Bartlett was lying on a beach and waves were falling across his face, drowning him. He tried to move his head to one side but pain illuminated by red light exploded inside him. When he finally opened his eyes the Egyptian was throwing water in his face. He stopped drowning, but the pain remained. He wanted to massage it away with his hands; but his hands were tied behind his back. He stopped struggling and lay on his back looking at the Egyptian.
The Egyptian said: ‘I’m sorry I had to hit you so hard but you were putting up a very good fight.’ His English was elaborate, his tone sarcastic. He pointed at his own puffed eye. ‘You did not look as if you had it in you.’
Bartlett tried to speak but the pain gagged him.
The Egyptian said: ‘I wish I could give you something to ease the pain but we brought nothing like that with us.’ He looked beyond Bartlett. ‘Your girlfriend is in better shape than you.’
Bartlett managed to turn his head. Raquel lay beside him, hands and feet bound. Her face was pale but she was conscious. She said: ‘Hallo, Thomas.’
Bartlett tried to speak. The words felt very thick. ‘Where are we?’
The Egyptian said: ‘In the ruins of a small hotel on the outskirts of Kantara where no one can find us.’
Bartlett looked at the wall. There was a shell-hole the size of a coffee table in it. It was burned black at the edges and the haphazard brickwork was exposed.
The Egyptian saw where he was looking. ‘Those bricks – bad workmanship, I’m afraid. But, bad though it is, it belongs to us. As does the Sinai.’ He glanced at Raquel. ‘As does the whole of Palestine.’
‘Israel,’ she said.
The Egyptian smiled. ‘She has courage, that one. But so do most Israelis. I should know – I was brought up there.’
Bartlett said nothing.
The Egyptian said: ‘We have a little time. I will answer obvious questions to save you the effort of speaking.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘I was ten when Palestine was handed over to the Jews. My father had to stay behind because he was sick – he had been a strong and proud man, I inherited his pride. I decided I would never be a second-class citizen and I would never give up the fight. When I was fifteen I managed to cross the border. I went to Cairo because I believed that was the true centre of the Arab world.’
Bartlett spoke very slowly. ‘You speak very good English,’ he said. The pulses of pain were coming a little slower.
‘The Egyptians realised my worth. A dedicated Arab Nationalist. Hebrew-speaking with a good knowledge of Palestine. They must also have thought I was intelligent because they gave me the best education possible. That is how I come to speak English. Yamani is my name, by the way.’
Bartlett realised that he was in the presence of a man very much in love with himself. As he was entitled to be. Handsome, strong, intelligent. The Arabs could do with a few more like him.
Raquel said to him: ‘If you are caught you will be shot as a spy.’
Yamani laughed. ‘Very true. But then you are a spy as well. You have been spying on this man Bartlett for a long time.’
‘He knows about it,’ she said.
‘Very touching,’ Yamani said. He knelt and allowed them each a smoke of his cigarette. ‘You are probably wondering how we got here?’
Bartlett shrugged because he didn’t want to fuel the Arab’s ego. But it didn’t need fuel.
Yamani said: ‘Cairo was informed from Tel Aviv that you were probably heading in this direction. During the night while an artillery duel was in progress we crossed the Canal. That is not an uncommon practice. But this time we came wearing Israeli combat dress.’
Raquel said: ‘You will be caught.’
‘I think not,’ he said. ‘This morning on the radio we received confirmation that you were on your way. It was very simple to hide in the ruins of Kantara and await your arrival. Especially with the Israeli Army and the United Nations concentrating on the exchange of refugees. It will be even easier for us to get back across the Canal. The Israelis will not be looking for Arabs crossing in that direction.’
Raquel said: ‘But the Egyptians will. Perhaps they will shoot you.’
He shook his head. ‘They will be warned that we are coming.’ He turned his attention to Bartlett again. ‘Are you impressed with our efficiency on this occasion?’
‘I’m impressed with your self-satisfaction.’
‘You think I am a conceited man?’
‘You are not bashful,’ Bartlett said.
The smile faded a little. ‘It is time more of my people found their pride. We have wallowed in our inferiority complex for too long.’
Raquel said: ‘That is only natural because you are inferior.’
He pretended to ignore her. ‘But the spirit is changing. All along the borders with Israel you will see it. From the oldest Fedayeen down to the youngest Ashbal. Soon no force on earth will be able to stop us. This is not just a struggle for land, Mr Bartlett, this is Jihad – a Holy War.’
Bartlett said: ‘You have already been beaten by the Jews three times.’
