The Long Road to Baghdad (2011) Read online

All he could do was wait for an edict that would determine where he spent the next few years, if he was lucky enough to live that long. And for a smuggled message to make its way out of the Karun Valley. For him, waiting was by far and away the worst bloody thing about the whole damned war.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Aziziyeh, Friday 12th November 1915

  Dear Angela,

  I think of you all the time. I am desperately sorry for what happened at Qurna. I will never be able to forgive myself. I realise you probably don’t want to write or see me again but I want you to know that I love you. I’ll always love you …

  Peter stared at the crumpled piece of yellowed paper, all he’d been able to forage, and read what he’d written. Then he remembered how Angela had looked the morning after he’d beaten her. He picked up the sheet of precious paper, tore it in half, and continued to tear it into tiny shreds. Reaching for a cigarette, he lit it with shaking hands. The small pile of paper was a testimony to his inadequacy. He wanted to write to her. He wanted to see her. But even if he could get to Basra, he knew he wouldn’t be able to face her. The best solution was for him to be killed in action. That way she’d receive the maximum widow’s pension, and he’d be out of his misery.

  Wallowing in self-pity, he imagined the telegram arriving at the mission, pictured Theo, his face grave, serious as he handed Angela the yellow envelope. Her fingers trembling as she tore the paper open. Were there still envelopes in Basra?

  ‘Boat’s in.’ Amey ducked into the tent. ‘It’s packed with reinforcements.’

  ‘Then the rumours are right; there’s going to be a show,’ Peter muttered.

  Amey plunged his hands into a bowl of water and splashed the dust from his face. ‘Want to go to the dock to see if anyone we know has turned up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Snap out of it. You’re not the first chap to hit his wife, and it’s not as if you meant it.’

  ‘Got a drink?’ Peter cut Amey short.

  ‘If its brandy you want, you know where to get it.’ Amey jerked his thumb at the wall of the tent. ‘That’s if Mason’s left any.’

  ‘He’s not …’

  ‘As a lord. Knight’s working his shift again. I don’t know how much longer we can cover for him. I saw Perry giving him a hard look at dinner last night.’

  ‘Once the show gets under way he’ll pull himself together.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’ After voicing that cheerful thought, Amey left.

  Peter threw his cigarette through the tent flap. Pushing his topee on his head, he stepped outside. The air was barely warm. The flies had returned but they wouldn’t last long. Another few weeks and the freezing rains would begin. The officers who’d kept their tunics and trousers had already stowed away their summer kit. The men weren’t so fortunate. Their winter kit hadn’t arrived.

  He entered the tent John shared with Knight. John was stretched out, clutching an empty brandy bottle. Peter retrieved the bottle and stacked it with the others. There were no full bottles anywhere to be seen. Amey was right; John’s problem was past covering. If he didn’t curb it, someone in command would notice, and being drunk on duty meant a court martial.

  ‘Smythe, where the hell are you? Come and see what the boat’s dragged in.’

  Peter stepped outside. Amey was with Charles, Charles’s bearer lagging behind with Charles’s kit.

  ‘Good God, man, you’re yellow. Your liver must be in one hell of a state. Are HQ so desperate they’re emptying the fever wards now?’ Knight called from the hospital tent.

  ‘Orders were every available man to Aziziyeh,’ Charles panted, exhausted by the short walk from the wharf. ‘I was available.’

  ‘And sick. If you find a cot you can bunk with Mason and me.’

  ‘John’s here.’ An enormous smile lit Charles’s sallow face. ‘Harry?’

  ‘Nasiriyeh, last we heard,’ Peter answered.

  ‘Even I know he’s in Basra.’

  ‘Then we may see him yet. Put Major Reid’s kit in my tent,’ Knight ordered John’s bearer.

  Charles nodded in reply to Ram’s questioning look. He glanced into the tent and saw John stretched out and the empty brandy bottles in the back corner.

  ‘Whatever he was like the last time you saw him, he’s ten times worse.’ Knight lifted a camp chair and a couple of stools out of the hospital tent and set them outside his own. He pushed the chair in Charles’s direction. ‘My biggest worry is someone in command will catch on. There are only so many bouts of fever a man can have in one week.’

