For Kingdom and Country (3 page)

The two men paused in the doorway to let their eyes adjust, and Lock lit a cigarette. It was a quiet night. Only the insects broke the silence around them, and it was a relief not to hear the sound of distant guns. After a minute they turned and moved off in the direction of the canal. But, as they did so, a shadowy figure stepped out from the doorway opposite. There was a brief scuffle before two gunshots rang out, their cracks echoing off the surrounding buildings, and the muzzle flashes momentarily illuminating Lock and Singh’s surprised faces. Then the street was enshrouded in gloom again. A body fell heavily to the floor as the sound of fleeing footsteps slowly diminished.

‘Sahib,’ Singh gasped weakly, before a second body slumped to the ground.

The echoing footsteps faded into the distance, until there was nothing, only silence and darkness …

Everything was white.

Too bright.

Kingdom Lock squeezed his eyes shut again. His thoughts and feelings were a tumble of confusion. He remembered a blinding flash of light and then nothing, just blackness and cold. He was no longer cold, though, no longer numb, but warm and somehow overwhelmed with a feeling of security, of safety, as if he was back in the womb. A part of his mind expected to feel pain, his body to ache, but there was nothing, only softness. He knew he should try and sit up, but found he hadn’t the strength. So he lay still and listened. Nothing. No, there was … a gentle, rhythmic pulse. It was barely audible, yet he knew it was close. Then he felt his face flicker into a smile. His heart was still beating. He was alive.

Lock’s nose twitched. A smell, faint, but there all the same, like a memory. Furniture polish and caustic soap. He opened his eyes once more, trying to focus through his bleached surroundings. He turned his head stiffly and a pain exploded inside his skull. He wanted to scream out, he wanted to vomit. But he lay still and waited for the wave of nausea to pass, for the pain inside his head to subside. His breathing slowed. Calm.

For the third time in what seemed as many hours, Lock opened his eyes. He was in a private room, clinical and white, lying on a bed,
shrouded in starched cotton sheets. They were pulled up to his chest. His arms were free, stretched out either side of him with his palms facing down. Soft cotton pyjamas had replaced his uniform, but his head felt tight, encased, as if he still wore his slouch hat. Opposite the bed, daylight was streaming through a high window and Lock could make out the gnarly branches of a tree swaying in the breeze outside. He cautiously, should any sudden movement give him a relapse of nausea, turned his head. To his right was a door; to his left a small bedside cabinet. On top were a jug and a glass of clear water.

Lock licked his lips. They were chapped and sore. His throat was dry. He tried to reach for the glass. Sweat broke out on his brow. He could feel it prickling his skin. His heart started to race in his chest. A dull ache was building in his temple. His arm was trembling. It was barely off the bed. He stopped trying and felt the weight of his whole body sink back into the mattress.

A flurry of movement caught his attention. He moved his eyes. Three white-speckled bulbuls had landed on the nearest branch to the window. Lock could hear their loud chattering now, as if they were in disagreement about something. He frowned at the scene for a moment and tried to recall where he had been before, before the bed and the white room. He lost his focus and the birdsong melded into the voices of men talking.

Lock groaned in confusion. The voices were familiar, yet they sounded alien to his ear. He couldn’t make out what they were saying.

‘Speak up,’ he said.

The voices ignored him and continued with their chatter. One said ‘
Kahve
’.

Lock grunted and relaxed.
Kahve
was Turkish for ‘coffee’. Coffee would be nice. He’d like a cup, strong and bitter. Perhaps with a little sugar. He nodded.

‘Yes, good idea,’ he said.

Movement rocked the bed. Lock opened his eyes.

But he was no longer lying in bed, in the white room. He was sat upright, fully dressed in his old, brown corduroy suit, perched on the back of the ox cart he knew so well; the ox cart he had used for weeks at a time to lug telegraph poles and cables around the lonely roadways of eastern Anatolia. That was his job initially, and then his cover, putting up telephone lines for the Sultan. He recognised the man moving about next to him, rocking the cart. It was Bedros, the Armenian, a wiry fellow with pockmarked skin, who was always dressed in a worn, ragged blazer. He was part of the work detail Lock had assigned to him; one Armenian and eight Kurds.

‘
I make coffee, effendim?
’ Bedros said in Turkish, beaming a smile of broken, blackened teeth.

Lock nodded and noted that his head no longer throbbed with pain. ‘
Yes, good idea
,’ he said in the same tongue, understanding perfectly.

He turned his attention to the main work detail a little way ahead.

