Winds of Eden (19 page)

Habid had berthed his mahaila at the confluence of the Shatt al-Hai and Tigris, out of sight of the river traffic on the Tigris. They secured the boat and paid a local tribesman to guard it before making their way as close to Kut as they dared. Thousands of Arab irregulars had transformed the entire area on the Turkish-held right bank into a camping ground. Men smoked, gossiped, and chewed sunflower seeds as they huddled around dung fires that belched acrid smoke beneath blackened awnings erected to keep off the worst of the rain. Strings of tethered camels and horses bellowed and moaned behind them. Young boys raced from one tribal camp to another carrying messages and begging dates and bread flaps.

‘The desert must be empty.' Mitkhal surveyed the heaving, noisy mass of humanity.

‘The smell of loot attracts the Bedawi.' Clouds obscured the moon and stars, but the camp fires lent enough illumination to navigate a path. ‘This way.' Habid walked confidently ahead.

Mitkhal followed. The rain had mixed with the dust and thousands of feet had churned the mess into a sea of cloying mud that sucked at their feet.

‘Looking for one man here is like searching for one duck in the marshes at the height of the breeding season. But when I was last here my cousin laid claim to a spot in the fork between the two rivers.' Habid stopped again and looked around.

A thickset, heavily built man with a manicured beard rose from the mass around him and waved.

‘There he is. Greetings, Qadir.' Habid slapped Mitkhal's shoulders and led him into his cousin's camp. It was the largest in the vicinity. Mitkhal stopped counting armed men of fighting age when he reached forty. Some of the guns slung over their shoulders were old, single-shot muskets but the knives at their belts gleamed with reflected firelight without a single spot of rust to mar their blades.

‘This is my good friend, Mitkhal.' Habid pushed Mitkhal forward.

‘Then you are my good friend too, Mitkhal,' Qadir embraced him. ‘Sit, eat.' He indicated a prime spot in front of the fire. Mitkhal sat on the ground. Someone pushed a bread flap into his hand, someone else handed him a fistful of dates.

He sat back, ate, and listened.

‘We will stay here one more week, no longer,' Qadir declared. ‘If the Turks do not attack within seven days I don't believe they ever will. As for the British,' he shrugged ‘they are too comfortable in the town to want to break out. They have roofs over their heads and stoves in their quarters. In one week the rains will be here in earnest, giving them even less reason to leave the comfort of the houses they have stolen, to attack the Turks shivering in their trenches. War is best fought at the beginning of the summer. We will return then.'

‘So, it hasn't been a profitable visit for you this time?' Habid offered Qadir his tobacco pouch.

Qadir rose. ‘Walk with me, cousin.'

‘Did you have trouble in the marshes?' the man at Mitkhal's elbow asked.

‘None.'

The man nodded. ‘Habid has always been able to deal with the Marsh Arabs. Curse their thieving hands.'

‘You've had problems with them?'

‘My brother had a boat. I helped him sail it. We made a living until they killed my brother and stole it.'

‘Mitkhal?' Qadir beckoned. Together they walked away from the camp towards a watering hole on the bank.

‘Tomorrow I'll take delivery of Habid's goods. His men will load them on my boat. With the grace of Allah I will head back downstream by sunset.'

‘Through the marshes?' Mitkhal asked.

‘Back through the marshes,' Qadir confirmed. ‘The boy you were talking to, Rabi, will be coming with us, and we'll have enough guns and ammunition to frighten off even the most intrepid of the thieving Marsh breed. Will you be ready to travel with us?'

‘I have no way of knowing if I'll locate the horses by then, but if I do I'll be here before sunset?'

‘With the horses.'

‘I don't intend to return without them if they're alive.'

‘You'll steal them from the British?' Qadir's eyes gleamed in the darkness.

‘The horses are mine. No man can steal what is rightfully his.'

‘My boat is not made to carry horses.'

‘What boat is? We could hide them under the awning,' Mitkhal suggested.

‘And if we're stopped?'

‘Who is there to stop us?'

‘The British, the Turk, the Marsh Arabs …'

‘The British and the Turk are too wise to venture into the marshes, and even if they did, they're too reliant on Arab boatman to bring them supplies to risk shooting us. They know our deaths would make other captains wary of serving them. As for the Marsh Arabs, they can be bribed,' Mitkhal declared.

‘And if the Marsh Arabs want more money than you can give them?'

Mitkhal's hands strayed to his gun. ‘I'd shoot them before they shot us.'

‘These horses, they are good-looking?'

‘They were. If I find them I suspect they will be thinner than when I last saw them.'

