Kingdoms Fall - The Laxenburg Message (12 page)

On the shore, a caique was waiting to take
Gresham and al-Faruqi directly to Imbros. The Greek fisherman led them to the small
enclosure on the deck where there were benches and tea with lemon to drink. As
the sailboat drew away from shore, Gresham leaned his head against the wall to
rest. Al-Faruqi finally appeared to relax and removed Gresham’s ripped and
bloody coat.

“Here is your coat, Mister Wilson, thank you.”
said al-Faruqi to Gresham. “You have been very helpful to me.”

Gresham nodded, taking the coat.

“I have a question, Englishman: You referred
earlier to ‘the Turks.’ Do you consider all your Ottoman enemies to be Turkish?”

“No more than I consider all British to be
Englishmen.”

“Are you not?” asked al-Faruqi abashedly.

“No, indeed. I’m half-Irish, by the way.”

“I apologize for my rudeness.”

“It’s not my place to ask questions, but
there’s one thing I’m curious about. How many of the officers in the Ottoman
army are not Turkish?”

“Hundreds, oh yes – there are many Arabs, some
Kurds, Assyrians; there were also Ermeni, but they are all dead now.”

“You mean Armenians? What happened to them?”

“Enver Pasha believes the Armenians fight for
Russia, so they were executed.”

“Enver Pasha – he’s the man in command of the
Ottoman Turkish armies, right?”

“Yes, correct. Last winter, he fought a great
battle against the army of Russia at Sarikamish. The Russians were advancing
through the Caucasus Mountains from Kars. Enver Pasha halted their advance, but
then his counter-attack stretched his men and supplies too thin, and the
Russians won a devastating victory. Very many of our soldiers were killed; it
was a terrible defeat. Enver Pasha claims that his Armenian troops turned
against him and fought for Russia. No one believes this to be true, but that is
his justification.”

“So then Enver Pasha ordered the execution of
all the Armenian officers?”

“No. He ordered the death of all Armenian men.
Also, the Armenian women, children and the elderly are being taken from their
homes and cast out of Ottoman territory. Very many will die. Kurds will be
next, I suspect. Then perhaps the Arabs? Who knows? Enver Pasha and his men
have long hated these peoples.”

“Wait a minute. You’re telling me that Enver
Pasha is killing
all
the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire?”

“It is happening, yes. A thousand thousand will
die, more than man can count.”

“Good God! That’s outrageous!” Gresham was
truly shocked. It was hard to imagine that any nation, even the Turks, would
attempt to murder a whole portion of its people. Even the British bastards in
Ireland had not yet tried to murder all the Irishmen. Gresham hadn’t been to
church in many years – his mother had been Catholic and often spoke with great
passion about her devotion to the Pope, whom she called the Lion of Rome – but
now, without thinking, Gresham crossed himself.

“Yes, it is haram, a very great sin. There are
many officers in the army who wish to take no part in such evil. In Damascus,
it is widely debated what to do.”

“Is that why you are here?”

“I have said all I will say for now, my friend.
You will forgive me if I rest now, please. I will have much to say when we
arrive.”

Al-Faruqi closed his eyes, but Gresham could no
longer rest. The sun was beginning to rise as the little caique sailed gently
past the British destroyers with their guns still blasting and left behind the
tens of thousands of British, French and ANZAC soldiers who would go on
hopelessly attacking the now deeply entrenched and heavily reinforced Turkish
positions on the ridges around Suvla Bay.

