The Doomed Oasis (9 page)

At the end of the year he sent me a Christmas card. It was a Gulfoman Oilfields Development Company card and was postmarked Basra. He was at an oil school studying geology and seemed happy. That was the last I heard of him until I received the news, three years later, that he was missing in the Rub al Khali desert, the Empty Quarter.

By then I was involved in his father's affairs. It was a strange business and one that was causing me considerable concern—though at the outset it had seemed straightforward enough. In fact, I wasn't in the least surprised when he asked me to act for him. A lawyer's business is a very personal one and tends to grow through personal contact.
What my son has told me about you, and the fact that your firm acted for me for many years in the matter of the settlement to his mother, leads me to place complete confidence in your discretion and in your ability to use your own initiative when required
. He wanted to consolidate his financial affairs, he said, and he sent me power of attorney and gave me authority to collect all monies, meet any accounts that became due, and generally manage his business interests. There was nothing particularly unusual about this, except that I was on no account to attempt to communicate with him in any way once the arrangement was working.

My correspondence with him lasted over several months. His letters were all hand-written, and the only address he gave was his bank in Bahrain. Shortly after it was all agreed, money began to flow in from all over the Middle East, from Arab merchants and bankers, from traders, from a firm of stockbrokers in Cairo, and a large sum from the cashier of the London office of the Gulfoman Oilfields Development Company. This went on for about a year. Some of it was in kind—pearls from a dealer in Bahrain, even a box full of Maria Theresa dollars and another full of silver, presumably gifts from the local sheikhs.

Finally the flow had dried up, and, presuming that the operation was against his retirement, I invested the money for him, mostly in local industry of which I had personal knowledge. The market, of course, was a restricted one, but it never occurred to me that he would almost immediately want large sums in cash. And then in May of the following year accounts began to come through for settlement—for stores, equipment, vehicles; the largest single item was almost £5,000 for a second-hand seismological truck, complete with geophones and all the necessary equipment for a geophysical survey, and there had been a shipping agent's account for freighting it down from Basra to Muscat on the
Emerald Isle
.

It was clear that he was embarking on a program of oil exploration on his own, expecting it to be financed by the nominee account, and it worried me, for I'd no means of knowing where it was going to end. I ignored my instructions then and wrote him several times, care of his bank, but received no reply. And in the New Year I received another batch of accounts, this time for fuel and stores and drilling pipe. I was by then thoroughly alarmed about the whole situation. He obviously didn't realize that there were restrictions on bank lending, and I was reluctant to sell securities on a weak market. I was able to meet the immediate accounts, but I had to know what his future plans were. On March 5 I received an account for the hire of a complete drilling rig. I phoned an oil man I knew in Milford Haven, and he gave me figures for the probable cost of drilling, even with a hired rig, that staggered me. I wrote to Whitaker then, stating that unless he sent me a statement of his plans and the probable cost by return, I should have no alternative but to fly out at his expense to discuss the whole situation.

That was the position on the morning of March 24 when I came into the office and found an airmail letter with a Bahrain stamp amongst my post. I thought it was the reply I was expecting, but when I opened it I found it was from Susan Thomas. Apparently she was now working as a nurse at a hospital in Dubai. She enclosed a copy of a cable she had received from the offices of the Gulfoman Oilfields Development Company in Bahrain. I read it through twice before my mind was able to take in and accept what the words meant, so great was my sense of shock.

NURSE SUSAN THOMAS THE HOSPITAL DUBAI FROM GODCO—MARCH 18: REGRET INFORM YOU YOUR BROTHER DAVID WHITAKER MISSING DESERT RUB AL KHALI SINCE FEBRUARY TWENTY-EIGHT STOP TRUCK NOW DISCOVERED ABANDONED SOME FIFTY MILES WEST NORTHWEST OF SARAIFA OASIS STOP EXTENSIVE GROUND SEARCH WITH AIR CO-OPERATION RAF IN DIFFICULT DUNE COUNTRY HAS REVEALED NO TRACE ALSO UNREPORTED NOMAD TRIBESMEN STOP SEARCH NOW RELUCTANTLY CALLED OFF MUST BE PRESUMED DEAD STOP COMPANY OFFERS DEEPEST SYMPATHY YOU AND YOUR MOTHER—ERKHARD.

