Scorpion Sunset (2 page)

‘He also promised we'd be treated well and with respect on the journey. It would appear Townshend's surrendered to a liar.'

A crowd of men rose en masse from the ground and rushed, as much as it was possible for anyone in their condition to move quickly, towards the Turkish lines. Evans limped back through the throng on bare feet. He was hugging two loaves of black bread to his bare chest.

‘Where the hell are your boots and shirt, man?' Crabbe reverted to his sergeant major's parade ground voice, reminding everyone within earshot that unlike most officers he'd risen through the ranks.

‘Swapped them for bread, sir. I'm starving. The Turks have set up a market in front of their lines. Boys are exchanging all sorts for food. Anything has to be better than the bricks the Turks gave us. I know you told us to soak them in water, sir,' Evans said to John, ‘but the water just sits on top of them and laughs at us. I tried putting mine in my tin mug and covering them, but they're no softer now than they were when they went in ten minutes ago.'

‘You did boil the water?' John took the mug Evans unhooked from his belt.

‘The Indians did, sir. They're always the first to start a cook fire. But begging your pardon for my French, sir, they, like the rest of us, have bugger all to cook.'

John eyed his finger and decided it couldn't be any grubbier than the biscuits in the bottom of Evans's mug. He poked them. As Evans said, they were as hard as cobblestones for all the grimy layer of water on top of them.

Evans held up one of his loaves. ‘This isn't as soft as our bread, sirs. At least I don't think it is, but it's been so long since I tasted decent bread, I won't know the difference. It seemed to make sense to swap my boots. We won't need half the kit we're carrying, and in this heat every ounce weighs as heavy as a ton.'

‘And when you have to march tomorrow?' Crabbe demanded. ‘How far do you think you'll get without boots?'

‘The Turk who gave me the bread …'

‘Gave you, Evans!' Crabbe thundered.

‘Swapped me, sir,' Evans corrected. ‘He said we're all going up river to Baghdad on steamers. Ranks as well as officers. There's one berthed behind us. I saw it.'

‘Even if the Ottoman Army does give us river passage to Baghdad and by some miracle transport on to whatever Godforsaken corner of Turkey they decide to send us, do you think the prison camp will be next to the quayside?' Crabbe raged. ‘The enemy knows every man jack of us will try to escape. Ranks and officers. They'll lock us up well away from the river and any towns or villages where people may be inclined to help us, and that, you idiot, means we'll be trekking miles. Your feet will be cut to ribbons, and when you can't walk one more step you'll be left behind to the mercies of the Bedouin and the vultures. I'm not sure which will be worse.'

John frowned. ‘What other kit are the boys exchanging for food?'

‘Overcoats …'

‘Overcoats!' Crabbe thundered.

‘We'll be well shot of them in this heat, sir,' Evans declared defiantly.

‘Have you seen the Turks queuing up to give you blankets?'

‘No, sir, but they have to give us bedding …' Evans faltered. ‘Don't they?'

‘Has it escaped your notice that we're at the mercy of the Ottoman Army? They don't “have to” give us anything, boy. Not even water. I haven't seen a Turk shed a tear for the boys who've died on this bloody forced march from Kut. Have you morons forgotten how cold it gets at night in the desert even in the hot season? And when this stifling weather ends the rains and winter set in. How long do you think you'll last without boots in your tropical kit?'

‘Winter … sir … we'll be home before winter. Won't we?' Evans blanched beneath the layer of grime on his face.

Crabbe shook his head in despair. ‘Do you have a telegraph to the India Office, the War Office? Or the Kaiser or Halil Bey? You're just one bloody fool in an army of bloody fools, boy. We're going to be imprisoned for the duration. That means until the end of the war. My prediction is it's likely to be years, not months.'

‘Go, find your friends and eat your bread, Evans,' John advised. He felt sorry for the boy and all the others who hadn't thought further than their next meal. Given the blows, kicks, foul water, and inedible food the Turks were distributing among the British POWs, who was to say that the men who'd settled for a full stomach weren't right, when it looked highly likely they'd all be dead soon.

‘Bloody fool,' Crabbe muttered as Evans left.

