Winds of Eden (23 page)

The square thickset sergeant was lounging in the doorway. He snapped to attention when he saw Crabbe. ‘This stable has been requisitioned by the Norfolks … sir. It's been declared off limits to all other regiments.'

‘An Arab visited here earlier. A high-ranking emissary of the brigadier who sent him to examine the horses. He was accompanied by a corporal.'

‘I don't know anything about any Arab – sir.'

‘How long have you been on duty here?'

‘Since six this morning – sir.'

‘Then you were here.'

‘I could have been in the tack room or checking the grain supplies.'

‘Who else was on duty here?' Crabbe questioned.

‘Perkins and Lamb – sir.'

‘Where are they now?'

‘I don't know – sir.'

Crabbe stepped up to the sergeant.

The escort of Dorsets arrived and assembled behind him. Sergeant Lane ordered them to present arms. The sergeant retreated into the stable.

‘Sergeant Lane. With me.' Crabbe entered the stable.

‘Sir, I protest …'

‘Protest all you like, Sergeant …' when the sergeant didn't answer, Crabbe pushed his face very close. ‘Your name?'

‘Pickering, sir.'

‘Remember that name, Sergeant Lane.'

‘I will, Major Crabbe, sir.

Crabbe checked the lines of officers' mounts. There were three greys, none of which resembled Dorset or Somerset. ‘There were two other greys stabled here a few days ago. Where are they now?'

Pickering stammered, ‘I don't know, sir.'

‘Sergeant Lane, take twelve men and escort Sergeant Pickering to the brigadier's office. Tell the brigadier I'll be along presently.'

‘Sir.'

‘I don't know where Colonel Perry took the horses or the Arab, sir …'

‘You admit that the Arab and the horses were here?' Crabbe asked.

Sergeant Pickering fell silent as Sergeant Lane and his men closed around him.

Crabbe turned to the remaining men. ‘Accompany me to the Norfolks' mess.'

‘Pleasure, sir,' a corporal answered.

Private Evans muttered, ‘It's lovely watching our betters fall out.'

‘One more word from you, Evans, and you'll find yourself in one of the mud huts with iron bars for windows.'

‘Yes, Major Crabbe.'

‘Move!'

Chapter Twenty-four

Kut al Amara, Friday 7th January 1916

Mitkhal groped slowly into consciousness. Pain sliced through his head when he moved. Something was hanging over his face curtaining his vision. His muscles ached and there was an agonising gnawing in his stomach. He retched and wiped his face. When he drew his hands away they were wet, sticky. He blinked, forced his eyes open and saw that his fingers were covered in blood.

A narrow strip of grey light shone high above his head, marking the line between wall and ceiling. He was lying on a damp floor, slimed with stinking sewage. He crawled to a corner. Fighting pain he leaned against the sodden mud brick wall.

He remembered Perry ordering a platoon to drag him from the stable. He pictured the thickset, bullnecked sergeant, laughing at his pain, saliva dripping off his chin as he spat at him. The whoops of excitement when the ranks obeyed the order to beat and kick him. The sense of impotence as he attempted to fight off a dozen men single-handed.

He rubbed his eyes, made an effort to focus and take stock of his surroundings. The thin strip of light and the damp suggested he was in a cellar. On the wall opposite was a wooden door heavily studded with massive metal nails. There was a keyhole but no latch. He tried and failed to stand upright, which left him no option but to crawl. It seemed to take forever to reach the door. When he did, he pushed at the base. It was stuck fast.

Exhausted, he turned his back to the door, stretched out his legs and leaned against it. It was dry in comparison to the wall.

He flexed his muscles, explored his damaged body and considered his predicament. He reached inside his abba. He was in luck. They hadn't thought to search him. He pulled out a wooden baton and pressed a concealed button at the base. A slim stiletto blade sprang out. He eased it back into the handle and tucked it inside his gumbaz. He had one surprise in store for whoever opened the door.

Crabbe marched his escort to the Norfolks' mess and halted them.

