Winds of Eden (16 page)

‘That is certainly one of them, but there are others that are exciting interest not only among our enemies but our allies. We're not alone in the area. There are French emissaries, Americans, Dutch …'

‘You would like me to report on any visitors to the mission from those countries.'

‘We would like you to report every visitor, Dr Downe.' He sensed her reluctance. ‘It would not be onerous. Basra is a small town. You will meet many of our military officers socially, including Lieutenant Colonel Cox. All that would be required of you is a little conversation.'

‘Nothing written?'

‘Nothing so formal, Dr Downe.' He finished his tea, and rose to his feet. ‘I knew the Empire could reply on you. Until tomorrow morning, Dr Downe.'

Chapter Sixteen

Basra, early morning, Monday 3rd January 1916

Michael woke with a start. Disorientated, uncertain of his surroundings, he sat up and looked around. He'd left a small oil lamp burning in a niche beside the door. Its glow cast his shadow large, looming like a theatrical ghost on the lime-washed wall.

His luggage was piled high in the corner, reminding him that in a few hours he'd be travelling upstream. He heard someone breathing beside him, and looked down on Kalla.

Even asleep she was beautiful. Her long black eyelashes grazed her sleep-flushed cheeks. Her mouth, wide-lipped, sensuous, appeared to be smiling. If she was dreaming, it was a happy one.

She'd taught him more about the pleasures of the body in a few days than he would have believed possible. She'd also brought the comforting realisation that the failure of his marriage wasn't entirely down to him and his ‘unreasonable demands', as Lucy would have had him believe. In fact his ‘unreasonable demands' had been accepted gratefully and graciously without shame or false modesty by Kalla who had no compunction about requesting more of the same.

He was tempted to rouse her but he heard the sound that had woken him again. Footsteps padding lightly along the wooden floor of the landing.

He reached for his pocket watch and opened it. Three a.m. He crept from the bed, pulled on his trousers, and opened the door to Adjabi's cubicle.

His bearer was stretched out on his divan under a pile of camel-hair blankets. Michael whispered his name. When Adjabi didn't stir, he went to the door that opened into the corridor, muffling the latch with his fingers, he opened it a crack and peered out.

The door to Harry's room was open. A figure emerged swathed in a black cloak and headdress. Whoever it was paused to lock the door with a key and turned. Michael stepped back smartly lest he be seen.

He returned to his own room, picked up his multi-purpose ‘tool' from the table where he'd left it, and lifted the lamp from the niche. He heard footsteps again. This time heading down the stairs.

He opened his door gingerly. The landing was deserted. Shading the lamp's flame with his hand he crept to the top of the stairs in time to see the cloaked figure acknowledge Abdul who was sitting at his customary table with a waiter, the inevitable backgammon board between them. The front door opened and closed. The only sounds that broke the silence were the bubble of the hookah and the backgammon tiles clicking on the board.

Careful to continue shading the lamp, Michael stole along the corridor to the door of Harry's room. It was locked but the lock was simpler than the one on his brother's trunk. He picked it in a few seconds, slipped inside the room, set the lamp on the floor and closed the door. The room appeared to be unchanged from his last visit.

He opened the trunk that had contained Harry's clothes. It was as he'd expected after Cox had taken the native dress to his room, empty. He set about picking the lock on the second chest. It didn't take him as long as it had the first time. When he'd done, he opened the lid and removed the two boxes. The one that had held two hundred sovereigns by Tom's estimate was empty. Not a single coin remained.

He examined the second box that had held the key to the safety deposit box. The key was buttoned into his wallet but he checked to see if the box held any other secrets. After ten minutes of poking and pressing he decided if it did, he couldn't find them.

He replaced everything as he'd found it. Sat for a moment and imagined his brother in the room. Harry had a wife that, everyone agreed, never visited him here. Was this simply an ‘office'? A place Harry conducted ‘business' away from the home he shared with his wife and children.

What kind of business did political officers undertake that required clandestine meetings? Was the mysterious figure he'd seen Harry's wife or his elusive friend Mitkhal? The disappearance of the sovereigns suggested one or the other needed money. Money he could give them if he knew where they were.

Then he remembered the five thousand sovereigns that remained in the safety deposit box. They didn't need his money when they had Harry's to draw on. He was too tired to think straight. He glanced around the room to make sure he hadn't disturbed anything, checked the corridor to make sure it was empty and spent a moment locking the door before returning to his own room.

