The Weeping Desert Page 14

  Fortunately no one had borrowed John’s jeep. It stood, hot and dusty, under the car port. John wiped the front seat clean and piled his gear into the back: blankets, water, brandy, can of petrol.

  “Let’s get going,” he said. “Which way, princess?”

  “Left,” she said simply, as they bumped up the track to the main road.

  They drove endlessly along the straight road across the desert towards Saudi Arabia. The jeep ate up the kilometres, occasionally passing a loaded lorry coming from the other direction, or a string of grumbling camels carrying rushes like untidy haystacks on their backs. Occasionally wrecks of cars by the side of the road relieved the lifeless landscape, or the bleached bones of a donkey casually acted as a milestone in the lost wastes.

  “Wadi Amd is near here,” said Khadija, dabbing the moisture from her face. Although the trouser suit had been a perfect disguise, now the trousers clung uncomfortably to her legs and she longed for the coolness of one of her own loose gowns.

  They approached a small group of qaradh and samr trees, a few flat roofed hovels, crumbling and seemingly deserted, and a mosque decorated with chipped blue tiles. John slowed down fractionally in case there were children about. A few hens and beer cans scattered in the dust as they flashed through.

  “That was Wadi Amd,” said Khadija.

  “Jolly little place,” said John.

  John thought it would be a miracle if Khadija could find the whereabouts of a hole in this vast, empty desert. He was beginning to think it might have been wiser to have enlisted an expert guide to help.

  “There is the camel thorn bush,” said Khadija, pointing. “Turn right here.”

  John turned off the road and began to drive over the stony desert. There was no track to follow. He just kept straight on, bumping and jolting, changing down gear when the wheels encountered a patch of soft sand.

  “I hope you know where we’re going,” he said grimly.

  “I think there are the boulders.”

  John peered through the windscreen. He could see nothing. Perhaps there was the faintest smudge on the horizon. He could not really tell; the windscreen was so dirty. But he did not dare stop in case the wheels got bogged down in a soft patch.

  Gradually some shape did form on the horizon—a small outcrop of rocks, scattered on the desert, left aeons ago by some internal volcanic explosion. John slowed down, keeping a wary distance from the rocks. Surely Ahmed Karim would have left some guard on the old man?

  “They will be in the cave,” said Khadija, reading his thoughts, “where it is cool.”

  John stopped the jeep in the scant shade of a rock on the outskirts. The engine died down with a whine. It was strangely silent after all those miles of driving. They felt the heat blowing in on them; the desert winds racing insanely across the flat sand.

  “Let’s hope there’s only one,” said John. “Now you keep out of the way.”

  The entrance to the cave was a narrow shaft between the three boulders. John would have passed by and thought it just a jagged shadow, if he had not heard a cough come from inside. He slid nearer the opening, silently, looping the rope in his hand, his fingers firmly poised on the top of the can of deodorant. A tiny speck of red lit up the darkness as the man inhaled. He hesitated fractionally. He wanted to be quite sure it was a guard and not the sheikh himself. But he saw the red spark drop to the floor of the cave, and the man stamped it out with movements that were quite unshackled.

  Twisting his shoulders sideways, John moved quickly through the opening. His fingers pressed down on the aerosol button, and a fine spray of deodorant caught the surprised guard in the face. For a moment it stung, and he put his hands to his face, howling, no doubt convinced he was blinded forever.

  John looped the rope quickly over the man’s shoulders, and they struggled together, their feet slipping on the sloping cave floor. Suddenly John pulled the rope taut and the guard fell, his arms pinioned. John flashed the rope round him, down his body, securing his feet, then pulled him, like a badly wrapped Christmas parcel, out of the cave into the sunlight.

  For a moment, John could not see. Then he heard Khadija saying: “Is my father there?”

  “I don’t know,” said John, wiping his brow. “But it’s a funny place to leave a guard if he isn’t.”

  “We must put him near a rock or he will fry,” said Khadija, quite competently tightening the knots.

