The Doomed Oasis (7 page)

He took off his hat and coat then and lay down on the bunk under a ship's blanket, listening with his ears attuned to every sound. A gong sounded for the evening meal and there was movement in the next cabin, the gush of a tap, the bang of a suitcase. The shrill of the whistle on the bridge was answered a moment later by the tug's farewell blast on her siren. The beat of the engines increased, and later, after they had slowed to drop the pilot, the ship began to roll.

He slept during the night, rolled from side to side of the narrow bunk. But when daylight came, he lay awake, tense and hungry. Footsteps sounded in the alleyway, cabin doors slammed, somewhere a loose porthole cover rattled back and forth. The hours of daylight seemed endless, but nobody came, nobody even tried the handle of the cabin door. It was as though he didn't exist, and, perversely, he felt deserted, lost and forgotten in this strange world he'd been thrust into by events. He had no watch, so that he'd no idea of the time. The sky was grey with a low wrack of cloud, no sun. The violence of the movement was exhausting, and towards nightfall he was sick, retching emptily into the washbasin. Nobody seemed to hear the sound of his misery, nobody seemed to care. The seas, thudding against the bows of the ship, made her tremble, so that everything rattled, and each time she buried her bows the noise of the impact was followed by a long, shuddering movement that seemed to run through his tired body as though he were himself being exposed to the onslaught of the gale.

Night followed the day at last and he slept; and then it was day again. Darkness and light succeeding each other. He lost count of the days, and when the sun came out and the sea subsided, he knew he was too weak to hold out alone in that cabin any longer. The moment had come to face the future.

Just above his head, within easy reach of his left hand, was a bell-push. He lay half a day, staring at the yellow bone button embedded in its wooden orifice, before he could summon the courage to press it, and when the steward came he told the startled Somali to take him to the Captain.

Griffiths was seated at his desk so that to David's bemused mind it seemed like that first time he'd met him, except that now the cabin was full of sunlight and they were off the coast of Portugal. The Somali was explaining excitedly and Griffiths's small blue eyes were staring up at him. The Captain silenced the man with a movement of his hand. “All right, Ishmail. You can leave us now.” And as the steward turned to go, his eyes rolling in his head, Griffiths added: “And see you don't talk about this. The passengers are not to know that a stowaway has been hiding in their accommodation.” And when the door closed and they were alone, he turned to David. “Now, young man, perhaps you'd explain why the devil you stowed away on my ship?”

David hesitated. It was difficult to know where to begin, though he'd had four days of solitude to think about it. He was scared, too. The little man in the worn blue jacket with the gold braid on the sleeves was more frightening to him than either of the judges who had sentenced him, for his future was in the Captain's hands. “Well, come on, man, come on.” The beard waggled impatiently, the blue eyes bored into him.

I would like to think that he remembered my advice then, but more probably he was too weak and confused to invent a satisfactory story. At any rate, he told it straight, from the receipt of his mother's hysterical letter and his escape from Borstal, right through to the tragedy of his return to the house in Everdale Road. And Griffiths listened without comment, except that halfway through he took pity on David's weakness, for he was leaning on the edge of the desk to support himself, and told him to pull up a chair and sit down. And when finally he was asked to account for his possession of the documents that had been his excuse for boarding the ship, he stuck to the explanation we'd agreed on.

But Griffiths was much too sharp for him. “So you took the packet from Mr. Grant's office and decided to deliver it yourself?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You say you found the door of Mr. Grant's office open. That means he'd only gone out for a moment. When he came back and found the packet gone, the natural thing would be for him to come down to the ship and give me some explanation. You're lying, you see.”

There was nothing he could do then but tell Captain Griffiths the truth, and the blue eyes, staring into his, began to crease at the corners. By the time he had finished, Griffiths was leaning back in the swivel chair and roaring with laughter, his mouth so wide open that David could see the movement of his uvula in the red hollow of his gullet. “Well, I'll be damned!” Griffiths said, wiping his eyes. “And Grant an accessory …” And then he started in on a cross-examination that seemed to go on and on.

