Winds of Eden (28 page)

‘You're going on active service?' Reggie looked pointedly at Charles's stick.

‘We can't all skive in HQ.'

The veranda was crowded. Charles sat on the first free seat he came across. A young lieutenant, bandaged from his waist to his throat, was propped in a wheelchair next to him.

‘You caught a packet,' Charles commented.

‘Sheikh Saad, sir.'

‘I heard it was bloody.'

‘It was worse than bloody, sir. I'm with the Leicesters. We lost sixteen officers and 298 rank and file in the first attack.'

Charles pulled his chair closer. ‘Tell me about it, Lieutenant …'

‘Grove, sir.'

Charles sat back and listened while the young man talked. He could have been describing the battle of Ctesiphon and Charles wondered if anything had changed since he'd been wounded.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Basra Military Hospital, Monday 10th January 1916

Sister Jones stood in the doorway of the veranda. ‘You can see Major Bell, now. Major Reid.'

‘Thank you, Sister. I'm sorry to leave you, Lieutenant Grove. I've enjoyed our talk. I'll call in and see you again tomorrow if I'm not sent upstream.' Charles left his chair.

‘If you are sent upriver, good luck, sir, you'll need it,' Grove called after him.

‘You're going to join the Relief Force?' Sister Jones commented.

‘I hope to.' Charles couldn't help smiling at her. She was the most attractive woman he'd seen since he'd left England.

‘With that leg?'

‘I've wangled myself a cushy staff position.'

‘With a bath chair for you to sit in and a runner to carry your messages?'

‘I'm not that incapacitated,' Charles protested.

‘Long John Silver was quicker on a peg leg.' Her smile took the sting from her words. ‘Major Bell is on the right at the end of the ward.'

‘Thank you. Before you go, would you consider having dinner with me in the Basra Club tonight? I'll book a table. Shall we say eight o'clock?'

‘You can say eight o'clock, Major Reid, but I don't make a habit of dining with strange men.'

‘I could give you a full biography.'

‘Now?'

‘I'd be delighted.'

‘I'm working.'

‘Tonight?'

‘I'm dining with a friend.'

‘A fellow nurse?'

‘That could be construed as a personal question.'

‘Please bring your friend. It would be my pleasure to meet her.'

‘Or him. You're certain you want to buy us both dinner?'

‘It would be my pleasure, whether it's a her or him. Shall I pick you up here?'

‘You're very sure of yourself, Major Reid. What if my friend takes a dislike to you?'

‘I'll take care to be at my most charming.'

‘We'll both meet you at the Basra Club at eight o'clock,' she said decisively.

‘The table will be booked under the name of Reid. I'll be waiting.'

‘As Major Bell is now. He's in pain and he's exhausted. Five minutes. Not a second more.'

Charles watched her walk away before turning into the ward.

Boris was propped up in bed, looking out of the window.

‘I'm your cousin's friend, Charles Reid.' Charles shook Boris's hand.

‘Thank you for coming to see me. I heard someone call your name and I thought there couldn't be two Charles Reids in Basra.'

‘It was an old schoolboy acquaintance.' Charles made a face. ‘HQ Wallah, as we say in the Indian army.'

‘It's good of you to wait until the quack finished with me. Do you know if Richard's all right?'

‘His name isn't on any of the lists that have come down so far. I know because I read them as soon as they're posted. Your brother Anthony is bunking with me in Richard's bungalow now.'

‘I knew he was shipping in from India.'

‘I'll tell him you're here.'

‘Thank you.' Boris grimaced in pain. ‘I won't be happy until I know Richard's made it.'

‘Like all Indian officers he knows how to look after himself,' Charles reassured.

‘Before this show I would have said we all did. Be glad you weren't with us. They wasted men. Absolutely wasted them. It was a complete shambles. Townshend's put so much pressure on the brass they had men advancing into Turkish artillery without covering fire. I saw 400 men and sixteen officers go against the Turks. Only one man and one officer made it within ten yards of the Turkish lines, and the officer fell before he reached the Turkish first line.'

‘You've heard General Nixon's gone?'

‘Ill health someone said – I'd like to believe it's guilty conscience.'

‘Sir Percy Lake's taking over.'

‘He can't possibly do a worse job.' Boris was bitter.

‘I managed to get myself posted on to Gorringe's staff.'

