Leon Uris (48 page)

They all reclined on the pillows and felt what they needed to feel, a woman who pretended she cared for him. She had her secrets as well, but each man was adrift in his own buried thoughts.

The center court was afloat with scented fumes and quivering lights and one could hear the wail of the muezzin from the minarets calling the faithful to prayer, or suddenly smell the aromas from the cargoes of coffee and spices from the single sail feluccas…and the singsong of a hundred thousand far-off voices…

And soft silk pillows and wispy curtains and a woman to hold…a woman to hold…a woman to hold…

Either Chester and Shaara fell in love or were gob-smacked with exotica. They both knew they were playing but knew of nothing happier to play.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who holds the secret of us all? The doors inside the men were steel, clanged shut where secrets remain secrets.

Each man, no matter how floaty and brotherly he was of the moment, understood he must hang on to his secrets. He must never tell them about the ugly side that would change him in their eyes.

All of them had declared to the others their braveries,
conquests, strengths, and all that was necessary to make them seem tall. They were reluctant to spell out their evils. Some of their evils were unknown even to themselves. No matter how potent Sonya’s drug, they could never admit cowardice or moments of humiliation.

Yet they held a five-man confessional…all of it unspoken, unadmitted, the conversation that never took place.

You know, mates, I’ve bragged about my mother being this beautiful actress and song-and-dance queen, famous in her own right. Well, that’s a fucking He. My mother was a mining-camp whore. She damn near killed my father, first with her pussy, then she stabbed him with a knife when she was caught. She ran off with a pimp to the mining fields of Nevada. I got one Christmas card and one birthday card from her in my life. So, old Johnny Tarbox became the dandy, the Serjeant Major of the New Zealand Honor Guard. It was a fast and easy way to get the sheilas to spread their legs. I wanted the married ones, that’s what. When I pumped them and they’d scream with passion, I wanted to choke them…to break their necks. I saw my mother twenty times, creeping in to our caravan when some hunky snuck in behind her and I could see her fucking him through cracks in the blinds. They’re all whores…all of them…

The candle flames did great things off the white archways. Mordechai Pearlman became mesmerized by the fire. FIRE! He always got trapped into staring at fire. A thousand nightmares of fire. Will I ever be free from the fire?

My father slaughtered animals ritually and it disgusted me. That is why I went through the Veterinarian College in Kiev despite what it was for a Jew. For two years I slept with the animals in the college because I was too poor to have a room.

I was a good veterinarian. I traveled from shtetl to shtetl, all the little Jewish villages in my part of the Pale. You ask, what is the Pale? It is invisible borders in which all Jews must live. No Moscow, no professions, no merchants, no crafts that will compete with the Gentiles. Except I am a veterinarian much too good for my own good. The Ukrainians (and I spit) use me for their animals, I am so good.

When I married it was an arranged marriage because that was the custom, meeting my wife on our wedding day, and I came to love her. Malka. An ordinary good woman. She gave me a daughter. My baby was the dearest treasure of my life…I can’t even speak her name to this day…I am several villages away when I learn that the Cossacks are going to make a pogrom in my village. I rush back. Everything is burning.

Was this the moment of my great cowardice? The Cossacks were still riding through the village. All I could do was watch the fire and hide in the outskirts.

Malka had been raped several times and my daughter decapitated. Should I have not rushed into the flames to save them?

I fled but was picked up by the police and impressed into the Czar’s army. I am a prime find because I can treat horses and livestock. I know what is going to happen…shipment to Siberia to a remote post and then they’d beat on me day and night to make me convert. It happened to many from my village. They took Christian names and married and were never heard from again.

Once more I fled, to Palestine. Don’t ask how. It was two years of agony as well as a miracle to reach Palestine. I go to work on the projects for the Baron Rothschild in Jewish fields and later I become a founding member of a communal settlement in Galilee.

