The Long Road to Baghdad (2011) Read online

  ‘Some other time, Maud. I’m leaving for the Karun tomorrow. Is there anything you’d like me to give John?’

  She blushed. ‘What a pity I didn’t know. I wrote to him only this morning.’

  ‘I’ll get to him before any mailbag. If you’d like to send another letter, give it to Knight and tell him to pass it on to my orderly.’

  ‘Thank you. Harry, you will tell John I miss him, won’t you?’

  Blue eyes sparkling, golden curls framing a sweet face, blue, silk dress clinging to her figure, emphasising her feminine curves. Maud had never looked lovelier or more alluring. Harry had never felt sorrier for John.

  The KarunValley, Saturday May 1st 1915

  Harry watched anxiously when Mitkhal slumped in the saddle. The broken-down nags they were riding were all he’d been able to scavenge from the detachment posted from Ahwaz to the oilfield station of Tembi after the battle of Shaiba. The duty sergeant told him John had taken Dorset on to the Kerkha. He was grateful. If John hadn’t taken her, someone else would have and he might never have seen her again.

  He hoped their present mounts would last as far as Shalan’s camp. Once there, he’d ask Mitkhal if he could borrow Devon. On his present performance, Mitkhal wouldn’t be up to travelling again for some time.

  He damned Shalan for moving up river. He and Mitkhal had been in the saddle for six hours and he doubted Mitkhal could take much more.

  ‘They’re to the west.’ Mitkhal stared at the empty horizon.

  ‘I can’t see anything.’ Harry scanned the skyline.

  ‘Can’t you hear the camels?’

  Harry hauled in his horse. The creature took the opportunity to nuzzle the bare ground. ‘It could be a Bawi camp.’

  ‘It’s Shalan.’ Mitkhal’s face twisted in pain. ‘I feel it here.’ He hit his chest with his good fist. ‘I’ll be fine now. One or two miles and I’ll be home.’

  ‘I’m going with you.’

  ‘You’re not welcome in Shalan’s tent.’

  ‘I have a right to see my child.’

  ‘You insist on doing this, knowing how much it could hurt not only you, but Furja?’

  ‘I have a right to see my child,’ Harry repeated.

  ‘Then you enter the camp as my guest, not the father of Furja’s child.’ Considering the state he was in, Mitkhal’s firmness was impressive. ‘And you will make no attempt to enter any tent except mine.’

  Shalan’s watchmen spotted them before they saw the camp. They alerted Gutne and she walked out to meet them, her dark eyes wide with apprehension at the sight of Mitkhal’s massive figure.

  ‘You’re hurt.’ She glared reproachfully at Harry.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Mitkhal protested when Harry slid off his horse and ran to assist Gutne.

  ‘I can see what a small thing this nothing is.’ She and Harry half-lifted, half-pulled Mitkhal from the saddle.

  ‘He insisted on coming. He wanted to see you,’ Harry explained.

  ‘And now you’ve seen me, what?’ Gutne railed. ‘A husband is no good to his wife dead.’

  ‘A few months’ rest and he’ll be fine,’ Harry reassured.

  ‘Fine for you to take out again, Hasan?’

  ‘There won’t be a next time.’ Stumbling beneath Mitkhal’s weight, Harry ignored the hostile stares of black-robed women and silent men who watched while he dragged his friend into the circle of black tents. No one called out a greeting or lifted a finger to help when Gutne raised the flap on her tent.

  ‘Lay him on the mattress.’ Gutne held back the curtain that divided the tent into two. She plumped up a cushion and pushed it beneath Mitkhal’s head after Harry had helped him on to a couch in the inner section.

  ‘The war is nearly over, Gutne.’ Mitkhal watched every move his wife was making. ‘One more battle and the Turks will be finished in this part of the world.’

  ‘Then the Ferenghis will move in.’

  ‘The Ferenghis don’t hang innocent people,’ Mitkhal reminded her.

  ‘No, they have more subtle ways of dealing with Arabs. And there are fewer of them, which I why I believe the Turks will be back.’

  Mitkhal grimaced when Harry propped him up so Gutne could undress him. The bandages on his shoulder were blood-soaked. She carried a bowl to the water jar.

