the car for me. In the early morning, I actually drove Jose to the place where he could catch his transport to work.

On the way back because I afraid of the landmines, I wouldn’t dare to go the usual short cut, instead I drove along on the tarmac road; when I turned into the slope by the exit to the town, I noticed my gas indicator was pointing to zero. I thought I would drive to the gas station on the way home, but looking at my watch, it was only ten to six in the morning, the gas station wouldn’t be open yet, so I turned the car ready to head home. Suddenly on the street not far away from me was a huge explosion like a bomb bombardment followed by black smoke rising into the sky. I was very close to it, even though I was sitting in the car, my heart was still jumped by the explosion.

I quickly drove home and I heard the ambulance with sirens blaring driving fast along the road from the town.  

When Jose came home in the afternoon, he asked me: “Have you heard about the explosion?” 

I nodded my head and asked: “Anyone hurt?”

Suddenly Jose said: “That Sergeant was killed.”

“The one from the Desert Corps?” Of course I knew it couldn’t be anyone else.

“How did he die?”

“He drove past the place where the explosion was in the morning, a group of Saharan children were playing with a box and it had a little Guerrilla flag inserted on the top, the Sergeant probably felt something was very wrong with the box, he got out from his car and rushed to the group of children, he intended to drive them away, but in the end, one of the children pulled out the little flag and the box suddenly blasted….”

“How many Saharan children died?”

“The Sergeant threw his body to cover the box, he was blown to pieces, only two children were hurt.”

I started making lunch for Jose and my mind was blank, my heart constantly was thinking what had happened in this morning; a man had been filled with hatred for sixteen years but at the most critical moment, he exchanged his life to prevent the death of several Saharan children that he always hated. Why? I never thought that he would end up like this.

The next day, the Sergeant’s body was put into a coffin and quietly buried in a place that had already been dug up in the cemetery. All his brothers had already left, they were sleeping in the soil in their homeland and he wasn’t able to catch up with them, merely quietly buried in the soil in the Sahara, a piece of land he loved also hated and now it had become his home forever.

His tomb was very simple, I went inside the cemetery and took a long look. I spent some time there. 

The stone was engraved ‘Sabah.Santos.Dore, 1932-1975’.

When I was walking back home, there were some Sahara children using their hands beating on the rubbish bin in the square while singing a song; under the sunset it was so peaceful as if they never knew the war was coming here soon.