Five

 

 

1

 

It was a pity that General Cozzens’ cocktail party coincided with the arrival of orders – both for him and the frontier. He had been expecting them for some time, half-hoping they wouldn’t be what he feared and wishing to God that the Sultan would finally surface and let everybody know what he intended.

But the Sultan had wavered on and on until the last moment, congenitally unable to commit himself to something which might be politically dangerous, economically disastrous and bad for prestige, and had left it so late his intentions had become well-nigh impossible to carry out. When the orders finally arrived Cozzens didn’t feel like holding a party at all.

Then, however, he remembered Charlotte Pentecost. If nothing else, he decided, it would give him the opportunity to talk to her in a way that would be less alarming than if he made a special call on her or summoned her to see him. And, in all honesty, he felt he could hardly send one of his aides with a duty like that.

‘We’ll go ahead with it,’ he told his wife. ‘But we’ll keep it simple.’

His wife noticed that he looked tired but she knew he wouldn’t want to be troubled by any concern for his welfare from her. They had been married a long time now and were beginning to look forward – most of the time unspeakingly because they were both a little afraid of it – to a retirement in which they would probably both be bored to tears.

‘Right-ho!’ she said. She was not a pretty woman and never had been but, like Charlotte Pentecost, she was a soldier’s daughter and many years before she and Cozzens had been swept away by the warmth and the moon and the fact that there had been more men than women in one of the British Red Sea bases. When they had wakened up to reality, Cozzens had found himself with a wife who was lumpish and loud-voiced, and she had found herself married to a man who was not at all the romantic figure she’d expected.

She knew they were regarded as a funny couple and they were both well aware of the nicknames that had been given to them by the young officers of Cozzens’ staff. But, rather to their surprise, they had both found that in each other they had got a better bargain than they’d ever expected. And now, Cozzens spent most of his time silently worrying that some fool would throw a bomb through their drawing-room window when she was arranging the flowers, while she spent her time in a mute fear that one morning when he started his car someone might have planted a plastic charge behind the facia board.

 

 

2

 

The Minister from London was big, fleshy and pink, as though he took great care with his health but rarely obtained any exercise, and at that moment he seemed overworked to the point of having a driven look in his eyes. Watching him with his enigmatic dark glance, Rasaul managed to feel sympathy for him. The Khaliti Ministers wore the same look, after days – weeks now – of trying to persuade the Sultan to make his decision.

The Minister was dressed for the part, in evening dress with the red ribbon of an order across his shirt front and a small cluster on his lapel of miniature medals won between 1939 and 1945. He looked like a Minister, Rasaul had to admit – a Minister of the arrogant northern country which still hadn’t entirely grown out of the humbugging ways it had developed when it had had its empire. Cozzens, too, was playing the part. He was dressed in the blue bum-freezer jacket of a hussar regiment, with a gold-braided waistcoat and skin-tight overalls, and looked exactly what he was – an elderly cavalry officer trying to put on a show.

It didn’t convince Rasaul much. Behind the soldier’s expressionless visage he saw irritation, anger and bitterness, and he knew from reports that Cozzens had put on a spectacular display of fury when he had received his instructions. It had been followed by a flurry of orders that had placed about the streets the groups of soldiers who had stopped him three times on his way that evening, stern-faced young Britishers a little puzzled by the volte face of the Khaliti Government and a little nervous about what it meant to them in terms of life and death.

‘I take it your orders have all been issued,’ the man from Westminster was saying.

‘Indeed they have,’ Cozzens replied with a briskness he didn’t feel. ‘The Sultan’s instructions are being transmitted to Dhafran at this moment, to be passed on to Umrah, Afarja and Hahdhdhah.’ His eyes flickered as he stopped speaking. And just in time, too, he thought sourly. One more day and they’d have been too late.

‘Since the Sultan has made his decision,’ the Minister went on, ‘it’s up to us all to see that his requests are carried out. His subsidies will be re-negotiated, of course, with the Shukri, the Jezowi, the Muleimat and the Khadari peoples guarding the Dharwa passes, and we’ll try also to arrange something with the Hejri and the Deleimi.’

Cozzens just hoped to God that the Shukri and the Jezowi and the Muleimat and the Khadari would be willing to accept renegotiated subsidies. He hadn’t for a moment the slightest doubt that the Hejri and the Deleimi would reject out of hand any offer that was made, but they needed the passes to make the border safe. If the passes through the Dharwa Mountains were closed the whole of the Toweida Plain was in jeopardy.

