Hammond Innes - The Doomed Oasis

The navigator nodded. ‘Just crossing it now.’

Gorde’s hand gripped my elbow. ‘That’s the trouble with this damned country,’ he said. ‘The borders are nothing but map references. Nobody cared so long as it was just a waste of desert sand. But you try explaining map references to an Arab sheikh once he’s dazzled by the prospect of oil.’

The navigator leaned across and made a circling movement with his hand. Otto tipped the plane over on the port wing-tip and we searched the glaring dunes below us. We circled like that, slowly, for several minutes, ana then suddenly we straightened out, swooping down towards the humped back of a dune, and there, halfway up it, was the truck, almost obliterated by sand. I never saw such a desperately lonely-looking object in my life, a piece of dead machinery lying there like a wrecked boat in the midst of an ocean of sand.

We slid down on to it like a hawk stooping to its prey. It was a big closed-in truck, old and battered looking and patched with rust. There were no markings on it and as it rushed away beneath us Gorde echoed my own thoughts: ‘What was the fool doing, driving that truck alone into these dunes?’ he demanded. ‘Do you know?’ He was glaring at me, and when I shook my head, he grunted as though he didn’t believe me. ‘A good twenty miles west of the survey locations,’ he growled. ‘He must have had some reason.’

Otto banked steeply so that the truck was there, just beyond the port wing for us to stare at. But looking at it couldn’t explain its presence on the slope of that dune, and in the end Gorde gave instructions for us to proceed to the locations David had surveyed and motioned me to follow him back into the relative quiet of the passenger cabin.

‘Well,’ he said, dropping into his seat, ‘what do you make of it, eh?’ But I could see he didn’t expect an answer. He was slumped in his seat, an old man lost in thought. ‘Doesn’t make sense, does it?’ he grumbled. ‘The boy dead somewhere down there below us and his father not caring a damn and busy drilling a well-’ He turned to me. ‘How did they get on, those two, do you know? What were their relations just prior to the boy’s death?’ And when I didn’t say anything, he snapped, ‘Come on, man. You must know something. You’ve come all the way out from England; you wouldn’t have done that unless you knew a little more than you’ve told me.’ He stared at me angrily. ‘Have you seen his sister?’

I nodded.

‘Well, what does she say about it? He must have talked to her.’

‘She’d like to think he’s still alive.’

‘What, in this country — and the truck lying there on that dune for almost two months?’

‘She’s never been into the desert.’

‘No, of course not.’ He asked me again what she had said about him, and whilst I was telling him the desert below gradually changed, the dunes altering shape until they were long ridges like waves with gravel flats in the troughs.

I was just telling him about the last visit David had made to his sister when the plane gave a lurch, the port wing tipped down and over Gorde’s shoulder I caught a glimpse of tyre marks running straight like the line of a railway along the length of a flat stretch between two dunes. A pile of rusted tins, the black trace of a fire, the remains of a dug latrine; they were there for an instant and then the plane straightened up and we flew on, following the tyre marks that had scored a straight line wherever the sand was soft.

Gorde got up then and I followed him forward. Indications of another camp came up at us, swept by beneath the plane. We were flying very low, the line of the dunes on either side closing us in. And then, straight ahead, the black shadow of a truck. It was stationary and we came up on it fast, belly to the gravel flat, roaring over it so close that I could read the black lettering on its side — G-O-D-C-O — and could see the drill at its rear turning.

It was the same sort of truck as the one we had seen abandoned a short while back, and as we turned and came down on it again, a figure in khaki shorts and an Australian bush hat waved to us. There were Arabs moving about by the drill and close by the truck was a Land-Rover with G-O-D-C-O painted across its bonnet.

Gorde swung round on me. ‘What the devil’s a seismological truck doing here? Did you know it was here?’

‘Of course not.’ For one wild moment I thought those three women might be right and I almost tore the glasses from Gorde’s hand. But the khaki figure was broad and thick-set, the round, brick-red face covered with ginger hair.

Gorde tapped Otto on the shoulder. ‘Can you land here?’ he demanded. ‘I want to talk to that man. Who is it? Do you know?’

‘Looks like Jack Entwhistle,’ Otto answered, and he swung the plane over again, circling back with the wing-tip almost scraping the top of the dunes. He was flying with his eyes glued to his side window, searching the ground. ‘Looks okay,’ he said. ‘No big stones, no wadis that I can see. I guess I can get down. Don’t know how it will be taking off again.’

Gorde didn’t even hesitate. ‘Then put her down,’ he said. His face had gone a sickly yellow. He was furious.

‘Hold tight then.’ The plane banked again, came in level over the flat gravel pan and I felt the drag as the flaps and undercarriage went down. He flew about half a mile with the ground so close that we might have been in a car, then he gave her full throttle, lifted her up and round in a turn that left my stomach behind me. We came back on to the line of the gravel, slow and dropping this time with the truck standing bang in our path. The wheels touched, bounced once on a rough patch, and next time we stayed down, bumping heavily over the rough surface, stones rattling against the outside of the fuselage, until the brakes came on and we slowed to a halt.

We were about three hundred yards from the truck and the man who had waved to us was already in the Land-Rover coming towards us. By the time the navigator had got the fuselage door open the Land-Rover was drawing up alongside. The air that came in through the open door was hot with the glare of sun on sand. There was no wind and the heat seemed trapped between the dunes. Gorde moved awkwardly down the fuselage, supporting himself with his hands on the backs of the seats. He looked tired and old and very grim as he faced the man who came in from the desert. ‘Entwhistle, isn’t it?’

‘That’s raight, Sir Philip.’ The man was North Country, square and stocky, the eyes grey in the red, dust-filmed face. He looked pleased. ‘It’s grand to see you out here again, sir. How are you?’ He wiped his hand on the seat of his shorts and held it out.

Gorde ignored the hand, ignored the warmth and friendliness of the other’s tone. ‘Who gave you orders to run a survey here?’

Entwhistle hesitated, dropped his hand. He looked momentarily off-balance, uncertain of himself.

‘Was it Erkhard?’

‘No, sir. To be honest, Sir Philip, nobody gave me orders.’

Then what the hell are you doing here? You’re a hundred miles from your survey area.’

‘Aye, I know that.’ He ran his hand a little nervously over his face. ‘It isn’t easy to explain. You see-’ He hesitated. ‘I was the chap who carried out the ground search for David Whitaker. You know about that, do you?’

Gorde nodded. ‘Go on,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘And make it short. I haven’t any time to waste.’

But Entwhistle wasn’t the sort of man to be browbeaten. ‘If it comes to that, Sir Philip, I don’t have any time to waste myself. I want to run this survey and get the hell out of here as fast as I can.’ His tone was obstinate. This isn’t what you’d call a healthy place. I got here two days ago and we hadn’t been camped twenty-four hours before we had a visit from a bunch of Bedou. They didn’t behave like nomads; more like the Emir’s men. Though we’re still in Saraifa here.’