The Long Road to Baghdad (2011) Read online

  ‘Acting Lieutenant-Colonel Downe, may I remind you that you are not in command? You are a political officer detailed in an advisory capacity only.’

  ‘Go out there, Day, and you’ll be killed,’ Harry warned.

  ‘If you don’t, Day, I’ll have you court-martialled for mutiny and cowardice.’

  ‘You’re determined to see blood flow, aren’t you Cleck-Heaton?’ Harry stepped out of the thicket in which they sheltered. Walking slowly, he raised his arms.

  ‘Looks ridiculous in those Arab skirts,’ Cleck-Heaton sneered, furious that Harry had managed to outmanoeuvre him. Alex Day unbuckled his revolver and moved back to the Arab ghulams.

  ‘What’s Lieutenant-Colonel Downe shouting?’ he whispered.

  ‘He’s offering “hazz o bakht”. Safe conduct.’ The Bedouin spat in the dirt to show what he thought of Marsh Arabs. A volley of shots poured from a window. To Alex’s horror, Harry fell into a ditch at the side of the palm grove.

  A malicious smile curved Cleck-Heaton’s mouth. ‘We’ll show the bastards what we do to natives who kill our officers. Storm the village!’ he ordered the Punjabi officers and sepoys behind him. ‘Give them the same quarter they gave Lieutenant-Colonel Downe and Major Anderson.’

  The Punjabis opened fire. An acrid smell of burning poisoned the air. Alex saw Punjabi officers lighting torches they’d prepared earlier; strips of oil-soaked rags wrapped around bundles of dry reeds. Under cover of their comrades’ fire, volunteers ran out and threw the torches on to the huts. Reed thatch flared. Black smoke curled upwards to the blue sky. The sharp crackle of fire and heat of flames filled the atmosphere. Then the screams started. High-pitched cries of panic-stricken terror.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Day, what are you waiting for?’ Cleck-Heaton demanded.

  Alex marched into the burning village. His platoon followed. Sepoys, led by a burly Sikh sergeant, rammed their rifles through the door and windows of the hut where the firing had started and fired. The door burst open. Half a dozen men stumbled out, their plaited hair flowing behind them. Coughing, eyes streaming, they ran onto the bayonets of the Punjabis.

  Unnerved by the sight of raw, bloody death, Alex stood paralysed. Then he remembered Harry. He charged past the sepoys and butchered bodies of the natives to the ditch. It was empty. He looked at the square in front of the huts. Bewildered by noise and confusion, his platoon stood mutely watching the slaughter.

  ‘Disarm the Arabs,’ he shouted. ‘Take as many prisoners as you can.’ His orders went unheeded. An old man with a grey beard stuck his head out of a window and fired on the platoon. One man fell. With a cry, the others turned their attention and bayonets to the house. Alex continued to shout while his men battered down the door and dragged out the old man. Seconds later, he was one more mutilated body on the blood-spattered ground.

  A child cried. Through the smoke, Alex saw Harry on the marsh side of the village. He was carrying a baby and leading a group of women and children towards the reed boats the Arabs used for fishing. Pulling the boats in by their mooring ropes, he began to pack the children into them. The women wailed, clutching at his robes with agitated hands, hampering his movements. Without pausing, he shouted at them in Arabic. Subdued, they fell back into a weeping huddle.

  Sepoys began to move in. Harry threw the child he was holding to one of the women and pulled his gun. Less hysterical than those around her, the woman continued to force those who remained on the bank into the boats.

  ‘Day, over here.’

  Alex looked from Harry to his platoon. It was easier to follow orders than give them. He ran to Harry’s side.

  ‘Give me your sword.’

  Alex did as Harry asked.

  With a single slice, Harry severed the mooring ropes as the sepoys ran towards them. The woman who had taken charge began shouting. Plunging into the water, she waded out to a boat and climbed in, still shouting and shaking her fist. Alex watched her paddle away. A child crawled onto her lap. It was the child Harry had carried.

  ‘Harry, that little girl – she’s European.’

  ‘Arab children are often born with blond hair and blue eyes.’ He turned to a non-commissioned officer. ‘Sergeant, you wanted to speak to me?’

  ‘Major Cleck-Heaton gave orders that all the women and children were to be taken prisoner, sir.’

