The Long Road to Baghdad (2011) Read online

  ‘What I’m trying to say is I’ve just realised how much you and John mean to me.’ Charles held up a bottle. ‘Last drink for the road.’

  ‘A quick one.’ Harry repacked his saddlebag and tossed it, together with his camel skin, on top of the mattresses. ‘Did you enjoy your drink with the general?’

  ‘He said we’re set to drive the Turks back from the Euphrates.’

  ‘That’s hardly news. The brief from the Indian Government at the outset was to secure the Wilyat. That includes the Euphrates. There’s little point in us sitting on the Tigris if they can attack any time they want from our left flank.’

  ‘He also told me the security of the Wilyat and oilfields has been designated of secondary importance to territorial acquisitions. Nixon’s asked for more troops. Command’s set on taking Baghdad.’ Charles watched Harry. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

  Harry took the whisky Charles handed him. ‘I heard something of the sort before Shaiba. We hoped the idea would be dropped.’

  ‘“We” being the political officers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Everything’s fallen our way so far, why shouldn’t it continue?’

  ‘If we have more troops and supplies we’ll probably be in a position to take Baghdad, but there isn’t a single sound reason for doing so; what the Command doesn’t seem to realise is the closer to Baghdad we get, the closer we will be to the Turkish main supply line and the Berlin-Baghdad railway. The Turks stretched themselves by fighting in Basra. We can take what’s left of the Wilyat and hold it comfortably. Beyond it, we could be the ones forced to retreat.’

  ‘You think we’ve gone far enough?’

  ‘We’ve secured the oilfields and established British rule in Basra and the surrounding area, so why the emphasis on taking Baghdad? Has the Indian Government a surplus of civil servants looking for new territories to govern? If they have, they’ll find Mesopotamia less amenable than Calcutta.’

  ‘I haven’t given a thought as to what’s going to happen to this place after the war,’ Charles said.

  ‘It’s all the Arabs think about.’ Harry finished his whisky. ‘But ours is not to reason why. I didn’t learn much in Sandhurst but I did learn that. When you’re a general, you can make the decisions. Until then, you obey orders. Even if they come from a halfwit who’s never set foot outside HQ except to go to a governor’s garden party.’

  ‘Why does Perry hate John so much?’ Charles asked.

  ‘Because he married Maud the day Emily died. Perry barricaded himself into his bungalow and got plastered. John couldn’t leave Maud with him, and he couldn’t take her away without a chaperon, so he married her.’

  ‘John said as much, but after seeing Perry tonight I thought there had to be more.’

  Harry picked up his bag. ‘Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to kick a captain out of bed. I may need help with John on the journey. And a Lieutenant-Colonel, even an acting one, has the right to an aide.’

  ‘And Smythe the right to a wedding?’ Charles smiled.

  ‘One of us is entitled to a happy ending. Take care until I get back.’

  Lansing Memorial Hospital, Basra, Tuesday 15th June 1915

  Maud stood a bowl of salt water on a stool beside a Turk’s bed. He smiled at her and raised his arm to prove he could move it. While she cut away his dressings, she considered how far she’d progressed since the morning Theo had shown her around the wards. They’d lingered at the bedsides of amputees, men whose wounds were alive with maggots, children whose tiny bodies were covered by pus-filled lesions. She’d steeled herself, survived the tour – and Theo’s remarks on women who were afraid to get their hands dirty. Women he termed “ladies”, using the word as an insult.

  The morning after the tour, she’d dressed in a grey frock she’d have died rather than wear before the war, and entered the hospital. Theo introduced her to Sister Margaret, a large woman with red hair, and a brusque, no-nonsense Irish approach to life, death, and disease which had been acquired during 30 years of nursing. The sister had shaken her hand, then given her the foulest and filthiest jobs she could find.

  She’d worked from before dawn to after dusk, washing out chamber pots that overflowed with excrement and vomit, bathing filthy and verminous bodies and cleansing putrid sores. She bore it all silently because her pride wouldn’t allow Theo the gratification of knowing he’d been right about her.