‘We will not be beaten the fourth time.’ His composure was feeling the strain. ‘Next time we will drive the Jews into the sea.’
‘I don’t think they will go,’ Bartlett said.
‘Why not?’
Bartlett glanced at Raquel and managed to smile.
Yamani said again: ‘Why not?’
‘Because, as I understand it, they’re not very fond of swimming.’
The Arab stubbed out his cigarette viciously. ‘Make the most of your famous British sense of humour. You have not much longer in which to enjoy it.’
Raquel said: ‘What are you going to do with us?’
‘We have the maps,’ he said. ‘In particular one map. Unfortunately for Mr Bartlett he knows its content. Therefore he will have to be killed. And I’m afraid you will have to join him. You are, after all, an officer in Israeli Intelligence.’ He paused. ‘And now I’m afraid I must leave you.’
He called out in Arabic and one of the other two commandos came in, Uzi at the ready. Bartlett and Raquel were left looking up the barrel of a squat, efficient Israeli-made submachine gun.
Through the jagged hole in the wall Bartlett watched the dark blue of the sky begin to fade. Soon the outlines of the dunes in the desert would be softened by dusk, their hollows filled with mauve shadows.
He looked around their quarters. A small reception desk covered with dust and plaster; a punctured armchair which looked as if it had once been British Army married quarters issue; a photograph of Nasser perforated by a bullet hole on the wall; a greasy sofa under the shell-hole. Through an arch he could see a few chairs and broken tables.
A sour dirty smell pervaded the place. The smell of death.
The Arab guard sat behind the desk, a bizarre and burly receptionist in a dead hotel. He put his submachine gun on the desk and stared at them without expression. A big brown man with a wrestler’s physique, jagged teeth and a freshly healed wound down his cheek. The scar pulled slightly at one eye, adding menace to his gaze.
Raquel said: ‘I’m sorry, Thomas.’
‘I should bloody well think you are,’ Bartlett said.
‘Do you hate me?’
Bartlett said: ‘I hardly think this is the time or the place to discuss our future relationship. As far as I can see we haven’t got a future, let alone a relationship.’ The pain came at much longer intervals now.
‘We must escape,’ Raquel said.
‘An excellent suggestion,’ Bartlett said. ‘How?’
‘First,’ she said, ‘we must discover if this man speaks English.’
‘Insult him in English then.’
Raquel insulted him with fluency and feeling.
Bartlett said: ‘I didn’t know you knew words like that.’ He felt shocked; his shock amused him.
‘I’m sorry about the language. A few phrases I picked up in New York. But you see he doesn’t understand them. So we can talk freely.’
‘What do you want to talk about? How is your head, by the way?’
‘My head’s all right,’ she said. ‘They didn’t hit it very hard. The trouble is we can’t do much until it’s dark. Not in front of this fat pig.’
The Arab traced a picture in the dust with one finger.
‘I should imagine he’s drawing a gallows,’ Bartlett said.
‘Always you joke,’ she said. ‘I think that you are now entitled to an explanation. The reason why everyone wants those maps? Or that one map, rather.’
Bartlett savoured the moment. He was deeply fond of her; nevertheless he had been looking forward to this. ‘I know why everyone wants it,’ he said. He watched her face in the mellowing light; it was rewarding.
‘You know?’
‘I told you once that I thought I had an idea.’
‘But I didn’t believe you. In fact I don’t know that I believe you now. What is the reason?’
‘Oil,’ he said.
‘Ah.’ She thought about it, a little puzzled, a little awed. ‘How long have you known that?’
‘Not all that long. In fact I’ve been pretty slow. But you see there was no reason in the first place why it should occur to me. People trying to kill me, people trying to steal my briefcase. I suppose you think the answer should have been obvious then. But there was a lot more in that briefcase than just maps. They could have been after anything.’
‘But you don’t know the whole story.’
‘I’m sure I don’t,’ he said.
‘You just know it’s oil?’
‘That’s all I know. I don’t understand the in-fighting.’ He had a pretty good idea but he wanted the full explanation from her.
‘Those maps,’ she said. ‘When were they made?’
‘Some go back to 1869. There was an Ordnance Survey of part of the Sinai then.’
‘And the others?’
‘All different times. But I suppose the map you’re interested in is the one drawn up in the surveys immediately after the First World War.’
