Scorpion Sunset (7 page)

‘Their names?'

‘The maid's Florrie, the cook, Alice, the butler is Stevens, the valet Esher, and the footman is, or rather was, so young when I left home he was known as Billy. Does that make me Fabian enough for you?'

‘Fabian is too posh for the Valleys. My father is a Marxist.'

‘I don't blame him. If I had to hew coal underground for a living, I'd be campaigning for equal shares for all. But I don't know why we're having this discussion.'

‘We're having it because you and I are ridiculous together.'

‘Now you're being silly.'

‘Am I?' she questioned. ‘Be honest, Charles. How would your fine friends react if you took me to dinner?'

‘We're going to dinner tonight. In the Basra Club.'

‘I mean in one of their houses back in England.'

‘They'd be delighted to see you.'

‘They'd say they were delighted, because I'd be with you and they're polite. But they'd have trouble understanding my accent and I'd have problems sorting what cutlery to use with each course.'

‘Like a lot of other things, class, cutlery, and dinner parties with endless courses won't be a problem after this war. We'll have more than we can cope with just trying to survive.'

‘Things won't change that much.'

‘They already have. Kitty …' He hesitated. They had only known one another a few weeks but he knew he was in love with her. He knew because he'd been in love two years before, with a married woman who'd sent him away and told him to forget her. Emily Perry, Maud's mother, had died the day he'd left her. Apparently from a scorpion bite, but he'd been haunted by her death until something even more traumatic had happened to disturb the equanimity of his life.

‘If you're trying to tell me that you have another girl in England, that's fine, Charles. I have no right to expect …'

He laid a finger across her lips. ‘You have every right to expect me to behave honourably towards you, Kitty.'

She laughed. ‘You sound like a character in a melodramatic romance novel, Charles. What on earth does,' she mimicked his accent with uncanny accuracy, ‘“behave honourably” mean?'

‘There is no other woman, at least not one I love, but I have a past.'

‘I would be very concerned if a man of your age didn't.'

‘I'm sorry, I'm probably not making much sense …'

‘You're not.'

‘I need a little time to sort out my responsibilities. And when I have …' There was so much he wanted to say but it wasn't the right time. ‘We'll talk again.'

‘We're coming into the wharf.' She picked up her shawl.

Charles glanced at the boatman as he reached for the stick that had become indispensable since he suffered a leg wound. The man was too concerned with avoiding the other boats in the dock to watch what his passengers were doing. Taking advantage of his preoccupation, Charles bent his head to Kitty's and kissed her.

To his amazement, even after the conversation they'd had, she kissed him back.

Open prison for British Ranks, Baghdad

June 1916

Mitkhal rode his horse slowly out of the city towards the fenced off area the Turks had set aside to house the British ranks. The air grew putrid with the stench of raw sewage, men's sweat, and rotting flesh long before he reached the high metal wire that enclosed the camp. He dismounted at the gate, turned his horse's reins over to Ibn Shalan's servant, Farik, who'd accompanied him, and lifted a bundle from his saddle.

He approached the guard and handed him a fistful of silver. The guard counted it before unlocking the high wooden doors that had been reinforced with barbed wire. Mitkhal held the bundle close as he walked into the compound. As on all his visits, the ground around the single pump, the sole source of water for over four thousand men, was crowded with men patiently queuing to fill the motley collection of containers they'd scavenged to hold drinking water.

He looked for Warren Crabbe. He'd told him he would return at midday, but apart from the sun, the major had no way of knowing when midday was. Pocket and wrist watches, like everything of value – right down to the men's boots and underclothes – had been stripped and stolen from the British POWs by their Turkish and Arab guards.

He spotted Crabbe in the north-east corner of the fenced off area, shifted the bundle he was holding under his arm to protect it, and, stepping carefully, headed towards him. A few platoons were sitting in closed circles from force of habit. There were no camp fires because anything that could be used as fuel had long been burned, and the only food in evidence was the dreaded, thick black Turkish ‘biscuit'.

