Hello world!

André, a few miles inside the Sudan in October, had his caravan detained by a British patrol in Willys Bantam cars. A punctilious sergeant, his corporal, and six Sudanese Regulars, all wearing desert khaki uniforms with sharply creased shorts, halted André and his party, garbed in Bedouin robes. A Frenchman with a pack-train of survey equipment vexed the sergeant. He sent up a flare that summoned another boxy little Bantam with a superior officer, the captain of the outpost at Wadi Halfa.

After a snap-to salute, the sergeant said “Pardon, sir, as I was expecting the lieutenant.”

“Right, Sergeant. The lieutenant is off to Buhen. What have we?”

“Frogs, sir.”

“Nomads, Sergeant, by all appearances.”

“Not him, Captain. French passport.”

“French, you say?” The captain looked at the passport and said “Bloody cheek.”

All the men standing in the dusty Nubian Desert that day knew the French and English were in a state of friction in Africa. France owned the fattest lot of Africa but still persistently mounted forays into British Sudan. The two great nations were no longer polite, the French having become a thorn in the lion’s paw.

“He’s a surveyor, Captain. Have a look, sir, at his goods.”

In lockstep, they marched to the kneeling camels and peered earnestly at the tripods and surveying rods. The sergeant opened André’s transit cases to the captain’s eye — and to the dusty desert breeze.

André disliked Brits. Stiff upper lip, he thought, and limp dicks. Limp in Belgium, 1944. He hadn’t liked the British before World War II, and he disliked them more in 1949. As a Free French engineer, André had been attached to a Limey outfit in North Africa. He’d learned much about the British military mindset, so he was prepared for a show of uniquely English saber-rattling.

Peering at a theodolite, the captain asked “What have we here?”

“For triangulation, Captain. It is delicate,” André said clearly. “The sand, sir. The case should be kept closed.”

The captain closed the case and politely latched it. “What interests a French surveyor here?”

André said “Drainage, Captain.”

“Drainage?”

“The Nile basin. I’ve been sent by King Farouk to see what a second dam would do. Where it might be put.”

The Englishman bristled at mention of Farouk. England didn’t like Farouk styling himself as King of Egypt and Sudan. Farouk, the British felt, menaced the balance of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium. So, out here in the Sudan, they would would brook no incursions from Farouk. Nor from sneaky Frenchmen. For this was England, and the captain’s garrison of border guards were here to intercept just such parties as this one.

“Why would the King of Egypt send you to look at the upper Nile? If, indeed, he did.”

“As I said, Captain. There’s interest… concern… in Cairo regarding a new dam. The resulting reservoir, sir.”

The sergeant’s men produced André’s notebooks, their pages filled with diagrams and lengthy columns of numbers. Even to an untrained eye it was apparent the sketches showed valley and hill configurations, all clearly scribed with elevation points. André had, as well, two chubby volumes of Dr. Hurst’s monumental Nile Basin series, plus the “Supplement to Volume VII” still in manuscript form. In the captain’s mind, André seemed very much an engineer, quite possibly sent by the Egyptian government, but in King Farouk’s employ? That was yet to be seen.

“How far from the damsite are you?”

“Five hundred fifty kilometers,” André said. “Point sixty-two would be three hundred forty miles.”

“Good Lord!” From London to Edinburgh? the captain thought to himself. “Impossible,” he said. “No such lake could take shape in this desert.”

André motioned toward a notebook in the captain’s hand. “Shall I show you?”

Instead, the captain passed the book to his sergeant. To André he said “Would you have your camel-boys…. ”

“Our leader,” André interrupted, motioning toward one of the young Egyptians. “A cousin of Sir Ahmed bey Hassanein. He is not a camel-boy, Captain.”

The late Ahmed Hassanein’s name was indeed a powerful one to drop before an Englishman. A knight of the Realm, an Oxford scholar, and an eminent explorer, Sir Ahmed bey had two gold medals from the Royal Geographical Society. Once Egypt’s ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, and Chamberlain to the throne of Egypt, Sir Ahmed bey had been a powerful pro-British influence in Egypt until his unfortunate death in 1946. Britain, Egypt, and the world mourned Sir Ahmed bey’s passing. Farouk knew the name would draw respect from the British. André held it forth now to warn off the cocky Brit.

Oh, how the captain hated this surveyor and his bearers. They put him, and Britain, in a tenuous spot. A diplomatic error at this point, any small international incident now, might ripple outward from this arid and isolated place. Popular opinion — possibly even history — might say East African relations burst into flames here, this day.

Summoning what diplomacy he could, the captain said “If it wouldn’t inconvenience you terribly, let’s have you back at Wadi Halfa while we check the facts, Monsieur… [looking at the passport again]… Lamont.”

“Have we been arrested, Mon Capitaine?” André asked.

Bloody Frog, the captain thought.