The Doomed Oasis

by Hammond Innes

  The timbers of the main gate sagged open, splintered by the rocks that lay at the foot of the two crumbling bastions. As we climbed the last steep rise, the tower appeared, framed in the gateway, pale yellow in the sun with the shadowed opening halfway up yawning like a mouth agape. No sign of life. No sound. I called out. ‘David! It’s George Grant!’ The rocks echoed back his name and nothing stirred. ‘David!’

  And then unbelievably, he answered - a hollow, croaking sound from the interior of the tower. ‘I have Captain Berry of the Trucial Oman Scouts with me.’ My throat was parched, my voice hoarse. ‘The Emir offers you a safe conduct.’ Even as I said it I wondered, the stillness and the heat beating at my nerves. Concealed amongst the rocks below us were men with rifles. How did we know they wouldn’t open fire on us? The hairs at the back of my neck crawled; treachery seemed to hang in the hot air and even as David told us to come in through the open gateway, I knew we shouldn’t have trusted the Emir.

  The open expanse of the fort’s interior was a shambles. There were the remains of fires, the tattered remnants of camels’ carcases - those things I remembered. But now there were bodies of Arabs, too, lying where they had fallen, unburied and rotting, buzzing with flies. I counted nine of them; the place smelt of death, was littered with the debris of attacks beaten back. And the sun - the cauterizing, sterilizing sun - blazed down.

  Something moved in the black mouth of the tower and the rickety ladder was thrust out of it. It fell the last few feet to the ground and David appeared, climbing stiffly and very slowly down it. At the bottom he paused as though to gather his strength together, and then he turned and faced us, standing very stiffly erect, a blood-stained strip of cloth round his right forearm and blood showing in a black patch below his left shoulder.

  Berry took a tentative step forward. ‘We’ve just seen the Emir. If you leave with us now, he’s agreed to allow you to cross the border into Trucial territory unmolested.’

  ‘And you believed him?’ David started to move towards us, but then he stopped. He was swaying slightly, too weak to walk.

  ‘He’s ordered a cease-fire.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘That’s true. I heard the order given. A man came up by the path from Hadd a little while back. He carried a white flag. But then he disappeared; went to earth amongst the rocks.’ His voice was thin and very weak. ‘I don’t trust the bastards,’ he added, coming towards us very slowly.

  Close-to he looked ghastly. His eyes had gone quite yellow, the skin of his face yellow, too, and all the flesh fined away so that the cheeks were sunken, the bones staring. His body seemed smaller, dried up and shrivelled. He looked about half his normal size, completely desiccated. The death’s head face, the yellow, burning eyes, the croaking voice … I thought he couldn’t last much longer and I pleaded with him to take his chance. But he was like a man in a trance. ‘Have the authorities decided to act? Will they support Saraifa?’ And when we told him No, all he said was, ‘They will. They will. If I hold out long enough, they’ll be forced to act.’ The eyes fastened on me. ‘Why didn’t you go to Sharjah? Why come here? This isn’t what I wanted.’ His voice sounded desperately tired, utterly dispirited. ‘Didn’t you understand? I wanted the world to know. If people at home don’t know what I’m trying to do The people at home do know,’ I said, and I told him about Ruffini and how the story had been taken up by the national press and a question asked in the House. His eyes lit up, his whole bearing suddenly changed. ‘Wonderful!’ he breathed. ‘Wonderful!’ He was standing erect now, his head up, his voice much stronger. ‘Time,’ he said. ‘Time and a little luck. That’s all I need now.’

  Time is against you,’ Berry said. ‘This is your last chance to get out of here alive.’

  ‘Is it?’ The dry, cracked lips produced a twisted smile. ‘Do you really believe the Emir would let us get out of here alive - particularly when they see how few we are? He’d lose too much face. Anyway I’m not going. I’ll stay here till I die unless the Emir agrees to my terms or the authorities make some move to safeguard Saraifa.’