His face expressionless, he listened to the chatter with hatred in his heart for Sultan Tafas. Plans had been brought for new married quarters for Khaswe – from estates to blocks of flats – all with air conditioning, refrigerators, schools, churches, shops, cinemas, beach clubs, bars, all for the men who were to hold Khalit for the Sultan – in the firm belief that the employment they would bring to Khaswe would endear the British to the Khaliti people. And Whitehall-itis had already got rid of the pamphlets with the basic Khalit-Arabic phrases for ‘Get lost!’ and ‘Hands up!’ and replaced them with new ones which included ‘Good morning’ and ‘How are you?’ For once they were being asked to stay and the British Government was trying to look wanted.

The Minister was moving away now and Cozzens reached for another drink.

‘I hope the Minister made everything clear?’ he said to Rasaul.

The Khaliti made a face. ‘Only too clear. I just hope it won’t be as bad as I expect and that you have enough troops.’

Cozzens felt embarrassed. ‘I expect my government’s drumming up more men,’ he said. ‘But it’s not easy these days with commitments elsewhere. They can’t possibly arrive before the month’s out.’

‘What about Hahdhdhah then?’ Rasaul asked.

Cozzens turned and glanced uneasily about him for Charlotte Pentecost. She was talking to his wife who had had instructions to keep her busy until Cozzens was ready to talk to her.

‘I can do nothing for Hahdhdhah,’ he said stiffly.

As Rasaul moved away, Cozzens lit a cigarette to collect his thoughts, brushed off an American businessman who was anxious for a résumé of the situation, and the wife of one of his colonels who was eager to be pleasant to him for her husband’s sake, and crossed to Charlotte Pentecost. His wife saw him coming and rose.

As she moved off, her face a mask of cheerfulness she didn’t feel, her husband dropped on to the settee in the seat she had just vacated. She saw him pat Charlotte Pentecost’s hand and offer her a cigarette, and she sighed, wondering what awful lies he was going to have to tell her and how good he was going to make them sound. He had never been very skilful at telling untruths, she knew.

Cozzens also knew how bad he was at gilding the lily and as he lit Charlotte Pentecost’s cigarette he was wondering how he could tell her the truth and still give her the impression that her husband was in no danger when he was.

‘Never very good at these affairs,’ he said in an intimate, friendly voice as he stuffed away his lighter. ‘Hate small talk. How’s your father, Charley?’

‘Finding the New Forest a little dull,’ Charlotte Pentecost said. ‘He was never a man to take easily to having nothing to do. He’s thrown himself into good works, but I think he’s bored stiff by the elderly ladies and the vicars who make up the committees he works on.’

‘Got that coming to me before long,’ Cozzens said. ‘Not looking forward to it very much. Mother?’

‘Much the same.’

Charley had heard about her mother and Cozzens, but she was giving nothing away.

‘H’m! How’s Billy?’

‘The usual. He never seems very downhearted in his letters.’

‘Remarkable chap,’ Cozzens said enthusiastically. ‘Knew his father, too. Not so professional as Billy.’

Charley crushed out her cigarette and faced Cozzens squarely. For some time she had been wanting to know how long her husband was to be in Hahdhdhah and, now, with Cozzens indulging in euphoric nostalgia, seemed as good a time as any to find out.

‘I miss him,’ she said as an opening gambit.

‘I’m sure you do,’ Cozzens said, realising that she was offering him the opportunity he was seeking.

‘I’ll be glad when he’s back at the coast.’

‘So will I, Charley.’

‘Will it be long, do you think?’ she asked.

For a moment Cozzens puffed at his cigarette. This was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, because he had been very firmly instructed that there were to be no involvements on the frontier, no matter what happened.

‘Between you and me,’ he had been told, ‘we’ve been pushed into this business, by a few not very far-seeing officials in the past who failed to leave any get-out clauses for emergencies like this. We had to accept it.’

Cozzens became aware of Charley watching him closely. ‘I hope it won’t be too long,’ she said, grinning engagingly, ‘because there are too many of your bright young men who are suffering from the heat and the impression that a grass widow’s easy meat.’

Cozzens sighed. ‘Things have changed, Charley,’ he said. ‘But they’ll get him back as soon as they possibly can.’

She looked quickly at him, and his heart jumped abruptly as he noticed how much like her mother she was.

‘But I thought they were marching out tomorrow,’ she said. Cozzens swallowed. ‘So did I, Charley,’ he said. ‘But that was before the Sultan finally made up his mind and formally requested help.’

Her eyes hardened and for a moment she was silent, then she went on in an unsteady voice. ‘You mean he isn’t coming? Is that what you mean?’

‘I’m afraid that’s exactly what I mean, Charley.’

