The Long Road to Baghdad (2011) Read online

  LONG ROAD TO BAGHDAD

  A novel

  CATRIN COLLIER

  Mesopotamia, 1914 : in the Middle East, tension is escalating between the British and the Arabs. Misfit Lieutenant Harry Downe is sent to negotiate a treaty with a renegade Bedouin Sheikh, Ibn Shalan, whose tribe is attacking enemy patrols in Iraq and cutting their oil pipelines.

  Greedy for arms, Shalan accepts British weapons but, in return, Harry must take his daughter Furja to be his bride.

  The secret marriage leads to a deep love, to the anger of Shalan and the disgust of Harry’s fellow officers. But war is looming, and the horrors of the battlefield threaten to destroy Harry’s newfound happiness, and change his life and that of his closest friends for ever. An epic novel of an incendiary love that threatened to set the desert alight as war raged between the British and Ottoman Empires, Long Road to Baghdad is a vivid, moving, historically accurate account of a conflict between East and West, based on the wartime exploits of war hero Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Leachman.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Before the Great War, the campaign in Mesopotamia would have been considered a vast undertaking. In the immensity of a world struggle, it was a mere drop in the ocean – a “side show”.

  In spite of this; in spite of mistakes made by civilian and soldier alike; in spite of the horrors after Ctesiphon, the miseries of the wounded after Hanneh, the heat, the sickness, the desolation of the empty desert, and the 97,000 casualties that the campaign cost, the troops that fought in Mesopotamia can rest secure in the knowledge that they added imperishable glory to the record of the Imperial Army.

  A Brief Outline of the Campaign in Mesopotamia, 1926

  Major (Temp. Lt.-Col.) R. Evans, M.C., P.S.C. Royal Horse Guards

  This book is dedicated to the 97,000. And to Christopher Marley who came back and lived to tell me about it.

  Mesopotamia, 1914

  When Allah had made hell he found out it was not enough. So he made Iraq and then he added flies.

  Arab Proverb

  Chapter One

  The desert North-east of Basra, Saturday May 30th 1914

  Even if protocol had permitted Harry Downe to rise from the flat-footed, squatting position desert courtesy dictated, he doubted he’d be able to do so. Certainly, he wouldn’t have been able to move with dignity, and to his host dignity was paramount. Sheikh Aziz Ibn Shalan, leader, as much as anyone could be, of the volatile tribal band of Bedouin who lived by grazing their flocks and raiding their neighbours along the valley of the Karun river bed, was judging the entire British tribe on Harry’s performance. And he, Henry Robert Edward Anderson Downe, Second Lieutenant, Indian Army, by virtue of his father’s influence, and seconded to service with the Frontier Commission in the Persian Gulf, for his many, and varied, sins, had cramp – mind-blinding, body-burning cramp.

  Making a supreme effort, he continued to crouch immobile, facing Shalan’s hooked nose and hooded eyes across the magnificent Persian rug. The staring match was not only painful. A year in Mesopotamia hadn’t accustomed him to the heat the Arabs ignored so disdainfully. They might pay token homage to the climate – three sides of the Sheikh’s tent had been rolled up to catch the non-existent afternoon breeze – but he alone of the hundred or so men crowded beneath the canopy was visibly suffering as the moisture-laden desert air seared around them like scalding steam in a Turkish bath.

  ‘You ask much of us, Ferenghi.’ Shalan’s softly spoken Arabic cut through the atmosphere like a whiplash, dispelling Harry’s preoccupation with pain. Harry curled his lip: Ferenghi – foreigner. The word stung his pride. He had learnt to respect both the Arabs and their lifestyle, long before he’d spent two weeks with Shalan’s tribe. He would have liked to think that he, in his turn, had earned their respect.

  ‘I ask for your friendship in the name of my King and the British Empire.’ Harry spoke slowly, in painstakingly perfect Arabic. ‘For myself, who is as the dust beneath Ibn Shalan’s feet, the hospitality of this tent has been more than I dared hope for.’

