The Haj - Leon Uris [146]
We barely dented the supplies on our first trip and found the journey was even more grueling than suspected. Our initial chore was to burn the cave out by sprinkling kerosene around and igniting it. We not only killed the maggots but drove out the bats, which I had suspected were deeper in the cave. When the fire died and the smoke dissipated, we rigged up slings and pulleys to haul the provisions up. Father put us on rotating guard duty in the cave. Since the women could not stand guard, they were always in the supply caravan. Two round trips a day were all we could manage. In a few days our water supply, in five-gallon army cans, was diminishing severely.
We scavenged through the ruins of the Qumran settlement, knowing it had been picked over for centuries by the Bedouin, but hoping beyond hope of finding a source of water. The water works, which filled during the winter floods, were long since destroyed. All the cisterns were cracked, probably from the many earthquakes that ravaged the area down through time.
Ibrahim felt that we could build our own cistern or some method of damming and trapping water by winter, the only time it rained here. During an ordinary rain, water would stream down from the high cliffs and fill the narrow canyons. With no places to go into the rocky soil, the water would build up, then find its way to a wider wadi bed. When a half-dozen canyons emptied into a single wadi, the result was a flash flood which sent water gushing down into the Dead Sea. Ibrahim remembered almost getting trapped and drowned in a flood as a boy.
It was midsummer. There would be no rain for months and we only had a week or ten days’ supply of water. Our caravan back and forth from the truck to the cave was slave business and it was all we could do to keep from devouring our water. It took a full week to unload the truck. During that time, Sabri had it almost put back together.
Sabri gave us the bad news that the radiator had many leaks and all the water was gone from the engine, the battery was cracked, and the spare not properly charged up. Even with new parts, he did not know for certain if the truck would start up again.
Meanwhile the cave was made livable by the women. Once up the fifty-foot ladder, they would seldom come down. It was cool inside and a refuge from the heat. We found a number of corridors off the main room to give everyone privacy, although privacy was tantamount to total darkness. We were allowed to flick on our flashlights only to get back and forth to the main cavern. I discovered a tunnel that led out to another opening and from there I could climb to a ledge from where I could look down on the entire north end of the Dead Sea. I claimed the place for Sabri and me, much to the dismay of my brothers. If they wanted their own ledges, they could find them as I had.
At the far end of the main room, we realized a slit of light was penetrating. By picking away at the rocks, we were able to carve out a chimney to the outside. It solved many problems. We could build a permanent fire beneath the chimney that would also light the main cavern and give us heat for cooking. In order to keep the fire burning and not use up valuable fuel, a permanent daily chore was to follow the wadis for wood. The winter flash floods had made it possible for a variety of scrub brush and bushes to survive. We gathered up wild raspberry, jujube, burnet, desert tamarisk, and marjoram to feed the flame. When we stumbled onto a fully grown terebinth tree, our fire problem was solved.
At first we tried to shoot the large desert hares that constantly scooted across our path. We were all very bad shots and the rabbits were too quick. It was also dangerous, for Jamil got