A Kind of Courage

by John Harris

  Tafas frowned. The discovery of oil could make so much difference. There would be American backing and American power behind him, and wealth might bring about a vast change in the attitude of his people. Greed could unite them and a defence of the Toweida Plain could be acceptable if it were proved worth anything.

  He sighed again. It would have been so easy to pack a bag and pick up the Sultanate jewels and leave for the South of France. He had a yacht in the harbour and could live on it in luxury until such time as he could acquire a property in Italy or Spain or France. He would not be short of money. He had been putting funds into a numbered account in Zurich for years.

  Despite this, however, he didn’t for a moment entertain the idea. He had made a treaty with the British and he intended to see it implemented. He knew that if his country cut itself off from Britain or America, Russia or China would move in, and while it didn’t matter much to the Sultan who supported Khalit, he preferred the British and the Americans because he was selfish enough to realise his own future was safer with them. His courage was the courage of stupidity, stubbornness and greed, and the fact that units of his forces, led by two or three young foreigners, were cut off in the north, actually cheered him a little because he saw political advantage in it. Hahdhdhah had to be held. If it were given up – even if only the British officers were brought out – the whole frontier would collapse. While they remained there – besieged or in control, it didn’t matter – he was buying time.

  He drew a deep breath. ‘I had the wife of Major Pentecost to see me,’ he said. ‘She told me it was my duty to send a relief column up to Hahdhdhah.’

  Yani said nothing and he went on slowly. ‘It is a pity I can’t help,’ he said. ‘She was a very persistent young woman. A very attractive one, too.’

  Yard still said nothing. With both the British and the Sultan being difficult, it seemed that all the land north of the Dharwa range was going to have to look after itself. He wondered where they went next.

  The Sultan enlightened him. ‘If we do nothing to help,’ he pointed out, ‘the British will have to help. Their people in Hahdhdhah will suffer otherwise. They’ll never allow that.’ He paused. ‘I’m told,’ he went on, ‘that there have been deaths already.’

  ‘That is so.’ Yani inclined his head.

  ‘And that they have gone off the air.’

  ‘My information is that they can still receive.’

  The Sultan smiled. ‘We must get them a new transmitter,’ he said. ‘We must not let them be forgotten. Especially by their own government. Couldn’t we fly one in? By helicopter?’

  ‘We haven’t got any helicopters, sir. Only old Douglas transport planes.’

  ‘I have one.’

  Yani swallowed nervously. ‘It would be difficult at Hahdhdhah,’ he pointed out. ‘The hills run too close to the fort. Your machine is old, too, sir, and not very manoeuvrable and the pilot would be under direct fire all the way in. It would look bad if he failed.’

  The Sultan raised his eyes. He knew exactly what Yani meant. News of a failure in the north might easily mean failure in Khaswe. If the tribesmen around Dhafran learned there had been a minor victory at Hahdhdhah they would try for a victory in Dhafran, to – and in Haraa and Afarja and Khowiba. And that kind of victory would mean that the nationalists in Khaswe who were bent on ruling would go all out for victory on the coast.

  He suddenly regretted all the cheese-paring he had insisted on in the past that had left his troops ill-equipped and low in morale, and his air force a sad organisation of elderly Dakotas and cast-off fighters. At that moment, with the only helicopter his own old machine, he would have been glad of a few of the newer and more sophisticated aeroplanes he’d more than once been offered and always turned down because he needed the money for other, more personal things.

  He drew a deep breath. ‘I still think we must try,’ he said. ‘A transmitter, medicines and comforts. Evacuate the wounded. It would encourage the garrison. It might also,’ he added, ‘encourage Mrs Pentecost.’

  3

  Majid the Assassin was the first to see the old helicopter. He was waiting among the rocks with a few of Thawab’s men, his eyes on a small group of deer which had appeared from nowhere, and as he saw the aircraft he guessed at once what it was up to.

  He jumped to his feet immediately and banged on the shoulder of the boy who was operating one of the few elderly walkie-talkies that Thawab owned.

  ‘Warn everyone,’ he said. ‘Tell them to start firing when I give the signal. And tell them to be accurate. Then get hold of Lord Thawab.’

