Hammond Innes - The Doomed Oasis

We’d heard no sound since we’d gone into camp. The night was deathly still, not a breath of air. And Berry made it plain to me that he couldn’t go any nearer. His orders were to stay in Trucial territory and in front of us stretched the invisible barrier of the Hadd border. ‘You can be certain we’re under observation. If I cross that border the political repercussions would be endless. As it is my Colonel’s sticking his neck out sending me down here on his own authority.’

We stayed up late to listen to the last news summary from home. The item we were waiting for came towards the end. Questioned in the House this evening about reports that a British civilian, David Whitaker, with two Arabs, was holding the fort of Jebel al-Akhbar in the Arabian Emirate of Hadd, the Foreign Secretary said that the newspaper report emanated from a foreign source and was almost certainly without foundation. He added that he was having enquiries made … Cairo Radio this evening accused Britain of concentrating a large force on the Hadd border, including armoured cars and artillery …

‘Armoured cars and artillery!’ Berry snapped the receiver off. ‘Why the hell do they repeat that sort of nonsense?’ Like most soldiers who know what the situation is on the spot it made him contemptuous of the organs of publicity. ‘And you heard what the Foreign Secretary said. It’s all going to be hushed up. Oil and politics; it’s always the same out here in the Middle East. For the sake of peace and quiet a petty tyrant is going to be allowed to get away with murder.’ He jumped out of the truck and stood staring a moment towards the Jebel al-Akhbar. Finally he gave a little shrug. ‘Care for a drink? I’ve got a little Scotch left.’

I shook my head. I was wondering whether any of the other papers would take the story up, and if so, whether they’d make enough of it to stir up public opinion. Only public opinion could force the Government to accept its responsibility for Saraifa and take action; and without that David’s sacrifice became pointless. ‘I think I’ll turn in now,’ I said. ‘I’m still very tired.’

I slept like the dead that night and in the morning it wasn’t the sun that woke me, but Berry shaking my arm. ‘Somebody’s still in the fort. I heard shots just after dawn — very faint, but definitely rifle fire. I’ve reported it to HQ.’

I scrambled up, sweaty from lying in my sleeping bag in the blazing sun, but ‘even through the glasses there was nothing to be seen, just the Jebel al-Akhbar shimmering in a heat haze. Berry glanced at his watch. ‘You might like to listen to what the newspapers are saying back home.’

We went into the back of the truck and switched on the radio. It was an overseas service of the BBC with a round-up of news and opinions from the national press. I don’t know what I expected — what Berry expected. A few references, perhaps a leader. Instead, every newspaper had taken up the story. For almost ten minutes the thin voice of the announcer came to me through the earphones, speaking as though from another world, and giving variations on the theme of the story I had told Ruffini. David was headline news. One I particularly remember:

BORSTAL BOY HOLDS FORT FOR FOREIGN OFFICE. And another popular paper was quoted as attacking the Foreign Secretary for trying to hoodwink the public.

But the press reaction seemed to have made no impression on the official attitude. The only indication of increased interest was that radio contact with TOS HQ was every hour now on the hour. Colonel George, we learned, was back in Sharjah. Ruffini was still there. Berry’s Company was in a position ten miles west of Buraimi and about a hundred miles to the north of us. The day dragged on. The sun rose until the sky was a burnished bowl, a throbbing ache to the eyes, and the desert sand beneath our feet as hot as the lid of a stove. Several times we heard the distant sound of shots, but though we took it in turns to keep watch through the glasses, we saw no movement.

We dozed between watches, ate snacks out of tins, and waited. Water was rationed and we became thirsty. Boredom set in. We listened to the BBC, but David was no longer in the news. Time was running out for him and my presence here seemed to serve no purpose. Those occasional, intermittent shots didn’t tell me whether he was alive or dead; they only indicated that the fort was still held. Repeatedly I tried to persuade Berry to move forward and recce under cover of darkness. But he was absolutely adamant. ‘I cross that border with British military vehicles and God knows where it would end.’

By the end of the day we were beginning to get on each other’s nerves. The truth was that nothing would have pleased Berry more than to be allowed to call up his Company and go in and settle the whole business. In his quiet Scots way he was so tensed-up over the situation that the battle would have been a welcome relief. Instead of which he was tied down within sight of the Emir’s stronghold in the company of a man who was becoming more and more irritable at the delay.

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand his difficulty. If he acted on his own initiative he might plunge the whole of Arabia into war, involve his own country and certainly ruin his career. It was a diplomatic tightrope that I couldn’t possibly expect him to walk. But understanding his difficulty didn’t help me to bear the inaction. To have to sit there, doing nothing, whilst six miles away that boy was dying by inches … The heat and frustration, it nearly drove me mad.

I suppose it was the strain of the past fortnight. Berry gave me salt tablets, a large whisky and sent me to bed at dusk. At midnight he woke me to say we’d be moving at first light. The Colonel finally got Bahrain to agree to my making an attempt to get him out alive. I’m to try and arrange an audience with the Emir in the morning.’

‘And suppose he refuses to see you?’ I asked.

‘He won’t. What’s more he’ll accept my offer to mediate.’

‘You seem very confident.’

‘I am. I’m offering him a way out that’ll save his face. If we do what the men of his bodyguard have failed to do and get young Whitaker out of the fort, then the Emir at least gets credit for being cunning. That’s something to set against the laughter of the Bedou round their desert camp fires. I take it you’d like to come with me?’

‘Of course.’

He hesitated. ‘I think I’d better make it clear that I could be wrong about the Emir. He hasn’t a particularly savoury reputation and if he did decide to turn nasty… ‘He gave a little shrug. ‘So long as you understand the position.’

Six hours later we were on the move, motoring across the flat, stony plain with the Jebel al-Akhbar growing bigger every minute until it towered above us, a grey, sugar-loaf mass against the rising sun. A Union Jack fluttered from the Land-Rover’s bonnet. There were just the two of us and Berry’s driver, Ismail, a tall, dark-skinned man, very neat in his khaki uniform and coloured TOS headcloth. No sound reached us above the noise of the engine. I could see no sign of movement on the hill above us.

We rounded the shoulder of Jebel al-Akhbar by a dusty track and there suddenly was Hadd, yellow now in the sunshine with the Emir’s green flag hanging limp above the palace and the town silent and strangely empty with the tower I had known so well perched above it on the lip of the limestone cliffs. We passed a camp of the Emir’s men. Smoke spiralled blue from their cooking fires in the still morning air and they watched us curiously, wild, lank-haired men, their bodies strapped around with cartridges, their rifles slung across their shoulders. Several were wounded, the blood caked black on their bandages.

The well outside the town was as we had left it that night, the wall destroyed by the explosion and nothing done to repair it. We entered Hadd by the main gate. The streets were empty, the little square deserted. Baulks of palm timber still lay where they had been thrown down in panic beside the damaged well. ‘Looks as though the population has moved out into the date gardens,’ Berry said. ‘Three men and they’ve stopped the life of this whole town dead. It’s incredible.’