  ‘You’ll have to get used to having me around,’ Mitkhal murmured, when she returned with water and clean rags.

  ‘You’re nothing but trouble.’

  ‘From now on I intend to live a peaceful life. Raise my flocks and my children; make love to my wife every night …’

  ‘A fine sight you’re going to be when our son is born.’

  A glow spread across Mitkhal’s sickly face. Embarrassed at witnessing such an intimate scene, Harry left the tent.

  The horses were standing outside, too broken and exhausted to walk another step. He unbuckled the saddles and left them at the tent before coaxing the horses to the camp limits. Devon and Norfolk cantered up the wadi to greet him. He stripped the bridles from the nags and released them before stroking Devon and Norfolk’s muzzles. Twilight was gathering. He could smell roasting goat flesh, just as he had done the evening he and Shalan had discussed his marriage to Furja. Was it really only a year ago?

  ‘Hasan?’ Shalan was behind him.

  ‘I brought Mitkhal home. I will stay tonight, in his tent. Tomorrow I will ride out.’

  Shalan nodded and walked away. Harry called after him.

  ‘Is Furja well?’

  ‘She is well.’ Shalan kept his back to him.

  ‘Has my child been born?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please.’ Harry clenched his fingers into Devon’s mane. ‘May I see them?’

  ‘Not the mother.’ Shalan walked on. Soon his tall, stately figure was lost in the darkness.

  Harry buried his face in Devon’s neck. The sights, the sounds, the smells were overwhelmingly familiar. He could almost believe that if he walked over the rise he would see the red bridal booth. Inside, Furja would be waiting with coffee and food, which they’d ignore. The couch would smell of jasmine like her hair …

  An hour later, Harry lifted the flap of Mitkhal’s tent. The lamps were lit and Gutne was sitting in the outer part.

  She held her finger to her lips. ‘Mitkhal is asleep.’ She offered him a bowl of clean water. ‘Food is waiting.’

  He washed his hands, dried them on the cloth she gave him, and took the bowl of rice and meat.

  ‘Our food is your food.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He sat opposite her. Although he hadn’t eaten since leaving Tembi early that morning, he found it difficult to swallow. ‘How is Furja?’

  ‘Well, but sad. She wanted a son so much. But you have spoken to Shalan?’

  He set the food aside.

  ‘Eat. It is good.’

  ‘It is good, Gutne, but I have no appetite.’

  The tent flap opened and an old woman entered with a bundle in her arms. Harry looked at Gutne.

  She nodded.

  Trembling, he rose. The woman handed him the bundle. He took it clumsily, terrified of dropping it. When he looked down there were two babies curled in the blankets. He stood, too petrified to move.

  ‘Twin girls.’ Gutne smiled at the expression of pride and awe on his face.

  ‘They are beautiful.’

  ‘Hand them to me. When you sit I will give them back to you.’

  Harry sat on a cushion, and rested his back against the saddles Gutne had carried into the tent. He watched her unwrap the two tiny scraps of humanity.

  ‘This is Aza; she is the oldest, and heavier than her sister. When they open their eyes, you will see they are blue, but it is early days and may yet turn dark. And this one –’ the second baby opened its eyes and blinked when Gutne placed her in the crook of Harry’s left arm ‘– Furja named Harri. It is not a Bedouin name. I think Furja called her that because it is your Ferenghi name.’

  Harry sat with a child cudd
led into each arm, looking in disbelief from one to the other. Until that moment, his child had been an abstract idea. Something to worry about whenever he’d thought of Furja. Now he realised: fatherhood was something Shalan had made him renounce before he had known what it meant. If he’d thought of a child at all, he’d thought of a son. A tall, proud, Arab riding Shalan’s mares across the desert.

  A miniature hand waved in the air. He slid his forefinger into Harri’s tiny, perfectly formed fist. The baby grasped it.

  ‘She smiled at me, Gutne.’

  Gutne knew about babies and their digestion but said nothing. Harry’s happiness would be all too brief without her spoiling it.

  Harry laid the sleeping Aza on a cushion next to him, then crouched over her, holding Harri. He gazed at them, fixing their image in his mind. Gutne was right, Harri’s eyes were blue, and the soft downy hair on both babies’ heads was fair, but their skin was a deep, rich, golden brown, like their mother’s.

