by John Harris
‘Very good, sir.’
‘And that leads me to another point. We can’t spend the whole day crouching under the walls. There’s got to be a better method of getting about the place. How about getting a few people to work with crowbars? The whole rampart’s resting on the rooms below and the interior walls are only mud. Join them all up so we have a corridor, and make holes by the stairs up to the ramparts, so there’s no running across the courtyard every time the alarm goes. How about getting Mr Beebe on to that? Chestnut’s going to be busy for some time getting us in contact with Dhafran again.’
When Chestnut arrived with his report, however, his bleak expression seemed to suggest that the damage to their communications was heavier than he’d expected.
‘We’re no’ goin’ tae get yon transmitter o’ Mr Beebe’s goin’, sorr,’ he said. ‘Yon bang under the tower finished it when it finished mine. The receiver’s working, though, but it means we can only accept messages. We cannae send ’em oot. Yon sets in the scout cars’ll never reach Dhafran.’
‘I see.’ Pentecost’s face was expressionless, despite the sick feeling in his stomach. ‘What are the hours for transmissions to us?’
‘Apart from emergencies, sorr, we receive from Dhafran in the evening. Khaswe in the morning. Emergencies any time either wavelength.’
Pentecost considered the situation for a moment. ‘We’ll make a point of listening out at all times,’ he said. ‘Can you arrange some sort of signal that would warn us if anything came through during the day?’
‘Ah’ll rig up a loudspeaker and keep the volume well turned up. We’d hear it OK.’
‘Fix that will you, Sergeant? As for getting messages out of here, we’ll have to send ’em by hand if we can find a volunteer. And while we’re at it, do you think you and Mr Beebe could think up some means of alternative power for the lighting? Just in case something happens to the generator.’
Chestnut nodded, his face grim in the grey half-light. ‘Aye, we can do that, sorr. We have a few ideas aboot a lot o’ things.’
He vanished and Pentecost heard his high screech demanding Fahzait and Aliri, the waiters from the sergeants’ mess who had been detailed to help him.
‘Forsyth – O’Leary – where are yon wee scrounging bastards–?’ A moment later, Beebe appeared. Minto, under sedation from the drugs he had administered to himself, was still asleep in the hospital.
Beebe was weary. Rather to his surprise, he was still alive when he’d firmly expected to be dead. Though he had behaved with courage during the attack on the tower, reaction had set in later and he had found himself shaking and unable to stop it. He felt numb, larded with dust so that his body seemed flayed, and he was suffering badly from the knowledge that he was not as brave as he had thought. He was a strong man, burly and able, and he had always been well able to look after himself. But, in this new situation, his strength was of no use to him. He couldn’t shoot and knew nothing about soldering, and he was intelligent enough to realise that so far he owed his life entirely to Pentecost’s forethought. The smaller, frailer man had proved a master of his profession and Beebe had been caught by an unwilling admiration and a now obsessive desire to be of help.
Pentecost nodded to him as he stopped nearby. ‘We’ve been hard hit, Mr Beebe.’ He had showed no further sign of disapproval at what Beebe had done on the first day of the siege and made no bones about the disaster they had suffered, and the fact that he seemed to be taking him into his confidence soothed Beebe’s ruffled feelings a great deal.
‘Two officers gone,’ he said. ‘Three with Mohamed, and four with Suleiman who never reached us from the village on the first day. That’s heavy casualties.’
‘You’re doing OK, son,’ Beebe said grudgingly.
Pentecost shrugged. ‘I wish I could do more for your safety, Mr Beebe.’
‘Aw, forget it,’ Beebe growled. ‘Luke Beebe can look after himself. You’re doing fine. So far you’ve guessed right all down the line.’
Pentecost permitted himself a grave smile. ‘Luck,’ he said. ‘When intuition drives out logic, one decides to do things for reasons not altogether apparent at the time.’ He paused, studying the American. ‘Since you can’t get out, Mr Beebe,’ he went on. ‘I might have to lean on you a little.’
‘Lean away,’ Beebe said. ‘How long for?’
‘When there’s no longer any hope of relief, I’ll pull down the flag and the Toweida Plain will fall into Aziz’s lap. There’s one other thing, though. I’ve been keeping a diary.’
