The Long Road to Baghdad (2011) Read online

  ‘Akaika dam,’ Grace shouted.

  Everyone left the cabin and gazed at the dam that narrowed the only navigable waterway from the Tigris to the Euphrates to a slender canal. Amid much shouting and military salutes, Perry and Cleck-Heaton left their launch in a row boat and, after a cursory inspection, pronounced the barrier a hotchpotch affair that a few charges of gun cotton would demolish.

  Harry borrowed Smythe’s field glasses and studied the barricade of compacted mud, old canoes, and rotting logs that held the four-foot difference in water level between the Euphrates and Hammar waterway. He’d seen too many rickety Arab concoctions to dismiss them out of hand. Handing back the glasses, he returned to his pallet.

  Smythe woke him four hours later for a dinner of bully beef, dates, and stale bread washed down by warm beer and Chianti. They could hear the curses of the sappers working on the dam, and they were still cursing at midnight. While the men around him snored, Harry tossed on his mat, imagining Mitkhal’s journey from Qurna to the Karun.

  He fell into a deep sleep as dawn rose and woke to the sound of cheering, almost drowned out by the roaring of water. Smythe was standing over him. ‘We’ve breached it. Come and see.’

  A great surge of water poured through the hole the sappers had made in the mud and wood wall.

  ‘Guess what?’ Grace shouted. ‘We’re going to tow the boats upstream.’

  Peter stared at the raging torrent. ‘Against that?’

  Grace flexed his biceps. ‘Tug of war. Navy against army, the Hampshires and Pioneers are already lining up.’

  ‘Political officers don’t play tug of war.’ Harry flicked the cigarette he’d been smoking over the side. ‘Only party games like hide and seek and murder.’

  ‘My father taught me that officers and gentlemen never play party games. Only games where skill and strength can win the day.’

  ‘Ah, but we don’t play our games with officers and gentlemen, only Turks and Arabs.’ Harry grabbed his saddlebag and jumped over the side.

  Basra, Tuesday 28th June 1915

  Maud sat in front of her open bedroom window. Outside, a breeze ruffled the orange trees Mrs Butler had planted during her first spring in Basra. The stray cats Angela fed despite Theo’s graphic warnings about rabies played with the morning shadows, chasing the movements of clouds and birds as they flitted across the dry, leprous grass, all the gardener could grow during the hot, dry months.

  She opened the jewel case on her lap. Laid out on indented beds of cream velvet were the ruby and diamond necklace, tiara, ring, earrings and bracelets she’d been given, or, as Charles had put it, “earned” in India.

  She picked up one of the earrings and held it to the light. Miguel had assured her the gems were perfect. She had no reason to doubt his word. Even allowing for the vagaries of wartime, the set should bring in enough to keep her and the child for a few years and hopefully, by then, her situation would change. She closed the box and locked it with a tiny key she wore on her watch chain. If anyone could get a good price for the jewellery, Harry would, but it could be months before he returned, and by then her girth would put paid to any claim she had on his friendship.

  A knock at the door interrupted her. Angela came in. She glimpsed a figure hovering in the passage.

  ‘Dr Mason is here.’ Angela didn’t know why Maud and John were estranged, only that they were, and the knowledge made her uncomfortable in John’s presence.

  Maud braced herself. ‘Please, show him in.’ She’d written to John the day Theo had told her he was making a good recovery, asking him to call on her before he left Basra. Even as she’d penned the letter, she’d assumed John would disappear back to the war and not bother to contact her again until he could get in touch with his lawyers.

  Angela left and Maud heard John’s voice. She patted her hair and straightened the front of her dress, grateful he hadn’t come a few days earlier when she’d still been in bed. He entered, leaving the door open behind him.

  He looked fitter than when she’d last seen him, but he was still a shadow of the man she’d fallen in love with. His cheeks were sallow and he was painfully thin, but his step was firm, and his eyes clear – clear, hard, and unforgiving, she decided, reading reproach in their depth.

  ‘It’s good of you to come. Please, sit down.’

  Careful to keep six feet of tiled floor between them, he placed a chair in front of hers.