‘How much money will you pay me to wait until you find them?' Habid asked.

‘Ten sovereigns if you wait until tomorrow night for me, if I have the horses, an extra hundred for their passage.'

‘Gold sovereigns.'

‘British gold sovereigns,' Mitkhal reiterated.

‘In advance.' Habid held out his hand.'

‘One in advance, so you can see the quality of my coin. The rest are inside Kut,' Mitkhal lied. ‘If I find the horses you will receive the coins tomorrow night.'

Habid took the coin Mitkhal handed him and bit it. ‘And if the British kill you?'

‘You will have to be content with the five sovereigns I paid you for my passage and that single sovereign, my friend.'

‘Your horses. Are they as magnificent as that beast?'

Mitkhal looked up to see a grey thundering through the camps. Oblivious to men and fires it was charging directly towards him.

‘Devon!' As he breathed the name, a sharp pain tore into his left arm. He felt his blood, warm, wet, trickling down over his hand. He looked up. Ali Mansur was staring at him.

Chapter Nineteen

Turkish lines outside Kut, Thursday 6th January 1916

‘Bastard!' Ali Mansur pushed his face close to Mitkhal's. He spat in his eye. ‘You stole my wife.'

Blood flowed, soaking Mitkhal's gumbaz when Ali Mansur pulled the broad-bladed knife from Mitkhal's arm. Ali Mansur lifted his knife again and aimed the blade at Mitkhal's chest. Mitkhal feinted. He tried and failed to lift his left arm. It hung cold and unresponsive at his side. He reached for his own knife with his right hand, yanked it free from his belt and stepped back to face his assailant.

The world blurred. A buzzing filled his ears. He was aware of Ibn Shalan's men closing in at Ali Mansur's back. Of Devon's breath, warm on his neck. Of the rough feel of the rope trailing from Devon's muzzle brushing his cheek.

He saw Habid and Qadir wrench out their knives, and sensed them moving in on either side of him. A man behind Ali Mansur primed his rifle and aimed the barrel. Before the man could fire, one of Qadir's men snatched the rifle from him. Four more of Qadir's men bore down on Ali Mansur, grasping his arms they pinned them tight to his sides.

Ali Mansur screamed. ‘Didn't you hear me? This man stole my wife. I have the right to kill a thief.'

The pain in Mitkhal's arm escalated but he deliberately kept his voice soft, low in contrast to Ali Mansur. ‘A man can only steal the possessions of another. You did not own your wife.'

‘A man owns the wife that is freely given by her father. I owned Furja. You stole her from my tent and spirited her away.'

‘You saw me spirit her away?' Mitkhal challenged.

‘You took care I saw no more than a shadow that consigned me to oblivion and left me with a headache.'

‘So you were asleep when she left?'

‘You knocked me out, Mitkhal.'

‘Look at me, Ali Mansur.' Mitkhal drew himself up to his full height. ‘I am no shadow.'

Habid laughed but no one joined him.

‘You and your wife were nowhere to be found after my wife disappeared,' Ali Mansur snarled.

‘I took my wife and left the tribe because I could not trust you. This,' Mitkhal indicated his slashed and bleeding arm, ‘suggests I was right to do so. Perhaps your wife also distrusted you.'

‘If every man whose wife ran from him blamed another for stealing her and demanded the right to kill whoever he suspects, the desert would be awash with blood and there would be no men left and a surfeit of childless wives.' Unlike Habid's words, Qadir's were greeted with laughter, which only served to further incense Ali Mansur.

Devon nuzzled the back of Mitkhal's head.

‘First my wife, Mitkhal. Now my horse.' Ali Mansur struggled to free his arms, but Qadir's men held him fast.

‘I did not steal your wife, Ali Mansur, but if you want to talk about stealing horses, I accuse you of taking mine. Devon sought me out because she knows her true master.'

‘You abandoned the beast when you took my wife.' Ali Mansur succeeded in freeing his right arm. He reached up to Devon. The horse reared and kicked, catching Ali Mansur's hand with a hoof.

Ali Mansur screamed. One of Ibn Shalan's men lunged upwards with a knife, intending to strike the mare, but Mitkhal deflected the thrust. The man lost control, his hand jerked back and the honed blade slid easily, cleanly, into Ali Mansur's throat.

Ali Mansur opened his mouth. A bestial gurgling filled the air as blood flowed from the wound. He stood poised, swaying on his feet for what was only seconds yet seemed like an eternity to Mitkhal, before his eyes darkened, rolled upwards and he crashed, face down to the ground.