  ‘You speak like a son of the desert, yet you ask me and my people to stand against all, should they threaten your precious pipeline.’

  ‘The pipeline is not mine, nor even my King’s. It is, as its name, Anglo-Persian. It belongs to Arab and English alike.’

  ‘The line is English,’ Shalan agreed. ‘Sheikh Muhammerah’s and the Bakhtairi Khans perhaps also, but it is not mine, nor that of my people.’ His dark eyes gazed unflinchingly into Harry’s grey ones, but his dismissal of Harry’s request hung between them like acrid dung-fire smoke on a windless day.

  ‘The Anglo-Persian Oil Company will pay you. Gold, guns, whatever you wish.’ Harry played his last card.

  ‘We are not mercenaries to be bought like goats in a bazaar,’ Shalan railed, holding out his arms to the warriors silently encircling the divan. ‘We are Bedouin – but Bedouin in bondage to our Turkish lords. Like you, Ferenghi, we are part of an empire.’

  ‘Since when has Ibn Shalan or any man of his tribe bowed his head to a Turk?’ Harry countered, allowing his pain to give rise to irritation.

  Ibn Shalan’s anger abated as swiftly as it had surfaced. He stroked his small, thin beard. ‘You speak the truth, Ferenghi,’ he murmured in softer tones. ‘No man of this tribe bows his head to Turk, or – British.’

  The silence shattered in one deafening, whooping instant. Shalan’s warriors’ agreement rang, a noisy foreboding of failure, in Harry’s ears.

  ‘We ask only for friendship,’ Harry emphasised, shouting to make himself heard above the din.

  ‘The British have asked for the friendship of others. Where it was freely given, more was taken. Your empire, like that of the Turks, is built on the lands of those you have “befriended”.’

  Lowering his eyes, Harry studied the blue and red abstract pattern on the rug that stretched between him and Shalan. It wasn’t difficult for him or Shalan to predict the long-term policy of the British government towards Mesopotamia.

  The Turkish Empire was foundering, its subject peoples straining to revolt, the Arabs with their secret “Jihad” societies amongst them; but the great European powers were circling the Ottoman corpse like vultures. Thanks to Churchill, an ambitious, speculative First Sea Lord at the Admiralty, the British Government had bought a controlling interest in the Anglo-Persian Oil Co
mpany, and with it, a foothold in Iraq. But the Arabs knew it wouldn’t take many Indian regiments to turn the foothold into a seat of power if the Ottoman Empire collapsed. And then, instead of the free ArabState the Bedouin prayed for, Iraq would be dovetailed into a polished road that led overland from the Gulf to India. Given a few years of efficient British rule, the Gulf and the desert lands might well become no more than distant suburbs of Calcutta. Shalan had obviously considered the prospect, but Harry’s CO’s brief had been explicit.

  ‘Our problem doesn’t lie with Muhammerah and the Bakhtairi Khans, Downe,’ he’d barked after a formal dinner in the officers’ mess. ‘Their share in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company ensures their loyalty to us. It’s this Ibn Shalan chap. God knows what he’d do if he found one of our patrols pushed into a tight corner. Intelligence says he’s as likely to slit our throats as those of the Turks. He travels in Muhammerah’s territory but recognises no overlord. Not Muhammerah and certainly not the Turks.’

  ‘I take it he’s an independent customer, sir.’ Harry’s voice drawled back at him from the safe, comparatively comfortable world of the European compound at Basra. Despite the “formal” aspect of the dinner, he’d succeeded in getting drunk and hadn’t bothered to conceal his boredom with his colonel’s warnings of possible catastrophe. Bloody-minded Arabs were legion in Mesopotamia.

