Operation Scheherazade
by Sinbad

Chapter 2

The Taylor family had taken a short break holiday in Aqaba, which is the only stretch of seaside in Jordan, an otherwise landlocked country. The red sea runs northwards from the Indian Ocean, separating Egypt and the African continent from Arabia, like a forearm with two fingers extended in a rude gesture. Aqaba is right on the fingernail of the eastern of these two fingers, on the short stretch of shoreline that belongs to Jordan. Across the bay and easily visible is Eilat, a seaside resort in Israel. And between the two is a few hundred yards of beach bounded at both edges with barbed wire – no-mans-land. You don't trespass there for fear of being shot by both Jordanian and Israeli soldiers on guard duty.

Aqaba is the city that Lawrence of Arabia captured from the Turks during the First World War, by approaching from inland, through Wadi Rum, a particularly oppressive hot arid desert. The Turkish military were prepared to resist an attack from the sea but did not expect an attack from the desert because it was believed to be impossible to march an army across Wadi Rum. Lawrence did it with an irregular army of Arab tribesmen, and achieved superstar status in the process.

That's the story of Lawrence's claim to fame and it is also Aqaba's claim to fame. In 1967, however, Aqaba consisted of a fishing village, and a little further along the beach a single large hotel and a dozen self-catering chalets in its grounds. It's difficult to see what the Turks were occupying and defending half a century earlier.

The Taylors loved to visit Aqaba and enjoy swimming in the warm sea and although it was a little expensive for a man of Roger Taylor's income they went several times a year. This last week had been a pleasant holiday for them, much the same as previous visits. But for young Ricky it would be memorable.

Ricky loved to swim, and had learned to water-ski with the help of the hotel's ski instructor. There were other activities too – the glass-bottomed boat took parties out to the coral reefs and cruised slowly while the paying passengers peered fascinated at the brightly coloured fishes below.

After tea everything changed. The evening breeze would strengthen and in the pleasant cool air the adults would sit and talk and drink on their verandahs, with mosquito coils burning and insect repellent applied to exposed flesh in the vain hope of avoiding the inevitable painful bites. This was the time of day that Ricky would go off on his own, not interested in the arcane chatter of the adults.

On one such evening Ricky was sitting on the beach in front of the hotel, his young flexible limbs enabling him to sit with his feet stuck out either side of his bottom without the pain that would accompany such a posture if a stiffer person tried it. He was idly building sandcastles when his attention was drawn to the arrival at the shoreline of a speedboat. There were three or four such boats that were a frequent sight around Aqaba but this was not one of them. The boat drove onto the beach and stopped, the engine note dying to a quiet putter. Four men made their way from the back of the boat along the gunwale to the bows, and then jumped one by one lightly from the boat onto the sand. They spoke a few words to the one man who remained on the boat and turned to make their way up the beach, while the boat's engine changed its note again and the boat reversed a short distance before turning and speeding back out to sea.

Ricky watched all this with mild interest. A group of hotel guests, he assumed, returning after a day's fishing. The four men were headed towards the hotel on a path that would take them close by Ricky and his sandcastles, walking not together in a group, but one by one spaced well apart. Three of them passed Ricky but the fourth paused and spoke.

“Hello young man!” Perfect English, with a very slight accent. Ricky looked up and realised he knew this man. The face looking kindly down at him was the same face that looked down from the wall of every shop in Aqaba village, and elsewhere in the country. It was the face of King Hussein.

Conscious of the need for good manners, but unsure of the correct form and uncomfortable about being seated in the royal presence, he replied “Hello, sir.”

“What does your father do?”

“He is the Assistant Representative at the British Council, sir.” Ricky was glad he knew his father's job. He didn't know what it entailed but he did know what it was called. It didn't occur to him at the time that this was an unusual conversation, that he could have expected the King to ask him his name and his age for instance, but later he realised that all was not as it seemed.

