Hammond Innes - The Doomed Oasis

‘And you think David did the same?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s a cruel place, the desert. And solitary as hell. Empty too. Even in company the Bedou sing to keep their spirits up.’ It was much what Griffiths had said and it seemed plausible enough. He took my arm and led me back to the carpet. ‘You were telling me about your journey-’

I told him as much as I thought he’d a right to know — about the package Griffiths had brought me and my meeting with Erkhard. But it was Gorde he was really interested in — Gorde and Entwhistle and the fact that the two of them had been together at the locations David had been surveying. It seemed to worry him and he questioned me closely about Gorde’s reactions — what had he said, where was he going when he’d left me there with Entwhistle? And then he asked me what it was that had decided Entwhistle to check David’s survey. ‘He must have known he was risking his life there on that border. What made mm think it was so important?’

I hesitated. He was sitting there, watching me, very still, very tense, and I knew suddenly that this was what the whole interview had been leading up to and that he was deeply concerned. ‘When Entwhistle searched the abandoned truck,’ I said, ‘he found all David’s papers. They included his own survey report and also the report of a much older survey run just before the war. I think it was that report-’

‘Whose report?’ The question was shot at me out of the dark. ‘Was it Henry Farr’s report?’

I stared at him. ‘You know about that?’

‘Of course. Henry sent me a copy of it. He was well aware of my interest in the area. Later we had a talk about it — just before he went into Abyssinia.’

‘But if you knew about it-’ It seemed so incredible. ‘In his letter to me David said he found it in the Company’s files. You never told him about it?’

‘No.’

‘Why ever not? You must have known how he felt about Saraifa, his desperate urge to-’

‘He was employed by the Company — by Erkhard.’ His voice was taut and hard, a note almost of hostility.

‘But… I don’t understand, ‘I said.‘All these years…. And Khalid says you’re drilling to the south of the oasis. That’s at least forty miles from David’s locations.’

‘Exactly. Just about as far from the Hadd border as it’s possible to get and still be in Saraifa.’ He got to his feet and began pacing up and down, seeking relief in movement from the nervous tension that I now realized had existed inside him from the first moment of our meeting. ‘It’s not easy to explain. You don’t understand the situation.’ He stopped suddenly and faced me. ‘For twenty years I’ve had to sit on this, convinced that my theory was right, that the oil-bearing strata continued from the Gulf down into Saraifa, between the Empty Quarter and the mountains you can see there to the east.’ His voice was sharp and bitter with frustration. ‘I had to find some way-’ He paused, standing there over me, and he was silent a long time as though reaching for a decision. Finally he said, ‘You know so much…. You may as well know the rest. Erkhard’s coming here tomorrow, flying down from Sharjah. He’s under pressure as I think you’ll have guessed from your conversation with Philip Gorde. With God’s help I’ll get him to sign the concession, and once the Company’s involved-’ He turned and resumed his pacing. ‘There was no other way. No company would sign a concession with Saraifa if they knew it involved drilling on the Hadd-Saraifa border. No company would dare. But once they’re committed…. ‘ He beat his fist against the palm of his hand.

I

spasmodic fighting on the border. The Emir, you see, was determined to grab any oil there was for himself. And when we finally sent in troops to keep the peace, it was too late for me to do anything about it. The concession had lapsed. Philip Gorde had gone home sick and Erkhard had taker, over. Erkhard would have dealt with the Emir or anybody else. He’d no feeling for Saraifa the way Philip had.’ He turned abruptly and shouted for Yousif. And then, looking at me very hard, he said, ‘You’ve come at a strange moment, Grant, and I’ve told you things I’ve told no other man. I’ve had to, or you’d have caused more trouble. By the mere fact of coming out here…. ‘ He hesitated and I knew he was thinking of Gorde. ‘What did Philip say, was he surprised when he discovered where I was drilling?’

‘I don’t think he knows,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t even sure you were drilling.’

‘Oh, he knows. A plane passed over the rig this afternoon. I thought for a moment it must be Erkhard arriving a day early, but when it circled and turned away I began to wonder.’ He was looking out into the desert again and his face showed the strain he was under. ‘I could have wished it had been anyone but Philip Gorde. He’s the only man in the whole Company who knows enough to guess what I’m up to. But there’s nothing I can do about it now Yousif had appeared and he held out his hand to me ‘You’re a lawyer, Grant. You’ve been involved in our affairs for a long time. I rely on you not to talk.’ He held my hand gripped in his. ‘We have two enemies here in Saraifa — the Emir and the Sands.’ He gestured towards the white expanse of the dunes and added softly, ‘Tomorrow, with God’s help, I’ll lay the foundation of victory over them both.’ It was said with great intensity, his eye fixed on my face.

I left him then, standing alone as I had found him on that rooftop, a strange, almost fanatical figure against the backcloth of endless desert. Even when I got back to my turret room, the memory of him was so clear in my mind that I felt he was still with me. But I was too exhausted to think clearly about that extraordinary meeting. I fell asleep and dreamed instead of women crying over children dead of thirst.

I woke in the small hours to the reality of their cries, a queer, keening sound coming up from the square below. The palace, too, was alive with voices, and though they were muffled by distance and the thickness of the walls, I caught the vibrant note of disaster.

It was quite chill as I flung off my blanket and went to the embrasure. The village square was ghostly pale in moonlight, empty save for a little group immediately below me, a dozen women and some children huddled like rags around the dead body of a man. He had been shot in the face and he wasn’t a pretty sight there in the moonlight. Nearby a camel’ lay in a pool of blood.

It was just after four by my watch and already the sky was paling in the east. I put on my shoes and went down into the courtyard. The place was in an uproar, fires smoking and men standing in little groups, all talking at once. The nearest fell silent as they saw me and the word Nasrani passed from mouth to mouth, a whisper of fear, perhaps of hate. I beat a hasty retreat to the seclusion of my turret cell.

Sleep was impossible after that and I sat huddled in my blanket and watched the dawn break over the Jebel mountains, the grey light of it creeping across the palm tops, heralded by the brazen sound of an ass braying. The keening ceased and when I went to the window embrasure there was no sign of the dead man and the camel’s carcase had gone. It might have been a bad dream, for as daylight flooded the square it was full of the sound of children and their carefree laughter.

There was a shireeya, or open waterhole, a short distance from the tower and young Arab girls were driving goats towards it. There were boys there, too, with their asses, filling goat-skin bags and dripping a dark trail of the precious fluid as they took it to houses in the village.

Skinny, undersized fowl pecked in the dirt; a shapeless bundle of womanhood passed, her face hideously concealed by the black mask of the burqa. And when the sun lifted its glaring face above the distant line of the mountains, the palms, the sand, the mud houses were all miraculously suffused with colour, as though I were looking at the scene through rose-tinted glasses. Exhausted, I lay down again and was instantly asleep.