Kalla was sitting up in bed. ‘I missed you. Where have you been?'

‘I thought I heard a noise.'

‘Many people live in this house. They all make noises.'

‘As I've discovered.' He stripped off his trousers and climbed back into bed. She moved close to him, her skin cool as silk against his. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close until her breasts nestled against his chest.

‘Do you have to go up the river today?' she whispered.

‘I'm a war correspondent. My editor will be wondering whether I'm ever going to get to the front.'

‘Take me with you?' she pleaded.

‘To the front?'

‘Yes, to the front.'

‘I can't. No women are allowed at the front.'

‘Other officers take their mistresses with them. They call them cooks and maids.'

‘Believe me, there will be no women where I'm going.'

‘Please, Michael,' she wheedled. ‘It's been good for me to have a kind man like you to look after me.' She slipped her hand between his thighs.

He was tired, he needed sleep, but he was enjoying her caresses too much to stop her.

‘You've been good to me too, Kalla, but I can't take you with me.' He kissed the top of her head. ‘Will you be here when I get back?'

‘That is up to my mistress.'

‘Your mistress? I thought you worked for Abdul.'

‘She loaned me to Abdul because I speak English.'

‘Loaned you … this mistress owns you?'

‘Yes.'

‘You are a slave?'

‘Of course.'

He was shocked but the more he thought about it the more it he realised how naïve he'd been. Kalla was obviously practised in the arts of sex, but he doubted many women would willingly opt for the life of a whore if they had a comfortable alternative.

‘Why did your mistress loan you to Abdul?'

‘Because he wanted a girl who could speak English.'

‘Why?'

She made no attempt to answer him.'

‘Tell me?'

‘I've already said too much.'

‘You are here to spy on me?' Given the brief he'd received from Cox he could see irony in the situation.

‘All Arabs, including Abdul and my mistress, want to know what the British intend to do with Mesopotamia if you should win the war.'

‘They think I know the secrets of government!' he laughed.

‘You are a writer, for the newspapers, they think you know everything.'

‘I wish I did. Believe me, Kalla, I know no more than you.'

‘Please,' she begged, ‘take me with you. I will do anything you ask, cook, clean, fetch, carry …'

‘I have a syce and a bearer.'

‘I don't want to return to my mistress. She will sell me to other men, and it will be hard to love them after you.'

‘I'm sorry, Kalla. If I could take you with me, I would. But it's impossible.' He thought for a moment. ‘How much would it take to buy your freedom?'

‘More than I will ever earn.'

‘I will talk to Abdul tomorrow. Ask him if you can stay here, in this room, while I'm upstream.'

‘You would ask Abdul that for me?'

‘I'll pay the rent in advance and give you some English sovereigns in case you need money. But I don't know when I'll be back'.

‘I will wait for you for as long as it takes you to stay at the front and write for your editor.'

‘I may be gone for weeks – months even,' he warned. ‘I may not even return to Basra if the army moves forward.'

‘I will still wait.' She moved over him pressing him down into the mattress. ‘Even when I am no more than dust blowing across the desert I will still be waiting for you.'

Basra, mid-morning, Monday 3rd January 1916

Michael stood in the doorway of Abdul's coffee shop. He studied the paddle steamer bound for Ali Gharbi and wondered if it was strong enough to withstand the river currents. There was more rust than paint above the water-line, which begged the question: what was concealed below by the muddied waters of the Shatt al-Arab. The engines coughed and wheezed as though they were in the final stages of pneumonia, and although there were queues of men and animals waiting to board, the level of the river hovered well above the Plimsoll line.

The wharf area around the craft was bedlam. Sepoys and bearers shouting at and to one another as they scurried up and down the gangplanks, hauling supplies, officers' kits and luggage. A third gangplank aft of the vessel was reserved for horses, and Arab syce and Indian bearers were leading the officers' mounts on board and into the make-shift stables on the lower deck.

Michael joined Daoud, who was patiently standing back with the horses he'd bought: a chestnut ex-cavalry mount, sold on when the owner, a captain, had been invalided to India after being wounded at Nasiriyeh, and a handsome black hunter whose owner had been killed in the same battle.

