Winds of Eden (27 page)

John pushed the remains of his breakfast to the side of his plate. ‘I'll check on Mitkhal now.'

‘I'll find Smythe.' Crabbe finished his tea.

‘And look for Downe's horses,' Knight added. ‘I can't see that Arab going without them.'

Chapter Twenty-eight

Kut al Amara, Sunday 9th January 1916

‘You're concussed,' John remonstrated with Mitkhal when the Arab staggered from his cot.

‘It's not the first time. I'll get over it.' Mitkhal sank back down and held his head in his hands.

‘Like Harry, you're adept at ignoring medical advice. You should rest …'

Mitkhal was in no mood to discuss his condition. He interrupted John. ‘Harry's horses?'

‘Crabbe and Peter have had platoons out all night looking for them.'

‘I think I know where they could be.' Mitkhal placed his feet flat on the floor, rose and fought to maintain his balance.

John pulled a chair out from a table. ‘I brought you breakfast.' He pointed to a tray. ‘Oat cakes made from mule feed and a slice of the mule that would have eaten the feed if we hadn't been hungry enough to eat him. The tea's weak, brewed from twice dried leaves, but I did manage to track down half a spoonful of real sugar.'

‘It's good of you to forage for me, Major Mason.' Mitkhal was glad to sit down again.

‘The least I could do, and it's John, Mitkhal, now you're no longer attached to the Expeditionary Force. While you eat I'll send a message to Peter and Crabbe asking them to meet us here. They might have some news about the horses.'

Mitkhal studied one of the oatcakes before tentatively biting into it. It had the taste and consistency of river sand. Not wanting to appear unappreciative, he waited for John to leave before pushing the plate aside. He sipped the tea which, sugar aside, was as bad as John had warned. Feeling stronger he went to the travelling washstand, washed his hands and face, and reached for his gumbaz and abba which had been washed by John's bearer. He'd finished dressing and was lacing his boots when John returned with Crabbe and Peter.

Peter didn't bother with pleasantries or enquiries after Mitkhal's health. ‘John said you might have an idea where Harry's horses might be?'

‘I don't think they'll be far. Have you searched the stable?'

‘We've looked in the stable half a dozen times and everywhere in the town. Even the attics, roofs, and cellars,' Peter asserted irritably.

‘But not in the right place.' Mitkhal slipped his abba over his gumbaz. ‘Shall we go, gentleman?'

‘Much as I'd like to join you, unfortunately the Turkish snipers are already at work. There's a queue at the dressing station. You're taking a platoon with you, for protection?' John checked with Crabbe.

‘Two,' Crabbe answered.

A corporal had taken over command from Sergeant Pickering in the Norfolks' stables. He, and the two privates who were assisting him, snapped to attention when Crabbe stepped over the stoop followed by Peter and Mitkhal. Peter was careful to leave the stable door open and ordered their armed escort to remain in view of those inside the building.

‘We're here to search for Lieutenant Colonel Downe's horses,' Crabbe informed the corporal.

‘I received an order from the CO to assist you, sir.'

Peter walked up to the two greys he'd examined the day before and peered closely at them.

‘No matter how often you look at those greys you can't turn them into Dorset and Somerset,' Crabbe commented.

‘More's the pity,' Peter muttered.

Mitkhal looked for the sack of henna he'd seen the day before. There was no sign of it. He stood in front of the lines of horses and whistled. Two rusty brown horses in the darkest corner of the stable, started neighing and pawing the cobbles.

Mitkhal went to them. Both horses pushed their noses at him, nuzzling his abba as soon as he was within reach. He stroked their noses. ‘I'm sorry, I'm not Harry and I have no sugar for you, not this time. But there will be later.'

Peter joined him. ‘You knew their coats had been dyed?'

‘I saw a sack of henna before the sergeant attacked me. It's a strange thing to keep next to sacks of feed in a stable.'

‘Corporal, groom these horses, wash them, and restore them to their original colour,' Crabbe ordered.

‘No,' Mitkhal countermanded. ‘Not if I'm taking them downstream. In fact we should find the henna and dye Norfolk. She's in the Dorsets' stables?' he checked.

‘She is. I'll arrange it,' Peter volunteered.