  ‘Independent isn’t the word I’d choose,’ Perry had interrupted testily. ‘Three of Shalan’s sons were hung by the Turks last year. They were embroiled in one of the pro-Arab, anti-Turkish groups. Shalan blamed a tribeless band of Bedouin for the betrayal. He attacked, slaughtered every male over 12, enslaved the women and children and turned his attention to the Turks. They’ve lost five patrols in his territory in the past six months. And when I say lost, I mean lost. Gone. Disappeared from the face of the desert. If the Arabs ever stop fighting among themselves long enough to get this Jihad of theirs off the ground, the Moslems in India could get infected with the fever, and our entire empire in the East jeopardised. Shalan’s tribe will become the scavenging hyenas that pick the bones on all sides, including the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. If we sit back and allow that to happen, we will have failed in our duty as officers.’ Perry had paused for breath long enough to allow the sepoy orderly to serve his brandy and cigars. ‘One hundred and forty miles of pipeline runs through Shalan’s territory and we haven’t the resources to police a fraction of it. Someone has to go up into the KarunValley, find Shalan, and persuade him to come down on our side.’ He’d looked at Harry. It was a look Harry recognised. He was the only officer in the Basra Compound who’d taken the trouble to learn Arabic. ‘You’re free to offer whatever it takes, Downe. I’ll get it through the budget.’

  ‘Sir,’ he’d muttered, mentally cursing the addiction to gambling that had prompted him to learn the language.

  ‘We need Shalan. Without him, there won’t be a pipeline or an Anglo-Persian Oil Company much longer. And that means no fuel for our navy. Disaster, Downe!’

  Harry had looked across the mess to where his fellow officers were drinking around the piano. His closest friend in Basra, Peter Smythe, smiled sympathetically but didn’t come near. Bored by Perry’s pontificating, the others were well past the port stage and on to the brandy.

  ‘Take that Arab orderly with you. What’s his name?’

  ‘Mitkhal, sir.’

  ‘Damned fellow looks like a brigand. I don’t trust him and I don’t want him creeping around the barracks without you here to supervise him. I’ll talk to you again before you leave. Brandy?’

  He’d left Basra the following morning. The place wasn’t wonderful, but it was the Piccadilly of the desert. A year of “volunteering” for mapping patrols had given him a closer acquaintance with the baking mud flats than he’d desired and a greater respect for the town than it deserved. And here he was, one month later. The most expendable pawn in the Indian Army, about to be swept off the board by the Arab whom Perry, in his arrogance, had believed could be bought. But while Colonel Perry was safe in Basra, he faced Sheikh Aziz Ibn Shalan alone.

  ‘You say nothing, Ferenghi.’

  Harry raised his eyes. ‘You believe the British want to govern your territory and your people.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘Not at this moment in time. For the future I can’t say.’ He realised he was probably botching his mission, but he couldn’t lie with those hooded eyes watching and evaluating everything he said. He glimpsed Mitkhal sitting at the edge of the divan, rolling his eyes heavenwards.

  ‘Why not at this moment in time?’ Shalan demanded.

  ‘Because the British are concerned only for the safety of their pipeline; it is in danger just as everything here is in danger. The Ottoman Empire is crumbling and the jackals are loose. Skirmishes, feuds, attacks on peaceful travellers happen every day. The Turks cannot maintain order. And why should they? While Arab fights Arab, or the soldiers of the oil company, they cannot fight the Turks. And with the prospect of a jihad that will set the desert aflame …’ Harry faltered when angry murmurs rose from the men. Honesty was one thing, recklessness another.

  ‘Continue,’ Shalan ordered.

  ‘Britain needs oil. If the pipeline should be cut …’

  ‘You lose money? Face?’

  ‘Both,’ Harry conceded.

  ‘And should I ask my men to watch over your precious pipeline?’

  ‘I’ll be in your debt.’

  ‘You?’ Shalan stabbed a thin brown finger at Harry. ‘You’ll be in my debt, Ferenghi?’

  ‘My CO has made the pipeline my responsibility, so the debt will be mine.’

  ‘What manner of man are you?’

  ‘An honest one, who pays what he owes.’

  ‘If I should say otherwise. If I should call you infidel, unbeliever …’

  Harry felt himself slipping out of his depth. The Bedouin rarely spoke of a man’s religion, sensibly deeming the God he worshipped to be his own business. He couldn’t imagine why Shalan was bending the inflexible rules of desert hospitality.

