Kingdoms Fall - The Laxenburg Message (9 page)

Gresham was silent for a minute as he smoked his
cigarette. He knew very little about Mackenzie from their very brief time
together at Magdalen College. Mackenzie was now in the “I-Branch,” reporting
directly to an important government office based somewhere that was doing
something presumably to help win the war. And he wanted David’s help.

“Did you really make me a Captain just then?”
Gresham asked.

“Oh, yes, there are countless vacant
captaincies; generalships are harder to come by, I’m afraid.”

Gresham lit a cigarette and took a deep drag
which he slowly exhaled as he sifted the information in his head. “This officer
from Damascus, he would be an Arab, wouldn’t he?”

“Most likely,” said Mackenzie patiently.

“From what I saw, the Turks and the Arabs don’t
really get along well, do they?”

“I see you were paying attention when you
escorted Mister Lawrence to Arabia and have drawn your own conclusions.”

“Damascus is an important city. An Arab officer
in the Turkish army, from Damascus, he probably knows a number of other Arab
officers, doesn’t he?”

“That’s hard to say. One would have to ask him.
Speaking of which, David, how would you suggest we retrieve this Arab officer
from the other side of the lines so that we may question him?”

“It wasn’t that difficult to get through
yesterday, but the landing was still a surprise then. Today, there are probably
ten thousand Turks digging trenches over there. Do you know where this fellow
is now; can you even contact him?”

Mackenzie nodded. “We can get him a message.”

“Then it’s simple. He’ll have to be in a
specific location at a specific time. Our army advances to or past that point,
pushing the Turks back, but your officer stays put. You reach his location at
that time and bag your man before some Tommy finds him and shoots him dead.”

“The army will undoubtedly advance, yes. Their
gains, however, may be very temporary. It would be necessary to accompany the
advance troops and act quickly both to retrieve the officer and to protect him.
And where specifically would you suggest the officer ‘stay put’ so that we can
‘bag’ him.”

“The Turks hold the village across the Anafarta
plain. It’s close by, so we should still be able to get into the area, at least
for another few days. There’s a small run-in shed off the east road, behind the
cemetery. That would do nicely. He could hide there for a rendezvous.”

“And will you collect and bring him to me,
David?”

“I appreciate you asking this time instead of
just having orders written for me. And you really did make me a Captain just
now?”

“Yes, yes. I understand the Manchesters will be
up the ridge again. I will have to get you attached to another company. Would
you like anyone specifically to go with you?”

“Sergeant Hart, from Wilkins’ company, I
suppose. He knows his business.”

“Then we are agreed. You will return to Suvla
Bay tomorrow and stay with Mister Wilkins’ company until it is time for the
attack. If asked, you can say that G.H.Q. wanted you here to provide
information about troop movements and defenses in that village. You can arrange
the details of our operation with my staff in the morning, but look for
confirmation to proceed from me directly.” Mackenzie stood. “Thank you,
Captain. Let us both pray that your adventure is the first success of many.” He
shook Gresham’s hand and then said good night.

“By the way,” Mackenzie added, “where does the
name ‘Gresham’ come from?”

“He was a boy I knew in Manchester, a friend.
He’s dead now.”

Mackenzie nodded. “Good night, then.”

After Mackenzie retreated into the small house,
Gresham lay down on the porch bench, closed his eyes, and continued to work on
the puzzle of the Arab officer. Gresham knew the Ottoman – now the Ottoman
Turkish – Empire had been around a long time, but it had also been getting much
smaller over the past century. The Sultan had lost parts of Mesopotamia, Central
and Eastern Europe, and North Africa. Ever since Napoleon’s defeat, the great
powers had fought over pieces of the Ottoman territory, especially in the
Balkans and North Africa. Now, it seemed, the power of the Ottoman caliphate
was crumbling for good. If the Arabs rebelled against the Sultan, the empire
itself would likely fall – there’d be nothing left of it but the Turks in Asia
Minor. Is that what Mackenzie and the intelligence office hoped to achieve? It
was damned clever, but it would impact far more than the course of the war – it
would set the whole Near East region in a new direction.