She moved her head in the dust in confirmation. ‘I believe a German was put in charge of a team whose sole task was to find likely sites for oil in the Sinai.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ Bartlett said. The pain was coming much less frequently now. He wished they were sitting up because talking on the floor made the words sound incongruous. ‘The whole team perished when their truck broke down near Bir Hasane.’ He tried to move his hands behind his back but they were bound very tightly. ‘Is this the time for this discussion? I rather feel that we should be working out methods of escaping.’
‘We can’t do anything until dark,’ she said.
‘And then what can we do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s great,’ he said. ‘Absolutely marvellous.
‘We might as well talk,’ she said. ‘It keeps our minds occupied. There is nothing else we can do except hope that an Israeli patrol finds us.’
‘And there’s not much chance of that,’ he said.
The ‘receptionist’ picked up the Uzi and examined it with interest as if he hadn’t used one before.
Raquel said: ‘I know about the German and his men. They had two trucks. One broke down and the Arabs drove away in the other.’
‘Correct.’ Bartlett tasted plaster and smelled the sour odour of death. There was probably a body in a cellar. He said: ‘I found the bones of the German and the others when I came to the Sinai years later. Although I suppose you know that.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I suppose you know how I found out.’
He said with a weariness that had nothing to do with their plight: ‘Through my wife, I suppose. Although there was no secret about it.’
‘You also told her about the map. The sketch map that the German made while he was dying. It was the only map in existence that gave the sites where there might be oil inland from the Gulf of Suez. Why, Thomas, did you have to tell your wife about the existence of such a map just before you were coming to Israel?’
‘Quite frankly it didn’t seem to matter. The Egyptians have never bothered very much about the oil potential of the Sinai in the past.’
‘They have on the Gulf,’ she said. ‘Ras Abu Rudeis, for instance, south of the manganese mines. But they haven’t done much about it farther inland.’ She paused. ‘Do you love me, Thomas?’
He wanted to kiss her dry cracked lips. He nodded.
‘Say it then.’
‘I love you.’
She smiled and the smile reached him and warmed him.
She said: ‘They didn’t do anything more about the oil potential because they are, after all, Arabs. What have they ever done with the desert? It is we Israelis who make it bloom.’
‘All right,’ Bartlett said. ‘Forget the propaganda for a bit.’
‘We need to know where that oil is,’ Raquel said. ‘Who wants to give oil to Jews these days? We have enough trouble getting arms from you, let alone oil. If we had enough in the Sinai it wouldn’t matter to us if no one wanted to give us any.’
‘And you reckon one of those maps of mine can do the job for you?’
‘So do the Arabs and Russians. And the Americans – but their reasons are a little more complicated than ours.’
‘Impossible,’ Bartlett said.
‘They are much more complicated,’ she said. ‘That’s why the President of the United States was on the phone. Unfortunately you weren’t the only one to overhear the call.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Bartlett said.
‘It’s very simple. The United States wants peace in the Middle East. Make no mistake about that. They also want to be the boss – just as the Russians do. So they want all the cards. And they want the prestige of being the country that puts forward the formula for peace at the four-power talks. You can’t blame them.’
‘I see,’ Bartlett said. And he almost did. ‘You mean a settlement based on a withdrawal by the Israelis.’
Raquel said quickly: ‘A limited withdrawal from the Sinai only. But to agree to that we’ve got to know where the oil is. We don’t want to pull out from territory oozing with oil which the Arabs can exploit. Whoever produces the formula for peace has got to know where those sites are.’
Bartlett said: ‘What have your own geologists and petrologists been doing since the June war?’
He thought wistfully of what they should have been doing. The search for outcroppings indicating alternating layers of porous and impermeable sedimentary rock, particularly when it was uplifted into domes or anticlines. And the latest geophysical techniques employing magnetic, seismic and gravitational theories.
Raquel said: ‘Are you listening to me, Thomas?’
He returned to the hotel. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I don’t think you were. I was pointing out that the June war never really finished for us. We have been fighting ever since. We’ve done some prospecting for oil but it’s very difficult under such circumstances.’
Through the shell-hole Bartlett watched the first star materialise. Their guard stood up and spoke in Arabic.
‘What’s he saying?’ Bartlett said.
‘I think he’s worried that he can’t see us properly.’
The Arab picked her up and sat her on the sofa in front of the shell-hole. Then he put Bartlett next to her so that he could see both their silhouettes. He returned to his desk and lit a cigarette. In the light of the match Bartlett saw one drooping eye staring at him.
