Scorpion Sunset Page 4

  ‘I believe your suspicions to be correct, Mason. What are you proposing?’

  ‘That if the supply ship exists and appears, Captain Vincent set up a floating hospital on board to ferry the worse cases of sickness amongst our men to Baghdad. As we haven’t enough medical officers to delegate one to each regiment, I’d like to travel with volunteer orderlies behind the Dorsets, Norfolks, and Hampshires with whatever tents and equipment I can scrounge and set up respite centres to care for our men who can no longer walk.’

  ‘I’d be happy to give you permission, but even should the Turks agree, they’ll insist on giving you a Turkish guard.’

  ‘I’m aware of that, sir.’

  The brigadier lowered his voice. ‘You’ve no thoughts of escaping?’

  ‘Not while any of our men requiring medical help remain in Turkish custody, sir.’

  ‘You do realise that you can expect to be held in Turkey for the duration?’

  ‘Can’t be helped, sir. As a doctor I took an oath.’

  ‘You won’t be able to do much without medical supplies.’

  ‘I’m confident that when the Red Cross or Red Crescent hear of our predicament, they’ll send us at least some of what we need. But even if they don’t, after almost two years of improvised doctoring in the desert I may be able to alleviate some of the men’s suffering.’

  ‘Even if it’s only to help them on their way? No – don’t comment on that remark, Mason. It was fatuous of me to make it. Some things are best left unsaid. As for marching over the desert, you’re as skeletal, sick, and exhausted as the rest of us.’

  ‘I’m fine, sir,’ John lied.

  ‘David Knight wanted you to go downstream with the worst of the casualties we exchanged for Turkish POWs, didn’t he?’

  ‘We tossed, sir. He won.’

  ‘That’s not the version I heard. You have a two-headed sovereign and a wife in Basra?’

  ‘My wife and I are estranged, sir.’ John avoided mentioning the sovereign that had been a birthday gift from Harry Downe.

  ‘You volunteered to stay with the main force to avoid your wife?’

  John smiled. ‘I doubt any man would choose to be here simply to avoid his wife even if she was a demon, sir. Maud and I agreed to divorce before I left Basra last July. I’m certain she no more wants to see me than I do her.’

  ‘She does know you weren’t shot at dawn after that ridiculous court martial when Perry and Cleck-Heaton levied trumped-up charges against you?’

  ‘If she didn’t know it before we surrendered at Kut, I don’t doubt Smythe told her when he and Mitkhal smuggled dispatches to the Relief Force last January, sir.’

  The brigadier lowered his voice. ‘Can you honestly tell me that your decision to remain with the Force has nothing to do with your personal circumstances?’

  ‘I volunteered to stay with the Force because I’ve been in Mesopotamia longer than Knight and have more experience of treating tropical diseases, sir.’

  Realising John had said as much as he was going to about his private affairs, the brigadier changed the subject. ‘When you say “travel behind with orderlies”, presumably you mean your Indian orderly?’

  ‘Dira, yes, sir, but only if he volunteers.’

  ‘Sergeant Greening?’

  ‘He’s my guard, sir.’

  ‘Since you’ve proved yourself a model prisoner, I’ve heard that under your tutelage Greening’s become proficient in administering various medical procedures?’

  ‘He has, sir.’

  ‘Do you think Greening would happy to stay behind with you and your Indian orderly and assist you?’

  ‘As with Dira, the choice would have to be his, sir.’

  ‘You’ll probably need more help.’

  ‘I’ll take any that is offered from experienced orderlies, sir, but the choice has to be theirs.’

  ‘Ask for volunteers. I’ll talk to the Turks and do what I can to help you implement your plan. Can I leave it to you to delegate responsibilities to the other medics?’

  ‘I’ll call a medics’ conference for first thing tomorrow, sir.’

  ‘I’ll send someone to notify you if that supply ship is spotted. This is not a corner I’d have chosen to be pushed into, Mason, but it’s good to have men like you and Crabbe with me.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  When John walked away he saw Patel returning to the brigadier’s cook fire. He made a detour to the shelters that had been erected next to the river. Leigh had been packed into a two-man tent with half a dozen other officers. Dira was using a sponge attached to a stick to moisten his lips.

