Whitaker and I watched it take off, a mechanical dragonfly whirring in the clean, bright air. I turned then, conscious of the quickened beat of my pulse, the sudden desire to be alone. It was strangely heart-warming to know that somebody had been concerned about whether I got back safely or not. I walked to the steep, shadowed edge of the dunes and lay there, longing for a cigarette. The drill, so useless now without its fuel, stood like a toy, dwarfed by the dunes, the Arab crew lying about, listless with nothing to do. Whitaker had gone to his tent. The shadows lengthened and I wondered what was happening on that hill-top forty miles to the east. Was David still alive?
The answer came next day, just after Whitaker’s two trucks had pulled in and the noise of their arrival had woken me from the first long, uninterrupted sleep I had enjoyed in well over a week. Everything was confusion, stores being unloaded, the rig started up, when a bullet-scarred Land-Rover appeared, flying the Emir’s green flag. Out of it stepped a big, portly man with very black features under a large turban. ‘The Emir’s secretary,’ Whitaker said and went forward to greet him. A bodyguard of four askari sat silent in the back of the vehicle; wild-eyed men with greasy locks hanging to their shoulders, who fingered their weapons nervously.
Whitaker took the secretary to his tent and they remained there over an hour, talking over tinned fruit and coffee. Finally the man left, but before getting into the Land-Rover, he made a long, angry speech, a harangue that was clearly intended for the whole camp.
‘What did he want?’ I asked as the dust of his departure finally settled and the men returned to their jobs.
‘If I don’t go at once to Hadd and get David out of that fort, the Emir will hold me responsible.’ Whitaker’s face was very pale, his whole body trembling. “Allah akhbar!’ he muttered. ‘Why did the idiot have to choose this moment, when I’d talked the Emir into agreement and had obtained the financial backing I needed? Why now?’
‘He’s still alive then?’
He turned his eye on me, a fixed, glassy look. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He’s alive. The night you left him, he beat back the attack, captured a prisoner and sent him to the Emir next day with a message. It announced who he was and the terms on which he’d vacate the fort and leave them free to repair the wells.’ The terms required the Emir to declare publicly that he accepted the present borders between Hadd and Saraifa for all time, and this declaration was to be supported by a signed document to the same effect, lodged with the United Nations. David also demanded an escort of the Trucial Oman Scouts to see him and his men safely out of Hadd territory.’
But it wasn’t the terms that upset Whitaker. It was the fact that David had disclosed his identity. ‘Did he have to involve me?’ he demanded angrily, staring towards the rig.
‘I don’t suppose he meant to involve you,’ I said. ‘You’re involved by the simple fact that you’re his father.’
‘His father!’ He turned on me. ‘I took a servant girl,’ he said harshly. ‘A moment in time, a passing need — but that was all. It ended there and I made provision for her.’
‘You can’t buy immunity from your actions.’
He ignored that. Twenty years, and the moment catches up with me and I’m faced with the brat; a raw, undisciplined boy with a vicious background.’ He glared at me. ‘And you sent him out here.’
‘He’d have come in any case,’ I said. ‘Once he knew you were his father.’ I was angry myself then. ‘I don’t think you realize what a shock it was to him to learn that he was illegitimate — to discover that his mother had been deserted in childbirth.’
‘She’d no claim on me,’ he said quickly. ‘And even if she had, it doesn’t justify his coming out here with some idea at the back of his mind that he was going to kill me. Did you know about that? I had it all out of him shortly after he arrived — that and his criminal background and how he was wanted by the police for causing the death of that man Thomas.’ And he added, ‘I should have sent him packing. I should have realized the boy was bent on destroying me, on ruining all my plans.’
‘You know that’s not true,’ I said.
‘Then why did he pretend he was dead when he wasn’t? And now, when the truth of my theory is within my grasp, when the thing I’ve been searching for all my life is here, he gets me involved in this stupid, useless demonstration of his.’ He was sweating and there were little flecks of white at the corners of his mouth.
‘What he’s doing,’ I said, ‘he’s doing because he’s accepted the things you believed in; he made your world his own, Saraifa his home. And the background you complain of is the reason he’s doing it so successfully. He’s got the Emir to withdraw his forces from Saraifa. Now is the time surely when your influence … ‘
‘My influence? What influence do you think I have now? Men have been killed and that’s something only blood can wipe out.’ And he added, staring into the distance, ‘If I’d gone with the Emir’s secretary, I’d have been held hostage for David’s submission — his life or mine. And when next the Emir sends an emissary, he’ll come in force. That was made very plain.’
He put his hand up to his head, covering his eye as though to shut out the desert and concentrate on what was in his mind. ‘It’s madness,’ he breathed. ‘Madness. He can’t achieve anything … ‘
‘How do you know?’ I demanded angrily. ‘Ruffini has the whole story now and … ‘
That Italian?’ He let his hand fall, staring at me in surprise. ‘How can he affect the situation? The authorities aren’t going to take any notice of him.’ He said it as though to convince himself, and then in a voice so hoarse it seemed to be torn out of him: ‘He’ll die up there and that’ll be the end of it.’ The look on his face was quite frightening. He turned and walked slowly to his tent. I didn’t see him again that evening, and the next day his manner was still very strange. We hardly exchanged a word and I was glad when Captain Berry arrived.
Looking back on it, I suppose I should have tried to understand his predicament. He hadn’t enough men to get David out by force and he was probably right in saying the situation had gone beyond the reach of his influence with the Emir. What I didn’t realize was that I was seeing a man in the grip of events, forced to a re-assessment of his whole life and the values by which he had lived — and being driven half out of his mind in the process.
It was late afternoon when Berry got in. A lean, bony-looking Scot with fair hair and a face that was almost brick-red in the slanting sun, he brought a breath of sanity into that sultry camp, for he was from outside and not emotionally involved in what was happening forty miles to the east. He had a message for me from Colonel George picked up on his radio that morning. ‘I’m to tell you that your Italian friend got his story out in time and that you’re not to worry. Everything possible is being done. The Colonel has been ordered to Bahrain to report to the Political Resident in person. Oh, and he said a Nurse Thomas sent you her love and is glad to know you’re safe. Okay?’
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. For the moment I could think of nothing but that message from Sue. Captain Berry was speaking to Whitaker, something about his son showing what one determined and resolute man could achieve. He was one of those soldiers that believe action is the solution to everything. ‘You must be very proud of him, sir.’ Colonel Whitaker’s face was without expression, but a nerve flickered along the line of his jaw and he turned away.
Berry watched him for a moment, a puzzled look on his face. ‘That’s a man I’ve always wanted to meet,’ he said.
‘But I’m surprised he left this to his son. After what’s happened in Saraifa, I should have thought he’d have been busy raising the desert tribes. It would have solved our difficulty if he had. We might be allowed to support a desert rising against the Emir.’