‘I'll take these to join her. They'll be glad to see their old stablemate.' Mitkhal untied Somerset's and Dorset's halters from the rope. ‘I'll be happier when these two are in Harry's regimental stables.'

Kut al Amara, early hours Monday 10th January 1916

The rainy season had broken with a vengeance. The heavens had opened and water was sheeting into the Tigris. The sentries squelched as they patrolled the barricades. Most of the trenches were knee deep in water and ankle deep in the “drier” sections. Off-duty troops lying in their berths in the trenches coughed painfully, making sounds the medics feared were symptoms of early-onset pneumonia.

‘I have to check the wounded, so I'll leave you here.' John stopped at the entrance to the fort the Dorsets had commandeered which contained an aid station for minor injuries. He extended his hand to Mitkhal. ‘You won't forget what I told you about keeping my presence here quiet.'

‘No.'

‘Good luck with returning the horses to Furja. Tell her I still carry the keepsake she gave me. The words of the prophet have kept this ferenghi alive so far and that I hope to live to see Harry's children and tell them about him.'

‘Take care, Harry's cousin.' Mitkhal gripped John's shoulders.

‘We'll take care of one another.' Crabbe waved them on towards the river. He lifted his watch to a sentry's lantern. ‘Five minutes to the fusillade. We need to be on the other side of the old boat bridge within ten minutes.

They continued to move forward, slipping and sliding in the mud. Hampered by his unaccustomed Arab skirts and headdress, Peter tried not to consider what might happen to him if he fell into Turkish hands. He was conscious of the tarpaulin-wrapped dispatches bandaged to his chest, and his fair skin and blue eyes. Then he realised – this was what Harry had faced every time he'd gone out dressed as a native.

‘This is as far as we go.' Crabbe herded Mitkhal, Smythe, and the grooms who were leading the horses into a redoubt on the British side of the defences next to the old boat bridge.

‘There's the mahaila. Can you see it?' Crabbe pointed. Mitkhal peered into the night. A shell burst overheard. The first of the British barrage. The outline of a native boat gleamed silver in its glare.

‘I see it.'

A Turkish gun blasted into life in response to the British fusillade.

‘Good luck.' Crabbe gripped Peter's hand, then Mitkhal's.

The guns continued to resound deafeningly around them.

‘Go!'

Mitkhal took Dorset's and Norfolk's reins leaving Somerset for Peter. Instinctively ducking although the blasts were behind him, he splashed downstream through the mud.

Basra, Monday 10th January 1916

Colonel Allan examined Charles's leg. ‘Stand and drop your stick.'

Charles laid it on the chair he'd been sitting on.

‘At attention. At ease. Pick up your stick before you fall down. Walk to the door. Turn. Walk back. Attention again. I've seen enough. Put your trousers on.' He reached for his pen, dipped it in the ink bottle, and made a note on Charles's medical record.

‘You're discharging me?' Charles fastened his braces over his shirt.

‘The infection you picked up in your wound ran deep. It affected the bones. In my opinion you'll experience weakness there for the rest of your life. That means you'll never be classified A1 fit again. You'll be invalided out.'

‘Have you heard what's happening upriver?' Charles interrupted.

‘There's no chance of me avoiding hearing what's happening upriver given the way every convalescent officer I examine demands I mark him fit for active duty. But, before you ask, you're most certainly not fit for duty.'

‘I'm fit enough to go upstream on the General's staff. Nixon's asked to be relieved because of ill-health.'

‘Yes, I've heard that too.'

‘I've been offered a place by his replacement General Sir Percy Lake.'

‘Offered or volunteered?' Allan probed.

‘Does it make a difference?'

‘When you volunteered you didn't consider that the last thing a CO needs is an unfit officer on his staff?'

‘General Lake will need all the men he can get who have experience of the Turk and the terrain. I'll be on Gorringe's staff. He's requisitioned Gerard Leachman's boat, the
Lewis Pelly
. All I'll have to do is sit on board and direct operations.'

‘Really?' Colonel Allan raised a sceptical eyebrow, ‘and if the Turks shell the
Lewis Pelly
and you end up in the Tigris?'

‘Everyone knows the Turks would never shell the staff …'

‘Because they're too damned useful to the Turks making a balls-up of British operations from the rear. Yes, I've heard that one too.' Allan shook his head.

