The Long Road to Baghdad (2011) Read online

  ‘Take half the men,’ Crabbe ordered. He shouted down for every second man to fall out and follow Captain Smythe. Peter looked back. The armoured cars of the cavalry had moved in on their flanks, ready to cover the retreat. He remembered Charles and Amey. Why, damn it – why? He slammed his fist into a sandbag. A private from the Mahrattas was staring at him. From down the trench he heard a scrap of doggerel being sung to the tune of ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’.

  ‘Some calls it Ctesiphon. Some calls it Cestiphon. But I call it Pisstupon.’

  If the Tommies had anything to do with it, they’d be back.

  Umm-ut-Tubul, 30th November 1915

  A shudder tore the Firefly from stem to stern as a

  shell shattered her bridge. Bowditch flung himself

  onto the deck, banging his head against Harry’s. They both skidded against the cabin wall.

  ‘Good shots, these Turks.’ Harry shot Bowditch a grin.

  ‘You’re insane. We’re done for. We’re …’

  ‘Going for a swim?’

  Some of the ratings had already thrown life rafts overboard and were jumping after them. Through the smoke and fire, Harry saw the prow of the Sumana turn towards them. On their right, smoke rose raggedly from the deck of the Comet.

  ‘We can’t abandon her,’ Bowditch protested when the signal blew. ‘We need every craft. We won’t stand a chance without them.’

  ‘We won’t stand a chance if we stay with them.’ Reaching for his rifle, Harry took an ineffectual pot shot in the direction of the Turks on the bank.

  ‘Doctor!’ A blackened rating appeared from below deck, his hair seared to a grey frizzle, his uniform pocked with scorch marks.

  ‘We need a doctor, sir,’ Bowditch reprimanded.

  Harry looked for Knight. He’d seen him ten minutes ago, but there had been so many wounded, even before the Turks had started firing, that Knight could be on any one of the half-dozen barges packed with wounded the Firefly was towing. He grabbed the rating’s arm. ‘You’d best get off while you can.’

  ‘Not while me mate’s below deck, sir. The steam pipe broke above him when we were hit. It cracked clean in half. He’s in agony. Proper agony, sir.’

  ‘I’ll see to him. You find the doctor, send him here, then get yourself off,’ Harry shouted above the crackle of flames.

  ‘Harry, she’s going to blow any minute.’

  Harry shook off Grace’s restraining hand. ‘See you on board the Sumana.’ He swung down the ladder. A tide of men surged towards him and he clung to the side of the narrow passageway. After they passed, the hold fell quiet enough for him to hear screaming ahead. It was high-pitched, continuous, the screech of machinery when the oil runs dry.

  He kicked open the door of the engine room. A man lay curled on the floor, his face and upper arms skinned raw, his clothes clouding with vapour where the boiling steam had burst over him. Two men crouched beside him.

  ‘You two, on deck, now. Didn’t you hear the signal to abandon ship?’

  ‘But our mate …’

  ‘That’s an order.’

  The men hesitated.

  ‘A direct order,’ Harry barked.

  The men looked back as they left. There was a crack, and the whine ceased. Harry saw a tooth embedded in one of the man’s bloody lips.

  He crouched besides what was left of the seaman. ‘You need those teeth to chew army biscuits,’ he said gently. ‘Don’t think you’re going to get cake soaked in milk just because you’re wounded.’

  If the man heard him, he gave no sign. The terrible whining percolated through his throat once more. Harry rested his hand on the man’s left leg, the only part of him that was whole. Sliding around to the back of the seaman’s head, he removed his revolver.

  ‘Downe.’ Knight joined him. Pulling out a syringe, he filled it with morphine. ‘Soon have you right as rain, old man.’ He slid the needle into the raw flesh on the man’s forearm. When he finished, he wiped the needle and tossed the syringe into his bag. A few moments later, the seaman fell mercifully silent. Knight glanced at Harry’s gun. ‘I hope you’re around if I’m ever in that state.’ He climbed the ladder. ‘You would have been right to use it if I hadn’t arrived. My way is kinder but just as sure.’

  ‘Then you …’

  ‘Eased him out of his misery. He’s not the first, and with what’s going on there’s no hope he’ll be the last. Drink.’ He thrust a flask at Harry when they reached the deck. Harry took a long pull and handed it back. He was angry with himself for not being more sympathetic towards John. He’d thought nothing could be worse than facing the aftermath of a battlefield.