  ‘Why don’t you stop him?’

  ‘Taking it off him when he’s like this is no problem.’ Knight slipped his hand beneath John and produced a flask Peter had missed. ‘But, sooner or later, he’ll sober up enough to go on duty and then he’ll raid the medical supplies. I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried to stop him but it would be easier to prevent him from breathing.’

  ‘How long has he been as bad as this?’ Charles frowned.

  ‘Since he returned from Basra.’ Amey offered his cigarettes around. ‘He’s left his wife, as much as anyone can leave a wife in wartime.’

  ‘That’s Mason’s business,’ Knight growled.

  ‘He wouldn’t mind Charles knowing. He was quick enough to tell the rest of us.’

  ‘He was probably hoping to kill the gossip with an overdose of honesty,’ Charles commented.

  An awkward silence was punctuated by Ram’s appearance with a cot. Knight cleared a space while Charles studied the men around him. Peter looked as though he’d hit despair and slid downwards. Knight was irritable and exhausted. John was out cold. Only Amey was his usual ebullient self. That left him, weak, sick, with barely enough strength to cope with living in a camp.

  He hoped the Turks were running true to form. If they weren’t and stood their ground, there could be a battle which none of them was strong enough to withstand.

  *……*……*

  Basra, Wednesday 10th November 1915

  Harry faced his superior across his desk. ‘Aziziyeh for Baghdad?’

  ‘You have it, Downe.’ Cox gave him a hard look. ‘I heard you and Cleck-Heaton had a spat in the mess.’

  ‘The idiot said we could take Baghdad without extra divisions. When I pointed out that we’d be stretching our supply lines to breaking point by travelling that far upstream, he suggested we could reinforce the front line on the Tigris with troops from Nasiriyeh who were only sitting on their backsides.’

  ‘At which point you hit him.’

  ‘He deserved it.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, but you only succeeded in getting yourself noticed. Need I remind you your lieutenant-colonelcy is only an acting one, Downe?’

  ‘I was happier as a subaltern.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Cox probed. ‘You’ve been at the nub of every argument in the mess for the last two weeks, Harry.’

  He knew what Cox meant. Too many officers were cracking up after the long, hot summer. His colonel was wondering if he was joining their ranks.

  ‘I’m angry with the idiots who want to take Baghdad. Even if we get it, what are we going to do with it? It’s hardly within commuting distance of Westminster.’

  ‘What we do with it is not for the likes of you or me to determine. Our business is to implement policy, not question it.’

  ‘And the extra troops we need, if we’re going to Baghdad?’

  ‘We’re getting two divisions from France.’

  ‘Soon enough for them to join us at Aziziyeh?’

  ‘They haven’t left France yet.’

  ‘Is there anything coming from Aden?’

  ‘I’ve heard that rumour too. As far as I know, it’s just a rumour.’ The colonel produced a bottle of whisky and two glasses. He filled one and passed it to Harry. ‘We’re only a sideshow to the main event. The best we can hope to accomplish is a good headline for the London papers. That way the civilians have a victory, albeit a second-class one, to gloat over
. Apart from propaganda, there’s precious few of those coming from the Western Front.’

  ‘It’s that bad?’

  ‘There and Gallipoli. We’re finished on the peninsula.’ Cox drank his whisky and topped up their glasses. ‘Intelligence estimates the Turks have 7000 men and 19 guns deployed on the upper Tigris and 2700 men based in Baghdad. There’s something else but I’d be obliged if you’d keep it to yourself.’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘A friend in the Indian Office sent a message to me by courier last week. The War Office estimates there will be 60,000 Turks in Mesopotamia by January.’

  ‘Christ!’

  ‘Pray he’s wrong, Harry.’ The colonel drained his glass.

  Harry picked up his orders and buttoned them into his top pocket.

  ‘Good luck, Downe.’

  ‘If your friend is even close to the truth, sir, we’re all going to need that.’