  ‘Twin girls seemed like an insult to Furja. But she’s used to them now.’

  ‘They will stay with her?’ Harry remembered his conversation with Mitkhal.

  ‘Until she marries.’

  ‘Is there anyone …?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘I’d rather you told me the truth.’

  ‘There are no plans that I know of. I must see to Mitkhal. If you need my help with the babies, call out.’ She walked behind the curtain.

  Harry stared at the tiny bundles. His children – his daughters. He glanced around the tent, so alien from Clyneswood, then remembered he was barely tolerated in the camp, and only as Mitkhal’s guest. How much of his daughters’ childhood would he see? How could he ride away and leave them in the hands of Shalan and whichever Bedouin cut-throat the Sheikh picked as his next son-in-law?

  Aza opened her eyes and looked at him. Her eyes were blue like her sister’s. Blue, innocent, trusting … He stroked her face tenderly with the back of his finger. Bedouin or not, they were his. He owed them the best he could provide, and that didn’t include years of drudgery caring for their grandfather’s flocks and marriage at 13 to an old man who was looking for a third or fourth wife to stimulate his waning sexual appetite. Somehow he had to find a way to get them away from Shalan.

  Just one more push. When Amara was in British hands, he’d return. If he found someone to nurse the girls, he could take them with him. Back to Basra. And from Basra –

  There were so many things to think of, so many decisions to be made. Aza whimpered. He scooped her into his free arm and rocked her alongside Harri. He bent his head to theirs and tenderly kissed them. They were his, and he would make sure Shalan never forgot that fact. Never!

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The KarunValley, Sunday May 2nd 1915

  The only hint of light in the darkness of Mitkhal’s tent was the pale outline of the flap that opened into the night world of scavenging jackals and vigilant sentries. Harry tossed on the couch Gutne had cobbled together, listening to Mitkhal and Gutne’s steady breathing on the other side of the curtain. The air was cold but his skin burned as he conjured images of Furja and his daughters.

  He held no illusions about his former father-in-law. The Sheikh had sold off his eldest and most beloved daughter to a despised Ferenghi for guns. When the time came, he would have no qualms about doing the same, or worse, to his granddaughters.

  Mitkhal moaned in his sleep and Gutne soothed him. Harry waited until they fell quiet; left the couch, pushed his feet into his sandals, and picked up his abba. Pulling it over his cotton trousers, he stole outside. He nodded to the sentries, who were scarcely perceptible in the gloom, before walking down to the wadi. Devon and Norfolk recognised his tread and trotted up to greet him again.

  He shivered when he wrapped his arms around Devon’s neck. Summer had arrived, blighting the day with intense heat, but the nights were cool. Norfolk nuzzled his head. He pushed her away. She belonged to Shalan now, and he wanted nothing that was Shalan’s.

  He was obsessed with gaining control of his daughters’ lives. He could be killed tomorrow – next week – next month – and if he wasn’t, he couldn’t resign his commission while war raged in Europe. Charles had dispelled any illusions he’d had about a swift conclusion to the fighting on the Western Front.

  All he could do for his daughters now was leave them letters they might never be able to read and money Shalan would probably leave to rot in the bank before giving it to them. Charles had once accused him of never facing up to any responsibility. He wanted to face up to this one but he simply didn’t know how.

  A movement caught his eye. Wondering if he were dreaming, he gazed at Furja’s disembodied face. She moved and he realised she was robed in black.

  ‘I had to see you one last time.’

  He enveloped her in his arms. ‘You’re cold.’ Lifting his abba, he pulled it around both of them. Her face was close to his. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Lonely.’

  ‘I have missed you more than you can know.’

  They both started at the sound of a foot scraping on dry sand. Harry turned and saw Norfolk behind them. He pulled Furja down into the shadows.

  ‘Our daughters are as beautiful as their mother.’

  ‘Gutne told me you were kind to them. I wanted a boy.’

  ‘Girls are better.’

  ‘Now you are being kind to me.’

  ‘No, I like girls and I love their mother.’ It was the first admission of love he had made in any language. ‘Furja …’

  ‘No, Harry, no words. They will not help us. Not now.’