Finally he got up and stood for a long time staring out of the porthole at the sunlight dancing on the waves made by the ship's passage through the water, whilst David sat there, numbed and hopeless. “Well, I believe you,” Griffiths said, still staring out at the sea. “You could never have made all that up.” There was a long silence. “You got Grant to help you—and how you did that I don't know, considering he'd never met your father. He was risking his reputation, everything. You've no passport, of course? That means you can't land in the normal way. And you've never had word from your father, which means he doesn't care to acknowledge your existence—right?”

And when David didn't say anything, Griffiths swung round from the porthole, his beard thrust aggressively forward. “And you stow away on my ship, expecting me to get you into Arabia. How the devil do you think I'm going to do that, eh?”

“I don't know, sir.”

“Perhaps Grant suggested something?” But David shook his head unhappily and Griffiths snapped: “A lawyer—he should have had more sense.” And he stumped across the cabin and stood peering down at David's face. “Is your father going to acknowledge you now, do you think? How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“And do you think Colonel Whitaker's going to be pleased to have a bastard he sired nineteen, twenty years ago, suddenly turn up with no passport, nothing—and a jailbird at that?”

David got to his feet then. “I'm sorry, Captain Griffiths,” he said stiffly. “I didn't realize …” The words didn't come easily, and his mouth felt dry and caked. “I've always dreamed of this, you see—of getting out to Arabia. I suppose it's in my—bastard blood.” He said it with bitterness, for he was convinced now that the world was against him, as it always had been—as it always would be. “I'll work my passage,” he added wearily, “and when we get to Aden you can hand me over to the authorities.”

Griffiths nodded. “That's the first sensible suggestion you've made. And it's exactly what I ought to do.” He turned away and stood for a moment lost in thought. “Your father did me a good turn once. I owe him something for that, but the question is would I be doing him a good turn …” He gave a quick shrug and subsided into his chair, chuckling to himself. “It has its humorous side, you know.” And David watched, fascinated and with a sudden feeling of intense excitement, as Griffiths's hand reached out to the bridge communicator. “Mr. Evans. Come down to my cabin for a moment, will you?” And then, looking at David: “Well, now, for the sake of Mr. Grant, whom I wouldn't have suspected of such lawlessness, and for the sake of your father, who's going to get the shock of his life, I'm going to sign you on as a deck hand. But understand this,” he added, “any trouble at Aden and I hand you over to the authorities.”

David was too relieved, too dazed to speak. The Mate came in and Griffiths said: “Stowaway for you, Mr. Evans. Have the galley give him some food and then put him to work. I'm signing him on. And see the passengers, at any rate, don't know how he came aboard. His name is—Whitaker.” David caught the glint of humour in the blue eyes.

“Thank you, sir,” he mumbled, but as he turned away all he could think about was that name, spoken aloud for the first time. Whitaker. Somehow it seemed to fit, as though it had always belonged to him; it was a symbol, too, a declaration that the past was gone, the future ahead.

All down the Mediterranean and through the Suez Canal, the life of the ship, the sun's increasing warmth, the sight of places all dreamed about and now suddenly come to life absorbed him completely, each day bringing the promise of Arabia twenty-four steaming hours nearer. But when they entered the Red Sea, with the water flat like a mirror and the desert hills of the Hejaz shimmering to port, he knew they were getting close to Aden. And at Aden the police might be waiting for him.

It was night when the anchor was let go off Steamer Point, and as he stood on the foredeck directing a stream of water on to the hawsehole, he could see the lights of Crater and the black shape of the volcanic hills behind towering against the stars. His first Arabian port. It touched his nostrils with a breath of sun-hot oil waste. But instead of excitement, all he felt was fear.

Customs and Immigration came aboard. He stood by the rail, in the shadow of one of the boats, and watched them climb the side from a launch. His work was done and he'd nothing to think about how but the possibility of arrest. A subdued murmur came to him from the town, strange Arab cries drifting across the water. Another launch glided to the ship's side. The agent this time. And later two of the passengers were climbing down into it, followed by their baggage. The officials were leaving, too, and he watched the launches curve away from the ship, two ghostly arrow-tips puttering into the night. He breathed gently again, savouring the warm, strange-scented air … and then the steward called his name. “Captain want you in cabin.”

