Winds of Eden (7 page)

‘Townshend arrived at Kut on December 3rd
^.
On the 4th and 5th he sent his aeroplanes and all his river craft except the gunboats
Firefly
and
Sumana
downstream. On the 6th Leachman led out the cavalry and tanks. Most made it to Ali Gharbi. Townshend sent fourteen hundred Turkish prisoners here. He's been left with nine or ten thousand fighting men. With camp followers there are fifteen thousand on his ration muster but two thousand of those are sick. He faces a Turkish force, estimated by aeroplane reconnaissance, of twenty-five thousand infantry, cavalry, and camelry, thirty-one mobile guns, and seven heavy guns, plus thousands of Arabs. On the 9th Nureddin demanded Townshend surrender. Townshend refused. Since then the garrison's been under bombardment. Townshend asked permission to retreat, but General Nixon refused …'

‘I don't want a bloody military report. I want to know what happened to Harry.' Michael was so pale Tom thought he was about to pass out.

‘Harry left Kut a couple of hours after Leachman. He was in Arab robes, accompanied by Arab ghulams.'

‘He was sent to spy on the Turks?' Michael guessed.

‘That's what political officers do and Harry was damned good at it.'

‘He always did like dressing up.' Tom regretted the fatuous remark as soon as he made it.

‘After war broke out Harry alternated spying on the Turks and Arabs with fighting alongside us. According to Harry's friend Crabbe,' Charles rummaged in his locker, produced Crabbe's letter, and handed it to Michael, ‘Harry was ambushed after he and his ghulams left our lines. One ghulam returned with Harry's bloodied robes. He told the CO that Harry and the second ghulam fell at the first volley and he'd seen their bodies. Crabbe had no doubt from the ghulam's account that Harry was dead.'

‘If they were behind Turkish lines they could have been taken prisoner …'

‘An eye-witness said Harry was dead, Michael.' Charles couldn't bring himself to utter any of the platitudes that littered last letters home. ‘He died instantly.' ‘He didn't suffer.' ‘The end was swift and painless'.

He'd resorted to them himself when the deceased soldier's end had been anything but dignified, swift, or pain-free.

‘John?' Tom demanded.

‘Died of fever in Kut after Nureddin raised the siege. Crabbe knew Harry and John well. Harry was incredibly popular, as was John. I find it difficult to believe I'll never see them again. It must be much worse for you to arrive here to be told they're dead. I wrote to you, your parents, Georgie, and Lucy but you obviously left England before my letters arrived.'

Michael finished reading Crabbe's letter and handed it to Tom. ‘There's no hope, no hope at all.' It wasn't a question.

Charles opened his locker again and brought out a metal flask. He filled the top with brandy, handed it to Michael, and gave Tom the flask. Tom refilled Michael's cup after he emptied it.

‘How soon are we going in to relieve Kut?' Tom screwed the top back on the flask.

‘I've heard that Townshend only has supplies for four more weeks of siege. Our forces are gathering at Ali Gharbi. From there the plan is to advance, relieve Kut, and move on to take Baghdad. I'm guessing the next show will be within the next week and somewhere between Ali Gharbi and Kut.'

‘The Turks?' Michael asked.

‘Dug in and well equipped. They haven't let up. They inflicted major assaults on Kut on the 24th and 25th. Two days ago the Turks requested an armistice to bury their dead. We sent up planes for reconnaissance. Estimates put their dead at over two thousand. Townshend wired Nixon that ours were four hundred including seventeen officers.

‘I suppose we'll find out more when we go upstream.' Tom returned the flask to Charles.

‘What time's your boat leaving?'

‘Six.'

‘As a war correspondent, I'm hoping to beg a ride,' Michael added.

‘The brass will offer you anything you want, on condition you show them your dispatches before you send them,' Charles warned.

‘What about John's wife?' Tom asked. ‘Is she still in Basra?'

Charles hesitated before answering, ‘She is.'

‘Don't tell me there's more bad news. Is she ill …'

‘She had a baby on Christmas Eve.'

‘My mother will be pleased. Did John know?

‘He knew she was pregnant. Maud was notified of his death before the birth. She's living in the Baptist mission attached to the Lansing Memorial Hospital if you want to see her.'

‘I'd like to.'

‘I'll go with you.'

‘You're not fit enough.' Tom looked at Charles with a professional eye.

