Fuel for the Flame

by Alec Waugh

  ‘Pan American Flight No. 10, will you pass this way for customs and immigration, please.’

  Just as though it had been a B.E.A. flight to Paris. There was one difference though this time. The officer to whom she handed her passport glanced at it casually, hesitated, looked up from it to her, then smiled. ‘Good luck,’ he said. It was her first experience of being a public personality.

  She was flying straight to Singapore, where she was catching a Malayan Airways machine to Karak. She expected to arrive in Singapore just too late to make the connexion on the same day, and would have to spend the night there, waiting for the next morning’s flight. She had chosen this flight on purpose so that she would arrive fresh and rested. She also had an idea that she would like to get her first impression of the tropics by herself.

  ‘Pan American Flight No. 10, will passengers please follow me.’

  As she assembled her papers, books and nightcase, she remembered how, on Continental flights, she had hurried to the doorway so as to be one of the first on board, so that she could get a seat against the window on the right side for the sun. She did not have to worry now. She had been given a ticket with her seat’s number on it. She took her place in the bus, without caring whether she was well placed for a quick exit, and sauntered across the tarmac to the waiting aeroplane.

  At last she could relax. She had nothing more to fuss over. She had done all she had to do, she was now a piece of cargo to be delivered eventually in Karak. She had no ‘last minute’ feelings. She had been having them incessantly for the last three days. That was over. Through this window, she thought, as she settled into her seat, I shall see the tropics. She felt limp, exhausted, utterly at peace. She did not crane her neck to get her last glimpse of England, she was waiting for her first glimpse of palm trees.

  The notice ’NO SMOKING, FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS PLEASE’ flashed off over the cabin door. The Captain’s voice over the loudspeaker welcomed them aboard. The stewardess gave an exposition on how to adjust the belt. The moment she had finished, another stewardess explained the various facilities offered by the flight, how to adjust her chair, where magazines and books were located. It was the first time that she had travelled first-class. The difference between it and tourist appeared to be identical with that between second- and first-class in an English train, more space, four seats instead of five; later of course there would be cocktails ‘on the house’, and whatever wines one preferred with lunch and dinner. Unless one was very large, it was very hard to see why anybody should think it worth their while to pay the difference, but all the same she was grateful to Rhya for having paid it.

  The cabin was barely half-full and the seat beside hers was empty. She looked for the pretty redhead but did not see her. Possibly she was in the tourist section. The man who had noticed her at the airport was travelling first-class too. He was two rows in front. He also had a vacant seat beside him. I’ll bet he moves back before long, she thought. She wondered when he would. Not too soon, she fancied. He was an old hand, content to bide his time. He would probably make contact during the first stop. The first stop was Rome.

  They arrived at dusk. The dome of St. Peter’s was circled with electric bulbs; she could distinguish the dark circle of the Colosseum. It was strange to be seeing for the first time from the air the city of which she had read so much. They had an hour’s wait. In the outside parlour of the powder-room she ran into the pretty redhead. ‘How are you making out?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m fine. You too?’

  ‘I’m too excited not to be. It’s my first long flight.’

  ‘It isn’t mine. I’ve been to Persia. My father’s in oil. I’m going out to join him.’

  ‘Where’s he?’

  ‘Karak.’

  ‘That’s where I’m going.’

  ‘Oh, good, then we’ll be meeting.’

  When she came back into the main hall, Annetta encountered as she had expected, the man who had stared at her in the airport. The airport bargain-counter lay in a direct line from the powder-room; he was standing at it. She had to pass close by him, and he smiled at her.

  ‘These stops,’ he said, ‘are the problem of air travel. How to fill in that hour. If one eats one spoils one’s appetite for the meals on board. If one buys things one doesn’t want, one clutters up one’s luggage. But this is a good airport, for a man,’ he added. ‘There are no ties like Italian ones.’