I
t took Gresham most of
the next afternoon to return to Wilkins’ company. On his trip back from Imbros,
he visited Private Dawkins aboard
Assaye
. The ship was more a
way-station than a hospital, as smaller ships continuously delivered more
wounded men and other ships either took the lightly wounded back to the
peninsula or transferred the badly wounded to the transports to Egypt. The
doctors believed Dawkins’ arm would heal and he was in fine spirits. “Don’t
know when I’ll be back, Sir, but they say I’ll be returning to the company.”

“Look, Dawkins,” Gresham told him, “between you
and me, you stay on this ship as long as you possibly can, maybe even get on
one of the ships to Egypt. There’ll be a lot more useless dying on the
peninsula before this is all over, and you don’t need to be one of them. One
wound like this should be all that’s expected from any man.”

“I agree with you there, Sir, have no doubt.”

On shore, the landings appeared to have been
mostly completed at last. There were troops swimming and sitting everywhere on
the shore and in the sunshine, but still nothing was happening. It was
extremely hot, and the stench of death had filled the air despite the best
efforts of everyone to bury every deceased thing they could find. The regular
shell bursts from Turkish artillery, one about every five minutes, were
generally ignored even when shrapnel fell around the troops; for anyone
wounded, it was just bad luck. Another huge water tank had been floated ashore
to provide more water to the severely dehydrated troops, but water was still in
short supply. Men were digging trenches up on the Anafarta plain, the Royal
Engineers were constructing elaborate dugouts, wiring telephones and laying out
latrines, and they were all being kept busy in other ways, as if making a
permanent home on this narrow piece of shoreline. The business of actual
fighting was on hold.

As Gresham approached the company encampment,
Wilkins rushed up to greet him, “Lieutenant, I am glad to see you back. We’ve
been very busy here, as you can see. How was Imbros?”

“Seems there’s some interest at GHQ in the
village we passed through; there were a lot of questions about the layout and
defenses and so forth. But, I’m sorry to tell you, I also learned there was a
mix-up with my orders in Egypt. It seems I may not be with the company very
much longer.”

“Oh, no,” Wilkins exclaimed, genuinely
disappointed as he felt he needed to rely on Gresham’s experience as well as
repay what he believed was a debt to his Lieutenant.

“It also appears I’ve been made a Captain,”
said Gresham casually.

“Really? That’s such good news, congratulations,”
said Wilkins cheerfully, but feeling rather confused. Everything about Gresham
was unorthodox, and yet he was the one being called to headquarters, and he had
been promoted! Certainly Gresham was an excellent battle officer, but Wilkins
thought he was the only one who knew it.

“I’ll stay with you until my new orders arrive,
if you don’t mind,” said Gresham.

“No, no, not at all. Keeling and I will make
room for you in our tent. Keeling’s gotten a bit shaken up, I’m afraid. He’s
gotten rather morose and gone tea-total.”

“That’s not unusual. I expect he’ll come
‘round. No news on our next advance, then?”

“Not a word, no. Everyone is waiting for
orders, but nothing has come down. You didn’t hear anything at headquarters,
did you?”

“Nothing specific.”

“It’s damned frustrating. Even Colonel Banks is
upset. He made a nasty comment at tea yesterday about General Stopford, and a
few men nearly choked on their rum.”

“Speaking of which, I’ve some bottles in my
luggage. We may be waiting a long time.”

“Do you play bridge, Captain Gresham?”

Gresham gave him a dirty look. “Can you play
for money?”

“Ha, ha! Why don’t you learn to play first,”
said Wilkins.

