All Honourable Men (35 page)

“Hakim effendi –
je crois que vous parlez français?”

Hakim worked out what Ranklin had said, nodded and led the way to one of the largest tents. They squatted on a carpet under a part of it held up as an awning, and Hakim called an order towards a group by a smouldering fire. Ranklin offered a cigarette and it was accepted with a grave nod.

“Your journey was good?” Hakim asked in French.

“It was not difficult. I am very sorry to learn of your father's illness . . .” The small talk went on while they attuned themselves to each other's accent. French might be beautiful, but it lacked the clarity of German when spoken in such situations.

Finally Hakim said: “You came to plead for the release of the Railway engineers.”

“So we thought. The Railway forgot to tell us they had been let go. But His Majesty's Government does not mind the delay to the Railway.”

Hakim thought about this. “And your country is a friend of France?”

“On most things, yes.” Hakim should understand friendship being qualified at a diplomatic level – but how did France
suddenly get involved? Beirut Bertie? – Ranklin began to sense his – doubtless delicate – footprints.

Hakim asked: “Is the ransom money ready to be paid?”

“I think most of it. But it is not complete. Some person has taken some of the gold and put in lead.”

“Will the real gold be sent?”

“I don't know – but why should it, if the Railway engineers have been sent back?”

Hakim might have been thinking; equally, he might be deliberately but politely keeping his thoughts to himself.

Ranklin tried another approach: “They have brought in a soldier: Zurga Bey, a colonel, I think.” Hakim showed no sign of recognition. “I believe they plan to kill you all. Your father, too.”

“They have tried already.”

“They won't make the same mistakes this time. They know about your rifles, they've had time to plan. Now they have at least a machine-gun.” But without knowing just what Zurga planned, Ranklin was fencing in the dark. He wanted to be straight with Hakim – within moderation – but most of all he wanted to impress him. And had no feel for what would.

Apparently not a machine-gun. “A machine-gun is just like many rifles, no? And a hundred rifles could not capture this place. Not five hundred.”

As an ex-soldier Miskal might have had a better idea of what a machine-gun could do, but Hakim did have a point: Zurga would need more than machine-guns against walls several feet thick.

A boy, perhaps a servant or slave, brought across a brass tray of small, delicate coffee cups that seemed out of place in those rough-hewn, run-down surroundings. But there was no elaborate ceremony, pouring the first cup into the ground as a libation, such as Ranklin had read about. Hakim murmured something and drank and Ranklin did the same.

“Also,” Hakim said, “they will not attack while you and that woman are here.”

“I think they will. Else why did they let us come when the
railwaymen had been released? So I think the Railway would rather we were all killed together. Then they could say you – your father – murdered us and they were just taking revenge to please my Government.”

Hakim scowled and his brown eyes glittered. “They cannot say that!”

“When we are all dead, they can say anything they like.”

Hakim went on scowling, then returned to his earlier conviction: “But they cannot kill us here.”

Ranklin suppressed a sigh. People had roosted smugly in “impregnable” fortresses since time began; meanwhile even flies had learnt better than to sit around while you fetched the swatter.

Maybe he should say that, but Hakim was still no soldier. So instead he asked bluntly: “What do you still have that is worth a ransom?”

Hakim hesitated.

“The Railway already knows. Who can I tell?”

“They . . . things. To make a plan. A . . . map.” Hakim was out of his depth here.

“Can I see these things?”

Another hesitation, then he called the boy and sent him into the tent. He came out laden with a plane table – just a fancy drawing-board, really – a satchel of drawing instruments, a theodolite, notebooks – and a roll of paper.

And now Ranklin understood.

He should, of course, have guessed – or deduced. Streibl, sent to take over, wasn't a mere engineer, he was a railway planner – a surveyor. As the hostages had been. The paper, once unrolled, was what he now expected: a hand-drawn but very precise survey of the whole area, with trig points, spot heights and bearings neatly enumerated in Indian ink. The notebooks seemed to be about types of rock found, cross-referenced to the map.