  A week after she’d started she’d been tweezing maggots out of a Turkish infantryman’s arm when she’d sensed the patient watching her. When she’d finished, he produced a crumpled photograph of a young woman dressed in black with a baby on her lap. She’d asked if the girl was his wife. Neither could understand a word the other uttered but the expression in his eyes when she’d pointed to the baby said everything. He was the first patient she saw as more than a wound.

  The next time she’d passed his bed, she’d smiled. The other men saw and produced their own photographs. By means of pointing, trial and error, she learnt their names, and held conversations of a sort. Her smiles won her friends on other wards. A mother in the children’s ward gave her a bag of sweets, another, a bunch of flowers. Soon, she found herself an accepted member of the hospital and, for the first time in her life, felt she was doing useful work.

  Sister Margaret tempered her hostility and showed her how to do the thousand and one nurses’ tasks quickly and efficiently. After three weeks, she was not only washing and cleaning wounds but dressing them. Yesterday, she’d given her first injection. And Doctor Picard was talking about allowing her to assist with operations.

  ‘Nurse?’

  Maud looked up from the arm she was bathing. ‘Sister.’ Sister Margaret might be friendlier, but she was still a force that wouldn’t stand being treated lightly.

  ‘An influx of British wounded came in four hours ago from Amara.’

  ‘I heard. I assumed they’d be going to the base hospital.’

  ‘They are, but Captain Smythe is here. Your husband is among them. I’ll finish dressing this arm if you’d like to go and see him.’

  Maud handed over the cloth, ran to the sink, and washed her hands. Tearing the starched cap from her hair, she raced along the corridor and collided with Peter.

  ‘Is John escorting the wounded or is he ill?’ she demanded.

  ‘He has fever. I’m sorry to bring such rotten news. I have a carriage waiting.’ Clutching her arm, he led her out into the suffocating heat of the street and lifted her on to the seat. ‘He doesn’t look too clever.’ He flicked the reins. ‘Knight says he has no strength. He wanted to keep him in Amara but Harry thought he’d be better off here with you. When I left the doctors were looking at him.’

  ‘He’s going to make it, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s in the best hands, Maud. Although –’ He smiled. ‘I don’t know what he’s going to say when he comes round and sees you in that uniform. You’re the last candidate I expected to join the American nursing corps.’

  Base Hospital, Basra, Tuesday 15th June 1915

  Maud gripped her seat as they drove up to the main entrance of the hospital. Hoping he hadn’t been too optimistic, Peter stopped the carriage and helped her down. He and Harry had carried John, more dead than alive, into the hospital. They’d stayed with him until a doctor had arrived but they hadn’t needed a doctor to tell them the prognosis wasn’t good. Harry had insisted on staying with John, so he’d offered to find Maud, delaying his departure only as long as it had taken him to borrow a carriage from the hospital administrator.

  ‘Is John in the officers’ ward?’ Maud questioned impatiently when he climbed back on the carriage.

  ‘Yes, but if you give me a moment to take the horses to the stable …’

  Maud picked up her skirts and ran, barging into an orderly, almost knocking him over. ‘Captain Mason?’

  The orderly consulted the list he was holding with irritating slowness. ‘We have no Captain Mason.’

  ‘He came i
n with the casualties from Amara.’

  ‘We have a Major Mason. Major John Mason. Indian Medical Corps.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Maud untied her apron and smoothed her ruffled dress.

  ‘In the cubicle at the end of the ward. On the left.’

  Maud raced on, only to crash into an officer who was walking down the aisle between the beds. She muttered an apology and tried to pass, but he gripped her hand.

  ‘Maud, it’s Harry.’

  ‘Harry, it’s good to see you, but I have to go to John.’

  ‘The doctors are with him. Let’s sit somewhere quiet.’ Pulling her away from the curious stares of the patients, he led her out on the veranda that overlooked the Shatt. The air inside the ward was hot, humid, and heavy; outside it was unbearable, but private.

  ‘How is he?’ she begged.