I am a notable veterinarian for settlements in the area and I take care of the Arab animals as well. We Jews of Palestine had a rotten life under the Turks and were very
much for the English when the war broke out. The Turks rounded up dozens of my comrades and tortured them as spies, beat them on the soles of their feet…some were crippled. So I fled again, to Egypt along with hundreds of other Jews, and soon we volunteered to make up the Zion Mule Corps, although the British would not let us be official members of the army. GOD! WHY DO THE FLAMES LEAP SO WHEN THE CANDLES BECOME LOWER! FUCKING FIRES!

Modi’s woman was large because, like an Arab, he liked large! Her name? Not Malka…her name? She is Maat. She is hushing me and wiping my brow. I will melt into her….

God in heaven, I can never let go of my secret. The gaffers will despise me. These are my cobbers…the only people…except for Uncle Ned Thornberry…who ever cared tuppence for me.

Chester Goodwood was the name the Chinese forger put on my documents so it would appear that I was a relative of Sir Stanford Goodwood.

My name is Stanley Thornberry. I’m a bastard born in London. My ma died from the consumption when I was six. I fled the orphanage when I was seven, preferring to work the streets. That didn’t last too long. I ended up in the borstal, a thief, before my ninth birthday.

My one relative was Ned Thornberry, but he lived in Hong Kong. Uncle Ned ran the stables for the show horses and the polo horses of Sir Stanford Goodwood.

Ned promised the court he’d give me a good home, and Sir Stanford signed a letter for me, so I was shipped to Hong Kong. Working for Uncle Ned is how I became a horseman.

I thought what Sir Stanford was doing was pure kindness. He sent me to a proper school where I learned to speak correct English. Everyone was stunned at my mathematics skills. Sir Stanford provided me with a private tutor
to learn banking and accounting and by the age of fourteen I was mastering all the ledgers.

…Kindness, was it, now? He had long-range plans for me. Uncle Ned passed away just after my fifteenth birthday and Sir Stanford invited me to move into the mansion…and I realized what he had been planning all those years.

…I was like a prisoner, kept on the grounds until he was sure I wouldn’t run away. He came to my bed night after night making me do all the pansy things. Threatening my life if I made trouble, he also promised me I’d go far in the banking business if I became his nancy boy. I pretended to be going along with it until I could run for freedom.

My chance came just as the war was about to begin. I got this Chinaman to make false documents and I stowed away. I thank God every night for Rory and Johnny. How can I ever tell them what Sir Stanford and I did? I would become lower than shit in their eyes.

I know Rory fixed me up with Shaara and I know Shaara really makes believe also. I am going to become rich after the war. I’ll give all my friends here a great deal of money so life will be easier for them. I know I won’t see Shaara again but if I do I’ll see that she gets a great deal of money, as well.

Leilah’s heavy lips fell down to Jeremy’s neck and she kissed him and he groaned and she whispered to go away and to the bedroom. Although the kisses were pleasing, she knew his mind was in a place far away….

My secret, which only Rory knows, was my cowardice and my terror of poverty. My secret of secrets which I cannot share with even Rory is that I should like to kill my father.

Before I did I would make him recite every pain he has imposed on his peasants and his workers and make him beg for mercy for every foul deed he has ever done in his life. After I shot him, I’d burn Hubble Manor down, except for the Long Hall and the Great Screen.

Then I would renounce my title. I’d give away the lands of the earldom to those who deserved it, those who had toiled on it. Like other Irish Protestant patriots, like Theobald Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, and Charles Stewart Parnell, I would become a republican. What I mean is…I want to be an Irish Irishman.

Jaysus, Rory thought, the party has turned grim. Or has it? Is it not better to tell truths to yourself in the presence of friends, even though it is done in silence? Look at them. Each is in his own milky way.

I knew from the moment I wrote my first letters to my sisters and Tommy that I had always been their master and made them live somewhere beneath me. I’ve been a real prick to my brother Tommy. It wasn’t Tommy’s fault he was anointed by the Squire as the favorite son. It wasn’t Tommy’s fault he wasn’t the brightest kid in South Island. I’ve gone out of my way to make certain he felt like a dunce when I might have helped him and taken care of him, as a decent brother should.

