For Kingdom and Country (28 page)

‘Uncle …’ Bingham-Smith was standing, his hand on Godwinson’s arm in an attempt to calm him.

Godwinson shook him off irritably. ‘Keep out of this, Casper.’

‘Sit down. Please, Colonel,’ Townshend said calmly.

Lock let go of the colonel’s cane, with a forceful shove. Godwinson glared back, the colour high on his neck, but he stepped away and sat himself down again.

‘You had two points, sir,’ Lock said, turning his gaze back on Townshend. He could hear Ross’s sharp intake of breath, but he no longer cared at what these men thought. They had already decided his fate. That much was clear. There was nothing left for him to do but get this over with and get the hell out.

Townshend narrowed his eyes and his mouth took on a hardness Lock had never seen before. The general took a deep breath through his nostrils.

‘Two. Did you kill Lieutenant Harrington-Brown?’

‘Yes.’ Lock didn’t even hesitate to reply.

Townshend sighed and slumped back in his chair. He stared at Lock long and hard and gave a barely detectable shake of his head.

‘I note with interest the engraved words on this dagger,’ the general said eventually, leaning forward and picking up the blade from the desk in front of him. ‘“For Kingdom and Country”.’

He raised his eyes and fixed Lock with a steely glare. ‘There’s no room in this war for selfish acts, Lock. You’ve disobeyed orders once too often.’

Bingham-Smith snorted, but fell silent when Townshend shot an angry glance his way.

‘You took matters into your own hands,’ the general continued, ‘and all you have to show for it is this file of useless documents and the blood of one of your fellow officers on your hands. I know you need to operate in a somewhat unorthodox manner, Lock, but murder?’

Lock remained silent, staring back at the general, using all his will power not to look at Bingham-Smith and the colonel.

Townshend gave a long, heavy sigh and passed his hand through his neatly combed hair. ‘I wash my hands of you, Lock. For King and country is how one should act, not for self, not for …’ He held up the knife, ‘… Kingdom and country. You will be escorted under guard back to Basra where you will face court martial. I’m sure you can guess what the inevitable outcome will be.’

Look stood still and didn’t show any reaction to what the general had just told him.

‘Well?’ Townshend said.

‘Sir?’ Lock said.

‘Have you nothing to say?’ Townshend blurted out, spraying spittle across the desk, his impatience getting the better of him.

‘I like the courtyard,’ Lock said, nodding past the general’s shoulder.

Townshend smashed his palm down on the table. ‘Ross! Get him out of here!’

The major indicated for Singleton to follow and made to leave. Lock put on his slouch hat, gave the general a smart salute, and turned on his heels, ignoring the gloating face of Bingham-Smith, and marched out of the door, with Ross and Singleton close behind.

Outside, Ross pulled Lock angrily back. There was a deep-set fire of anger in the major’s eyes, but Lock was beyond caring now.

‘This isn’t a game,’ Ross snapped. ‘What the hell do you think you are playing at?’

‘Oh, come on, sir. It’s all bullshit. You know it. Christ, even the old man knows it.’

Ross glared back at Lock, nostrils flaring, his face taut with anger.

‘What exactly do you bastards want of me?’ Lock said. ‘You set me up with this commission in the AIF, you employ me as a White Tab agent, and you tell me there’s a German spy – hell, a whole network of spies, working against us, and that you want me to put a stop to it. But every time I get somewhere, I find obstacles put in my way by the men on my own side. I followed Wassmuss’s trail on your lead, sir, and Harrington-Brown was in the way. He’s the rat and now he’s gone. One less obstacle.’

‘But we’re no closer to catching Wassmuss or the people behind him, are we?’ Ross said. ‘You killed a major suspect who probably had answers. He’s dead, so now we can’t interrogate him, and you can’t prove who he really was.’

‘But you know!’

‘What does that matter? Those men in there,’ Ross said jerking his head back towards the closed office door, ‘Christ, most of the bloody British command, think you’re a killer, Lock, an animal that needs to be not just neutered, but put down.’

Lock took a step closer to the major, their noses almost touching.

‘Do you know something, Major? Not only are you a cold bastard, but you’re a manipulative using backstabbing bastard, too. If you hadn’t secured my release from that prison in Van, if you hadn’t then recruited me to the bloody White Tabs and sent me off to China, then none of this would be happening. I would never have met Mei Ling, I would never have met Amy, and I would never have lost them both.’