  ‘Surely to God you’ve done enough,’ I said, and gave him the rumour we’d heard about the two falajes running again at Saraifa and the people returning to the oasis. Berry, more practical, said, ‘How much water have you got left?’

  ‘Not much. But it’s cooler inside the tower. We’re drinking very little.’

  ‘And your two men?’ Berry asked. ‘Are they alive?’

  ‘Yes, they’re still alive. Hamid’s very weak - a bullet through the shoulder and a splinter of rock from a ricochet in the back. Bin Suleiman’s leg is smashed. But they’ll both last as long as the water.’

  ‘So you won’t leave with us?’

  ‘No.’

  Berry nodded, accepting his decision as final. He seemed to understand David’s attitude and he didn’t attempt to reason with him. Instead, he unstrapped his web belt, slipping his water bottle from it. ‘It’s not much,’ he said, holding it out. ‘But one day could make the difference. I’ll report your decision by radio to HQ as soon as I get back to my wireless truck.’

  David took the water bottle and though there couldn’t possibly be any moisture left in that emaciated, dried-up hull of a body, his eyes glistened for a moment. ‘Thanks,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll remember.’ His thin hands were gripped tight round the bottle. ‘One more day,’ he breathed.

  ‘You’ll have that - I promise.’ He wasn’t looking at Berry or at me. He was looking upwards to the burning vault of the sky … a pact with God. And on this barren, burned-rock hilltop where the air was heavy with the stink of rotting bodies, it would be an Old Testament God. ‘One more day,’ he whispered again in that croaking voice, and at that moment a rifle cracked.

  The thud of the bullet, the scream of pain, the clatter of a gun barrel on rock - it was all on the instant and I turned to see the body of an Arab writhing on the eastern wall. It reached the edge, paused and then fell, and as it pitched, screaming, on its face, a second shot rang out.

  The screams thinned to silence. The body on the ground arched, a series of violent jerks; something sounded in the throat and after that it lay still. I glanced at Berry. He hadn’t moved. Nor had David. The click of metal on stone drew my eye to the top of the tower. The glint of a rifle, a thin wisp of smoke. Everything was still again; it was difficult to believe that in that instant a man had died.

  ‘You see! That’s all the treacherous bastard’s safe-conduct is worth.’ David gave a dry little laugh. ‘You’d better get out of here whilst you still can.’

  Berry hesitated, and then he nodded. He reached into his pocket and produced some field dressings and a small first-aid kit. ‘Had an idea these might be required.’ He handed them over and then drew himself up and gave David a formal, parade-ground salute. ‘Good luck!’ he said, and turned quickly.

  David looked at the first-aid tin and the dressings, his eyes quite blank, his face suddenly fallen-in, the flesh tight on the bones of the skull. I could only guess what he was thinking. A few more days and if he hadn’t been killed by a bullet, he’d be dead of thirst. He looked up. This is goodbye, sir.’ He held out his hand. ‘Tell my father, will you, that I hope it’s a bloody good well… but if he lets the Emir get his hands on one penny of the royalties I’ll haunt him to the grave and beyond.’

  His skin was dry, the bones of the hand like an old man’s bones. I stared at him, not knowing what to say, for I was sure I wouldn’t see him again. He was so damned young to die - and like this, in cold blood with his eyes open, trading life for the sake of a gesture. And yet, like Berry, I didn’t try and argue with him. ‘Goodbye,’ I said, and turned quickly before my eyes betrayed me.

  At the gateway I paused and looked back. He hadn’t moved. He was still standing there, quite alone and swaying slightly, all his muscles slack with weariness. We stared at each other for a second and then I went out through the gateway, and I knew if the Emir attacked again that night, it would be the end. ‘What a
waste!’ I said to Berry, stumbling almost blindly down the track.