I see now, as I read the letters of my brothers and sisters and even my mom, I should have been a far better brother to them.

I was too damned busy establishing my prowess.

My da did me wrong, but even so there were a thousand times he fished around for a smile or a kind word from me and all I did was twist the knife or get his kind attention by wrecking something, by showing how tough I was. Maybe, if I had tried, he might have started trying, and things would have become lighter between us.

Secret? I’m scared of going to Ireland with the name of Larkin. What can any man do with the shadow of Conor Larkin hovering over him? But I’m going, and I’ll do what is expected of a Larkin. That is the only way I can earn my passage back to New Zealand.

Secret? I’ll hate myself if my prayer really comes true. I’ll
hate myself for the rest of my life, but the TRUTH is, I hope that Dr. Calvin Norman gets killed in the war…

“Hey!” Modi called through the creamy mist. “Everyone is so passionately sad. What have I here? A room full of Russians? I have a favorite idea.”

“Is your idea about your public life, your private life, or your secret life?”

“Definitely, a secret. Chester, stop playing the tambour so I can tell everyone my secret idea.”

Chester was in a trance. He continued playing.

Leilah became passionate. Jeremy gently admonished her. “Please, Leilah, Modi has an idea.”

“Yeah,” Rory said, “let’s hear your idea because I don’t like my own ideas right now.”

“Are we not exceptional comrades?” Modi asked, then answered, “Yes, we are, and in this sacred temple of paradise we…let me think…oh yes, I know—we should desecrate our brotherhood.”

“You mean consecrate, old chap,” Jeremy said.

Modi scratched his head. “I mean we should take a vow of eternal brotherhood because we are eternal brothers.”

“That’s a bang-up idea,” Johnny said.

“Chester? Hey, Chester.”

“Eh?”

“Stop playing that fucking thing. Are you prepared to vow an emotional desecration?”

“Absolutely.”

“Aye,” Rory said, “let’s consecrate.”

“How?” Jeremy asked.

“Let’s cut our palms and mix blood,” Johnny said.

“Tarbox, you are a real peasant,” Modi said. “I say, we all get a brotherhood tattoo.”

“Done!” Jeremy said. “Nothing will piss my father off more, although grandfather is apt to be delighted.”

“That’s very, very beautiful, Modi,” Johnny said, starting into tears.

“I have already spoke to our sister, dear Sonya. There is here nearby a tattoo artist who specializes in tattooing the dates of the Haj to Mecca, but he also does other things.”

Sonya bared a breast. It held a tattoo of a pomegranate.

“Jaysus, that’s magnificent,” Rory said.

“It took long enough for you to make notice,” Sonya retorted.

“Send for the bugger!” Johnny cried.

“Although he is Armenian, he is honest I will also join and have a tattoo,” Sonya said.

Chester puffed up. A tattoo! Goddamn! Bully!

“We don’t just want to put on a date,” Modi said. “What shall we tattoo?”

“I think something in Latin might be appropriate, a motto,” Jeremy said.

“Oh shit,” Johnny reacted. “Let’s be warriors, let’s get into battle. A fierce Maori to signify New Zealand.”

“New Zealand?” Modi protested.

They tried to think. It was difficult for them to think.

Chester kept his rhythm going on the tambour. “A mule’s head,” he said, and kept on beating.

“Of course, I was just about to say a mule’s head,” Modi said.

“With gigantic ears so he won’t be mistaken for a horse,” Rory added.

And so it came to pass that the gaffer squad, headquarters company, Seventh New Zealand Light Horse Battalion, and three of the ladies of the evening had magnificent mules tattooed by Mr. Suhollanian, an Armenian artist, on their left buttocks.

Secret Files of Winston Churchill, February 1915

Nay to the Nay-sayers!