The Kurds, despite being strong labourers, with rough hands and rougher manners, were struggling to lift a pole into a freshly excavated hole. Two of them had even stopped working and were shading their eyes, staring off beyond the cart, into the distance.

Lock raised himself up and turned around.

Stretched out before him was a flat, grassy landscape dusted with snow. It ran all the way to the foot of the distant white peaks of three mountains to the north: Soli, Davutaga and Isik Dagi. To the right was the eastern shore of Lake Erçek, its azure waters sparkling in the afternoon sunshine. A road, little more than a dirt track, followed the length of the shore before hitting a crossroads, and it was here that Lock could see a large dust cloud rising up in the distance.

‘
Strange. Nothing heavier than farm traffic usually passes along this stretch
,’ Lock said.

‘
Not farm traffic, effendim
,’ Bedros said. ‘
They are … horsemen?
’

Lock turned back at the sound of running footsteps. The two Kurds who had been pointing off into the distance, a young man with bright, excitable eyes, called Mehmet, and an older, burly chap Lock knew as Fuat, were rapidly approaching.

‘What do you think it is?
’ Fuat said.

‘
I can’t tell. I don’t think they’re coming this way
,’ Lock said.

‘
I go see
,’ Mehmet said, lifting a pushbike from the far end of the ox cart.

‘
Hey, no. We’ve work to
—’ Lock started to argue, but the young Kurd had already pedalled off in a frenzy of pumping knees and creaking metal.

Lock shook his head irritably and jumped down from the cart. He gathered up a coil of cable and swung it over his shoulder.

‘
Bedros
is making coffee. Ten minutes, then I want the rest of those poles up before nightfall
.’

He pushed past Fuat and trudged towards the main work detail.

‘Mister Lock? Mister Lock?’ a soft voice called after him.

Lock turned about, but no one was there. The ox cart was empty and Bedros and Fuat had vanished. The dust cloud on the horizon had gone.

‘Mister Lock?’ the voice called again.

Lock dropped the cable and spun round. The main work detail had vanished. The road was deserted. He was alone. He shook his head and closed his eyes.

‘Mister Lock?’

It was a woman’s voice, gentle and speaking in English, tinged with a regional accent Lock couldn’t quite place. Lancashire?

He looked up and started. Staring down at him through a blurred fog was a pair of wide, brown eyes.

‘Mister Lock, I’m going to help you to sit up a little,’ the voice belonging to the brown eyes said. ‘I need to change your dressings.’

Lock felt himself nod as he was gently, but firmly, manhandled into a more upright position. The scent of strawberries tickled his nostrils. He stared until he could bring the woman into focus. She was a young nurse, in her early twenties, he guessed. Her face was as pale as milk and was framed by a white headscarf, which had a bright red cross emblazoned on its centre. A curl of brown hair was protruding from under the band. She had a delicate, small nose and beautiful, sensual lips. They were slightly open and Lock could see her tongue move across the tips of her teeth as she concentrated on what she was doing.

Lock knew her, remembered her, remembered the same act of concentration when she had … dressed his hand? … Yes, that was it, Nurse Owen. Molly? No, it was …

‘Mary?’

‘Here,’ she said, and Lock felt the coolness of a glass of water touch his lips. He drank thirstily.

‘Steady. Not too fast,’ she said, pulling the glass away again.

‘Thank you, Mary,’ Lock croaked. ‘It is Mary, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘It’s a good sign that you remember me.’

Lock looked about the stark room. ‘Where am I?’

Mary frowned. ‘In the Officers’ Hospital. A private room.’

‘How …?’

‘Long?’

Lock nodded.

‘A week now. You’ve been in a very bad way,’ Mary said, while she fussed around, straightening out Lock’s bedding.

‘May I have some more water, Mary?’ Lock smiled. ‘My throat feels like it’s full of sand.’

‘Let me change your bandages first.’

Mary turned to the trolley at her side and picked up a pair of scissors and a roll of gauze.

‘Now, let’s take a look at your head.’

She leant forward and began to cut away and unravel the bandage wrapped around Lock’s head. He hadn’t notice the bandages were there before, but as they came away he could feel the pressure ease and the air rush to his itching scalp.

‘We had to clip your hair very short to treat the wound,’ she said. ‘But it will grow back soon enough.’

As Mary worked, leaning close to him, her body heat radiating out, Lock’s eyes fell on the swell of her bosom and he felt a sudden surge of desire. Had this girl not kissed him once?

