“Here?” said Kate, incredulous. “Missus see no camels here!”
“Here wait cousin,” said Ali firmly, so Kate stopped the jeep. For a moment she didn’t move, so great was the relief after the shaking jeep, then she climbed down and walked toward the hut, followed by Ali. Two Sydonian soldiers smoking cigarettes leaned against the broken entrance. She waved and they all grinned at each other, then Kate climbed over the rubble and went to where she saw a third soldier lying on his stomach, keeping watch through a gaping hole in the wall of the hut.
Suddenly Kate’s gut rumbled again and she shot out of the semi-ruin. Oh, the humiliation! It was the water, the other reporters said, but she couldn’t clean her teeth in beer. Wet with sweat, she didn’t care that Ali was trotting along behind her as she scrambled for shelter behind a little heap of rubble and squatted to relieve herself. Then, unbelieving, she saw the sand flicking up in spurts around her as hot, jagged shrapnel fragments flew through the air. A ping on her helmet made her flinch, and she wanted to fling herself down and hide. She held both hands over her helmet, crouched lower and groaned.
Suddenly the hut in front of her seemed slowly to collapse to the left. Kate yanked at her jeans and, zipping up, ran back to what was left of the hut.
The three jolly soldiers at whom she had been waving were just empty bodies. One lay spread-eagled on his back, disinterested eyes staring at her, his stomach spilling red, glistening snakes.
Frozen with horror, Kate heard noises and shouting from beyond the hut. She was terrified, but in a quick instinctive movement, she crouched and grabbed an assault rifle from the hand of one of the corpses. She had to untangle it from his limp arm. Just get the gun and then crawl up over the rubble, keeping your head down, she thought. Christ, I hope what’s left of these walls isn’t going to cave in. She carefully checked to see that the weapon was cocked.
She heard scrabbling sounds from the other side of the rubble and suddenly her backside felt naked and vulnerable. Oh, Christ, suppose someone came around the back and shot her up the ass.
Now she could hear heavy breathing, gasps and a grunt as someone scrambled up the rubble in front of her. Then, like a khaki egg, slowly, the rounded top of a helmet appeared. Fraction by fraction it rose, then a dirt-streaked brown forehead appeared over the broken bricks. Kate saw two young, surprised black eyes under heavy eyebrows as she gently squeezed the trigger.
The face exploded into a carmine hole, then disappeared. She heard noises on the rubble outside. Oh, God, was that more of them, she wondered, or was that the one she’d just shot? She waited, tense and grim, ready to shoot again.
But the enemy hadn’t expected to find anyone alive in the ruin, and the two remaining soldiers swiftly scrambled back toward their own line.
Kate heard nothing. She lay waiting, unable to take her eyes off the top of the rubble, oblivious to the fact that she was lying on top of the soft, warm shreds of a body. Then, from behind, she heard Ali call softly in his singsong voice, “Missus, Missus! Bad man all run away!” He stumbled toward her.
Kate was shaking. His eyes. He’d looked right into her eyes and then she’d shot him. For nine months his mother had carried him; for years she had cared for him and loved him; and now in ten seconds Kate had just destroyed somebody’s son. Those surprised eyes had looked into hers and she’d just squeezed. No doubt he would have shot her first if he’d had the chance, but Kate knew she had just taken a life and found it a terrible thing to think about. She sat staring into the rubble, agonised, ashamed of what she’d done, sternly reasoning with herself (be sensible, it was him or you), then weeping as she thought of his family and then of Nick.
Ali fidgeted behind her, not understanding why she was upset. “She one good Missus, she kill Saudi soldier!”
Two hours later, much to Kate’s surprise, they saw three specks on the southern horizon that in due course turned out to be a very old man riding a mangy camel and leading two more. Much money changed hands—three hundred and twenty dinar, which was enough to buy camels, rather than hire them. More money was offered, but the old man refused to accompany them. He hissed at the camels to couch them, helped Kate onto the carpet-covered leather saddle, and hissed again for the camels to rise. Then he handed a thorn stick to Ali, nodded and remounted his own camel, which started to lurch south again.
