The Doomed Oasis

by Hammond Innes

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ Whitaker glared at him. ‘Even if you did blow up a well, what good would it do? In a day or at most two they would have repaired it.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ David said quietly. ‘Just let me have a few men.’

  ‘Men? You won’t get men out of me for a crack-brained scheme like this.’ And then in a gentler voice, ‘See here, David. I realize you’ve probably been through a lot during the past two months. And if you’ve been out to the battlefield on the Mahdah falaj, as I rather suspect from your attitude, I don’t imagine it was a pleasant sight.’

  ‘It wasn’t a pleasant sight riding through Saraifa and seeing the people there without water and fleeing from the oasis,’ David answered hotly.

  ‘No. But … ‘ Colonel Whitaker hesitated. He’d seen the obstinate look on David’s face. No doubt he sensed his mood, too, which was desperately determined. ‘Come into the tent,’ he said. ‘I refuse to continue this discussion out here.’ He glanced at me. ‘If you’ll excuse us, Grant, I’d like to talk to my son alone for a moment.’ He pulled back the flap of the tent. ‘Faddal.’ It was said quite automatically. A carpet showed red in the glare of the lamplight, some cushions, a tin box, and the two of them were inside the tent and the flap fell.

  The outline of the dunes, smooth and flowing like downlands, faded into darkness as I sat alone on the sand, a centre of curiosity for the whole camp. The sky was clouded over so that there were no stars and it was very dark.

  It was about half an hour later that David suddenly emerged out of the night and sat down beside me. ‘What happened?’ I asked him.

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied tersely. And after that he sat for a long time without saying a word, without moving. Finally he turned to me of his own accord. ‘I don’t understand him,’ he said. ‘It was like talking to a complete stranger.’ And he added, ‘I don’t think Saraifa means anything to him any more.’ The bitterness of his voice was overlaid with frustration. ‘It’s tragic,’ he whispered. ‘Half a dozen men. That’s all I asked him for. But he thinks it’s all a dream, that I don’t know what I’m doing.’

  ‘You told him about Khalid - what he’d said to me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And it made no difference?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘What did you talk about then?’

  He laughed a little wildly. ‘About locations, geological formations, a drilling programme. He wasn’t interested in anything else.’ And then speaking more to himself than to me: ‘I couldn’t get through to him. I just couldn’t seem to get through.’ He beat his fist against the ground. ‘What do you do when a man’s like that?’ He stared at me angrily. ‘I don’t understand him. Do you know what he said? He said I was forgiven. He said everything was to be just as it was between us in the early days when I first worked with him. I’m to stay here and help him drill a well. He and I -together; we’re going to drill the most important well in Arabia.’ Again that slightly wild laugh. ‘And when I mentioned Hadd, he said Hadd or Saraifa, what did it matter now? He’ll treat with the Emir, with the Devil himself, so long as he’s left in peace to drill his well and prove his bloody theory to the damnation of Philip Gorde and all the rest of the oil boys. God! I wonder I didn’t kill him.’ And he added, ‘The man’s mad. He must be mad.’

  ‘Obsessed perhaps … ‘ I murmured.

  ‘Mad.’ He glared at me. ‘How else do you explain his attitude, his fantastic assumption that I’d be content to sit here drilling a well after what’s happened? For Khalid’s sake I’d have agreed to anything. I’d have played the dutiful bastard sitting at the feet of the Great Bedouin. But when I asked him for men … ‘ He shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t give them to me. He wouldn’t do a damned thing to help. Said I was crazy even to think of it. Me? And all he could talk about, with Makhmud dead and men he’d known for years lying by that well with their guts half eaten out - all he could talk about was his damned theory and how he’d known all along he was right. I tell you the man’s mad.’ His voice was sharp with frustration. ‘I wish to God,’ he said bitterly, ‘I’d never come out here, never set eyes on him. And to think I worshipped the man. Yes, worshipped him. I thought he was the greatest man living.’

  The bitterness in his voice … ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked him.