  ‘Aren’t you being ridiculously formal?’

  ‘What other way would you like me to be?’ He laid his topee and swagger stick on the table.

  ‘I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to say.’

  ‘You wrote that you had something important to tell me.’

  She tried to meet his gaze, but failed. His presence in the intimate surroundings of her bedroom recalled too many memories. She stared down at the grain of the leather on the jewel case. ‘There’s no easy way to tell you this, John. I’m desperately sorry. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.’

  ‘You should have thought of that before you slept with Brooke.’

  His bitterness gave her courage. ‘I’m going to have a baby in late January or early February.’

  He laughed. A short, sardonic outburst that chilled her blood. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘You have every right to hate me.’

  ‘That’s generous of you.’

  ‘Please, there are things that need to be said. I’m not going to ask you for anything but I do want you to listen to me for a few minutes.’

  ‘You have them.’ He picked up his swagger stick and ran his fingers down its length.

  Mustering her courage, she looked him in the eye. ‘What I’ve done is unforgivable. The least I can do is absolve you of responsibility for me. I don’t expect you to support me any longer, or recognise me as your wife.’

  ‘New role for you, isn’t it? Maud, the martyr. How do you intend to live? I realise this is a charitable institution –’ he glanced at the wooden cross that hung on the wall behind her bed ‘– but I thought even Presbyterians baulked at condoning the fruits of sin.’

  ‘I have enough money to support myself until the baby’s born. When it’s old enough I intend to work. I don’t need your salary. I haven’t cashed the army bank drafts for the past three months.’ She indicated a package on her bedside table. ‘The drafts are all there, and Geoffrey’s last letter to me and my letters to him. I don’t know much about legal matters but they should provide you with enough evidence to divorce me.’ He made no move to take it, so she tossed the parcel onto the bed. ‘I wanted to give you that, and apologise for the pain I’ve caused.’

  ‘The father of the child is going to support you?’

  ‘No, I won’t be seeing him again.’

  ‘Then another man has stepped in. I take my hat off to him. Most men are too fastidious to take responsibility for another man’s bastard.’

  ‘There’s no one. I’ve caused enough misery. I intend to live quietly with my child.’

  ‘Do I know the father?’

  She saw torment in his eyes and couldn’t add to it. ‘No, John, you don’t know him.’

  ‘Brooke died months ago,’ he cried out.

  ‘It’s not Brooke.’

  ‘Dear God, how many men have there been?’ His face contorted in anguish. ‘No – don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. Just tell me why. Why climb into Brooke’s bed, or any man’s, for that matter? I thought we had something special, something – damn it all, I loved you.’

  ‘And I loved you. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but you weren’t there. I was alone – lonely. I missed you, your warmth … your loving. One minute you were in bed with me every night and afternoon, the next – nothing. I didn’t know when, if ever, I’d see you again. It’s not an excuse, only an explanation.’ Drained, she leant back in her chair.

  He rose and picked up the package.

  ‘Take care of yourself. You deserve someone better than me. After the war I hope you fi
nd her.’

  He looked at her. A step would have brought him to her side. He lifted his hand as though he were going to touch her. Instead, he turned his back. He walked through the door and closed it behind him. She followed the echo of his footsteps as he headed down the passage and into the front hall.

  John waved to Angela as he climbed into Harry’s Landau. The sepoy whipped the horses and drove down the street. The interview had been easier than he’d expected. Maud had been most accommodating. He was free. He owed her nothing, financially or emotionally. She had given him everything he’d intended to demand.

  He pulled his topee down so it covered his face. He had gained what he wanted, so why were tears pouring down his cheeks?

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Nasiriyeh, Tuesday June 29th 1915

  ‘You going out?’ Smythe asked when Harry stripped off his shirt and reached for his gumbaz.

  ‘We’ve no maps and the natives don’t trust us. If I can persuade them a battle’s brewing and suggest they vacate their date groves and homes until after the show, I might save a few lives and make a few friends. We could do with some.’

  ‘Do you need help?’

