Confessional

Salim propped the AK against the wall, filled the ladle with water and carefully held it to Villiers’ mouth. The Englishman drank greedily. It was a morning ritual between them. Salim filled the ladle again and Villiers raised his face to receive the cooling stream.

‘Better?’ Salim asked.

‘You could say that.’

The camel was close now, no more than a hundred yards away. Its rider had a line wound around the pommel of his saddle. A man shambled along on the other end.

‘Who have we got here?’ Villiers asked.

‘Hamid,’ Salim said.

‘And a friend?’

Salim smiled. ‘This is our country, Major Villiers, Rashid land. People should only come here when invited.’

‘But in Hauf, the Commissars of the People’s Republic don’t recognize the rights of the Rashid. They don’t even recognize Allah. Only Marx.’

‘In their own place, they can talk as loudly as they please, but in the land of Rashid …’ Salim shrugged and produced a flat tin. ‘But enough. You will have a cigarette, my friend?’

The Arab expertly nipped the cardboard tube on the end of the cigarette, placed it in Villiers’ mouth and gave him a light.

‘Russian?’ Villiers observed.

‘Fifty miles from here at Fasari there is an airbase in the desert. Many Russian planes, trucks, Russian soldiers – everything!’

‘Yes, I know,’ Villiers told him.

‘You know, and yet your famous SAS does nothing about it?’

‘My country is not at war with the Yemen,’ Villiers said. ‘I am on loan from the British Army to help train and lead the Sultan of Oman’s troops against Marxist guerrillas of the D.L.F.’

‘We are not Marxists, Villiers Sahib. We of the Rashid go where we please and a major of the British SAS is a great prize. Worth many camels, many guns.’

‘To whom?’ Villiers asked.

Salim waved the cigarette at him. ‘I have sent word to Fasari. The Russians are coming, some time today. They will pay a great deal for you. They have agreed to meet my price.’

‘Whatever they offer, my people will pay more,’ Villiers assured him. ‘Deliver me safely in Dhofar and you may have anything you want. English sovereigns of gold, Maria Theresa silver thalers.’

‘But Villiers Sahib, I have given my word,’ Salim smiled mockingly.

‘I know,’ Villiers said. ‘Don’t tell me. To the Rashid, their word is everything.’

‘Exactly!’

Salim got to his feet as the camel approached. It dropped to its knees and Hamid, a young Rashid warrior in robes of ochre, a rifle slung across his back, came forward. He pulled on the line and the man at the other end fell on his hands and knees.

‘What have we here?’ Salim demanded.

‘I found him in the night, walking across the desert.’ Hamid went back to the camel and returned with a military-style water bottle and knapsack. ‘He carried these.’

There was some bread in the knapsack and slabs of army rations. The labels were in Russian.

Salim held one down for Villiers to see, then said to the man in Arabic, ‘You are Russian?’

The man was old with white hair, obviously exhausted, his khaki shirt soaked with sweat. He shook his head and his lips were swollen to twice their size. Salim held out the ladle filled with water. The man drank.

Villiers spoke fair Russian. He said, ‘He wants to know who you are. Are you from Fasari?’

‘Who are you?’ the old man croaked.

‘I’m a British officer. I was working for the Sultan’s forces in Dhofar. Their people ambushed my patrol, killed my men and took me prisoner.’

‘Does he speak English?’

‘About three words. Presumably you have no Arabic?’

‘No, but I think my English is probably better than your Russian. My name is Viktor Levin. I’m from Fasari. I was trying to get to Dhofar.’

‘To defect?’ Villiers asked.

‘Something like that.’

Salim said in Arabic. ‘So, he speaks English to you. Is he not Russian, then?’

Villiers said quietly to Levin, ‘No point in lying about you. Your people are turning up here today to pick me up.’ He turned to Salim. ‘Yes, Russian, from Fasari.’

‘And what was he doing in Rashid country?’

‘He was trying to reach Dhofar.’

Salim stared at him, eyes narrow. ‘To escape from his own people?’ He laughed out loud and slapped his thigh. ‘Excellent. They should pay well for him, also. A bonus, my friend. Allah is good to me.’ He nodded to Hamid. ‘Put them inside and see that they are fed, then come to me,’ and he walked away.

Levin was placed in a similar wooden halter to Villiers. They sat side-by-side against the wall in the cell. After a while, a woman in a black mask entered, squatted, and fed them in turn from a large wooden bowl containing goatmeat stew. It was impossible to see whether she was young or old. She wiped their mouths carefully, then left, closing the door.

Levin said, ‘Why the masks? I don’t understand that?’

‘A symbol of the fact that they belong to their husbands. No other man may look.’

‘A strange country,’ Levin closed his eyes. ‘Too hot.’

‘How old are you?’ Villiers asked.

‘Sixty-eight.’

‘Isn’t that a little old for the defecting business? I should have thought you’d left it rather late.’

Levin opened his eyes and smiled gently. ‘It’s quite simple. My wife died last week in Leningrad. I’ve no children, so no one they can blackmail me with when I reach freedom.’