The Arab put out the match and Bartlett felt behind him for the satchel left there after the maps had been removed. It was open. His hands had been tied so that the palms and fingers faced outwards. He touched trowel, hammer, knife. He felt the knife’s blade with his thumb. Somehow he had to wedge it so that he could rub the rope binding his wrists against it.
He manipulated the knife for a couple of minutes until the handle was stuck through the buckle of the satchel. Then he began to work the rope against the cutting edge. Sweat gathered on his forehead and trickled into his eyes. His breathing gathered speed.
‘What are you doing?’ Raquel said.
‘Shut up,’ he said in a quiet, casual voice. ‘The receptionist may know a few words of English.’ Then he whispered, ‘I’m trying to cut the rope.’
He rubbed away, waiting to feel the first fibres breaking. But nothing happened.
The guard spoke again in Arabic.
Bartlett said: ‘What’s he on about now?’
‘He’s asking why your breathing is so quick.’
‘Tell him I’ve got a fever. Tell him I caught malaria in the Congo. Tell him anything.’
Raquel managed a few phrases of Arabic. The guard grunted as if he were satisfied.
The light through the shell-hole was silver from the moon and the stars. He thought of the wild red desert frozen now on its chill glow. His wrists began to ache, then to burn. He had intended to have the knife sharpened for a long time.
As he sawed and suffered he contemplated the last decade of his life. Helen and her men. The first one and the sickness of discovery. His efforts at reconciliation interpreted as weakness and acquiescence.
Ever since his arrival in Israel they had diagnosed weakness. Yosevitz the Polish Jew, Everett the dead American, the thieving Arab in Jerusalem, Ralston with his detective ways. And probably Raquel.
They had all presumed too much. Bartlett smiled in the glacial darkness despite the pain burning his wrists as if someone were holding a candle flame to them. He would escape: if he didn’t then he deserved to die because they were right – he was weak.
Still he couldn’t detect any give in the thin, nylon rope. Or could he?
The first strand seemed to break as the first shell exploded in Israeli-held Kantara. The foyer of the hotel was lit briefly with orange and white light. The crack of the explosion followed almost immediately and the brickwork in the shell-hole grated uneasily.
Raquel said: ‘You see who starts it?’
Bartlett stopped sawing for a moment. ‘You never give up do you?’ he said.
‘Why do you say that? It is quite plain – they have started the shooting.’ Bartlett imagined her shrugging with contemptuous eloquence.
The guard paced the foyer restlessly.
Raquel said: ‘He is very upset. I do not think the Egyptians were supposed to start shooting just yet. But they get everything wrong.’
Bartlett began to work again. He looked at Raquel’s luminous watch. It was 8 p.m. He guessed that Yamani would be back soon.
The ground shook with the detonations of heavy artillery. Shells ruining ruins. Explosions of raucous, monotonous futility. And still he could not sever the thin nylon rope with the blunt knife. The pain in his wrists told him he couldn’t continue much longer.
Shells, mortars, rockets. Through the shell-hole in the wall he saw tracers crayoning the sky. The walls moved, the ruptured earth protested. Then the sharper bark of the Israeli artillery mounted on Sherman tanks answering the Egyptian guns.
Raquel said: ‘The shooting by the Egyptians was bound to happen, I promise you.’
‘Why? Because it happens every night?’
‘Not just that. Because of the refugees as well. As soon as refugees have been exchanged the Egyptian guns always start up.’
He rested because he had no alternative. The sweat was icy beneath his bush shirt. ‘Don’t the Israelis ever start it?’
‘Ask the United Nations.’
A shell exploded so close that rubble and slivers of shell-casing peppered the walls and roof of the hotel.
The guard picked up his Uzi and went to the door. He swore succinctly in Arabic and returned to the desk.
‘What do they propose to do with us?’ Bartlett said. He had started sawing again.
‘Kill us, I suppose. Just like Yamani said. Do you feel frightened, Thomas?’
‘Scared stiff,’ he said. He was pleased with his voice because it belied the fear he felt.
‘I wish I could kiss you.’
‘I wish so, too.’
‘I think that he will probably leave an explosive charge here because he will not want Israeli soldiers to find us here with bullet holes in us.’
‘That’s very reassuring,’ Bartlett said.
As he spoke a shell exploded outside the gap in the wall. The detonation fired arrows of pain into the eardrums. It was louder than Bartlett had imagined anything could be. Part of the wall collapsed and he heard metal flying around him.
He also heard metal strike flesh and bone. The guard cried out once. A thin high-pitched scream that sounded alien to his physique.
The sounds and sensations faded.
‘Raquel,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m all right. Are you, Thomas?’