The handful of senior officers who'd been allowed to stay with the men and their sergeants had ordered latrine trenches to be dug, siting them at the furthest possible point from the entrance, but they had proved pitifully inadequate to cater for the needs of so many, especially as dysentery and cholera were endemic. As a result the ground around the northern half of the camp was damp, and slimed with human waste and excrement.

‘I meant to meet you at the gate so you wouldn't have to smell the aroma.' Crabbe pointed to the ‘facilities' behind him. ‘Am I late or are you early?'

‘Does it matter when both of us have time to spare?' Mitkhal handed the bundle he carried to the major. ‘Bread, cigarettes, dates, a couple of flasks of brandy.'

‘Thank you. I and some of the other men here wouldn't have survived this hellhole if it wasn't for you.'

Mitkhal lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘You won't have to survive it much longer.'

‘We're leaving?'

‘I spoke to an officer in Turkish HQ. They're clearing the camp in stages. The Dorsets will be marched out first thing in the morning.'

‘Marched – no transport?' Crabbe paled.

‘The American consul, Mr Brissel, is negotiating with the Turks. He's offered to supply carts to accommodate the sick and haul supplies. He's doing all he can as are some of the locals.'

‘Will Mr Brissel succeed in getting the Turks to accept the carts?'

‘He's hopeful.'

‘We need more than hope.'

Mitkhal slipped his hand inside his abba and unclipped his belt. He glanced around to make sure they weren't being watched, but most of the men around them were lying on the ground, their eyes closed.

Mitkhal rolled up the belt and handed it over. ‘Keep this hidden. There's a hundred gold sovereigns stitched into the lining.'

‘That's too much.'

‘Not for the number of men who'll be marching with you. You'll come across tribes along the way, Kurds, Bedouin, Yazidi … Armenian, if there are any of them left alive. The Turks are killing them faster than they're wiping out the British. Some of the tribes will hate the British, all will hate the Turks, but all love money and most will be prepared to sell you food if you offer them gold.'

‘Thank you. I'll take care to see you're repaid when the war is over.'

‘No need. As Harry would say, it's only money.'

‘As Harry would have said,' Crabbe corrected. ‘I pay my debts, Mitkhal.'

Mitkhal looked across to the gate where sappers' bodies were being piled on a cart. ‘The best way you can repay me is by surviving until the end of the war. How many have died here?'

‘Around twenty a day for the last week and the Turks don't give a damn. We've two medics with us but they have nothing. No drugs, no dressings, nothing.' Crabbe buckled the belt Mitkhal had given him around his waist. ‘Only this morning I sent six men down to the gate to wait for a cart to take them to hospital. Two died before it arrived.' Crabbe finished fastening the belt and closed his hands into fists. ‘Damn the bloody Turks. Doesn't anyone in the Indian Office or War Office know what's happening to us? Or don't they care?'

‘They know,' Mitkhal assured him. ‘Mr Brissel has sent telegrams to Washington with instructions to pass the information on to London and the War Office and the Indian Office.'

‘Too damned late for some men,' Crabbe cursed.

‘Mr Brissel is also filling the carts I told you about with blankets, disinfectant, food, and clothing to be sent into Turkey with you, but,' Mitkhal glanced around. ‘Even if he persuades the Turks to allow you to take them, the supplies won't be enough once they're divided among so many.'

‘But they'll help.' Crabbe's anger had been short lived. Weariness and resignation had again taken control.

Mitkhal didn't blame Crabbe. The more he gazed at the surroundings the more he found it difficult to believe that men could live in such foul conditions and remain sane.

The cart arrived to take away the dead and the guard was looking back into the camp, probably for him. A fistful of silver didn't buy more than a few minutes.

‘I have to go.'

Crabbe nodded.

‘I'll follow you after you march out and bring you more food and money if I can. Don't look for me. I'll turn up when you least expect me, and always with the natives so as not to arouse your guards' suspicions.'

