The Doomed Oasis (25 page)

“So there isn't any oil where you're drilling?”

“No, not as far as I know.”

It was a strange business. He'd spent all that money, almost a year of desperate effort to lure the Company into becoming involved again in Saraifa. It was clever, but … “And you think Erkhard will sign the concession agreement?”

“I think so, yes. In the four years he's been General Manager he hasn't been very successful. His position isn't as strong as it was when he came out here.”

“But why didn't you tell David what you were doing?”

“How could I? He was Erkhard's man.” And he added: “I still have contacts in the Bahrain office. According to them, he was under orders to report on everything I was doing.”

“And he agreed?”

“They knew his background. After that, of course, I couldn't trust him.”

“Then why was he on loan to you?”

“Erkhard offered him to me. I'd had him here before; I couldn't very well refuse.” And then sadly: “I didn't dare tell him. Besides, he lacked patience. He always approached things head-on, wanting to force the issue. If I'd thought he'd have been guided by me …” He shrugged. “Well, it can't be helped now.”

He turned to me, his manner suddenly matter-of-fact. “You must be tired, and I've a long day ahead of me. You're fixed up all right, I take it, at the Sheikh's palace?”

I nodded and got to my feet. “But I still don't understand why you did nothing about the Farr report—after the war when the Company had the concession.”

“Various reasons,” he answered. “Most of them political. All the time the Company had the concession there was spasmodic fighting on the border. The Emir, you see, was determined to grab any oil there was for himself. And when we finally sent in troops to keep the peace, it was too late for me to do anything about it. The concession had lapsed, Philip Gorde had gone home sick, and Erkhard had taken over. Erkhard would have dealt with the Emir or anybody else. He'd no feeling for Saraifa, the way Philip had.” He turned abruptly and shouted for Yousif. And then, looking at me very hard, he said: “You've come at a strange moment, Grant, and I've told you things I've told no other man. I've had to, or you'd have caused more trouble. By the mere fact of coming out here …” He hesitated and I knew he was thinking of Gorde. “What did Philip say? Was he surprised when he discovered where I was drilling?”

“I don't think he knows,” I said. “He wasn't even sure you were drilling.”

“Oh, he knows. A plane passed over the rig this afternoon. I thought for a moment it must be Erkhard arriving a day early, but when it circled and turned away I began to wonder.” He was looking out into the desert again and his face showed the strain he was under. “I could have wished it had been anyone but Philip Gorde. He's the only man in the whole Company who knows enough to guess what I'm up to. But there's nothing I can do about it now.”

Yousif had appeared, and Whitaker held out his hand to me. “You're a lawyer, Grant. You've been involved in our affairs for a long time. I rely on you not to talk.” He held my hand gripped in his. “We have two enemies here in Saraifa—the Emir and the sands.” He gestured towards the white expanse of the dunes and added softly: “Tomorrow, with God's help, I'll lay the foundations of victory over them both.” It was said with great intensity, his eye fixed on my face.

I left him then, standing alone as I had found him on that rooftop, a strange, almost fanatical figure against the backcloth of endless desert. Even when I got back to my turret room, the memory of him was so clear in my mind that I felt he was still with me. But I was too exhausted to think clearly about that extraordinary meeting. I fell asleep and dreamed instead of women crying over children dead of thirst.

I woke in the small hours to the reality of their cries, a queer, keening sound coming up from the square below. The palace, too, was alive with voices, and though they were muffled by distance and the thickness of the walls, I caught the vibrant note of disaster.

It was quite chill as I flung off my blanket and went to the embrasure. The village square was ghostly pale in moonlight, empty save for a little group immediately below me, a dozen women and some children huddled like rags around the dead body of a man. He had been shot in the face and he wasn't a pretty sight there in the moonlight. Nearby a camel lay in a pool of blood.

It was just after four by my watch and already the sky was paling in the east. I put on my shoes and went down into the courtyard. The place was in an uproar, fires smoking and men standing in little groups, all talking at once. The nearest fell silent as they saw me and the word “
Nasrani
” passed from mouth to mouth, a whisper of fear, perhaps of hate. I beat a hasty retreat to the seclusion of my turret cell.