“What did he say?” Kate asked Ali.
“He say camels back here in one day or Missus pay more money. He say Western machines no good for desert, camel still goodest. Camel eat very little, only drink once in five days, carry big loads.”
“You’re sure you know where you’re going, Ali?”
“Yes, yes, to hills, Missus.”
They lurched off under the hot sun. At first Kate thought she was going to be seasick; she’d never be able to stand it, this awful, heaving gait, but after ten minutes she found it quite soothingly similar to a rocking chair.
It got hotter and hotter as they made their leisurely way over sand, thorn bushes and withered, gray grass, heading for the low smudge of hills now visible on the horizon.
As dusk fell they reached the lower slopes and shortly afterward found themselves lurching along the bottom of a small boulder-strewn ravine. “Now Missus in eastern hills.” Ali beamed. “Now Missus find King.”
“No. Ali take Missus to King,” said Kate sharply.
Ali stopped beaming and looked rather frightened. “Ali know King in hills, but Ali not know where belong in hills.”
“But, Ali, you said you would take me to the King’s camp!”
“No, no, Ali say Ali take Missus to eastern hills.” Ali now looked sulky.
Kate was aghast. The trip had taken far longer than she had expected, it was too late to turn back, Ali obviously had no idea where he was and they were behind the enemy lines.
“Couch my camel please, Ali. We’d better stop here for the night. It’s so dark I can hardly see you.”
Ali hissed at Kate’s camel, which took no notice of him and continued to amble along the rocky bottom of the ravine.
“Ali, stop this damn camel!”
Suddenly, there was a slither, a click, and shadowy figures sprang out of the darkness. One of them tugged the camel reins away from Kate and she found herself looking into the muzzle of a submachine gun.
Through sobs, Ali answered in Arabic the questions that were spat at him from the darkness. His hands were tied behind his back and he was roped to Kate, whose hands were also bound. There was a muttered discussion and then, still roped together, they were roughly prodded over the ravine and then along a narrow path that led upward, then downward until Kate lost all sense of direction.
Suddenly, they turned around the hillside shoulder and moved downward into a shallow, bowl-like area covered with low, black goatskin tents. After a muttered discussion outside the tents, Kate and Ali were roughly shoved inside by their captors, and Kate, to her astonishment, found herself pushed onto her knees in front of a man she knew. Although she had never seen him wearing white desert robes, Kate couldn’t mistake that lean, hard face.
“Suliman Hakem!” she said, astonished.
Her first feeling was relief that they weren’t in enemy hands, swiftly followed by the sharp realisation that Suliman was never more than two steps away from Abdullah.
“What are you doing here?” Suliman asked sharply, in English. So he also recognised her, Kate thought.
“I’m a newspaper correspondent. I was looking for King Abdullah, because . . . I have a private message for him.”
“How do we know that you are not spies?”
“If someone could untie my hands, I’ll get my press pass out of my pocket.”
Kate’s hands were not untied, but a man emptied her pockets and Suliman Hakem studied her press pass.
“How do I know this isn’t a forgery?”
“If you’d only get a copy of the Globe, you’d see my printed copy and byline and my photograph,” said Kate, thinking that a nearby ne
wsstand was unlikely.
Suliman barked a few guttural words. Their hands were untied and they were pulled to their feet. “You’ll be returned to Fenza at dawn, under escort,” Suliman said shortly. “Your camels and the boy will be cared for. Think yourself lucky that the sentry didn’t shoot you.”
As he strode out of the tent in his flowing robes, Kate found it hard to believe that this man had attended one of the world’s smartest boys’ schools and that he had then been trained at Sandhurst.
A moment later Suliman came back into the tent. “You will be guarded all the time you are in this camp. Now you will wash and eat.”
By herself, Kate was led to a small tent and a guard was posted at the opening. A bowl of water and a cloth were brought to her, followed by a boy in a white robe who carried a tin jug of water and a tin tray piled with rice and chunks of roast lamb. Kate suddenly realised how hungry she was, as she sat cross-legged in the carpeted tent, eating the food with her fingers. Through the slit, Kate could see the moon casting black shadows over the silver sand, and beyond the flames of a campfire she could see the necks and swaying heads of a camel herd silhouetted against the sky.