Lock’s chest was heaving, and Ross opened his mouth to interrupt, but Lock wasn’t ready to stop.

‘You bloody well arranged my arrest in the first place, didn’t you?’ Lock added. ‘In Turkey, just so you could use me, so you could manipulate me like you do everyone around you. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if Harrington-Brown was spying for Wassmuss under your orders. You could support me. You could insist that Harrington-Brown was a traitor and that I had no choice in killing him. You have shaped me into a weapon that you wished you had the guts to be yourself. But you can’t, can you? Because you’re just the same as those fuckers in there, a yellow manipulative, self-serving coward.’

Ross slowly pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch. He didn’t say anything in response to Lock’s tirade, he just calmly went about the ritual of filling his pipe. Only he wasn’t calm, Lock could see that, he was angry. The major’s colouring hadn’t changed, but there was a rage emanating from him, and his hands were ever so slightly trembling. A clump of tobacco fell to the floor. Lock’s eyes watched its progress and when it hit the ground, he looked up and Ross was staring back at him.

‘Petty Officer Boxer,’ the major said softly, ‘escort Captain Lock here back to Basra, if you’d be so kind.’ He then dropped his eyes again and continued filling his pipe.

‘Pleasure, sir,’ Betty said. ‘Come on, Captain, we’ve a long journey ahead of us.’

Lock glared back at Ross waiting for him to deny his suspicions, to answer his accusations, but the major didn’t look up again. Lock swore and turned away.

Outside on the steps to the Customs House, three Red Caps were standing idly by smoking and talking quietly amongst themselves. They didn’t even look up when Lock emerged, blinking into the blazing sunlight, or when the American girl came out moments later. A fourth figure, who was sat a little apart from the Red Caps, did notice Lock and Betty, though. He got to his feet and sauntered over to them.

‘Still alive, Sergeant Major?’ Lock said, a touch of disappointment in his voice.

‘You in the shit again? Sah.’ Underhill said with a twinkle of glee in his eye.

‘How ever did you guess?’

Underhill stood with his back to the Red Caps, blocking them from Lock’s view.

‘’E was a pompous prick,’ the sergeant major sniffed, glaring up at Lock, ‘that ’Arrington-Brown. Never trusted ’im, never liked ’im.’

Lock stared back at Underhill in surprise, and then glanced at Betty.

‘You go easy, sah. And I’ll see you soon. Unless you go and get your bleedin’ ’ead blown off,’ Underhill smirked. ‘Now there’s a thought, eh?’

Lock frowned, totally at a loss to what the sergeant major was playing at.

‘I … I’ll try … Sergeant Major,’ he said warily.

Underhill nodded to Betty. ‘Go careful, miss.’

She gave the sergeant major a casual salute, then pulled Lock after her.

Lock hesitated, looking back at Underhill. ‘Why?’

Underhill glanced over his shoulder at the three Red Caps, who were still minding their own business, then he stepped a little closer to Lock.

‘White Tabs, innit,’ he hissed, and tapped his nose.

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

The sergeant major shrugged. ‘Orders, sah. Ain’t cus I like you,’ he spat, then grinned. ‘We both knows that. But can’t be ’avin’ no court martial ending yer life now, can we? That’s gonna be my pleasure. Some day.’

Lock narrowed his eyes. Was Underhill joking? He didn’t joke. He was a sly, cunning bastard. No, he was up to something. Perhaps he was going to shoot him the moment he turned away, saying that he had tried to escape. Lock licked his lips.

‘Go on, then. The Yankie bint’s waitin’,’ Underhill sneered, jutting his chin over towards Betty. ‘I ain’t gonna shoot you in the back, if that’s what yer thinkin’. ’Onest to God.’

Lock nodded and backed away a few paces. Underhill was watching him, a curious expression across his pug-ugly face, but the three Red Caps were still paying them no attention. Lock glanced at the open doorway to the Customs House. Empty. No sign of Ross or the sentry. He gave a curt nod to Underhill, then turned and ran.

There was a narrow alleyway that passed down the side of the Customs House. It was in deep shadow, cool, but stank – like all alleyways did – of fecal matter. Lock breathed through his mouth, keeping close behind Betty.

‘What a charming aroma.’

‘Shut it, bud,’ she growled over her shoulder.