‘Oh, God!’ she said abruptly, and she spoke with such misery it twisted Cozzens’ heart.

‘I’m sorry, Charley.’

‘But I always understood—’

‘Billy’s a soldier. So am I. We have to do as we’re told. And you’ve heard all the bangs going off in Khaswe. We’ve rather got our hands full.’

‘You mean he might have to stay up there for a long time?’

Cozzens gestured lamely. ‘He might. He’s quite safe, though.’

She looked at him with an expression of pure hatred on her face. ‘I’m not worried about his safety,’ she said coldly. ‘I’m worried about me. Us. It’s all right for that dreadful old man in the Palace to insist on our staying in Khalit but has he thought what situations like this mean to families? It’s no wonder soldiers’ wives are always subject to nasty little innuendoes about sex. It’s no wonder so many of them get neurotic and go off the rails. I need my husband. I need him alongside me. And I don’t mean just at cocktail parties, either.’

As she stood up and turned away, Cozzens rose quickly, too, trying to pretend he hadn’t just been snubbed. He put out his cigarette and fished for another, catching sight of a bat outside in the garden beyond the embroidered Rabat curtains. It was swooping among the tamarisks and cypresses, and he watched it for a moment. Then, as he jerked his jacket straight, the windows seemed to leap in their frames and, almost with the rattle of the glass, he heard the heavy thud of an explosion nearby – heavier than any he’d so far heard. Undoubtedly it was something big going up.

Oh, God! he thought. Off we go again!

 

 

3

 

There were four Khaliti operators in the radio room at Dhafran, each equipped with a receiver, transmitter and headset, and the first bomb that went off wiped out the lot of them and all their equipment in one blow, leaving them sprawled among their chairs, their dead staring faces stuck like pin-cushions with the splinters of bakelite.

The second bomb exploded in the headquarters block and then there was a series all going off together – in the MT park, the telephone switchboard room and the officers’ mess. The thud of the first explosions brought the officers to their feet with a jerk. They were just sitting with their last drinks before bed when the mirror suddenly leapt from the wall and broke into pieces, and the mess waiter was on his knees in a wreckage of tables and chairs, pawing dazedly at the shattered glass from the bar with bleeding fingers.

As they dashed from the ante-room they saw that the front doors of the mess had been blown off their hinges and that the hall was a shambles of trampled glass, torn carpet, and broken palms. There appeared to be three dead men in uniform there, one European and two Khaliti, their bodies shockingly lacerated.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ someone said. ‘They got Philip! He was telephoning his wife in Khaswe. For God’s sake, shove the carpet over him!’

The Khaliti doctor was already on his knees by one of the mess waiters. He was sitting with his back to the wall and appeared to be cradling a shattered pot plant which had been blown from outside clean through the doors. His eyes were open but he made no complaint.

As the doctor got down to work the other officers picked their way past him, snatching at webbing and belts as they went. Outside, the air stank of smoke and there was a car burning by the headquarters building which appeared to be on fire. In front of it lay the guard, minus a leg, twitching and screaming in a way that hurt eardrums still recovering from the pressure of the explosions. Already the sound of a fire-engine was striking across the livid parade ground.

While they were still trying to decide where to head for first, the Brigadier appeared from his quarters. He was a tall man no longer young and no longer a British officer, thin as a lathe with a gaunt ravaged face that looked as though it were made of tanned leather. Jeremy Wintle had been in places like Dhafran for most of his life – so long, in fact, even the Hejri and the Jezowi sang ballads about ‘Owinda-el’ around their fires. He knew whom he could buy and whom he could bribe with promises of power or revenge upon ancestral enemies, and he was addressed always and with respect – even by his enemies – as Reimabassi, Warrior Lord. Nothing surprised him. Not even bombs.

‘What in God’s name was that?’ he demanded calmly.

‘The bastards must have planted explosives, sir,’ someone said. ‘Though Christ knows how.’

‘Who’s that under the carpet?’

‘Philip, sir. He was in the hall telephoning his wife in Khaswe.’

‘Always was a bit abrupt on the telephone,’ Wintle growled without intending to be smart or funny. ‘Someone had better put me in the picture.’

It was difficult, because no one else was in the picture, either, and they were still trying to explain when a British sergeant appeared in a car. He looked shocked.

‘Sir – sir–!’

‘Spit it out, man,’ Wintle snapped. ‘What happened?’

‘Bombs, sir.’

‘Where?’

‘Headquarters block, Sir! Door blown in. Man killed there. Guardroom! That one nearly got me, sir. MT park, sir! Sergeant Waterhouse, Int-Zaid Zufril and two of the Scouts killed there.’