After Kate had finished her food, two more guards suddenly appeared, wearing white crumpled robes and red, black-banded headdress; each man carried a rifle in his hand and a curved scimitar at his side. They said nothing, but jerked their heads toward the tent slit. Kate rose and followed them into the night, past yellow circles of light around campfires that cast shadows up into the lean faces of the shaggy-haired men who surrounded them.
She was led into a tent thirty feet long. Richly patterned carpets had been laid on the desert sand and heaped with tasseled cushions upon which, alert and straightbacked, sat King Abdullah. He gestured to the guards and they withdrew, leaving Abdullah and Kate alone.
Self-assured as ever, Abdullah’s watchful eyes moved warily, arrogantly. His tawny skin was stretched tight over the bone, his winged black eyebrows rose above a nose that curved like a falcon’s over his wide mouth. He looked at her. “How the hell did you get here, Kate?”
She told him as quickly as she could, thinking that he looked older, gray and tired, which wasn’t surprising.
“You’re very lucky,” Abdullah commented curtly, when she had finished. “And so am I, to tell you the truth. The damned Saudis haven’t made a move for the past few days, so all we’re doing is waiting for them, and that’s a boring business. A surprise visitor is very welcome. . . . Although you’re not looking quite your usual soignee self, Kate.” He grinned at Kate’s dirty khaki jacket and trousers, her grubby sneakers and her tousled hair.
“You realise, of course, that this is a private and personal visit,” Abdullah continued. “I can’t discuss the war or politics or there would be trouble from the press corps. You may describe this place vaguely and say that I am firmly confident and looking forward to victory. And we will, of course, check your copy.” Then, looking out into the night, he casually asked, “How is Pagan?”
Kate told him all her news, including the fact that Pagan was expecting and that the baby was due in a few months. Abdullah gave a curiously grim smile. “Yes, I knew about that.”
There was an uneasy pause. “How old are your children?” Kate asked.
“Mustapha is four and looks just like me. He’s a naughty little devil, always up to some wicked trick—lots of guts.” There was another pause. “Of course, I’m sorry I haven’t more sons.” He corrected himself: “Legitimate sons. After all, I’ve been married ten years. But I’m lucky to have Mustapha. My wife had a miscarriage shortly after we were married, followed by a stillborn daughter the following year. Then in 1957 she had a premature son who died two weeks after he was born.” He scowled. “I don’t know why I’m telling you.”
Kate could only stare at him, remembering her own miscarriages.
“Then nothing happened for four years. In fact, I thought of taking a second wife—as a Moslem, you know, I’m allowed four wives. I realise that in the West this would be thought barbaric: your menfolk prefer several wives in succession instead of simultaneously, as we are allowed in the East. Anyway, I eventually took my wife to a clinic in Lausanne where they found she had a malfunction in the fallopian tubes. Fifteen months after the operation, she gave me a son, an heir.”
Abdullah suddenly remembered that as the child was placed in his arms, it gave a lusty yell, and much to Abdullah’s surprise, he felt a flood of warmth, a choking feeling in his throat. Instinctively, at that moment, he had known that he would do anything for this imperious, tiny creature. The baby’s crumpled face had turned from white to pink to an odd lavender shade as it cried. Abdullah had roared with laughter, hugged the tiny creature to him, gently kissed the soft black down on the top of the fragile head, and for the first time in his life, he felt love.
“Now I pray for more sons,” Abdullah continued. “I visit Serah’s quarters regularly. She’s had another checkup at the clinic and apparently there’s no reason why she shouldn’t have more children. But she hasn’t. . . . Anyway, let’s stop talking like a couple of midwives!”
So Mustapha is the only person on earth that Abdullah really loves, Kate thought.
“What exactly are you doing out here, Abdullah?” Kate asked.
