in the morning hélène desage managed to look the last word in what desert fashion should be, when she strolled into johnny mccord's office. although she came complete with a sun helmet that must have been the product of a top parisian shop, she would have been more at place on the beaches at miami, honolulu or cannes. her shorts were short and fitting, her blouse silken, her walking shoes dainty.
he considered for a moment and then decided against informing her that moslems, particularly in this part of the world, were little used to seeing semi-nude women strolling about. he'd leave the job of explanation to pierre, as a fellow frenchman and the oldest man present to boot.
"bonjour," she said. "what a lovely day. i have been strolling about your little oasis. but you have made it a garden!"
"thanks," johnny said. "we've got to have something to do after working hours. entertainment is on the scarce side. but it's more than a garden. we've been experimenting to see just what trees will take to this country—given water and care through the early years. besides, we use it as a showplace."
"showplace?"
"for skeptical politicians who come through," johnny said, seating her in a chair near his desk. "we give them the idea that the whole sahara could eventually be like this square mile or so at bidon cinq. palm trees, fruit trees, pines, shade trees. the works."
"and could it?"
johnny grinned sourly. "well, not exactly. not all in one spot, at least. you've got to remember, the sahara covers an area of some three and a half million square miles. in that area you find almost everything."
"everything except water, eh?" she was tapping a cigarette on a polish-reddened thumbnail. as he lit it for her, johnny mccord realized that he hadn't seen fingernail polish for a year. he decided it was too long.
"even water, in some parts," he said. "there's more water than most people realize. for instance, the niger, which runs right through a considerable part of the sahara, is the eleventh largest river in the world. but until our commission went to work on it, it dumped itself into the gulf of guinea, unused."
"the niger is a long way from here," she said through her smoke.
he nodded. "for that matter, though, we have a certain amount of rain, particularly in the highland regions of the central massif. in the past, with no watershed at all, it ran off, buried itself in the sands, or evaporated."
"mr. mccord," she said, "you are amazingly optimistic. formerly, i must admit i had little knowledge of the sahara reforestation commission. and i deliberately avoided studying up on the subject after receiving this assignment, because i wanted first impression to be received on the spot. however, i've just driven across the sahara. my impression is that your commission is one great—comment dit-on?—boon-doggling project, a super-w.p.a. into which to plow your american resources and manpower. it is a fake, a delusion. this part of the world has never been anything but wasteland, and never will be."
johnny mccord heard her out without change in expression.
he'd been through this before. in fact, almost every time a junketing congressman came through. there was danger in the viewpoint, of course. if the fantastic sums of money which were being spent were cut off, such pessimistic views would become automatically correct.
he took the paperweight from a stack of the correspondence on his desk and handed it to her.
she looked at it and scowled—very prettily, but still a scowl. "what is this? it's a beautiful piece of stone."
"i picked it up myself," johnny said. "near reggan. it's a chunk of petrified wood, miss desage. from a tree that must have originally had a diameter of some ten feet. not quite a redwood, of course, but big."
"yes," she said, turning it over in her hand. "i can see this part, which must have once been bark. but why do you show it to me?"
"the sahara was once a semi-tropical, moist area, highly wooded. it can become so again."
she put the piece of fossil back on his desk. "how long ago?" she said bluntly.
"a very long time ago, admittedly. during the last ice age and immediately afterwards. but, given man's direction, it can be done again. and it must be."
she raised pencilled eyebrows at him. "must be?"
johnny mccord shifted in his chair. "you must be aware of the world's population explosion, miss desage. the human race can't allow three and a half million square miles of land to be valueless." he grunted in deprecation. "and at the rate it was going, it would have been four million before long."
she didn't understand.
johnny spelled it out for her. "a desert can be man-made. have you ever been in the middle east?" at her nod, he went on. "visitors there usually wonder how in the world the ancient jews could ever have thought of that area as a land of milk and honey. on the face of it, it's nothing but badlands. what was once the fertile crescent now looks like arizona."
hélène desage was frowning at him. "and you suggest man did this—not nature?"
"the goat did it. the goat, and the use of charcoal as fuel. along with ignorance of soil erosion and the destruction of the wonderful watershed based on the cedars of lebanon. same thing applies to large areas of libya and tunisia, and to morocco and spain. those countries used to be some of the richest agricultural areas of the roman empire. but you can't graze goats, probably the most destructive animal domesticated, and you can't depend on charcoal for fuel, unless you want to create desert."
"those things happened a long time ago."
johnny snorted. "when we first began operations, the sahara was going south at the rate of two miles a year. goats prefer twigs and bark even to grass. they strip a country."