  ‘I, like you, believe in the one true God,’ he answered diplomatically.

  ‘You believe Mohammed to be his prophet.’

  ‘I believe Mohammed to be his prophet,’ Harry reiterated, meeting Shalan’s eye.

  ‘As a true believer I can greet you as a friend. But …’ A smile hovered at the corners of Shalan’s mouth. He held out his hands in mock despair. ‘It will take many guns to guard your pipeline. I am a poor man.’

  ‘I will give you as many guns as you need.’

  ‘Five hundred.’

  ‘You will have them.’

  ‘New, not old stock from your African and Indian wars. I’ll take none with rusted mechanisms.’

  ‘New, with as much ammunition as you can carry; and the promise of more when you need it.’

  ‘Your pipeline is long. It lies in country that is hard on the hooves of camels and horses.’

  ‘I will deliver 50 horses and 50 camels along with the weapons and ammunition.’

  ‘Prime stock.’

  ‘The best in our Basra compound.’

  Just when Harry had expected the divan to end, it was beginning. Shalan was up to something. Something that involved him personally, but for the life of him he couldn’t see beyond the demands. The Sheikh had decimated his offer of British friendship without looking at what had been laid out on the bargaining table. Now he was retracing his steps. The sequence didn’t make sense. But he had no choice other than to comply – and generously.

  ‘Warriors need food. A herd of our goats are sick.’

  ‘There are many herds of goats in Basra market. Choose one and I will pay the merchants their price.’

  ‘You.’ Again Shalan pointed his finger at Harry. ‘You offer these things knowing my warriors could eat the goats, ride the horses, and turn the guns on the soldiers of the oil company. British soldiers,’ he added, so there’d be no misunderstanding.

  ‘I have l
ived in your tent. I know the Bedouin and Sheikh Ibn Shalan for the noble, honourable leader that he is. You will use the guns wisely, and in friendship.’

  Shalan reached inside his black abba and pulled out his camel-skin tobacco pouch. It was a signal for relaxation. As a quiet hum of voices buzzed around the divan, Harry felt as though half-time had been called in a punishing rugby match. Shalan withdrew a single paper and a pinch of tobacco from the pouch. Sprinkling a thin line of powdered tobacco along the edge of the crumpled paper, he began to roll the paper between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

  ‘You are a strange man.’ Shalan contemplated the finished cigarette. ‘You are not Bedouin, yet you ride with us and live in our tents. You are Ferenghi, yet you speak our tongue and wear our dress. And, unlike every other Ferenghi I have met, you speak the truth.’

  ‘You are gracious.’

  ‘I accept your offer, my friend.’ For the first time Shalan dropped “Ferenghi”. ‘Five hundred new rifles, ammunition, 50 of your best army horses, 50 camels, and a herd of goats.’

  ‘They will be delivered as soon as I can arrange it.’

  ‘You will seal this bargain between friends by marrying my daughter. Afterwards, my men will guard your pipeline as if it were our own.’

  ‘Marry …’

  ‘You are surprised, my friend. Gratified, I grant you that which I have refused so many others.’

  ‘I am surprised.’ Harry struggled to maintain his composure.

  Shalan rose, signalling the end of the divan. ‘It is agreed, my friend, your pipeline will be protected. We will talk later. Marriage is best discussed at night, after food. Dalhour?’

  A black slave appeared from behind the wall of woven goat hair that separated Shalan’s public quarters from those of his harem. With a practised flick of the wrist, the slave held back the cloth without revealing what lay beyond. Shalan salaamed to the assembly and disappeared into the closed world of his women.

  Ignoring the glances and whispers fired in his direction, Harry remained where he was until the men began to disperse. He would have liked to join them but his legs were numb and, as he was bound to make an ass of himself when he moved, he preferred to do it before as small an audience as possible. Black-veiled women appeared and unleashed the ties that secured the tent walls. One man, taller and darker than the rest, came and stood before him.