‘Isn’t that for the Ruler to decide?’ I asked. ‘I understand it’s an independent sheikhdom.’
The suggestion seemed to strike him as a novel one.
‘We decide who goes to Saraifa,’ he said stiffly. And he added, ‘If you’ll come back later-’
‘This afternoon? I want to leave for Abu Dhabi tomorrow.’
‘This afternoon?’ He sounded doubtful. ‘Well, perhaps-’
I drove to the BO AC office then, only to discover that if I wanted to fly to Abu Dhabi I should have to charter a plane. Gulf Airways ran a service to Sharjah, but not to Abu Dhabi. It was my first experience of the difficulties of communication in the country. Back at the hotel in time for lunch I was hailed by Ruffini, sitting alone like a pale blue toad in front of a tall glass. ‘You like a beer?’
He had seen one of the chief executives of BAPCO — the Bahrain Petroleum Company — out at the oil town of Awali, and then had an interview with Erkhard. ‘This afternoon I go to Jufair, but I do not think they tell me anything.’ He leaned towards me across the table. ‘You puzzle me, Signer Grant,’ he said. ‘A lawyer, always with your briefcase. You say you are not interested in oil, yet your business is with two of the most important oilmen in the Gulf.’
The boy brought my drink. ‘Salute!’ Ruffini raised his glass. That girl at the reception desk — she is new to GODCO and she talk. This morning, when you ask for Sir Philip Gorde and he is not there, Erkhard immediately sees you ‘imself. Why?’ His eyes were fixed on my face, full of curiosity. ‘Why are you so important? What is in that briefcase of yours, signore?’ He shook his head and gave a mock sigh. ‘You will not tell me, of course. Not yet.’ His face creased in a smile and he gulped down the rest of his drink. ‘Let’s go and eat.’
Over lunch he told me why he was in Bahrain. He worked for a newspaper group in Milan and he’d had a tip-off from one of Italy’s leading oilmen. ‘I think he is right,’ he said. There is trouble. But where?’ He had been up since six talking in the bazaars, to Indians chiefly. A squadron of bren-gun carriers of the RAF Regiment was rumoured to have been sent to Sharjah and two RAF reconnaissance planes had been fitted with long-range tanks. There was talk, too, of additional transport allocated to the Trucial Oman Scouts and the GOC Persian Gulf was known to be on a tour of inspection. ‘If there is trouble ‘ere,’ he said, ‘then it mean only one thing — oil.’ And suddenly, without warning, he said, ‘What about this David Whitaker, eh?’ He smiled at me. ‘Now you are surprised. But that little girl knew him and you told her your business is about this boy who is missing.’ He stared at me. ‘But you don’t want to talk about it, eh?’
‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ I said. ‘I’m his Executor, that’s all.’
‘An’ you ‘ave to see Sir Philip Gorde, who is four years ago one of the most important men in the Gulf, but not any more — who is also the life-long friend of Colonel Whitaker, the boy’s father. An’ you ‘ave nothing to tell me, eh?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Per’aps, you do not know it, my friend — but I think maybe you are sitting on the story I want.’ He stared at me a moment, and then very seriously: ‘You will think I am being very stupid now, but walk with care. I like you. I like men who ‘ave a sense of duty. That is why I am warning you.’
‘You sound very serious.’ I wanted to laugh it off. But he said, ‘I am very serious. Oil is big money. And in a country like this it is also political dynamite.’ Probably he misread the shock his choice of words gave me, for he added quickly, ‘You don’t believe that, eh? Well, I will take a bet with you. You will not get to Abu Dhabi or to Sharjah. Saraifa is closed anyway. You will, in fact, not be allowed out of Bahrain. And you will be got out of ‘ere somehow before Sir Philip Gorde returns. Have you got your visas yet?’
‘I have to go back to Jufair this afternoon.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You can come with me. But you will not get any visa.’
He was right there. They were very apologetic about it down at Jufair but the only man who could deal with my application had unfortunately been called away on urgent business. Perhaps if I came back tomorrow. There was no point in arguing. The brick wall of officialdom can’t be battered down unless you have the right contacts, and I’d no contacts at all. I went for a walk along the naval jetty. There was a wind blowing off the anchorage, but it was a hot wind and did nothing to refresh me. Half an hour later Ruffini joined me. ‘Do you get your visas?’ He gave me a wicked smile. He knew I hadn’t got them.
‘Did you get the low-down on the political situation?’ I asked him.
He gave a fat chuckle and shook his head. ‘The same thing. Nobody is saying anything. What is more,’ he added, ‘you and me, we are in the same boat. No visas for Ruffini also. He is to stay ‘ere and mind his bloody business.’ He hoisted himself on to the sea wall. ‘Officials can be very stupid. If I have to stay on in Bahrain and write my story from ‘ere, then I have to guess at what goes on, and maybe I guess wrong.’ He was staring out across the anchorage, his eyes screwed up against the dazzle of the water. ‘That gunboat for instance-’ He nodded towards the frigate, which was slowly fetching up to her anchor, the clatter of her winch coming to us very clear across the water. ‘An exercise, they tell me. Routine. Maybe that is all it is and they are speaking the truth. But ‘ow do I know?’
We stayed and watched her steam out of the anchorage and then Ruffini heaved himself down off the wall. ‘Do you ever ‘ear of the Emir of Hadd?’ he asked as we walked back to the taxi. The Emir Abdul-Zaid bin Sultan? Well, no matter.’ He wiped the perspiration from his face. ‘But try shooting that name at the political people ‘ere and see ‘ow their faces go blank. I tell you,’ he added, ‘this country is worse than a Sicilian village, full of old vendettas and not a clear boundary anywhere to mark the finish of one sheikh’s piece of sand and the beginning of the next.’
He took me back to the hotel and I lay and sweated on my bed till dinner time, wondering how I was to contact Gorde and thinking about Ruffini. Was there really trouble brewing? But it all seemed remote — as remote as Colonel Whitaker out there in Saraifa and utterly inaccessible. And next day, after a full morning’s work, I was no nearer either of my objectives.
I rang the Passport Office, but nothing had been decided. And when I checked on transportation I found that even if I were willing to charter a plane, there was none available with sufficient range to fly direct to Saraifa, and in any case flights there were prohibited. I went to the bank then and settled David’s affairs as far as I was able. It was the same bank that his father dealt with and the manager was helpful. He confirmed that Colonel Whitaker was living in Saraifa, this contrary to his very strict instructions. But he could tell me little else and I went back to the hotel and had a drink with two RAF officers and a civilian pilot, a Canadian named Otto Smith. After lunch we all went down to the Sailing Club for a bathe.
Half the English colony was there, for it was Saturday, and amongst them was the girl from the GODCO reception desk sprawled half-naked on the cement of the old seaplane jetty. ‘So you’re off to Sharjah, Mr Grant?’ And when I told her I was having visa trouble, she smiled and said, ‘I think you’ll find it’s all right.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Oh, I know everything.’ She laughed. ‘No, I happened to see your name on the flight list for tomorrow’s plane.’
She was perfectly right. When I got back to the hotel that evening I found my passport waiting for me, stamped with visas for Sharjah and Dubai. There was also a message, signed by Erkhard’s secretary, informing me that ‘owing to the Company’s desire to help you in every possible way’ free passage was being granted to me in a Company plane leaving for Sharjah at 1030 hours the following morning, Sunday. The message added that accommodation would be available at the Fort and it was not anticipated that I should have to wait long before Sir Philip arrived from Abu Dhabi.