  ‘I’ve been ordered to take a platoon to cover my back.’ Harry pushed a knife into the sash he’d tied at his waist.

  ‘May as well make it mine.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what we’re up against. It might get rough,’ Harry warned.

  ‘Anything’s better than manhandling supplies, heaving boats up the dam, and waiting for another meal of liquid bully beef from a blown tin. I swear the last consignment I saw were round.’ Smythe picked up his topee.

  ‘Reconnaissance missions are not strolls in the country. Your men will need eyes in the back of their heads.’

  ‘Like Qurna and Amara?’

  Harry tied his kafieh on his head. ‘There, we knew where the enemy was, give or take a few hundred yards, and they wore uniforms. Outside of this boat the enemy could be anyone, Arab, Turk …’

  ‘Do you want me or not?’ Smythe broke in.

  Harry reported to his superior while Peter mustered his platoon. When Harry returned, he delivered his orders.

  ‘Stay at least 50 yards behind me, out of sight, and don’t come unless I whistle.’ He pushed two fingers into his mouth and let out a shrill, piercing shriek.

  ‘Got it, sir,’ the sergeant answered in a broad West-Country accent.

  Smythe followed Harry’s progress along the towpath towards a low mud wall that cut across country about a mile upstream from the dam. After ten minutes, he gave the signal for the platoon to move out. When Harry reached the wall, he stepped over it. Keeping close to the palm thickets, he ran from grove to grove, only pausing when he could take cover.

  He was alert to any sign, any movement, that might indicate a Turkish presence. The undergrowth rustled with the scurrying of wildfowl and water snakes. Once he saw an Arab crouching beneath a palm a couple of hundred yards ahead, but when the man saw him, he fled as though he’d seen a ghost. A ghost, Harry reflected grimly, or a man about to become one.

  After an hour and a half of nerve-wracking scouting, Harry checked his position. A noise on the opposite bank alerted him. He saw a clean-shaven Turkish private and a moustached officer emerge from a grove. The officer spotted him.

  Harry pulled out his revolver and fired four shots in quick succession. The officer fell. Blood poured from the private’s arm. Terrified he’d alerted a regiment, Harry dived into the undergrowth and slithered back along the route he’d travelled.

  Motioning Peter’s platoon to silence, he waved them into cover. They lay on their stomachs, waiting. Flies and mosquitoes crawled over their sweating bodies. Harry with his flowing robes was better off than the men in their shorts, but his abba and gumbaz offered little protection against the spiny leaves that could pierce any number of layers of cloth. After an hour, he signalled to Peter to follow him. Leaving the men, they crawled to the spot where he’d fired on the Turks. Their bodies lay on the towpath, stripped naked, their throats slit from ear to ear.

  Harry knew he need look no further for signs of life. The Arabs were watching. The Turks had no doubt been forward scouts like himself. If others had been within earshot, the Arabs wouldn’t have risked finishing what he’d begun.

  Sickened by the bloodied corpses, Peter retched. The sound drew a shot, probably from a looted Turkish gun, Harry reflected. He saw Peter writhe. A second shot flew overhead. He threw himself on top of Peter.

  ‘It’s my leg,’ Peter panted from between clenched teeth. Rolling on his side, Harry tore the kafieh from his head, and swabbed at the blood. A bullet had entered Peter’s calf below the knee and exited above his ankle. He wrapped the kafieh around the wound, tying it in place with his agal.

  ‘We’re going to have to make a run for it,’ he muttered when a third bullet slammed into a palm above their heads.

  ‘That’s a laugh.’

  ‘Afraid not, here goes.’ Grabbing Peter’s collar, Harry dragged him towards the river. Before Peter had time to protest, he found himself immersed in water. ‘For God’s sake, I’m wounded. Now you’re drowning me.’

  ‘Quiet!’ Harry reached for a log.

  Peter’s leg burned; he wondered what infections the river water carried.