"well," the reporter said, shrugging shapely shoulders, "at any rate, the task is one of such magnitude as to be fantastic. yesterday, i drove for nearly eight hours without seeing even a clump of cactus."
"the route you traveled is comparatively untouched by our efforts, thus far," johnny nodded agreeably. "however, we're slowly coming down from algeria, up from the niger, and, using the new chemical methods of freshening sea water, east from mauretania."
he came to his feet and pointed out spots on the large wall map. "our territory, of course, is only this area which once was called french west africa, plus algeria. the battle is being fought elsewhere by others. the egyptians and sudanese are doing a fairly good job in their country, with soviet complex help. the tunisians are doing a wonderful job with the assistance of common europe, especially italy."
she stood beside him and tried to understand. "what is this area, here, shaded green?"
he said proudly, "that's how far we've got so far, heading north from the niger. in the past, the desert actually came down to the side of the river in many places. the water was completely wasted. now we've diverted it and are reforesting anywhere up to three miles a year."
"three miles a year," she scoffed. "you'll take five centuries."
he shook his head and grinned. "it's a progressive thing. water is admittedly the big problem. but as our forests grow, they themselves bring up the moisture content of the climate. down in this area—" he made a sweeping gesture over the map which took in large sections north of the niger—"we've put in hundreds of millions of slash pine, which is particularly good for sandy soil and fast growing. in ten years you've gone from two-year-old seedlings to a respectable forest."
johnny pointed out bidon cinq on the map. "at the same time we found what amounts to a subterranean sea in this area. not a real sea, of course, but a water-bearing formation or aquifer, deep down under the surface of the earth—layers of rock and gravel in which large quantities of water are lying. the hydro-geological technicians who surveyed it estimate that it holds reserves of several billion tons of water. utilizing it, we've put in several hundred square miles of seedlings and transplants of various varieties. where there are natural oases, of course, we stress a lot of date palm. in rocky areas it's acacia tortila. in the mountains we sometimes use varieties of the pinyon—they'll take quite a beating but are a little on the slow-growing side."
she was looking at him from the sides of her eyes. "you're all taken up by this, aren't you mr. mccord?"
johnny said, surprise in his voice. "why, it's my work."
derek came sauntering in and scaled his sun helmet onto his own desk. "good morning, mademoiselle," he said. and to johnny, "hiram, that city slicker from timbuktu just came up with his posse."
hélène said, "what is this si, hiram and reuben which you call each other?"
johnny smiled sourly, "in a way, miss desage, this is just one great tree farm. and all of us are farmers. so we make jokes about it." he thought for a moment. "derek, possibly you better take over with mohammed. i want to get over to in ziza with reuben."
"to see about the pumps?" hélène said innocently.
johnny frowned but was saved from an answer by the entrance of mohammed mohmoud. he was dark as a saharan becomes dark, his original berber blood to be seen only in his facial characteristics. he wore the rather flamboyant mali federation desert uniform with an air.
when he saw the girl, his eyebrows rose and he made the moslem salaam with a sweeping flourish.
johnny said, "mademoiselle desage, may i present captain mohammed mohmoud ould cheikh, of the mali desert patrol." he added sourly, "the officer in charge of preventing nomads from filtering up from the south into our infant forests."
the moslem scowled at him. "they could have come from the east, from timmissao," he said in quite passable english. "or even from mauritania." he turned his eyes to hélène desage. "enchanté, mademoiselle. trés heureux de faire ta connaissance."
she gave him the full benefit of her eyes. "moi aussi, monsieur."
johnny wasn't through with the malian officer. "there's a hundred of them," he snapped, "with several thousand head of goats and other livestock. it would have been impossible to push that number across from mauritania or even from the east, and you know it."
a lighter complexion would have shown a flush. mohammed mohmoud's displeasure was limited in expression to a flashing of desert eyes. he said, "wherever their origin, the task would seem to be immediately to destroy the animals. that is why my men and i are here."
pierre marimbert had entered while the conversation was going on. he said, "johnny, weren't you going over to in ziza with me?"
hélène desage said, the tip of her right forefinger to her chin as she portrayed thought, "i can't decide where to go. to this crisis of the tuareg, or to the crisis of the pumps—whatever that is."
johnny said flatly, "sorry, but you'd just be in the way at either place."
mohammed mohmoud was shrugging. "why not let her come with me? i can guarantee her protection. i have brought fifty men with me, more than a match for a few bedouin."