Wintle frowned. ‘What about the wireless shack?’

‘That as well, sir. There’s nothing left of it.’

‘Blast!’ Wintle had been sending urgent messages to the radio room at the Palace in Khaswe for weeks now and was badly in need of replies. He turned to one of his officers. ‘You’d better get it working again. Pretty damn’ quick, too! We’re expecting the Old Boy’s instructions from Dhafran.’

‘About Hahdhdhah, sir?’

‘And Umrah and Zereibat. I’ve been warned to expect them. The old fool must have finally and officially decided to give up the Toweida Plain. I’ve been advising it for weeks.’

As the officer vanished, Wintle turned to the sergeant. ‘Telephones?’ He was known for not wasting words.

‘Cut, sir. The bomb at headquarters smashed the switchboard.’ Wintle turned to the remaining officers. ‘Malpass, run field telephone wires to all necessary points. And get a temporary switchboard connected up.’

‘Sir!’

‘Ahbub!’ A short Dharwa zaid stepped forward. ‘Get down to the MT park and see what you can make of the shambles.’

‘Yes, Reimabassi.’

‘Dec—’ Wintle turned to the medical officer kneeling on the floor ‘—can you get some of your people down to the guardroom and these other places? Storrs, see what you can make of the radio shack and let me know. See if you can find out what the position is. We must have everything working again and all traffic cleared. Those chaps on the frontier start off at midday tomorrow, and I want their channels working in case of trouble.’

 

 

4

 

All morning they had seen little groups of Hejri warriors moving about the few tree-grown spaces where the winter rains collected off the sides of the hills, and there had been a great number of pin-points of light in the hills the night before. The last Toweida tradesmen had brought news of strange horsemen in Hahdhdhah village, and Pentecost knew they were Hejris waiting to sweep into the fort as soon as the last lorry was clear. They were lying low, though, and he was puzzled because it wasn’t a Hejri habit to lie low and he had expected them to be nearer and more demonstrative. Nevertheless, he knew they were still all round him in the lower folds of the hills, waiting for that final exultant rush that would prove to them for good and all that the Toweida Plain was Hejri once more.

Aziz’s celebration would be quite an affair, he thought. He sat in on a diffa once with Wintle when he’d been in Dhafran and he could still remember the servants staggering through the crowd into the vast white woollen tent carpeted with Berber rugs, carrying the rice and meat on a huge silver tray. It had had an inscription running round it in flowing Arabic letters – To the glory of God, and of Allah, His prophet, and in trust of mercy at the end – and it had been full to the brim, edged with rice in a mound eight inches wide. Three grown lambs had been slaughtered to make a pyramid of meat in the centre such as the honour of a chieftain demanded, and surmounting the lot had been the heads, the ears out flat and the jaws gaping to show the cooked tongues and the long incisor teeth between the purple lips. It had been placed in the space between the guests while a stream of servants brought the copper bowls in which the cooking had been done and ladled out the rest of the meat, the entrails, the yellow fat and the brown twists of muscle and skin.

They had taken their lead from the chief – ‘In the name of God, the merciful, the loving kind’ – then they had set about it, occasionally dipping their fingers into it and plunging their burnt hands into their mouths to cool them. Wintle had thoroughly enjoyed himself, Pentecost remembered, though he himself had been faintly disgusted by the whole thing, by the way the Khaliti had torn up the meat with their fingers and kneaded the rice into little white balls and flicked them into their mouths with the thumb, stuffing themselves until their movements had grown sluggish and they had sat gasping for breath.

Although his precise manners had prevented him enjoying the obscenity of over-eating, he almost wished he could have been present at Aziz’s party. He hoped the old man would enjoy it.

He certainly intended to enjoy his own celebration with Charley. A few drinks and a meal at the Intercontinental, a bottle of bubbly and a large brandy each, maybe a bit of smoochy dancing to the Egyptian dance band, with Charley draped over his shoulders, her cheek against his, her body hugging him so that he could feel every curve and indentation of it against himself. He half smiled. He knew how it would end. It had happened before.

Suddenly, without a word, she’d grab his hand and pull him outside, and they’d hail a taxi back to the flat. She’d have her shoes in her hands as he unlocked the door and she’d be throwing her clothes across the room and searching with her lips for his mouth even before he’d slammed it behind them. That ought to be quite a celebration, too, he thought.