  ‘Good work, Dira, but there’s little we can without supplies, so try and get some rest yourself.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’

  ‘If you need me I’ll be with Major Crabbe.’

  ‘His bearer has set up his tent next to the Dorsets’ cook fire, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Dira. Good night.’

  John found Crabbe sitting outside his tent, staring down into the flames. He saw John and handed him a flask. John opened it and sniffed the contents.

  ‘French brandy from our mess. I told my bearer to hide the flasks in the contaminated laundry sacks in case the Turks searched us. That one is yours.’

  ‘Thank you.’ John buttoned it into his shirt pocket.

  ‘Not drinking tonight?’

  ‘I swallowed enough brandy to last me a lifetime a year ago. Given my absence of sense in those days I don’t recall thanking you properly for taking care of me.’

  ‘Wasn’t just me. It was Charles, Smythe, even Leigh, Bowditch, Grace and …’ Crabbe hesitated before saying the names of the dead, ‘Harry, Amey …’

  ‘I miss him.’ John didn’t have to say who ‘him’ was.

  Crabbe knew John had been closer to his cousin Harry than most men were to their brothers. ‘Harry would find something to get up to even here.’

  ‘Probably annoying the Turks to the point where they’d start shooting us,’ John suggested, not entirely humorously.

  ‘There are worse ways to go. Like dying inch by inch on a long dry march over the desert.’ Crabbe rose from the stool his bearer had foraged from one of the carts. ‘I’m for bed. My bearer made a cot up for you in my tent as your man was busy helping Dira.’

  ‘Thank you.’ John reached for his cigarettes.

  ‘Don’t stay out too late. Damned mosquitos are out for blood and they’ve brought their forks and carving knives. I doubt we’ll get any rest tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll turn in shortly.’ John struck a match, lit his cigarette, and looked around the camp. Most of the officers had managed to bring their tents but the men were sprawled on the ground around their camp fires. He considered what the brigadier had said about Maud. Had he stayed with the Expeditionary Force simply to avoid her?

  If Maud had remained faithful when he’d left India – if she hadn’t been pregnant with another man’s child when he’d been shipped downstream with fever last year – if she’d told him she still loved him …

  He suppressed the thoughts almost as soon as they arose. There were simply too many ‘ifs’. A vision of Maud as she’d looked the first time he’d seen her in the officers’ mess in India came to mind.

  Maud’s gown had been gold silk decorated with amber beads. He’d described her afterwards in a letter to his mother as looking like ‘a Botticelli angel who’d stepped off of an Italian altarpiece.’ There was no denying Maud’s beauty, but for the first time he wondered if that was all he’d ever seen in Maud? Had he simply fallen for a pretty face?

  He tried to recall conversations they’d shared but the only ones he could remember were about trivialities, furnishings, food, balls, parties, Maud’s gowns … Maud had been so young when they’d married. He’d been ready to resign his commission and settle down to the life of a rural doctor in his native West Country, but would Maud have settled for life as a country doctor’s wife?

  He finished his ciga
rette and tossed the stub into the fire. The question had become academic after war broke out. Who knows what they would have done if Britain hadn’t declared hostilities and called up the reservists? In all probability Maud would have chafed at the boring routine of life in an English village after growing up in India and Mesopotamia. She might have sought out excitement in affairs just as she’d done when he’d left her in in India.

  And him? Would he – could he – have turned a blind eye to an unfaithful wife?

  He left his stool and turned towards the medical tents. Thoughts – especially those of the future or ‘might have beens’ were pointless when he was surrounded by the sick and dying.

  After presiding at the burial of so many of his fellow officers and men he was certain that an unmarked grave in a desert he’d never wanted to visit and had learned to loathe, was all the future he could expect or hope for.

  What was worse, he couldn’t see how his presence along with those of his fellow sufferers was in the slightest use to King or Empire.