“You’d better say that it’s one of my routine visits to the Hakem tribe,” he said. “I’m going to tell you nothing of value to the enemy. But I regularly visit the more important sheikhs. We recruit our toughest soldiers from the desert tribes, not from the cities.” He gestured toward the tent opening. “Tonight those men will sleep on the sand protected only by their cloaks. Bedouins are tough, they scorn comfort, they have only contempt for the outside world and its mechanical marvels.”
“Except for pistols, rifles and transistor radios,” suggested Kate.
“Agreed, but they like to live with the minimum of possessions. A family might have a couple of camels, perhaps a few goats, a tent, a rug, knives, leather buckets and a rope. That’s all they need and all they want.” He grunted. “I promise you, Kate, I often wish I could spend my whole life among tough, simple men like these, in the desert.” He looked across at her and grinned. “Now you’d better get back to your tent. You know what a fearful reputation I have, and you’re going to have a tough day tomorrow.”
Kate didn’t realise that she had achieved the impossible—which apparently included riding a camel through a minefield—until the following evening after she had been returned by jeep to Fenza. As she walked into the Majestic bar, the other journalists clapped quietly. Just as well nobody told me it was impossible, thought Kate, or I’d never have tried to do it.
She started her article “A Day of War” with a description of the battlefield after the fighting had finished. “A sea of white papers fluttered over the ocher sand. Even before the vultures could get at them, Arab scavengers had looted the dead bodies, ripped off the watches and torn through the wallets, looking for money. Pay books and other documents had been thrown out on the sand. Love letters that yesterday were precious, photographs of girls, wives, children, parents—all smiling up at no one.”
Scotty was delighted with her copy. “I said we’d get something different from her and she comes up with an exclusive on the bloody King!” He turned to his secretary. “Send her a cable straightaway. Congratulations Abdullah Scoop Big Kiss Scotty Globe.” He continued to read Kate’s copy. “Jesus! I didn’t tell her to kill anyone! Better rewrite it in the third person. Correspondents aren’t supposed to carry weapons. Maybe we’d better recall her before she gets into trouble.”
The article was syndicated worldwide. It told a receptive audience, quite simply, that war was about killing people.
40
WHEN SHE RETURNED to England, Kate found herself something of a curiosity, if not a minor celebrity. Christ, she looks awful; she’s lost a lot of weight, thought Scotty, and gave her a two-week leave. She decided to spend it in New York with Judy.
J
udy had now started to publicise books and celebrities, as well as fashion, and she had obviously prospered in the past couple of years. Kate looked around the airy living room of Judy’s new apartment, which hung high over East 57th Street: that Bokhara rug must have set her back about seven thousand dollars, she thought. Opposite her, Judy leaned back with her arms behind her head in a bronze upholstered chair with curving serpent arms, the wood inlaid with ivory. She said, “The next thing you’ve got to do, Kate, is a book. You’ve achieved a certain fame, but it won’t last long unless you keep it going. A book is always good for prestige, if not always for the bank account. Did you keep a diary during the war? And all your notes? Well, turn it into a book—something slim—say around sixty thousand words. You stay in bed tomorrow and write the synopsis, then I can look at it when I get back in the evening. . . . Of course, you can write a synopsis! Sit down right now and write three simple sentences saying what the book is going to be about.”
After a moment’s thought, Kate fished a notebook out of her cigar-brown Gucci tote bag, did as Judy said, then tore off the page and handed it to her.
Judy beamed. “Great. Now just expand those three sentences into a synopsis and split it up into chapters. And I’ll let you practice being a famous author by taking you to supper.”
Kate had the talent all right, thought Judy, but she couldn’t seem to channel it by herself. She needed someone to give her that push up instead of the push down that the men in her life seemed to have given her, although Judy had to admit that Kate sat up and begged to be kicked in the teeth. Still, she seemed a lot more positive than on her previous visit.
The following evening Judy fiddled around with Kate’s synopsis, altered the pagination slightly and then said, “Fine. This I can promote. We’ll call it One Woman’s War.” She pulled a little gift-wrapped parcel from her purse and tossed it to Kate. “A present.” Kate caught it with one hand, opened the Tiffany box and saw a two-inch-square navy-blue leather case, inside which was a small, square, golden alarm clock.
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