‘A little English — yess.’ His speech was slightly sibilant, his features marred when he opened his mouth by long, widely-spaced teeth. ‘I am at Bombay University, my education.’ He was staring up the hill towards the palace, his mind still on what had happened. They think they are being brave and that I am afraid. They don’t understand.’ His tone was bitter and angry. ‘Their guns are very much old and the men of Hadd will be waiting for them.’
I asked whether it was Hadd who had stopped the water supply and he said, ‘Yess. They perpetrate it once before.
Then the British help us. Your people send soldiers with automatic guns and mortars. But not now. This time we are alone.’
He turned and I saw his dark eyes, sad in the starlight. ‘The falajes you understand, sir, are very much vulnerable.’ He had acquired the Indian penchant for long words. And he added with great determination, speaking slowly as though stating something to himself, ‘We must fight for them now. But not like this. This way is to die.’ He began to walk slowly towards the palace.
There were many things I wanted to ask him, but this didn’t seem the moment and I walked beside him in silence, conscious of his preoccupation. His head was bent and he moved slowly, his sandals dragging in the sand. He was only two years older than David. I learned that later. Yet his manner was that of a man upon whom the whole responsibility for this desert community rested. ‘Do you know Arabia much, sir?’ he asked suddenly. And when I told him this was my first visit and that I’d only arrived a few days ago, he nodded and said, ‘You are from a town called Car-diff, yess? David speak of you sometimes.’
That mention of Cardiff, the knowledge that this young Arab knew who I was … Saraifa seemed suddenly less remote, my position here less solitary. ‘When David first come here, he is like you; he speak Arabic a little, but he don’t understand our customs or the way we live here in the desert. The falajes mean nothing to him and he has never seen the big dunes when the shamal is blowing.’ He had stopped and he was smiling at me. Despite the wide-spaced, fang-like teeth it was a gentle smile. ‘I am glad you come now.’ He offered me his hand and I found my wrist gripped and held in a strong clasp. ‘You are David’s friend and I will see that no harm come to you.’
I thanked him, conscious that he had given me the opening I needed. But already I was becoming vaguely aware of the subtlety of the Arab mind and this time I was determined not to make the mistake of asking direct questions. Sue’s words came unconsciously into my mind. ‘David wanted to defend Saraifa, too.’ I saw his face soften as he nodded and I asked, ‘What was it about this place that so captured his imagination? His sister said he could be very emotional about it.’
‘His sister?’ He smiled. ‘I have seen his sister once, when I am taking a plane at Sharjah. She is with the doctor and I do not speak. A very fine person I think.’
I knew then that David had spoken of Sue to Khalid. ‘What is there about Saraifa,’ I said, ‘that he fell in love with it the way other men do with a woman?’
He shrugged. ‘He came here for refuge and we made him welcome. Also his father live here. It became his home.’
But that didn’t explain it entirely. ‘It was something more than that,’ I said.
‘Yess.’ He nodded. ‘Is a very strange chap. A Nasrani-a Christian. He live very much by your Book, the Bible.’ That surprised me, but before I could make any comment, he added, ‘I should hate him because he is an infidel. Instead, I love him like my own brother.’ He shook his head with a puzzled frown. ‘Perhaps it is because I have to teach him everything. When he first come here, he knows nothing — he has never hunted, never owned a hawk; he does not know how to ride a camel or how to make a camp in the desert. For six months were are living together, here in Saraifa, in the desert hunting, up in the mountains shooting wild hare and gazelle. But he is very good with machines and later, when he is on leave from the Oil Company and we are working for the reconstruction of one of the old falajes, then he spend all his time down in the underground channels with the family who specialize in that work. You see, sir, this oasis is one time very much bigger with very many falajes bringing water to the date gardens. Then Saraifa is rich. Richer than Buraimi to the north. Richer perhaps even than the Wadi Hadhramaut to the south. It is, I think, the richest place in all Arabia. But nobody can remember that time. Now it is-’ He stopped abruptly, his head on one side, listening.
And then I heard it, too — the soft pad-pad of camels’ feet on gravel. Down the slope towards us came a bunch of camels moving with that awkward, lumbering gait. A dozen dark shapes swayed past us, the riders kneeling in the saddles, their robes flying, their rifles held in their hands. For an instant they were like paper cut-outs painted black against the stars, beautiful, balanced silhouettes. Then they were gone and the pad of their camels’ feet faded away into the sand as they headed towards the mountains.
‘Wallahi, qalilet-el-mukh!’ Khalid muttered as he stared after them. And then to me: That man, Mahommed bin Rashid. You heard him when my father give the order. Inshallah, he said, we will kill every harlot’s son of them. But he is more like to die himself, I think.’ And he turned away, adding as he strode angrily up the hill, ‘Allah give him more brain in the world hereafter.’
The sight of that handful of men riding east into the desert along the line of the falaj had changed his mood. He was preoccupied, and though I tried to resume our conversation, he didn’t speak to me again until we reached the gates of the palace. Abruptly he asked me what sleeping quarters I had been allotted. And when I told him none, he said, ‘Then I arrange it. Excuse my father please. He is very much occupied.’ He asked about Entwhistle. ‘Good,’ he said when I told him he’d gone. ‘He is not a fool, that man. He knows when it is dangerous.’ And he added, ‘It would have been better perhaps if you had gone with him.’
‘I’m not leaving here,’ I said, ‘until I know what happened to David.’
There was a moment then when he hesitated as though about to tell me something. But all he said was, ‘Is best you talk to his father — Haj Whitaker.’
‘I intend to,’ I said. And when I asked him whether Colonel Whitaker was in Saraifa, he replied, ‘I don’t know. He has his house here, but is most times at the place of drilling.’
‘And where’s that?’
‘To the south of ‘ere, about ten miles towards Sheikh Hassa’s village of Dhaid.’
We had entered the great courtyard. A man sidled up to us, made his salaams to Khalid. He was dark and toothy with a ragged wisp of a turban on his head, and his eyes watched me curiously as they talked together. My name was mentioned and finally Khalid turned to me. ‘Now all is arranged. Yousif speak a little English. He will show you where you sleep.’ His hand gripped my arm. ‘Ask Haj Whitaker why he goes to see the Emir of Hadd almost two moons past. Ask him that, Meester Grant.’ It was whispered to me, his lips close against my ear and a hard, angry glint in his eyes.
But before I could question him he had drawn back. He said something to Yousif and with a quick Salaam alaikum he left me, moving quickly through the camp fires, the only man in all that throng who wore a European jacket.
‘Come!’ Yousif seized hold of my hand. Heads were turned now in my direction and here and there a man got up from the fireside and began to move towards us. I had no desire to stay there, an object of curiosity. Yousif guided me through dark passages and up to a turret room by a winding staircase where the plaster steps were worn smooth as polished marble by the tread of many feet. The floor was bare earth, the roof beamed with palm tree boles. A slit of a window no bigger than a firing embrasure looked out on to the flat, beaten expanses of the village square. I was in one of the mud towers of the outer wall and here he left me with no light but the glimmer of moonlight filtering in through the embrasure.