  He looked at me. ‘I don’t agree.’ His voice was hard and there was a ring to it as though I’d struck a chord deep down. ‘If there weren’t men like David Whitaker … ‘ He shrugged. ‘It’s a big question, isn’t it? Why we’re born; what we do with our lives.’ And he added after a pause, ‘I’d like to think, given his circumstances, that I’d behave the same way.’ He had loosened his pistol holster and his eyes searched the rocks as we hurried back down the track. But we saw nobody and the only sound was the heat throbbing at our temples. The Land-Rover was still there with Ismail standing beside it. Treachery had gone back to its lair and high up over the fort the black speck of some carrion bird planed on the still air.

  Berry had seen it, too, and as we drove off, he said, ‘I give him four days. In four days I reckon he’ll be dead of thirst.’

  ‘He’s weak,’ I said. ‘They’ve only got to make a determined attack now.’

  But Berry shook his head. ‘So long as there’s one man left in that tower capable of firing a rifle or tossing a grenade they’ll never take it, and Sheikh Abdullah knows it now. Only artillery or mortars could blast them out. I couldn’t understand, even from your description, how three men could hold a fort against a hundred tribesmen, but now that I’ve seen the place … ‘ He was staring back at it over his shoulder. ‘I am only surprised that a civilian should have appreciated the military possibilities of it.’

  ‘He was a gang leader in Cardiff docks before he came out to join his father in Saraifa,’ I said.

  He laughed. ‘Well, I suppose that’s as good a training as any.’ And after that we drove in silence.

  When we got back to the wireless truck, Berry found a message ordering him to return to Sharjah immediately. ‘But why?’ I said. ‘You’re not on Hadd territory.’

  ‘They’ve got cold feet over the situation by the sound of it. My Company’s been ordered back, too.’ He stood staring towards Jebel al-Akhbar and there was an obstinate look on his face. ‘I’ve given orders that we move at dawn and I’ve notified HQ that I’m held here the night with a damaged spring on the wireless truck. Twelve hours isn’t much, but you never know. The situation could alter.’

  By this simple stratagem we were still there on the border when the slanting sun showed a cloud of dust moving across the desert from the direction of Hadd. Through the glasses we counted thirty-two camels, and the riders were all armed. Berry ordered his corporal to issue additional ammunition and personally sited both the Bren guns on a low ridge. But the raiding force kept to Hadd territory, heading due west towards the Sands. ‘Their objective must be Whitaker’s camp,’ Berry said. ‘There’s nothing else out there.’ But he made no move to follow them. ‘Colonel Whitaker will have to look after himself.’

  I thought of the lone figure we’d left standing with the clutter of that drilling rig behind him. This was what he had feared, the emissary returning in force. Whitaker would go with them this time. He’d have no alternative. I wondered what would happen when he met the Emir. Would he agree to go up to the fort? And if he did, how would David react?

  But that was all in the future. I watched the dust cloud until it disappeared below the rim of the horizon and then I fetched my briefcase and settled down to write a report. It was finished by the time the sun had set and darkness closing in. I gave it to Berry and he agreed to have his wireless operator transmit it to Sharjah at the next contact with HQ. The report was a long one, for it covered David’s situation, our visit to the fort and the treacherous attempt on his life, and I addressed it to Ruffini. We were both civilians and I thought there was just a chance that it might be passed across to him before anyone in authority stopped it.

  ‘If he’s still there,’ Berry said. The thing was sent now and we were sitting in the truck waiting for the BBC news. More questions in the House, and the Opposition had attacked the Government for refusing to grant newspaper correspondents visas for any Arabian territory except Bahrain. They were accused of trying to hush up an ugly situation.

  And then, in the morning, when we picked up the BBC newspaper round-up I was staggered to find that virtually the whole national press had carried a story obviously based on the report I had sent to Ruffini. Somehow he had got it through uncensored and the result was a fantastic perversion of the facts, so colourful, so written up as to be almost unrecognizable from the sad spectacle we had witnessed; and yet it was all there, the heroic quality of David’s stand magnified a thousand-fold to give jaded townspeople the best breakfast-table reading for weeks. And the story had spread from the front pages right through to the leader columns, an angry, outraged demand for Government action.