  He kissed her. She clung to him, returning his kiss with a passion that seared his skin. If the ground was hard, they did not notice. Nothing existed for either of them outside of the joy they took in one another.

  When he woke, it was light. He was frozen, the ground beneath him cold and hard. If it hadn’t been for the scent of jasmine lingering on his abba he might have believed that he’d dreamed the entire, beautiful episode.

  The KerkhaRiver, Thursday 6th May 1915

  Harry’s face was crusted with dust and flies, his robes filthy. Even Devon’s flanks were caked with dirt, transforming her from grey to piebald. He stood in the stirrups, and searched the horizon for signs of the column he’d been assured was camping close to the bed of the Kerkha. Barren countryside gaped back. He checked his compass. It was times like this he missed Mitkhal. The Arab had a sensory system that could sniff out people over ten miles of desert.

  Dismounting, he reached for his water flask. He could survive on soured milk but Devon couldn’t. Pulling a circle of cured leather from beneath his stirrup, he cupped it in his hand, poured the last of the water into it, and held it beneath Devon’s nose.

  ‘This is it, old girl. You want more; you’re going to have to find it.’ The horse licked the last of the moisture from the leather and looked at him with thirsty eyes. Replacing the leather, he mounted and set Devon’s head north by north east. It was early but the sun burned his scalp through his head cloth. He hoped there’d be time for rest when he caught up with the column. He and Devon could do with a couple of days on full rations of food and sleep.

  He promised himself his journey would end when he reached a thorn bush on the horizon. When it didn’t, he moved his goal to the next rise. Then it was a rock that turned out to be a dead mule. Not too long dead either; decomposing flesh still clung to its baked hide. An hour later, he hit the Kerkha riverbed. Harry could have howled, for Devon not himself. The bottom was as dry as sun-bleached bones. He halted. East or west?

  ‘West, Devon.’ Digging in his heels, he guided the mare forward. To think he’d complained about the rains. He could have rolled his entire, fly-bitten body in mud at that moment. No one died of heatstroke or thirst in mud.

  Devon faltered and he dismounted. Leading her by the reins, he turned a corner and spotted khaki tents pitched besides a shimmering stretch of water. Devon plunged forward and he r
eleased her. Sentries moved in, rifles cocked. Shouting his name, rank, and number, he followed his horse. She didn’t stop until she was hock-deep in water.

  ‘Do you mind washing in the horses’ water? You’d pollute ours.’ John was on the bank, soap plastered over his chin, razor in his hand.

  ‘Fine greeting for a weary traveller. The Arabs were kinder.’

  ‘They probably took you for one of their own.’

  ‘That’s the idea.’

  ‘The idea is going to get you killed. The sentries would have fired if I hadn’t been here to stop them. They thought you were an Arab attack.’

  ‘One man?’ Harry raised a sceptical eyebrow.

  ‘They’re nervous. Major Anderson was killed by Arabs when he was out on patrol last week.’

  ‘I’m indestructible.’ Harry paddled to the sepoy who’d caught Devon. ‘Please, see she gets a good rub down and plenty of feed and water for the next couple of days.’

  The sepoy nodded as he led her away.

  ‘My tent.’ John pointed to one close to the water’s edge. ‘I’m bunking with Warren Crabbe.’

  ‘Major Warren Crabbe! Crabface?’

  ‘I’ve never heard him called that. He’s all right.’

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘I was going to offer to squash in a cot for you.’

  Harry tore off his filthy abba and flung it on the bank. ‘Do you happen to have a spare pair of shorts and a shirt? These robes and a few squashed dates are the sum total of my present assets.’

  He thrust his hands into the water. It was the colour and consistency of lentil soup, but it was cooler than the air. He ducked his head, head cloth, and all.

  ‘You’re not wearing your ID discs, Harry,’ John remonstrated.

  ‘If I was picked up that would be one clue even Johnny Turk wouldn’t miss.’

  ‘And if you get wounded or captured?’

  ‘No one bothers with worthless Arabs. It’s too much trouble to kill them.’

  ‘Well, worthless Arab, the bathing tent’s waiting. I’ll get my orderly to fill a canvas bath for you.’