  The Wharf, Baghdad

  May 1916

  Bowditch tiptoed, balancing precariously as he wove a path around the bodies of men who’d stretched out wherever they’d found space on the deck of the steamer. He continued to head for the ship’s prow where he’d spotted the shadowy figure of Major Crabbe leaning on the rail, smoking.

  ‘You’re up early, Major Crabbe.’

  ‘Couldn’t sleep, Bowditch. You?’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for the order to disembark.’

  ‘All night?’ Crabbe asked in amusement.

  ‘Bastards seem to enjoy tormenting us. When they didn’t move us when we dropped anchor, I thought they’d wait until we were all asleep then blow a whistle.’

  ‘They won’t move us in the dark, Bowditch.’

  ‘Because they’re afraid we might run off?’

  ‘That’s the least of their worries. They know we have nowhere to run to. Not here.’

  ‘Then when will they move us, sir?’ Bowditch persisted.

  Crabbe stared down at the undulating mat of flotsam and faeces that lapped sluggishly around the hull. ‘They’ll move us after the town wakes and there’s enough of a crowd to abuse us as we’re marched down the gangplank and through the streets.’

  ‘We’re British, sir. They wouldn’t dare expose us to humiliation and ridicule …’ Bowditch began.

  ‘Oh yes they would,’ Crabbe cut in sharply. ‘Halil Bey has scored a major victory in forcing Townshend to surrender to him and he’s going to exploit it to the full. The whole town will be out to throw brickbats at us. So I suggest you brace yourself and warn the other junior officers, non-coms, and ranks to do the same.’

  ‘Most of us are sick, sir.’

  ‘So much the better for Johnny Turk and the natives. We’re not in a condition to fight back.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll keep us here, sir?’

  ‘In Baghdad?’ Crabbe shook his head. ‘Not a chance. But hopefully we’ll be given reasonable quarters in the city until transport has been arranged to take us to the POW camps in Turkey. If they try marching us there I doubt any of us will survive the trek.’

  Bowditch stared at Crabbe and whether it was the subdued light that emanated from the oil lamp affixed to the mast, or the darkness that swirled like fog around the deck, the senior officer appeared wraithlike. He reminded Bowditch of the illustrations of ghosts from the Netherworld that had adorned the pages of the Illustrated Police News that he and the other boys in his prep school had devoured from cover to cover by torchlight under cover of the blankets on their beds. Bowditch shuddered.

  ‘You look like someone just walked over your grave, Bowditch.’ Crabbe tossed the stub of his cigarette over the side.

  ‘I feel as though someone has just walked over my grave, sir.’ Bowditch took a pack of Turkish cigarettes from his pocket and offered them to Crabbe

  Crabbe shook his head. ‘Keep them. We may have plenty at the moment but I’ve a feeling they’ll soon be in short supply.’

  ‘You think so, sir?’

  ‘Like food they’ll become a memory.’

  Bowditch leaned on the rail next to Crabbe. ‘Have you any idea what kind of accommodation we can expect? I’ve never been a prisoner of war before.’

  ‘None of us have. The brigadier said there was talk of housing the officers in a hotel, but I’m guessing that even if there is a hotel, the rooms won’t be up to Ritz standard, or even that of a doss house. But whatever they are they’ll be better than the accommodation the ranks will be given and that’s where I’m headed. I cleared it with the brigadier last night. The Turks are allowing one officer to remain with every regiment. I’m staying with the Dorsets.’

  ‘The men will be put to work?’

  ‘They will.’

  Bowditch was feeling too demoralised to ask what work Crabbe thought the men would be forced to carry out. He studied the horizon. ‘Dawn is breaking.’ He stared at the wharf as the square outlines of warehouses on the bank emerged from the night shadows. ‘Baghdad doesn’t look much of a place, does it, sir?’

  ‘If there is anywhere that looks like much of a place in this bloody country, I haven’t seen it.’ Sensing Bowditch’s despair Crabbe gripped his shoulder. ‘All we can do is make the best of it, boy, and remember we’re not as badly off as some. It’s the poor beggars marching behind us I feel sorry for.’

  ‘You’re thinking of Major Mason, sir.’