‘You're a brave man. Have you any idea what the men think of him?'

‘My close friend, John Mason, marched with him across the desert in the Karun campaign.'

‘He lived to tell the tale?'

‘For a short while.' Charles wondered if he'd ever become accustomed to speaking about his two closest friends in the past tense. ‘As to working under Gorringe's command, I have friends in Kut.'

‘That's the problem. We all have friends in Kut or with the Expeditionary Force. We fight for our friends and the man next to us, while the Generals treat us as expendable. I've wondered if they even consider us as human.'

‘You lost close friends?' Charles guessed.

‘The best.'

‘How much damage have you done to yourself?' Charles felt a need to change the subject.

‘Broke both my legs when my horse went down under me. Dislocated my shoulder and caught a bullet in the sole of my foot crawling back to our lines.'

‘So you'll be back up the lines by the end of the week.'

Boris laughed. ‘That depends on how desperate Lake is.'

‘Major Reid,' Sister Jones stood at the foot of Boris's bed. ‘I warned you not to tire my patient. I said five minutes, you've been here fifteen.'

‘My apologies, Sister.'

‘Visiting hours are between four and five o'clock, Major Reid. You may return tomorrow.'

‘Yes, Sister.'

‘Don't suppose there's any more of that iced orange juice standing around in a jug anywhere?' Boris asked.

‘I'll look.' She faced Charles. ‘You still here, Major Reid?'

‘I'm going.' He winked at her and limped away feeling brighter than he'd done in months.

Lansing Memorial Mission, Basra, Monday 10th January 1916

Mrs Butler followed Maud into the hall and watched her pin on her hat.

‘I wish you'd allow one of us to go with you, Maud,' she protested.

‘No, really, Mrs Butler. You're all so busy, Angela with her teaching and you with your Ladies' Guild meeting. I'm perfectly well and quite capable of visiting a dress shop and picking up a few necessities for myself and Robin.'

‘At least take a servant?'

‘There's really no need, Mrs Butler. The groom knows where the shop is, the nursemaid is best left with the baby, and I'll probably be an age. I've never been able to make up my mind quickly in a dress shop and I need so much. I've put on so much weight having Robin I haven't a thing that fits me. Now the rainy season is upon us, it will bring the cold weather. I need at least three winter day dresses, besides essentials and things for Robin. While I'm in town I'll take the opportunity to call into Headquarters and see if they have a list of properties suitable for widows to rent. There must be other women in my position who are no longer eligible for military quarters.'

Maud was so used to Mrs Butler protesting that there was no hurry for her to move out of the mission that she was taken aback when she didn't contradict her.

‘As you say, dear, there must be other widows. It will be nice for you to have the company of someone in the same position as yourself.'

‘Same position as yourself.' The words burned. Maud knew Mrs Butler was aware that she'd been ostracised by the military wives and also that most widows returned to England quickly after their husband had been killed.

‘Is that the carriage, dear?' Mrs Butler's voice, as soft and gentle as ever, intruded on Maud's thoughts.

‘It is. Thank you so much for allowing me to borrow it along with the groom.'

‘Not at all, dear. You've given the nursemaid instructions on caring for Robin?'

‘Of course. She's as capable of looking after him as I am. Are you sure there's nothing I can get you from town?'

‘Nothing, but thank you for asking, dear. The cook did all the marketing this morning.'

‘Then I'll be off.' Maud left the house and climbed into the carriage. ‘Parisienne Fashion Store.' she ordered the groom.

Cold, she pulled her mourning cloak closer and lifted the hood. It was Monday afternoon. She'd arrive at the shop earlier than Reginald had stipulated, but she really did need to do some shopping.

She'd spent considerable time mulling over her past and thinking about her future. She recalled a quarrel between her parents when her father had insisted the only course open to her was that of military wife, simply because colonial army life was all she knew.

Much as she hated to agree with him, he was right. The only life she knew was the one she'd been raised in and she'd decided when Reggie Brooke made her an offer of marriage, she'd take it.

Reggie was the same rank as John, and Geoffrey had told her that he and his brother had inherited independent fortunes from their grandfather. There was a family estate in Wiltshire that included a Georgian manor house, built and lavishly furnished with money a Brooke great-grandfather had made from the East India company in the eighteenth century.

