Hammond Innes - The Doomed Oasis

‘I see.’ There was really nothing more to be said and I folded the papers and put them in my briefcase.

‘It’s a funny thing.’ He was leaning back in his chair, his eyes half-closed, chuckling to himself. The Company did this once before. They sent Alex Erkhard out and because I was sick and hadn’t the energy to fight him, he got my job. And now, four years later, I’m back with the same powers he had and the knowledge that he’s made more mistakes than I did and lost the Company a lot of friends.’ Again that dry, rasping chuckle, and then his eyelids flicked back. ‘What I’ve told you is in the strictest confidence, you understand. You’ve been put to a lot of trouble to contact me. I thought it only fair to explain the situation to you. If it’s any satisfaction to you, I’d add that a report like that isn’t conclusive. Seismology never is; it’s simply an indication. The only way to be sure you’re sitting on an oilfield is to drill down and find out.’

‘And suppose Whitaker’s doing just that?’

‘Hmm. To know the answer to that we’d have to know the locations the boy was surveying and where his father’s drilling.’ He stared at me. ‘Well, there it is. You’ve got your instructions-’

I nodded. There was no point in continuing the discussion. ‘You’re going back to Bahrain, I take it, Sir Philip?’

‘Bahrain? Oh, you’d like a lift in my plane, is that it?’

I nodded. ‘Please.’

He seemed to hesitate. But then he said, ‘All right.’ He picked up his drink. ‘You know my pilot — Otto Smith? Perhaps you’d be good enough to get him for me.’ He tapped his leg. ‘Can’t move about like I used to.’

‘I’ll get him,’ I said. And I went out and left him there, leaning back in the chair with his eyes half-closed as though exhausted.

I had some difficulty in finding Otto, but eventually I ran him to earth in the showers, sitting naked, smoking a cigarette and gossiping with the navigator. I waited whilst he dressed and then went back with him to the manager’s office.

Gorde was in the same position, but now he had my briefcase open on his lap and he was peering down at a sheet of paper he held in his hand.

I can’t remember what I said to him — I was too angry. I think I called him some pretty unpleasant names, but all he said was, ‘What did you expect me to do?’ His tone was mild. Almost he seemed amused. ‘If I’d asked you to let me see the locations you’d have refused. Quite rightly.’ And he added, ‘I just wanted to check them against the position where his truck was found.’

‘But you’ve no right-’

‘Of course, I’d no right,’ he said. ‘But yelling at me and getting yourself into a muck sweat won’t alter the fact that I now have them. Do you know where they are?’ he asked, peering up at me.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I haven’t had an opportunity-’

‘On the Saraifa-Hadd border. Right bang on the bloody border.’ He glared at me. ‘I suppose you’ll tell me you didn’t know that the border was in dispute?’ The way he said it implied that I’d tried to put something over on him. Angrily I told him that I didn’t have the advantage of his lack of scruples. ‘I kept strictly to my instructions and refrained from opening the envelope until I’d seen you.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk about it in a moment.’ He levered himself round in his chair. ‘Is the plane refuelled yet, Otto?’

‘I don’t know, sir. I’ll check if you like. Are you wanting to leave right away?’

‘Yes, right away. But first I want you to check that your tanks are full. A personal check please. You’ve got to have enough fuel on board to fly to the Saraifa border and back.’

‘I’m afraid we have to have authority to fly to Saraifa, Sir Philip.’

‘Since when?’

Otto hesitated. ‘I don’t know exactly. Since the trouble there, I guess. It was just after you left; a border clash between Saraifa and Hadd. They had to send the Trucial Oman Scouts in and since then nobody has been allowed to go to Saraifa.’

Gorde gave a little sigh. ‘Let’s not argue about it, Otto. I intend to have a quick look at these locations. Now then, how do we go about it without some little clerk reporting my movements to the PRPG, eh?’

Otto thought for a moment. ‘I think the best thing would be to say we’re doing a recce of certain areas, taking a look at a seismological outfit we’ve got operating at the foot of the Jebel, possibly landing at Ras al-Khaima if we’ve time, otherwise returning here. If we make it vague like that, I guess it’ll be all right. That is so long as you don’t want to land at Saraifa.’

‘I don’t know what I want to do,’ Gorde grumbled. ‘Haven’t had time to think about it yet.’ He poked around in my briefcase until he found a sheet of plain paper. ‘Communications here still functions for civilian messages, doesn’t it?’ And when the other nodded, he pulled a gold pencil from his pocket and began to write. I watched him as he signed his name and read it through. I was more curious than angry now; he’d taken matters out of my hands and for the moment my only concern was to get on this flight.

‘Have Communications send that off right away.’ He held out the message. ‘Then check your fuel. Oh, and Otto,’ he added as the pilot was leaving. ‘We’ll be flying on to Bahrain tonight.’ The door closed and he turned to me. ‘I suppose you think I owe you an apology, hm?’ He handed me back my briefcase. ‘Well, maybe I do. But I spent a lot of my time in Saraifa, and anyway I’m an oilman. We’ve no built-in moral code like you boys when it comes to things like locations.’ He folded the foolscap sheet and put it back in its envelope and sat there tapping it against his thumbnail, lost in thought. ‘It’s just possible, I suppose-’ He said it softly, speaking to himself.

That Colonel Whitaker’s drilling one of these locations?’

But he shook his head. ‘In that area? He wouldn’t be such a fool.’ Silence again, and the rhythmic tapping of that envelope. ‘However-’ The small, bloodshot eyes peered at me curiously, and then he began to chuckle. ‘A provincial lawyer — and it’s just possible you might have got hold of the thing the Company has been searching the Gulf for during almost thirty years.’ The rasp of that chuckle seemed to threaten to choke him. ‘You and Charles Whitaker. God Almighty!’ he gasped. ‘And that boy … he’d never have dared operate on that border on his own.’

‘You think they were together then?’

‘How the hell do I know?’ He handed me the envelope. ‘I don’t know where Charles is drilling any more than you do. I’m not even certain he is drilling. It’s just rumours.’ He reached for his stick and dragged himself to his feet. ‘But I mean to find out,’ he said. ‘If Charles is drilling on these locations-’ He let it go at that and since he seemed to take it for granted that I was going with him, I stuffed the envelope into my pocket, picked up my briefcase and followed him to the door. As he pulled it open he said to me over his shoulder, ‘Prove Whitaker’s theory correct, and on that border, and you’ll be in politics so deep, my friend, that you’ll wish you’d never been born. But I can’t believe it,’ he added, limping out into the bright sunshine. Tig-headed, proud, revengeful. … He still couldn’t be such a bloody fool.’ And he stumped off across the courtyard, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

We took off ten minutes later and by then I’d had an opportunity to glance at the contents of that envelope. There were several foolscap sheets headed: REPORT OF SURVEYS CARRIED OUT ON SARAIFA TERRITORY; and it was sub-headed: Basis on which an Immediate Programme of Test Drilling is Recommended at Points A, B, C amp; D. Pinned to it were four sheets of graph paper, covered with figures and diagrams. There was also a sketch map giving his survey points, a whole series of them, each with the position pin-pointed in latitude and longitude. A number of Arab names were given, but none that I could recall from my brief examination of the map in Erkhard’s office. Points A, B, C amp; D were marked in red ink; they were very close to each other, in a little huddle at the eastern end of the line of his survey. There was no covering letter. Just the report and the sketch map.