G
resham waited beside
the entrance to the medieval stone fortress on Tenedos, one of the islands off
the coast of Asia Minor. The island was a Turkish territory, but since it was
inhabited exclusively by Greeks, the dilapidated fortress had been taken over
by the British and made into a field hospital for casualties brought off from
the Gallipoli peninsula. Inside the curtain wall was a great assembly of tents
and dugouts where some of the injured officers were being tended. At the
entrance gate, there was a steady stream of stretchers being walked into the
bailey where the tents had been erected, and Gresham didn’t want to get in
their way. It had been over a week since he had last been on the peninsula
himself. While the fighting had abated since then, there were still casualties
being taken off every day. As he feared, the Turkish commanders had been able to
move up enough reserves and supplies to halt the Allied advance. Now both sides
were deeply entrenched, in some places just a few yards from each other. The
Allies were at a standstill, and the weather had only gotten hotter and the
water shortage more severe. More and more of the casualties were sick rather
than wounded. At last, Gresham was able to duck into the gate of the fortress.
He quickly found a nurse who could take him to see Wilkins.

“Hello there, old man. What a surprise,” said
Wilkins with good cheer as Gresham was led to his bed. Wilkins was sitting up.
The left side of his face was covered in thick white bandages that wrapped
around his forehead and neck, but Gresham was pleased to see the bandages were
clean and showed no sign of seeping blood.

“How are you, Wilkins?” replied Gresham.

“It’s not too painful, although I’m told it’s
still rather ghastly to look under the bandages. Did you hear about it?”

“Yes, in general terms. How will it turn out?”

“The face will be alright – scarred, of course,
but mostly on the side and thankfully no loss of vision – and I may end up with
a rather mangled ear.”

“I’ll buy you a good hat.”

“What about you? You’re unharmed, it seems.”

“Yes, actually I wasn’t at the front very long;
I got sent back with a prisoner – some high-ranking Turk officer. Had to keep
him under guard for a few days and then never got sent back up.”

“Whose company were you finally assigned to?”

“Well, I’m no longer with the Manchester
Regiment, actually.”

“You’re not? Who, then?”

“Mostly I’ve been running errands for some
people at GHQ. Not very exciting, really. I hear you did a damn good job on the
ridge, though.”

“Have you? I’m so glad to hear it. I really
didn’t want to muck it all up. We reached the top of the ridge again, but
that’s where the Turks had drawn their line in the sand. We tried desperately
to penetrate their trenches, but their wires were completely untouched by our
artillery barrage.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve heard that.”

“The number of casualties was very high, I’m
sorry to say. You know poor Keeling died not ten feet from me.”

 “Yes, I heard they got him. There were
heavy casualties all along the lines.”

“Eventually the Yorks came up to relieve us and
found me unconscious in the trench with only eighteen men of my company still
alive. Say, did you hear about the Fifth Norfolks?”

“Yes, I heard.” Gresham didn’t care to talk
about the Norfolks or think about what might have happened to them and Sergeant
Hart.

“An entire battalion gone – just gone, not even
a wounded man left to be found,” said Wilkins. “No one can believe it. They
marched off into the smoke and haven’t been seen since.”

Gresham was silent a moment. He wanted to
change the topic of conversation. “They say Italy has now declared war on the
Turks, but then again the Italians have been at war with the Austrians since
May,” he said.

“You know,” continued Wilkins, “I’m allowed to
walk about outside if I’m accompanied. Do you have time for a stroll?”

“Certainly. In fact, I came to Tenedos just to
see you.”

“Did you? That’s very kind, really. Give me a
moment to change out of my pajamas and I’ll meet you just outside.”

Gresham wandered through the hospital tent,
which was clean and orderly and breezy. There was a wide range of wounded men,
from those who were destined to recover and return to the trenches like Wilkins
to those whose fate was yet unclear, but generally the wounds seemed pretty
bloodless. The men who had lost limbs or suffered other permanent
disfigurements were taken right off to Egypt where the British hospital was
more like a morgue.