  The boy nodded. ‘Aziz too?’ he asked.

  Majid stared at the approaching helicopter. ‘No,’ he snapped. ‘Not Aziz.’

  From the fortress they could see heads bobbing eagerly among the folds of land as the helicopter approached, the thud-thud of its whirling rotors smiting the hills with the beat of the engine.

  ‘I think he’s going to find it bloody awkward getting in here,’ Fox said.

  ‘I think so, too,’ Pentecost agreed. ‘Get everybody out. We’ve got to keep a few of those heads down.’

  As Fox disappeared, Chestnut slammed to attention beside Pentecost. ‘Sorr, permission tae make a suggestion!’ He gestured with one hand and as Pentecost turned he could see Beebe dragging up a long-armed contraption of wood and metal.

  ‘What is it, Sergeant?’

  ‘Catapult, sorr!’ Chestnut stared at him, his eyes mad in his thin fanatic face. ‘Made o’ bedsprings. We can hit yon sangar wi’ it.’

  Pentecost looked startled. ‘You’ve tried?’

  ‘Aye, sorr. Last night. Wi’ stones. Mr Beebe an’ me have been working it oot for a couple o’ days. We put extra weight into the pan tae gi’e the correct range, sorr. Permission tae demonstrate, sorr.’

  Pentecost glanced at Beebe. ‘Does it work, Mr Beebe?’ he asked.

  Beebe grinned. The knowledge that help was coming bolstered him up and he was eager to do some damage before the siege ended.

  ‘Sure does,’ he said, ‘though I guess I’m not so goddam happy with live ammunition.’

  Pentecost rubbed his nose. ‘You’d better demonstrate, Sergeant.’

  As Beebe bent over their contraption, Chestnut reached for a grenade.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Mac,’ Beebe breathed nervously, ‘go easy with that goddam firework!’

  ‘Awa’ wi’ ye!’ Chestnut grinned his thin crazy grin and held the grenade at arm’s length over the pan on the arm of the catapult, the firing lever held down with his thumb. ‘Pin out! Into the pan! Now!’

  As he snatched his hand away, there was a twang of springs and the arm flew up against its stop with a thump and the whole contraption leapt on its stand.

  ‘Watch, sorr!’ Chestnut screamed and they peered through the embrasures as Beebe counted.

  ‘Three-four-five!’

  There was a flash in the air over the distant sangar and the sharp crack of the exploding grenade. A howl of pain went up and Chestnut, looking madder than ever, turned to Pentecost.

  ‘Shrapnel, sorr!’ he said gaily.

  As the Dharwas and the Toweidas and the few Civil Guards took up their positions, the walkie-talkie came to life and their eyes lifted to the helicopter again.

  ‘Hallo, Hahdhdhah—’ the English was overlaid with a thick Khaliti accent ‘—I am now going to try to come in.’

  Pentecost clicked the switch. ‘We have cleared a space,’ he said, his eyes flickering over his shoulder at the strips of cloth held down by stones in the middle of the courtyard. ‘You’ll see the white cross.’

  ‘Can you give me support?’

  Pentecost glanced at Chestnut and clicked the switch. ‘We have arranged this already.’

  ‘OK, I come in now.’

  The helicopter was approaching the grey walls of Hahdhdhah when a flare went up from the hills and the firing started in a sudden concentrated fury that showed it was organised. Immediately the machine guns in the for
tress opened up a counter fire with the Martini mountain guns while Chestnut’s weird weapon sent grenades into the air one after another to keep heads down behind the sangar. For a while the racket in the narrow bowl of the hills was incredible.

  As the helicopter began to descend, they could see the pilot’s head turning from right to left as he tried to make up his mind what to do, then they saw bullets striking it and saw the plexiglass star. The machine seemed to hover for a second, tilted backwards, then lifted away from the fort again.

  ‘Hello, Hahdhdhah.’ The walkie-talkie clicked. ‘I have been hit.’

  Pentecost slapped the microphone into Chestnut’s hand and turned to call to Stone waiting near the gate with the scout cars.

  ‘Stand by!’