  Take what men I can and get the hell out of here. Do what I planned to do - without his help.’ His voice had a bite to it and he slid to his feet. There’s nothing else left for me to do - nothing that means anything, nothing useful.’ He left me then and hurried down to the dark shapes sitting around the cook fires, calling to them in their own tongue, gathering them about him. And then he began to harangue them.

  A little wind had sprung up and it chilled the sweat on my body. But it wasn’t the drop in temperature that made me shiver. I was caught up in a situation that was beyond my control, isolated here in the desert with two men equally obsessed - the one with oil, the other with an oasis. And then Whitaker’s voice close behind me: ‘Grant. You’ve got to talk him out of it.’

  I got to my feet. He was standing there, a dark silhouette against the dunes, staring down at where his son stood amongst the smoke of the fires. ‘His plan is madness.’

  But I’d been with David too long not to feel sympathy for him. ‘He’s fighting for something he believes in,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you help him?’

  ‘By giving him men?’ His harsh, beaked face was set and stony. ‘I’ve few enough for my purpose as it is.’ And then in a softer voice: ‘I had my loyalties, too. But now, with Makhmud dead, I’m free to do what perhaps I should have done in the first place. I’ve seen the Emir. I’ve sent Yousif to Sharjah with those letters to merchants there. I’m re-checking the earlier surveys. In a few days we’ll spud in and start to drill. And when I’ve brought in the first discovery well, then all this trouble between Hadd and Saraifa will be seen in perspective, a small matter compared with the vast changes an oilfield will bring to the desert here.’

  ‘And your son?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘As I told you before, when I thought he was dead, I’d hoped he’d follow me, a second Whitaker to carry on where I left off. Instead, I find myself cursed with an obstinate, stupid youth who’s no respect for my judgment and opposes me at every turn.’ He put his hand on my arm and in a surprisingly gentle voice, he said, ‘Talk to him. Grant. Try and do for me what I know I can’t do myself. His plan is suicidal.’

  He was looking straight at me and I was shocked to see there were tears running down his cheeks - not only from the one good eye, but welling out from beneath the black patch that concealed the other. ‘Do what you can,’ he said softly. And then he turned quickly away and went back to his tent.

  Ten minutes later David was back at my side, looking tired and drained. ‘One man,’ he said in a bleak voice. ‘One man will come with me. That’s all. Hamid’s brother, bin Suleiman. And he’s coming, not because he understands my plan, but simply because with him, as with Hamid, it’s a blood feud now.’ He gave a shrug and a quick laugh. ‘Well. the fewer the better perhaps. They’ll drink less water, and water is going to be our trouble.’ He called to Hamid and gave the order to load the camels. ‘We’ll leave as soon as I’ve got the things I need out of Entwhistle’s truck.’

  I started to try and talk him out of it, but he brushed my words aside. ‘My mind’s made up. Talking won’t change it.’ And then he said, ‘What about you? Are you staying here or will you come with me?’ He stared at me, a long, speculative look. ‘If you should decide to come with me. then I can promise to get you away to the coast with Salim as your guide.’ And he added, ‘If you don’t come, then I think I may be throwing my life away for nothing. You’re my only hope of contact with the outside world, and if the world doesn’t know what I’m doing, then it’s all wasted.’

  I asked him what exactly he planned to do, but he wouldn’t tell me the details. ‘You’d have to know the ground or you might agree wit
h my father and think it crazy. But I assure you,’ he added with great conviction, ‘that with any luck at all it will work. It’s the last thing the Emir will be expecting, and the fact that we’ll be a very small party … ‘ He smiled. ‘It makes it easier really- the first part at any rate. And I promise you you’ll not be involved in the rest. Think it over, will you, sir? I need your help in this - desperately.’ He left it like that and disappeared abruptly into the night.

  I lay on the hard ground, listening to the movement of the camels, the sounds of preparation for another journey. A little wind came in puffs, sifting the sand, and it was dark. A stillness had enveloped the camp. I don’t think I’m any more of a coward than the next man, but to seek out death, deliberately and in cold blood … You see, it never occurred to me he could succeed. I thought his father was right and that he was throwing away his life in a futile gesture. I remembered Gorde’s description of Whitaker-an old man tilting at windmills. David was very like his father in some ways. I closed my eyes, thinking of Tanganyika and the hard life I’d led there, and then I felt a hand on my shoulder. ‘Well?’ David asked, and when I nodded almost without thinking, he passed me a rifle. ‘I take it you know how to use it?’ He had another which he handed to bin Suleiman and a revolver with holster and belt which he strapped to his own waist.