‘What is it?’ Mary frowned, catching the look on his face, and standing back.

Lock’s gaze moved to the soiled bandages in Mary’s hands. He could see the dark stain of old blood. His blood.

‘Nothing. I was just … thinking about Amy. Have you seen her?’

Mary looked down at him oddly for a moment, then picked up a fresh roll of bandages.

‘No.’

She began to re-dress his head wound. Lock knew she was lying.

‘I thought …’ He squeezed his eyes shut, tensing, as a stab of pain rushed through his skull.

Mary hesitated. ‘Are you all right?’

‘A little dizzy. I …’

‘Well, enough talking.’

‘But—’

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Be a good patient. Hush.’

She picked something up from the trolley.

‘Here, take this.’

Lock felt a small pill pass his lips and touch his tongue. It tasted bitter and chalky. Mary pressed the glass of water to his mouth and he drank,
swallowing the pill down. The bitterness remained coated on his tongue.

Lock lay in silence as Mary finished dressing his head, his thoughts a tumble of confusion. Where was Amy? Why wasn’t she here, looking after him?

‘Has she been to see me? Tell me that, can’t you? Please, Mary.’ He smiled weakly.

Mary gathered up the soiled bandages, ointments and scissors.

‘I … don’t know. I don’t see her much any more, what with her wedding preparations …’ She trailed off.

The wedding! Of course. Christ, he needed to see her, to get out of here. But just the thought of trying to get up out of the bed made his head spin again.

‘I need to see her, Mary.’

There was a distant banging and Lock saw a shadow at the window.

‘Who’s that?’ he said nervously.

Mary glanced over her shoulder. ‘Just the window cleaner. Do you want me to close the shutters?’ She made to move over to the window.

Lock tried to shake his head. ‘No, it’s all right,’ he whispered, feeling weaker as the seconds passed.

‘I’ll see what I can do. About Amy, I mean,’ Mary said. ‘Try to sleep now.’

She began to push the trolley towards the door.

Lock nodded and Mary left his field of vision. He heard her open the door and there was a sudden blast of chatter and comings-and-goings from the corridor outside. The door closed again and he was alone in silence once more.

As he lay there, he could see the top of the ladder resting against the outside sill, and watched as the window cleaner stretched up and began to meticulously wipe the highest pane in slow, circular movements, his damp cloth squeaking against the glass.

A shout came from Lock’s left and he turned to see that Mehmet, the young Kurd, who had cycled off earlier, had returned from his scouting trip. He was standing in the corner of the hospital room and the rest of the work detail were gathered around him.

‘
Effendim
?
’

Lock glanced back at the window. But it wasn’t a window any longer. It was a telegraph pole and at the top the man staring down at him wasn’t the window cleaner, but another of the Kurds on his work detail.

‘
All right, down you come
,’ Lock said.

The Kurd grinned, shimmied quickly down the pole, and ran over to his comrades. Lock scratched his brow and passed his hand through his thick, shaggy hair. He pulled his fedora back down over his head, and slowly walked over to the chattering group of men.

The labourers were all extremely animated, talking excitedly at once.

‘
What is this?
’ Lock asked, rather bemused.

‘
War!
’ one of the Kurds blurted out.

‘
I beg your pardon?
’ Lock wasn’t sure if he had heard right.

‘
War, effendim
,’ Mehmet confirmed. ‘
The dust plume … It is cavalry and soldiers. They are marching from Van to reinforce the garrison at Erçek
.’

‘
War?
’ Lock said, aghast. ‘
War with whom?
’

‘
Britain, effend
—’ Mehmet stopped and his face fell.

‘
Turkey is at war with Britain? I don’t believe it
.’

Mehmet shook his head. ‘
No, no, effendim, with Germany
.’

Lock was even more perplexed. Germany were strong allies of the Turks. ‘
I can’t believe it. The Kaiser is a great friend of Enver Pasha
.’

Again Mehmet shook his head. ‘
Effendim
, Germany is at war with Britain. It is therefore only a matter of moments before we, too, declare war on yo … on …
’ He trailed off, embarrassed at his enthusiastic outburst.

‘
Ah, I see
,’ Lock said.

The labourers fell silent, each man staring back at him. Nobody said
anything for what seemed like an age, until Fuat shifted on his feet and cleared his throat.

‘
Work is over
,’ he said, throwing down his pickaxe. ‘
The army will need us now
.’

‘
But you can’t
,’ Lock stepped forward. ‘
The telephone lines need to be completed for the Sultan
.’