The Doomed Oasis

by Innes, Hammond;

  He misunderstood me, for his head came up, his eyes bright with sudden excitement. “It’s all right then, is it? You saw Sir Philip Gorde and he signed that concession agreement I typed out?” The words came breathless, his eyes alight with hope. But the hope faded as he saw my face. “You did see Sir Philip, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I gave him the envelope.”

  “Well, then …”

  “He didn’t sign the agreement.”

  The effect of my words was to knock all the youth right out of him. His face looked suddenly old and strained; lines showed so that he seemed more like his father, and his shoulders sagged. “So it didn’t work.” He said it flatly as though he hadn’t the spirit left for any display of emotion, and I realized that all the weeks he’d been waiting here alone he’d been buoyed up by this one hope. “I thought if I disappeared completely, so completely that everyone thought I was dead … They did think I was dead, didn’t they?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Everyone, including your father, presumed you were dead.” And I added, a little irritably because I was so tired: “You’ve caused a lot of people a great deal of trouble; and your mother and sister a lot of needless grief.”

  I thought for a moment he hadn’t heard me. But then he said: “Yes, indeed, I realize that. But Sue at least would understand.” His face softened. “How is she? Did you see her?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I saw her.” And that, too, seemed a long time ago now. “I don’t think she ever quite accepted the idea that you were dead. Nor did your mother or that girl in Bahrain.”

  “Tessa?” The lines of strain were momentarily smoothed out. “You saw her, too?” He seemed surprised, and he added: “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’ve put you to a great deal of trouble.” He was staring down at the sand patterns between his feet. Abruptly he rubbed them out. “I was so convinced it was the only way. I had to get past Erkhard somehow. I thought if I could get my report to Sir Philip Gorde. He was the one man.…” His voice faded. And then, still talking to himself: “But I couldn’t just send it to him. It had to be done in some way that would enable him to override the political objections. I thought all the publicity connected with my disappearance … I’d planned it all very carefully. I had a lucky break, too. That night I visited Captain Griffiths on the Emerald Isle, there was an agency correspondent in transit to India stopping the night at the Fort in Sharjah. I saw him, told him the whole story—my background, how I’d escaped from Borstal and got myself out to Arabia, everything. I thought a story like that …” He darted a quick glance at me. “Didn’t he print it?”

  “After you were reported missing, when the search had failed and you were presumed dead.”

  “Yes, I made him promise he wouldn’t use it unless something happened to me. But didn’t it have any effect?”

  “It seemed to cause quite a stir in the Foreign Office.”

  “But what about the Company?”

  “It put the shares up,” I said, trying to lighten it for him.

  “Hell! Is that all?” He gave a bitter little laugh. “And I’ve been sitting here … waiting, hoping …” His shoulders had sagged again, and he stared out into the throbbing glare, his eyes narrowed angrily. “All these weeks, wasted—utterly wasted.” His voice was bleak. He looked weary—weary and depressed beyond words. “I suppose you think now I’ve behaved like a fool—disappearing like that, pretending I was dead. But please try and understand.” He was leaning towards me, his face young and defenceless, his voice urgent now. “I was on my own and I knew there wasn’t any oil where my father was drilling. I ran a check survey without his knowledge; it was an anticline all right, but badly faulted. It couldn’t hold any oil.” His voice had dropped to weariness again. He’d been over all this many times in his mind. “I don’t know whether he was kidding himself or trying to cheat the Company or just doing it to get his own back on Erkhard. But I wanted the Company to drill on my locations, not his. I wanted oil. I wanted it for Saraifa, and I wanted it to be the real thing.”

  “Your father wanted it, too,” I said gently. “And he too was convinced there was oil where you did your survey.”

  “That’s not true. He refused to believe me. Told me I was inexperienced, that I’d no business to be on that border, and forbade me ever to go near it again.”

  “I think,” I said, “you’d better listen to what I have to tell you.”