‘They let me out in a wheelchair last night; they can do it again now. You should come with us, Michael. The people there knew Harry as well as John. They'd be pleased to see you but there's one thing you should both know before we leave. The baby is Maud's but it's not John's. Your sister-in-law is a whore, Tom.'

Chapter Seven

Kut al Amara, Friday 31st December 1915

‘I joined the bloody army to fight. Not to burrow in bloody holes and live like a bloody rabbit. I dig in bloody dirt. I live in bloody dirt. I eat bloody dirt. I sleep on bloody dirt. I even feel like a bloody rabbit. Look at my strong back legs and big ears.' Private Bert Evans helped carry Sergeant Lane inside the house that had been commandeered by Townshend's 6th Division as an aid station for the front lines.

‘Just how many “bloodies” can you get in one sentence, Private Evans?' Major David Knight of the Indian Medical service held open the door of the room that did duty as dressing area.

‘A lot more than I just said, sir,' Bert continued unabashed as he and his companion hauled Sergeant Lane inside and dumped him on a chair. ‘The “bloodies” are for you, sir. Usually I'm less polite.'

‘I don't doubt it.' David Knight examined the bullet wound in the sergeant's shoulder. Lead shot was embedded in his collarbone. Blood and bone splinters had sprayed over his tunic. ‘Matthews?' David called for the orderly.

‘Sir.' He appeared in the doorway.

‘Clean this up, and warn the duty orderly I'll need the theatre in the non-coms and ranks hospital to operate.'

‘Sir.' Matthews called to the duty orderly before picking up a bowl, a jug of boiled water, gauze pads, and scissors.

‘Johnny Turk's starting the fusillade early today. He usually holds back until four o'clock,' Knight tipped water into a bowl, took a bar of carbolic soap and began scrubbing his hands.

‘Judging by the bullets flying our way, the opposition's brought some keen snipers up the line, sir. The minute they see an officer's cap or stripes on a non-com's sleeve they let rip and unlike Petulant Fanny they usually hit their target.'

On the right bank of the Tigris the Turks had set up a trench mortar that fired noisy 15-inch bronze shells. All aimed at the same spot, slightly ahead of the British redoubts, but ‘Petulant Fanny', as the troops had christened the mortar, had yet to hit rank, file, or a single military target.

John Mason's bearer Dira ran in, shouting, ‘Officer coming, Sahib Knight. Badly wounded.'

Two stretcher-bearers from the 6th Poona Division burst in carrying Major Cleck-Heaton. Blood covered the right side of the major's face from a head wound that was still pumping.

‘Couldn't have happened to a nicer officer,' Knight muttered.

‘Sir?' Matthews was unsure he'd heard correctly.

‘Bowl and swabs, Matthews, the shoulder wound will have to wait.'

‘Bloody officers always get in first,' Bert swore.

‘Another comment like that, Private Evans, will see you on a charge. Head wound takes precedence over shoulder wound, whether the head wound's a sepoy, private, or colonel,' David snapped. ‘Set the major on that table.'

David soaked a pad of gauze in the bowl Matthews held for him and swabbed Cleck-Heaton's face. The bullet had entered just below his right eye socket. But Dira had failed to notice the bullet hole in the major's chest.

‘Prepare the major for surgery, Matthews. Dira, tell the orderlies to get the theatre ready in the officers' hospital. Then fetch Sergeant Greening and his prisoner. There's only one doctor who'd dare operate on that chest wound.'

‘He finished a fifteen-hour shift two hours ago, sir,' Matthews reminded him.

‘I know but he's the only one with enough surgical experience to tackle this. Go, Dira. Tell him the patient's Cleck-Heaton, and I wouldn't blame him for refusing to come.'

Dira left the building. He kept his head low. Although the aid station and hospitals were well behind the lines, many areas of the town were within the sights of the Turkish forward posts across the river and within range of their snipers, if not their major guns. He passed a rickety, irregular row of squalid, crumbling mud brick houses. Women were squatting in front of them, gathered around mud ovens, cooking their thick pancake ‘kababs'. Grubby children played in the dirt beside them. Half a dozen older girls were grinding corn in shallow stone bowls. As soon as they had enough to mix to a paste they carried it in their hands to the women nearest the stoves. Immersed in their task, the locals didn't even glance up at Dira as he ran to the end of the street.