  ‘They’ve escaped.’

  ‘What was that woman shouting?’ Alex had to touch Harry before he responded.

  ‘She asked if this –’ Harry grimaced at the ruins of the village ‘– was why I visited them last year. She reminded me I’d eaten their bread and they’d allowed me to travel through their marshes to make my maps.’ He handed Alex back his sword. ‘She also asked if there was anything in my heart and on my lips beside treachery.’

  ‘But this had to be done,’ Alex protested. ‘These villagers killed Anderson and our wounded on the battlefields. They fired on you when you tried to talk to them.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you fire at armed men who’d surrounded your house?’

  ‘But these are savage, murdering natives. If we treat them with kid gloves, we’d lose their respect, and then God alone knows what they’d do to any patrol or party of wounded they come across.’

  Harry surveyed the mess. The fires had flared magnificently but briefly. Sepoys kicked through ashes where huts and well-stocked barns had stood only moments before. A sergeant from the Punjabis was counting bellowing cattle. Broken bodies were heaped everywhere. Cleck-Heaton stood, ankle-deep in blood and gore, shouting orders to a corporal who was organising a stockpile of the villagers’ grain.

  ‘You mean they could do worse to us than we’ve just done to them?’ Harry asked.

  ‘We have to do all we can to ensure the safety of our troops in this territory. We have to put an end to the attacks on our scouting parties and our wounded.’ Day reiterated the official line as if it was a poem he’d learnt by heart.

  ‘And you’re absolutely certain these are the people who attacked Anderson and our wounded?’

  ‘You’re the political officer,’ Day replied uneasily.

  ‘That’s right, I’m the political officer.’ Harry thrust his service revolver back into the folds of his robes. ‘And at the moment my politically orientated mind tells me we’re no better than the bloody Turks. In fact, we’re worse. They at least have the excuse of trying to hang on to their own Empire.’

  ‘We have to protect our oilfields,’ Day murmured.

  ‘We’re a long way from those, Day.’ He turned his back on the village and walked towards the horses. ‘A long, long way.’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  On board the Comet, the Tigris River, Thursday 3rd June 1915

  ‘Amara!’

  The cry echoed around the deck. Charles looked past the launches towing the minesweeping hawser, to a cloud of flamingos that hovered above a distant strip of greenery fronting a settlement of whitewashed houses.

  ‘I find it hard to believe the Turks have let go of the town without a fight. And, as we’ve left the paddle steamers and floating native disasters behind, along with most of our men, I think we’re heading straight into an ambush.’

  ‘There’s no ambush, Reid; the Turks are on the run,’ Leigh crowed.

  ‘They want us to believe they’re on the run,’ Charles countered. ‘It’s all been too easy. Finding that gunboat of theirs, the Marmaris, abandoned and burning above Ezra’s tomb. Didn’t you think it peculiar there was nothing worth salvaging on board?’

  ‘What about the mahailas full of troops, and the steamers crammed with stores?’ Leigh reminded him.

  ‘The troops were the dog-end of soldiery. Better for the Turks that we feed them from our supplies than they deplete theirs, and I don’t call five tons of Turkish army biscuits that aren’t fit for mules much of a catch.’

  Grace ran up to the rail. ‘Message just came through from the aeroplanes. The Turks have run past Amara and they’re still retreating.’

>   Charles lifted his binoculars and scanned the riverbank. ‘Muhammad Pasha could have stationed three-quarters of his army under the rooftops, out of sight of our aeroplanes. We walk in and –’ He slapped his hand against the rail.

  ‘Why do you find it hard to admit that this bloody war is going our way, Reid?’ Amey complained.

  ‘I’m with Reid. It’s been too easy. Loading infantry into native boats, pushing up river, capturing everything in sight, no fight, no resistance from Johnny Turk. It doesn’t ring true. Johnny Turk’s up to something,’ Smythe chimed in.

  ‘Stand by to go ashore!’

  As the order was repeated along the deck, Charles buttoned his binoculars into their case and checked his sword and revolver.

  ‘Got the jitters, Reid?’ Amey asked as the men formed ranks.

  Charles looked from the deck to the town with its wide streets and blank-faced, slit-windowed, Arabic buildings that could conceal any number of rifles.

