Leon Uris (50 page)

Christopher stood. Jeremy slapped him in the face and
shoved him back into the chair. “Shut your fucking mouth. If you put Serjeant Landers to the whipping post I’m going to beat the shit out of you right in front of the entire battalion.”

Christopher blinked, unable to totally fathom what he was hearing.

“In addition to the total collapse of a very beautiful battalion, with small thanks to your cheap brow-beating, you will have failed General Brodhead and disgraced your father for life,” Jeremy said firmly.

Jeremy poked around Chris’s desk, found a copy of the mule manual, and shoved it into his hands. “Open it to chapter two and read.”

Reveille was being blown outside. It would be another half-hour to roll call and longer yet before anyone else arrived at the headquarters building. Chris was trapped by a madman and felt an intensity from his brother he had never before known. Better to play along with him for now, Chris thought. He’d settle Jeremy’s number for good later in the day.

“Read!” Jeremy demanded.

Chris cleared his throat. His hands trembled and his voice was wavy. “‘Establishing a bond with your animal. The mule is a keenly alert beast, more so than a horse or donkey. His ears serve almost as a second pair of eyes. Note your mule’s ears always turn in the direction of sound. The mule will lay his ears back when contented but pop them up within a state of alert…’” Looking up from the manual, Chris pleaded, “Must I go on with this nonsense?”

“Read!”

“Very well.”

“‘Never, and we repeat the word NEVER, approach a mule from the…from the…’”

“Read!”

“‘Never approach a mule from the rear if there is another choice. If you must approach from the rear,
remember that he is hitched and cannot see behind him, only hear. Call the mule by name softly to assure him of who you are and that there is no danger. Ask him how he feels today…’”

Chris sagged, looked up to Jeremy, and continued, “‘Ask him how he feels today. Then go around to the front, give him a handful of oats (which you will always keep in your pocket). Then give him a tickle under his eye.’”

Christopher sighed resignedly. The next passage was underlined. “ ‘
If you come up behind a mule shouting or otherwise expressing distress or displeasure, it is an absolute certainty the mule will become alarmed and kick out with its hind legs. This can be extremely dangerous. The battalion vet has seen injuries resulting from mule kicks of cracked ribs, separated shoulders, broken arms, and more than one fractured skull.
’ ”

Chris set the manual back on his desk.

“Now then,” Jeremy said with normal voice, “these mules have no value to the British Army. They have been horrendously maltreated and all of them have one infirmity or another from overwork, underfeeding, neglect, and beatings. I suggest you send them back to Colonel Sattersfield and stand behind your men.”

“Have the Jew…”

“He has a name.”

“Have Mr. Pearlman confirm their condition in a written memorandum. I shall reject them. However, Jeremy, what you threatened here was mutiny. I want you out of here.”

“You shouldn’t be so surprised. You know all about amutiny, don’t you?”

“I will not have you take command of my battalion.”

“Christ sake, Chris, I don’t want your battalion.”

Christopher verged on a hard decision. He knew he’d better make it calmly. He had to set aside the unpleasantness that had taken place. The gaffers and his brother
would swear that Landers had saved him from his own stupidity and probably a terrible injury. But, what if he did get rid of Jeremy…or was able to go through with a punishment of Landers…what then?

His battalion was fit. Jeremy whined that they had been pushed too hard, but they were fit.

Damned gaffer squad was good, too, best special squad in the corps. They had done the impossible task of teaching men as much as they could possibly know about mules without most of them having ever seen a mule.

Christopher dearly wanted to exact a stern punishment, to let them know who was who. Yet, to be overtaken by a desire for vengeance could exact a price too high to risk.

“Stay with your bloody gaffers,” Chris said. “The book is closed on this incident. You have your job, Jeremy, and I want you to keep your nose out of my command.”

“That’s fine with me,” Jeremy said, “but remember one thing. If you lay a finger on any one of my boys, I’ll break your neck.”

The River Jordan

Flows down the mountainside

The earth is still

My Galilee

Her haunting valleys

Ancient olive trees

Her sun worn rocks

Her mystic sea

Oh how I love you

How I long for you

My Galilee

My Galilee

I see soft winds

Bending my fields

I hear a cry

A lamb at its birth

Oh how I love you

How I long for you

My Galilee

My Galilee…

Modi’s song faded and his accordion shut down. Villa Valhalla dimmed for a rest. March groaned on and a restlessness tensed the gaffers, a sense of movement would soon begin as warships continued to pound the Gallipoli.

