Hammond Innes - The Doomed Oasis

The plane had altered course. I saw it circle once and then it was heading back towards us and for a wild moment I thought perhaps he’d changed his mind. It came in low, flying slowly with the flaps down. But the under-carriage remained up. As it bumbled close over our heads something white fluttered down from the pilot’s window. And then it turned and disappeared low over the dunes, and the sound of it was lost again in the noise of the drill.

Entwhistle was already running to retrieve the object they had dropped to us. He came back with a cigarette packet and a crumpled sheet of paper. ‘All right. You can stop drilling,’ he shouted. He repeated the order in Arabic and as the drill slowed to an abrupt silence, he handed me the paper. On it was written in pencil: Stop drilling and proceed at once to Saraifa. Concentration of armed tribesmen camped in the dunes two miles north of you. Warn Sheikh Makhmud and give him my salaams. Philip Gorde. A chill feeling crept up my spine as I read that message, and Entwhistle’s comment did nothing to restore my morale.

‘Bit of luck, the Old Man flying down here.’ He flipped the coin that Otto had used to weight the packet. ‘Mightn’t have seen the sun rise tomorrow otherwise.’

It came as a shock to me to realize that he was perfectly serious. They would have attacked you?’ I asked.

‘Slit our throats, probably.’ He sounded quite cheerful.

‘But-’ I looked about me, at the dunes asleep in the heat of the day, the furnace-hot world of the desert all around me, quiet and peaceful. It was hard to believe. ‘But you’re still on Saraifa territory,’ I said.

He shrugged. The Emir would dispute that. And the political boys, all those bloody old Etonians — they don’t want any trouble. My name’s going to be mud.’ He stared down at the coin in his hand. And then he put it in his pocket and set about organizing the packing up of the outfit, leaving me standing there, feeling slightly lost, a stranger in a strange world.

His crew were all Arab and they went about the business of breaking camp noisily but efficiently. They had done it many times. In fact, it seemed a natural process out there amongst the dunes. They were mostly young men, a colourful mixture of race and dress, their teeth flashing white in their dark faces as they fooled around, making light of the work. They were fit and full of life and laughter; they had a football which they kicked at each other periodically, the guttural Arab tongue coming in staccato bursts from their lips.

There was nothing for me to do and I sat perched on the Land-Rover’s mudguard, watching them and looking around me at the surrounding country. There was a dune, I remember, that ran away into the distance like the Prescelly hills north of St David’s. I was looking at it, thinking of holidays I had spent in that part of Wales, and suddenly my eyes became riveted on a dark speck that showed for an instant on its back. It vanished almost immediately so that I thought my eyes had played me a trick. In that shimmering heat it was difficult to be sure. And then it showed again, nearer this time. I could have sworn it was a man moving below the crest of the dune. I was just on the point of telling Entwhistle that he had a visitor when I was jolted off my seat; the clang of metal against metal was followed instantly by the crack of a rifle, and I was looking down at a hole the size of my fist in the side of the Land-Rover’s bonnet.

For an instant everything was still. There was no sound, no movement; Entwhistle and his Arabs just stood there, shocked into immobility, staring at that hole in the side of the Land-Rover. Then Entwhistle shouted something.

Rifles cracked from the top of the dune, little spurts of sand were kicked up round us. A bullet ricocheted off the truck’s drill and went whining past my head. Entwhistle flung himself at the Land-Rover. ‘Jump in!’ he shouted. His crew were running for the truck. Another bullet smacked into the Land-Rover, so close that the wind of it fanned my trouser legs, and then I heard shouts, saw men running towards us from the line of the dunes. The engines burst into life, drowning all other sounds. I dived for the seat beside Entwhistle as he slammed the Land-Rover into gear. Two Arabs landed almost on top of me as the vehicle jerked forward. Behind us the truck was moving, too, and beyond its lumbering shape I caught a glimpse of longhaired tribesmen dropping on to their knees, aiming their rifles. But I never heard the shots. All I could hear was the revving of the engine as Entwhistle ran through the gears.

A moment later and we were clear, out of their range. The two Arabs sorted themselves out and I turned to Entwhistle. His foot was hard down on the accelerator and his lips were moving. The bastards!’ he was saying. ‘The bloody bastards!’ And then he looked at me. ‘Dum-dum bullets.’ His face was white under the sunburn. ‘They cut them across to make ‘them soft nosed. Blow a hole in you the size of a barn door.’ It was this rather than the attack that seemed to outrage him.

‘Who were they?’ I asked, and was shocked to find that I hadn’t proper control over my voice.

‘The Emir’s men. They must have seen the plane turn back and realized we were being warned of their presence.’ He turned to make certain that the truck was following. ‘Fine introduction you’ve had to desert life.’ He grinned, but not very certainly. He shouted something in Arabic to the two men perched on the baggage behind and they answered him with a flood of words. Shortly afterwards he pulled up. The truck drew up beside us, its engine throbbing, excited Arab faces looking down at us, all talking at once.

He got out then and spoke to the driver, walked all round the truck and then came back and lifted the bonnet of the Land-Rover. ‘Look at that,’ he said. I got out and my legs felt weak as I stared at the hole that first bullet had made. Little bits of lead were spattered all over the engine. ‘Bastards!’ he said and slammed the bonnet shut. ‘Well, it might have been worse, I suppose. Nobody’s hurt and the vehicles are all right.’

It was only after we’d got moving again that I realized the windscreen in front of me was shattered. Little bits of glass were falling into my lap. I kept my eyes half-closed until I had picked out all the bits. ‘How far is it to Saraifa?’ I asked him.

‘Not much more than forty miles by air.’ I gathered it was a good deal more the way we’d have to go, for the dunes ran south-east and we had to get east. ‘Might make it shortly after dark if we don’t get bogged down too often.’

It was just after four-thirty then. We kept to the gravel flats between the dunes, travelling at almost thirty miles an hour. The air that came rushing in through the shattered windscreen was a hot, searing blast that scorched the face. The ground was hard as iron, criss-crossed with innumerable ridges over which the Land-Rover rattled in an endless series of back-breaking jolts.

In these circumstances conversation wasn’t easy; the wind of our movement, the noise of the engine, the rattle of stones — we had to shout to make ourselves heard. And Entwhistle wasn’t a talkative man. He’d lived on his own too much. Besides, he had a North Countryman’s lack of imagination. He even used the word ‘humdrum’ when I asked him about his job. And yet I got the impression that he loved it. But it was the job, not Arabia he loved. He’d no feeling for the country or its people. More than once he used the contemptuous term ‘wogs’ when speaking of the Arabs. But though he wouldn’t talk about himself much, he was quite prepared to talk about David.

He had met him three times in all; once in Bahrain and then later when he was sick and David had relieved him.