Scorpion Sunset (20 page)

‘I was in Kut. We had radio contact …'

‘With Basra HQ, not with the Arabs. Harry Downe is dead, John. When the Turks tortured me they killed him. The survivor is the creation of the Political Office, Hasan Mahmoud. He was born in a paper file in an office,' he held out his arms, ‘but now he lives.'

John saw the bandaged stump at the end of Harry's right arm. ‘How did you lose your hand?'

‘The Turks removed it for me. Quarter inch by quarter inch.'

‘Dear God, Ha –'

‘Hasan,' Harry finished for him. ‘It was painful, but not as painful as losing my eye. They burned that out with a hot iron. There are other scars on my body, but the worst are branded on my mind.'

‘I can imagine.'

‘I hope you can't. I wouldn't wish anyone to live through that pain, not even in imagination. There is no need to look at me like that, John. The hurt is over. Now it seems like a bad dream. Unfortunately one I still occasionally relive in my nightmares.'

‘How did you escape?'

‘I didn't. When the Turks believed they'd killed me they handed me to one of their Arab auxiliaries to bury. The auxiliary was Mitkhal. He'd followed me into the camp and waited his chance to get me out. It was Harry Downe's bad luck that he was too far gone to be rescued.'

‘But now you know who you are …'

Harry shook his head and laughed. A sound that was all the more poignant because John thought he'd never hear it again. ‘Harry Downe is dead and will remain dead, John.'

‘The army wouldn't expect you to serve again. With your injuries you'd be invalided out and returned to England. At the moment your parents, Michael, and Georgie all believe you to be dead.'

‘Michael and Georgie have seen me.'

‘You talked to them?'

Harry shook his head. ‘I was boarding a boat with Mitkhal, Shalan, and Furja in Basra just after Kut fell. Michael and Georgie were watching from a window in Abdul's. I know they recognised me.'

‘They didn't try to stop you.'

‘There was no time. They saw me as our boat was casting off.'

‘You'll look for them when the war is over?'

‘I'll write to them and my parents and ask them to try to understand why I've chosen to live the way I have.'

‘Understand? I don't understand why you're walking away from everything and everyone you've ever known, and you're here in person to explain it to me. Is it Furja and the children, because you could …' John faltered.

‘Take them to Clyneswood? Can you imagine the expression on my parents' faces if the parlour maid ushered me and my family into the drawing room? Especially if we were all wearing Arab robes.'

‘I remember you telling me when you married Furja that you promised Ibn Shalan you'd never take her to live among Europeans.'

‘It's not just Furja and the children, although they mean more to me than anything in this world. I'm not sacrificing anything to be Bedouin, John. Sometimes think I was born Arab. That's why I was always in trouble when I was growing up. I find it easier to live with the tribe, than to live with English people – particularly those in the school we attended. The tribe forgive me my faults.'

He laughed softly again. ‘Most of the time I even manage to keep the tribe's rules, something I never did when I was living with my father, or after I took a commission in the army. And, yes, I promised Furja and her father that I would remain with the tribe and bring up my children respecting their ways, but being Bedouin and being accepted by the tribe – it feels as though I've come home.'

‘But you can't turn your back on your family,' John protested.

‘My old family. I already have, John. Even if they don't understand why I've chosen to live as Arab when they find out what I've done, I hope they will in time.'

‘I'm trying to understand. But …' John fought a tide of emotion welling inside him. ‘I can't bear the thought of losing you.'

‘You'll never lose me, John. You, me, and Charles. What we shared – the brutality of English public school – all those nights of drinking and fun – the complete insanity of desert warfare – they'll stay with us forever.'

‘It is a stupid, meaningless war,' John agreed.

‘First it was “secure the oilfields”. That at least I could understand, pure greed on Churchill's part: he didn't want to pay for oil to fuel our ships. Then it was “let's order Force D to go upstream and take Baghdad because the news from the Western Front isn't good and civilians need something morale boosting to read in the morning newspapers while they consume their kippers and boiled eggs.” And now?' he stared at John through his remaining eye. ‘A lot of good men have starved to death trying to hold on to Kut, a town that had little strategic value other than as a buffer to Baghdad. As if that isn't enough, those men are now being ground into bones to carpet the floor of a desert they should never have been sent to in the first place.'