Even paradise had its limitations. The squad had tasted euphoria. Valhalla would become the centerpiece of grand remembrance for all their lives. For now, though, they were ready for war.

Johnny Tarbox was more highly keyed than the others. Rory knew it was something about a long lost mother now taking form in woman after woman. Rory was always able to calm him down. Good thing. Johnny sometimes didn’t realize he was going on a tear.

The Lieutenant and First Serjeant Landers sat on the veranda looking over to the spires across the river that marked a great Moslem city. Sonya’s pipe had the magic elixir that made conversation free…except for that locked chamber.

Sonya stood in the doorway.

“Johnny all right?” Rory asked.

She nodded he was asleep. Tarbox hates women, I hate men. Yet we love them as well. How torturous, she thought.

“You would like some fruit or drinks?” she asked, working her eyes on Rory’s. They waved no and she retreated, but the power of her eyes remained.

“She’s been so good to us,” Jeremy said. “But she longs for her unrequited love. For God’s sake, don’t go into battle without making an effort to forget Georgia.”

Rory did not answer.

“Did I ever tell you I was in love with a prostitute once, desperately, eternally.”

“In actual fact?” Rory asked.

“In actual fact,” Jeremy said. “It was on the Midlands Tour with the rugby team. I was being tutored for Trinity by Conor and he kept an indecent watch on me. Locked me in my room if my studies weren’t up to snuff. I figured a foolproof way to get around him.”

Rory thrived on Jeremy’s tales of Conor. He settled back, happily.

“Her name was Felicia or something…Christ, this stuff destroys your mind. My grandfather traveled with
the team but believe me he stayed in a better hotel. So, I fell desperately in love with this…Marcia…that’s it, Marcia. Grandfather covered for me. I’d tell Conor I was going over to see Sir Frederick and spend the night. He checked up by phone a couple of times and there I was…and there was Marcia right in bed with me. Freddie even slipped her from one town to another until Conor paid me an unexpected visit. I only slipped past him one more time, after the Bradford game.”

“That’s when you won the Admiral’s Cup?”

“Aye, first Irish team ever to do so. Grandfather threw a victory party to end all parties. When it moved from his hotel to a very, very fashionable brothel, Conor locked me in my room. I stuffed pillows in my bed and shinnied down the drain pipe, four stories, damn near killed myself. Smoke?”

“Thanks.”

“This brothel was strictly for nobility. As beautiful as Villa Valhalla…until those foul brutes from the Bradford Bulls came in…we were willing to share, but you know how it goes…everybody wanted the same two or three ladies and one thing led to another and someone made a rank anti-Irish remark…mind you, Conor wasn’t there.”

“And the shit hit the fan.”

“In diamonds. Rory, it was the punch-up of all times. Girls screaming, bodies flying, glass smashing, and then came the police. A few lads escaped, but I was hauled away in the paddy wagon, minus two teeth, along with most of our lads. You should have seen the headlines next morning…‘Lord Jeremy loses teeth for mates’…‘Future Earl of Foyle arrested in brothel brawl’…‘Midnight escapades of future member of Lords’…”

“And Conor was clean?”

“He didn’t have a clue. So, next day I’m on the carpet in Grandfather’s suite with my mother roasting my ass and Freddie trying to crawl under the couch. Conor is called into the room. Mother starts grilling him, not buying that
he was innocent. He said—God, I’ll never forget it—’What do you want for a son, the Christmas fairy?’ Mother hauls off to slap him, but he catches her hand in midair and tells her he’d paddle her butt right before her father and son.”

Rory laughed aloud. His envy was silent.

“The three of us fellows were doubled up, hysterical, even me with my missing teeth. Mother smashed up a few vases, then joined us, laughing hardest of us all. That’s when my father came in.”

Jeremy suddenly went silent and wore an expression of hurt that Rory had come to know.

“He slapped me in the face and walked out.”

“That must have hurt real bad,” Rory said.

“It still does,” Jeremy said.

He patted Jeremy’s shoulder. “The Squire never got around to hitting me, but the way he looked at me, I sometimes wished he had beaten me instead. I got into brawls to get his attention. Maybe it was to win his love…or have him respect me for being a tough guy…then after a while, just to piss him off. That was the one that worked, pissing him off. I did plenty of that.”