  He had a warm, agreeable, slightly husky voice, the voice of a man who had smoked many cigars and drunk many liqueur brandies. He was wearing a light-weight suit, dark with a fleck of grey, that you could wear in London but would not seem wrong in the country. It looked as though he had had it several months; it had taken his body’s shape. His shirt had very thin dark stripes, alternating black and red; his tie was Burgundy red with very small white spots. He had an air of unaggressive confidence. He was unmistakably English, of a special type that on the whole she liked. He was the kind of man who had a great deal of success with women, and found it easy therefore to be kind to them. He would not take out on a woman who was fond of him the slights that he had received from women who had rejected him. ‘You are, aren’t you, who I think you are,’ he said.

  ‘I’m Annetta Marsh.’

  ‘I guessed as much. Let’s have a drink to wish you luck. They’re on the house. We might as well let the house do us well. Italian sparkling wine is not bad when it’s made a cocktail of.’

  The second time today, she thought.

  Her engagement had been widely paragraphed and her photograph had appeared in practically every paper, but even so she found it hard to believe that she was someone who would be recognized by strangers. I wonder if that English girl’s heard of me, she thought.

  The seat beside her was still unoccupied, but not the one beside the handsome Englishman. She noticed, however, that he had changed his place, giving up his window seat to a large middle-aged woman. After dinner he moved across to her. ‘May I sit beside you while I drink?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Are you having anything?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ll probably have a glass of milk before I go to sleep.’

  ‘When you ask for that glass of milk, I’ll go back to my own seat,’ ‘I see you’ve changed it.’

  ‘I prefer the aisle. I don’t like pushing past people. I like moving about when I’m in a plane.’

  He said it with an undertone of second meeting, as though he was really saying, ‘I wanted to be nearer to you.’

  He stretched himself back in his seat, fitting the knee table, and set his whisky on it.

  ‘You’ve an exciting time ahead. Karak’s unique,’ he said.

  ‘In what way unique?’

  ‘You probably know the answer to that one better than I do.’

  ‘Apart from my future husband I’ve not met a soul who’s been there.’

  ‘No? Well,’ he hesitated, ‘I don’t want to give a lecture but it’s a curious place. It’s not a colony, it isn’t a protectorate. It’s like Oman and Muscat, in a way; a little like Brunei, too. But actually it is quite special. I would describe it as a situation that has never developed, that’s been left fluid, because it seemed to work, because no one could be bothered to alter it. There were more important things elsewhere. Look at what happened in the war. The King sent away all the British and then declared himself a neutral. There was nothing for the Japs to do when they arrived. The place had no strategic use for them with Java and Malaya held. It lay as much outside the war as Switzerland. Karak. …’ he explained.

  It was a long explanation, yet it was not boring. She did not feel that he was delivering a set speech. And though it was all about Karak, he made it personal. He interjected into his talk phrases like ‘I think you’ll find’ or ‘I don’t know how you feel on a point like this’. His voice was soothing. It was good to be with a man so certain of himself. It was very calming to be flying through the night, with the blackness all around you, wi
th the engines purring and the cabin silent, the stewardesses in their seats, working out their reports, and this strong and firm voice beside her.

  ‘You’ve been to Karak yourself, haven’t you?’ she asked.

  ‘Only for a day or two. I had a week to put in and I was curious to see it, but it isn’t in my parish.’

  ‘You won’t be going there this time?’

  ‘I don’t suppose I ever shall again, but I’m glad I went there. It’s a very small place but at the same time if you examine what is going on in a place like that you have a clue to quite important places.’

  ‘I’d like you to explain that, please.’

  ‘I can give you a parallel. I was wounded at Alamein and was transferred to staff work in Intelligence. I had the rank of major. To begin with, I worked in Cairo. At that moment Cairo was the centre of the war, but I only knew what was happening in my own small corner. I knew the work of my own section, not of other sections. You had to be at least a colonel to get an all-in picture. Later I was moved to Baghdad. By that time the war had moved to Tripoli. Baghdad was a backwater, but in Baghdad I managed to get an all-in picture of Intelligence, because the various sections had been telescoped so that one office would be doing what three offices were in Cairo. I learnt more as a major than I would have in Cairo as a brigadier. That’s true of Karak. It’s an obscure place. Its only importance is its oil. It is a half-asset that the British would be ready to liquidate under pressure. At the moment it is not much more than a bargaining point for us. At the same time it has its own definite problem for us.’