  ‘One general, half a dozen officers, 12 soldiers and 30 naval ratings preparing to storm a town of 10,000 Arabs protected by a Turkish garrison, strength unknown. Damned right I’m nervous, Amey. Why aren’t you?’

  Charles’s uneasiness persisted through the dinner presided over by General Townsend. The food was the best he’d eaten in months: fresh fish, roast duck, and honey-soaked Halva cake, washed down by beer and Chianti provided by the Comet’s officers. They ate it in the mess of the Constantinople Fire Brigade, a battalion of hand-picked troops who’d surrendered to a naval lieutenant accompanied by ten men and an interpreter.

  The bloodless surrender of the brigade was just one example of what had been happening in the town all day. The Governor, flanked by an escort of Turkish officers, had formally handed Amara over to General Townsend the moment he’d disembarked. The Shaitan had captured a Turkish gunboat complete with crew of 11 officers and 258 men. Pressing his luck, Lieutenant Mark Singleton had continued upstream and run into 2000 Turks retreating from the Ahwaz front. He’d turned the Shaitan’s guns on them and the rear-guard surrendered, while the remainder hastened their retreat.

  A Turkish lighter had been anchored in mid-stream and utilised as a prison ship. By mid-afternoon, the lighter was groaning and the officer in charge pleaded the retreating Turks be allowed to retreat. And still the Ottomans continued to seek out British officers and hand over their arms.

  ‘Stop frowning, Reid. The curfew will hold. The natives know anyone caught outside before daybreak will be shot.’ Amey gave Charles a cigar.

  ‘And if they realise there’s no one to shoot them?’

  ‘Soon will be,’ Amey assured. ‘Nixon and the Norfolks can’t be far behind.’

  ‘I hope we’ll still be alive when they march in.’

  ‘Gentlemen!’ A banging at the top of the table silenced the conversation. ‘To us, gentlemen, the victory.’

  Leigh slopped brandy into Charles’s glass. ‘By the time they realise we’ve pulled a stunt, there’ll be so many reinforcements in the town they won’t be able to do a thing about it.’

  Charles emptied his glass at the toast but he couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before the Turks stopped running. And when they did – would they stand and fight?

  Charles led a platoon around the deserted streets for two hours, searching the shadows for renegade Arabs, Turkish spies, or anything that would justify his sense of impending doom. Leigh relieved him in the early hours and he returned to his quarters. The air was stifling. Stripping off, he thrust his revolver under his pillow and lay on top of the bed, but sleep eluded him as he remembered Emily – and Maud.

  He hated himself and Maud for what had happened but his disgust didn’t prevent him from recalling the texture of her hair, the softness of her breasts and thighs, her moans of pleasure …

  Ashamed of his erection, he rolled on his stomach and reminded himself he was fantasising about John’s wife and Emily’s daughter. He’d made love to other women; why couldn’t he think about them? Why had the memory of Maud seared into him, obliterating every other woman from his mind? Even Emily.

  Charles woke at daybreak to shouting in the street. He dashed out of bed, stopping only to pull on his shorts and grab his revolver.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he demanded of the sepoy outside his door.

  ‘Arabs are looting the town, sir.’

  Lining up his men, he marched them out. For the first time in days, he had a fight he could sink his teeth into. He was almost reluctant to relinquish control to the Norfolks when they arrived in the town an hour later.

  That night, there was a full complement of officers in the mess. The speeches were long and euphoric. Afterwards, Charles only remembered Townsend’s final words.

  ‘Gentlemen, you have captured Amara, 17 guns, a vital quantity of Turkish arms and ammunition, a gunboat, various smaller craft –’ the general paused until the laughter ceased ‘– and over 2000 prisoners at a cost of only four killed and 21 wounded. I have it on good authority that the Turkish casualties are at least ten times that number. Gentlemen …’ The mess stood and raised their glasses to their commander. ‘This is war, and it is magnificent.’

  Even the stiff drink, and the rousing chorus of “Magnificent victory”, failed to dispel Charles’s sense that the worst was yet to come.