The sadness flowed away. “Along with the Villa here, the Midlands trip has been it for me. Trinity, although there was Molly, I only remember in betrayals. Father, I expected to pound on me…and Swan, that was his vocation. But, Chris. Anyhow…I didn’t know at the time Conor was already involved in gunrunning for the Irish Republican Brotherhood.”

Rory held tight.

“I went on to Trinity in Dublin, met Molly. I saw Conor in Dublin only a few times. He was always in a hurry. I didn’t realize why until Sixmilecross. I desperately tried to get to see him in prison. It was impossible. Things were caving in on Molly and me. Conor would have made me do what was right. Everyone around him drew strength from him. Maybe, if I’d seen him, I could have been motivated to behave like a man…. I miss him very much, Rory.”

I do, too, Rory thought.

Leilah had been patient, just out of range. She softly made her presence known. Jeremy noted that he’d be in soon. She smiled and danced off.

“She’s crazy about you,” Rory said.

“She does her act well,” Jeremy answered.

“It’s more than that. You’ve treated them like ladies and made them feel beautiful. They can go a lifetime in Cairo without having felt that once. Sonya told me so.”

Jeremy wove into the villa. Rory submitted to an onrush from the hashish. Where would it end with him and Jeremy? How could it end in Ireland without disaster?

Ireland, which had once been life’s siren call now had ominous tones on its scale. Was he big enough to carry the Larkin name into Ireland? What could he do? Always be compared to Conor? No one was Conor. Sometimes it seemed that Conor wasn’t even Conor….

He stood gingerly and wove his way up the circular stair, balancing himself with his hand on the outside wall. A wind shift brought a din of street noises from across the Nile, high and shrill and flutelike….

Conor! You’re pissed at me for smoking hashish. Look at me. Don’t you know me? I’m a man now. I’ve had women. I had a love and I don’t want to think about her right now…. Jeremy talking on about you made me so sad I’ll never see you again…they say Aunt Brigid keeps the Larkin plot the most beautiful in Ballyutogue…so, I’ll see you there. CONOR! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME, NOW!

Rory aimed at his doorway and fell into kneeling position on the smooth, soft, sensuous pillows. Ah, dear old Sonya-lass. She’s lit a candle. The breeze keeps blowing. The candlelight is going wild.

Sonya stood in the doorway naked to the waist, her body glistening with clove oil. She knelt before Rory, arched her back and undulated, and snapped her fingers, while her breasts rolled under large, rigid nipples.

Rory seized her in his arms. They hung on and swayed together on their knees, now keeping the long promise, now letting it all fly, now feeling the other’s oils, now wild in kisses and her pleading, her groaning, now pulling each other’s hair. She brought him down into softness and he let the Cairo night overcome him.

At three o’clock in the morning everyone was abruptly awakened by a pounding on the door. It was an angry pounding. A voice shouted behind it.

The lads scrambled into some kind of covering—sheets, towels, Arab pantaloons—and made down the stairs. Chester slipped on all the oil and slid down. Sonya ran from room to room herding the girls and pushing them out of sight.

“Stop pounding, we’re coming!”

Rory flung the door open and looked at Serjeant Yurlob Singh. He entered with George, the villa’s Christian Terrier, whining that he had been taken by surprise. Rory ordered the boy upstairs with Sonya.

“What the hell’s going on!” Jeremy managed.

“It’s Major Hubble. He is being held hostage by the Egyptian police.”

“Let me have the notes, Eddie,” Churchill directed.

“They’re rather loose, Winston. I haven’t had a chance to tidy them up.”

“Not to mind. I just want to see if I missed anything.”

It was three o’clock in the morning, more or less the middle of the day for the First Lord of the Admiralty. Eddie poured a glass of Scotch for his boss and set a flame under Churchill’s cigar.

Notes from the War Council Meeting—March 12, 1915

The War Council meeting was adjourned with no one truly satisfied. A terrible stress had now been placed on the Anzacs and British forces in Egypt. The clean stroke of the swift sword of victory was badly dulled. Darlington had no feel for bold movement. The growing outside political opposition was putting a negative whisper over the operation.

As he went over the notes, Churchill brooded. As Churchill brooded, Cairo was about to burn.