‘Well, I was a bit.’
‘It’s not a very usual situation. The fact is, that I have a rather unusual proposition to put to you. I thought it would be easier if I explained it to you personally. You’ll certainly need time to think about it. It’s so unusual that I shouldn’t be at all surprised if you rejected it out of hand.’
His tone of voice suggested that not only would he be unsurprised, he would actually be glad if his proposition was rejected. Hugo said, ‘Let’s hear about it before we turn it down.’
‘I have to offer you the post of military adviser to the Ruler of Umran.’
‘Come again.’
‘Umran, in the Persian Gulf. I don’t expect you’ve heard of it. Not many people have.’ Mr. Taverner unfolded himself from behind his desk, moved across to the wall, and pulled a cord. A map descended from a mahogany pelmet.
‘There it is,’ he said. ‘It needs a large-scale map to show it at all. It’s the very tip of the peninsula. Its nearest neighbour is Ras-al-Khaima.’
Hugo peered at the map with interest.
‘All that green bit, on the right,’ he said. That’s Muscat and Oman, isn’t it?’
‘The Sultanate of Oman. It changed its name after the palace coup last year.’
‘And those bits down there?’
‘Umm al-Gaiwain, Fujaira, Ajman and Sharja. They’re all Independent Trucial Shaikhdoms. Interesting places. They live in hopes of striking it rich when oil is discovered.’
‘And Umran?’
‘Umran had what you might call a mixed economy. As you see, it is less than fifty miles across the straits to Iran.’
‘The Gibraltar of the Persian Gulf.’
Mr. Taverner considered the expression, repeating it silently to himself.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You might call it that. It was not the political significance of its position that I was considering when I mentioned its nearness to Iran, although that has important implications. What I meant to imply was that its proximity to the mainland on the other side made it a natural entrepot for smuggling. Gold smuggling in particular. Its other principal source of income was the striking of new and remarkable issues of postage stamps. There is one set in which the head of the Ruler was printed upside down which is in demand by philatelists all over the world.’
‘You say that these
were
its sources of income. Do I gather that they have now struck oil?’
‘They have not actually struck it. Like all those states, they have sold exploration concessions to hopeful prospectors. Sometimes the same concession several times over. But there are now more exciting possibilities. A company called Metbor, who drill for hard minerals in most parts of the world, are examining a number of trial borings in Umran at the moment.’
‘What do they expect to find? Gold. Silver. Copper.’
Mr. Taverner pursed his lips, and said, ‘Yes, that sort of thing.’
‘He’s lying,’ said Hugo to himself. ‘Or giving me half-truths.’ The moment had come to ask the question. It had to be asked sooner or later.
‘Why pick on me?’
Mr. Taverner smiled faintly and said, ‘As you may imagine, this was the first question which we asked. We were very willing to assist the Ruler and we had available a number of most suitable candidates. Men who had spent a good deal of time in that part of the world, with experience in the services or in diplomacy. We compiled a short list of six of the most promising, and invited the Ruler to interview them and select one. He rejected them.’
‘All of them?’
‘All of them, and without even seeing them. He wanted you.’
‘He must be mad.’
Mr. Taverner appeared to be considering the point very carefully. He said, ‘Not mad. Romantic. He is a student of television. He has observed you, on a number of occasions, dealing with difficult and dangerous situations. He feels – and there we must agree with him – that there is likely to be no shortage of difficulties and dangers in Umran in the near future. And he has decided that you are the man he would like to have with him.’
‘I suppose he realises that success on the screen is a lot easier than success in real life.’
‘Subsconsciously, I think he does. But your repeated triumphs—how many by the way?’
‘Ninety-one.’
‘Yes. Ninety-one. They have had a sort of cumulative effect. He even has the impression, which he gained from an incident in which you temporarily impersonated a drunken Arab camel driver, that you speak fluent Arabic. We tried to explain to him that you would have been coached in the few words you had to speak, and that this was the extent of your knowledge.’
‘If you explained that to him, you were off beam.’
‘Oh?’
‘I haven’t always been an actor, you know. In fact, I came to it comparatively late. I studied Oriental languages at Cambridge. When I left, my first job was as secretary to the late Professor Emil van der Hoetzen. I expect you’ve heard of him?’
‘Indeed, yes.’