‘Corporal, inside with me. The rest of you, wait here.' He turned to the guard on duty. ‘Step aside.'

‘Sir, this is the Norfolks' mess …'

‘I'm aware of the location. I'm on official business.'

The man stepped aside.

Crabbe walked into the dining room. Colonel Perry was sitting at a table playing bridge with a major and two colonels.

‘Major Crabbe,' Perry stared at Crabbe. ‘To what do we owe this intrusion?'

‘I am here to escort you to HQ, sir.'

‘As you see I'm busy.'

‘Too busy to answer a summons from the brigadier? He's questioning a Sergeant Pickering from the Norfolks' stables about a pair of grey horses you stabled there.'

‘The only horses I stabled with the Norfolks were my own.'

‘Sergeant Pickering was under the impression they were Lieutenant Colonel Downe's horses, sir.'

‘Lieutenant Colonel Downe is dead,' Perry snapped.

‘The brigadier is aware that fact, sir. A representative has arrived from his widow to claim his horses.'

‘Those horses were given to me in recompense for my polo ponies, which Downe used in our campaign in the Hammar Marshes.'

Crabbe remembered Harry using Perry's polo ponies to swim in the marshes. He also remembered the horses surviving. ‘You have documented evidence to that effect, Colonel Perry?'

‘Don't be ridiculous. Gentlemen don't need documented evidence. But then a man of your low antecedents wouldn't realise that.'

‘In which case would you please come with me, sir? The horses are missing and the brigadier is anxious to find them.'

‘Tell the brigadier I'll be along shortly.'

‘The matter is urgent, sir.'

‘I said I'll be along presently.'

‘Shall I inform the brigadier and General Townshend that you consider a game of bridge more important than military matters, sir?'

‘I'm off duty …' Perry hesitated. ‘General Townshend?'

Crabbe strayed into the realms of fiction. ‘Is overseeing the matter personally, Colonel Perry.' He waited while Perry left his chair. ‘After you, Colonel Perry.'

He followed him out of the mess.

Lansing Memorial Mission, Basra, Friday 7th January 1916

‘Letter for you, Ma'am Mason.' The maid handed Maud an envelope. She turned it over and glanced at the address on the back.

‘I'll leave you to read it and get us some tea.' Angela rose from the garden bench.

‘It's from Reggie Brooke so it's hardly personal. He probably forgot to mention some boring bit or other about the annuity. I know I should be more interested in my affairs, but I'd rather sit on an ant hill than look at a column of figures.'

‘I don't know about sitting on an ant hill but account books send me to sleep,' Angela agreed. ‘My father insisted I study basic bookkeeping so I'd learn to manage my own finances and never spend more money than I had. He needn't have bothered. Growing up as the daughter of missionaries meant I rarely saw a penny that wasn't destined for essentials. Not that I'm complaining. Peter's captain's pay was riches compared to what I was used to living on, but after uniform and mess bills have been paid there's very little surplus to enter into our accounts. It certainly saves worrying about investments we can't afford to make. Would you like cake or biscuits with your tea?'

‘Cake would be nice. I saw the cook putting a lemon drizzle out earlier to cool.'

Maud waited until Angela disappeared through the kitchen door before opening the envelope. As she'd expected from Reggie's smiles, winks, and the pressure of his fingers on hers whenever he handed her a document, it wasn't a business letter.

Dear Maud,

Thank you so much for seeing me earlier today. I trust you found the meeting beneficial. If you require any more assistance, I can always be found at 1.00 p.m. on a Monday afternoon in number 6 private room above the Parisienne Ladies' Fashion store.

I look forward to meeting you there, and await such a time as you can make it.

Reginald Brooke (Major)

When Maud re-read the letter she had to concede Reginald was more careful and discreet than his younger brother Geoffrey. When she'd had an affair with Geoffrey in India, he'd thrown caution to the wind. Sending her daily missives protesting his love and doing all he could, short of shouting out his feelings for her publicly, to persuade her to leave John and run off with him. She presumed, given that it was wartime, for as long as the war department would grant him leave.