  ‘He won’t sleep, eat, or rest while there’s a man who needs care, and when a man is past saving he won’t leave him unburied. If he hasn’t the strength to pick up a shovel, he’ll scrape out a grave with his bare hands.’

  ‘He has Sergeant Greening and his orderlies to help him, sir,’ Bowditch reminded.

  ‘And hundreds of sick and dying men who are being force-marched. Much as I don’t want to spend any time here, I’d like to see him before we move off if only to reassure myself that he’s made it this far.’

  ‘Odd isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘What?’ Crabbe asked.

  ‘How close we’ve become since we’ve surrendered. While we were under siege I saw men fight over a tin of bully beef, now …’

  ‘We have no tins of bully beef to fight over and the Turks’ black biscuits don’t warrant expending any energy.’ Ignoring his own warning about rationing cigarettes Crabbe reached into his pocket.

  ‘That mention of bully beef has made me hungry. I’ll go and forage. You never know, the Turks might have come up with something for breakfast.’

  ‘I’ll say this much for you, Bowditch, you’re an incorrigible optimist.’

  Crabbe watched the lieutenant pick his way back over the sleeping men carpeting the deck and resumed the calculations he’d been making as to how much longer the war was going to last.

  Chapter Four

  The desert south of Baghdad

  May 1916

  John was on a ship. The sky was blue, the breeze fresh. He was surrounded by light. It danced and shimmered, clear, beautiful, and blinding above and around him. Below the sea glistened with reflected sunbeams that tipped the surface of the waves with winking gold and silver flashes. The wind carried the taste of fresh salt air. The vessel moved out from the land, gliding slow and stately past the anchored boats in the harbour.

  A woman stood next to him, a child in her arms. She looked ahead towards the horizon. A shawl covered her hair. He felt an overwhelming love for her and the child. He lifted his arm intending to embrace her …

  He woke with a jerk. Momentarily disorientated, it was a few seconds before he realised he’d been sunk deep in a recurring, disturbingly realistic dream that had first surfaced in Kut.

  He opened his eyes, rubbed the desert grit from them, and blinked. He was encased in darkness. There was no salt breeze. The air was as cold as only desert air can be in the hour before dawn. A few sticks smouldered weakly at his feet, barely glowing in the embers of what would have been a cook fire if th
ey’d had anything to cook.

  He stretched, rose, and walked over to the tent Greening and Dira had erected. Behind it under the watchful eye of Baker and Roberts, lay the bodies of four men who’d died during the night.

  ‘Have you been on duty long?’ John asked Baker.

  ‘Relieved Sergeant Greening ten minutes ago, sir. The natives have been creeping out and about under cover of night. The sergeant was concerned they might try to steal the clothes and boots from the dead.’

  ‘We need to dig a grave.’

  ‘Already done, sir. Jones and Williams finished it before they turned in. Sergeant Greening told us to hold off putting the bodies in it until this morning.’

  John nodded. He’d expected six, not four deaths in the night. He ducked into the tent. Greening was sitting bolt upright, his back against a tent pole, but his eyes were closed and judging by the noise he was making, he was sound asleep. Dira was watching over the four men lying on ground mats.

  John examined them. All four had dysentery and two were so dehydrated he hadn’t expected them to last the night but they still clung to life. The other two were burning with fever. He opened a water bottle and moistened their lips.

  ‘Private Jones caught a couple of fish last night, sir,’ Dira volunteered,

  ‘Edible ones?’

  ‘We’ll find out at breakfast, sir. About the burial party …’

  ‘We’ll leave it until the sun is up, Dira.’

  John left the tent and looked out over the desert. Touched by the first rays of sun the gravel was turning gold. Soon the sun would blister the air until it wavered in mirages. The air temperature would rise from cool, to warm and before the hour was out reach unbearably hot where it would remain until sunset.

  He wished he’d slept longer, remaining in that other wonderful world that had begun to haunt him. A world where he was sailing … to where?

  Home? With a woman who loved him. He thought of Maud, the way she’d looked at him whenever they’d been alone together. A secret look he’d believed she’d kept just for him … then he remembered her baby.