The Sons of Adam

by Harry Bingham

  Rage.

  Even out here, on the burning Persian coast, Alan could feel the storm of Tom’s unreasonable anger. Sixteen years in the making, Tom’s fury was like a whirlwind storming round everything that Alan had spent his life creating.

  Something inside Alan hardened and blackened. For the first time in his life, his thoughts turned to revenge.

  The boardroom was silent. Twelve faces stared in silence. The Chairman, Egham Dunlop, nodded at his son-in-law, who stood up.

  ‘You’ve heard the news,’ said Alan, briefly. ‘The Shah has cancelled our concession. We’re not allowed to ship so much as a single barrel of oil out of the country. Though we still have access to oil in Iraq, it’s nowhere near enough to meet our obligations. Within a matter of weeks, our stocks will be exhausted.’ Alan smiled thinly. ‘To put it mildly, gentlemen, our company is on the brink of disaster.’

  Silence.

  What was there to say, after all? Alanto’s offices stood in a quiet street near St James’s Park. The day was a foggy one, the sort that only London could produce: green and choking, harsh with the sting and smell of coal-smoke. Outside the boardroom windows, the leafless plane trees were hardly visible through the murk.

  Then Dunlop spoke. ‘We’ll take it back, I suppose?’

  Alan looked surprised. ‘I beg your pardon, Chairman?’

  ‘Take it back.’ Dunlop tapped the map of Persia that hung on the wall. ‘Give the Shah a whiff of gunpowder. Knock some sense into him.’

  ‘I’m not sure that would be altogether …’

  ‘We could send in a few Tommies. Land ’em here.’ He tapped the map. ‘March ’em here. Either sort out the Shah or put in one of our own chaps. Don’t see why not. Who’s going to stop us?’

  ‘The Persian army, perhaps.’

  ‘The Persian army! Phoo!’

  ‘It has a hundred thousand men and Western armaments,’ pursued Alan. ‘Besides, I’m not sure –’

  ‘A hundred thousand men, eh? Yes, but have they ever seen a De Havilland bomber in action? Have they ever tasted –’

  ‘Perhaps the Managing Director would explain to us what he has in mind?’ said one of the other directors hurriedly, in an attempt to ease Dunlop away from his ever more bloodthirsty schemes.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Alan. ‘First things first. We need to get our concession back. We’ll make the moral case forcefully, of course. The Shah’s acting illegally and he knows it. On the other hand, we need to be realistic. He’s the king and it’s his country. He can do as he pleases. We’ll have to pay more than we’re paying now. A lot more. But we need the oil. It’s as simple as that.’

  There was general agreement. Even Dunlop’s warlike muttering died down to little more than a background hum.

  ‘You’ll go to Tehran, I suppose?’ asked one of the directors. ‘How long do you think … ?’

  But Alan was shaking his head. ‘No. We’ll send one of our best men.’

  ‘But the negotiations? Shouldn’t you handle them?’

  Alan’s thin smile reappeared. It wasn’t warm inside the boardroom, but there was a thin glaze of sweat on his forehead, as though the pea-souper fog outside had crept in and settled.

  ‘Hear me out. I said the first thing was to get the concession back, but we need to face facts. And the fact is that these countries are unstable. Persia has just proved it this year. Iraq may do the same next year. In my opinion, the long-term security of our business is at stake. Does anyone present disagree?’

  Alan gazed round the room. A few of the directors shook their heads. Nobody spoke.

  ‘Good.’ Alan nodded. ‘Then there’s only one place to invest. A place of abundant oil, abundant freedom, known stability: America.’

  Again he paused, looking for doubters. There wasn’t so much as a ripple of hesitation. Alan smiled to himself. Tom wanted a fight, did he? Tom was keen for a scrap, was he? Well, Alan had no intention of disappointing his twin.

  147

  ‘Happy fortieth birthday … Jesus Christ!’

  Bard, now in his late fifties, was still a strong man. But the suitcase that came thundering down onto Tom’s desk was so heavy it virtually split the rolltop.

  ‘You’re gonna be lifting the next one, pal.’