  They left the guard, securely trussed, in some shade. John looked quickly but carefully around in the shimmering heat, but they seemed to be the only people there. He unloaded more nylon rope and gave Khadija the big flash lamp to hold.

  “Now understand this,” he said firmly. “You are to remain at the mouth of the cave, shining the light downwards for me. You are not to move. The floor of the cave is sloping and very slippery. If I fall, or your father falls, you can do nothing. You are not to move. Do you understand?”

  Khadija nodded, but her mouth quivered. She wanted to say it was too dangerous, that they should go away and pay others to do this hazardous climb. But she had been taught since babyhood never to question what a man says he will do, so she blinked back her tears and followed John with the flash lamp.

  “Can you drive?” he asked.

  Khadija looked at him, horrified at the thought.

  “I must show you,” he said, turning on his heel. “In case there’s an accident. You would die out here alone.”

  He explained quickly the starter, gears, accelerator and brake. She repeated everything after him, but whether she understood was dubious. He sighed and hoped she would never need the knowledge.

  John secured the two ropes firmly round one of the boulders and fed the loose coils into the cave. He looped one coil over his shoulder and under his arm and, gently testing the strain, began to let himself down backwards on the other into the black cave. He stopped and listened.

  “Is anyone there?” he called out.

  A faint sound came from a long way down to his right. A voice was calling in Arabic.

  “It’s my father,” Khadija whispered. The light in her hand wavered.

  “Stay where you are,” said John fiercely.

  John called back in Arabic: “I am coming. With Allah’s help.”

  He eased his way backwards. His eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom and he could see that the cave was as large as a London Underground tunnel. Khadija’s light was now quite a long way above him. The rope stretched taut; the second rope was still loosely coiled over his shoulder. His right foot felt for the next foothold. But there was nothing there.

  A cold sweat broke out on his skin. His toe felt cautiously and found an edge. He had reached the end of the cave and the beginning of the steeply shelving hole.

  As a climb, it was no more dangerous than many mountain faces he had tackled with his brother. But the darkness was an extra hazard. He had to feel every inch of the way, groping for footholds, bracing himself against the rope, the flesh-biting, skin-searing coil which would be his ladder back to the world above. He had no guarantee that the footholds would hold. It smelt like limestone, and limestone could be crumbly.

  How much further had he to go? The hole was beginning to narrow. He could no longer see Khadija’s light. He loosened some stones and they fell, clattering. He stopped and listened for some indication that they had reached the bottom, but there was no reassuring splash. No sound at all; only his own laboured breathing.

  “I am here, I am here,” a voice croaked weakly.

  John moved carefully towards the sound. Now he could dimly make out a white shape, huddled on a narrow ledge, some twenty feet below. How on earth had they got the old man down there?

  “I am coming,” said John. “Hold on.”

  The hole narrowed still more. By leaning out backwards, he could feel all round the rough sides. A spur of rock dug into his back and he leaned on it, carefully at first to see if it would take his weight, then more gratefully as it afforded him a moment to ease h
is aching back and leg muscles.

  “Allah be praised,” began His Supreme Highness, Sheikh Abd-ul Hamid. He began to intone the holy writings of the Koran, and John found the dry, cracked sound of the old man’s voice strangely moving.

  The old sheikh was on his knees on a ledge about eighteen inches wide. He was so cramped that he could hardly raise his arms for John to secure the second rope round his body. John could see that he would be of little help in the climb back. How long had he been there, John wondered, as he straddled the walls of the hole, one foot on the ledge, the other on a small out-jutting of rock, and unscrewed the top of his flask.

  “Here—water,” he said gruffly. “Sip it slowly.”

  He heard the old man slapping the water round his mouth before swallowing, like a true bedouin.

  “My grateful thanks, Englishman,” said the sheikh.

  “You know who I am?”

  “I heard the voice of Khadija, the Flower of my Eye,” said the sheikh. “Besides, who other than an Englishman would try such a foolhardy rescue? Not an Arab. Arabs do not hold life sacred. They would let me die, and tomorrow put another to rule Shuqrat.”