Slowly he went for'ard to the bridge-deck housing. Captain Griffiths was seated in the leather armchair, his face a little flushed, his eyes bright, a tumbler of whisky at his elbow. “Well, young fellow, it appears that you're in the clear. Nobody is in the least bit interested in you here.” And he added: “Doubtless you have Mr. Grant to thank for that. I'm sorry I can't send him a message; the man must be half out of his mind, considering the chance he took.”

“I'll write to him as soon as I can,” David murmured.

The Captain nodded. “Time enough for that when you're safely ashore. But it's only fair to tell you that if I fail to contact your father, then you'll complete the voyage and be paid off at Cardiff.” And having delivered this warning, he went on: “I'll be going ashore in the morning and I'll cable Colonel Whitaker care of GODCO—that's the Gulfoman Oilfields Development Company. It may reach him, it may not. Depends where your father is, you see; he's not an easy man to contact. Meantime, I am instructing Mr. Evans to give you work that will keep you out of sight of the passengers. We have two oil men with us on the voyage up the coast, also an official from the PRPG's office—that's the Political Resident Persian Gulf. See to it that you keep out of their way. If you do get ashore, then I don't want anybody saying afterwards that they saw you on board my ship.” And with that David found himself dismissed.

He saw Captain Griffiths go ashore next morning in the agent's launch. All day they were working cargo, the winches clattering as they unloaded Number One hold into the lighter dhows alongside and filled it again with a fresh cargo. In the evening four passengers came aboard, all white, and a dhow-load of Arabs bound for Mukalla who strewed themselves and their belongings about the deck. And then the anchor was hauled up and the ship shifted to the bunkering wharf. The
Emerald Isle
sailed at midnight, steaming east-northeast along the southern coast of Arabia, the coast of myrrh and frankincense, of Mocha coffee and Sheba's queen.

It was a voyage to thrill the heart of any youngster, but David saw little of it, for he was confined to the bowels of the ship, chipping and painting, and all he saw of Mukalla, that gateway to the Hadhramaut, was a glimpse through a scuttle—a huddle of terraced Arab houses, so white in the sunlight that it looked like an ivory chess set laid out at the foot of the arid mountains. Only at night was he allowed on deck, and he spent hours motionless in the bows of the ship, drinking in the beauty and the mystery of the Arabian Sea, for the water was alive with phosphorescence. From his vantage point he could look down at the bow wave, at the water rushing away from the ship in two great swathes as bright as moonlight, and ahead, in the inky blackness of the sea, great whorls of light like nebulae were shattered into a thousand phosphorescent fragments as the ship's passage broke up the shoals of fish—and, like outriders, the sharks flashed torpedo-tracks of light as they ploughed their voracious way through the depths. And every now and then a tanker passed them, decks almost awash with oil from Kuwait, Bahrain, and Dahran.

They passed inside the Kuria Muria Islands at night, and to get a better view of them he ignored his orders and crept up to the boat deck. He was standing there close beside one of the boats when the door of the passenger accommodation opened and two figures emerged, momentarily outlined against the yellow light. They came aft, two voices talking earnestly, as he shrank into the shadow of the boat, bending down as though to adjust the falls.

“… the last time I was at the Bahrain office. But even in Abu Dhabi we've heard rumours.” The accent was North Country.

“Well, that's the situation. Thought I'd warn you. Wouldn't like you to back the wrong horse and find yourself out on your ear just because you didn't know what was going on.”

“Aye; well, thanks. But the Great Gorde … It takes a bit of getting used to, you must admit. He's been the Company out here for so long.”

“I wouldn't know about that, old man. I'm new out here, and, as far as I'm concerned, Erkhard is the man.”

The voices were no more than a whisper in the night. The two oil men were leaning over the rail at the other end of the boat, and David was just going to creep away when he heard the name of his father mentioned. “Is it true Colonel Whitaker's the cause of the trouble? That's the rumour.” He froze into immobility, listening fascinated as the other man gave a short laugh. “Well, yes, in a way; the Bloody Bedouin's got too big for his boots. And that theory of his, a lot of damned nonsense. He's not thinking of the Company, only of his Arab friends.”