  The stark reality of what I was doing came with the feel of the well-oiled breech under my hand. It took me back to days I thought I’d forgotten - to the deadly slopes of Monte Cassino, to Anzio and the Gothic Line. I rose quietly to my feet. Salim and Ali were loading cartons of explosive cartridges on to one of the camels. Hamid and his brother, a squat, hairy man with wild eyes and a low-browed head, were packing coils of fine wire and a contact plunger with its batteries into the saddle bags of another beast.

  The camels staggered to their feet, bulking suddenly large against the overcast, and we were on our way.

  A lone figure standing by one of the tents watched us go. It was Colonel Whitaker. He made no move to stop us, nor did he call out. We left the camp in silence and though they knew we were going, no man stirred from the camp fires. It was as though they feared to have any contact with us; it was as though we had already passed beyond the shadows of death.

  Clear of the camp we turned east, working our way silently up the face of a dune in short zig-zags. At the crest we stopped to mount, and then we were riding, the dark desert all around us and the swaying shapes of our camels the only movement in the stillness of night.

  The clouds thinned and gradually cleared, leaving us exposed in bright moonlight. But if the Emir had men watching Whitaker’s camp, we never saw them. Dawn found us camped among sparse camel thorn on a flat gravel plain. Sharp-etched against the break of day stood the jagged tops of the mountains. Dates and coffee, and then sleep. ‘We start at dusk,’ David said and buried his face in his headcloth.

  The withered camel thorn gave little shelter and as the sun climbed the burning vault of the sky, it became very hot. Flies worried us, clinging to the sweat of exposed flesh, and we suffered from thirst for our water bags were empty and all we had was the contents of two water bottles. We took it in turns to keep watch, but the shimmering expanse of gravel that surrounded us remained empty of life.

  As the sun sank we lit a fire and had a huge meal of rice and dried meat. A bowl of warm camel’s milk passed from mouth to mouth. Our four Arabs talked excitedly amongst themselves and the meal finished, they began to oil their guns, cleaning them with loving care. In contrast David and I sat silent, doing nothing. The sun set and in an instant the sky had paled. The visibility was fantastic in the dry air, everything sharp and clear, as though magnified. ‘You’d better tell me what you plan to do,’ I said, and my voice reflected the tension that had been growing in me all through that long, inactive day.

  David was staring at the distant line of the mountains and for a moment I thought he hadn’t heard my question. But then he said, ‘It isn’t easy to explain to somebody who has never been to Hadd.’

  ‘I’ve flown over it,’ I said.

  He looked at me then, a sudden quickening of interest. ‘Did you see the fort of Jebel al-Akhbar? Did you see how the town is backed right into the rock?’ And when I explained how I’d passed close over it in Gorde’s plane, he said, ‘Then you know the situation. That fort is the key to Hadd. Who holds that fort holds the people of Hadd in the hollow of his hand. It’s as simple as that.’ He was suddenly excited, his eyes bright with the vision of what he planned to do. ‘When there was trouble here before the Trucial Oman Scouts moved into the fort and that was the end of it.’

  ‘We’re not the Trucial Oman Scouts.’ I thought it was time he faced up to the facts. There are six of us, that’s all. We’re armed with rifles and nothing else. And our ammunition is limited.’

  ‘There’s ammunition for us in the fort,’ he said. Two boxes of it and a box of grenades.’ Apparently he and Khalid had found them left there by the TOS and half-buried under a pile of rubble. They were out hunting as the Emir’s guests and had taken refuge in the fort during a sandstorm. ‘It’s a long time ago now,’ he added, ‘but I think we’ll find the boxes still there. We buried them pretty deep. As for numbers … ‘ He gave a little shrug.‘One man, well armed and determined, could hold that tower for as long as his water held out.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Water. It always comes back to water in the desert, doesn’t it?’ And he slid to his feet and gave the order to move.