  Bisaitan, en route from Kerkha to the Tigris, Tuesday 8th June 1915

  John tiptoed over the bodies that floored the hospital tent. The men lay shoulder to shoulder, head to toe, but few were wounded. Heat exhaustion, dysentery, sunstroke, and fever had exacted a heavier toll than the few skirmishes they’d fought. The men in the tent were the most acute cases. The shortage of canvas and medical supplies meant only the very sick were privileged to lie in the shade. He’d heard Harry and Smythe talk about Mesopotamian summers, but he hadn’t realised that meant temperatures as unrelenting as 160 degrees Fahrenheit. (Their thermometers stopped at 160 degrees). Or plagues of flies so dense they turned the air into a swarming soup of insects.

  Balancing on the balls of his feet, he crouched over a sapper. Two rows away, an orderly was sponging the face of a gunner. The patient fought the cloth in a frenzy of delirium, his face and hands white, caked with salt from the river water. John checked the sapper’s temperature. If his fever didn’t break soon he’d die. He reached for one of the bowls arranged around the edge of the tent, gingerly closing his fingers on its rim until he was sure it was cool enough to touch. He poured a little warm water over the man’s face. He wished they had ice and more tents. Late morning was the worst. The advent of midday heat hung like a sword of Damocles and he was invariably at his lowest ebb after another sleepless night.

  ‘Got room for another, sir?’ A corporal hovered at the edge of the tent, supporting a man too weak to stand.

  ‘Space is at a premium but I’ll take a look at him.’ John rose slowly. Tending patients on the ground played havoc with his leg and back muscles. He reached the man and lifted his eyelid. Too tired to pull out his thermometer, he laid his hand on his forehead. ‘He’s burning up. Probably heatstroke. Lay him in your tent and …’

  ‘We haven’t one, sir. The only shade is beneath that clump of palm trees down by the river, and that’s packed.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to find room for him here.’

  ‘Where, sir?’ The corporal’s knees were giving way.

  ‘Orderly,’ John shouted to Matthews who was as exhausted as him. He didn’t have to explain what he wanted.

  ‘On the end of that row, sir. The burial detail will be along in a few minutes.’

  ‘It’s heatstroke. If you want me I’ll be in my tent.’

  ‘Sir.’ The gunner looked at John with frightened eyes. ‘My mate. He’s going to make it, isn’t he?’

  ‘I hope so, corporal.’ John walked out and stared at the river glittering beyond a border of scrubby bushes. If he had the energy, he’d go for a swim although he knew the water would be warm and thick with salt and debris. He walke
d on.

  Two privates were frying eggs on metal plates laid on the sand. For once, the force didn’t have to worry about lack of fuel. Less than a minute in the sun was enough to solidify the white and harden the edges of the yolk of an egg. Five minutes seared a slab of meat. He envied the sepoys their hunger.

  For the first time since they’d set foot in Iraq the force had sufficient food, thanks to the political officers who travelled around the countryside offering to buy goods from the marsh villagers in exchange for notes drawn on respected firms like Lynch Bros of Ahwaz, and Gray Mackenzie & Co of Basra. Impressed by the names, the natives conjured up supplies the Expeditionary Force hadn’t seen since they’d left India. Mashufs – native canoes – loaded with dates, fresh fish, ducks, chickens, eggs, goats, and sheep. Every meal brought a full plate. It was a shame the merciless heat didn’t leave more of an appetite.

  John stumbled on. Already it was too hot to sleep. Perhaps his idea of working at night and sleeping in the day wasn’t such a good one. He ducked into his tent and tripped over a figure stretched out in the narrow space between the cots.

  ‘Damn it, Harry, I could have hurt you.’

  ‘You did.’ Harry opened one eye and glared at him.

  ‘When did you get in?’

  ‘Half an hour ago, and I wouldn’t ask any more questions. He’s in a foul mood,’ Crabbe answered from his cot.

  ‘Where did he come from?’

  ‘Amara. He’s brought orders that three of our battalions, a cavalry regiment, and a field battery are to proceed there immediately. The rest are to return to Ahwaz. Appears Amara fell easily and they can hold it without a full complement of troops.’

  ‘Who’s going where?’ John asked.

  ‘Hasn’t been decided, but you’ll be returning to Basra with the sick. Lucky sod. I wish I had a wife within travelling distance.’

  ‘You haven’t a wife,’ John reminded Crabbe.

  ‘A girl, then, a woman, anything female. Do you suppose they’ve organised a Rag in Ahwaz by now?’