Ibn Shalan's men hurled themselves on to Qadir's men.

Habid grabbed Mitkhal and Devon. ‘He's dead! Go!'

Mitkhal jumped on Devon's back. Having no saddle or bridle, he guided the horse towards the river with his knees. Devon remembered his voice and touch and needed no persuasion. Driven by the cries behind him Mitkhal dug his heels into the mare's flanks and trusted her to avoid the closely packed camps of Arabs. Deciding the Turks posed a lesser threat than his fellow countrymen, he set a course for the Turkish lines.

The camps of the Arabs irregulars grew sparser and disappeared altogether once he had the Turkish trenches in his sights. Behind the trenches, little more than narrow black slits in the unrelenting flat landscape, lay the pockmarked desolation of no-man's-land. Scarred by craters, festooned with ragged swathes of barbed wire, it stretched to the faint lights that burned in the British-occupied village of Yakasub.

To his right the river gleamed like gunmetal. Berthed in front of the village, he could make out the velvet black outline of the gunship
Sumana
. Alongside the vessel the dark shadow of a bridge boat dulled the shine of the water. The bridge led to the opposite bank and the square outlines of the mud brick buildings of Kut.

Mitkhal could still hear Ibn Shalan's and Qadir's men shouting but their cries were faint, muted by distance. Around him, all was quiet, but he knew it wouldn't remain that way if he tried to get any closer to the Turkish defences. He guided Devon to the right and into the shallows of the Tigris.

When the mare was hock-deep she bent her head to drink. Mitkhal slid from her back. The only regret he'd had about leaving Ibn Shalan's camp with Gutne, Furja, and the children was abandoning Devon. It wasn't just that the mare was too large to be conveyed on the small mahaila he'd paid to carry them down to Basra. The horse was simply too recognisable. From the moment Harry had shipped his four polo ponies Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Norfolk, into Basra from India, they'd been as coveted and admired by the Arabs as much as they'd been among Harry's fellow officers.

A generous wedding present, along with Norfolk, from Harry, Devon was known as one of Harry's greys, and he'd been anxious not to attract attention from anyone who might recognise the mare and pass on information which would lead Ali Mansur or Ibn Shalan to him or Furja.

Devon nuzzled him in the back, pushing him further into the water. His left arm was aching unbearably. He stroked Devon's nose with his right hand, wishing he had sugar to give her. ‘Where are your stable mates, girl?'

The horse whinnied as if she'd understood what he'd said.

Norfolk's whereabouts were no mystery. He'd presented the mare to Ibn Shalan along with the sovereigns Harry had given him to pay Gutne's bride price. He didn't doubt Shalan kept Norfolk close. He hadn't seen the sheikh when Ali Mansur had attacked him and suspected the promise of battlefield loot hadn't been strong enough to tempt Shalan from his beloved Karun Valley.

That left Dorset and Somerset. Were they still in Kut? Or had Harry entrusted them to a fellow officer who'd taken them along with the cavalry when they'd retreated to Ali Gharbi before the Turks had tightened the noose around the town? Was he risking his neck on a fool's errand? Were Harry's horses safe downstream?

Or – he grimaced at the thought – had they been slaughtered to fill an officer's plate in Kut?

He examined his arm. Ali Mansur's knife had cut through the muscle and the wound was still pumping blood. He pulled off his headdress, tied the cloth kafieh tightly around the gaping wound and strapped up his arm with the rope agal he used to hold his kafieh in place. He turned to Devon. The mare's coat gleamed silver even in the moonless darkness. He picked up a handful of mud and spread it over the horse's flanks and back. It was slow work one-handed but he used the time to think out his next move.

Kut was close. All he had to do was swim Devon across the Tigris, a simple matter of three – or depending on which part of the river he chose – maybe four hundred yards and he'd be on the opposite shore. He and Harry had swum further through the marshes on many occasions.

Whether he'd reach Kut alive was another matter. He'd not only have to avoid the bullets the Turks and the sentries on the
Sumana
fired his way, but also those of the British sappers manning the defences of the village on the bank opposite Kut and the defences of Kut itself. He'd never missed Harry more. No matter how stacked the odds against them, Harry always found a way to laugh and joke his way through.

Devon shook her head when he plastered the mess too close to her eyes.

‘Sorry, old girl,' he murmured in English, unconsciously adopting the soothing voice Harry used to address his horses. ‘I know this mud doesn't look or feel good but we have to lie low for a while.'