  ‘He has a fever, but all the doctors I’ve spoken to have said they’ve seen worse. He also has a few cuts and bruises so he doesn’t look very pretty’

  ‘Cuts and bruises? I don’t understand.’

  ‘He passed out in the mess, fell on a whisky glass, and it broke in his face. Maud, you can see him in a minute but I need to talk to you first.’ He led her to a cane bench and sat alongside her. ‘The worst thing is his lack of strength. The march from Ahwaz to the Kerkha was rough. It’s even hotter up country than it is here, and there weren’t enough supplies. In fact, there wasn’t enough of anything except sick, and you know John. He worked day and night.’

  ‘He’s going to die, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s weak and he needs a lot of care. But there’s something else. I might be treading on sensitive ground, and you can shout at me if you want, but not John. Something’s been worrying him. I’m not sure what,’ he lied. ‘But I think it’s to do with you. If he’d been conscious, I’d never have got him here. He didn’t have to go to Amara. Our column divided on the Kerkha and he was offered the chance to return to Ahwaz and from there to Basra. When we reached Amara, Charles and I tried to persuade him to put in for leave but he insisted on volunteering for the Euphrates expedition. He spoke about your letters – said he didn’t know you any more. When we met up with Charles and Charles told him you were in Basra, I hoped it might make a difference, but it didn’t. If anything, it made John worse.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to see me.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘I’m sure he does really, Maud,’ Harry said gently. ‘But war has a strange effect on people. John’s been at the sharp end for months. In Ahwaz, I saw him amputating limbs under fire. Dragging the wounded in himself when the stretcher-bearers were hit. We’ve all changed, John more than most. I’m sure he needs you. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t have brought him here. But he needs careful handling. He’s not the husband you waved goodbye to in India.’

  ‘I’m not the wife.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s happened between you, and I don’t want to. But I’m as close to John as I am to my brother. You meant everything to him a short time ago. I’ve been lucky enough to know how that feels and I hoped if I brought him here, you could put whatever’s wrong right.’

  ‘Thank you, Harry. It couldn’t have been easy for you to say that.’

  ‘I have to make my report. As soon as I’m through, I’ll return. Perhaps we can dine together. I know you won’t want to leave John, but you have to eat.’

  ‘Thank you, I’d like that.’

  He left her on the veranda. Whatever problems lay between John and Maud he’d given them the chance to sort them out. They had one another, and a short time to call their own. He wished he and Furja were as fortunate.

  Mission, Basra, Tuesday 15th June 1915

  Angela was writing on the blackboard with her back to her class when she sensed restlessness.

  ‘Silence!’ When the whispering didn’t stop, she whirled around to see Peter watching her through the window.

  ‘Class, get out your readers.’ Slamming the classroom door behind her, she ran into Peter’s arms. Without looking to see if anyone was around, she returned his kiss.

  ‘Do you think Reverend Butler could marry us this evening?’

  She wrapped her arms around his chest. ‘It’ll have to be a late ceremony. The Reverend’s visiting the Qurna mission. He won’t be back until after ten.’

  ‘I can just about hold out until then.’

  She looked into his eyes. ‘I’m not sure I can.’

  Base Hospital, Basra, Tuesday 15th June 1915

  Reed blinds closed out the twilight. A fan whirred monotonously overhead, stirring the sluggish air. John lay on his back, his head bandaged, his body covered by a sheet. His skin was pallid, tinged with a greenish hue.

  If it hadn’t been for the perspiration, Maud could have believed she was holding the hand of a corpse. She hadn’t left him since the doctors had allowed her in.

  Harry had prepared her for sickness, but not this gaunt, skeletal state. If only – the saddest words in the language. If only she had followed John the moment Basra had fallen. If only she hadn’t thrown herself at Geoffrey Brooke; allowed Miguel D’Arbez to seduce her; lost her head with Charles –

  John moved. She wrung out a cloth in a bowl of iced water and placed it on his forehead. The small noises of the ward found their way into the cubicle. Men coughing and muttering in delirium. The clink of enamel bowls as orderlies washed ulcerated skin. A doctor had called in earlier to confirm John’s fever had broken. He told her John was one of the lucky ones. Leave, rest, feeding up, and he’d be ready to go out and get himself in the same state all over again.