Sleep was impossible after that, and I sat huddled in my blanket and watched the dawn break over the Jebel Mountains, the grey light of it creeping across the palm tops, heralded by the brazen sound of an ass braying. The keening ceased, and when I went to the window embrasure there was no sign of the dead man and the camel's carcass had gone. It might have been a bad dream, for as daylight flooded the square it was full of the sound of children and their carefree laughter.

There was a
shireeya
, or open water hole, a short distance from the tower, and young Arab girls were driving goats towards it. There were boys there, too, with their asses, filling goat-skin bags and dripping a dark trail of the precious fluid as they took it to houses in the village. Skinny, undersized fowl pecked in the dirt; a shapeless bundle of womanhood passed, her face hideously concealed by the black mask of the
burqa
. And when the sun lifted its glaring face above the distant line of the mountains, the palms, the sand, the mud houses were all miraculously suffused with colour, as though I were looking at the scene through rose-tinted glasses. Exhausted, I lay down again and was instantly asleep.

I woke to the cry of “
Gahwa
” and a barefoot attendant pouring coffee for me, his gun slung across his back, the brass of his cartridge belt gleaming in the light from the embrasure. It was eight thirty, and the flies crawled over the dates he left for my breakfast.

I ate the dates slowly, for time hung heavy on my hands and I didn't dare venture out alone after what had happened. My eyes felt tired, my body lethargic. My mind wandered in weary circles as the heat of the desert grew in intensity, invading the room. It was almost eleven when Khalid came for me. A brief salaam, a polite hope that I'd slept well, and then he said: “My father holds a
majlis
. He desires your presence, sir.” His face looked grave, and the eyes, deep-sunk and shadowed, spoke of a sleepless night. “The Emir of Hadd has sent one of his sheikhs to make demand for a new border.” His voice sounded weary, too.

“What happened last night?” I asked. “There were women crying and a dead body in the square.”

“They waited in ambush by the fourteenth well. Mahommed bin Rashid is dead and two of his men also. Three are wounded. Come! My father waits for you.”

I asked him if I could wash first, but he said there was no time. “You must explain now, please, to the Emir's representative why you and Meester Entwhistle are on the border.” And then urgently: “Tell Sheikh Abdullah there is no oil there.”

“I'm not a geologist.”

“He don't know that. He thinks you work for the oil company.”

“Well, I don't.” I spoke sharply, irritable with lack of sleep. “I'm a lawyer, and all I'm interested in is what happened to David Whitaker.”

His dark eyes stared at me hard. “Is better you don't talk about David at this meeting,” he said quietly.

“Why?” Angry and tired, I didn't stop to think what I was saying. “Because your father sent some of his bodyguard to arrest him?”

“You saw
Haj
Whitaker last night. You know why they were sent. He was on the Hadd border against my father's orders.”

“Against Whitaker's orders, too, I gather.”

“Yes. If he had been a Muslim instead of a
Nasrani
…” He gave a little shrug. “The Prophet has taught us that the word of the father is as a law and that the son must obey.” And he added: “My father is wishing to avoid trouble. He does not believe that a few miles of desert sand is worth fighting for.”

“And you do?”

Again the little shrug. “My father is an old man and he has known
Haj
Whitaker many years now. He is guided by him in these matters. And I—I also am not a geologist.”

“Who did your father send with the soldiers?” I asked. “Was it you?”

“No. Mahommed bin Rashid.” He turned abruptly. “Come, please. My father is waiting.” And as I followed him down the turret stairs, he said over his shoulder: “Please. You will not speak of David.” He said it fiercely, with great urgency.

He led me through passages that were cool in semi-darkness and up to a rooftop by another staircase. The
majlis
, or audience, was being held in an open room with arches that looked out across the rooftop to the oasis. Sheikh Makhmud didn't rise to greet me. His face looked tired and strained, sullen with anger. He was also, I think, a little frightened. Beside him sat the representative of Hadd, a bearded, sly-eyed, powerfully built man with an elaborately embroidered cloak and a headdress that was like a turban of many colours.