  The coffee was ready then, and I waited until Ali had poured it for us from the battered silver pot. It was Mocha coffee, bitter and wonderfully refreshing, and as I sipped the scalding liquid I told him the whole story of my journey and all that had happened. Once whilst I was telling it, he said: “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” And later, when I came to the point where Gorde had left me with Entwhistle and we’d been fired on, he apologized again. “I’m afraid you’ve had a hell of a time, sir, and all my fault.” That “sir” took me back, for it still didn’t come easily from him.

  But it was my account of that first interview with his father that really shook him. When I had explained to him what his father had been trying to do, he was appalled. “But, Christ! Why didn’t he tell me? I’d no idea. None at all. And when Khalid told me he’d been to see the Emir of Hadd …” He stared at me, his face fine-drawn, his voice trembling as he repeated: “Why the hell didn’t he tell me what he was trying to do?”

  “I think you know why,” I said. “You were employed by the Company, and the Company to him meant Erkhard.” And I added: “Erkhard knew your background, didn’t he? He used that as a lever to get you to spy on your father.”

  It was a shot in the dark, but it went home. “He tried to.” His tone was almost sullen; he looked uncomfortable.

  “And you agreed?” I’d no wish to conduct a cross-examination, but I thought it essential he should see it from his father’s point of view if I were to succeed in bringing them together again.

  “I hadn’t any choice,” he said, stung to anger by my question. “Erkhard threatened to turn me over to the Cardiff police.”

  “And your father knew about that?”

  “It didn’t mean I was going to do what Erkhard wanted.”

  “But you’d agreed to do it,” I insisted, “and your father knew you’d agreed.”

  “I suppose so.” He admitted it reluctantly. “He’s still got his friends inside the Company.”

  So there it was at last, the basic cause of the rift between them—the thing that girl Tessa had hinted at, that Sue had felt but hadn’t been able to explain.

  “Christ!” he said. “What a bloody stupid mess! And all because we didn’t trust each other like we should have done. How could I guess what he was up to? Though it’s just the sort of twisted, devious approach …” His voice faded and once more he was staring out into the void. “I got very close to him at one time, but even then I was always conscious of a gulf, of something hidden that I couldn’t fathom. He’s very unpredictable, you know, Mr. Grant. More Arab than the Arabs, if you see what I mean.” He was very much on the defensive then. “After four years I can’t say I really understood him. Switching races like that, and his religion, too—it left a sort of gulf that couldn’t be bridged. And when Khalid told me he’d been to see the Emir, it made me wonder …” He hesitated. “Well, as I say, he’s unpredictable, so I decided it was time I put my plan into action and disappeared. Khalid thought so, too. He’d brought Hamid and Ali, two of his most trusted men, and a spare camel. So …” He shrugged. “I knew it was hard on Sue. Hard on Tessa, too—and on my mother. But I was alone, you see. I’d nobody to turn to, except Khalid. He was the only man in the world who had faith in me. And I couldn’t look to the Company for help. Erkhard had made that very plain. And, anyway, oil companies are in business for themselves, not for the Arabs. They’ve been known to sit on an oilfield for years for political or commercial reasons.…” The sweat was pouring off him and he wiped his hand across his brow. “Well, go on,” he said. “What happened when
Erkhard came to Saraifa—did my father succeed in getting a concession signed?”

  But I think he’d guessed that I shouldn’t have come here alone if it were all settled. He listened, silent, not saying a word, as I told him the rest of my story. Once his eyes came alight with sudden excitement; that was when I told him of my second talk with Whitaker and how Khalid and I had seen the drilling-rig being dismantled for the move up to the Hadd border. The thought that his father was at last doing what he’d been wanting him to do for so long gave him a momentary sense of hope. But it was only momentary, for I went straight on to tell him of the scene at Dhaid and how the lone rider had brought the news that Gorde and Erkhard had left and Hadd forces had crossed the border into Saraifa. “So it’s come to that, has it? Open war between Hadd and Saraifa.” His body was suddenly trembling as though with fever and his voice was bitter. “And Khalid sent you to me. What did he say before you left? What message did he give you?”