  ‘Do you think anything very desperate is likely to happen there?’

  He shrugged. ‘Look back to 1945. Could one have foretold what was to happen in the next fifteen years, in India, Indonesia, Ceylon, Algeria, Suez, Iraq, on the Gold Coast? We have got so used to shocks that now we scarcely notice them, unless they happen actually next door. I was in Ceylon in 1946; they were celebrating the first anniversary of their independence. Everything looked happy and assured. Britain and Ceylon were setting out on a new form of partnership. I never suspected that within less than ten years we should have been forced to surrender our naval base at Trincomalee. I was in Aden in 1955. They were about to hold their first elections. A new building project was nearly finished. It was a happy, contented colony. Yet within a few months a backward country like the Yemen had managed to stir up trouble there. Everywhere now one’s sitting on a volcano.’

  It was talk of a kind that she had heard before; usually it had come from reactionary Englishmen of her father’s generation, who were finding life difficult under the pressure of the Welfare State. This man seemed neutral, impartial, interested, ready to be helpful. She wished that he were coming to Karak. She would like, after she had been there a couple of months, to compare notes with him.

  ‘Is there no chance of your coming to Karak this time?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not, none at all.’

  The next stop was Damascus. There was nothing to show them it was Damascus. There was flatness and dry heat, and a trim airline hostess, with a French accent and a skin that was slightly dark; there were dark, shuffling figures, with long-skirted robes, and round their heads long black-and-white handkerchiefs held in place by a black corded crown. The passengers were conducted to a large barrack-like building; the reception hall was up a flight of stairs. There was a bar and a small curio shop. Tables were laid for a substantial meal. ‘Breakfast will be served right away,’ the air hostess said. In the powder-room Annetta once again met the red-haired English girl. ‘Do you feel like bacon and eggs at this hour?’ she asked.

  ‘The very idea of it makes me sick.’

  ‘Let’s get ourselves some coffee and sit on a settee.’

  She took a longer look now at the English girl. Yes, she was very pretty, with a pale skin and regular rounded features. She looked tired, and when you are very young tiredness enhances prettiness. She had a good figure and moved easily. There was a great shortage of young women in the oil camp, so she’d been told. She didn’t think that this girl would go for long without a ring on that third finger.

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ she asked.

  The girl shrugged. ‘There’s not much to tell. Daddy and Mummy got divorced. Mummy remarried; after a while Daddy did as well. I stayed with Mummy, because of schooling, then my stepfather died … in a car smash. Everyone seemed to think it would be a good idea if I came out here.’

  ‘How long is it since you’ve seen your father?’

  ‘Four years; everything was muddled the last time he came on leave; it was when he got engaged. I was abroad, in Switzerland, at a finishing school. I would have come back for the wedding, but I’d wrenched my knee, skiing; I thought … oh, well. …’

  Annetta looked at her thoughtfully. She was a friendly kitten, but she had spirit. She could be belligerent if she liked.

  ‘You’ve quite a problem waiting for you, in fact?’

  ‘I guess I have.’

  ‘So’ve I. I’m going to be married.’

  ‘You are then, oh, but you can’t be, don’t tell me that you are. You are then really?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘Heavens. …’ Shelagh Keable stared at her awestruck. ‘To think that I’ve been talking to someone who’s going to be a real Princess.’ With the tone in which she said it, ‘real Princess’ was in inverted commas.

  Annetta laughed. ‘I don’t think that there is any such thing as a real Princess outside England.’

  ‘Pan American Flight 10, for Karachi, Delhi, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokio,’ the loudspeaker was announcing. ‘Will all passengers proceed to the aircraft, please.’