  ‘They’ll run out of bullets soon,’ Harry predicted optimistically, paddling close to the bank. Hooking his elbows over the log, he rammed his fingers into his mouth and whistled. The sergeant crawled out of the grove. Harry waved. The sergeant stole towards them, stiffened, and keeled over, landing face down in the water. Keeping his head low, Harry swam towards him. The hilt of a knife protruded from the sergeant’s back.

  ‘Can you cling to this log?’ Harry asked Peter.

  ‘I think so, but what are you going to do? You can’t stay here …’

  ‘Go.’ Gripping a clump of reeds, Harry pushed the log with his feet. It shot forward, carried downstream by the current. The sergeant’s rifle lay close to where he’d fallen. Harry tried to swim to the spot but his robes hampered his movements. Diving under water, he pulled off his abba and untied his sash. Retrieving his knife, he clenched it between his teeth. Wearing only his cotton trousers, he surfaced and made a grab for the rifle.

  If any Arabs were watching, they didn’t show their faces. Standing waist deep in water, he fired a volley in the hope he was within earshot of the flotilla and someone would send a rescue party.

  Every time Peter tried to put any weight on the log, it rolled, ducking his head below water. His right leg was numb, and it wasn’t easy to swim or tread water without it. Eventually, he found it easiest to hold on to the end of the log and drift behind it. Conscious he was a target for any sharpshooter on the towpath, all he could think about was getting back to the flotilla to summon assistance for Harry. Debris flowed past. The roots of plants that had broken away from the bank, rotting husks of palm and vegetables and, once, a naked, water-blown body.

  The log moved out into mid-stream and he found himself in the middle of a shoal of fish. Turning his head, he saw his right leg trailing puffs of blood. To his horror, he realised the fish were feeding off him. Thrashing his arms, he kicked in an effort to dispel them, not caring who heard his noise. A shot whistled above his head. Then he heard the most wonderful sound in the world.

  ‘Hold your fire. No Turk has that colour hair.’

  ‘Colonel Perry?’ Peter peered cautiously over the log.

  ‘Smythe, what in God’s name are you doing?’

  ‘Trying to get downstream, sir,’ he muttered as two privates from the Hampshires waded into the water and dragged him onto the bank.

  ‘You’ve succeeded, captain.’ Perry looked at his injured leg. ‘We’d best get you to the hospital ship. Volunteers to escort Captain Smythe to the flotilla, Sergeant. At the double.’

  ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Downe is still upstream, sir. My sergeant was killed.’

  ‘Turks?’ Perry interrupted.

&n
bsp; ‘Don’t think so, sir. There was a knife in his back.’

  ‘Damned murdering natives.’

  ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Downe and the rest of our party …’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get to them. Privates.’ He dismissed Smythe’s escort. ‘Rest of you, follow me.’

  The privates rolled out a canvas stretcher and lifted Peter onto it. One of them picked a couple of sucking fish from his leg and tossed them into the river.

  ‘Ready to go, sir?’

  ‘Anywhere as long as it’s not back into the water.’

  ‘Effendi. Psst. Effendi?’

  Harry glanced cautiously above the bank. A leathery brown face framed by reeds stared back at him. He shifted his knife from between his teeth into his hand.

  ‘You want to speak with me?’ he asked in Arabic. The man had seen him first; if he’d intended to kill him, he could have done so already.

  ‘The Turks have gone. Your men are dead. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why should you be sorry Ferenghi are dead?’

  ‘Because you English will win this war and then you’ll punish those who opposed you, and reward those who assisted you in whatever modest way was open to them.’ The man smiled, revealing gaps in his brown teeth. ‘I can show you where your comrades lie.’

  ‘Is it far?’ Harry questioned warily.

  ‘A very little way.’

  ‘How do I know the men of your village aren’t waiting there to kill me?’

  ‘My village is just above the dam, Effendi. It was the home of my fathers. I would like it to remain my home. If I help you, perhaps you will spare it.’

  ‘I’ll not spare it if your people have taken anything from the dead Ferenghis. Or if there are Turks within your walls.’

  ‘There are no Turks within our walls, or Turk lovers.’ The man avoided any mention of Ferenghi goods. ‘If I show you where your soldiers lie, will you spare it?’