  John clipped the flask back onto his belt. “Let’s go.”

  The old man was so stiff that John could hear him clenching his teeth in pain as John slung him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. Then using both ropes to take the strain, John began the difficult climb back. His footholds were good, except one. It broke off, dry and crumbly, and slithered away to the nothingness below when John tried it with his weight.

  For a moment they hung on the rope and John used all his skill at mountaineering to avert a catastrophe. He recalled the position of the last foothold and lowered the pair of them into a safer position before starting upwards again. Feeling above him, John caught sight of a small, steady light, and he felt a surge of relief. The floor of the cave could not be far away.

  “Nearly there,” he grunted.

  The sheikh did not say anything. John thought from the dead weight of the body that the old man had lost consciousness. It was better that way. Fear could turn a sensible man into a struggling creature, and John had no hands free to cope with panic.

  His fingers closed over the edge of the hole. It required an almost superhuman effort and co-ordination of muscles to heave his heavy burden up onto the floor of the cave. John lay gasping against the old man, using his own weight and the ropes to stop him slipping off. Then slowly, painfully, he began to crawl up the cave, dragging the old man, quite unable to carry him any further.

  Khadija could bear it no longer. She disobeyed John’s order and, sure-footed as a gazelle, crept down the first few yards of the cave to meet them. Together they heaved her father into the fresh air. His face was ashen, his fine silver beard coated in yellow dust. His white lawn kaffiyah was soiled and torn, his silk aba in shreds. Khadija wiped his face gently.

  John lay back against the rock face, panting. His hands were bleeding and his heart felt as if it would burst inside him. Khadija held the brandy flask to his lips, and the fiery liquid exploded down his throat.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, “thank you.” There were no other words, not even in her native flowery Arabic.

  “We’d better get your father to hospital,” said John, struggling to his feet. He staggered for a moment into the sun, his legs like jelly, his sense of direction confused.

  They made Sheikh Abd-ul Hamid as comfortable as possible in the back of the jeep on the blankets. John started the jeep wearily and drove as carefully as he could over the stony desert back to the main road. He was never so thankful as when the jeep wheels mounted the comparative smoothness of the tarred road. They turned away from the hole. John never wanted to see the place again.

  The road stretched before them—flat, straight as a ribbon, disappearing into infinity. They passed through Wadi Amd, still deserted, and left behind the lonely ribbed skeleton of the donkey.

  Khadija broke the silence.

  “For many kilometres now, this jeep has driven of its own will. You have not moved a hand or a foot. If only I knew how, then you could rest. I think you must be very weary.”

  “I’m all right,” said John, braking slightly to bump over a rough patch. “You go to sleep.”

  Khadija sighed. She did wish she could be more helpful. Not that there was any law to stop her driving. An Arab could buy a car in Shuqrat and drive off in it straight away. He was not required to have passed a driving test, nor to have a driving licence. It was nothing to see boy sheikhs, some as little as eleven or twelve and hardly able to see over the steering wheel, driving big American Plymouths or Buicks round the town.

  John’s back and legs ached with weariness, but he kept his foot on the accelerator, and the jeep at a steady seventy. He longed for the luxury of a good stretch. His eyes smarted with tiredness.

  Khadija did not sleep. She kept an eye on her father, whose colour had improved slightly. She prayed that they would not meet a train of hobbled camels staking claim to the middle of the road. She relaxed a little as the jeep went on uneventfully. The monotony lulled her into a feeling of unreality. It was only when she saw the speedometer needle quiver that she gripped the seat with hot, damp hands. Speed was frightening. Would she ever have the courage to learn to drive? To think that one day she might even be like Carol with a red Mini of her own.

  Wrecks of abandoned cars by the roadside and the cardboard skyline of roofs and minarets announced the approach of Oman Said. It was cooler now that the sun was lower in the sky, a flaming orange ball throwing long plum-grey shadows across the desert.