February 19

A glorious day in the history of the British Navy is commenced.

One hundred and seventy-eight guns ranging from five to fifteen inches, mounted on a dozen warships, opened fire on the four other forts at Cape Helles on the southernmost tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula.

What a magnificent sight we and our French allies must have evoked with our invincible vessels erupting in salvo after salvo. I shall regret not having been a personal witness to the Union Jack being raised to the staff of our mightiest dreadnought—HMS
QUEEN ELIZABETH
.

The attack fleet consisted of three divisions. The first squadron carried the heavy guns of the
ELIZABETH, AGAMEMNON, and INFLEXIBLE.

The second division bore the names of
VENGEANCE, ALBION, CORNWALLIS, IRRESISTIBLE, and TRIUMPH.

I salute the French squadron;
SEFFREN, BOUVET, CHARLEMAGNE
, and
GAULOIS
.

We opened fire from a distance of fifteen thousand yards, beyond the range of the Turkish guns. Using the new technique of a spotter sea plane directing our guns and photographing the damage, Admiral Harmon concluded the long-range bombardment was having mixed success.

Admiral Harmon then ordered the fleet ever closer. We heard nothing from the Turks until SEFFREN, VENGEANCE, and CORNWALLIS came to within five thousand yards of Cape Helles.

Blast the luck, foul weather set in. Harmon had no choice but to order a withdrawal at the end of the day with victory still in abeyance.

February 25

Five days of foul weather has canceled our operations. Today we resumed the attack concentrating on the heavy Turkish guns all over the peninsula from a range of 12,000 yards. When we moved closer to Cape Helles, we received no return fire from their big guns. One must conclude that we knocked out the Turkish coastal guns without even having forced the Dardanelles Straits. The long-range barrage may have weakened them significantly.

Our expenditure of 31 fifteen-inch shells, 81 twelve-inch shells, and the French expenditure of 50 twelve-inch shells seems well spent.

February 26

Moving with caution, three of our destroyers sailed into very close range covering landing parties of 60 to 100 Marines and sappers. They found and disabled forty-eight
smaller Turkish guns. The Marines probed up into the hills until they were engaged by the Turks. We immediately withdrew, drawing casualties of nine killed and wounded.

As we study these results it appears that the outermost Turkish forts on Cape Helles are out of commission. Further, many other heavy guns up the Gallipoli Peninsula appear to have been silenced from the long-range shellings.

Interesting bit of business, now. Do the Turks think our bombardment of Gallipoli is merely a feint? Do they believe our real objective is to mount an offensive over the Suez Canal into the Sinai, Palestine, and the oil states of Syria and Iraq? It would appear so.

The Turks sent an infantry brigade across the Sinai toward the Suez Canal, knowing full well of our overwhelming number of troops in Egypt.

We pushed them back into the Sinai but, of course, did not follow up. Therefore, they probably concluded that the invasion of Gallipoli is a reality.

Given the initial success we have had, I firmly believe that our naval might will carry the day. In a matter of a few weeks we shall force the Straits of the Dardanelles and, once again, our ships will punish the Turks on the peninsula into submission. I cannot help but feel that our forces will land and engage in a mop-up operation.

Meanwhile, the Navy will enter the Sea of Marmara and anchor outside of Constantinople as our troops drive from the Gallipoli to Constantinople’s outskirts and the Turks shall sue for peace.

As these historic events unfold, I do harbor a secret apprehension.

If the Turks put up a fight on the peninsula, we should have a few more infantry divisions in reserve to get the job done. Kitchener will not release any new divisions to this campaign, save the 29th, which is en route.

I do not fear our ability to take Gallipoli with the forces at hand, and then march on Constantinople, except that General Darlington may be a bit of old school as a tactician. I do not see him making the daring decisions and executing the swift movements to overwhelm the enemy.

I would feel more comfortable if Kitchener would let us have three or four more divisions.

WSC