  As we rode he pointed out the fort to me, small as a pinhead on top of a hill that miraculously detached itself from the line of the mountains, standing clear in the last of the daylight and much nearer than I had expected. ‘Dawn tomorrow,’ he said, ‘that’s where we’ll be.’ He looked very much like his father as he stared at me, his youthful features set in the grimmer mould of an older man. ‘God willing!’ he breathed. ‘And when we’re there you’ll understand.’ He rode on then with his four Wahiba, talking with them urgently in their own tongue and leaving me to ride alone, prey to my own forebodings.

  Dusk fell and merged imperceptibly into night. The stars lit our way and in no time at all it seemed, there was the Jebel al-Akhbar, a black hat of a hill bulked against the night sky. We rode slowly in a tight little bunch. The time was a little after ten. ‘We’ll water our camels at the well on the outskirts, fill our water bags … ‘ David’s voice was taut.

  ‘And if there’s a guard?’ I whispered.

  ‘We’re travellers from Buraimi on our way to the coast. Bin Suleiman will explain. He’s known here.’

  ‘And after we’ve filled our water bags?’

  ‘Ssh!’ The camels had stopped at a signal from Hamid. We sat still as death, listening. There were rock outcrops ahead and the dim shapes of buildings. A solitary light showed high up on the slope of the hill, which now towered above us, a dark mass against the stars. Somewhere a goat bleated. There was no other sound.

  A whispered word from David and we moved forward again. The well-head appeared, a simple wooden structure topping a crumbling wall of mud and stone. We dismounted and the leathern bucket was dropped into the depths. The wooden roller creaked as it was drawn up. One by one the camels were watered; one by one the skin bags filled. And all the time the wood creaked and we stood with our guns ready. But nobody came. The solitary light vanished from the slope of the hill, leaving the whole town dark as though it were a deserted ruin. Salim and Ali left with the camels and David went to work with cartridges of explosive and detonators. And when he’d mined the well, we went forward on foot, running the thin line of the wire out behind us.

  The second well was close under the walls and there were camels couched near it. We could hear them stirring uneasily, could even see some of them, dark shapes against the lighter stone. A man coughed and sat up, dislodging a stone. The sound of it was magnified by the silence. And then I saw his figure coming towards us. Hamid and bin Suleiman moved to intercept. They talked together in whispers whilst David went on working and
I helped him, glancing every now and then over my shoulder, expecting every moment to hear the man cry out and raise the alarm.

  But nothing happened. The camels quietened down, the man went back to his interrupted sleep and David was left to complete his work in peace. He worked fast and with absolute sureness, but it all took time. It was past midnight before he had finished and a paler light above the mountains warned that the moon was rising.

  As we trailed our wire towards a gap in the crumbling walls, two shots sounded far out in the desert behind us. We checked, standing there motionless and sweating. But there were no more shots. ‘Somebody out hunting gazelle,’ David whispered. They do it at night by the lights of their Land-Rovers.’ And we went on through the gap which led to a narrow alley. There were no doors to the buildings on either side, only window openings high up. The alley led into the market place. More camels, some goats and figures asleep against the walls of the houses. The well was on the far side. There was a baby camel there and a small boy lay curled up beside it. The camel, its coat fluffy as a kitten’s, rose on straddling, spindly legs and gazed at us in amazed silence. The boy stirred, but didn’t wake. A dog began to bark. I caught hold of David’s arm. ‘You’ve done enough surely,’ I whispered.

  ‘Scared?’ He grinned in the darkness and shrugged me off. ‘We can’t climb to the fort till the moon’s up.’ And he squatted down in the dust and went to work. The boy suddenly sat up, staring at us round-eyed. I thought, My God! If he kills that child … But David said something and the boy got slowly to his feet and came hesitantly forward, gazing in fascination. David gave him the wire to hold. A man moved in the shadows by an archway. The boy’s father. As he came forward, other figures stirred. A little knot of men gathered round us. But the boy sitting there in the dust beside David, helping him, made it all seem innocent. They stood and watched for a while, talking with Hamid and bin Suleiman, and then they drifted back to their sleep.