This
was what you needed to build a railway – and if you hadn't got it, you must take weeks or perhaps months to do it again, with thousands of workmen standing idle in the building
season. Certainly worth a ransom to start with, and now worth all their lives – when Zurga rescued it from among their corpses.

He looked at Hakim curiously. “You do realise that by hanging onto this stuff, you've told them you understand its value? And now they can't pay the ransom, they have to storm this place to get it back? Did you, or your father, understand all along how valuable this was, or did someone . . .” He left the question unfinished: the answer had to be Beirut Bertie. Sabotaging the ransom, probably providing the rifles, even triggering the whole kidnap from the start; the man who knew this country and its people better than any European he'd met. Yes, our Bertie would understand the value of a survey.

He rubbed a hand over his face. So they had Bertie doing his best for France, Dahlmann and Streibl their best for the Railway and Germany, Zurga for his vision of Turkey, and himself and O'Gilroy putting in their few penn'orth for Britain. None motivated by self-interest, all honourable men.

God save the world from us honourable men.

“Please to be quiet as we pass here,” Bertie warned. “Above, there is a tunnel for the Railway, and it is guarded. But they cannot see this path, so . . .”

Soon after, an obvious path joined from that slope: the one Ranklin and Lady Kelso had descended from the tunnel a while earlier. And soon after that there was a damp, muddy patch and Bertie paused to study it. When O'Gilroy reached it, he saw that dozens of boot-prints had wiped out any mule-tracks. So now they might run up against the backside not only of mountain guns but their accompanying army.

Where the tributary joined, Bertie led across to the broad shingle beach and stopped there. “They have brought up soldiers by train,” he explained. “Probably from Adana. From the tunnel to the monastery they have to march . . .” he shrugged “. . . less than two hours. They must attack from in front, there is only one way, but the guns . . . What range do they have?”

“Mountain guns? – no more'n two-three miles.”

“So they may be up on the plateau or could be in the dry river before it.” He gestured beyond the distinctive peak. Corinna had been looking up at it, aware of what it reminded her of, but assuming that was just her, and its real name was Flagstaff Mountain or Finger Peak or something.

“In such mist,” Bertie carried on, “where would they put the guns?”

O'Gilroy knew the general principles of gunnery, and how to serve a couple of specific types, but of their tactical use . . . He shook his head. “No idea at all.”

“Then we can only assume they go no further than they
must, and at any moment. . .” He got carefully off his horse, slid the hunting rifle from its scabbard – and pointed it at O'Gilroy.

“Please drop the rifle. I trust it is not cocked? Ah, thank you.” O'Gilroy had had no choice. He didn't waste time saying daft things like “You wouldn't,” or “What do you mean by this?” He didn't know what Bertie meant, but was sure he meant it.

Corinna, on the other hand . . . “What the blazes are you up to?”

Bertie picked up the Winchester and slid it into his empty gun case. “I am taking your horses, only for perhaps two hours, so please to remove what you may need for that time.”

“Do as he says,” O'Gilroy said resignedly. He dismounted and took his food package from the saddle-bag. “Got some idea ye'll be able to take on an army better by yeself, have ye?”

“Possibly. I am – forgive me – still unsure about your loyalties. But be assured that I will return.”

“So after we've told you all we know,” Corinna said grimly, “you abandon us in wild country.”

Bertie smiled regretfully. “Only temporarily. But this matter is becoming so confused, I feel it is simpler to trust only myself. I do, you see, understand my own motives.”

She took her food parcel, then wrenched her big handbag free from the saddle and stood back, clutching it in both hands.

Bertie loosed the long leading rein from O'Gilroy's mount and tied it to his own saddle, then indicated that O'Gilroy should tie Corinna's horse in procession. O'Gilroy did so, and also stood well clear.

“Thank you.” Bertie lifted himself into the saddle, holding the rifle one-handed, his finger near but clear of the trigger. He kicked his horse forward, looking back to make sure the other two followed. Then he looked ahead.

Corinna took the Colt revolver from her handbag and cocked it as she strode forward. “M'sieu Lacan!”

