It was something at least that he’d notified the authorities, and I lay back exhausted. He gave me some more water and then left me, saying he’d arrange for some food to be brought. When it came, it was a half-cold dish of rice and camel meat. I ate it slowly, feeling my strength beginning to return, and then I slept. I hadn’t intended to sleep, but the food and the heat in the tent … I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
I woke to the sound of voices speaking in English. It was almost three in the afternoon. The camp was strangely quiet. The drilling rig had stopped. I peered out of the tent An Army officer in khaki shirt and shorts and a peaked cap was standing talking to Whitaker. There was an RAF officer there, too, and resting on the gravel beside the silent rig was a helicopter.
Whitaker saw me as I came out of the tent and called me over. This is Colonel George of the TOS.’ He was a short, thick-set man, bouncing with energy, of a type that a Frenchman in Zanzibar had once described to me as a typical officer of the bled. Small, protruding eyes stared at me curiously from beneath the peaked cap. ‘I was in Buraimi when I got Whitaker’s message. The RAF had loaned me a helicopter so I thought I’d fly down and see what it was all about.’ His words were sharp and crisp. ‘Understand young Whitaker’s alive and that he’s playing merry hell with our aggressive little Emir. Correct?’
I didn’t answer, for I was staring past him to a strange figure walking towards us from the rig- a short, fat figure in a powder-blue tropical suit that was now crumpled and dirty and sweat-stained. ‘Ruffini!’ I called.
He came almost running. ‘Mister Grant!’ He seized hold of my hand. I think he would have liked to embrace me, he seemed so pathetically glad to see somebody he knew. ”Ow are you? I ‘ave been so concerned for you. When you don’t return with Gorde, I am asking questions, making a damn nuisance of myself, and nobody tell me nothing.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘What is a newspaper man ever doing? Looking for a story. I go to Buraimi, by invitation of the sheikh and an Italian oil man who is there also. Then this gentleman is sent by the British authorities to remove me. They don’t wish for Ruffini to be in Buraimi or anywhere else in the desert. So I am under arrest.’
‘No question of arrest,’ Colonel George snapped. ‘I’ve explained to you … ‘
But Ruffini wasn’t listening. ‘I tell you once before, signore,’ he said to me, still holding on to my hand, ‘I think you are sitting on the story I want. Now I talk to some of the Bedouin ‘ere and I know it is true. What is this boy doing? They say you are with him in that fort, that you come from Hadd this morning.’
I could have wished it had been a British journalist. But that wasn’t so important as the fact that chance had put me in touch with the outside world. Ruffini might be prevented from filing his copy immediately, but the knowledge that sooner or later David’s story would become known might stir the authorities to action.
But when I suggested this to Colonel George, he shook his head. ‘I don’t think you quite understand the official view.’ We were back in the tent then and I’d been talking and answering questions for more than an hour. The TOS, he said, had been reinforced with Regular Army units some time back and had been standing by for more than a month, ready to move at short notice. The attack on Saraifa and the battle at the Mahdah falaj was just the sort of trouble their Intelligence had expected and as soon as he’d received the news he’d given the order to prepare to move. It was two nights ago. He’d everything lined up, the convoy spread out round the perimeter of Sharjah airfield and everybody ready to go. And then the Foreign Office clamped down, the Political Resident called the whole thing off.
‘But why?’ I asked.
‘Why? Because of Cairo, Saudi, the Americans, the United Nations, world opinion.’ Cairo Radio, he said, had first referred to the Hadd-Saraifa border dispute two weeks back. There were reports from Riyadh that Saudi intended to raise the matter at the next meeting of UNO.
The Political Resident came under the Foreign Office, and to the Foreign Office this wasn’t just a local problem, but a small facet in the pattern of world diplomacy. Until that moment I had seen the attack upon Saraifa as it appeared to David, a personal matter; now I was being forced to stand back mentally and look at the situation as a whole, from the viewpoint of authority.
Twenty-four hours,’ Colonel George said. ‘That’s all we needed. In twenty-four hours we could have put paid to the Emir’s little game and saved a hell of a lot of lives. I know we’ve no treaty obligation so far as Saraifa is concerned, but it lies within the British sphere of influence and we’ve certainly a moral obligation to protect them against this sort of thing.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, there it is. I’m just a soldier, not a politician.’ He glanced at his watch and then at the RAF pilot officer. ‘Time we were moving, eh?’ Outside the tent, he turned to Whitaker. ‘That boy of yours. He’s going to get himself killed if somebody doesn’t do something.’ The protruding eyeballs stared. ‘You’ve been out here a long time. Colonel. Couldn’t you see the Emir; talk to your son? You must have considerable influence still.’
‘A little. But not with my son it seems.’ Whitaker was clearly disconcerted. ‘He’s acting contrary to my advice — contrary to my express orders, in fact.’ He hesitated. ‘Of course, if the Political Resident authorized me to negotiate a settlement of the Hadd-Saraifa border dispute, I have some influence with the Emir. But,’ he added, ‘a just settlement for Saraifa would almost certainly require the backing of British military forces.’
‘That’s out of the question at the moment.’
‘Then … ‘ Whitaker gave an awkward little shrug.
Colonel George grunted, a small, peremptory sound. ‘Pity! That boy’s got a lot of guts and he’s going to die.’ He started towards the helicopter, but then he stopped and faced Whitaker again. ‘I’ve heard stories about you … And if half of what I’ve heard is true, your son’s doing just the sort of thing you’d have done yourself in your younger days, eh?’ He paused, and then in a harder voice: ‘I’ll tell you something, Whitaker; if that boy holds out for a week, he’ll go down in desert history, his name remembered long after yours is forgotten.’ He stared at him hard for a moment and then marched off across the gravel towards the helicopter. ‘Sorry I can’t give you a lift out, Grant. No room. We’ve got to deliver this wop journalist to Sharjah. But I’ve got one of my Company commanders with a wireless truck up at Buraimi. I propose to send him down to patrol Hadd’s northern border and keep tabs on the situation. I’ll tell him to pick you up if you like. Name’s Berry. Sound chap. Understands the Bedou. That do you?’
I nodded, and behind me Whitaker said, ‘You might tell him to keep an eye out for my two vehicles. My fuel tanker and the supply truck should have been in two days ago.’
The rotor blades of the helicopter began to turn. Ruffini gripped my hand. ‘A rivederla. I see the story of this David Whitaker reaches London. Don’t worry. We have an arrangement with one of your newspapers.’ He was sweating already as he ducked into the oven-heat of the fuselage.
Colonel George paused in the open door. ‘Want to give me a message for his sister? I could send it straight down to the hospital. She’d get it this evening.’
I hesitated. ‘Just tell her he’s alive. That’s all she needs to know at the moment.’
‘I should have thought something more personal was called for.’ He stared at me, playfully tapping my arm. ‘Probably you don’t realize it, but she’s been raising hell on your account. As soon as she knew you were missing, she came straight down to Sharjah. She caught that oil chap, Gorde, just as he was boarding his plane and the story is she tore him off such a strip for abandoning you that he dropped his stick and took off without it. Since then she’s been badgering the life out of me. I’ll be damn’ glad to be able to tell her you’re safe. Well?’ He cocked his eyebrow at me and grinned. ‘I’ll give her your love — will that do?’ And without waiting for a reply he got into the helicopter and slammed the door.