‘Your wife’ll be pleased to read it.’
‘It’s not for my wife I’m writing it,’ Pentecost said dryly. ‘It’s for posterity, you might say. Somebody’s bound to get blamed for this little business here in Hahdhdhah – and, for her sake, I’m making sure it won’t be me – or you – or poor Lack – or any of the others either.’
Beebe studied him. ‘I’m right with you,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m way ahead, in fact.’
Pentecost paused then he went on with a faint air of embarrassment, as though to discuss his wife with a comparative stranger was simply not a thing a man should do. ‘I happen to love my wife, Mr Beebe,’ he said. ‘And I’m making sure whatever happens to me, she’ll be able to hold her head up afterwards.’
Beebe wondered why Pentecost was telling him so much and he decided it was because he suddenly felt the weight of his responsibilities and needed to talk a little, and because, with Lack missing and Minto out of action, he couldn’t manage it with Fox and the NCOs. He’d heard of the loneliness of command.
‘She’s like you in many ways, Mr Beebe,’ Pentecost went on. ‘Sometimes she’s a bit hot-headed and does things she feels sorry for later but—’ Pentecost smiled ‘—underneath she’s got that same splendid warmth I’ve always found in Americans.’
Beebe felt touched and no matter how he tried to persuade himself he was being manoeuvred he couldn’t quite manage it. From Pentecost what had been said was quite a compliment. ‘Nice of you to say so,’ he growled.
‘But if I don’t get out of here and you do—’
‘Shucks!’ Beebe felt embarrassed. Pentecost was putting on his besieged 7th Cavalry act again. ‘That won’t happen.’
Pentecost disagreed. ‘It might, Mr Beebe. And if it does, I’d like you to see that my diary gets to the right quarters.’
‘The General?’
Pentecost shook his head. ‘I think not,’ he said. ‘I think it should be handled privately. I’m sure you and my missus could decide what’s best between you.’
Beebe began to see where the discussion was leading and the old resentment at being manoeuvred rose again. Nevertheless, he still felt under an obligation.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll remember.’
Pentecost smiled and Beebe realised the interview was over. Pentecost was an expert at letting you know things like that without offending.
‘Thank you, Mr Beebe,’ he said, and Beebe noticed that even on this occasion he hadn’t been able to unbend sufficiently to call him by his first name.
As Beebe turned away, Pentecost moved to an embrasure and as he stared across the plain, his eyes seeking the comfort of indefinite distances, he heard a cry from the tower. Against the lightening sky he saw the pointing arm of the Dharwa sentry.
‘There, Abassi! There!’
Beebe had swung back to him and they moved together along the rampart until they stood below the tower, peering through the embrasure.
‘To the left of the rock, Abassi!’
Then Pentecost saw what the sentry was pointing at. At first in the poor light it looked like a crude black cross, propped up on a wooden frame, then they realised that it was not black but red. He took it at first to be some sort of bloody sacrifice staked out there, some propitiation to Allah laid down by the superstitious Hejri – a skinned and slaughtered goat – then he realised just exactly what it was and why it had been placed there, and his whole stomach heaved.
‘Oh,
Christ,’ Beebe breathed. ‘It’s Lack!’
For a moment, Pentecost said nothing and Beebe realised he was struggling not to vomit. Somehow, it had seemed to Beebe that he had been waiting for something like this ever since Mohamed’s defection. They had heard the screams of the Toweidas who had run into the waiting Hejris and the following morning had been able to pick out the sprawled bodies of those who had been shot or cut up by the curved swords before they had reached the gates.
Pentecost himself had led the sortie that had brought in the corpses. Five Dharwas and seven Toweidas had been found crouching in a gully waiting to be rescued. The rest were all dead, lying in the ruins of the stable or along the path to the fort. Only Lack had been missing, and for the whole of the forty-eight hours that had elapsed since, Pentecost had been dreading something like this.
He felt desperately lonely. The loss of the only two other British officers threw a tremendous weight on his thin shoulders. Then Fox appeared and he caught hold of himself and stood upright.