Crabbe clasped Mitkhal's arm. ‘Don't risk your life on our account. We're all dead men, Mitkhal.'

‘Not if I have a say in the matter. Besides, I'm an Arab, I risk nothing.'

‘Harry could pass as an Arab, and the Turks killed him,' Crabbe reminded him.

‘I could still get you and perhaps one or two others out of here and back to Basra.'

Crabbe gave Mitkhal the same reply he'd given him the first time Mitkhal had made the offer. ‘I can't leave the men. Coming up through the ranks I understand them better than any other officer.' He lifted the bundle and beckoned to his sergeants. ‘Thank you again, Mitkhal. If any of us live to see the end of this war it will be because of your bravery and kindness. We won't forget it.'

Chapter Five

Military HQ, Basra

June 1916

Charles limped into his office, propped his stick in the corner behind his chair, and sat behind his desk. Ignoring the pile of files in his in tray he took a clean sheet of paper, opened his ink bottle and picked up a pen.

Dear Maud,

Please believe me, I'm not writing this note to you to begin yet another argument. I need to talk to you urgently about your son – and other matters. Please meet me. The Basra Club would probably be best. I can book a private room where we can have coffee or lunch and talk in privacy without risk of disturbance.

I can't leave things the way they are between us, so please can we meet within the next day or two? With the push upstream likely to start at any moment, I could be transferred out of Basra at short notice.

I appreciate friendship between us is out of the question, but I hope we can manage civility, for Robin's sake.

Yours sincerely,

Charles Reid

Charles blotted what he'd written, folded the paper, and placed it in an envelope. He sealed it and wrote Maud's name on the outside, then realised he didn't know which bungalow Colonel Perry had been allocated. There were only two orderlies on duty at that time of day and he could hardly send one round knocking on doors in search of Maud.

He left the envelope on top of his out tray and headed back to his quarters to bathe and change before picking up Kitty.

Bungalow, British Military Quarters, Basra

June 1916

Maud Mason straightened the chairs in the dining room and checked the dining table. She'd moved into the officer's bungalow her father had been allocated that morning, and had spent the day directing the servants to make the quarters as comfortable as possible given the limitations of the solid, inelegant military furniture. She'd taken her parents' personal possessions from storage, polished the family silver, cleaned the Royal Doulton china, and arranged the framed photographs of family and friends on the sideboard. The new cook had concocted the colonel's favourite curry to Maud's stringent specifications, but if her father didn't turn up soon, the meal and evening she'd planned would be spoiled.

She paced through the French doors out on to the veranda. The sound of ribald songs resounded from the officers' mess and the evening air was warm, too warm to linger outside. She returned to the dining room, slammed the French doors, and waved the servants back into the kitchen with a curt, ‘Keep the meal hot.'

The air was oppressive, adding to her sense of foreboding. Maud poured herself a brandy and added ice from the bucket before carrying her glass into the drawing room. She placed it on a table next to a chair she'd earmarked as ‘hers'. Needing to do something, she walked down the corridor that led to the bedrooms and looked in on the nursery. Her six-month-old son, Robin, was asleep in his cot. The native nursemaid, who she'd brought from the mission to look after him, sat beside him in a chair angled in front of the window so she could watch the sunset.

Maud closed the door. She checked her father's room. His Indian orderly was unpacking the kit left in Basra when the Colonel had joined Townshend's campaign.

She went into her own bedroom and saw that the girl she'd engaged as her lady's maid had hung her clothes away as ordered. Finding no fault with the maid's work she opened the bureau and removed her account book. Whichever way she calculated the figures, she was hopelessly in debt with no prospect of receiving any income to repay what she owed for months.

She had been granted an officer's widow's pension and an allowance for her child when she'd received notification of John's death last Christmas. She'd also been paid the first instalments of an annuity John had purchased to give her additional security. Unfortunately she'd spent more of the money she'd received than she could repay from her wife's allowance, which was all she'd been left with since John had been reported alive by the sick troops sent downstream after Townshend's surrender.