Sheikh Makhmud motioned me to sit facing him. I was thus in the position of the accused facing a Court, for all the notables were there, seated cross-legged and grave on silken cushions ranged round the inner walls of that airy room. On a carpet in the centre were bowls of camel milk and tinned pears. Nobody touched them except the flies. The atmosphere was tense, almost electric.

The situation was distinctly unpleasant, for it was obvious as soon as Sheikh Makhmud began to question me in halting English that he regarded me as responsible for the situation that had developed. Entwhistle's absence didn't help, and though I answered the questions truthfully, I could see from Sheikh Abdullah's manner that he didn't believe me. He listened to the translation with a lack of interest that he didn't bother to conceal.

In the end I lost my temper with him. I scrambled to my feet, and, standing over the man, delivered myself of the sort of broadside I occasionally indulged in in the Courts. My action might have been dictated by expediency, for attack was undoubtedly the best method of defence. But, in fact, my nerves were on edge. “Your men attacked us without warning and without cause!” I shouted at him. And I described how the soft-nosed bullet had slammed into the hood of the Land Rover, how the fusillade of shots had raised spurts of sand all around us. He looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Only a few years ago,” I said, “my country had to send troops here to keep the peace. Now you break it again. Why? What explanation do you wish me to give when I return to Bahrain?”

My words translated, the crafty eyes slid from my face to the assembled men and he licked his lips as though suddenly uncertain of himself. “You have no answer,” I said, and with that I gave Sheikh Makhmud a quick bow and made my exit. I couldn't go far, for armed retainers barred the staircase leading down from the roof. But I had made my point and felt better for it, even though I was now forced to remain out in the full glare of the sun. I sat myself down on the oven-lid heat of the mud parapet and pretended to be absorbed in watching a camel caravan being loaded at a huddle of
barastis
close by the date-gardens. Behind me I could hear the guttural sound of the men's talk as they continued to deliberate.

Coffee was served and Khalid came over and joined me. “Is no good,” he said. “The Emir listens to Cairo Radio and he believes he has powerful friends. It has made him bold. Also he has many new rifles. They have come up from the Yemen, I think. From the coast also.” And he added: “Only if we have oil here in Saraifa will your people give us their full support. We know that.”

“Mr. Erkhard is seeing Colonel Whitaker today,” I said.

He nodded. “My father will not make a decision until he hears from
Haj
Whitaker. He is full of hope.”

“And you?” I asked, for the way he said it suggested he didn't share his father's optimism.

He shrugged. “I also hope, but
Haj
Whitaker is old, and he is tired and sick.”

“Sick?”

“Sick here.” And he touched his heart.

I asked him then what exactly Sheikh Abdullah was demanding. “A new border,” he said and drew it for me in the sand of the rooftop floor with the toe of his sandalled foot. It meant that all the area David had surveyed would belong to Hadd.

“And if your father refuses?”

Again that fatalistic shrug. “Then Sheikh Abdullah say they will destroy another
falaj
, and another and another, until we have no water for the dates, no water for our beasts, none for ourselves even. We die then of thirst and starvation.” He was staring out across the oasis. “I am young yet. I had thought to rebuild the
falajes
, one by one, until Saraifa is like a garden again and the desert at bay. That is my dream.”

“And David's, too.”

“Yes, it is the dream we share since we first hunt the gazelle together.” His eyes had a far-away look, his voice sad with the loss of that dream. His father called to him and he finished his coffee and went back to his place. The conference was resumed, and, looking at the faces of the men gathered in that room, I knew he was right. They were in no mood to fight, and if Whitaker didn't save them, then they would accept it as the will of Allah and agree to the Emir's demands.

The camel caravan down by the palm-tree fringe finished loading. I watched the heavily laden beasts move off through the date-gardens, headed north into the desert. The whole oasis shimmered in the heat, and beyond it stretched the sands, a golden sea thrusting yellow drifts amongst the palms. The sun climbed the sky. The heat became unbearable, the talk spasmodic, and Sheikh Abdullah sat there, his heavy eyelids drooping, not saying anything, just waiting.