  The jeep slowed down as they approached the busy main street. Khadija’s relief was so great that she could not stop her knees from shaking. She felt damp and sticky, and thought with longing of her beautiful marble bath with the gold water pipes and the glass domed ceiling.

  “Not bad,” said John, with a brief smile. “Well under the hour. How is he?” There was the faintest sound from the back of the jeep. “We’ll go straight to the hospital.”

  He drove to Shuqrat Royal Hospital, the showpiece of Oman Said, a fine modern building which had won a design award. Government visitors were always given an impressive tour of all the latest equipment which had been installed, but much of this equipment had never been used and was still wrapped in polythene, a source of constant irritation to the few European nurses.

  John marched into the matron’s office. He was not going to waste time with Indian orderlies.

  “I have the ruler of Shuqrat in the back of my jeep,” he said to the crisply uniformed matron. “He’s ill and needs immediate attention.”

  The pine-thin woman showed no surprise. After five years in Shuqrat, nothing could surprise her any more.

  “I’ll come at once,” said the matron, rising from her chair behind the desk. She pressed a button, and immediately an Indian male nurse appeared. “Prepare Room one,” she said. “Find Dr. Robinson and Staff Nurse O’Donaghue.”

  Sheila, and the best room in the house, thought John as he followed the procession out to his jeep. Sheila—he had not really forgotten her, but she had certainly slipped from his mind.

  She looked cool, pretty and efficient, her fair hair piled on the top of her head, and her starched nurse’s cap pinned on top of the curls. She flashed a quick, surprised smile at John, but was distracted from speaking by the clumsy efforts of the porters who were wheeling out a trolley to the jeep.

  “He’ll be all right now,” said John, leading Khadija away. “Your father is in good hands. I want to have a word with the chief of police. Someone ought to fetch that poor guard before he roasts.”

  “I will stay,” said Khadija. “I cannot leave until I know how my father is.”

  John rubbed at the streaks of dirt on her face with an equally grubby handkerchief. “You don’t look much like a princess now,” he said gently.

  They waited in the matron’s office. An orderly brought them tea on a tin tray. Khadija
watched a small gecko—a little lizard with webby feet and scaly tail—scuttling along the windowsill. He seemed trapped. If her father died and Ahmed Karim became the ruler of Shuqrat, then she too would be trapped—trapped in a royal harem for the rest of her life.

  Khadija gripped the edge of the sill. The little gecko was contemplating the edge, its tongue flickering at nothing. She, too, would be desperate for freedom.

  “Poor thing,” said Khadija, picking up the lizard. “How did you get so far up? I will take you down to the garden.” She went out, her hands cupped over the tickly lizard.

  Sheila came in and John stood up.

  “The doctor says he’s going to be fine,” said Sheila. “He’s come round. You can see him in a few moments. He’s asking for you…” Sheila’s efficient manner seemed to waver, “and his daughter.”

  “Thank you,” said John. “I’m glad it’s no worse.”

  “I dare say you’ll tell me all about it some time,” said Sheila with a light laugh. “It’s quite a mystery. Already half of his ministers are queueing up to see him, but he wants to see you first. What have you done for this great honour?” Sheila laughed again, but her eyes were unhappy. “Are you going to marry his daughter or something?”

  “I hope to,” said John quietly. He took her hands and looked down at them, wishing there was something else he could say.

  “I’m not surprised,” said Sheila, holding her breath. She let it out in a quivering sigh. “There were the strangest rumours going round Oman Said while you were away. Oh, your hands! They’re badly cut. Let me dress them.”

  “What will you do?” John asked.

  “Do? Just carry on, of course. Work, travel, play. For goodness sake, don’t have me on your conscience. I’m due some leave soon and I may go to Australia instead of back to the UK.”

  “Has this anything to do with Don Parker?”

  Sheila wished life were as simple as that: off with the old and on with the new. It would be a long time before she was ready to love another man.