The house in Wiltshire would have to wait until after the war. Before then she'd play the dutiful service wife, more loyally and less scandalously than she had with John. Reggie Brooke and his name would give her respectability and a social standing few other wives could ignore. They'd have to invite her to their social functions. To exclude her would be to snub Reggie. Given time she'd live down the memory of her marriage to John and the scandal of her adulterous affairs.

She doubted the Brookes were as wealthy as the Masons but they were an older family. She'd never craved respectability until she'd lost it. But it wasn't too late to regain it. It simply couldn't be.

Pleased with her scheming she looked around. They were almost at the shop. She gathered her bag and umbrella.

‘Parisienne Fashion Store, Mrs Mason.'

‘Wait here for me.' She alighted from the carriage, and head high entered the shop. To her dismay, her mother's former maid, Harriet Greening, was at the counter with another sergeant's wife, examining bales of brushed cotton.

Maud acknowledged Harriet, ‘I trust you are keeping well.'

‘I am, Mrs Mason, thank you.'

Maud waited for a reciprocal enquiry as to her health. When none was forthcoming she addressed one of the female Jewish assistants.

‘I would like to see your ready-made day dresses, silk suitable for evening gowns, and cotton and muslin for baby nightdresses and napkins. Could you arrange to have them brought up to one of your private rooms?'

‘Of course, Mrs Mason. Number five is free. Would you like tea?'

‘Not at the moment, thank you. Possibly later.' Maud climbed the stairs, aware of the line of assistants trailing behind her, including one who'd been serving Harriet.

She spent the next half-hour choosing fabric for nightgowns for Robin and silk evening gowns for herself. She picked out two ready-made day dresses and was examining an array of silk stockings and underclothes when she was disturbed by a knock at the door.

‘Enter.'

‘Enjoying shopping?'

‘I am.' She forced a smile. She couldn't help but compare Reggie to her other lovers. He wasn't as good-looking as Geoffrey, or as tall, broad, or handsome as John, or as dashing and exotic as Miguel D'Arbez …

He interrupted her thoughts. ‘I've completed my purchases and ordered tea to be served in my room next door. Number six. Would you care to join me?'

‘That's uncommonly kind of you, Major. I'll join you as soon as I finish here.'

‘I'll order for two.' He closed the door behind him.

Maud picked up the finest – and most expensive – pair of silk stockings. ‘I'll take six of these, please, and two Ivania corsets in white, three of these embroidered muslin nightgowns and three embroidered silk petticoats and matching skirt knickers.'

‘And the overall you wanted, ma'am?' the girl ventured.

Maud glanced at the half a dozen the assistant had brought for her inspection. ‘The casement cloth.' She pointed at random. She could never get excited at the purchase of the mundane. She'd avoided owning an overall until that moment. But as a new mother it was proving necessary to hold her baby on occasion, and as she'd discovered in the ruination of two of her drawn threadwork muslin blouses, babies are messy. ‘My driver's waiting outside in the carriage. If you wrap everything, he'll collect the parcels. I'm having tea with the major and I may be some time.'

‘Yes, ma'am.' The assistant curtsied. She began to separate Maud's purchases from the discarded pile.

Maud entered the room next door.

Reggie was presiding behind a fully laden tea table crammed with English delicacies: scones, jam, butter, fairy cakes, jumbles, and cinnamon buns as well as chicken and cucumber sandwiches, a pot of tea, and bottle of brandy.

She gave him a wide-eyed smile. ‘Thank you, this looks delicious.'

‘Doesn't it just. I trust your finances are still in order?'

‘They are fine, thank you. The first payments of both the annuity and the pension have arrived in my account, hence the shopping.'

‘So you are officially an independent lady.'

‘I think I've been that for some time.'

‘Sit down.' He patted the sofa beside him. ‘Tea or brandy, or both?'

‘Both, please.'

He poured brandy into a glass and handed it to her, then poured the tea. ‘Help yourself to sandwiches and cake.'

‘Thank you. I had no idea they laid on such sumptuous teas. This is quite cosy.'

‘Domestic even.' He raised his eyebrows.

‘Will you be going upriver?'

‘Good Lord, no, not if I can help it. Someone has to stay behind to run the office. Besides, one hero in the family is enough. I'm not anxious to be lowered into a soldier's grave before my time like poor Geoffrey. Did you know he wrote to me about you?'