  “He said he thought this time Saraifa had reached the point of desperation.” And I gave him the gist of what Khalid had said to me. When I had finished he didn’t say anything for a long time, sitting there lost in thought, staring out across the flat misery of the Umm al Samim. “The only home I ever had,” he whispered. “Did you see it when the shamal was blowing, with the Rub al Khali like a sea, the dunes all smoking and the sands pouring into the date-gardens? It’s like a flood then.” His father’s words—his father’s voice almost. “The oasis is doomed, you see. Doomed to extinction by the desert. But that’s a natural process, something to be fought with the natural resources of the country. Khalid and I, we were going to rebuild the old falaj channels with the money from oil royalties. That was our dream. But this …” He stared at me hard, his eyes wide. “You’re sure it’s war, are you? It’s not just a border raid?”

  I gave him Khalid’s speech then, as near as I could remember it, word for word.

  “So it’s my fault, is it?” He said it with deep bitterness, and after that he was silent for a long time. Finally, he looked at me. “Unto death, you said. Khalid used those exact words, did he?” And when I nodded: “So it’s not just a raid—it’s the real thing this time.” He was almost in tears, he was so deeply moved. And then sadly: “My father’s fault, too—he’s made his decision too late.” And he began cursing softly to himself. “Those dung-eating bastards from Hadd, they’ll smash down the last of the falaj channels. What would have taken twenty years by natural means will take less than that number of months. The desert will roll in. Christ Almighty! The bastards!” It was a cry from the heart, and I was conscious of desperation here, too—a desperation that matched Khalid’s. “They can’t fight a war against Hadd. They’ve nothing to fight it with—only antiquated guns.”

  He began questioning me then, pressing me for details, many of which I couldn’t give him, for he wasn’t interested in his father now, or Gorde or the Company; his attention was fixed on Hadd and the way Sheikh Abdullah, the Emir’s representative, had behaved, and what had passed between him and Sheikh Makhmud that morning before Whitaker and Erkhard had arrived. The sun sank in a blood-red haze and the air became dank. My head nodded, my body suddenly drained of warmth and shivering with fatigue. “You’d better get some rest now,” he said finally. “We’ll be leaving as soon as the moon’s up and it’s light enough to see our way through the quicksands.” He seemed to have reached some decision, for his voice was firmer, his manner less depressed. He brought me a tattered blanket musty with sand. “I’ve kept you talking when you should have been getting some sleep.”

  “What do you plan to do?” I asked him. “You’ll go to your father, I take it?”

  “Yes. He’s still got a few of his bodyguard left. A dozen men and I could create a diversion that would keep the Emir busy until my father has time to make his influence felt in Bahrain. Khalid’s right. We must work together now—my father and I.” The mention of Khalid’s name seemed to bring his mind back to his friend. “He said he was my brother, didn’t he? Unto death?”

  “Your brother, yes,” I said. “But as I remember it, he used the words ‘into death’ in connection with the Emir—‘my enemy into death.’”

  “Well, pray God it doesn’t come to that.” There were tears in his eyes, and, standing there, staring straight into the flaming sunset, he quoted from the Bible: “‘The Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed for ever.’”

  Dimly I recognized the quotation as the oath sworn by his namesake; I didn’t realize it then, but this was the covenant, sworn in the midst of the quicksands of the Umm al Samim, that was to take him to that fort on top of Jebel al-Akhbar and to the terrible final tragedy.

  I saw the sun set and the quicksands turn to blood, and then the sky faded to the palest pastel green and the stars came out. Lying there, it was like being stranded on a coral reef in the midst of a flat lagoon. Sometime in the small hours the wind woke me, blowing a drift of sand in my face. The moon was up, but its face was hidden in a cloud of moving sand. There was no question of our leaving, and I lay till dawn, unable to sleep, my eyeballs gritty, my nose and mouth clogged with sand, and when the sun rose all it showed was a sepia haze. We ate in extreme discomfort, the sand whistling like driven spume across the flat surface of the Umm al Samim.

  The storm lasted until almost midday, and then it ceased as abruptly as it had started. We cooked a meal of rice and dried meat, and then we started back, collecting our camels on the way and struggling through the quicksands to the solid desert shore. We mounted then and, keeping the Umm al Samim on our left, rode till dusk, when we camped. A meal and a short two-hour rest and then on again, with Salim arguing sullenly.

