The timbers of the main gate sagged open, splintered by the rocks that lay at the foot of the two crumbling bastions. As we climbed the last steep rise, the tower appeared, framed in the gateway, pale yellow in the sun with the shadowed opening halfway up yawning like a mouth agape. No sign of life. No sound. I called out. ‘David! It’s George Grant!’ The rocks echoed back his name and nothing stirred. ‘David!’
And then unbelievably, he answered — a hollow, croaking sound from the interior of the tower. ‘I have Captain Berry of the Trucial Oman Scouts with me.’ My throat was parched, my voice hoarse. ‘The Emir offers you a safe conduct.’ Even as I said it I wondered, the stillness and the heat beating at my nerves. Concealed amongst the rocks below us were men with rifles. How did we know they wouldn’t open fire on us? The hairs at the back of my neck crawled; treachery seemed to hang in the hot air and even as David told us to come in through the open gateway, I knew we shouldn’t have trusted the Emir.
The open expanse of the fort’s interior was a shambles. There were the remains of fires, the tattered remnants of camels’ carcases — those things I remembered. But now there were bodies of Arabs, too, lying where they had fallen, unburied and rotting, buzzing with flies. I counted nine of them; the place smelt of death, was littered with the debris of attacks beaten back. And the sun — the cauterizing, sterilizing sun — blazed down.
Something moved in the black mouth of the tower and the rickety ladder was thrust out of it. It fell the last few feet to the ground and David appeared, climbing stiffly and very slowly down it. At the bottom he paused as though to gather his strength together, and then he turned and faced us, standing very stiffly erect, a blood-stained strip of cloth round his right forearm and blood showing in a black patch below his left shoulder.
Berry took a tentative step forward. ‘We’ve just seen the Emir. If you leave with us now, he’s agreed to allow you to cross the border into Trucial territory unmolested.’
‘And you believed him?’ David started to move towards us, but then he stopped. He was swaying slightly, too weak to walk.
‘He’s ordered a cease-fire.’
He nodded slowly. ‘That’s true. I heard the order given. A man came up by the path from Hadd a little while back. He carried a white flag. But then he disappeared; went to earth amongst the rocks.’ His voice was thin and very weak. ‘I don’t trust the bastards,’ he added, coming towards us very slowly.
Close-to he looked ghastly. His eyes had gone quite yellow, the skin of his face yellow, too, and all the flesh fined away so that the cheeks were sunken, the bones staring. His body seemed smaller, dried up and shrivelled. He looked about half his normal size, completely desiccated. The death’s head face, the yellow, burning eyes, the croaking voice … I thought he couldn’t last much longer and I pleaded with him to take his chance. But he was like a man in a trance. ‘Have the authorities decided to act? Will they support Saraifa?’ And when we told him No, all he said was, ‘They will. They will. If I hold out long enough, they’ll be forced to act.’ The eyes fastened on me. ‘Why didn’t you go to Sharjah? Why come here? This isn’t what I wanted.’ His voice sounded desperately tired, utterly dispirited. ‘Didn’t you understand? I wanted the world to know. If people at home don’t know what I’m trying to do The people at home do know,’ I said, and I told him about Ruffini and how the story had been taken up by the national press and a question asked in the House. His eyes lit up, his whole bearing suddenly changed. ‘Wonderful!’ he breathed. ‘Wonderful!’ He was standing erect now, his head up, his voice much stronger. ‘Time,’ he said. ‘Time and a little luck. That’s all I need now.’
Time is against you,’ Berry said. ‘This is your last chance to get out of here alive.’
‘Is it?’ The dry, cracked lips produced a twisted smile. ‘Do you really believe the Emir would let us get out of here alive — particularly when they see how few we are? He’d lose too much face. Anyway I’m not going. I’ll stay here till I die unless the Emir agrees to my terms or the authorities make some move to safeguard Saraifa.’
‘Surely to God you’ve done enough,’ I said, and gave him the rumour we’d heard about the two falajes running again at Saraifa and the people returning to the oasis. Berry, more practical, said, ‘How much water have you got left?’
‘Not much. But it’s cooler inside the tower. We’re drinking very little.’
‘And your two men?’ Berry asked. ‘Are they alive?’
‘Yes, they’re still alive. Hamid’s very weak — a bullet through the shoulder and a splinter of rock from a ricochet in the back. Bin Suleiman’s leg is smashed. But they’ll both last as long as the water.’
‘So you won’t leave with us?’
‘No.’
Berry nodded, accepting his decision as final. He seemed to understand David’s attitude and he didn’t attempt to reason with him. Instead, he unstrapped his web belt, slipping his water bottle from it. ‘It’s not much,’ he said, holding it out. ‘But one day could make the difference. I’ll report your decision by radio to HQ as soon as I get back to my wireless truck.’
David took the water bottle and though there couldn’t possibly be any moisture left in that emaciated, dried-up hull of a body, his eyes glistened for a moment. ‘Thanks,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll remember.’ His thin hands were gripped tight round the bottle. ‘One more day,’ he breathed.
‘You’ll have that — I promise.’ He wasn’t looking at Berry or at me. He was looking upwards to the burning vault of the sky … a pact with God. And on this barren, burned-rock hilltop where the air was heavy with the stink of rotting bodies, it would be an Old Testament God. ‘One more day,’ he whispered again in that croaking voice, and at that moment a rifle cracked.
The thud of the bullet, the scream of pain, the clatter of a gun barrel on rock — it was all on the instant and I turned to see the body of an Arab writhing on the eastern wall. It reached the edge, paused and then fell, and as it pitched, screaming, on its face, a second shot rang out.
The screams thinned to silence. The body on the ground arched, a series of violent jerks; something sounded in the throat and after that it lay still. I glanced at Berry. He hadn’t moved. Nor had David. The click of metal on stone drew my eye to the top of the tower. The glint of a rifle, a thin wisp of smoke. Everything was still again; it was difficult to believe that in that instant a man had died.
‘You see! That’s all the treacherous bastard’s safe-conduct is worth.’ David gave a dry little laugh. ‘You’d better get out of here whilst you still can.’
Berry hesitated, and then he nodded. He reached into his pocket and produced some field dressings and a small first-aid kit. ‘Had an idea these might be required.’ He handed them over and then drew himself up and gave David a formal, parade-ground salute. ‘Good luck!’ he said, and turned quickly.
David looked at the first-aid tin and the dressings, his eyes quite blank, his face suddenly fallen-in, the flesh tight on the bones of the skull. I could only guess what he was thinking. A few more days and if he hadn’t been killed by a bullet, he’d be dead of thirst. He looked up. This is goodbye, sir.’ He held out his hand. ‘Tell my father, will you, that I hope it’s a bloody good well… but if he lets the Emir get his hands on one penny of the royalties I’ll haunt him to the grave and beyond.’
His skin was dry, the bones of the hand like an old man’s bones. I stared at him, not knowing what to say, for I was sure I wouldn’t see him again. He was so damned young to die — and like this, in cold blood with his eyes open, trading life for the sake of a gesture. And yet, like Berry, I didn’t try and argue with him. ‘Goodbye,’ I said, and turned quickly before my eyes betrayed me.
At the gateway I paused and looked back. He hadn’t moved. He was still standing there, quite alone and swaying slightly, all his muscles slack with weariness. We stared at each other for a second and then I went out through the gateway, and I knew if the Emir attacked again that night, it would be the end. ‘What a waste!’ I said to Berry, stumbling almost blindly down the track.