  John’s eyes flickered open. He stared at Maud, disorientated. This wasn’t the glittering, golden Maud of his dreams. This Maud was soberly dressed in grey, her face pale, unsmiling, a frown creasing her forehead.

  ‘Maud?’ he croaked. ‘Don’t go, not this time, please.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, darling.’ She laid her hand against his cheek. He looked at her again and realised he wasn’t dreaming. Then he remembered.

  He gave her a look of utter contempt and turned his face to the wall.

  Basra, Tuesday 15th June 1915

  Harry walked along, musing over his superior’s generosity. While he hadn’t exactly been granted leave, he’d been given permission to visit the Karun and deliver passports to friendly tribes. Blank forms he could fill in, designating the holder an inhabitant of the British occupied territories of Mesopotamia. Forms that could prove useful to Shalan should a British Army patrol stumble across his camp, and, he hoped, prove to the Sheikh that the Turks wouldn’t be returning.

  Lamps were being lit in streets and houses. The heat was leaving the ground and rising towards the clear, star-shot sky. By the standards of the day, it was cool. He passed a fruit seller and bought a basket of oranges and fresh dates. Entering the hospital from the veranda, he found the ward in semi-darkness, the only light a shaded lamp on the orderly’s desk. The orderly pointed to his watch. It took five minutes of rank pulling before the man would allow him into John’s cubicle.

  John was awake and alone; his eyes fever bright, almost luminous in the gloom.

  ‘Brought you fruit.’ Harry dumped the basket on the locker. ‘But for God’s sake don’t eat it until it’s been peeled, or you’ll get cholera on top of everything else.’

  ‘If I had the strength I’d knock your brains out.’

  ‘Any reason in particular?’ Harry found it difficult to keep up the pretence of good spirits in the face of John’s wasted body.

  ‘They told me how I got here.’

  ‘We all agreed you’d have a better chance of pulling through if you were in Basra.’

  ‘So you, Charles, and Knight conspired to bring me here.’

  ‘Conspired is strong. Smythe and I carried you on board a river boat and looked after you until we reached here.’ He glanced around. ‘Where’s Maud?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ John replied in a tone that said he didn’t care.

  ‘I d
on’t know what you heard but if there was anything between Maud and Brooke, Brooke’s dead. Damn it, I’d forgive Furja anything if she was there waiting for me as Maud was for you today.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say. Furja hasn’t been sleeping in another man’s bed.’

  ‘The man’s dead.’

  ‘One man is dead. God alone knows how many others there were.’

  Harry lit two cigarettes and placed one in John’s mouth. ‘There are a lot of gossipmongers who like nothing better than stirring up trouble.’

  ‘Remember that bundle of letters you found next to Brooke? You wouldn’t have given them to me if you’d read them.’

  Harry rammed the heel of his hand against his forehead.

  ‘You weren’t to know.’

  ‘I should have looked at them.’

  ‘You had no reason to.’

  Harry lifted the blinds and peered out at the Shatt. ‘Have you spoken to Maud about them?’

  ‘I sent them to her. She knows I did.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Get me out of here.’

  ‘You wouldn’t reach the door.’

  ‘Then keep Maud away from me.’

  ‘I’ll tell her to stay away if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be what you’d want if it was your wife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you’re a different man from me.’

  ‘I’m nearly a foot shorter, for a start.’

  ‘Why can I never be angry with you for long?’ John’s voice was hoarse with the effort it cost him to speak.

  ‘Because I’m charming.’

  ‘I can’t cope with her apologies, Harry.’

  ‘I’ll tell her. I’ll call in tomorrow before I leave. I’ll be gone a week so I expect to see you well when I get back. Is there anything else I can do?’

  ‘No.’ John closed his eyes.

  ‘Can I tell her that you’ll talk to her later?’

  John turned on his side. ‘Tell her whatever you want, Harry, as long as I don’t have to agree with it or see her again.’