When he'd covered Devon with as much of the sediment as would stick, he crouched and waited. He had no way of measuring time but when he looked at the camps of the Arab irregulars he noticed their fires had begun to die down.

Men were rolling themselves into blankets and lying alongside the fires, although at least one man in every group remained sitting, knife in hand and rifle cradled in his arms. He continued to wait, watching the dying embers of the dung fires and the shadowy shapes of the men around them. When all was silent he took out his tobacco pouch and rolled a cigarette. He pushed it between his lips but he didn't dare light it.

The moon and stars remained obscured by clouds. The only light came from the flickering fires at ground level. The air was freezing, heavy with moisture, and he wondered how long it would be before the rainy season broke in full force.

A snatch of conversation drifted towards him from the nearest camp. He recognised the dialect as Bani Lam. The voice was young. The tone, adolescent, boasting of brave deeds to be accomplished in battle, coupled with generous estimates of the number of Turkish and British cavalry horses, weapons, gold sovereigns and silver rupees that would be lying on the battlefield waiting to be picked up after the Turks attacked Kut and the cowardly British surrendered.

He knew, from the sorties he'd planned and carried out with Harry, that the hour before dawn was the best to mount an attack, infiltrate an enemy position, or catch a man off-guard. The spirit and eyelids were at their lowest, the body's senses less alert.

When the boy fell silent he walked Devon closer to the Turkish lines. He saw the shadow of a man's head as he moved down the trench towards the Tigris. At the river end, the Turkish soldier climbed out from his underground bunker and headed for the bank.

Devon whinnied, but the man ignored the sound and continued walking. The sound of water falling into water echoed in the air. As Mitkhal had suspected, the man was relieving himself.

Mitkhal listened hard but heard no other movement. He removed the knife from the sheath at his waist and moved lightly on the balls of his feet. The man was adjusting his clothes, his face turned to the river and Kut across the water.

Mitkhal wrapped his forearm across the man's neck and squeezed. When the man began to choke, he released his hold long enough to free his hand and slice his blade through the man's windpipe. The man slumped, a dead weight. He eased the corpse down into the water. It sank below the bank. Air bubbles broke on the surface, but the sound was no louder than the noise fish made when they rose.

Mitkhal kicked the body into mid-stream, watched it bob downstream, grabbed Devon's rope and pulled the mare into the river. Lying along the horse's back he headed upstream towards the village of Yakasub and the
Sumana
. He urged Devon on, whispering into her ear, waiting for the moment when the ground would give way and horse would begin to swim. The current was stronger than he'd anticipated and it reached him sooner than he'd thought it would, taking him unawares. When he was close enough to see the guns of the Turkish sentries manning their redoubts the first shot rang out.

He grabbed Devon's mane and guided the mare into the deep water between the
Sumana
and Kut. Shots splashed into the river beside him. He realised the sentries on deck of the
Sumana
were shooting at him as well as the Turks. He took a deep breath and shouted, as loud as he could, ‘Harry Downe.'

A voice he recognised bellowed across the deck. ‘Harry Downe is dead.

‘It's Mitkhal, Harry's orderly. I need to get into Kut.'

Lieutenant Grace snapped, ‘Hold your fire! Mitkhal, can you get on the bridge?'

‘No, I have my horse with me.'

‘I'll radio ahead. We'll keep the bastards on the bank busy. Stay alongside the boat bridge. Good luck.'

Mitkhal cursed as the current dragged him and Devon downstream away from the protection of Yakasub and the Sumana. He kicked the horse's flanks, wrapped the fingers of his right hand deep into her mane, and clung on. Devon began to make headway, slow at first then gradually almost imperceptibly, the buildings of Kut drew into focus.

Devon sought firm ground and floundered. If his fingers hadn't been so firmly entwined in the mare's mane, Mitkhal would have floated away. He hauled himself back on the horse as another bullet fell short behind them.

‘Grab the rope, Mitkhal.'

He squinted into the darkness. He couldn't make out the features but he recognised the voice.

‘Major Crabbe?'

‘Ignore the welcoming party behind me. After a couple of months in Kut they distrust all Arabs. You can convince them otherwise when you reach shore.'

Mitkhal kept the fingers of his right hand firmly embedded in Devon's mane. He trusted the horse more than Crabbe's rope, especially after Crabbe's veiled warning.

The horse floundered, found her feet, floundered again, and finally stepped on firm ground.

Crabbe helped him from the horse's back.

‘Welcome to Kut, Mitkhal. Let's get you somewhere warm and dry.' He noticed the blood stains on the kafieh wrapped around his upper arm. ‘Where you can get medical attention.'