The Doomed Oasis (27 page)

But it wasn't necessary. One glance at Whitaker's face told Erkhard all he needed to know. It was drawn and haggard, the colour of putty, and though the mouth moved, no words came. Erkhard crossed to Gorde, took the document from his hand, and tore it across and across and dropped the pieces in the dust.

There was a deathly hush. All eyes were turned on Sheikh Makhmud, waiting for his reaction. His face was the colour of clay, a shocked, almost old-womanish face, and his hands were trembling in the wide sleeves of his robe. “Sir Philip.” He had some difficulty in controlling his voice. “Your Company has signed an agreement. To tear up the paper is not to say the agreement does not exist.”

“You can take us to Court.” Erkhard said. “But if Gorde's right, you'll lose your case.”

Sheikh Makhmud waved his hands to signify that he had no intention of taking the Company to Court. He ignored Erkhard, addressing himself to Gorde. “I have always trusted the British. And you also; you have been my friend.”

“I am still your friend,” Gorde said.

“Then, please, you will honour the agreement.”

“There is no agreement.” His voice held a note of pity now. “Mr. Erkhard has done the only thing possible in the circumstances.” He turned to Whitaker. “For God's sake, Charles, did you have to raise their hopes like this?” It was clear from his words that he didn't like the role he was being forced to play. “The truth was bound to come out in the end.”

“What is the truth?” The pale eyes were fastened on Gorde in an aloof stare. “Do you know it? Are you so sure there's no oil in Saraifa? For twenty years now I have searched …”

“To hell with your theory,” Gorde snapped. “Just answer me this, a simple yes or no. Is there oil where you're drilling?”

“I've told you, we're only down to just over three thousand feet. Erkhard could have waited—”

“You know damn well he couldn't wait. You're not such a fool that you haven't guessed why I'm out here risking my health on another tour of the Gulf.”

“You thought my theory sound enough at one time. Remember?”

“And I backed you,” Gorde rasped. “I backed you because you'd got faith in yourself. But now I wonder. Now I think you've lost that faith. I don't think you believe in your theory any more.”

“What makes you say that?” Whitaker's voice was sharp, unnaturally high, and his face looked shocked.

Gorde leaned his squat body forward. “Because,” he said, “if you'd any faith in your theory, you'd have backed your son. Instead, you left him to die out there on his own—alone, deserted.” Each word punched home in that rasping voice. It was a terrible indictment. And he added: “Didn't you understand that he was attempting to do what you'd no longer the guts to even try and do—to find oil, real oil? Not this sham, this clever, crooked dodge to trap us into signing—”

“Philip!” It came from Whitaker's mouth as a strangled cry. “I want to talk to you—alone.”

It was an appeal, the call of past friendship. But Gorde ignored it. “I've nothing to say to you, Charles.” The words came bleak and cold. “Except perhaps this: if there is any oil in Saraifa, then my guess is that it's right there on the border where your son was prospecting. But,” he added, turning to Sheikh Makhmud, “I have to tell you that there's absolutely no question of our Company—or any other company, for that matter—undertaking exploratory work there at the present time. I was with the Political Resident for two hours this morning. He made the Government's attitude very clear. And now that I know what happened here last night, simply because one of our geologists was inadvertently on that border, I think he's right.”

There was silence then, and for a moment Colonel Whitaker continued to stand there as though shocked into immobility. Knowing what I did, I felt sorry for him. Gorde had misinterpreted his motives, but there was nothing he could do about it at that moment. Whitaker knew that. Abruptly he gathered his dark, embroidered cloak about him. “I'm sorry you had to come when you did, Philip.” His tone was bitter; his manner arrogant, unbending, aloof. “You'll live, I hope, to regret the words you've said and your hasty judgement. I did what I thought best for Saraifa, and Makhmud knows it.” He walked past Gorde then, his one eye staring straight ahead of him as though on parade; a beaten, proud old man. The ranks of the body guard parted and he walked through them, magnificent and solitary.

With his departure the whole place became a babel of sound. It was as though Whitaker alone had held down the safety-valve of the crowd's temper. Violence quivered on the sultry air, and I got up quickly and went over to Gorde. “I think you ought to see Whitaker,” I said. “As soon as possible. Tonight.”