For a while, he’d thought they weren’t going to get away with it. Every day for the past week he’d been expecting the wash-out signal on the evacuation to come through – specially after the speech the Prime Minister had made – and the fact that they had got away with it had made their celebration the night before an occasion to remember. Lack had been grey-faced and bad-tempered as he’d left the fort, unable to make up his mind whether he was glad to be going or not. Almost, it had seemed, he had preferred to stay where he was to nurse his misery.

‘Don’t trip over your liver, chum,’ Beebe had advised cheerfully. ‘It’s hanging out this morning.’

Beebe was in a gay mood, glad to put Hahdhdhah behind him and looking forward to the perquisites of civilisation, and he stared about him through the open gates of the fort as though seeing the land around them for the first time. Through the archway, the Urbida hills looked like shelves of coarse-faced stone, joined to steep bare walls by narrow gorges and sandy paths, with the Addowara Pass into Khusar country like a knife-cut in the rock.

Nearby, Pentecost was giving final instructions to his party. He was dressed like a Christmas tree, with map case and binoculars hung about him, with all his equipment, revolver, pack and water bottle. For Christ’s sake, Beebe thought, they were only going to get in the goddam lorries and ride across the Plain of Toweida to the River Sufeiya! He expected to be in Dhafran in three days and at the coast in another week.

He glanced in the direction Pentecost was staring, towards the cloud of yellow dust that was being stirred up by Minto’s marching files of Scouts, Civil Guards and Toweida Levies. They looked smart enough but Beebe had thought they were all glad to turn their backs on the fort. Beyond them, he could see Lack’s lorries just entering Hahdhdhah village. Behind him Fox was sitting in the scout car, his eyes on the marching men, his head bent over the radio which had suddenly begun a frantic squawking.

In the fort, watched by a Hahdhdhah boy, the garrison’s herd of goats were bleating in their pen near the timber store. Tonight, they’d probably all be slaughtered by the Hejris for their celebrations. They’d been living in the foothills watching the fort for weeks now and they were probably growing hungry and eager for a few home comforts. Beyond the goats he could see the stacked timber, the corrugated iron and asbestos sheets, all the pens crammed with enough stores to make a man wealthy for life. If Aziz had any sense, he’d clap a guard on it and keep the lot for himself but, Beebe suspected, he’d never even think of it and the whole lot would be smashed up and probably set on fire in one wild lustful looting that would leave them all as poor as when they’d started.

He saw Pentecost glance again at his watch. He could just imagine Lack sitting in the other scout car in Hahdhdhah, impatiently waiting for Stone at the radio to announce that the final lorry had left the fort.

Fox looked up. ‘We’re last out, sir,’ he said. ‘Captain Jeffreys left Zereibat ages ago and Captain Howard’s just started leaving Umrah. They’re in contact with each other.’

‘Bit early,’ Pentecost commented, his eyes on the road.

‘Normal enough for Captain Howard, sir,’ Fox grinned. ‘Always was a bit like a pram in a panic.’

He paused, listening to the radio and watching the plain. ‘Hope they didn’t pick ’em up in Dhafran, sir,’ he went on. ‘The Brigadier’ll play hell if he hears.’

Beebe interrupted. ‘Do we have to wait for the exact moment?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t it just a goddam formality?’

‘To me,’ Pentecost said coldly, ‘midday is midday, not eleven-thirty or eleven-forty-five.’

‘Your watch might be wrong.’

‘I don’t wear watches that go wrong.’

Beebe grinned. ‘Your buddy at Zereibat seemed to think his watch might be wrong.’

Fox looked up, his pencil starting to move across a signal sheet. ‘Sounds like they’re clear of Umrah now, sir,’ he said. ‘Captain Howard’s reporting to Captain Jeffreys at Zereibat that tribesmen are heading past him to take his place.’

‘No comment from Dhafran?’

‘No, sir. No comment.’

Pentecost was frowning. ‘Funny,’ he said. ‘Have you heard Dhafran at all this morning?’

Fox was frowning too, now. ‘Come to think of it, no, sir. And since you mention it, Captain Howard sounds a bit fussed about it. Hang on a minute, sir—’ he grinned ‘—here they are now! Sounds like a rocket for him. They’re telling him to get off the air. They’re telling him – sir!’ Fox’s commentary grew to a shout as his pencil leapt across the sheet. ‘They’re telling him he’s – sir, for Christ’s sake, it’s coming through in clear! It’s priority to all Dhafran stations! “Umrah, Aba el Zereibat and Hahdhdhah will be held.”’ Fox spoke slowly, repeating the message aloud.’ “There will be no withdrawal – repeat no withdrawal – from the frontiers or from the Toweida Plain.”’

Pentecost’s jaw had dropped and Fox looked up, startled. ‘That’s what it says, sir.’

