Around the World in 50 Years Read Online Free PDF Page A

credit to their country and their calling.
    Sometime during that night, as we slept, our camp had an uninvited visitor who cut the tarp on the small storage trailer and stole a suitcase loaded with winter clothing, mountain-climbing gear, and spare photographic equipment. We reported the theft to the police, who turned it over to the army, which was less interested in catching the thieves than in learning what a bunch of foreigners were doing camped on a beach with ropes and crampons and telephoto lenses. We were released only after hours of interrogation.
    Given the aggressive wildlife, the thieving visitors, and the antagonistic political atmosphere, none of us wanted to remain in Algiers, but we had to stay: Cracks in the camper needed welding and the Jeep’s generator had burned out and required rewiring. We had difficulty finding someone competent to do this work because almost every skilled auto mechanic and machinist had either fled back to France or been killed during the war, which had claimed 130,000 lives and exiled a million. After hours of searching, we found a welding shop for the camper and a technician who rewired our generator—and warned us that a revolution was imminent.
    Though we doubted the thieves would return, we knew it was possible. So as not to be caught unaware, we stuck forked twigs in the sand in a circle around the cars and storage trailer, then ran a piece of string through them to a can half-filled with small stones balanced on a twig in a hole under the camper beside which Steve and I unrolled our sleeping bags. If anybody approached our equipment, they’d trip the string and rattle the can enough to wake us. In theory.
    It was black and cramped under the camper, and I was sure the biting monsters would find us, but we managed to fall asleep. Hours later I heard something, but it wasn’t the can rattling: It was someone unzipping the windows of the Land Cruiser. Steve was also awake, and handed me our .38 revolver. We slipped out from under the camper and got into position.
    Steve flicked on our big flashlight. It caught three mean-looking men, their arms full of our supplies. I shouted at them to drop the stuff.
    One of them did, but all three ran into the dark. We gave chase. I warned them to stop or I’d shoot. But they kept running. I fired twice into the air, but they kept going with our gear. I then fired at them, trying to hit their legs, though it was difficult to see in the moonless dark. On the third shot, I heard a groan and thought I saw someone fall. We rushed to the spot and found, next to a flying crab, Steve’s safari hat, our binoculars, and some of our clothing. Our flashlight showed three sets of tracks moving up the beach, the one in the middle dragging, and here and there a spot of what looked like blood.
    Had I killed somebody? Or just wounded him? How badly? Would he be back with a gang to get us? If he died, would his family or friends report us to the police?
    We couldn’t go to the police ourselves: They were already suspicious and unfriendly and not likely to treat kindly an American who’d shot an Algerian, whatever the provocation. Moreover, we’d averred at the border that we carried no firearms, knowing that if we declared our gun they’d confiscate it. The possession of that undeclared pistol alone could put us in jail, and that was the last place we wanted to be with an impending coup. We decided to clear out then and there.
    If the burglar died or reported us, we assumed the police would look for us along the coastal highway east to Tunis, the best and most commonly traveled way out of the country, but one on which we knew Algerian troops had been stationed because of Ben Bella’s dispute with neighboring Tunisia. We decided to avoid it by heading south, into the Sahara, where we were reasonably sure nobody would be looking for us. But we were not reasonably sure how to get through it.
    When we’d inquired about