"gracious," she said. "evidently i was unaware of the magnitude of this matter. i absolutely must go."
johnny said, "no."
she looked at him appraisingly. "mr. mccord," she said, "i am here for a story. has it occurred to you that preventing a paris match reporter from seeing your methods of operation is probably a bigger story than anything else i could find here?" she struck a mock pose. "i can see the headlines. sahara reforestation authorities prevent journalists from observing operations."
"oh, good lord," johnny growled. "this should happen to me, yet! go on with derek and the captain, if you wish."
pierre marimbert and johnny mccord took one of the faster helicopters, pierre piloting. with french élan he immediately raised the craft a few feet and then like a nervous horse it backed up, wheeled about and dashed forward in full flight.
spread below them were the several dozen buildings which comprised bidon cinq; surrounding the buildings, the acres of palm and pine, eucalyptus and black locust. quick-growing, dry-climate trees predominated, but there were even such as balsam fir, chestnut and elm. it made an attractive sight from the air.
the reforestation projects based on bidon cinq were not all in the immediate vicinity of the home oasis. by air, in ziza was almost 125 kilometers to the northeast. by far the greater part of the land lying in between was still lacking in vegetation of any sort. the hydro-geological engineers who had originally surveyed the area for water had selected only the best sections for immediate sinking of wells, placement of solar power pumps, and eventually the importation of two-year seedlings and three- and four-year-old transplants. the heavy auto-planters, brought in by air transport, had ground their way across the desert sands in their hundreds, six feet between machines. stop, dig the hole, set the seedling, splash in water, artfully tamp down the soil, move on another six feet, stop—and begin the operation all over again. fifty trees an hour, per machine.
in less than two months, the planters had moved on to a new base further north. the mob of scientists, engineers, water and forest technicians, mechanics and laborers melted away, leaving johnny mccord, his two assistants, his half dozen punch-card machines, his automated equipment and his forty or fifty native workers. it was one of a hundred such centers. it would eventually be one of thousands. the sahara covered an area almost the size of europe.
johnny mccord growled, "friend mohammed seems quite taken with our reporter."
pierre grinned and tried to imitate a new england twang. "why not, hiram? she's the first, eh, women folks seen in these parts for many a day." he looked down at the endless stretches of sand dunes, gravel and rock out-croppings. "mighty dry farm land you've got around here, hiram."
johnny mccord grunted. "derek said the other day it's so dry even the mirages are only mud holes." he pointed with his forefinger. "there's the first of our trees. now, what pumps did you check?"
pierre directed the copter lower, skimmed not much higher than the young tree tops. some of them had already reached an impressive height. but johnny mccord realized that the time was not too distant when they'd have to replant. casualties were considerably higher than in forest planting at home. considerably so. and replanting wasn't nearly so highly automated as the original work. more manpower was required.
"these pumps here seem all right," he said to pierre.
"a little further north," pierre said. "i came in over the track there, from the road that comes off the main route to poste weygand. yes, there we are. look! completely destroyed."
johnny swore. the trees that had depended on that particular pump wouldn't last a month, in spite of the fact that they were among the first set in this area.
he said, "go higher. we should be able to spot the complete damage with glasses. you saw twenty-two, you say?"
"yes, i don't know how many more there might be."
there were twenty-five destroyed pumps in all. and all of them were practically together.
it was sheer luck that pierre marimbert had located them so soon. had his routine check taken place in some other section of the vast tree development, he would have found nothing untoward.
"this isn't nearly so bad as i had expected," johnny growled. he was scowling thoughtfully.
"what's the matter?" pierre said.
"i just don't get it," johnny said. "number one, nomads don't carry dynamite, unless it's been deliberately given them. two, if it was given them by someone with a purpose, why only enough to blow twenty-five pumps? that isn't a drop in the bucket. a few thousand trees are all we'll lose. three, where did they come from? where are their tracks? and where have they gone? this job wasn't done so very long ago, probably within a week or two at most."
"how do you know that?"
"otherwise those trees affected would already be dying. at their age, they couldn't stand the sun long without water."
pierre said, his face registering disbelief, "do you think it could be simple vandalism on the part of a small band of tuareg?"
"sure, if the pumps had been destroyed by hand. but with explosives? even if your band of tuareg did have explosives they wouldn't waste them on a few sahara reforestation commission pumps."
"this whole thing just doesn't make sense," pierre marimbert decided.
"let's land and take a look at one of those pumps," johnny said. "you know, if you get the whole crew to work on this you might be able to replace them before we lose any of these transplants. it's all according to how long ago they were destroyed."