‘Sergeant!’ His voice was steady and brisk and efficient. ‘I’ll want you and twenty Dharwas and Zaid Fauzan. I want a blanket and a stretcher, and see that we have men with strong stomachs.’
‘Who’ll be in charge, sir?’
‘I shall.’
They brought in Lack’s remains without interference, though they knew there were riflemen in the sangar. Fox would have liked to have led a raid on it and shot everybody he could find and he knew that Pentecost felt the same, but Pentecost had decided not to risk any more lives and they headed silently for the gate and, with their shirts stuck to their bodies in the oppressive heat, they buried Lack at the far end of the courtyard with the Toweidas and the Dharwas who had been killed.
There was no ceremony over the grave, not even prayers. It was as though, in face of the frightful cruelty Lack had been subjected to, prayers were useless, and they merely lowered the blanket-wrapped bundles into the hole in the ground, Pentecost standing in silence as the civilian clerks did the work.
For the rest of the day the fortress remained silent and brooding. It seemed extraordinary in the twentieth century, with all the sophistications of civilisation, that men could regard each other with such hatred that such an unspeakable incident could have occurred.
‘They hadn’t touched the poor bastard’s face,’ Stone said, his face hard. ‘So we could see what he was feeling while they did it.’ He swallowed, his eyes hard. ‘There’s one thing, though,’ he decided. ‘It’ll make the bloody Toweidas think twice before throwing up the sponge again. It’ll make ’em fight all the harder if they think this is what’s going to happen to them if they don’t. I bet that wasn’t what Aziz intended.’
3
As it happened, Aziz had had no hand at all in the murder of Lack. Trembling with fury, he strode up and down before the camp fire, the shining Mannlicher in one hand, the other gesturing at the men seated around, their faces gleaming in the glow of the flames.
‘We are not savages,’ he grated. ‘The days when captives were turned over to the old women are past! Where is the mercy of Allah and the dignity of the sons of the Prophet in such work?’
There was a lot of murmuring from the Hawassi and the Tayur, but an answering growl from the Hejri tribesmen silenced them.
‘Perhaps it was Thawab’s intention to frighten the Toweidas from the fortress,’ Aziz went on harshly. ‘I could have told him that Bin T’Khass cannot be frightened. All Thawab has done is strengthen his hold on the Toweidas. They will never surrender if they fear death at the hands of Thawab’s torturers.’
In his position near Thawab, Majid the Assassin moved uncertainly. What he had done to Lack had been done with the clear knowledge of Thawab though not with his direct orders, and for a moment he was afraid that Thawab might repudiate him.
Thawab was not even thinking of him, however. He shifted uncomfortably, aware of the eyes of his men on him. What Aziz had said was true, he realised. The cold-blooded torturing had been a mistake, but it had seemed a good way at the time to show the men in the fortress that he meant business.
He moved uneasily again. They were all aware that they’d been slow on the day of the evacuation. It had been Aziz’s intention to have his men drawn up near the fortress ready to slip inside the moment the last lorry had gone. It was a plan motivated partly by his wish to be present when Pentecost left, a wish to salute the young man in the way he had seen Western soldiers salute each other, but Thawab had spoiled it all by demanding caution and they had decided finally to hold their men in the hills until they were certain that the fortress was empty.
Aziz had not hesitated to make clear his disgust. ‘If Thawab had been bolder,’ he had said loudly, ‘we would have had possession of the fortress and the plain. I warned thee that Bin T’Khass was not Jefeiri-sa at Zereibat. He is a great warrior, small as he is.’ He was still angry and bewildered, and felt betrayed at the reoccupation of the fortress, but in his heart of hearts he still felt sure that whatever had gone wrong was not the fault of Pentecost. ‘Next time,’ he said, ‘there will be no hesitation, and Thawab will do his share in the forefront of the line.’
The raid on the water tower had been led by Aziz’s Zihouni reims but when they had fallen the attack on the smashed wall had been carried out by Hawassis, men of the Deleimi nation, and it reflected no credit on Thawab that this, too, had failed. There was only one grain of comfort for him from the last forty-eight hours and that was that the Khadari leaders had arrived in his camp from the south with the news that they and the Jezowi and the Shukri had thrown their lot in with the northern tribes and repudiated Sultan Tafas’ treaties with them for guarding the Dharwa passes.