‘How are Toffee and Brutus doing, Daoud?' He stroked the hunter's muzzle.

‘Better than those skittish grasshoppers, sir.' Daoud indicated a couple of greys that snorted, bucked and reared whenever they were led within kicking distance of the gangplank. ‘I wish we could have bought you a third mount, sir. You may need one.'

‘You insisted there was nothing suitable for sale.'

‘There wasn't, sir,' Daoud protested.

‘We might find something upriver.'

‘Half-starved nags and walking skeletons, sir,' Daoud prophesied. ‘There's no grazing beyond Amara upriver.'

‘Your turn.' Michael slapped Brutus's rump as a syce beckoned Daoud forward. He saw Daoud, Toffee, and Brutus on board before making his way back to the coffee shop. Adjabi was leaving the building with a line of Abdul's waiters in tow. All loaded with his kit.

‘Sahib, your attaché case and travelling bag are on a chair at your table. This is the last of your luggage. I will see it safely into the hold. I have reserved a chair on deck for you and a berth in a cabin.'

‘Thank you, Adjabi. I'll follow you shortly.'

‘I'll guard your chair until you are there to sit on it, Sahib.'

Abdul handed Michael his attaché case and bag. ‘It was a pleasure to have you in my humble house, Mr Downe.'

‘Thank you for your hospitality, Abdul.'

‘I will care for Kalla, keep other men from her door, and feed her only the best food. I will also continue to keep your brother's things safe, Mr Downe. Never fear. I look forward to your return.'

Michael tucked his attaché case under his left arm and shook Abdul's hand. He glanced up the stairs and decided against returning to his room to say a last goodbye to Kalla. Tears and hysteria he could have coped with but her dry-eyed anguish was difficult to bear.

He returned to the quay and sensed someone watching him. He looked around and he caught the eye of a man crouching in the stern of a mahaila, one of the high-masted, colourfully painted, low-slung native boats that plied the river. The vessel was berthed above the paddle steamer and the man was ignoring the shouts of his fellow crewman as he continued to blatantly stare in his direction.

Charles's description of Harry's orderly echoed through Michael's mind.

“
He's Arab, huge, with the face of a brigand.
”

It was difficult to gauge the man's height as he wasn't standing, but his handsome, hawk-nosed features certainly resembled the
Boys' Own
adventure books' illustrations of a brigand. Had he been the figure in Harry's room? The one who'd emptied the chest of the sovereigns?

The man knew he was watching him, yet made no attempt to avert his eyes. Michael looked around for Abdul. He retreated to the door and called his name.

‘I thought you'd be on board by now, Mr Downe.'

‘There's a man watching me. Could he be my brother's…' Michael recalled Abdul's reaction when Charles had referred to Harry's “orderly” ‘… friend?'

‘If someone is staring at you, Mr Downe, he could be an acquaintance of your brother who recognises the family similarity.'

‘Please, Abdul, take a look at the man.'

Abdul reluctantly left his backgammon board and joined Michael in the doorway.

‘He's on board that mahaila.' As Michael spoke, a short wiry man on the quayside untied the ropes that had secured the boat and flung them to a man on board.

Michael ran up the quay, before he reached the mooring, the boat was in the centre of the river, its sail halfway up the mast fluttering in the wind. All he could see of the man he'd been watching was a rapidly diminishing shadow moving around the deck.

‘Was it Harry's friend?' he demanded of Abdul when he returned.

Abdul shrugged. ‘All Arabs look the same, Mr Downe.' A smile curled the corners of his mouth when he repeated a stock phrase British officers resorted to, whenever they described natives of every land other than Britain.

The whistle blew on the paddle steamer. Adjabi appeared at the top of the gangplank and waved to Michael.

‘You will continue to ask if anyone has seen my sister-in-law?'

‘Yes, Mr Downe, as I promised,' Abdul assured him. ‘You don't want to miss your boat.'

Michael ran up the gangplank.

‘I will take you to your chair, Sahib. I have placed it next to Major Chalmers and his friend Captain Heal.' Adjabi led Michael on to the forward deck.

‘Scribbler, meet Martin Heal. Join us,' Richard held up a bottle of beer when he saw Michael.

‘Thank you.' Michael took the beer but kept his eye on the sail of the mahaila as he sat on the rattan chair between Richard and Martin.