  Beebe was staring through the ramparts. The sun was the colour of egg yolk and the brush of the grit in the wind against his forehead made him scowl with irritation. His high spirits of a few moments before had vanished. He had faced the humbling fact some time before that he was not as brave as he had thought and he had been looking forward to getting to safety, and the sight of the stricken helicopter choked him with disappointment.

  ‘You won’t need the cars,’ he said heavily. ‘The sonofabitch’s too far away already.’

  ‘Hello, Hahdhdhah—’ the voice from the headset came faintly ‘—I must pull out – I—’

  The helicopter was well away from the fort now and suddenly they saw it plunge downwards and disappear into the low ridges of land in the distance. Immediately, a howl of triumph, clearly heard in the fortress, went up from the slopes, and a moment later they saw a column of smoke begin to rise in the air to drift over the fort.

  The Hejris were screaming with triumph under their flags, shouting and jeering and firing at the fort, and Beebe found himself crouching with his head down next to Pentecost, whose small features were straight with a narrow kind of privacy that was scornful and detached.

  ‘That helps nobody,’ he said slowly. ‘Only Aziz.’

  Nine

  1

  The grim mood at Hahdhdhah was reflected in Khaswe. Nothing had changed there, though the airport was open again and the RAF was flying civilians out of the city. No one wanted to fly in, because the bombs and the shooting had ruined Khaswe as a holiday resort for jaded Europeans.

  Even the British forces gave no feeling of security any more. An officer and several men in a lorry had been trapped down a narrow street and hit by grenades, and three more men had been lost getting the wounded out. In addition, explosives smuggled into the basement in milk churns had blown in the front of the Sultan Khalil Hotel and set every sun blind on the facade clattering back into its box. Even the Palace had been hit by mortar fire from the Khesse district. They’d winkled out the Khaliti who’d been firing it and captured the weapon, but the thought of mortars worried Cozzens. When it had started, it had been simply rifles and pistols and men shot in the back.

  Nothing had been released to the press about the Sultan’s attempts to drop supplies to Hahdhdhah, but somehow it had reached the city, and, taking advantage of the concern with the frontier, the Nationalists had redoubled their efforts. The mob had been out on the streets again and the troops were still cleaning away the debris, the felled trees, the broken glass and the burned-out cars, and Cozzens’ desperate request by telephone to Wintle at Dhafran for extra Khaliti troops had been turned down. Forcibly. The line was bad but there was no mistaking the explosion of anger at the other end. Wintle was no longer a British officer and he didn’t have to defer to Cozzens.

  ‘No!’ he snapped. ‘I’m holding everything I’ve got here in case I can persuade Tafas to let me go in and fetch Pentecost out! Why in God’s name don’t you get to work on London to put some pressure on the old bastard?’

  Cozzens frowned, thinking of his orders. ‘London’s waiting for UNO,’ he pointed out doggedly. ‘They say it’s your problem.’

  ‘Tafas says it’s yours.’

  ‘My orders categorically forbid me to move.’

  There was an angry silence on the line and the goaded Cozzens turned the idea of rebellion over in his mind. ‘What if I managed to drum up some help from somewhere – from London or Tafas, it doesn’t matter – could you mount a column?’

  There was another silence on the telephone then Wintle’s voice came back grimly. ‘With someone to look after the shop up here, yes. I’d need a few days, though. We lost a lot of vehicles when those bloody bombs went off. We’re trying to put it right but it takes time, and we can’t fiddle about with penny numbers – not with two of the Dharwa passes closed.’

  Cozzens drew a deep breath, knowing he was committing himself. ‘Make your plans, Jem,’ he said. ‘I’ve been working on a few people. Have you anyone you can send in command?’

  Wintle’s voice came harshly in his ear. ‘Pentecost’s attached to me,’ it said. ‘If a column goes, I lead it.’

  As Wintle rang off, Cozzens stared at the Havrist leaflet on his desk. It gloated over the death of Lack. He’d already had the unenviable task of seeing the widow of Captain Griffiths who’d been killed at Dhafran, and he thanked God that Lack had not also been married with a wife in Khaswe awaiting his return.

  He sighed, knowing perfectly well that the trouble in Khalit was a result of military judgement being dominated by political factors. The Khaliti nationalists with their pamphlets were growing altogether too enterprising for the number of troops Cozzens had at his disposal.