  He’d been wrong.

  Basra, 30th November 1915

  ‘There’s a man to see, Mrs Smythe, ma’am.’ The native girl who worked in the mission kitchen hovered in the doorway of Maud’s bedroom.

  ‘An officer?’ Maud immediately thought of Peter – or John.

  ‘No, ma’am.’ The girl had difficulty in getting her tongue around the “ma’am” Mrs Butler insisted on. ‘A Bedouin. He says he knows Lieutenant-Colonel Downe. I said Mrs Smythe was at the hospital, so he said he’d see you.’

  ‘That’s very good of him,’ Maud said caustically, recalling Harry’s insubordinate orderly. ‘Show him into the vestibule.’

  The girl bobbed a curtsy. Maud left her chair. Massaging her aching back, she walked into the hall.

  ‘Mrs Mason.’ Mitkhal looked coolly at her.

  ‘I remember you from the barracks.’ She didn’t mention Furja’s house. ‘Harry’s not in trouble, is he?’

  ‘He’s with the force upriver,’ Mitkhal answered in careful English, ‘and the reports are not good. That is why I would like to get there as soon as I can. He may need me.’

  ‘I thought he never went anywhere without you.’

  ‘He had to this time.’ A few curt words from Maud had been more than enough for Mitkhal. ‘I must see Mrs Smythe.’

  ‘She won’t be back for hours. She’s working at the hospital. If you’ve heard what’s going on upriver, you must have heard about the conveys of wounded.’

  ‘I have. Thank you, Mrs Mason.’ He turned on his heel.

  ‘Wait,’ Maud walked slowly after him. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked shamefaced, recalling how much Harry had done for her.

  ‘Nothing, thank you, Mrs Mason,’ Mitkhal replied politely. ‘Good day to you.’

  Maud returned to her sewing, but she was no longer pleased with the string of daisies she had embroidered on the hem of the baby dress she’d made. Angela, always Angela – why did people never turn to her for help?

  Umm-ut-Tubul, 30th November 1915

  ‘If we hadn’t rested at Aziziyeh we wouldn’t be in

  this mess.’ Grace held out his hand as Harry climbed, wet and shivering, onto the deck of the Sumana. Harry accepted Grace’s help and crawled against the boards close to the wall of the cabin.

  Grace watched Harry settle before dropping his hand in a sharp downward movement to signal the gunners. The guns exploded, and Harry clamped his hands over his ears. Unlike the ships’ officers, he’d never become accustomed to the shattering noise.

  ‘We stayed at Aziziyeh for two days because the infantry couldn’t walk another step,’ Harry reminded Grace, as soon as he could hear himself speak. ‘You should try marching and carrying your own kit. It’s not like cruising down the Tigris.’

  ‘There goes the Comet.’ Grace hadn’t heard a word Harry had said.

  Harry watched smoke rise from the sinking vessel. ‘Aren’t you going to shell the Firefly?’

  ‘Some poor bastard’s holed up in the engine room. We’re hoping the Turks will be kind to him.’

  Harry almost said the man was dead. Then he recalled what Knight had done. It looked as though the whole fleet was burning. Barges, launches, theComet, Shaitan, and now the Firefly left for the Turks. He ducked when the Sumana edged closer to the wreckage of the Comet. Bullets flew from the bank.
A seaman fell alongside him. Harry grabbed the dead man’s rifle and ammunition pouch. Taking careful aim, he returned the fire.

  Ratings and officers were heading out to the Comet on rafts to help the survivors. Harry shivered from cold and his soaking in the Tigris. His eyes stung from smoke. The skin rubbed from his fingers as he repeatedly pulled the trigger of the rifle, but he was luckier than the poor sods who lay wounded and helpless on the hospital barges that trailed upstream in the wake of the crewless Firefly and Comet.

  The Sumana pulled downstream and Harry looked back. The hospital barges weren’t the only ones to be abandoned. Supply barges drifted alongside them, and he guessed the brass had left the goods in the hope the Turks would use them to care for the injured. He prayed that the faith of whoever had given the order to leave them would be justified.

  Lansing Memorial Hospital, Basra

  ‘I’m sorry for keeping you waiting … Mitkhal, isn’t it?’ Angela stepped out of a ward, jumped over the head of a patient, and squashed against the wall to make room for a stretcher to pass.