‘I'll not argue with you. Not while I spend most of my time easing men out of pain and life. When you write to your parents and Michael and Georgie, will you write to Charles?'

‘I'd rather you told him I was alive. When the war's over you might enjoy passing on some good news. That's if Charles considers the existence of Hasan Mahmoud good news.' Harry laughed. ‘I loved him dearly but he can be a stuffed shirt.'

The ‘loved' wasn't lost on John. Harry's pronouncement had brought the realisation that the Harry he knew had gone forever and the man sitting beside him really was someone else.

‘What are you doing for money? You must be owed a fortune in back pay, and if you're determined to keep Harry Downe dead, his widow is entitled to a pension.'

Hasan grinned in amusement. ‘Can you imagine Furja calling into the paymaster to claim a pension? “Marriage certificate?”

“We never had one, but Harry Downe did lift me onto his horse and ride me around my father's camp three times”.'

‘You've never been serious about anything in your life.'

‘I have some sovereigns in a box in the bank in Basra, but my father-in-law has more money than I or my family are likely to need for several lifetimes. Just one thing, if you do tell Charles that I live on as Hasan Mahmoud, swear him to secrecy so this happy Bedouin can carry on living his undistinguished life.'

‘Are you really happy, Harry – Hasan?' John asked seriously.

‘I'm as happy as a man can be with these.' Harry indicated his eye patch and the stump on his arm. ‘My twin girls, Aza and Hari, are a delight. My son, Shalan, is four months old and grows stronger every day. And,' he raised his eyebrows, ‘as I enjoy making babies with my wife I hope for many more children.'

‘You're living in the Karun Valley?'

‘At the moment Furja is with Shalan in his house in Baghdad. When I leave here I will return there; after that, who knows where we'll go. The desert, Basra, Baghdad, Amara, Qurna, my father-in-law has properties in most of the towns in Iraq.'

‘Iraq?'

‘It's what the Arabs call Mesopotamia. They've outgrown the Biblical name.'

‘Is Shalan's house in Baghdad as comfortable as his house in Basra?'

‘Of course, you honeymooned there with Maud. Shalan's house in Baghdad is larger and even more comfortable.'

‘Yet you live there under Ottoman rule.'

‘It may surprise you to know that for the ordinary people who haven't annoyed any officials, there isn't a great deal of difference. The British courts may be fairer in the areas under British rule but only if no bribe-taking locals are employed in them. As for food and money – both are always in short supply among the poor, whoever rules the land.'

John was afraid of what the answer might be but he had to ask the question. ‘So whose side are you on now?'

‘The side of Furja, my children, Shalan, and the tribe, and at present they fight for the British.' Hasan took the cigarette John offered him, lifted a stick from the fire, and lit it. ‘Shalan accepted more guns from the British just before Kut fell. In exchange he promised to keep the Karun Valley clear of Turks and to look out for, as far as possible, the British POWs in Turkish hands. Securing the Karun Valley against the Turks is easy, just a question of leaving enough men in the area. The POWs are another matter.'

‘The Turks have treated all of us: ranks, sepoys, and officers abominably.'

‘I watched British officers and men being marched through the bazaar in Baghdad. I doubt many will survive to see the end of the war. But Shalan has ordered all the men in the tribe to do whatever they can to help the British and give the officers in charge of the men, money, and food.'

‘The Turks allow you to help the POWs?'

‘The Turks employ Arab auxiliaries to do their work for them. They assume all Arabs are as brutal as them. Most are. Shalan's men are not – to the British anyway.'

‘In the bazaar – did you see anyone we knew?'

‘Crabbe, Grace, Bowditch. Did Mitkhal tell you that we can get you and your men back through the Turkish lines to Basra?'

‘He told me.'

Hasan stared balefully at John through his good eye. ‘You won't go, will you?'