Presumed dead! It was hard to believe. Dealing as I had been for the last two years with his father's affairs, I had often thought about him, wondered how he was getting on, what he was doing. I had even thought of writing to him to ask him about his father's plans. And now this. My own sense of disbelief was echoed by Susan's letter—a purely intuitive reaction.
We were twins, as you know, yet all this time, whilst they have been searching, I knew nothing, felt nothing. If David is dead, then surely I would have known
. And then, a little further on in the letter:
Early last month he came to see me, very late at night. He was in some sort of trouble. But what it was he wouldn't say. He seemed withdrawn and he had a rather wild look. I felt he was in danger, but I still cannot believe he is dead
. And then the words:
He told me then that if anything were to happen to him I was to write to you at once
. In the final paragraph she apologized for being a nuisance and added:
But please, please contact the London Office of the Company and try to persuade them to have the search resumed
. The letter was signed simply
Susan
, as though I were an old friend.

I was due in Court at ten o'clock and still had the rest of my post to go through; I put the letter aside and didn't get back to it until late that afternoon, when I rang the London office of the Gulfoman Oilfields Development Company. But of course they knew nothing. A thin, cultured voice informed me that all local administration was dealt with by the Bahrain office. “The cable is signed Erkhard, you say? Then I think you may take it that everything possible has already been done and the facts are as stated. Mr. Erkhard is our General Manager out there and in charge of all developments.” However, he took my name and address and promised to pass on my observations to Bahrain.

I cleared my desk and then got my car and drove down to Grangetown to break the news to Mrs. Thomas; not a very pleasant task, but one that I couldn't very well avoid, since Susan had written:
This is something I cannot bring myself to do in a letter. It would be so much kinder if you would do it
—
more personal, and you can explain the circumstances better. Tell her I will write later
.

Mrs. Thomas had aged, of course, but more so than I would have expected. Her hair was completely grey now, no longer drawn back tightly from her forehead, but hanging untidily in wisps. The dress she wore was none too clean, and the eyes looked almost furtive as they flickered from one thing to another, never at rest and never looking directly at me. At the same time, the lines of strain had gone; her face seemed to have filled out, become smoother.

She invited me into the parlour, where the couch was still in the same place, the roll-top desk still littered with books on racing form. She was nervous, and she was talking all the time as we stood there, almost in the same positions, like actors cued to their places, talking about David, about Sue, about her life and how lonely it was now. “But Dafydd is a great comfort to me. He was never much of a letter writer, but since he went to Arabia …” Her eyes flicked to my face. “Is it about Dafydd you've come, Mr. Grant?” But then they had fled to another part of the room and she was saying: “I'm expecting a letter from him soon. He doesn't write regularly, of course. He's in such strange places. But such a picture he gives me, I can almost see it, you know … the Bedouin men and the camels and the heat; like a dream it is and me twenty again and waiting for letters.” She gave a little hurried laugh, almost a titter. “I get confused sometimes. Over two years it is now since Sue went out there. I've been alone ever since, you see, and the mind plays tricks.…”

“When did you last hear from David?” I asked her.

“Oh, recently. Quite recently. And I'll have another letter from him soon. Any day now, I expect …” And then, sheering away from the subject, she said: “You've never seen his room, have you? All his books. I'd like you to see his room.” And without waiting for a reply, she bustled out of the room as though anxious to escape from me. “I've kept it just as it was, you know.”

She led me up the ill-lit stairs to a little room at the end of a short landing. The place smelt musty and had the chill of long abandonment. A flick-knife lay on the painted top of a chest of drawers like a warrior's trophy from some forgotten war, and above the bed was a shelf full of books. “He was a great one for reading,” she said. “Anything about Arabia. I did my best to get him interested in other things, but there … I knew he'd go there sooner or later. It was in the blood, as you might say.”

There were about fifty books there, most of them books on Arabia, including expensive volumes like Doughty's
Arabia Deserta
—all damaged, but stuck together with loving care. It was a strange glimpse of a young man's yearning. “I believe Colonel Whitaker once wrote a book about Arabia,” I said. “I tried to get a copy, but it was out of print.”