  He glanced at the instructions he’d been preparing to enable him to stretch his command to its limit. Traffic was to go one way only because it made it easier to discourage car-borne assassins, and mosques were to be searched in spite of being holy places, because they were being used to harbour dynamiters. But he was still working with one hand tied behind his back because in the hothouse atmosphere of the United Nations the British Government was even now finding it easier to explain away the death of a British soldier than a Khaliti terrorist.

  Cozzens picked up his pen and scrawled in the margin, ‘Bayonets to be used if necessary.’ They looked menacing, he thought, and they weren’t issued for opening tins of bully beef. Then he threw down the pen and frowned. None of this helped Pentecost up in Hahdhdhah, he decided bitterly, and Hahdhdhah was the place which still remained most in his thoughts.

  On an impulse, he picked up the telephone and asked for Group Captain Southey. Southey’s command consisted of only a half-squadron of Harriers, and they were in Khaswe really only as a threat.

  He broached the subject that was in his mind at once. ‘If you had to, Tom,’ he asked, ‘could you lay on a jet strike?’

  Southey’s voice came back, a little startled by his shortness. ‘Of course I could,’ he said. ‘What do you want? Rockets? Guns? Bombs? Napalm?’

  Cozzens responded brusquely to the sarcasm. ‘The way things are shaping I might need the lot.’

  Southey was a thin wiry man, not inclined to get excited about anything, but he sounded even more startled now than before. ‘You don’t mean you’re serious, do you, for God’s sake?’

  ‘I might be,’ Cozzens admitted grimly.

  There was silence for a moment, then Southey’s voice came again. ‘I should look at your orders,’ he advised. ‘This is sheer suck-it-and-see.’

  ‘I’m not carrying the can for the politicians, Tom,’ Cozzens said. ‘Not even if it costs me my job.’

  ‘It might well.’

  ‘I’ve never been ambitious. And we’re supposed to be a band of brothers not a flock of sheep. You heard the news from the north?’

  ‘Is that what you want the jets for?’

  ‘That’s it exactly. They lost a few men.’

  ‘On top of the desertions when they first put the cork in?’

  ‘On top of those. Mostly Toweidas. But one of ours, too. He was caught outside and tortured to death.’

  There was silence for a while from Southey. When he spoke again his voice was heavier. ‘Hang onto yourself
, Alan,’ he warned. ‘A murder isn’t supposed to affect people like you and me. We’re supposed to sit here calmly drinking pink gins, being nice to the the terrorists and remaining unmoved when our chaps are knocked off. Can’t you forget it?’

  Cozzens paused. ‘I’ve got some dark places in my soul,’ he said. ‘But not that kind.’

  ‘Was it bad?’

  ‘It was bloody bad, and I want to know how you feel, because Tafas is still standing firm on his belief that the frontier’s our problem. If both sides are hanging back, things could get rather sticky for young Pentecost.’

  There was silence for a moment, then Southey’s voice came back briskly. ‘We could doubtless get some lines crossed somewhere. I’d need convincing it was worth it, though. Especially after what happened to that Khaliti pilot. Hahdhdhah was no place for a chopper with the Hejri in the hills. Did you know he was going?’

  ‘I never know what Tafas is up to. He either forgets to tell me or decides to keep his own council.’

  As he put the telephone down, Cozzens saw that Colonel Steyne, his Chief of Staff, had appeared alongside the desk. ‘I want all British wives brought together,’ he said. ‘Take over the Sultan Khalil Hotel. They’re doing no business since they lost their entrance, anyway. We can arrange a school there for the children, and for God’s sake, let’s circularise everybody to go home.’ He paused and looked at a note on his pad. ‘Mrs Griffiths?’ he asked. ‘Is she still here?’

  ‘Going tomorrow, sir,’ Steyne said. ‘She’s staying with my family for the moment.’

  ‘That’s very civil of you. How’s she taking it?’

  ‘Pretty well, sir. They’re really quite remarkable, these women, aren’t they? They live with this possibility all their lives, I know, but it’s still surprising how well they conduct themselves when it happens.’