Charles finished lacing his boots and sat down. He tried not to allow his relief at being able to take the weight off his leg to show.

‘That wound of yours still isn't totally healed. I'll not answer for your health if you take a ducking in the river. Aside from the sewage, it's thick with corpses …'

‘All the more reason for me to go upstream. The Relief Force needs every man.'

‘Only because Command is wasting men on a colossal scale.' Colonel Allan dropped his pen. ‘You wouldn't have been put on the discharge list from the hospital if it wasn't for the flood of casualties coming down from the battles of Sheikh Saad and the Wadi. God alone knows how many more slaughters there'll be before we reach Kut. That's if we do. When I think of the conditions the men have described … being forced to march over open ground to face artillery … the sick and dying being left in the open because there are no medical facilities, and that's without what the poor starving beggars in Kut are suffering. You're insane for wanting to join them, Reid.'

‘I have friends with the Relief Force and in Kut, sir.'

‘That's the crux of the problem. We all have friends with both forces, which is why we keep putting up with these bloody awful conditions that are killing more men than the Turks. Your quarters all right?' Allan abruptly changed the subject when he heard footsteps outside the door.

‘The quarters are excellent. I'm in Major Chalmers's bungalow with his cousin.'

‘I thought his cousin went upstream.'

‘Another cousin, sir. Captain Anthony Bell, Boris Bell's brother. You will sign me off as fit for duty, won't you, sir?' Charles pleaded.

‘I'll sign you as fit for light duties only and don't try arguing your way out of that one. Take on more than you can cope with and it won't only be your life on the line but the lives of everyone with the Expeditionary Force you come into contact with.' Colonel Allan reached for another form from the piles on his desk. ‘If your leg starts acting up don't be too proud to forego the stick for crutches.'

‘Yes, sir.' Charles took the papers the colonel handed him. ‘Thank you, sir.'

‘All the thanks I want is to see you back here in one piece after Kut has been relieved, Reid. Take care of yourself, and get Townshend and his men out.'

‘I'll do my best, sir.'

Charles left Allan's office and walked down the corridor. The hospital and the verandas were crowded with a fresh influx of wounded men. Clean, with newly applied dressings they were in better shape than he'd been when he'd arrived in Basra after a hellish journey on a filthy boat packed indiscriminately with wounded and dysentery cases.

‘Charlie Reid?' Reggie Brooke walked up to him. ‘What on earth are you doing here?'

‘What one generally does in a hospital. Getting my wounds seen to.' Charles, John, and Harry had been at school with Reggie Brooke, but he hadn't been a special friend, which probably had something to do with Harry using Reggie's bed as a mortuary for the remains of the reptiles dissected in the biology lab. Reggie had declared war on Harry. He and John had been dragged into the conflict, but to Reggie's annoyance most of the victories had been Harry's.

Charles looked Reggie up and down. ‘You appear to be remarkably fit considering where you are.'

‘Collating intelligence from the wounded.'

‘You're not going upstream?'

‘Intelligence, based in HQ.'

‘Wangled yourself a cushy number, Brooke? You haven't changed.'

‘Neither have you, Charlie. Still playing the hero?'

A nurse came out of a side ward behind them. ‘Excuse me, sir.' She tapped Charles's shoulder.

Her accent was Welsh. She was dark-eyed and, from what little he could see of her hair beneath her sister's veil, dark-haired. She was also extremely pretty. He gave her a rare smile. ‘Hello, Sister.'

‘Are you Major Charles Reid?'

‘That depends on who's asking. And you are Sister …'

‘Jones, Major.'

‘No Christian name?' he prompted hopefully.

‘Are you Major Charles Reid?' she repeated impatiently.

‘Yes. Who's asking?'

‘Major Boris Bell. He heard your name and said you're a friend of his cousin.'

‘I am. Major Bell is wounded?'

She capitulated when she saw the look of concern on Charles's face. ‘He's just arrived on a transport with the first of the injured from Sheikh Saad via Amara. The doctor's examining him now, but he should be free in ten minutes. If you wait on the veranda, I'll come and get you.'

‘Thank you.' Charles turned back to Reginald. ‘I would say see you around, Reggie, but I won't if you're staying in HQ.'