Rose of the Desert (5 page)

Everything was exactly as it had been a minute before. A few yards away she saw boiler-suited men working near a large sign that said:

DANGER! WELL DRILLING IN. They were all very intent on their business. Julie decided to press on for the hut, but in the split second she had turned her head and then swung it back again, the men at the sign were scattering in all directions, and then towards her in one accord. She was almost mown down in the avalanche of bodies that swept by. Either they didn't see her now, or going by the look on their faces they didn't care. One elderly man with popping eyes did stop long enough to gasp, "Get out of here, lady!"

Julie looked around wildly. What was happening? Why were the men running? If only the doctor were here, she would know what to do. As it was she didn't know whether to run with the men, or back in the direction of the jeep. Mouth dry, she decided to carry on to the other building. Dr. Rahmid had headed that way and even if she didn't find him there surely she would be safe from whatever the men were afraid of.

The sand clogged at her shoes and her legs ached. The distance of a few yards had suddenly become the journey of a lifetime. It was no good, she would have to stop for breath. There was nothing to hear now but the pounding of her heart. No friendly clang of machinery, no voices calling above the din, just an eerie silence that made her flesh ripple with fear.
And
then she heard a brisk footstep round the side of the hut. "What in heaven's name are you doing here?" Clay loped towards her, his face white and tense. He took her shoulders and looked from side to side as though for means of escape. Julie heard herself babbling,

"I drove Dr. Rahmid to the surgery ... he wanted to show me this place. I followed him, but..." Clay pushed his breath through clenched teeth, "What will that buffoon do next? Look, we've got big trouble. I want you to stay here and don't budge until I get back. Understand?"

He pulled her to the doorway turned the knob and thrust her inside.

"But, Clay..."

"Stay put!"

The door slammed behind her and she heard his receding footsteps. Glancing down the length of the interior, Julie was almost caught up in a bout of hysterical laughter. Dr. Rahmid was going to have his work cut out making
this
into a surgery. It was nothing more than a toolshed. The place was filled with greasy implements, oil drums, and a conglomeration of engineering equipment.

She turned to gaze out of the dusty window, and a noise starting like a gentle murmur, and then boiling up into a low rumble of thunder, made her catch her breath. Was this it? She stood transfixed as the thunder roared, waiting for a climax that had to come; an ear-shattering explosion that seemed to open up the very bowels of the earth. The building rocked and the windows shattered, and Julie pressed herself against the wall to escape the flying glass. Had Clay got clear in time?

She forced herself to look out again and in that moment a jet of flame shot up. Hundreds of feet high,
it
hissed into the sky from the spot where the men had scattered. Even as she stared a second jet sprang out at the side away from her ... and a third, towards her. Julie watched in horror as a column of white flame reached out only a few yards to the left of the building in which she sheltered. It was as though a giant flame-thrower had launched an attack and had not as yet found the target.

The heat rushed through the windows like the blast from a furnace and she fell back with a cry. With one thought uppermost in her mind,
"I must get out of here",
she groped for the door, but even in the seconds it took her to reach it the knob had turned to a ball of heat. She sprang back with a gasp of pain, and searched wildly around. Was there nothing she could get a hold with? No old sacking or oil rags.... After a fruitless search she tried her lace handkerchief. It was useless, and the front of her blouse wasn't much better. She tugged for as long as she could bear, but the door had already swelled beyond her strength to separate it from its frame.

Breathless, she made her way to the far end of the hut and sank down, knowing that even if she could have opened the door the heat would have been too intense for her to walk through. At least it was cooler down here, but that wouldn't last for long. Though the structure was entirely of concrete, the interior was going to resemble the inside of a kiln in a matter of minutes. She pushed the damp hair back from her face, feeling the heat advancing towards her like a hungry animal.

Julie closed her eyes. She was trapped and there was no way out. She could hear the hiss of the flame through the shattered windows ... and what was that a footstep ? She must be imagining things ... everyone had gone. She wondered vaguely what had happened to the doctor. Had he sensed disaster and run with the men? She could have done with him here now, if only for company, but there was no sense in them both....

The door was kicked open with one sharp staccato thud, and Clay stood there.

"Julie!"

His eyes searched round the dim interior until he found a white heap huddled in one corner. He was there beside her, drawing her to her feet. Julie opened her eyes,

"Clay! How did you get through? I couldn't open the door."

Without thinking her head found his shoulder, and wordlessly he stroked her hair. The roar of the flames outside was dulled by the pounding of his heart. It must have taken tremendous exertion to push in a jammed door in baking heat. He showed no inclination to hurry her outside again and Julie looked up, her eyes wide and frightened.

"We
are
going to be able to get out?"

She saw his face was white and tense. A small muscle worked at the side of his jaw.

"The oil from the well has caught alight. It's always a bad business. It will take time to get the men into play."

In the meantime everything in this shed will be molten metal... or charred ...

"It's going to be all right." He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, but the brown eyes were troubled and distant.

"Clay, you shouldn't have come back in here," she whispered.

He made no comment, merely held her close. In the * gathering shadows she saw black patches of sweat forming on his overalls, and droplets trickling down the side of his face. The air burnt her throat and she coughed and swayed on her feet.

"Where the hell have those men got to?" He let out a sharp breath.

"What good could they do?" Julie asked feebly.

"I've given orders to have an asbestos canopy brought in. It's the only thing that will get you through this heat."

After that talking became painful, and breathing more difficult. Julie felt she just couldn't take one more lungful of hot air. She had almost given up when there was the rattle of equipment and the commotion of men's voices. She had a vague recollection of being hoisted into Clay's arms and carried through the door alongside a grey wall of asbestos sheeting.