She nodded. “It's a long time since anybody could get a copy. It wasn't very successful, you see. But there is one here somewhere.” She leaned her weight against the bed and ran a work-coarsened finger along the bookshelf. And then she took down a book and handed it to me. The title was
Wanderings by Camel through the Empty Quarter
. “Signed it is, you see,” she said proudly. “He gave it to me before he left.” And she added wistfully: “It was the only present he ever gave me.”

The book, of course, brought back memories to her. She smiled at me shyly—almost coyly. “You know it was whilst he was home writing that and getting it published that I came to know him. I was in service then at Llanfihangel Hall. That was his family's place.” She hesitated. “I suppose he was bored, really.” The coy little smile had spread to her eyes, so that her whole face was strangely transfigured. “But we enjoyed ourselves.” She said it with a happy little sigh, and then she added: “Ah, well, you only live once, Mr. Grant. That's what I tell myself whenever I'm feeling lonely. You've had your fun, Sarah, I say. You've had your fun and you've paid the price. Are you married, Mr. Grant?”

“No.”

“And no illegitimate children?” She gave a queer laugh as I shook my head. “Well, there you are. People like you miss a great deal in life.” And she added with surprising perception: “You shouldn't always live at second hand, you know. Rummaging about in other people's lives …”

“We do our best to help,” I murmured uncomfortably. And then I asked her if I could borrow Whitaker's book for a few days. I thought it might help me to understand the sort of man he was. She looked at me in surprise. “No,” she said quickly, her eyes darting to the book. “No, I don't think I'd like anyone to borrow that.” And she took it from me and put it quickly back in its place. “I'll make you some tea if you like,” she said as she took me back down the stairs.

At the bottom, under the light, there was a faded photograph of a pretty girl in a high-necked frock. “That was taken just about the time I met the Major,” she said as she saw me looking at it. “He was a major then, you see—from the Kaiser's War. You didn't recognize it as me, I suppose?” She smiled. “I was considered very pretty then, you know—though I didn't look so pretty when he'd finished with me and I was bearing twins; more like a balloon, you know. Now, won't you stay and have a cup of tea, Mr. Grant, and you can tell me how you managed to get Dafydd out to his father. I should have thanked you for doing that, shouldn't I, but at the time I thought it might …” She hesitated. “You see, I've always been afraid of what would happen when they met. And then Dafydd started to go wrong—all those Arab friends of his.…” We had reached the parlour again, and she said: “I shall never forget that afternoon. Mr. Thomas lying there on the couch, and Dafydd—” She pointed towards the spot where he had stood. “And Dafydd standing there and swearing he'd kill his own Da. But there …” She gave me a weak, uneasy smile. “They're together now. And nothing has happened, has it? It was silly of me to take a young boy so seriously.” And she added almost violently: “But it scared me at the time. It scared me silly.”

“You say they're together
now?
”

“Oh, yes—in a place called Saraifa. That's an oasis—”

“What was the date of that last letter you had?”

“I—I don't remember.” Her mouth was suddenly trembling. “It was quite recent, Mr. Grant.”

“Could I see it, please?”

She hesitated, her eyes wandering round the room. And then finally she went to the roll-top desk and took a single sheet of paper from the top of a neat little pile of similar sheets. “August it was,” she said almost in a whisper. “August the twenty-third.”

Seven months ago. “And you haven't heard from him since?”

She shook her head, her hand trembling as she stared down at the letter.

“And he was at Saraifa; does he say what he was doing there?”

“He'd been on a gazelle hunt with Sheikh Makhmud and his son.…”

“What sort of work, I mean?”

“No, he doesn't mention work. But it would be something to do with oil. He's a geologist, you see, and works for one of the oil companies.” She was reading the letter to herself again, her lips forming the words which I was certain she knew by heart. “He writes beautiful letters, you know—all about the country and the people he meets. He writes so I can almost imagine I'm out there with him.” She put the letter back on the pile. “That was my dream once, that I'd go out there to live.” She stood there smiling to herself and staring out at the dingy street. “Just a dream,” she repeated. “But with the books and the maps I can see it all from his letters. I'm a Welsh woman, you see. I have the gift of imagination.” And then with a sudden edge of bitterness to her voice: “You need imagination sometimes in a hole like this.”