Hammond Innes - The Doomed Oasis

I read that report in the car driving back to Manama. It told me very little that I didn’t already know. The truck had been discovered by nomads of the Rashid tribe who had passed the news on to some Harasis going down to the Gulf of Masira. The naukhuda of a dhow had brought the news across to Masira Island and the RAF Station there had radioed it on to RAF HQ Aden. A Valetta, landing at Masira on the milk-run up from Kormaksar, had begun the aerial search on March 11, and the abandoned truck had been located after a three-day search. Erkhard had then ordered Entwhistle, who was operating about seventy miles away, to break off his seismological survey work and proceed at speed to the area.

Due to a broken spring Entwhistle had not reached the abandoned truck until three days later. He had then carried out a systematic search, but had found no trace of David and the few nomads he encountered knew nothing about him. After four days lack of supplies had forced him to” retire. Meantime, the Valetta, supported by a plane chartered by GODCO, had carried out an intensive air search, but the rough going had put Entwhistle’s radio out of action and it was not until he joined up with Ogden’s outfit on March 24 that he was able to report his failure to find even the body.

It was obvious that no blame attached to the Company. As Erkhard had said, everything possible had been done. I put the report away in my briefcase. The only man who could tell me anything more was Entwhistle, and remembering the position of his flag on Erkhard’s operations map, I knew there wasn’t much chance of my having a talk with him.

We were approaching the town now, the twin minarets of the Suq al-Khamis Mosque standing slender against the sky, and I told the driver to take me to the Political Resident’s office. The PRPG, sir?’ He slowed the car. ‘Is not in Manama. Is out at Jufair by the Naval Base.’ He hesitated. He was a very superior-looking Bahraini. ‘You wish me to drive you there?’

“Please.’

He turned right and we reached the Jufair road by the National Cinema. ‘Have you a pass, sir? Everybody need a pass to enter Jufair Naval Base.’ But the native sentry on the gate knew the car and he let us through without question. We were close to the sea then with a frigate lying white as a swan on the oily-calm water. The road curved amongst the trees, the Government blocks standing discreetly back in semblance of a country estate. It was all manifestly English, and so, too, was the Passport Control Office with its forms. Purpose of visit … what did I put for that? I handed my passport to the clerk, together with my application for visas. ‘Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Saraifa. That’s quite a tour.’ He shook his head doubtfully, turning over the pages of my passport. The first three, they’re Trucial sheikhdoms — they may be possible. But Saraifa; that’s quite out of the question.’

‘Isn’t that for the Ruler to decide?’ I asked. ‘I understand it’s an independent sheikhdom.’

The suggestion seemed to strike him as a novel one.

‘We decide who goes to Saraifa,’ he said stiffly. And he added, ‘If you’ll come back later-’

‘This afternoon? I want to leave for Abu Dhabi tomorrow.’

‘This afternoon?’ He sounded doubtful. ‘Well, perhaps-’

I drove to the BO AC office then, only to discover that if I wanted to fly to Abu Dhabi I should have to charter a plane. Gulf Airways ran a service to Sharjah, but not to Abu Dhabi. It was my first experience of the difficulties of communication in the country. Back at the hotel in time for lunch I was hailed by Ruffini, sitting alone like a pale blue toad in front of a tall glass. ‘You like a beer?’

He had seen one of the chief executives of BAPCO — the Bahrain Petroleum Company — out at the oil town of Awali, and then had an interview with Erkhard. ‘This afternoon I go to Jufair, but I do not think they tell me anything.’ He leaned towards me across the table. ‘You puzzle me, Signer Grant,’ he said. ‘A lawyer, always with your briefcase. You say you are not interested in oil, yet your business is with two of the most important oilmen in the Gulf.’

The boy brought my drink. ‘Salute!’ Ruffini raised his glass. That girl at the reception desk — she is new to GODCO and she talk. This morning, when you ask for Sir Philip Gorde and he is not there, Erkhard immediately sees you ‘imself. Why?’ His eyes were fixed on my face, full of curiosity. ‘Why are you so important? What is in that briefcase of yours, signore?’ He shook his head and gave a mock sigh. ‘You will not tell me, of course. Not yet.’ His face creased in a smile and he gulped down the rest of his drink. ‘Let’s go and eat.’

Over lunch he told me why he was in Bahrain. He worked for a newspaper group in Milan and he’d had a tip-off from one of Italy’s leading oilmen. ‘I think he is right,’ he said. There is trouble. But where?’ He had been up since six talking in the bazaars, to Indians chiefly. A squadron of bren-gun carriers of the RAF Regiment was rumoured to have been sent to Sharjah and two RAF reconnaissance planes had been fitted with long-range tanks. There was talk, too, of additional transport allocated to the Trucial Oman Scouts and the GOC Persian Gulf was known to be on a tour of inspection. ‘If there is trouble ‘ere,’ he said, ‘then it mean only one thing — oil.’ And suddenly, without warning, he said, ‘What about this David Whitaker, eh?’ He smiled at me. ‘Now you are surprised. But that little girl knew him and you told her your business is about this boy who is missing.’ He stared at me. ‘But you don’t want to talk about it, eh?’

‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ I said. ‘I’m his Executor, that’s all.’

‘An’ you ‘ave to see Sir Philip Gorde, who is four years ago one of the most important men in the Gulf, but not any more — who is also the life-long friend of Colonel Whitaker, the boy’s father. An’ you ‘ave nothing to tell me, eh?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Per’aps, you do not know it, my friend — but I think maybe you are sitting on the story I want.’ He stared at me a moment, and then very seriously: ‘You will think I am being very stupid now, but walk with care. I like you. I like men who ‘ave a sense of duty. That is why I am warning you.’

‘You sound very serious.’ I wanted to laugh it off. But he said, ‘I am very serious. Oil is big money. And in a country like this it is also political dynamite.’ Probably he misread the shock his choice of words gave me, for he added quickly, ‘You don’t believe that, eh? Well, I will take a bet with you. You will not get to Abu Dhabi or to Sharjah. Saraifa is closed anyway. You will, in fact, not be allowed out of Bahrain. And you will be got out of ‘ere somehow before Sir Philip Gorde returns. Have you got your visas yet?’

‘I have to go back to Jufair this afternoon.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You can come with me. But you will not get any visa.’

He was right there. They were very apologetic about it down at Jufair but the only man who could deal with my application had unfortunately been called away on urgent business. Perhaps if I came back tomorrow. There was no point in arguing. The brick wall of officialdom can’t be battered down unless you have the right contacts, and I’d no contacts at all. I went for a walk along the naval jetty. There was a wind blowing off the anchorage, but it was a hot wind and did nothing to refresh me. Half an hour later Ruffini joined me. ‘Do you get your visas?’ He gave me a wicked smile. He knew I hadn’t got them.

‘Did you get the low-down on the political situation?’ I asked him.

He gave a fat chuckle and shook his head. ‘The same thing. Nobody is saying anything. What is more,’ he added, ‘you and me, we are in the same boat. No visas for Ruffini also. He is to stay ‘ere and mind his bloody business.’ He hoisted himself on to the sea wall. ‘Officials can be very stupid. If I have to stay on in Bahrain and write my story from ‘ere, then I have to guess at what goes on, and maybe I guess wrong.’ He was staring out across the anchorage, his eyes screwed up against the dazzle of the water. ‘That gunboat for instance-’ He nodded towards the frigate, which was slowly fetching up to her anchor, the clatter of her winch coming to us very clear across the water. ‘An exercise, they tell me. Routine. Maybe that is all it is and they are speaking the truth. But ‘ow do I know?’