Hammond Innes - The Doomed Oasis

The bitterness in his voice … ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked him.

Take what men I can and get the hell out of here. Do what I planned to do — without his help.’ His voice had a bite to it and he slid to his feet. There’s nothing else left for me to do — nothing that means anything, nothing useful.’ He left me then and hurried down to the dark shapes sitting around the cook fires, calling to them in their own tongue, gathering them about him. And then he began to harangue them.

A little wind had sprung up and it chilled the sweat on my body. But it wasn’t the drop in temperature that made me shiver. I was caught up in a situation that was beyond my control, isolated here in the desert with two men equally obsessed — the one with oil, the other with an oasis. And then Whitaker’s voice close behind me: ‘Grant. You’ve got to talk him out of it.’

I got to my feet. He was standing there, a dark silhouette against the dunes, staring down at where his son stood amongst the smoke of the fires. ‘His plan is madness.’

But I’d been with David too long not to feel sympathy for him. ‘He’s fighting for something he believes in,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you help him?’

‘By giving him men?’ His harsh, beaked face was set and stony. ‘I’ve few enough for my purpose as it is.’ And then in a softer voice: ‘I had my loyalties, too. But now, with Makhmud dead, I’m free to do what perhaps I should have done in the first place. I’ve seen the Emir. I’ve sent Yousif to Sharjah with those letters to merchants there. I’m re-checking the earlier surveys. In a few days we’ll spud in and start to drill. And when I’ve brought in the first discovery well, then all this trouble between Hadd and Saraifa will be seen in perspective, a small matter compared with the vast changes an oilfield will bring to the desert here.’

‘And your son?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘As I told you before, when I thought he was dead, I’d hoped he’d follow me, a second Whitaker to carry on where I left off. Instead, I find myself cursed with an obstinate, stupid youth who’s no respect for my judgment and opposes me at every turn.’ He put his hand on my arm and in a surprisingly gentle voice, he said, ‘Talk to him. Grant. Try and do for me what I know I can’t do myself. His plan is suicidal.’

He was looking straight at me and I was shocked to see there were tears running down his cheeks — not only from the one good eye, but welling out from beneath the black patch that concealed the other. ‘Do what you can,’ he said softly. And then he turned quickly away and went back to his tent.

Ten minutes later David was back at my side, looking tired and drained. ‘One man,’ he said in a bleak voice. ‘One man will come with me. That’s all. Hamid’s brother, bin Suleiman. And he’s coming, not because he understands my plan, but simply because with him, as with Hamid, it’s a blood feud now.’ He gave a shrug and a quick laugh. ‘Well. the fewer the better perhaps. They’ll drink less water, and water is going to be our trouble.’ He called to Hamid and gave the order to load the camels. ‘We’ll leave as soon as I’ve got the things I need out of Entwhistle’s truck.’

I started to try and talk him out of it, but he brushed my words aside. ‘My mind’s made up. Talking won’t change it.’ And then he said, ‘What about you? Are you staying here or will you come with me?’ He stared at me, a long, speculative look. ‘If you should decide to come with me. then I can promise to get you away to the coast with Salim as your guide.’ And he added, ‘If you don’t come, then I think I may be throwing my life away for nothing. You’re my only hope of contact with the outside world, and if the world doesn’t know what I’m doing, then it’s all wasted.’

I asked him what exactly he planned to do, but he wouldn’t tell me the details. ‘You’d have to know the ground or you might agree with my father and think it crazy. But I assure you,’ he added with great conviction, ‘that with any luck at all it will work. It’s the last thing the Emir will be expecting, and the fact that we’ll be a very small party … ‘ He smiled. ‘It makes it easier really- the first part at any rate. And I promise you you’ll not be involved in the rest. Think it over, will you, sir? I need your help in this — desperately.’ He left it like that and disappeared abruptly into the night.

I lay on the hard ground, listening to the movement of the camels, the sounds of preparation for another journey. A little wind came in puffs, sifting the sand, and it was dark. A stillness had enveloped the camp. I don’t think I’m any more of a coward than the next man, but to seek out death, deliberately and in cold blood … You see, it never occurred to me he could succeed. I thought his father was right and that he was throwing away his life in a futile gesture. I remembered Gorde’s description of Whitaker-an old man tilting at windmills. David was very like his father in some ways. I closed my eyes, thinking of Tanganyika and the hard life I’d led there, and then I felt a hand on my shoulder. ‘Well?’ David asked, and when I nodded almost without thinking, he passed me a rifle. ‘I take it you know how to use it?’ He had another which he handed to bin Suleiman and a revolver with holster and belt which he strapped to his own waist.

The stark reality of what I was doing came with the feel of the well-oiled breech under my hand. It took me back to days I thought I’d forgotten — to the deadly slopes of Monte Cassino, to Anzio and the Gothic Line. I rose quietly to my feet. Salim and Ali were loading cartons of explosive cartridges on to one of the camels. Hamid and his brother, a squat, hairy man with wild eyes and a low-browed head, were packing coils of fine wire and a contact plunger with its batteries into the saddle bags of another beast.

The camels staggered to their feet, bulking suddenly large against the overcast, and we were on our way.

A lone figure standing by one of the tents watched us go. It was Colonel Whitaker. He made no move to stop us, nor did he call out. We left the camp in silence and though they knew we were going, no man stirred from the camp fires. It was as though they feared to have any contact with us; it was as though we had already passed beyond the shadows of death.

Clear of the camp we turned east, working our way silently up the face of a dune in short zig-zags. At the crest we stopped to mount, and then we were riding, the dark desert all around us and the swaying shapes of our camels the only movement in the stillness of night.

The clouds thinned and gradually cleared, leaving us exposed in bright moonlight. But if the Emir had men watching Whitaker’s camp, we never saw them. Dawn found us camped among sparse camel thorn on a flat gravel plain. Sharp-etched against the break of day stood the jagged tops of the mountains. Dates and coffee, and then sleep. ‘We start at dusk,’ David said and buried his face in his headcloth.

The withered camel thorn gave little shelter and as the sun climbed the burning vault of the sky, it became very hot. Flies worried us, clinging to the sweat of exposed flesh, and we suffered from thirst for our water bags were empty and all we had was the contents of two water bottles. We took it in turns to keep watch, but the shimmering expanse of gravel that surrounded us remained empty of life.

As the sun sank we lit a fire and had a huge meal of rice and dried meat. A bowl of warm camel’s milk passed from mouth to mouth. Our four Arabs talked excitedly amongst themselves and the meal finished, they began to oil their guns, cleaning them with loving care. In contrast David and I sat silent, doing nothing. The sun set and in an instant the sky had paled. The visibility was fantastic in the dry air, everything sharp and clear, as though magnified. ‘You’d better tell me what you plan to do,’ I said, and my voice reflected the tension that had been growing in me all through that long, inactive day.