Hammond Innes - The Doomed Oasis

At the bottom, under the light, there was a faded photograph of a pretty girl in a high-necked frock. ‘That was taken just about the time I met the Major,’ she said as she saw me looking at it. ‘He was a major then, you see — from the Kaiser’s War. You didn’t recognize’ it as me, I suppose?’ She smiled. ‘I was considered very pretty then, you know — though I didn’t look so pretty when he’d finished with me and I was bearing twins; more like a balloon, you know. Now won’t you stay and have a cup of tea, Mr Grant, and you can tell me how you managed to get Dafydd out to his father. I should have thanked you for doing that, shouldn’t I, but at the time I thought it might-’ she hesitated. ‘You see, I’ve always been afraid of what would happen when they met. And then Dafydd started to go wrong — all those Arab friends of his-’ We had reached the parlour again and she said, ‘I shall never forget that afternoon. Mr Thomas lying there on the couch, and Dafydd-’ She pointed towards the spot where he had stood. ‘And Dafydd standing there and swearing he’d kill his own Da. But there-’ She gave me a weak uneasy smile. ‘They’re together now. And nothing has happened, has it? It was silly of me to take a young boy so seriously.’ And she added almost violently, ‘But it scared me at the time. It scared me silly.’

‘You say they’re together now?’ ‘Oh, yes — in a place called Saraifa. That’s an oasis-’

‘What was the date of that last letter you had?’

‘I–I don’t remember.’ Her mouth was suddenly trembling. ‘It was quite recent, Mr Grant.’

‘Could I see it please?’

She hesitated, her eyes wandering round the room. And then finally she went to the roll-top desk and took a single sheet of paper from the top of a neat little pile of similar sheets. ‘August it was,’ she said almost in a whisper. ‘August the twenty-third.’

Seven months ago. ‘And you haven’t heard from him since?’

She shook her head, her hand trembling as she stared down at the letter.

‘And he was at Saraifa; does he say what he was doing there?’

‘He’d been on a gazelle hunt with Sheikh Makhmud and his son-’

‘What sort of work, I mean?’

‘No, he doesn’t mention work. But it would be something to do with oil. He’s a geologist, you see, and works for one of the oil companies.’ She was reading the letter to herself again, her lips forming the words which I was certain she knew by heart. ‘He writes beautiful letters, you know — all about the country and the people he meets. He writes so I can almost imagine I’m out there with him.’ She put the letter back on the pile. ‘That was my dream once, that I’d go out there to live.’ She stood there smiling to herself and staring out at the dingy street. ‘Just a dream,’ she repeated. ‘But with the books and the maps I can see it all from his letters. I’m a Welsh woman, you see. I have the gift of imagination.’ And then with a sudden edge of bitterness to her voice: ‘You need imagination sometimes in a hole like this.’

How could I tell her the boy was dead? ‘Have you heard from his father at all?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I’ve never heard from the Major — not once in all these years.’ There was a catch in her voice and she moved quickly away towards the door. ‘I’ll make you some tea.’

‘Please don’t bother,’ I said. ‘I have to go now.’

But she was between me and the door, her hands fumbling at her dress, her eyes searching my face. She had finally screwed herself up to the pitch of facing the implication of my visit. ‘What’s happened, Mr Grant?’ she asked. ‘What’s happened between them? As soon as I saw you standing there on the doorstep-’

‘Nothing has happened between them. According to my information-’

But she didn’t let me finish, wasn’t even listening. ‘I knew they should never have met,’ she cried. ‘They’re alike, you see. They’ve the same nature — obstinate, very obstinate.’ She was almost sobbing for breath. ‘I knew what it would mean. It’s in their stars. They’re both Sagittarius, you see. And he was such a fine man when I knew him. Such a fine man — and lusty, so full of fire and vitality.’ She was wringing her hands and a sound came from her lips like the sound of keening. ‘Known it I have, always. Oh God!’ she whispered. And then, staring straight at me: ‘How did it happen? Do you know how it happened?’

There was nothing for it then but to let her know the facts, such as they were. And because it was easier I handed her the copy of the cable her daughter had sent me. She read it through slowly, her eyes widening as the shock of it went home until they became fixed, almost vacant. ‘Dafydd!’ She murmured his name.

‘He’s reported missing, that’s all,’ I said, trying to comfort her, to offer her some hope.

But she didn’t seem to take that in. ‘Dead,’ she whispered. And then she repeated his name. ‘Dafydd?’ And her tone was one of shocked surprise. ‘I never thought it would be Dafydd. That’s not right at all.’ The fixed stare was almost trance-like. ‘It was never Dafydd that was going to die.’ And a shiver ran through her.

‘I’ll write to your daughter. No doubt she’ll let you have any further information direct.’ She didn’t say anything and her eyes still had that fixed, trance-like look as I took the copy of the cable from her nerveless hand. Her behaviour was so odd I didn’t like to leave it with her. ‘Don’t worry too much. There’s still a chance-’

‘No.’ The word seemed to explode out of her mouth. ‘No, better it is like this, God rest his poor soul.’

Appalled, I hurried past her, out into the fresh evening air. The stars — what a thing to be believing in at a time like this. Poor woman!

But as I drove away, it was the father I was thinking about, a sense of uneasiness growing in my mind, fostered by the violence of her strange reaction. Going back to that house, to that poor woman driven half out of her senses by an old love she couldn’t discard; it was all suddenly fresh in my memory — her fears and the way he’d sworn to kill his father. What had happened between those two in the intervening years? Or was this just an accident — one of those things that can happen to any young man prospecting out there in the remote deserts of Arabia?

Back at the office I got out the Whitaker file and read that postscript to David’s letter again. But there was nothing in it to give me a clue as to how his father had reacted. The words might have been written by any youngster plunged into new and strange surroundings, except that he had described his father as though he were looking at him with the eyes of a complete stranger. But then that was what he was. Right at the bottom of the file was the dossier Andrews had produced from press-cuttings in the library of the Welsh edition of a popular daily and I read it through again:

Charles Stanley Whitaker, born Llanfihangel Hall near Usk 1899. Joined the cavalry as a trooper in 1915, served with Allenby in the offensive against the Turks and rose to the rank of major. After the war, he stayed on in the Middle East. Policeman, trader, dhow-owner; he adopted the Moslem religion, made the pilgrimage to Mecca, has lived with the Bedouin. His book on his crossing of the Rub al Khali desert was published in 1936. By then he had already become something of a legend. Following publication of his book, he went back to the Middle East, and after three years with Gulfoman Oilfields Development, he joined Wavell’s staff on the outbreak of war with the rank of colonel. Awarded the VC for gallantry, wounded twice, served with Wingate and later with Wilson. Was still a colonel at the end of the war. He then rejoined Gulfoman Oilfields Development as political representative.