“Why?”

But the place had suddenly become quiet, Sheikh Makhmud was on his feet making a speech, presumably of explanation. “I can't tell you here. But I think it's important you should see him.”

“It's true, is it—you look after his financial affairs?” He stared at me, his face tired now, leaning heavily on his stick. “Where's Entwhistle?” I told him and he nodded. “Sensible fellow. This is no place to be just now.” He glanced at the sea of faces that packed the courtyard beyond. “It all looks very feudal, doesn't it? But there's an element of democracy in these desert states. The sheikhs rule by consent, not by right. Just bear that in mind.” He was turning away, but then he checked. “Here's your briefcase.” He handed it to me. “You'll find all the papers there.”

Again I pressed him to see Whitaker, but he shook his head. “It wouldn't serve any purpose after what I've said. And anyway I don't intend to. He's the pride of the devil, has Charles.”

“Go and see him,” I said. “And take these papers with you.” I held the briefcase out to him.

He looked at the case and then at me. “I took them along with me when I went to see the PRPG this morning. I thought I might persuade him …” He gave that little shrug of his. “If he could have given us the All Clear politically, I think I might have taken a chance on that boy's survey and backed Erkhard. But he didn't. More, he gave me a direct order that the Company was to keep clear of the area.”

It was final, and as though to emphasize the point, he said: “I'll be leaving tomorrow morning as soon as it's light. No doubt Charles will take care of you, but if you want a lift out …” Sheikh Makhmud stopped talking and the courtyard was in an uproar again. Gorde's hand gripped my arm. “Hope turned to despair makes men dangerous,” he said, his small, bloodshot eyes looking into mine. “There's going to be trouble here, and these people are in an ugly mood.”

He turned abruptly away from me, and in the midst of the noise and confusion I heard him saying casually to Sheikh Makhmud: “Mind if we have something to eat? I'm damned hungry.”

Immediately Sheikh Makhmud was the solicitous host, courteous and hospitable. “
Faddal! Faddal!
” He waved Gorde to the place vacated by Whitaker, found room for Otto, called for food to be brought. Khalid was in the courtyard now, pacifying the tribesmen, shepherding them out. He was quick, decisive, a born leader, but they went sullenly.

I returned to my place, feeling nervous and ill at ease. I didn't need to be told that they were in an ugly mood. I could feel it all around me. It was like an electric charge. And the uproar had spread from the feasting-place into the great courtyard beyond and out into the village of Saraifa. The sound of their voices murmured on the night air, a continual angry buzzing as the whole population swarmed about the palace. Men came in and out to stand and stare, and it seemed to me that their eyes in the lamplight blazed with a wild, fanatical hate. Erkhard felt it, too, for he leaned across to me and said: “It's all very well for Gorde to say he'll leave at daybreak. He's got his plane here. Mine is ten miles away beside that rig.” And he added: “Damn the man! A Moslem. I should have guessed he'd be up to every sort of trickery.”

“Did you have to turn him against his son?” I said angrily.

But it didn't register with him. “Greed,” he said. “It's an Arab failing.”

I thought that was good, coming from an oil man with his reputation. But I didn't have a chance to reply, for Yousif was suddenly bending over me. “Coll-onel want you come,” he whispered. “Very important, sahib.”

I hesitated, unwilling to leave the protection of Sheikh Makhmud's presence or to lose contact with Gorde and his promise of a lift out. But I couldn't very well refuse. “All right,” I said and got to my feet. Courtesy demanded that I pay my respects to Sheikh Makhmud before leaving. He didn't rise, and his eyes regarded me coldly from behind their glasses. No doubt he held me partly responsible for what had happened. His face looked haggard, the line of his mouth bitter beneath the grey wisp of his beard. I turned to Gorde. “I'm going to see Whitaker now,” I said. “But I'd like to accept your offer of a lift.”

He had just taken a piece of meat from the dish in front of him and he looked up, licking the grease from his fingers. “First light,” he said. “And watch it, Grant. Charles has lost face, and anything can happen to a man that's been hit as hard as he has.”