  Harry left the barracks and hailed a carriage. He hoped even at this late hour to find Mitkhal waiting but there was no news. He checked his credit with Abdul. The Arab was holding 1700 sovereigns of his gambling gains. He took 1500 in gold and the jewellery Maud had given him to sell. He gave Abdul a copy of his will for safekeeping after adding a codicil leaving Maud her jewellery. Everything else went to Furja and his daughters, with Mitkhal, John, and Charles acting as executors. He hoped one of them would survive him.

  He packed his kit, left it by the door, and walked to the bank where he placed the gold and jewellery in his safety deposit box – a box to which Mitkhal held a key. There were over 6000 sovereigns in it. He’d been lucky at the gambling tables. He checked his account. He hadn’t touched his allowance or salary for almost two years. He exchanged the balance for a credit note before going to the mission.

  He found Maud sewing a baby’s dress, her figure swollen, her face and ankles puffy. Dropping her sewing, she held out her hands.

  ‘We must be winning this war if a lieutenant-colonel can afford to take an afternoon off. I’ll get tea.’ She set her hands on the arms of the chair, intending to lever herself up.

  ‘I can’t stay, Maud. I’ve received my orders. The boat leaves in two hours. I came to give you this.’ He handed her an envelope. ‘Abdul sold your jewellery.’

  ‘He did!’ She laughed out of sheer relief. Buying the brushed cotton for the baby dresses had taken her down to her last ten pounds. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Harry.’

  ‘Thank Abdul. He probably sold it for less than it’s worth but the bank draft should keep you for a while.’

  She leant across and kissed him. ‘If there’s anything I can do for you, just say the word.’

  ‘There is actually. Do you remember my servant?’

  ‘The Arab?’

  ‘I’ve been expecting him for months. I told him to leave a message here for me. Should he turn up, you will give him anything he needs.’

  ‘Of course. Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Angela and Theo?’

  ‘Say it for me. How is Angela?’

  ‘Her bruises are healing.’

  ‘Is she likely to have any messages for Peter?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Maud replied guardedly.

  ‘Then I must go. This war isn’t going to wait.’

  ‘There’s going to be another battle, isn’t there?’ she asked.

  ‘Possibly. But Johnny Turk’s always run from us before. No reason to suppose he’s going to change his form now.’

  She looked at him. The face that only a year before had been unlined and carefree was thin, creased and worn, and there were premature strands of grey in his fair hair. ‘Look after yourself, Harry. A lot of people care about you. More than you realise.’

  ‘You should know by now I’m indestructible.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Goodbye, Maud.’

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The Tigris above Aziziyeh, Sunday 21st November 1915

  Charles crossed the ground when the church parade broke up and clasped Harry’s arm. ‘I was hoping you’d turn up.’

  ‘Can’t have a show without me.’ Harry looked Charles over. ‘If we were in Clyneswood in the spring we could lose you in the daffodil wood.’

  ‘Everyone’s here.’ Charles led the way to the tents. ‘John, Knight, Smythe, Amey, Crabbe …’

  ‘I saw most of them on parade except John.’

  ‘He and Knight are on duty.’

  ‘Duty’s preferable to standing around listening to bloody sermons. Whose bright idea was it to lecture the men on tithes before a show?’

  ‘Padre Powell. “Take the minds of the men off what’s to come, eh what?” I’m bunking with John and Knight, but Amey and Smythe have room for you.’

  ‘I’m going out with the advance guard.’ Harry reached for his pocket watch and opened it. ‘In two hours, but I have to change somewhere.’ Harry picked up his kitbag. ‘Lead me to your tent. That way I can dump my spare gear on your bearer.’

  ‘He’s back with the Mahrattas. Got commissioned yesterday.’

  ‘You trained him well.’

  ‘Not really, he started out that way.’ Charles opened the tent flap. ‘I can’t offer you a drink. We don’t keep any.’

  ‘John?’ Harry asked.

  ‘You know.’ Worn out by the church parade, Charles sat on his cot.

  ‘I’ve seen it coming for a long time, but as he’s not here, here’s to those who can handle it.’ Harry produced a flask.

  Charles unscrewed the cap and drank. ‘That’s damned good brandy.’

  ‘I filled it in Basra.’

  Remembering his liver, Charles screwed the flask shut and handed it back. ‘You always hear ten times more than anyone else, what’s the score?’