They came out onto an open stableyard and Betty made her way quickly across to a pair of large barn doors. Lock followed and helped her slide them open. Inside, there was a parked automobile. It was a civilian touring car that had been converted into an armoured vehicle. The rear sedan seat had been removed and replaced by a platform, upon which a Hotchkiss M1900 8mm machine gun with an armour plate shield had
been mounted. The platform was surrounded by a bulwark, so, apart from the gunner, there was only room for a driver and a passenger to sit cramped under a small rain cover roof at the front.

‘Get in,’ Betty said, and she began to crank-start the motor.

‘How did you know about this?’

‘Until … recently … it was … the pride … and joy … of the governor … of Amara,’ she said, in between hard jerks of the cranking handle.

‘Let me do—’

The engine backfired, then coughed into life with a spew of black exhaust smoke. Betty straightened up, brushed her hands, and grinned at Lock. The motorcar began to vibrate from side to side, making a gentle tock-a-tock-a-tock noise as it idled.

‘I think we’d best go before it shakes apart,’ Lock said, climbing into the driving seat.

‘Hey, shift,’ Betty said, hitching up her skirt a little as she climbed up the same way. Lock scooted over, and Betty plonked herself down behind the wheel. She released the handbrake and, with a loud crunch, engaged the gears and the car chugged off.

Lock held on tight as Betty swung the motor vehicle out of the stableyard and onto the side street that ran north away from the Customs House.

Lock leant out and glanced back the way they had come. The road was empty.

‘We being followed?’ Betty shouted over the engine and the rushing wind.

‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Lock said, sitting back in his seat. ‘Do you think there’s ammo for that?’ he jerked his head at the mounted machine gun above them.

Betty shook her head. ‘Didn’t find any.’

‘Pity.’

They were doing a steady 10mph now, heading west away from the Tigris. The motor vehicle bounced and shuddered along, Betty doing her best to steer them away from the potholes in the rough, hard, dusty streets.

‘Are you deliberately aiming for those holes?’

Betty ignored the remark and then suddenly jerked the wheel to the side and they crashed and bounced in and then back out of a particularly nasty hole.

‘Like that one?’

‘
Touché
.’

They rattled on, passing through a row of low storerooms and into a deserted railhead. Betty swung the automobile to the left and they juddered over the single rail tracks to head west. The depot looked empty, with not a soul about that Lock could see. There were no locomotives, either, or sidecars, just a lone carriage parked under a thin line of palms to the right. It too looked abandoned.

‘He’s OK that SM,’ Betty said after a while.

‘He’s a shit.’

Betty glanced at him and gave another one of her lopsided grins.

‘You were pretty hard on the old man.’

‘The general?’

She shook her head. ‘The major.’

‘I said it like it is.’

They swung out onto another road, larger and busy with mostly pedestrian traffic. Betty gave a toot of the horn and swerved skillfully, narrowly missing a team of camels laden with sacks of grain. The Arabic abuse shouted at them was instantly lost as they trundled past in a cloud of choking dust.

‘It’s all true,’ Lock said, eying Betty. ‘He’s a using bastard, don’t you forget that.’

‘Uh-huh. That’s what my mom says.’

Lock adjusted his position in the hard leather seat so he could watch Betty as she wrestled with the steering wheel, twisting it hard from left to right as she avoided the many native hazards wandering about on the road in front of them.

Lock smiled to himself. He liked this girl, he thought, the confidence that oozed out of her, the way she carried herself. He especially liked the way she bit her lower lip when concentrating. He decided he was going to ask her something, something profound. But he changed his mind and let the question hang.

‘Here’s your ride,’ Betty said, breaking Lock from his thoughts.

He looked up as the automobile skidded round a corner.

They were now on the outskirts of Amara and had arrived at what looked to be a playing field of some kind. There was a stretch of scrub grass and a covered spectator stand over to one side. Beyond that the flat, desolate desert stretched out to the horizon, bleak and empty. In the middle of the field, parked facing south, was the aeroplane Lock had seen a number of times over the past few days, but always up in the sky. Now, up close, on the ground, it looked frighteningly fragile.

Betty slowed the automobile, and pulled up with a juddering halt about twenty feet away from the aeroplane.

A tall man dressed in khaki overalls was tinkering with the engine by the rear-facing propeller. He straightened up and shouted something to the pilot who was leaning down from the cockpit up above him.