Gresham saw a young R.C. priest sitting on a
bed, talking grimly with an older officer who showed no obvious wounds at all.
The priest reminded Gresham of the young, cheery vicars who took to the streets
in Manchester to “save” the boys like Gresham who no longer had a home. Gresham
had lived with his mother, of course, but she had died of a fever when Gresham
was still quite young, so he lived in the streets with countless other homeless
and abandoned boys. They slept in abandoned factories and warehouses and stole
food. Of course, attempts were made to bring the boys to orphanages and foster
homes, but nothing could make them stay and many ran away again and again.
Sometimes the vicars or priests would come and talk to the boys about their
salvation and serving God. Gresham had heard stories about some of those men
and the other things they wanted from the boys, and he had learned to stay away
from them altogether. Yet he accepted that for some, like Wilkins whom Gresham
had seen praying quietly on more than one occasion, religion was a more
respectable, reassuring and motivating power.

Wilkins and Gresham met in front of the
fortress and walked to a quiet café down by the harbor. They sat in the sun,
watched the lighters arrive with the wounded and small fishing boats come and
go, and drank tea with a little whisky and lemon in it.

“Say, David, I heard a strange thing about the
Norfolks. Apparently a very tall Sergeant joined their battalion immediately
before the offensive began. You don’t suppose that was Sergeant Hart, do you?
It only struck me as interesting because, if you haven’t heard, the Sergeant
has gone missing.” Gresham wondered if Wilkins was fishing for information. One
thing about Wilkins, he was a damned clever bastard.

“James, is it true that you speak seven
languages besides English?”

“What?’ Said Wilkins, surprised. “Yes, yes,
always had a thing for languages, since I was a lad.”

“What languages do you speak fluently?”

“Well, speaking is far easier than writing, at
least for me. Let’s see – French, of course, Italian, German, Greek – both
modern and classical, Russian, and a bit of the Slavic languages – Serbian and
so forth. And I picked up a little of the Egyptian Arabic in Alexandria as
well.”

“That’s remarkable. I learned quite a bit of
the Irish language as a lad, but I struggled with Latin and Greek when someone
finally tried to teach ‘em to me. It’s a wonder that you were placed in the lines
when you would be so very helpful in other ways.”

“Perhaps so. Between you and me, Father tried
to get me placed in the Foreign Office, but I resisted.”

“Would that have been so terrible?”

“Oh I don’t mean it that way at all. It’s
difficult to explain.”

Wilkins grew pensive, and Gresham let him alone
for a while as they sipped their tea and watched the ships; there was a fresh
breeze off the water and the sun was pleasant. Gresham was not the son of an
English Lord, but he understood that Wilkins’ situation was more complicated
than his own: Gresham had no family and no future apart from what he made for
himself. Wilkins had a family reputation to live up to.

“James, I’d like to ask a favor of you.”

“Of course, please ask,” said Wilkins, waking
from his own reverie.

“I’m going to Salonika, and I’d very much like
you to come with me.”

Wilkins laughed loudly, then quickly raised his
hand to his wounded face. “Ow–ow-ow. Good Lord, it hurts to laugh. Honestly,
David, I can’t fathom you at all. Salonika of all places, in Greece?”

“That’s the one.”

“You know that as a company commander my first
duty must be to the men.”

“You’re not commanding anymore. Davenport has
come in from Alexandria.”

“Oh . . . I see. Of course I expected that,”
said Wilkins quite calmly despite his disappointment. Even though he knew Major
Davenport would be returning to the regiment, Wilkins more than hoped that his
leadership on the ridge had earned him a company of his own. It seemed he would
instead resume his duties under Davenport.

Wilkins knew he had received a certain amount
of deferential treatment due to his family connections, but he did not expect
nor want promotion on that basis alone. On the other hand, he had worked hard
to make himself a good officer, he had successfully led his men with courage
into battle, and he had behaved with honor as a dutiful subject to King George
on his family’s behalf. None of those accomplishments, it would seem, counted
for much any longer. He regarded Gresham for a moment with a mixture of curiosity
and envy. Gresham was no one. Gresham was just a good soldier – a good soldier
who did what he was told. “Why are you going to Salonika?” He asked finally.