‘Yes, I’m all right.’
But he knew that Raquel and he were the only people alive in the ruins of the hotel on the devastated outskirts of the old Arab town of Kantara.
Bartlett said: ‘You can move closer to me now and have a go with this knife.’ Her wrists were still bound but if they sat back-to-back, she would be able to saw against the rope.
The big guns were still firing. Occasionally he heard a stuttering bark which Raquel identified as a Gruyanov wheel-mounted machine gun firing from the Egyptian side.
She edged along the sofa. Halfway across she stopped.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘A shell splinter,’ she said. ‘It’s hot.’ He heard her gasp. Then she was beside him cutting at the rope around his wrists with the jagged sliver of shell-casing.
‘Is it very hot?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and he heard the wince in her voice.
One strand of the rope parted, then another. A Katyusha rocket exploded nearby and he heard the crash of falling masonry.
‘The other two Arabs will be back soon,’ he said.
‘I’m doing my best,’ she said.
The shell splinter was sawing into his flesh but he said nothing. Her breath was rapid. He saw her face, marble-white in the exploding light, and kissed her. He felt the blood from his wrists flowing down his fingers. He hoped she was nowhere near the artery.
He said: ‘When you’ve freed my hands I’ll get the guard’s gun from the desk.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I know how to use it.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll get it.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t explain. But it has to be me.’ He didn’t know if he could stand the pain in his wrist much longer without crying out.
A ruined house across the road was burning and the hotel foyer was lit by its flames.
Raquel said: ‘You’re bleeding. I didn’t know …’
‘Just don’t stop,’ he said.
Over his shoulder he could see the shell splinter she was wielding catching the light from the flames. Smoke hung in one heavy layer. The artillery duel continued. Bartlett remembered how he had anticipated witnessing the newspaper headlines jerking into life like marionettes …
Another strand broke and he forced his wrists apart. The blood was flowing freely from the wounds. He continued the outward pressure with his hands. A snap and they were free.
At the same moment the door swung open and the other Arab under Yamani’s command stood there, Uzi at the ready. He spoke rapidly in Arabic.
‘What’s he saying?’ Bartlett said.
‘I don’t know. Something about Yamani coming back.’
Then the Arab saw the body of his colleague slumped over the reception desk. The shell splinter had opened up the back of his skull and the impact had split the tender scar on his face. His gun lay on the desk beside him.
The Arab cried out and ran to the body. As he turned it over Bartlett threw the hammer from the satchel. It hit the Arab on the side of the face with a crunch. His right hand reached for the butt of the Uzi; then he collapsed on the floor.
Bartlett ran across the foyer and knelt beside him. He was still breathing but very slowly. There was a dent at his temple where the hammer had struck him. Bartlett picked up the Uzi.
Raquel said: ‘Please, Thomas, give it to me. I know how to use it.’
He shook his head. ‘I know how to press a trigger.’
The flames across the road were reaching high into the shell-scarred night. Their light was incongruously mellow in the foyer and shadows pranced on the walls.
Raquel took his hands and looked at the wounds. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
Bartlett said: ‘So you should be.’ He picked up the gun again. ‘Yamani will be back any minute. We’ll have to surprise him. I’ll get behind the door. You stay over on the sofa.’
‘We must get the map,’ she said.
‘To hell with the bloody map.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not to hell with the bloody map. I must have it. Israel must have it.’
‘I said to hell with the bloody map. Now you get over there while I wait behind the door.’
‘All right, Thomas.’
Through the shell-hole he saw tracer shells darning the sky. Then there was a pause in the shooting and all he could hear was the crackle of the flames across the road. After a few seconds the Gruyanov cleared its throat and barked again. And the big guns followed its lead.
‘Raquel sat quite still in the firelight. She said: ‘Thomas.’
‘Yes?’
‘Will you ever forgive me?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I had to do it.’
‘I know.’
A Katyusha exploded nearby and the shell-hole ground its bricks.
She said: ‘Thomas.’
‘Yes?’
‘You have been very wonderful. I didn’t believe you could be like this.’
‘Neither did I.’
‘You are as brave as any Israeli soldier.’
He grinned in the shifting light. ‘That’s praise indeed.’
‘I love you,’ she said.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now just tell me how to fire this damn thing.’
‘Let me,’ she said.
‘No. Just tell me.’
But she didn’t because at that moment they heard a Jeep draw up. Bartlett tightened his grip on the gun. The engine stopped and they heard footsteps crunching on the rubble.