  The wards had overflowed into the corridors and the stench was overwhelming. Mitkhal glanced at the man lying on the floor. He was filthy, his hair and beard alive with lice. He returned Mitkhal’s stare contemptuously and spat on the hem of his robe.

  ‘As you can see, we’re impossibly busy, but I’ll collapse if I don’t get a cup of tea. Will you join me in the kitchen?’ Angela sidestepped gracefully around the patients. Mitkhal felt oversized and clumsy when he followed her into a small, dark room. ‘Would you like tea?’ Folding a towel around the handle of a kettle on the stove, she lifted two cups down from the cupboard.

  ‘Thank you.’ He was amazed by her familiarity. No English lady had ever offered him tea when he’d lived at the barracks. Angela spooned three ladles of tealeaves into a battered metal pot. ‘I’ve been trying to get in here since I started at six this morning. I could do with something to eat too.’ She opened the cupboards. ‘There are only dry biscuits, but you’re welcome to one.’

  ‘No, thank you, tea will be fine.’

  ‘How is Harry? I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ll have to go as soon as I’ve drunk this. The convoys haven’t stopped for the past two days. The military hospitals are bursting with British and Indian casualties. They can’t cope with the Turks as well, so they’re sending them here. I’ve suspended my classes to help until the crisis is over. You don’t … you …?’ She stared wide-eyed at Mitkhal.

  ‘I haven’t heard anything about Captain Smythe. I hoped you’d be able to give me some news.’ He realised there was no way that he could ask her to look after Furja and Gutne. What little spare time she’d have in the next few weeks, Maud would commandeer.

  ‘I haven’t heard from Harry or anyone in weeks.’ She stirred the tea and handed him a cup. ‘But that’s not to say none of them are here. If they’d arrived with one of the convoys they’d have gone straight to the mission.’

  ‘Angela, where the dickens are you?’ Theo stuck his head around the door.

  ‘Theo, this is Mitkhal. He’s Lieutenant-Colonel Downe’s orderly.’

  ‘He’s not …’

  ‘Mitkhal was hoping we’d have news of Harry.’

  ‘Can’t help you, I’m afraid.’ Theo gave Mitkhal a sympathetic glance. ‘We haven’t seen any of the officers since they went upstream. Angela, another convoy has come in and we haven’t finished dressing the wounds on the last.’ He turned to Mitkhal. ‘Could you give us a hand?’

  ‘I’d like to, but I have to go.’

  ‘I’ll see you out. I need some fresh air.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mitkhal, I hope to see you again very soon, when I’m not so busy. You must come and have tea with us in the mission.’ Angela held out her hand. Mitkhal shook it. ‘If you should need anything and you think we can help, Mrs Mason is at the mission.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Smythe.’

  ‘For what?’ she asked.

  ‘The tea.’ He followed Theo through the door.

  ‘You meant what you said to my sister? You haven’t heard from my brother-in-law,’ Theo asked as soon as they were out of Angela’s earshot.

  ‘I haven’t, but if I can find someone to take care of my wife I’m going upstream.’

  ‘We could find a bed for her at the mission.’

  ‘I’m hoping to place her with relatives,’ Mitkhal lied diplomatically. He held out his hand. ‘But thank you for the offer, Dr Wallace.’

  ‘You’ll let me know if you hear anything?’ Theo shook his hand.

  ‘I’ll try to send a message to you.’

  ‘Dr Wallace!’ an orderly cried hysterically.

  ‘I have to go.’

  Basra

  Mitkhal plunged into the network of lanes that led down to the river. If he asked, Abdul would take care of Furja and Gutne, but both were near their time and Abdul’s hospitality would be well meaning, not comfortable. Also, Abdul’s house was a public one. Arab ghulam, gambling Bedouin, British soldier, Jewish merchant, Turkish spy were in and out at all hours. It wouldn’t take Shalan long to find the women if they were living there – or the Turks.

  He saw the Turkish threat to Furja as a real one. The political officers, including Harry, scoffed at the rumours that the Turks had put prices on their heads, but he’d heard how large those sums were. Accurate figures had reached even Shalan’s corner of the Karun. The former wife and children of Harry Downe would prove invaluable hostages to anyone interested in collecting the bounty on Harry. Furja and the children could be kidnapped, Gutne hurt, or taken with them and, if Abdul was busy, their absence might not be noticed for hours.