‘I spent three years with him in the Middle East. Mostly under canvas in the desert near Homs. I won’t say that I became a classical Arabist, but I was quite capable of holding my own in a slanging match with a camel driver.’
‘I see. Well, that certainly makes a difference.’
‘But not very much?’
‘Frankly, no. To handle the problems which are bound to arise we should have wished that you had had some diplomatic training. Or, failing that, some military experience would probably be useful. You were too young to have been in the war, I suppose?’
‘Much too young. But why would military experience have been useful? Are you expecting a war in those parts?’
‘Not a world war. But a private war. Yes. In fact, I should say there are more excuses for starting a private war in that particular area than anywhere else in the world. Iraq and Iran are still capable of going to war over the Shatt-al-Arab. There are endless causes of dispute over the median lines which divide the continental shelf. In the old days when the sea bed only produced pearl oysters it was tricky enough. Now it produces oil. Iraq covets Kuwait. Saudi Arabia wants the Buraimi Oasis. And finally – there are the Tumbs.’
‘The islands which Iran grabbed.’
‘Correct. But they are not only the islands. Not by any means. In fact there is a chain of tiny islands – sand-spits really – off the coast of Umran. You spoke a moment ago of Umran being in the same position as Gibraltar. Can you visualise the sort of difficulties which might arise if the Straits of Gibraltar were somewhat wider and there were a number of uninhabited islands in the middle?’
‘It sounds tricky, certainly. By the way, who owns these islands?’
‘According to us, Ras-al-Khaima. According to Iran, Iran. And now the Ruler of Umran has himself staked a claim. It is based, as far as we can make out, both on physical proximity and on archaeological grounds. He claims to have discovered the tomb of the founder of his family, the Ferini, on the largest of them.’
Hugo said, ‘I can understand that there might be a shooting war between Iran, who have, I understand, got a sizeable army, and one of the western powers, if they chose to stick up for – which was it? – Ras-al-Khaima. But I can’t quite see tiny little Umran making an impression on either side. How many of them are there?’
‘At the last census, about eight thousand. But that was five years ago. There are probably ten thousand by now. It’s not the numbers that matter. It’s the people. The Al Ferini are desert Arabs. Their male children are taught to handle firearms at an early age. If they are provoked they will shoot. They are fighters.’
As Mr. Taverner said this he gave a very tiny sigh. His one window looked out over a corner of Horse Guards Parade. The rain, which had been threatening all morning, had started to come down hard. Pedestrians were scurrying for shelter. But it was not this which made him sigh. Mr. Taverner was a member of the East India Club and in his lunch hours, when the weather was fine, he liked to walk there, across the Park, up Waterloo Place, and across Pall Mall into St. James’s Square. In the club, which was one of the last relics of the Raj, hung numerous portraits. They were portraits of men who had brought peace and progress to a warring and primitive sub-continent. Sir Henry Lawrence and Sir Arthur Phayre. The incomparable Bobs. The black-bearded John Nicholson, who had threatened to shoot his own General if he refused to order an attack. They, too, were fighters. Were there any left? Could a nation of fighters lose its martial spirit within a mere hundred years? It had happened before. Rome had gone soft in less than a century. That man in front of him. What good could he possibly achieve? He was not a soldier. He was an actor. Probably a pansy. Most actors were pansies, or so he understood.
He became aware that the silence had gone on rather a long time, and said, ‘I expect you have a lot of questions you’d like to ask.’
‘One certainly,’ said Hugo. ‘You’ve mentioned these possibilities and dangers. Why should they worry us. We’ve cleared out of the Gulf, haven’t we?’
‘Politically.’
‘And militarily.’
‘Not entirely. We are retaining certain airfields as staging posts for the R.A.F., and the Navy will pay courtesy visits from time to time. Also we have agreed to continue training the Oman Scouts. Broadly, I agree. Our main forces have gone. But that is far from being the whole picture. We still have very considerable commercial interests. In spite of recent discoveries in the North Sea, nearly two-thirds of the oil available to the non-communist world comes from the Gulf. And half of it is ours.’
‘Then I think we were crazy to take the army away.’
Mr. Taverner smiled his diplomatic smile and said, ‘The decision did not rest with this office, Mr. Greest. But I can tell you this. If any man, in any position, is able to use what influence he has towards maintaining peace and the status quo and allowing the oil to flow through the pipe lines and the tankers to pass freely, he would not find the Government ungrateful. Of that I am sure.’