The other three men had noticed that the King had stopped to talk to the English boy, and one was walking back towards them. The King saw, and drew a wallet out of his pocket and took a banknote and gave it to Ricky. “Give this to your father. It's important.” he said, before turning and walking on, intercepting the other man and saying something to him so that he had to walk with the King in order to reply. Ricky felt that the King was keeping the other man away from him for some reason. He looked down at the money in his hand. One dinar, not a particularly generous gift from a king – enough to buy ten small bottles of Pepsi or five ice creams. The note was not a new one, it was creased and two of the corners were folded over. Someone had written something with a fountain pen along the top edge of the paper. In Arabic so Ricky couldn't read it. And he remembered that it wasn't even a gift for him – the King had said he had to give it to his father. He stood up, brushed the sand from his shorts and walked to the chalet that was the Taylor family residence for the week.

His father was absorbed in the telling of an involved joke, with an avid audience gathered around him. Each one had a glass in their hand and each had already drunk enough to be ready to laugh at the punchline whether it was funny or not. Ricky realised that now was not the time to deliver the dinar.

Shirley Taylor came up behind him and whispered in his ear. “We're all going to the fish restaurant to eat. You need to wash the sand off and change. Quick, now, we're going in a few minutes!”

He wasn't happy about that. He wanted all these people to go away and give him time alone with his Dad so that he could tell him all about his amazing encounter, and give him the King's dinar. But it wasn't going to happen.

Aqaba village was a small place, not geared up to dealing with tourists. Holidaymakers stayed at the hotel or in the hotel grounds, and rarely ventured beyond. Which was a pity because there were sights to be seen and experiences to be savoured. And one of the best of these was the Aqaba village fish restaurant.

Unlike any other eating place in Ricky's experience, the fish restaurant consisted of a small building housing only the kitchen, attached to a large verandah with a palm frond roof, mounted on wooden piles driven down into the beach and extending out beyond the shoreline over the water. The diners sat on the verandah around tables with plastic coated table cloths, and threw the bones and scraps from their plates onto the decking at their feet, from where feral cats would instantly take possession of these treats and make off with them.

Where else does a large glass fish tank against the wall of the kitchen serve as menu, so that you accompany the waiter to the tank and point to the fish you want to eat? And having ordered, a boat is sent out to catch your fish, which is then cooked and served within an hour after last swimming free. Freshness doesn't come better. Of course all of this takes time and a meal is an event that takes all evening. But the table is covered in tiny dishes, with a vast variety of foods. Boiled eggs, nuts, tomatoes, aubergines, Humus, toast, gherkins, olives, pickles,and countless other delicacies in small quantities so that those around the table could nibble as they talked. Some of the men would smoke a hookah, the tall glass jar of water on the ground by their feet and the mouthpiece at the end of the flexible tube gripped between their teeth like a pipe, or held in the hand between puffs so that they could take part in the conversation. Ricky loved the fish restaurant, cooled in the evening by the sea breeze and with the water lapping hypnotically below the boards of the floor. But he didn't want to go there tonight, not with a big party of people, not when he wanted his Dad to himself. He was the only child at the table and was not able to enter into the conversation – it was all much above his head. And that of course denied him the major pleasure of the evening – the company. He munched at nuts and various other nibbles, and he enjoyed his fish as did everyone else. But it was a miserable evening for him. His dinar note in his pocket made its presence felt as he thought of it and the King's instruction, which he still hadn't carried out. He would give it to his father at breakfast the next morning.

He woke with the dawn as usual and went for a swim. Half an hour later, tired and hungry, he trudged, dripping, back to the chalet, where the adults were beginning to stir. He changed out of his wet trunks and into his standard shorts and shirt in time for his mother to call him for breakfast. He took the dinar with him to the breakfast table and told the story of the encounter of the night before. His father took the note when he proffered it, but the whole thing fell flat for Ricky. He had expected his parents to be excited or at least interested that he'd met and talked to the King. Neither of them had had that privilege. But instead he felt that his story had not pleased them. And it dawned on him that his parents thought he was lying to them – that he'd made the story up. It clouded his enjoyment of the rest of the holiday and by the time the family packed up to make the long journey home he was feeling somehow guilty about the whole thing.

So now he could try again – to tell the story afresh to a willing and unbiased pair of ears. And he could tell straight away that his friend Chris had no doubts about its veracity. A true friend, he was happy with Ricky and for Ricky, not jealous or disbelieving about the meeting with the King.