The building HQ had requisitioned for use as a prison was mud brick. It appeared to be crumbling but there were sturdy iron bars at every window and the door was metal. Dira banged on it with his closed fist. It was opened by a sergeant from the Mahrattas. Dira stepped into the mud-walled and -floored room to be instantly overwhelmed by the stench of raw sewage. Four Indian sepoys were sitting around a table. A bunch of keys, a charcoal-fuelled burner with kettle, a tray of mugs, and a set of dice lay in front of them.

‘Cha?' the sergeant offered Dira.

Dira kept his lips tightly closed and tried not to breathe too deeply. He shook his head. ‘Thank you, but no. I'm in a hurry.'

Knowing what Dira wanted, the sergeant lit an oil lamp and handed it to him along with the keys.

Dira unlocked a metal door set in a side wall. It opened on a steep stone staircase that wound down to the cellar. As he began his descent the reek of damp and excrement intensified. The temperature plummeted to the freezing low that made sleep impossible at night. At the foot of the winding stair was a two-metre-square hallway. It held a chair, army cot, and low-burning oil lamp. Sergeant Greening of the 2nd Dorsets was stretched out on the cot, wrapped in his uniform, greatcoat, boots and two blankets.

Dira shook him.

The sergeant opened one eye and squinted. ‘I'm dead.'

‘You're talking.'

‘I'm a talking corpse.'

‘Major Knight sent for your prisoner. It's urgent. Major Cleck-Heaton has been badly wounded.'

‘That's bloody marvellous, Dira. Do you mind if we celebrate later when I'm not tired.'

‘Major Knight said you're to bring your prisoner at once.'

‘That's bloody rich.'

‘Sahib Knight says Major Cleck-Heaton's only hope is your prisoner.'

‘If Cleck-Heaton had had his way the man who's been asked to save him would have been shot by a firing squad, weeks ago. Let's pretend that's what happened. Inform Major Knight that Major Cleck-Heaton has no saviour to call on.'

‘I've been given orders.'

Realising Dira was about to lose his temper, Sergeant Greening rose slowly from the cot so as not to topple it. ‘Keep your hair on.' He filched the keys from his belt and unlocked the only door in the hall. He picked up the oil lamp and stepped into an ice-cold, windowless cell.

‘Major Mason, sir, Major Knight has sent for you. Major Cleck-Heaton has been wounded. Major Knight says you're the only one who can save him.'

British Military Hospital, Basra, Friday 31st December 1915

After ten minutes of heated argument and intervention by a senior medical officer who'd known and respected John in India, Charles was given permission to visit the Lansing Memorial Mission with Tom and Michael. An orderly was sent to summon a carriage while Charles dressed. When Charles was ready, he refused to sit in a wheelchair. The Indian orderly who'd helped him don his uniform settled the discussion by simply lifting Charles into the chair and wheeling him to the door.

To Charles's annoyance the orderly also hoisted him into the carriage and pushed the chair in after him. Wracked by pain, exhausted by the effort it had taken to dress and reach the outside, Charles sank back in the seat.

‘Leg wound followed by fever?' Tom climbed in and sat on the bench seat opposite Charles.

‘It appears that you, like your brother, never stop being a doctor,' Charles snapped.

‘Am I right?'

‘Not entirely. I had fever before I was wounded as well as after.'

‘You're lucky to be in one piece, and you're not helping yourself by fighting medical advice. Model patients who follow their doctors' instructions recover more quickly,' Tom remonstrated.

‘Model patients are sent to recuperate in India. I have friends in Kut with Townshend. Someone has to get them out.'

‘Not a major who's unfit for duty,' Tom declared. ‘Charles …'

Tired of banter, Charles ran his hand over the leather upholstery. ‘This old landau looks like the one Harry won from a sheikh in a card game before the war.'

‘Lieutenant Colonel Downe's carriage. Yes, sir. It belonged to Lieutenant Colonel Downe.' The driver nodded.

‘He sold it to you?' Charles asked.

‘Not sold, sir. I drive it for the owner,' the man replied.

‘If you drive it for the owner Lieutenant Colonel Downe must have sold it,' Charles pressed him.

‘Lieutenant Colonel Downe gave it to the new owner, sir.'

‘That's Harry,' Michael joined them and closed the door. ‘Easy come, easy go. He never set store by material things.'

‘It's Abdul's carriage now?' Charles guessed.