On the way to the surgery he made no effort to put her down, and Julie leaned with relief against him, feeling the ripple of his vitality in every step. They found Dr. Rahmid standing agitatedly in the doorway.

"What happened to you?" Clay's voice was like crackling ice.

"I ... I went to see if I could help ..." the doctor stammered, casting an ashamed glance in Julie's direction.

"In the opposite direction, no doubt," Clay snapped. He dropped Julie unceremoniously into a chair and turned to give the full vent of his wrath to the fumbling doctor.

"As from right now you're through! I've put up with your incompetence for God knows how long, but this is the end of the line. I'm having another doctor flown out, and the sooner you get out of my sight the better." He swung round on Julie with a withering look that said, "And as for you—"

"When you've got your breath back I'll send a man to drive you out. Don't let me see you on an oil field again."

He strode away, leaving solid silence behind him.

A
PART
from tender patches on the palms of her hands, Julie felt no ill effects from her experience, but she wished Clay hadn't spoken to her as if she had gone to the oil field" on some kind of joy-ride. If she had known the perils involved wild horses wouldn't have dragged her there.

The fire at the wellhead raged day and night and it was possible to read a book at midnight from its glare. Clay and the men stayed with it, battling against tremendous odds, and when Julie thought of those jagged columns of flame searing the land and the sky, she found herself secretly praying for Clay's safety.

She scraped whatever information she could from the odd man who drove in for equipment, and on the third day was relieved to hear that the fire was under control. With the aid of explosives and gallons of water used to spray the men and the asbestos canopy as they moved in to survey the damage, Clay was now in a position to clamp on a huge valve, which would eventually bottle up the gas. Breathing a sigh of relief, Julie was able to give her full attention once again to her office duties.

Dr. Rahmid packed his things and came to bid her a formal goodbye, his eyes filled with a mixture of resignation and relief—perhaps, Julie thought, because someone else had made the decision for him. He hung around his bungalow waiting for whatever transport would prove available, and it came rather unexpectedly from outside quarters.

Murray Purnell, locust control officer, was a thin six- footer with light sandy hair and a pair of intense blue eyes. He dropped in at the camp and dug in as though it was his second home, and took Julie in his stride as though she
were
just one of a female community, instead of the only woman in a world of men. He enquired after Clay and Steve and men she had never heard of, and wandered around the office munching a duck sandwich and rattling on as though he had known her for years.

They ate together in the evening at Clay's bungalow, with the doctor a rather morose third party, and afterwards Murray expounded his theories on insects generally, and locusts in particular. As Julie was to learn, the gleam in the blue eyes burned all the more intensely at the mere mention of the name locust.

"Do you know," he said, pointing a finger at her, "that locusts represent a very grave threat to the country? One thousand million insects, that's how many there are in one swarm of locusts. Each eats its own weight from any green thing they can get their jaws around. Just imagine, its own weight, in one day! Once they completely devoured every living green thing in an oasis about eighty miles south of here. Now the trees bear no fruit, and the date harvest is too meagre to bother with."

"Can't you do anything about it?" Julie asked, her eyes suitably wide and concerned.

Murray relaxed and grinned, running a hand through his hair.

"Oh, we'll lick 'em. We're working with an insecticide at the moment, but what a sight when they all settle on the bushes—they're like green clouds! "

Julie was afraid he was going to go all intense again, but he stopped to think and then said suddenly,

"Tell you what, why don't you come out with me to Jalda tomorrow? There's a swarm of locusts settled about eight miles from the oasis. You'd have a grandstand view."

Julie smiled a polite refusal.

"Why not?" Murray persisted. "I shall be driving the doctor to Jalda. He'll he able to pick up a connection there back to Tripoli. My men won't be out for at least another day. I'll have ample time to drive you back."

Julie..studied. She was well in front with her work in the office, and it would be nice to get away from the camp for a few hours. Why shouldn't she take time off to see something of the desert?

"All right," she responded brightly, "I'll come."

"Fine. Be ready about six in the morning. We want to get going before the sun gets too much."

They set off when the sky was black and the stars shone with no inkling that a new day was about to be thrust upon them. It was bitterly cold, and Julie stepped into Murray's Land Rover swathed in woollies and her hooded anorak. She couldn't help thinking how ridiculous it seemed to have to wrap up like this when in a few hours she would be only too glad to strip down to the sleeveless linen dress underneath. But that was the Libyan desert, blistering heat of the day sandwiched between bitter cold mornings and nights.

The doctor huddled in the back seat, his belongings piled at his side. He had managed a polite good morning to his companions and then looked out on the dark shapes of the camp with a moody half-smile. He seemed to retain that position for the most of the journey.

Besides driving Murray proved to be an excellent guide, and pointed out items of interest along the way. There was the grave of an Italian army officer killed during the last days of the war. The huge stone column had been erected by his men and as the sun rose it pointed a dark finger to his last resting place.

There were tracks of a camel caravan probably heading south with a supply of rugs, pottery and trinkets for the interior. As Murray pointed out, it was still the cheapest form of transport even in this modern day of travel, air freight being too costly. As they neared Jalda he pointed out along the stretches of lion-coloured sand to occasional patches of green.

"Barley. It doesn't grow as tall as ours in England, but the heads are almost as big. They don't have anything like land property out here. If a man considers a certain part of the desert suitable, probably after the rains, he just finds his bit of ground with the correct moisture, puts his seeds in and comes back for the harvest. There's no such thing as someone else nipping in first. They're an honest lot."

Jalna sprawled in the morning sun, a sizeable oasis with cascading palms, square white buildings and scintillating domes. Looking at her watch, Julie realised with some misgiving that it had taken some considerable time to get here. She had come to learn that time and distance meant very little to the men out here. When the heat permitted they would drive hundreds of miles from one point to another as though it were up one street and down the next.