  Annetta rose to her feet. What a fantastic view of the world one got from aeroplanes. It was like a tube in London; Wembley line, change at Baker Street for Paddington. It sounded so little different. Delhi, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokio, as though they were adjacent. How out of focus one got everything. All these hours of hanging about in airports, and then the swift annihilation of immense distances. It took little longer to get from London to Nice than from London to Paris. Nine hundred miles were swallowed up … Karachi, Delhi, Singapore … and when she herself had been deposited at Singapore to think of this plane, roaring onwards to Hong Kong and Tokio; thence to Hawaii and Los Angeles.

  As she crossed the hall she saw her handsome fellow passenger swing his legs over the stool beside the bar. He had made no attempt to contact her during their stay. He was an old campaigner. He had made his contact. I wonder who he is, she thought.

  3

  Shelagh had an outside seat. She had slept between Rome and Damascus. She was very wide awake. Her mind was racing. Yes, she’d a problem waiting her all right. But she was not letting it worry her. She was able to live in the moment. From the start her life had been uprooted. She had been born in Burma, but her first memories were of England. ‘Don’t you remember Burma?’ she’d been asked. She had shaken her head. ‘But you must. I remember distinctly when I was three years old. …’ But she didn’t remember Burma. And that was all there was to it. Evacuated at the beginning of the war, she had been brought up to accept war as normal; the changes that made older children appreciate the fact of war—rationing and the blackout—were not changes to her. At dusk you put curtains over the windows and you were allowed only so much sugar a week. She had accepted all that as the framework of existence.

  She had known she had a father who worked for an oil company called ‘Pearl’ and that he was working in Abadan: a place that had been pointed out to her on the map. It was because of the war that she was not with him. A lot of other girls because of the war had not got their fathers with them. Their fathers were prisoners or in the Middle East; some of them had been killed; they had a club at school called ‘The No Fathers’.

  Suddenly the war was over and she was taken out to the Middle East to join her father. A few years later she was sent back to school in England. Then there had been that eve
ning when her mother had taken so much longer than usual tucking her up, had delayed the good-night kiss talking of this and that, then suddenly in a changed voice had said, ‘Darling, I’ve got some news that may make you unhappy. Please try to understand and please forgive me, but your father and I are going to get divorced and I’m going to marry Frank Mabon.’

  She had been rendered drowsy by the long tucking up. She was on the verge of sleep. She blinked, not fully grasping what had been said to her, then sat up. ‘Am I going back to Abadan right away?’

  ‘Of course not. You’re staying here with me.’

  ‘Then I shan’t miss the Christmas play. Oh, goody.’

  And she had turned over to sleep, thinking as she curled up how she would act Peter Pan.

  At school next term she had joined ‘The Chosen’, the secret society of girls whose parents had been divorced. Not every applicant was elected and it was a privilege to belong. She had enjoyed their evening sessions between Prayers and Lights Out, over cakes and cocoa. Her father’s weekly letters and her fortnightly answers had been a part of her school routine, like a lesson.

  Now there was to be another change.

  Karak: what would it be like?

  Her father’s letters—weekly bulletins of fact—had told her little. Her mother had said, ‘Darling, I can only guess, but it won’t be in the least like Abadan.’

  Abadan. She remembered it as a succession of bungalows, every one identical, except that some were a little larger; the better bungalows went to the higher officers. She remembered the smell of oil, sickly sweet and pungent. She remembered the gleaming tanks of the refinery and the bright lights of the cracking plant. There had been no life for her outside the camp; the club, the swimming pool, the tennis court, her school, had all been within a few minutes’ drive of her bungalow. Outside the camp there had been the dust and heat of the desert. There was no town to loiter in. Karak surely would be very different. It was lush, luxuriant; palm trees and yellow sands, the way that films showed the tropics; the oil camp would be a world of its own, just as Abadan had been, but there was a city within forty miles of it that had a King.