Yousif's hand was on my arm, and as I turned I saw Sheikh Abdullah's dark eyes fixed on me. The men in the courtyard fell back from me, suddenly silent, as we made our way out. Their eyes followed me, gleaming in the lamplight, and once again I caught the whisper of that word: “
Nasrani
.” There was no mistaking the significance of it this time. They were hating us all that night.

5.

The Quicksands of the Umm al Samim

Whitaker was waiting for me on that same rooftop overlooking the desert, but this time he was pacing up and down it. His movements were caged and restless. He checked only momentarily as I entered. “Will Philip Gorde come and see me, do you think?” he asked, and when I told him no, he resumed his pacing. “After all these years, to talk to me like that!”

It was too dark for me to see his face, but I could tell from the stooped outline of his shoulders, the lowered head, above all, the nervous quickness of his movements, the way he spoke, that his mood was one of desperation. “All my life I've had to use subtlety. It's been part of my job out here. Always the need to find my way through the maze of Arab politics. Never a straight course. Always the devious approach. These oil men out from England—stupid men like Erkhard who don't understand the Arab mentality—they don't realize the problems of these Bedou sheikhs, the feuds, the vague boundaries that didn't matter so long as it was desert sand and nothing more. History, culture, race—they go back three thousand years and more, virtually without change, untouched by Western civilization. It's a culture in which the individual is still dominant, personality and human emotions the overriding factors governing men's actions. And over all this are the outside factors—international politics, the Foreign Office. Even Philip doesn't really know the Arab—though he likes to think he does.”

It was the fact of having somebody with him of his own race. The words came out of him in a pent-up torrent. But what he said was said for his own benefit, not for mine; an attempt to justify his actions. But when he'd said it all, he turned and faced me, suddenly almost humble: “Suppose I go to Philip myself?”

There was no point in raising his hopes. “I don't think it would do any good.” And I told him about Gorde's visit to the PRPG.

His head came up. “In other words, I was right. The Company's not allowed to enter into any agreement involving the Hadd border.” There was relief in his voice, but it was overlaid by the bitterness of frustration. And he added acidly: “Nice of the Political Resident to confirm my own assessment of the situation so exactly.” His shoulders sagged; he turned his face towards the desert. “Then I've no alternative now.…” He said it to himself, not to me, standing very still, looking out to where the stars met the hard line of the sands. “Over thirty years I've been out here, Grant. I'm practically a Bedou. I think like them, act like them.… I'm over sixty now and I know more about the Arab and Arabia …” He stopped there, and in the stillness I could hear the breeze rattling the palms. He turned slowly and stared at me. “All those years out here, and a boy of twenty-four sees it clearer than I do.” His voice was harsh, his face grim, the lines cut by sand and sun so deep they might have been scored by a knife.

“It's a pity you didn't reach that conclusion earlier,” I said.

He took a step forward, the eye bulging, his body taut, gripped in a sudden blaze of anger. But all he said was: “Yes, it's a pity.” He turned and resumed his pacing, the shoulders stooped again. “Heredity is a strange thing,” he murmured. “If we'd been less alike …” He shrugged and added: “In that case, I don't suppose he'd have gone back to the locations against my orders.” He fell silent again then. The breeze was from the east and it brought with it the murmur of Saraifa, like the beat of the surf on a distant shore.

“You wanted to see me,” I reminded him. The sound of that distant crowd made me anxious to get back to Gorde.

“Yes, about finances.” He kicked a cushion towards me and told me to sit down. “Just what have I got left?” he demanded, folding himself up on the floor beside me.

I was glad Gorde had returned my briefcase then. I could have told him the position more or less from memory, but all the papers were there and it made it easier. He shouted for Yousif to bring a light, and for the next ten minutes I went over the figures with him. He hadn't much left. But there were some shares I hadn't sold and they'd appreciated quite considerably, and, after repaying bank loans, I thought he'd have just enough if he lived quietly. I thought he'd decided to go home, you see—to leave Arabia and retire. It seemed reasonable for a man of his age. “I'm sorry it's not more,” I said, putting the papers back in their folder.