He looked at me. ‘I don’t agree.’ His voice was hard and there was a ring to it as though I’d struck a chord deep down. ‘If there weren’t men like David Whitaker … ‘ He shrugged. ‘It’s a big question, isn’t it? Why we’re born; what we do with our lives.’ And he added after a pause, ‘I’d like to think, given his circumstances, that I’d behave the same way.’ He had loosened his pistol holster and his eyes searched the rocks as we hurried back down the track. But we saw nobody and the only sound was the heat throbbing at our temples. The Land-Rover was still there with Ismail standing beside it. Treachery had gone back to its lair and high up over the fort the black speck of some carrion bird planed on the still air.
Berry had seen it, too, and as we drove off, he said, ‘I give him four days. In four days I reckon he’ll be dead of thirst.’
‘He’s weak,’ I said. ‘They’ve only got to make a determined attack now.’
But Berry shook his head. ‘So long as there’s one man left in that tower capable of firing a rifle or tossing a grenade they’ll never take it, and Sheikh Abdullah knows it now. Only artillery or mortars could blast them out. I couldn’t understand, even from your description, how three men could hold a fort against a hundred tribesmen, but now that I’ve seen the place … ‘ He was staring back at it over his shoulder. ‘I am only surprised that a civilian should have appreciated the military possibilities of it.’
‘He was a gang leader in Cardiff docks before he came out to join his father in Saraifa,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘Well, I suppose that’s as good a training as any.’ And after that we drove in silence.
When we got back to the wireless truck, Berry found a message ordering him to return to Sharjah immediately. ‘But why?’ I said. ‘You’re not on Hadd territory.’
‘They’ve got cold feet over the situation by the sound of it. My Company’s been ordered back, too.’ He stood staring towards Jebel al-Akhbar and there was an obstinate look on his face. ‘I’ve given orders that we move at dawn and I’ve notified HQ that I’m held here the night with a damaged spring on the wireless truck. Twelve hours isn’t much, but you never know. The situation could alter.’
By this simple stratagem we were still there on the border when the slanting sun showed a cloud of dust moving across the desert from the direction of Hadd. Through the glasses we counted thirty-two camels, and the riders were all armed. Berry ordered his corporal to issue additional ammunition and personally sited both the Bren guns on a low ridge. But the raiding force kept to Hadd territory, heading due west towards the Sands. ‘Their objective must be Whitaker’s camp,’ Berry said. ‘There’s nothing else out there.’ But he made no move to follow them. ‘Colonel Whitaker will have to look after himself.’
I thought of the lone figure we’d left standing with the clutter of that drilling rig behind him. This was what he had feared, the emissary returning in force. Whitaker would go with them this time. He’d have no alternative. I wondered what would happen when he met the Emir. Would he agree to go up to the fort? And if he did, how would David react?
But that was all in the future. I watched the dust cloud until it disappeared below the rim of the horizon and then I fetched my briefcase and settled down to write a report. It was finished by the time the sun had set and darkness closing in. I gave it to Berry and he agreed to have his wireless operator transmit it to Sharjah at the next contact with HQ. The report was a long one, for it covered David’s situation, our visit to the fort and the treacherous attempt on his life, and I addressed it to Ruffini. We were both civilians and I thought there was just a chance that it might be passed across to him before anyone in authority stopped it.
‘If he’s still there,’ Berry said. The thing was sent now and we were sitting in the truck waiting for the BBC news. More questions in the House, and the Opposition had attacked the Government for refusing to grant newspaper correspondents visas for any Arabian territory except Bahrain. They were accused of trying to hush up an ugly situation.
And then, in the morning, when we picked up the BBC newspaper round-up I was staggered to find that virtually the whole national press had carried a story obviously based on the report I had sent to Ruffini. Somehow he had got it through uncensored and the result was a fantastic perversion of the facts, so colourful, so written up as to be almost unrecognizable from the sad spectacle we had witnessed; and yet it was all there, the heroic quality of David’s stand magnified a thousand-fold to give jaded townspeople the best breakfast-table reading for weeks. And the story had spread from the front pages right through to the leader columns, an angry, outraged demand for Government action.
And when the last editorial flag had been waved by the BBC announcer and the last exhortation of the Government to act immediately had been read. Berry and I looked at each other in astonishment. I think we were both of us quite dazed by the violence of the reaction at home. It was only twelve hours since Berry’s wireless operator had laboriously tapped out in Morse my long report and in that short time David’s situation had been put before the highest tribunal in the land — the British public. Moreover, something had obviously roused the press to anger — the secretive attitude of Whitehall presumably. As one paper put it: Up to a late hour last night, despite a barrage of phone calls, nobody in authority appeared to be in a position to confirm or positively deny the story. The only comment was: ‘We regard the source as highly unreliable.’ This is either stupendous arrogance, or stupendous ignorance. We suspect both and we demand that the Foreign Secretary take immediate action. The country is deeply disturbed. On the strength of that Berry cancelled his orders to move, and within half an hour his action was confirmed. Colonel George, acting on a hunch that political decisions would now have to be reversed, and entirely on his own initiative I gathered later, had already turned Berry’s Company round and ordered it to drive with all possible speed to the Hadd border. ‘I’m to wait here until they arrive,’ Berry said. ‘By then the Colonel hopes to be here himself to take command.’
‘How long before they get here?’ I asked.
‘If they keep going without being stopped in the dunes they’ll arrive sometime after midnight, I imagine.’ He started to go back to the wireless truck, but then he stopped. ‘It might interest you to know that Signer Ruffini was appointed Reuter’s Correspondent with the full knowledge of the Political Resident yesterday afternoon. But for that very odd appointment I imagine your report would have been passed to Bahrain. In which case I’ve no doubt it would now be rotting in some pigeon-hole in the Residency instead of making the world’s headlines.’
The official attitude was obvious. By agreeing to Reuter’s request — perhaps even instigating it — they could justify their refusal to grant visas to correspondents by saying that the press already had coverage from an accredited agency correspondent, and that the very man from whom the story had originated. No doubt they took the view that as a foreigner Ruffini would be more amenable to control than a British correspondent and therefore unlikely to cause them further embarrassment. It was a little ironical that in their hurry to appoint him they had given me almost direct and immediate access to the whole of the British press.
‘I am to tell you,’ Berry added with a thin smile, ‘that no further messages for Ruffini will be accepted through military channels. A matter of bolting the door after the horse has gone.’
‘What about that raiding party headed for Whitaker’s camp?’ I said. I hadn’t mentioned it in my report to Ruffini the previous night. ‘Somebody ought to be told.’