Alarmed suddenly, Beebe saw the expression on Pentecost’s face tighten. Fox was staring at him with bewildered eyes.

‘The last bloody minute,’ he said furiously. ‘The eleventh bloody hour! There’ve been bomb attacks in Khaswe and at Dhafran. They’ve been off the air since last night.’

‘Shut up, Sergeant!’ Pentecost turned to snap at Fox. ‘Tell him to repeat it. We’ve got to have it repeated. Make it “Most Immediate”.’

There was a tense silence in which Beebe realised that they were all watching Pentecost, all of them aware of the sudden change in the situation. Then they heard the harsh cheeping in the headphones again. Pentecost bent forward as Fox’s pencil whipped across the paper.

‘Again, Sergeant! I must have that once more.’

The radio clattered again then Fox slammed the switch over and turned to stare at Pentecost.

Pentecost was still studying the message, then Beebe saw him straighten up and run, clanking a little in his equipment, to stare across the plain. He swung round on Fox.

‘Sergeant Fox! The Very pistol! Fire a red, and then, for God’s sake, raise Captain Lack!’

Startled, Beebe heard the pop of the pistol and saw the Very light soar into the air. Immediately, his eyes swinging to the plain, he saw the marching men half-way to the village come to a halt. For a while, they seemed to be in some sort of confusion down there, then he saw it was because the lorry was turning. Immediately, he heard Pentecost speaking into the microphone, still calm, still surprisingly unruffled.

‘Lack? Pentecost! Get your people back here! Repeat: Get your people back here! Double-quick!’ There was a pause then Pentecost’s voice rapped out again, hard and peremptory. ‘Don’t argue! Do as you’re told!’

He swung round on Fox. ‘Sergeant, wait until you see them, then get that car back inside the gates! Fauzan, close the side gate and get your men up on the walls! See that every man’s in position to cover those people outside! I want a look-out on the tower and every man armed! Get the lorries inside the gate!’ He turned to Beebe and the urgency vanished as he spoke in his usual mannered politeness. ‘Mr Beebe, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.’

‘For God’s sake!’ Beebe roared, his temper exploding abruptly. ‘Just because that old fool in Khaswe doesn’t know whether he’s on his ass or his elbow, I’m not staying here!’

‘You’re very welcome to leave any time you wish, Mr Beebe,’ Pentecost said icily. ‘Though I don’t recommend it until tempers have been allowed to cool a little. You might not make it to Hahdhdhah. Now, if you’ll excuse me —’

He turned away and Beebe heard him issuing orders to the Iraqi foreman. A moment later Beebe was back inside the walls of the fortress.

As he jumped down, livid with rage, the other lorries of Pentecost’s group were swinging through the gate, raising a cloud of dust, and Beebe, his face twisted with dislike for everything Khaliti, saw them roar towards him one after the other and their drivers jump from the cabins and run to the walls. Fox was the last to appear, driving the little scout car himself with the Toweida driver clinging to the rear.

‘They’re on their way, sir,’ he shouted.

‘For sweet Jesus’ sake!’ Following Pentecost to the ramparts, Beebe stood gesturing, almost speechless with rage ‘—for sweet goddam Jesus’ sake, you’re not going to start a battle, are you?’

Pentecost, who seemed to be in half a dozen places at once, helping to set up a machine gun, driving the Toweidas and Dharwas on to the ramparts, directing the lorries away from the entrance, stopped for a moment.

‘I’m not starting a battle, Mr Beebe,’ he said stonily. ‘But I’m afraid I’m going to be involved in one. You, too. So it behoves you to get your head down.’

For a second, Beebe stood staring at him in fury, then he glanced out through an embrasure. Out on the plain, he could see green banners and a few small mounted figures emerging from the hills. Then a shot echoed softly on the distant air and he dodged hurriedly back against the wall.

‘For Christ’s sake–!’ Beebe stared about him, startled, bewildered and angry.

He’d done it wrong! For once he’d left it too late!

 

 

5

 

For a moment, he remained like that, his back against the wall, then, in a single movement, he swung round to the embrasure near his shoulder and stared across the plain, his mind shocked, hardly able to believe that what he was witnessing was really happening.

Minto’s men were hurrying back to the fortress now as fast as they could move, surrounding the lorry that held the big transmitter with which they contacted Khaswe, and Beebe could see Minto standing on the running board, directing them to move faster. Then, as he watched, he saw the mounted figures he’d noticed emerging from the lulls begin to thunder towards the open gate of the fortress.

