From the top of those walls our attackers kept up a steady fire. Bullets whistled in through the entrance hole so often that the slap of lead on the opposite wall became a commonplace. They caused us no inconvenience for they struck one particular spot only and the convex curve of the wall prevented them from ricocheting. We kept a watch at one of the embrasures, but did not bother to return their fire. ‘Let them waste their ammunition,’ David said. ‘Our turn will come when the moon rises.’
Once they misinterpreted our silence and left their positions along the outer walls. We waited until they were in the open, and as they hesitated, considering how to reach the entrance hole, we caught them in a withering fire. Our eyes, accustomed to the darkness of the tower’s interior, picked them out with ease in the starlight. Very few got back to the safety of the walls or out through the gateway. And when the moon rose about an hour later, we climbed the ladder to the very top of the tower and from there we were able to pick them off as they lay exposed along the tops of the walls.
Below us Hadd lay white and clearly visible. There was great activity round all the wells. David fired one shot. That was all. The people scattered, activity ceased and in an instant the whole town appeared deserted again.
We took it in turns to sleep then, but there was no further attack and sunrise found us in command of the whole area of the fort. With no cover from which they could command our position, the Hadd forces had retired. We took the guns and ammunition from the dead and dragged the bodies outside the walls. Nobody fired on us. The hilltop was ours and the sun beat down and the rock walls became too hot to touch. We buried AH and retired to the shade of the tower. The camel that was to have carried me to Buraimi had disappeared. There was nothing for me to do but resign myself to the inevitable.
‘How long do you think you can hold out here?’ I asked.
‘Until our water’s gone,’ David answered. ‘Or until we run out of ammunition.’
‘And Hadd?’ I asked. ‘How desperate will they become?’
He shrugged. ‘There’s a well in the Emir’s palace, and they can always evacuate the town and camp out in the date gardens. There’s plenty of water there. It’s more a question of the Emir’s pride. He can’t afford to sit on his arse and do nothing.’
And each night we’d be a little wearier, the hours of vigilance more deadly. I closed my eyes. The heat was suffocating, the floor on which we lay as hard as iron. Sleep was impossible. The flies crawled over my face and my eyeballs felt gritty against the closed lids. The hours dragged slowly by. We’d nothing to do but lie there and keep watch in turns.
Shortly after midday a cloud of dust moved in from the desert — men on camels riding towards Hadd from the south. It was Sheikh Abdullah’s main force. They halted well beyond range of our rifles and the smoke of their cooking fires plumed up into the still air. There were more than a hundred of them, and at dusk they broke up into small groups and moved off to encircle our hill. They seemed well organized and under a central command.
It was that and the fact that they were mounted on camels that decided me. I went to where David was standing by one of the embrasures. ‘I’m going to try and get out tonight,’ I told him. ‘Whilst it’s dark, I’ll get out on to the hillside and lie up and wait for a chance to take one of their camels.’ And I added, ‘Why don’t you do the same? A quick sortie. It’s better than dying here like a rat in a trap.’
‘No.’ The words came sharp and hard and violent. His eyes burned in their shadowed sockets, staring at me angrily as though I’d tried to tempt him. ‘To be caught running away — that isn’t what I want. And they’d give me a cruel death. This way … ‘ Again I was conscious of that sense of mission blazing in his eyes. This way I’ll write a page of desert history that old men will tell their sons, and I’ll teach the people of Hadd a lesson they’ll never forget.’ And then in a quieter, less dramatic voice: Think you can make it, on your own?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But it’s dark and there’s bound to be a certain amount of chaos when they put in their attack.’
He nodded. ‘Okay, it’s worth trying. But they’re Bedou. They’ve eyes like cats and they know the desert. And remember, the moon rises in four hours’ time. If you’re not away by then … ‘ He left it at that and stood for a moment, watching me, as I gathered together the few things I needed — a canvas bandolier of ammunition, my rifle, the water bottle, a twist of rag containing a few dates and some pieces of dried meat. My matches and my last packet of cigarettes I left with him and also something I’d become very attached to — a little silver medallion of St Christopher given me by a mission boy in Tanganyika after I’d saved his life. ‘You’re travelling a longer road than I am,’ I said.
Ten minutes later I was saying goodbye to him by the splintered timbers of the main gate. When I told him I’d get help to him somehow, he laughed. It was a quiet, carefree, strangely assured sound. ‘Don’t worry about me. Think about yourself.’ He gripped my hand. ‘Good luck, sir! And thank you. You’ve been a very big factor in my life — a man I could always trust.’ For a moment I saw his eyes, pale in the starlight, and bright now with the nervous tension that comes before a battle. And then with a quick last pressure of the hand, a muttered ‘God be with you,’ he pushed me gently out on to the camel track.
Behind me the timbers creaked as he closed the gate. I heard the two palm trunks with which we’d shored it up from the inside thud into position.
I started down the track then and in an instant the walls had vanished, merged with the dark shapes of the surrounding rocks. Black night engulfed me and I left the track, feeling my way down the slope, my feet stumbling amongst loose scree and broken rocks.
High overhead a thin film of cirrus cloud hid the stars. It was this that saved me, for I was lying out in the open not two hundred paces from them as they climbed to take up their positions on the north side of the fort. I kept my face down and my body glued tight to the rock against which I lay. My rifle, clutched ready in my hand, was covered by my cloak so that no gleam of metal showed, and the two grenades David had given me dug into my groin as I waited, tense and expectant, for the moment of discovery.
And then they were past and the scuff of their sandalled feet faded on the slope above me.
I lifted my head then, but all I could see was the dark hillside in my immediate vicinity. No sign of the men who had passed, no shadows moving on the edge of the darkness. I slid to my feet, found the track and went quickly down the hill. And at the bottom I walked straight into a camel. I don’t know which of us was the more surprised. It had been left to graze and it stood with a tuft of withered herb hanging from its rubbery lips, staring at me in astonishment.
There were other camels; they seemed to be all round me, humped shapes in the dark, champing and belching. I seized the head rope of the one facing me, forced it down, and stepping on to its neck the way the Arabs did, I found myself sprawled across its back as it started into motion with a bellow of fear and rage. There was a guttural Arab cry. A shot rang out, the bullet whining close over my head. But the only thing I cared about at that moment was whether I could hang on, for the brute had gone straight into a gallop.
If it hadn’t still been saddled I should undoubtedly have come off, but the saddle gave me something to hold on to, and after a while the crazy motion slowed and I was able to get my feet astride and by means of the head rope obtain some control. And when I finally brought the animal to a halt, there was no sound of pursuit. There was no sound of any sort. That wild, swaying gallop seemed to have carried me right out into a void.