  And when the last editorial flag had been waved by the BBC announcer and the last exhortation of the Government to act immediately had been read. Berry and I looked at each other in astonishment. I think we were both of us quite dazed by the violence of the reaction at home. It was only twelve hours since Berry’s wireless operator had laboriously tapped out in Morse my long report and in that short time David’s situation had been put before the highest tribunal in the land - the British public. Moreover, something had obviously roused the press to anger - the secretive attitude of Whitehall presumably. As one paper put it: Up to a late hour last night, despite a barrage of phone calls, nobody in authority appeared to be in a position to confirm or positively deny the story. The only comment was: ‘We regard the source as highly unreliable.’ This is either stupendous arrogance, or stupendous ignorance. We suspect both and we demand that the Foreign Secretary take immediate action. The country is deeply disturbed. On the strength of that Berry cancelled his orders to move, and within half an hour his action was confirmed. Colonel George, acting on a hunch that political decisions would now have to be reversed, and entirely on his own initiative I gathered later, had already turned Berry’s Company round and ordered it to drive with all possible speed to the Hadd border. ‘I’m to wait here until they arrive,’ Berry said. ‘By then the Colonel hopes to be here himself to take command.’

  ‘How long before they get here?’ I asked.

  ‘If they keep going without being stopped in the dunes they’ll arrive sometime after midnight, I imagine.’ He started to go back to the wireless truck, but then he stopped. ‘It might interest you to know that Signer Ruffini was appointed Reuter’s Correspondent with the full knowledge of the Political Resident yesterday afternoon. But for that very odd appointment I imagine your report would have been passed to Bahrain. In which case I’ve no doubt it would now be rotting in some pigeon-hole in the Residency instead of making the world’s headlines.’

  The official attitude was obvious. By agreeing to Reuter’s request - perhaps even instigating it - they could justify their refusal to grant visas to correspondents by saying that the press already had coverage from an accredited agency correspondent, and that the very man from whom the story had originated. No doubt they took the view that as a foreigner Ruffini would be more amenable to control than a British correspondent and therefore unlikely to cause them further embarrassment. It was a little ironical that in their hurry to appoint him they had given me almost direct and immediate access to the whole of the British press.

  ‘I am to tell you,’ Berry added with a thin smile, ‘that no further messages for Ruffini will be accepted through military channels. A matter of bolting the door after the horse has gone.’

  ‘What about that raiding party headed for Whitaker’s camp?’ I said. I hadn’t mentioned it in my report to Ruffini the previous night. ‘Somebody ought to be told.’

  ‘Already done,’ he said. ‘It won’t be passed on to Ruffini. but the PRPG will be notified and so will Sir Philip Gorde. He’s in Sharjah now.’

  So that was that, and nothing to do now but wait. The day passed slowly. No sound from the direction of Jebel al-Akhbar. Not a single shot all day. The hill seemed suddenly dead. The heat was very bad. The wireless operator was on constant watc
h on the headquarters waveband. We switched only once to the BBC news. A Foreign Office spokesman had stated that whilst there was no official news, there was reason to believe that press reports were substantially correct and that a young Englishman had instigated some sort of guerilla activity against the Emir of Hadd. The whole matter was under urgent review. There were rumours of reinforcements standing by in readiness to be flown to Bahrain and two destroyers had left Aden, steaming north along the Arabian coast. Cairo Radio had stepped up its propaganda offensive.

  Late in the afternoon I was woken from a stifling sleep in the shadow of the W/T truck with the news that the Hadd raiding force was returning. ‘And there’s been no sound from the fort at all.’ Berry passed me the glasses as I stood with slitted eyes gazing at a dust cloud right in the path of the sun. Thirty-three of them now,’ he said. The dust made it difficult, but as they passed to the south of us and I could see them more distinctly, I confirmed his count. They must have been travelling all night and moving very fast.’ The figures flickered indistinctly in the heat. The Emir will have picked up the Arab news,’ he added. ‘He’ll know he hasn’t much time. Had Whitaker a radio, do you know?’