‘I won't stop my men from going back with you if they want to risk passage through the lines …'

‘With Mitkhal as a guide there'd be very little risk.'

‘It's out of the question for me. You said it yourself. Our men are in dire straits. They need medical care. I'm a doctor. It's my duty …'

‘Duty!' Hasan repeated. ‘Do you never think of yourself?'

‘All the time when I'm not needed by anyone, at the moment it happens I am. And you're a fine one to talk, giving up your country, your family your people …'

‘My people are my wife and children. I love them and want to spend as much time as possible with them. That's hardly the act of an unselfish person.'

John frowned. The mention of a wife had reminded him of Maud. ‘You said you left Basra after the fall of Kut.'

‘I did.'

‘Did you hear anything of Maud?' John tried to make his question sound casual. It didn't.

‘I wasn't moving in British military circles.'

‘You don't know if she'd had her child?'

‘No, but as she was heavily pregnant when I last saw her before the battle of Nasiriyeh I presume she did. You told me when I left Kut that you were divorcing her.'

‘Not easy to arrange in wartime. I'm wondering if she's all right.'

‘You know Maud. She'll be fine. Next time you see her she'll probably be waltzing on a general's arm, if not as his wife, then his mistress.'

‘I hope so, pregnancy's rarely easy on a women and it can take its toll in this climate. Which reminds me, Sergeant Greening's wife was pregnant and by now he should have has a son or daughter in Basra. If anyone should go back it's him.'

‘Didn't he marry Mrs Perry's maid Harriet?'

‘He did.'

‘You'll talk to your men and tell them of our offer to get them to Basra?'

John glanced at the other fire, where the laughter was growing louder and the jokes more ribald, at least the ones he could understand among the British. ‘I will, tomorrow morning when they're sober.'

‘It's late, old friend. Time I fetched my blanket roll. We'll speak tomorrow.'

‘I'll ask Greening to put up a tent for you.'

‘I like sleeping under the stars, as do the men with me.'

‘Really?' John was sceptical. ‘With no mosquito net and the sand flies and bugs biting every inch of skin they can prise their jaws into?'

‘I've learned to ignore them.'

Dira left the tent. ‘Major Mason, sir?'

‘Coming, Dira.' John rose to his feet. ‘See you in the morning, Ha … Hasan.'

Harry embraced John, kissing him on both cheeks, in the fashion of the Arabs. It was a spontaneous, natural gesture, and more evidence to suggest that Harry Downe was dead and Hasan Mahmoud lived.

John watched Harry walk away, his robes billowing around his feet, his kafieh pulled low, covering most of his face. He watched him greet the men he'd travelled with. Someone handed him a bottle of Turkish brandy, Greening a pack of cigarettes. Hasan sat on the ground alongside the men. The conversation and the laughter escalated.

John felt as though he'd just lost his cousin all over again. Harry was only a few feet away yet he was already missing him.

Sick tent, the desert between Baghdad and Turkey

July 1916

John crouched beside the child and laid his hand on her head. It was cool. He spooned more water into her mouth and she swallowed without opening her eyes.

‘The two ladies are burning with fever, sir.'

John laid his head first on one forehead then the other. ‘You're right, Dira, but the Arabs said that they found them in the desert. Chances are they've been forced to walk in the heat of the day for days if not weeks. The high temperature could be the result of sunburn.'

‘And if it's not, sir?'

‘The treatment is the same. Fetch my medical bag and the morphine, please.'

‘And if our own men need it, sir? We haven't a large stock.'

‘We give the drugs to anyone who needs them, on a first come first served basis, Dira.'

‘Even Turks, sir?'

‘Even Turks. And I need to examine these patients; as they've been raped they may need stitching.'

‘I'll get the phials and syringe, sir.'

Dira returned with the equipment. John opened his bag and prepared to examine the child.

‘Permission to speak, sir.'

‘When have I ever refused you permission, Dira?' John asked.

‘Lieutenant-Colonel Downe's orderly, sir, Mitkhal …'

‘Best to think of Lieutenant-Colonel Downe as dead, Dira. The man here is Hasan Mahmoud.'