C.M.G., thought Hugo, maybe a K.C.M.G. Well, that would be something to show them at Television Centre. He said, ‘I’d want time to think about it.’
‘Of course.’
‘What would you suggest would be the next step?’
‘I think you ought to have a word with the Ruler. He is staying at the Dorchester. Since his visit to this country is unofficial, he has registered under the name of Mr. Smith.’
‘Mr. Smith, sir?’ said the receptionist at the Dorchester, consulting a list. ‘Which Mr. Smith would that be?’
‘He’s an Arabian gentleman.’
‘That would be Sheik Ahmed of Umran, I expect.’
‘Right,’ said Hugo. He wondered who all the other Mr. Smiths were.
‘I’ll ring up and tell him you’re here, Mr. Greest. Would you like to wait in the reception hall?’
Hugo retired to one of the comfortable chairs provided by the Dorchester for its visitors and sank back into it. Since leaving the Foreign Office he had spent a busy two hours. First he had called on Sam Maxfeldt in his untidy little office near Covent Garden. Sam had confirmed the rumour that there was no immediate prospect of an eighth series of the Tiger, and had listened impassively to an account of Hugo’s visit to the Foreign Office.
‘If it’s a temporary job,’ he said, ‘it might be a good idea. Producers are like cats. Make approaches to them, and they’re not interested. Ignore them, and they’re all over you. If I let it be known that you’re not available at any price for six months, their mouths’ll start watering.’
‘It didn’t sound to be like a six-month job.’
‘How long?’
‘We haven’t fixed up any details yet. But two or three years, I imagine.’
‘Then you mustn’t do it. No one can be off the stage for three years and come back. If it’s three years, it’s permanent.’
‘Would that be a bad thing?’
Sam reflected.
‘For you, or me, or the great British public?’
‘Let’s keep the great British public out of it.’
‘For me, certainly it would be bad. You’re a valuable property. For you – I don’t know. That Hayes-Borton woman put her finger on it when she said you were an awkward age. I’d have had you doing all the things that really count. Repertory, and small parts at the Old Vic and Stratford, and maybe a film. As it is, you’re a one-man band, and when the band stops playing—’
He spread his hands expressively.
‘You mean I’m through.’
‘No. I don’t mean that. I could name half a dozen people who’ve climbed out of situations like this and are now respectable pillars of the stage. What I’m saying is, it’s a hard climb. Six months away won’t hurt. Particularly if you really are doing a job, not sitting at home waiting for the telephone to ring.’
‘Maybe I won’t even last six months. It sounds a rocky sort of berth.’
‘You’d better have a word with Jim Lewis. He’ll put you wise to the tax angles.’
So Hugo had gone off, next, to consult Jim Lewis. In ancient times, he reflected, if a man was starting out on a dangerous journey overseas he would consult the astrologers and the priests. Now he went to see his tax accountant.
He became aware that someone was standing in front of him. It was a small brown man in a blue suit. The only thing remarkable about him was his tie, which looked like an impressionist’s idea of a sun setting in a stormy sea.
He said, ‘Mr. Greest? Sayyed Nawaf-al-Elkan, Head of Finance. I am pleased to see you here. I will take you up to his Highness.’
He spoke excellent English and had an attractive smile. On the way up in the lift he said, in Arabic, ‘The Ruler has with him only his eldest son, Hussein, myself and two secretaries. The visit is quite informal.’
Hugo said, trying out his Arabic, finding the once familiar words coming awkwardly to his tongue, ‘Should I address his Highness as Mr. Smith?’
‘That will not be necessary.’ Nawaf knocked at the door of one of the third-floor suites, which was unlocked after a moment’s delay. A tall man in a gallabiah, whom Hugo took to be one of the secretaries, held the door open for them and ushered them in.
His Highness, Sheik Ahmed bin Rashid bin Abdulla el Ferini, Ruler of Umran was standing with his back to the window. Hugo’s first impression was of a very big man, with a jutting black beard. A man who entirely filled a light grey suit, who smiled, held out his hand, and said, in English which was good, but not as accentless as Nawaf’s, ‘Nice to see you, Mr. Greest. Please sit down. Nice weather we are having.’