Their arrival had been a triumph for Thawab because he had seen the problems of a closed pass long since and had sent messages with hot nationalistic promises inviting the Khadari to talk, and he hadn’t hesitated to let Aziz know it.
‘The Khadari were always more of a burden than a help,’ Aziz had retorted, though he had known that what he’d said wasn’t true. The Khadaris were a sept of the Dharwas and good fighters and, at any other time, he might have been glad to see them in his camp.
But now it was different. Everything about the situation round Hahdhdhah was wrong. It smelled wrong. There were dozens of armed men swaggering about Addowara village and the tented camps in the foothills, and Aziz was aware of a sense of calamity and inevitability. There was an electric atmosphere he hadn’t felt since he had been a child, with the Deleimi alert with the religious enthusiasm of a jehad, imbibing the red-hot doctrines of the politicians Thawab was trotting out thinly disguised as holy men.
The thing was getting out of hand and he didn’t wish it to. He wanted Hahdhdhah but he wanted it on his own terms, with Pentecost unharmed. I am getting old, he had told himself. I am growing sentimental for brave young men. But there could be no going back, no half-hearted prosecution of the attempts on Hahdhdhah. Already his authority had been undermined by Pentecost’s retention of the fortress and Thawab’s suggestion that Aziz had treated with the enemy. Any hesitation now and one of Thawab’s men – probably the Assassin, Majid – would take the opportunity to remove him from the scene with a bullet in the back.
Yet the appalling thing that had happened to Lack had shaken him to the roots of his being. Never in his life had he believed in cruelty for its own sake. He had killed men in battle but he had no time for the mentality of torturers and he had no hesitation in saying so.
Thawab shifted uncomfortably. ‘We shall never break into the defences merely by rushing them.’
‘Nor by torture!’
Thawab ignored the comment, sensing that he was beginning to gain ground. ‘I have a scheme, Aziz,’ he said. ‘The Khadari are engineers. They build bridges over the gorges of the Ridwha and guard their families in caves against the winter winds that roar through the pass.’
‘So?’
‘They know how to use explosives. They will dig a mine under the
water tower and blow it up. When it falls, it will bring down the wall. The Deleimi will be ready to rush.’
‘As they did last time?’ Aziz said coldly.
Thawab said nothing and Aziz stared at him with narrowed eyes. ‘You have the explosives?’ he demanded.
‘The Khadari obtained them from Umrah. The English officer was careless.’
Aziz regarded Thawab’s smooth face with hatred, aware that he had seized the initiative from him again. He tried to talk of the mine carelessly, as though he considered it of little moment.
‘How can we be certain it will destroy the wall?’ he asked.
Thawab sneered. ‘The Khadari know how to bring the tower down so that it falls outward. The wall will come down with it.’
‘And suppose Bin T’Khass discovers this mine?’
Thawab exploded. ‘Bin T’Khass! Bin T’Khass! Bin T’Khass!’ he shouted. ‘This is all we ever hear! Who is this Bin T’Khass? Some mythical warrior?’
‘He is a greater warrior than Thawab,’ Aziz said coldly. ‘He doesn’t behave like a besotted sufi. One day men will sing songs of him as they do of EI-Aurens and Owinda-el at Dhafran. But I will leave you to your miners. And I will leave your Deleimi to the job of guarding them. This time, though, they will carry banners so we can see where they are and it will be Hejri men who will lead the rush when the wall falls.’ He was less concerned with insulting Thawab than with making sure that when the breach was made it would be assaulted by men he could control.
Thawab seemed to sense what was in his mind. ‘Aziz is afraid that his friend, Bin T’Khass, might be hurt?’ he sneered. ‘He who talks with two tongues.’
Aziz’s eyes glittered. ‘Bin T’Khass is not Thawab. He does not talk of the killing of kings from the entrance to a rathole. He is a man of honour. And he can out-think Thawab.’
‘Can he?’ Thawab was goaded into another blast. ‘I have friends in the north who promise me artillery! They can bring it into Khusar by aeroplanes from Egypt.’