‘He is,' John agreed. ‘But only a fool would be here. The wise men sorted themselves cushy berths in Whitehall before Force D was dreamed up by the Indian Office.'

Crabbe gave a crooked smile. ‘You have to laugh.'

‘Why?'

‘They called us Force D and sent us to Sinne. You know what the Arabs say about Mesopotamia. ‘When God created hell it was not bad enough so he made Mesopotamia …'

‘And added flies.'

Crabbe and John turned to the man who'd spoken. An immaculately tailored German captain, who looked cleaner than any man had a right to given the country they were in, bowed and clicked his heels.

‘Gentlemen, you are British officers?'

‘We were,' Crabbe replied dryly.

‘Hauptmann Meyer at your service.'

‘Major Mason,' John indicated Crabbe, ‘Major Crabbe. Excuse us for not rising. We're tired after taking our daily stroll, Captain Meyer.'

‘You British and your sense of humour. Major Mason, Major Crabbe. Cigarettes?' Meyer took two packets from his tunic pocket and handed them one each.

Crabbe eyed the captain suspiciously. ‘What's this for?'

‘A gift to enemies I admire. The odds were stacked against you but you fought bravely, and held out through many more months of siege than your king or country could reasonably expect of you. Skeletons would be fatter than your officers and men.'

John asked. ‘Do you know where we're being taken?'

‘The Turks don't confide in us Germans and contrary to what you might have heard, German Command doesn't wield any authority over our Ottoman allies, but I suspect you'll be taken to Turkey and housed well away from the front lines.'

‘So we've heard,' John opened his packet of cigarettes.

‘Our rank and file?' Crabbe pressed.

‘They need labourers to build the final sections of the Berlin-Baghdad railway.'

‘Surely they won't expect the men to work until they've recovered their health?' Crabbe questioned.

‘The Turks can and will, Major Crabbe.'

‘Then they'll kill even more of our men than they already have.' Crabbe had difficulty containing his anger.

‘I have a cousin who was captured on the Western Front. He wrote to his mother from a prison camp in England to assure her that he is being treated well, as are all his fellow German POWs. Germany is caring for the British POWs just as conscientiously. I know, because my father is in charge of one of the prison camps and he takes his responsibilities for the welfare of the soldiers who have surrendered to the Germans very seriously. But the Turks,' Meyer shrugged, ‘are different. They do not place the same value on life as we Europeans. I doubt ten out of every hundred British soldiers here will live to see your country again. Good evening, Major Mason, Major Crabbe.'

Armenian Christian Apostolic Church, Kharpert Plain, Ottoman Empire

April 1916

An icy cold permeated upwards from the flag-stoned floor and filtered through the stone walls of the church. It froze the air and Rebeka's blood. It didn't help that she, like all the Armenian women and children packed into the building at rifle point by Turkish gendarmes, was too paralysed by fear to move. Terrified of what lay ahead, surrounded by the dispossessed, deafened by the wails of hysterical women and the cries of children upset by the sight of their mothers' tears, she remained crouched on the floor, aware that whatever fate had in store, it was out of her hands.

Like their menfolk who had been ordered to report to the town square three days ago, the women and children had been told to make their way to the church at two o'clock that afternoon with sufficient food for three days' travel and a change of warm clothing. After waiting patiently in a slow-moving line for over an hour a Turkish gendarme had ticked her, her mother's, grandmother's, and sisters' names off a list so thick it resembled a book.

Her mother had settled their family as close as she could to the altar rail on the premise that proximity to hallowed ground would ensure God and the Blessed Virgin would look after them, especially her grandmother, who was confused as to what was happening. Their neighbour Mrs Gulbenkian, the dairyman's wife, laid claim to a patch of floor next to them.

‘You know all our men are all dead?' she whispered.

‘How dare you suggest such a thing?' Rebeka's mother demanded indignantly. ‘The men have been marched south to work on farms where we will join them.'

‘You choose to believe the gendarmes' lies?'

‘They wouldn't have asked the men to bring warm winter clothes as well as food for three days if they had meant to kill them. The gendarmes would have shot them in the town square when they assembled. They collected them to work in the fields to produce food for the Ottoman Army. Everyone knows that the Turks make poor farmers.'