  Tom grinned. His birthday gift was hardly a surprise, but it was a damned nice one all the same. He released the catch on the suitcase and wrenched it open. Inside lay a half-dozen drill bits, each one battered and worn, and each one labelled: ‘Gator Bay No. 1’, ‘Arthur Roland No. 2’, and so on.

  Tom’s grin widened.

  As the price of oil had settled back down, so Tom had begun to drill again. Bard’s gift was a collection of the drill bits that had struck oil from the last eight months of Norgaard’s drilling. They’d join the other bits that already decorated the walls of Tom’s office. Tom’s contentment was growing by the month.

  And it was growing, even though one of the main outcomes of his actions in Persia had been to bring Alanto Oil right onto his own doorstep. Alanto had invested in a company named Blackwater Oil, based right here in Texas. In the past, the move would have sent Tom crazy. But not now. Tom was at peace. He knew he’d caused Alanto a problem. If Alanto took the obvious steps to fix it, then Tom was hardly in a position to object. If he’d been in Alan’s shoes, he’d have done the exact same thing.

  He got up and strolled to the window. Over the road, he could see a Blackwater service station selling gas. Even that sight didn’t bother him now.

  ‘Life’s pretty good, eh, Lyman?’ he said.

  ‘Not bad. Could be worse. Yeah, I reckon.’

  The two men stared out of the window. Out on the Blackwater forecourt, a white-shirted man was struggling to fix a big red sign in place by the roadside.

  ‘Doing anything tonight?’ asked Bard.

  ‘No. Just going home.’

  ‘Well, there’s worse places, I guess.’

  Tom nodded.

  The guy out on the forecourt got his sign in place and stood back, sweating but happy. Tom’s gaze suddenly sharpened.

  ‘Is that … ?’ he said. His voice was tense.

  Bard came closer. He too stiffened. ‘No! They couldn’t …’

  The sign hadn’t been properly secured and it swung sluggishly in the hot, thin air. One of the flaps brought the sign into closer view.

  ‘What in the name of shit … ?’

  ‘Jesus Christ! Does that say … ?’

  The sign flapped again and its message was unmistakable: huge red letters glaring on a white background. The sign said:

  GAS

  only

  15c.!!

  ‘Fifteen cents!’ said Bard. ‘Have they gone crazy? Fifteen cents?!’

  For a moment Tom continued to stare. His knuckles were white and there was a look on his face that Bard had never seen before.

  ‘Go check this out, willya?’ said Tom.

  That was all. He meant: go and find out if it’s just this one garage, or the whole chain of them.

  But he already knew the answer. It would be the whole damn lot of them. Alan had discovered his twin’s identity and here was the proof. The Blackwater sign wasn’t a coincidence, it wasn’t a mistake. It was a fortieth birthday card addressed to Tom and signed by Alan.

  And that was when Tom knew it. That the past wasn’t over. That the past would never be over. And that whatever might have happened in the past was nothing, nothing compared with what was yet to come.

  PART SEVEN

  Shortage of petrol! It’s enough to make one weep.

  General Erwin Rommel, Commander of the

  German Afrika Korps, during the retreat from

  El Alamein, November 1942.

  148

  The thirties had started badly, but they were ending worse.

  In China: war. In Russia: tyranny. In Germany: the seeds of disaster, still unripe but growing all the time.

  Just one generation after the Great War, another war loomed. It w
as a hard time to be optimistic, and few people were.

  It was summer 1939.

  For oilmen, the thirties had been OK. Not great, but good enough. The glut of oil from the East Texan boom hadn’t exactly dried up, but somehow the system had adapted. Auto makers still built cars. People still drove ’em. They still needed gas.

  Profits had been tough to come by, but finding a profit had always been tough. For oilmen, the thirties had been not great, but OK.

  But there were exceptions.

  Two, in particular.

  In Britain, Alanto Oil had stumbled from catastrophe to crisis. Bad luck sat over the company like a storm cloud. Alanto still hauled oil from the ground. It still explored, drilled, struck, pumped, piped, refined, shipped and marketed the valuable liquid. But all for nothing. The company had huge revenues and zero profits. There were literally years in which Mr and Mrs Havelock, the elderly couple who ran the one-roomed village grocery on Whitcombe High Street, were able to report bigger profits than Alanto Oil, the third biggest oil company in Europe.