‘Zaid Fausan!’ Pentecost’s voice came shrilly. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Ready, Abassi!’ Fauzan shouted back.

Fox looked up from the scout car where he was still sitting with the headphones on. ‘Sir! Dhafran again! More instructions from the coast. “Hahdhdhah garrison to remain in control. Evacuation instructions cancelled. No shooting unless attacked.”’

Pentecost gave a shrill bark of laughter. He was standing on the rampart over the gate staring towards Hahdhdhah village, his eyes squinting against the sun. Fox joined him, quickly checking the machine gun the Dharwas had set up.

Beebe pushed between them, still savagely angry. ‘See here,’ he shouted, ‘you can have all the goddam battles you want, but I’m an American citizen and I’m not involved in your baby war!’

Pentecost half-turned, still icily polite. ‘Not just now, Mr Beebe,’ he pleaded. ‘I’m rather busy at the moment.’

‘I’m leaving here,’ Beebe snarled.

‘How?’ Pentecost still managed to be polite, in spite of the confusion and the noise, and Beebe could have murdered him for his calmness when he felt harassed and afraid himself. ‘How do you propose to do it?’

‘I’ve got a Stars and stripes in my lorry,’ Beebe shouted. ‘I’ll wave it. That’ll stop the bastards shooting at me.’

‘It’s not something I’d take a chance on, Mr Beebe.’

Beebe glared then he turned and, in his fury, almost fell down the steps from the rampart to his lorry. A burst of firing from above made him jump and, through the still-open gates, he saw lorries appearing one after another from the village and roaring towards the fortress in a group, the dust in clouds about them. From the middle of them came a series of faint frantic squawks from Owdi’s bugle, then he saw the Hejri horsemen, joined now by the group which had emerged from the hills, trailing the lorries – almost like Red Indians, Beebe thought, shocked.

He had reached his own vehicle now and had climbed into the back. Sweating with rage and fear he rooted among his equipment with stumbling fingers for the flag he always carried in case of emergencies. He’d used it before now, tied to the aerial or fastened across the bonnet and it had always worked. Crowds had always parted and he’d been allowed to pass. He snatched it from under his valise at last and threw it from the lorry. The Iraqi driver picked it up.

As he began to unfold it, Beebe stared again through the gates of the fort. Lack’s lorries were now approaching Minto’s hurrying men and Minto halted and about-faced, and they heard the rattle of rifles, then, as the lorries caught them up, Minto’s group doubled for the fortress, the lorries close behind them as a barrier. Pentecost’s voice came as he started to count the vehicles.

‘One short,’ he said.

As Minto’s Toweidas broke away, a flurry of horsemen charged down on them and Beebe saw Pentecost nod to Fox. As the machine gun chattered, Beebe saw the dust jump among the galloping horsemen. A horse went down and one or two figures fell from their saddles but he couldn’t tell whether it was because they were hit or because they were sheltering behind their mounts, then the first of the Toweidas were hurrying through the gate, gasping and panting, several of them without their weapons.

As they flung themselves to the dusty earth of the square, Pentecost was among them like a small fury, kicking them to their feet so that they scrambled up in terror of him and began to hurry to the ramparts where Zaid Fauzan swung at them with his fists, hurling insults at them as they got into position. In spite of all the training Pentecost had given them, they hadn’t much idea of shooting, and they began to fire wildly, their bullets flying among the running men on the plain. But Lack’s lorries had now formed a defensive box round the rest of the Toweidas and Dharwa Scouts, and the whole group was beginning to move towards the fortress in disciplined fashion, keeping pace with each other while the horsemen circled them, making short nervous rushes, unwilling to come too close to the disciplined fire of the Dharwas or the ancient automatics Lack had got going.

As they came within range of the fortress the horsemen stopped and were drawn up, screaming insults, and as the firing subsided, Beebe became aware of the Iraqi still holding the flag and staring at him uncertainly. He realised he had been so absorbed in the manoeuvres on the plain, he had forgotten his own situation.

‘Get out there and wave it!’ he shouted, climbing into the driver’s seat of the lorry. ‘We’re going!’

‘Now?’

‘Sure! Before they close the goddam gates!’

The Iraqi didn’t seem very happy but he unfurled the flag on its staff and headed for the gate, waving it wildly in front of him.

 

 

6

 

The gesture was seen by the Deleimi rifleman with the cold eyes of a hawk who was holed up in a huddle of rocks not a thousand yards away. Majid the Assassin had the courage of a fanatic. He was a Tayur reim and a Deleimi, accepting allegiance to no one but Thawab, and he was one of the few Deleimis who had worked himself near enough to the fort to be able to shoot effectively.