‘They want to get rid of all of us Armenians because we are Christians. The Turks want a Muslim country, which is why they killed our men. The gendarmes shot the old men who couldn't walk and the cripples first,' Mrs Gulbenkian asserted.

‘They loaded them into carts. I saw them pass at the end of our road. As soon as the carts were out of sight of the town, the gendarmes pulled the weakest from the carts and shot them. Don't tell me you didn't hear the sound of the rifles.'

‘They were warning shots.'

‘The American missionary Mr Brackett and Mr Bilgi followed the men when they were marched out. Mr Brackett told me himself that he had seen the bodies of all our men, including the old and the crippled. He recognised your husband's corpse and my husband's, and Anusha's Ruben. Every last one of them, all of them had been shot and their bodies heaped up in Green Horse Canyon.'

‘I don't believe you.' Rebeka had never seen her mother react so fiercely. ‘And I'd appreciate you keeping your lies and stories to yourself, Mrs Gulbenkian. Do not repeat them in front of my mother and daughters.'

‘First they killed the men, now it's our turn,' Mrs Gulbenkian persisted. ‘Soon there'll be no Christian Armenians in Turkey or the whole of the Ottoman Empire. They only waited three days to collect us so they could be sure there'd be no men left in hiding to fight for us or our honour.'

‘Enough! Stay away from my family!' Rebeka's mother ordered.

Mrs Gulbenkian shrugged and turned her back to them.

‘Do you think Mrs Gulbenkian could be right?' Rebeka whispered into her mother's ear.

‘I think she is talking a lot of nonsense. Look after Mariam and your grandmother while I see to Veronika and Anusha. Too many of the gendarmes are looking at them for my liking.'

Rebeka, the second of four daughters, had long accepted that she was the ‘plain one'. She had been relegated to working in the jewellery business founded by her maternal grandfather, because there was little hope of her attracting a financially secure husband. She didn't resent her status, though; rather she revelled in the independence it gave her, like her mother's spinster sister.

Her mother retied the scarves around Anusha and Veronika's heads so the cloth hid as much of their faces as possible, as well as their hair. Mrs Gulbenkian occasionally looked in their direction but when Rebeka's mother glared back at her she didn't attempt to speak to them again.

Time crept on. The shadows lengthened and more and more of the gendarmes entered the church. Apparently oblivious to its holy purpose they shouldered their rifles as they stood in front of the door, laughing and joking amongst themselves. Occasionally one of them would point to an exceptionally pretty girl and the others would snigger and make lewd comments.

Her sister Veronika was the first to be singled out. The gendarme who grabbed her arm, Mehmet, had always had an eye for her, and a reputation every girl in the town feared. When he tried to drag Veronika forcibly from them, her mother screamed and clung to her, locking her hands around Veronika's waist.

Horrified, Rebeka grabbed Veronika's leg, Anusha her arm.

‘You will not dishonour my daughter.'

Those were the last words her mother spoke.

Mehmet released his hold on Veronika, and her mother clasped her in her arms. He turned, lifted his rifle, aimed, and fired.

The bullet lodged in Veronika's temple.

Her mother screamed. A second gendarme fired. Her mother's body fell across Veronika's.

Mehmet reloaded his rifle, pointed it at Rebeka and Mariam, and stretched out his hand to Anusha. Her eldest sister didn't protest, she rose and allowed herself to be led outside, as so many other girls were.

The church door remained open. The screams of the ‘chosen' women and girls wafted in, high pitched, harsh, disturbing and discordant.

‘They are being dishonoured.'

Rebeka looked into Mrs Gulbenkian's eyes.

‘Come, child, I'll help you cover your mother and sister.'

She took two sheets from one of the bags her mother had packed and handed one to Mrs Gulbenkian. The whole time she helped the older woman lay out her mother and younger sister, she listened to the screams and wondered when it would be her turn to be ‘dishonoured'.

Chapter Two

Basra

May 1916

Dr Georgiana Downe left the Lansing Memorial Mission House, where she lived with the staff when she wasn't on duty in the Lansing Mission Hospital, and closed the front door behind her.