Bertie looked round, began to swivel the rifle – and then
stopped. She was standing four-square, feet planted apart, holding the pistol two-handed at eye level.

He said: “Do lady bankers also shoot people?” He glanced at O'Gilroy, who was wearing an expectant smile. That was not reassuring.

Then the second horse, still ambling forward on the leading rein, reached the rear of Bertie's mount – which sensed this and pitched forward to lash a two-footed kick backwards. Bertie went one way, the rifle another, and both hit the shingle hard. O'Gilroy rescued the rifle first. It seemed undamaged; as for Bertie—

He raised himself carefully and painfully into a sitting position and began feeling his shoulders, elbows, ribs and ankles, swearing steadily in French.

“Really, M'sieu Lacan,” Corinna said, “I don't think lady bankers should have to listen to such language.”

Bertie scowled at her, debonair manner quite gone. He was just a middle-aged man who had been thrown from a horse and lost control of the situation besides.

“Any bones broken?” O'Gilroy asked.

“Every fucking one,” Bertie said bilingually.

O'Gilroy nodded and went to sort out the horses, but in the end didn't. Three “entire” Anatolian ponies tied together looked like a sport the ancient Romans might have invented. Luckily they seemed as good at avoiding kicks as kicking, and there was clearly no chance of them agreeing on which way to run off, so O'Gilroy left them to tire of it.

By then Bertie was practising limping with both feet, but hadn't found any actual breaks. “Lucky yer well padded,” O'Gilroy observed. “Where was yer going?”

The easy way he handled the unfamiliar weapon discouraged conversational sparring. “There is a, sort of, back way to the monastery. Not to invade, but they would let me in.”

Corinna looked at O'Gilroy. “If they'd let
him
in, we could—”

“No. Bit late for that. If the guns are pretty nigh in position, the Captain'll know it before we get there.” He
stood looking at the landscape in front of them. “Ye say there's a dry river runs crosswise up there, and the guns could be in it? Any way we could come down at it? Like through them?” He gestured at the thinly wooded foothills of Unmentionable Peak.

* * *

The guard at the gateway thought he had heard or seen something – Ranklin couldn't make out which. Now Hakim, and Ranklin beside him, were both peering. Visibility was still only half a mile but the mist wasn't a sudden curtain, just a gradual fading out. The trench was just the faintest of dark lines where you might see a man upright and moving quickly, certainly not one lying still or crawling slowly. Ranklin could see nothing.

Hakim said: “They might be sending the ransom.”

Cracks, whines and thuds shattered the air around them. Earth jumped from the patch in front of the doorway. They heard the distant rattle of a machine-gun.

Abruptly behind a nice thick wall, Ranklin growled: “Ça,
cen'est pas une rançon
.”

Lady Kelso looked up as Ranklin came in, moving cautiously on the uneven floor in the flickering lamplight. “So it's started.”

“Yes.”

“Do I understand one man's been killed already?”

“Yes. They all flocked to the front wall to return fire and one got his— got shot in the head. The rest are being a little more cautious now.”

“But there'll be others?”

Ranklin nodded. “I think there's worse to come.”

She stood up. “Well, I didn't come here to be Florence Nightingale and I haven't any first aid kit, but I've tended a few bullet and sword wounds before. They either got better or they died,” she added matter-of-factly.

Ranklin nodded without knowing why. “I came to ask if you're ready to go if we can find a way out.”

“I understand there's a secret way—”

“Then for the Lord's sake—”

“No. They can't take horses that way, and Miskal can't walk. And anyway, on foot won't they hunt us all down?”

“Not if we act like brigands and not soldiers. In this country a handful of rifles could hold up a battalion. But not cooped up here.”

She said: “If you can get Hakim to go, I'll stay here with Miskal.”

“For God's sake—”

“I don't think they'd harm us. Not if you're free to spread the word.”

She wasn't being brave. Not what men usually call brave. Just . . . matter-of-fact, perhaps. Making the best of each moment that arrived.