‘I drive it for the owner, sir,' the man repeated.

‘You'll wait for us at the mission.'

‘I will have to charge you for the time, sir.'

‘No discount given to Lieutenant Colonel Downe's friends?'

‘Sorry, sir. None, sir.' The driver turned his head and concentrated on the road ahead.

In an effort to distract Michael and Tom who were both still absorbing the tragic news, Charles pointed to a two-storey building set in a palm grove. ‘That's the Lansing Memorial Hospital. The mission's just ahead.'

‘Did Harry visit the mission often?' Michael sat forward to get a better view.

‘Yes. One of Harry's close friends, Peter Smythe, a captain in the Dorsets who was stationed in Basra with him before the war, married an American who lives here, Angela Wallace, now Smythe. Her brother Theo works in the Lansing Hospital. If he's home you'll be able to talk tropical diseases with him, Tom.'

‘John knew Angela and her brother as well as Harry?' Tom checked.

‘He did,' Charles confirmed.

‘Were they close?'

‘Not that close, but only because John spent most of his time upstream and not in Basra.'

‘Why is Maud living here and not in married quarters?' Tom questioned.

‘She shared quarters with John's colonel's wife. When Colonel Hale died of fever, his widow returned to England and Angela invited Maud to move in here.'

‘John was a major, didn't his rank warrant married quarters for his wife?'

‘There was a shortage,' Charles hedged.

‘None of the other wives wanted Maud living with them?'

Charles wondered how much he could tell Tom about the events of the past two years without breaking the confidences John and Harry had entrusted to him.

‘Charles, we're going to be at the mission in a few minutes,' Tom remonstrated. ‘If there's something you're holding back, now's the time to tell me because if this place is anything like the hotbed of gossip most military stations are, I'm going to find out, and frankly I'd rather hear whatever it is from you.'

Charles capitulated. ‘John was on honeymoon in Basra when war broke out. He was recalled to India and took Maud with him. He left her in India when he was posted to the Expeditionary Force, a force Harry and the men stationed here were absorbed into. I was sent here from the Western Front last March. I travelled via India to get acclimatised. As soon as I walked off the boat I heard rumours about Maud.'

‘You were told she had a lover?' Tom pressed.

‘Several, I've no idea how much of what I heard was true, but one thing was certain, she'd scandalized Anglo-Indian Society.'

‘Did you hear any names?'

‘A few,' Charles acknowledged. ‘One officer in particular who was killed in action here in Mesopotamia. There was also a Portuguese businessman …' Charles couldn't bring himself to mention the natives. ‘Unfortunately I wasn't the only one who'd heard. John knew about the gossip before I arrived in April. Although he was eligible for leave he didn't apply. Instead he volunteered to march from Ahwaz to Amara over the desert in the full heat of summer. When he reached Shaiba he had a fever. Harry and Peter dragged him back here. They wouldn't have succeeded if John had been conscious. Harry told me that Maud visited John in the hospital to tell him she was pregnant. As they hadn't lived together since John left India in September 1914 he knew he couldn't be the father.'

‘Were they ever happy?' Tom asked.

‘Presumably, or John wouldn't have married her. They honeymooned in Harry's father-in-law's house here in Basra. From something Harry said I believe there was animosity between Maud and Harry's wife. I've heard Maud refer to her as “Harry's native concubine”.'

‘Have you met Harry's wife?' Michael looked up as they drew alongside the Mission House.

‘No. Angela Smythe asked if I'd seen Harry's orderly, Mitkhal. He's Arab, huge, with the face of a brigand. He was totally devoted to Harry. She was hoping he could take her to Harry's wife.'

‘Where would I find this Mitkhal?' Michael opened the carriage door and unrolled the steps.

‘If Mitkhal's still alive, which I doubt, as I can't see him standing back and watching Harry take a bullet, Abdul might know. He runs a coffee house, brothel, and gambling house on the quay that caters for British officers as well as natives.'

‘Is he the same Abdul who owns this carriage?'

‘The same.' Charles glanced at the driver. He knew the man was listening to every word they were saying.

Michael lifted down the wheelchair.

‘I'll be damned before I'll wheel myself into the mission in that contraption,' Charles snarled.

‘Then be damned. Because you're in no condition to fight one of us, let alone two.' Tom stepped down and reached back inside the carriage to lift Charles out.