Two days later they were still waiting. A few
men had become ill from the water and the food and the flies which went from
feasting on dead mules and men to the rapidly accumulating piles of rancid
Bully Beef tins to the men’s food and onto the men themselves as they slept or
sat by the shoreline. The overwhelming smell of death and decomposition was
finally determined to be due, at least in part, to the workings of the hordes
of rats and feral kitties that were digging up and devouring the poorly buried
human corpses. Half of Wilkins’ company had been detailed to scour their
section for rodents and cats and to shoot as many as possible, so it seemed
again as if they were in a war with guns constantly firing all around them. The
other half of the company had been detailed to run barbed wire up to the front
and to dig trenches. The two shepherd shacks found in their section were being
torn down for firewood, and, in their free time, the men had been rounding up
the few goats that had wandered near the camp. A debate was raging over whether
to eat the goats or save them for milking.

Wilkins and most of the other junior officers
were either a bit drunk or a bit hung over most of the time. As the shortage of
water grew more severe, the officers had been wetting their mouths with rum,
gin, whisky, brandy, and any other alternative liquids they could find. That
afternoon, Wilkins was overseeing two platoons digging a communications trench.
They had marched a short distance towards the Kiretch Tepe ridge (far enough
away to avoid snipers), but Sergeant Hart and Cooper, newly promoted to the
rank of Corporal, were overseeing the actual work. As Wilkins stood beneath a
tree nearby, fanning himself with a pastel-colored Japanese fan, a hefty
Sergeant Major unknown to him approached.

“Captain Wilkins, Sir? Tenth Manchesters,
Company C?” asked the Sergeant Major.

“Yes, who are you?”

“Sir, I’m sorry to tell you I have orders to
take Sergeant Hart into custody, Sir. Is he here?”

“Yes. What’s this all about?”

“I don’t rightly know, Sir. I’m to bring
Sergeant Hart to Division Headquarters.”

“On what charge?”

“Don’t know the charge, Sir, but he’ll have to
come along with me.”

“Hart!” screamed Wilkins. “We’ll have to ask
the source.”

Hart promptly came striding up to Wilkins and
the Sergeant Major, placed his hands on his hips, and stared down at the two of
them like Goliath. “Yes, Sir?” he said.

“Hart, the Sergeant Major here has come to
arrest you. What have you done?”

“Couldn’t say, Sir. Can’t say I’ve had much of
an opportunity to do anything. Would you be so kind as to make inquiry to the
Colonel, Sir?”

“Indeed, I will.”

“Then I suppose I had best go along and wait
for you to do that, Sir.”

“Yes, yes, you must. I will go to the Colonel
directly.”

Wilkins wasted no time leaving the company in
the care of Lieutenant Keeling and ran off to see Colonel Banks in his tent.
Wilkins may not have been sympathetic to Sergeant Hart’s views on nobility, but
he was a damn fine non-commissioned officer and Wilkins knew the company needed
men like that if it was going to be commanded by someone with his own small
experience in combat. Wilkins’ past combat experience was limited to fox
hunting and chess, and that, he knew, was worse than worthless.

“Colonel Banks, Sir, I regret to report that
Sergeant Hart from my company has just been taken into custody. We are not
aware of the charges leveled against him, and I fear there is a miscarriage of
justice. Sergeant Hart is my most reliable and experienced non-commissioned
officer.”

“The Sergeant is merely being questioned about
some matter. I have no more knowledge of it, but I have been assured that Hart
will be returned to us in a few days.”

“I would rather not do without him for a few
days, Sir, especially if we’re to go up onto the ridge again.”

The Colonel’s eyes narrowed and he regarded
Wilkins coldly.

“Captain Wilkins, we all have to make do with
what we have been given. The situation is not ideal, but I will not sit here
and listen to complaints all day long. You will make do. That is, until Major
Davenport returns to take command of the company.”

“Of course, Sir. The men are looking forward to
having Major Davenport back with us, but Sergeant Hart has done marvelous work
with them. He does have battle experience in both Africa and India.”

“Lack of experience is no excuse for poor
performance, Wilkins. You are still very young, but you will learn from Major
Davenport. Leadership is a quality of a gentleman, the sort of characteristic
which you were bred and born to have. Trust me, I have no doubt you will grow
into it. But you have been terribly rash. On the ridge, you were rash. Major
Sills has been here to discuss your conduct with me; you and that Lieutenant of
yours. You advanced too far and risked yourself and your men, Captain.”