His indifference to death was well known, and if he were to be wounded he hoped he would show no weakness, because he had no fear of wounds or mutilation – or even of death. If he had been told to do so, he would have run on to Fox’s hot gun muzzle. Fanaticism was dying out in the northern tribes these days as young men grew more educated and owed their allegiances not so much to Allah and his prophet as to political or nationalistic creeds. But despite this, Majid was an old-fashioned man and had never quite outgrown the ingenuous belief that death in battle was the true way to enter Heaven. He was quite indifferent to his fate, hoping only that he would be spared long enough to take with him one of the white-skinned Roumis or a few of the whey-faced Toweidas, and the waving of the flag in the gateway caught his attention at once.

He pushed his Garand rifle forward slowly until the sights came into line. Through the V of the backsight he could see a small moving triangle of grey which was the Iraqi foreman’s shirt. Beebe’s lorry had moved forward and the Iraqi was standing in front of it near the gates.

The rifle followed him, the foresight moving up slowly, and pausing for a tiny instant of time as he steadied his breathing, Majid took the first pull of the trigger.

 

Occupied with his battle, Pentecost didn’t notice what was happening by the gates until he turned and saw Beebe’s lorry edging forward and the Iraqi foreman waving the flag in the gateway.

‘What in God’s name is that man doing out there, Mr Beebe?’ he shouted in his high-pitched voice.

‘He’s stopping your goddam battle!’ Beebe roared back in a fury. ‘So that I can get the hell out!’

‘Bring him back at once!’

Just at that moment, there was a lull in the firing and the single shot from the hills seemed to echo round the walls. The Iraqi had stopped dead and Beebe watched with horrified fascination as the flag appeared to drop in slow motion from his hands. The Iraqi leaned backward – so slowly he seemed to be hanging by an invisible thread – then his body buckled in the middle, and he sat down abruptly, and slowly, just as slowly, toppled over to lie sprawled on his back in the dust, a red splodge where the bridge of his nose had been.

While Beebe was still staring, the last of the panting infantry began to arrive in the fortress, stumbling past the body of the Iraqi without even looking at it. Lack’s scout car appeared, with Owdi on the back optimistically trying to blow the ‘Charge’, and the final single figure of a small limping Dharwa private, then the plain was empty of running figures except for the horsemen and a lonely figure staring bewildered and angry at the gate whom Pentecost recognised as Aziz, his bannerman holding his green flag just behind him.

‘Close the gates!’ Pentecost shouted and Beebe, still unable to believe his eyes, saw Sergeant Stone and several of the Dharwas slam the huge gates and lift the heavy cross-bar into position.

‘Shore it up, Sergeant,’ Pentecost called, and Stone waved and sent several of his men towards the timber store. They began to return a moment later with lengths of timber.

The horsemen were still screaming their hatred as the solitary figure of Aziz rode slowly towards the Urbida Hills, followed by his bannerman, and Pentecost’s heart went out to the old man, feeling a sense of guilt that didn’t really belong to him and wondering how in God’s name he could get a message to him to say it wasn’t his fault.

Lack was standing by the scout car as he joined him, still cursing, his face thunderous.

‘Who was that bloody fool waving a flag?’ he shouted. ‘What the hell was he trying to do?’

‘Never mind that now!’ Pentecost’s face was full of cold fury. ‘What delayed you?’

Lack drew a deep breath.

‘Those bloody Toweidas,’ he snarled. ‘Usual left-foot right-foot trouble. Ran like a lot of bloody rabbits. Int-Zaid Suleiman with ’em. It couldn’t have been worse. We were right in the middle of the narrowest street in the place with that bloody Owdi screeching in my ear to know what to blow. Int-Zaid Hussein would have gone, too, I reckon, if I hadn’t flung him in the lorry. Why in Christ’s name did they leave it to the last minute?’

‘Bombs in Dhafran. Damaged the radio room. Go on.’

‘We lost the lorry with the medical supplies. The bastards were standing about as coy as unmarried mothers and they let the bloody Hejri set it on fire. Not that you can do much to stop ’em with weapons that are about as much use as old box-tops.’

‘How many did you lose?’

‘I reckon about fifty altogether. Some coming back, some in the village. We couldn’t turn round till we got to the Square and all the kids were crying and the women shrieking they were going to be raped by the Hejris. We lost some of ’em and their men went after ’em. What went wrong?’

‘Nothing went wrong,’ Pentecost snapped. ‘We got a priority from Dhafran. They’ve changed their minds in Khaswe. We’ve got to hold Hahdhdhah.’