  The second exception was Norgaard.

  In Tom Calloway, the company was blessed with one of the finest chief executives in the oil industry. When misfortune struck the company in one area of its operations, he flung the company hard in a different direction. He dodged, twisted, rolled and spun. To no avail. Bad luck pursued him like a swarm of bees. Profits disappeared. Losses spread. There were literally years in which Jim and Minnie Singer, the elderly couple who ran the hardware store on Kilgore Main Street, were able to report bigger profits than Norgaard Petroleum, the third biggest oil company in the American South.

  The war between Alan and Tom had intensified and grown bitter. As kids they’d fought in play. As adults they fought for real. But though some things had changed, other things hadn’t.

  Never submit.

  Never give up.

  The old rules were still the same. Unless things changed, not one but both companies would be destroyed.

  And, despite many losses, there was one in particular that had affected Tom to the bone.

  One fine autumn day in 1936, there was a death in the family: a sad one. Pipsqueak, seventeen years old, and the loyalest little heart Tom had ever known, had died peacefully in her sleep, snoozing in the sun at Rebecca’s feet. Tom had been inspecting one of his oilfields on the Gulf Coast when he heard the news, and he’d dropped everything to return straight home. He, Mitch and Rebecca had stood beneath a Cottonwood tree and buried the little mongrel in its shade, with a roll of cooked bacon between her paws. When Tom shovelled the earth over the little white body, he turned his eyes so nobody could see them.

  And so the thirties had passed away. They had begun badly and were ending worse.

  149

  Guy rubbed his hand over his face. He looked tired. And more than tired: he looked old.

  ‘Drink?’ he asked.

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He poured whisky like it was water and added water as though the stuff cost twenty guineas the sip.

  ‘There’ll be war soon,’ he said bluntly. ‘I suppose you know.’

  ‘It seems possible.’

  Guy shook his head, handing his brother a glass. ‘Certain. It’s certain. And d’you want to know if we’re prepared for it?’

  ‘I imagine you’ll say not.’

  ‘Not remotely. Nowhere close. Our navy is fine, but won’t cope with submarines. Our army is ridiculous. Decent men and all that, but their equipment is a joke, a bad one. Our air force is splendid, but it needs ten times the number of aircraft. I’m talking only about defence, you understand. I’m not talking about taking the war to the enemy.’

  ‘You seem despairing.’

  Guy laughed. For the first time, Alan thought that his elder brother had lost his looks. Even when he’d put on weight in middle age, Guy had been able to carry it. He’d had a charm that deflected attention from his physical decline. But no longer. For the first time in his life, Guy looked older than his years, not younger.

  ‘Despairing? Me? Hardly. I’ve no marriage. No money. Not much of a career, even. I’ve a lot less to lose than most. And I’ll say this for the English: we fight best when our position is impossible.’

  Alan paused, weighing up not just Guy’s words, but the way he said them.

  ‘Money,’ he said. ‘You said you had none. Did you mean –’

  ‘Mean that I have none? Yes. Pretty much.’ Guy jerked his chin upwards a little: a pale reflection of his old arrogance. ‘What I had I spent, if you have to know. Wasted it, I suppose you would say. Dorothy had some money. It’s why I married her, as I don’t doubt you knew.’ He shrugged, as though no longer able to shock himself. ‘Her money’s largely gone now, in any case.’

  ‘I once asked you if you wanted me to –’

  ‘Yes. Yes, please. I’d be grateful for whatever you can spare. I’m not very good at living within my means, I’m afraid.’

  Alan nodded. Guy still had his official salary, of course, but an official salary was hardly likely to keep pace with Guy’s expenses. ‘If you let my banker know how much you’d like, I’ll see that you get it.’ He gave his brother a name and address, hoping the amount was not too large. Alan had an excellent salary, but in the past it had been dwarfed by the millions of pounds he’d received in dividends from his Alanto shareholding. Those days were gone. Alanto had thrown all its resources into its war with Norgaard, and exhausted itself in so doing. Alan’s only consolation was that Norgaard was in precisely the same predicament. None of this did he mention, though, simply adding, ‘Please don’t think anything of it. And I see no need to mention the arrangement to Father or Mother, if you don’t.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Alan shrugged. ‘We’re family, Guy.’