  “The old fool thinks the beasts will founder.” David’s face was grim. He was in a hurry and he had no sympathy for men or beasts. “Like all the Bedou, he loves his camels more than he loves himself.”

  We marched all night and there were times when I hoped the camels would founder. My muscles were stiff and aching, and where the wooden saddle chafed my legs, I was in agony. The starlight faded, swamped by the brighter light of the risen moon, and in the grey of the dawning day we reached the big well at Ain. Salim went forward alone to water the camels, for, early as it was, there were others at the well before us. “Men of the Duru tribe, I expect,” David said as we sat on the ground with the loads stacked round us, brewing coffee. “Salim will bring us the news.”

  I dozed, and woke to the sound of the old man’s voice. “What’s happened?” I asked, for his face was lit by the excitement of some great event. “What’s he saying?”

  “He’s talked with some men of the Rashid, back from selling camels at Saraifa.” David’s face was grey in the dawn. “They say there’s been fighting already—a battle.”

  “Between Hadd and Saraifa?”

  “It’s hearsay, that’s all. They don’t know anything.” He didn’t want to believe it, but his voice was urgent as he gave the order to mount.

  We loaded the camels in a hurry, and as we started out again, I saw that our direction had changed. I asked him where we were going, and he said: “Dhaid. We’ll get the news there.” And after that he didn’t talk. His mood was sullen and withdrawn, his temper short, and he answered Salim angrily whenever the old man protested at the pace of our march.

  We rode all day and far into the night, and in the morning the camels were almost done, their pace painfully slow. We reached Dhaid a little after midday. Nobody came out to meet us. Camels dotted the limestone slopes of the hill, and men lay listless under the walls of the village. Inside the arched entrance, the little open place was packed with people; whole families with their beasts and chattels were crowded there in the oven heat that beat back from the walls.

  They were all from Saraifa—refugees; the atmosphere was heavy with disaster, the news bad. Two more falajes, they said, had been destroyed and a battle fought, out by one of the wells. Khalid was reported dead, his father’s soldiers routed.

&
nbsp; “Old-fashioned rifles against automatic weapons.” David’s tone was bitter. “For months the Emir has been receiving a steady trickle of arms. And we’ve done nothing about it. Nothing at all.”

  “They’re independent states,” I reminded him.

  “That’s what the political boys said when I told them arms were being smuggled in dhows to the Batina coast and brought by camel across the mountains. A perfect excuse for doing nothing. And now, if Khalid is dead …” His voice shook. His face looked ghastly, the skin burned black, yet deathly pale. “Sheikh Makhmud’s an old man. He can’t fight this sort of war. And the Emir has only to block two more falajes and his men can just sit and wait for the end.”

  We left Salim with the camels and fought our way through the crowd to Sheikh Hassa’s house. We found him in the room where I had left Khalid a few days before. He was sitting surrounded by a crush of men all talking at once. The new rifle lay forgotten on the floor. Beside him sat a young man with long features that were tense and pale. “Mahommed,” David whispered. “Khalid’s half-brother.” He’d fled from the battlefield, but he’d seen enough to confirm the rumours we’d heard in the market place. The battle had been fought by the ninth well out along the line of the Mahdah falaj, and the casualties had been heavy. Sheikh Makhmud himself had been wounded, and the latest reports of survivors indicated that he had retired to the oasis with the remnant of his forces and was shut up in his palace and preparing to surrender.

  David talked to the two of them for about ten minutes, and then we left. “Sheikh Hassa’s scared,” he said as we pushed our way out into the shade of the alleyway. “All these frightened people flooding into his village … It’s knocked the fight right out of him. And Mahommed’s only a boy. Hassa will hand over Dhaid without firing a shot.” He said it angrily, with deep bitterness. And he added: “Fifty resolute men could defend this place for a month—long enough to preserve its independence from Hadd.”

  “What about Khalid?” I asked. “Did his brother say what had happened to him?”