Desert Magazine from June 1944 PDF Document - Surrey ...

7VlTH THE ALLIED FORCES IN AFRICA—In the
YY peaceful atmosphere of this little Sahara oasis where I
have been stationed the past six weeks, it is hard to
realize that in other parts of the world men are fighting a grim
war for survival.
Planes stop here every day. Men in uniform climb out of
them and stand by while the mechanics refill the fuel tanks and
check various gadgets and controls—and then motors roar and
the huge craft glide off the runway and disappear in the haze of
the distant horizon. They belong to a world that seems as remote
as the planet Mars.
In this primitive community it does not appear difficult for
men to dwell together in peace. French, Senegalese, Arabs and
Americans—we all are neighbors. We greet each other with a
friendly salute—sometimes a French salute and sometimes
American, but it makes no difference. We draw our water from
the same wells. We have no common language except that universal
symbol of goodwill—a smile. It is good to live among
people who can laugh—and do. I do not mean the artificial
laughter of a drinking party or the polite grimace of courtesy.
I mean the smile that springs spontaneously from humans with
goodwill in their hearts.
For more than a year I have been living close to the primitive
tribesmen of Africa—dark-skinned, unschooled, uncivilized according
to our standards. Both in the jungle and on the desert
I have found them responsive to friendliness. And I have asked
myself these questions: Why have we allowed the grim business
of getting ahead in the world to crowd out so much of the
warmth in our natures? Why does wealth and power make men
haughty and cynical? Are we not paying too high a price for
the gadgets and comforts of our civilization when these things
are acquired at the expense of good wholesome neighborliness?
I do not know the answers, but I suspect that if we could
trace the causes of this world-wide war down to bedrock fundamentals,
we would find that it is because we have drifted too
far away from the virtues which come from close association
with the good earth. One of those virtues is the honest smile
that comes from a man with neither greed for personal power
nor the vanity that so often comes with the possession of excessive
wealth.
Anyway, do not look down on these African savages because
their skins are black and they can neither read nor write. I have
found them good neighbors.
* •» *
. rruV-; A:,T^.:;;v;rT-r^
By RANDALL HENDERSON
Twice a week the transport planes bring us fresh meat from
a major base several hundred miles away. One evening when
our meat ration was steaks we went out among the sand dunes
and broiled them over an open fire. It is an old desert custom
where I live at home. Since most of the men in the outfit come
from homes east of the Mississippi, this was their first taste of
desert barbecued steaks. The verdict was "good chop." By the
time we got around to "thirds" the fresh meat was exhausted
and we were finishing with canned vienna sausages. There were
still a few of these left on our improvised grill when the dinner
was over and we invited the Arab mess boys to help themselves.
They would have none of them. The prophet Mohammed put a
taboo on pig meat.
* * *
One afternoon this week I had to go out and shoo some camels
off the runway. One of them was very persistent, and three
times during the afternoon I had to go out in my jeep and throw
rocks at him.
Caravans come in every day, unload their packs, and then
head off again toward the horizon. They spend as little time as
possible in the oasis for their food is the grass and shrubs that
grow out on the desert and they get nothing to eat while they
are in the village. However, there are always a few of them in
the oasis overnight, and near sunrise they awaken the community
with their noise. My vocabulary doesn't seem to have a
word that describes the vocal notes of a camel—but it is somewhere
between the bawl of a cow and the roar of a lion. One
overnight visitor recently asked me if the noise that awakened
him was made by lions. I assured him it was camels. He agreed
with me that only a very tired old lion would roar in such dismal
tones.
* * *
Last month I took issue with the historian who attributed the
failure of the American experiment in camel transportation in
the days before the civil war, to the fact that the camel's feet
would not stand the rocky trails on the desert of the Southwest.
I stated that the camels here travel over the rocks without injury
to their feet. And that is true. But an officer in the French
Camel corps told me there is another breed of camels in the
desert region to the east of here, which can be used only on
sandy trails. Its feet are too tender for the rocks. My apologies
to the historian, whoever he was.
* * *
Recently some members of the Camel corps spent a day here
JUNE, 1944 37