  ‘Family, eh?’

  Guy spoke savagely, and Alan noticed that he had already drained his whisky glass and was standing up to get more. Looking around Guy’s drawing room, Alan could see the creeping shabbiness that was a sign of his brother’s bachelor status and shortage of money.

  ‘The money,’ said Guy. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Please. I don’t want –’

  Guy rudely waved Alan down. ‘I’m not going to go on thanking you, you needn’t worry about that. As a matter of fact, there was one thing I thought I would do in exchange.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I thought I would tell you that you’re a bloody fool.’

  Alan gaped in surprise. ‘What?!’

  ‘You’re a fool. Since no one else seems to be telling you that, I thought I better had.’

  ‘Any particular kind of fool?’

  ‘Yes … Tom’s alive, you said.’

  Alan stiffened. ‘Yes,’ he said shortly. He had no idea what was coming, and for all his anger with Tom, he never liked it when Guy spoke of him.

  ‘Do you know how to find him?’

  Alan made a gesture with his hand. He meant he didn’t want to say, but Guy interpreted it as Alan not knowing.

  ‘Well, in any case. Don’t you think you should tell Mother and Father? Tell them he’s alive?’

  Alan licked his lips. ‘It would be hard to do that without …’

  ‘Without telling them about why he ran? About his quarrel with me? You can tell them what you like. I can’t see it matters now.’

  Alan was entirely focused now. He had never heard his brother talk like this. He wasn’t quite sure if he was comfortable with Guy’s new truthfulness, but it was certainly a change.

  ‘Why shouldn’t it matter?’ he said. ‘For better or worse, Tom has chosen to leave us. There’s no reason why –’

  Again Guy interrupted.

  ‘Oh, balderdash! Shall I tell you something?’ He nodded forcefully, as though encouraging himself. ‘Do you want to know why I hated Tom? And I did, by the way. I truly did.’

  Alan nodded slowly. ‘Yes. Yes, I would like to know.’

  ‘You can’t guess? No? I don’t suppose you could.’ Guy’s lips
worked silently for a moment or two, before finally releasing the words that lay inside. ‘You and Tom … the pair of you … You were always so … I don’t know … you were always so bloody splendid. I was seven years older than you. I was the eldest son and heir. I was meant to be someone the two of you could have looked up to. And instead … well, I don’t think I was so rotten, as a matter of fact, but I wasn’t like you. Either of you. Not splendid. I felt that then. I feel it now. I wish you weren’t so bloody perfect. That’s why it was hard taking money from you. You’re such a damned saint.’

  Alan didn’t know what expression to wear. He was half sad, half smiling. ‘Sorry.’

  Guy shrugged. ‘I don’t care now. Not so much, anyway.’ He waved his glass of whisky. ‘I’m halfway drunk, in any case. And with a war coming … Well, you know, that’s the one thing in my life I’ve been really good at. I was a damned good staff officer. One of the best. I’ll be a lot of use in the War Office too. I know that.’

  ‘I’m sure you will.’

  ‘Tell Father and Mother. Tell them that Tom’s alive. That you don’t know where he is. They ought to know.’

  Slowly, seriously, Alan shook his head. For more than six years he had fought Tom from Persia to Texas. He’d done it in anger. Now, perhaps, the anger had left, but the habit was there, and there wasn’t enough of anything else to challenge it.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘They’re old. They’ve made their peace. I’ve made mine. You …’ He paused. Guy didn’t precisely look like a man at peace. ‘Well, you’ve got your whisky.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got my whisky.’

  Alan stood up to go.

  ‘Tell them,’ said Guy. ‘I shan’t say it again.’

  Alan shook his head. ‘I won’t. But thank you.’

  It was 12 June 1939.

  150

  It’s summer in Texas. The evening is pleasantly warm, not hot. The year is 1939.

  Over in Europe, tensions are mounting. German newspapers are full of stories about Polish attacks on German farmhouses. The stories are lies, of course, and dangerous lies at that: lies that may yet lead to war. But out here in Texas on a lovely July night, Europe seems a million miles away.