  He felt as though he were being torn between the love he bore for his wife and coming child, the promise he’d made to Harry to care for Furja, and the ties transcending friendship that bound him to Harry.

  If only he didn’t have this overwhelming feeling of foreboding that Harry was in danger …

  He carried on walking back to the dhow he’d berthed in the shadow of a British launch, and while he walked, he mulled over his problems. But he was still careful to take a circuitous route and check every few yards to make sure he wasn’t being followed. It was times like this he cursed his height. One of Shalan’s tribesmen had only to catch a glimpse of him for him to be recognised.

  He was in a narrow, nondescript alleyway when he saw a British officer. There was nothing here to draw an officer, unless …

  He dived into a lane that ran between two high-walled houses. One of the walls curved slightly. Set into the curve was an ironwood door banded with closely worked metalwork that was more than merely decorative. He knocked; when there was no reply, he tried the handle. The door was locked. He knocked louder. The door opened and he ducked below the lintel, only to have his hands roughly bundled behind his back. He tried to push past his assailants but the breath was elbowed out of his body and he was slammed against the garden wall.

  ‘Zabba, I need to see Zabba,’ he stammered breathlessly.

  ‘Of course you do,’ an old woman wheezed. An enormously fat body veiled in unrelieved black waddled towards him.

  ‘Zabba, don’t you know me?’

  She paused, frowned, and finally beamed, showing twin rows of pink, toothless gums. ‘Little Mitkhal, by all of Allah’s graces – Let him go you brutes.’ She tapped the men who held him with her fan. Mitkhal was released and he stepped forward, rubbing his wrists. He nodded to the two massive black slaves who’d held him, to show he bore no malice.

  ‘Come.’ Zabba tapped her fingers on his chest. ‘You will take coffee with me. I have ten years of your life to catch up on.’

  Mitkhal put his arm around the old woman and kissed her rouged cheek. ‘You look as young and beautiful as ever.’

  ‘What do you want from me this time, Mitkhal?’

  ‘A favour.’ He looked across the garden into the reception room, where two British officers were sharing a bottle of whisky. The location couldn’t be more pe
rfect. Close to the river for ease of movement, especially at night. The house was quieter, more discreet than Abdul’s, well-guarded, and, knowing Zabba, only patronised by those rich enough to afford its expensive favours; principally wealthy merchants and British officers with private means. The kind of people who would avoid trouble at all costs.

  Furja and Gutne would be safer here with Zabba than in the barracks or the mission.

  ‘A very big favour, Zabba.’ He hugged her as they walked across the garden and up the stairs to her room.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Basra, Sunday December 5th 1915

  ‘In God’s name, this is unforgivable!’ Colonel Allan gazed in horror at the launch berthed in front of him.

  ‘We did what we could,’ Lieutenant Ashford, the Eton “wet bob” of Nasiriyeh, and lately of Ctesiphon, apologised.

  ‘These men haven’t been washed, fed, had their wounds dressed or their bandages changed in …’ The doctor’s rage abated when the lieutenant turned deathly white.

  ‘Thirteen days, sir,’ Ashford whispered. ‘We did what we could without rations or medicines, and we had to fight every inch of the way. Past Turks, past Arabs …’ He swayed and crashed to the deck.

  Allan ran on board. The launch was awash with excrement and vomit. Men lay inches deep in their own filth and, for all his 15 years in the Indian Medical Service, he gagged at the sight of limbs putrefying in an advanced state of gangrene. He bellowed for stretcher-bearers and he picked up the lieutenant. Despite the cold, the boy’s body burned through his thick winter uniform. Someone carried him away. He turned to the injured man lying closest to him and lifted the bandage on his leg. A spiral of maggots fell into the mess on deck.

  ‘Is it bad, sir?’ the private from the Dorsets asked. The face was that of a child but the eyes were those of an old man.

  ‘No, private.’ Allan fought to keep a grip on his emotions. ‘Once we’ve moved you out of these disgraceful conditions we’ll soon have you right.’ He ordered the stretcher-bearers to take the boy to one of the ambulances on the quayside and moved on, examining each man in turn, concentrating on the individual, trying not to look into the blind, staring eyes of those who hadn’t lived to see port.