  Harry stripped off his tunic, shirt, and ID discs, and piled them on Charles’s kitbag. ‘God help us if we don’t take Baghdad tomorrow. All the evacuation plans are to take the wounded forward. Townsend’s estimated our casualties at 2400, which even the staff, believe to be on the low side. The “hospital ships”, if you can call the rust buckets that, only have facilities to carry 1500. If the Turks don’t run, we could find ourselves retreating downstream, but Amara has a lot to offer. You can stand me drinks and dinner in the mess. Either there or Baghdad.’

  Battle of Ctesiphon, Monday 22nd November 1915

  ‘There is the tomb of Salman the Pure, Effendi. It’s bad luck for the Infidel to fight in the shadow of one so venerated by the faithful.’ Ahmed made an indirect reference to the disturbances in one of the Indian regiments who’d refused to fight on their holy ground.

  ‘It’s worse luck for the faithful to fight beside one of the great monuments of Western civilisation.’ Harry indicated the Roman arch that dominated the settlement of Ctesiphon. Ahmed fell silent, leaving Harry to reflect on the madness that had driven so many Empires to self-destruct in this filthy land.

  The Bedouin had been travelling the desert and the Marsh Arabs laying their fish traps when Alexander the Great had died from fever contracted in the Mesopotamian swamps. The Romans pushed aside the tribes and marked the desert with magnificent edifices, which the Bedouin had used for centuries to shade their livestock. And now the British had chosen to fight here. He hoped it wouldn’t prove to be his empire’s as well as Alexander’s Armageddon.

  The moment the first rays of dawn touched the horizon, whistles echoed down the lines. Men crawled from hastily scraped dugouts and began to advance across the plain that separated them from the Turkish front line, 5000 yards away. Harry waited until the British and Turkish Arab irregulars and camelry closed in on the flanks, before kicking the camel beneath him.

  He and Ahmed moved forward. At that instant, the British artillery guns boomed into life behind them. Shells streaked into the enemy’s trenches.

  Harry spurred his camel on until it ran alongside the advancing Dorsets. A spurt of rifle fire brought down men in the front line. He drew his revolver, and headed for the mass of Turkish Arab irregulars; waving the men behind him in
to an inferno that had none of the impersonal qualities he’d experienced standing on the decks of the river launches.

  By 11 o’clock, Harry was bloodied and exhausted. He gazed across the plain littered with the broken bodies of men and horses and saw the Dorsets had taken the arch of Ctesiphon.

  The Turkish artillery chose that moment to crash into action. His camel bolted. He clutched at the reins, but he was too late. Slithering sideways, he landed on the body of John’s orderly, Singh.

  None of the Dorsets had eaten in over 24 hours but, hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, they followed their officers into the Turkish forward trenches and turned the guns so they faced the Turkish second line. Only then did the CO hand down the order for a respite. Peter drank from his water bottle before climbing a pile of Turkish dead to peer over the parapet. He reloaded his revolver blindly while he scanned the Turkish second line guns. The line wasn’t their last. There was another, and, in the distance, he could make out a fourth.

  ‘We did it.’ Charles slumped at his feet. He was breathless, his sword dangling from one hand, his revolver loosely cradled in the other.

  ‘Are you wounded?’ Peter asked in concern.

  ‘Pooped, it’s a long run across that plain.’

  Peter pulled out his binoculars. A whistle blew and men surged forward. ‘Christ, what bloody idiot did that?’

  An answering whistle resounded from the Turkish trenches and a line moved forward to meet their own.

  Peter vaulted over the edge of the trench. Charles tried to follow, but stumbled and fell back. He looked at his revolver. The barrel was empty. He pulled out his ammunition pouch and reloaded it. He didn’t have the energy to go and fight the war; he’d just have to sit and wait until it came to him.

  ‘Stretcher-bearers!’ John screamed. Around him was a Dante’s Inferno of dead and dying. They continued to flood in an endless stream, crawling in on hands and knees, helped by those who were still able to stand. A few were even carried in by bearers, but he was finding it impossible to summon any to carry them out. He was being buried under an avalanche of groaning men. He continued to scream for orderlies, for bandages, for instruments, for stretcher-bearers. None appeared.