If Reggie's letter fell into the wrong hands, someone who didn't know any better might assume he was doing no more than offering to help organize her personal affairs. As for the Parisienne Fashion Store, it was managed by a Frenchwoman whose knowledge of France extended only as far as that country's colonies. She'd heard rumours that Madame Odette rented out the rooms above the shop by the hour before she'd moved into the Lansing. After she'd moved, Mrs Butler took care that no scurrilous rumours of any kind were aired in the mission.

She considered her position carefully. Thanks to John's foresight, she was now financially secure, although she felt guilty for taking her husband's money after the cavalier way she'd treated him and her marriage vows.

The world, as the saying went, ‘was her oyster'. She had enough money to go wherever she chose, and rent or buy a house. John had made provision for her to withdraw a lump sum from the annuity provided it was used for a house purchase, but there wasn't a single person or place in the world that would welcome her and her bastard.

British military society was small and claustrophobic but its tentacles reached far, wide, and deep in Britain. No matter how small or remote a village she settled in, she knew that sooner or later rumours about her infidelity and Robin's birth would surface. India was out of the question after her adulterous affairs, affairs that given the constant exchange of army personal between the two posts had become common knowledge in Basra.

‘I brought you tea.'

Theo set a tray on the garden table.

‘Only two cups, I thought Angela was making it?'

‘She was but Major Reid is here. Hostilities have broken out upstream and he wanted Angela to hear the facts first hand.'

‘That's good of him.' She made an effort not to sound sarcastic.

‘Peter's popular and you know how it is. Officers tend to look out for their brother officers' wives.'

‘I remember,' she snapped.

He recalled the gossip in Basra when Charles Reid had dragged Maud back to Basra from India and let the subject drop. ‘I called back to get overnight things for myself and Dr Picard. We've decided to sleep in the hospital in case Turkish POW casualties are already on their way downstream.'

‘Surely if hostilities have just broken out they'll take at least three or four days to reach here.'

‘That depends on where there's been fighting. If the Turks have occupied the marshes and attacked Qurna, wounded could arrive at the Lansing within the next few hours.' He sat next to her on the bench. ‘I asked Charles if he'd like to join us but he wanted to talk to Angela privately.'

‘He hasn't brought bad news, I hope,' Maud said anxiously.

‘No, I checked with him before I took him to Angela. Anyway,' he poured two cups of tea and handed her one. ‘I'm glad I have you to myself, there's something I'd like to ask you.'

‘If you want me to resume my nursing career in the Lansing, the answer has to be no. Much as I liked nursing and was tempted to try to make a career of it, Mrs Butler is right. I can't risk carrying infection back to my child.'

‘I agree.'

‘That was a short discussion.'

‘On one topic. Angela said you're thinking of renting or buying a property in Basra.'

‘Hopefully renting. I don't want to stay here indefinitely.'

‘You want to stay until Kut is relieved and your father returns?'

‘With everything that's been happening I'm ashamed to say I haven't given my father a thought, other than in my prayers that he'll survive the siege at Kut. Whatever the outcome of the fighting upriver, or for that matter the war, my father will want to continue his military career. He's always enjoyed life in the mess more than domestic life. The one certainty I have is that he won't want to live with me.'

‘Then why stay in Basra?'

‘Because I have nowhere else to go,' she said simply.

‘Surely there must be someone.'

‘Why don't you say it, Theo? An old lover who'll take me back? I assure you there's no one, and no English-speaking country that won't have heard the British military gossip about me, apart from possibly New Zealand, South Africa, or Australia. And I don't feel adventurous enough to travel to any of those with a child.'

‘There is one other place you could go, Maud. America.'

‘I know no one in America.'

‘You know me.'

‘You want a mistress? I warn you, I'm soiled goods and I have a child in tow.'

‘You're also wealthy. A thousand pounds a year wealthy with a military widow's pension to boot.'

‘You want my money?'

‘I'm offering you marriage and respectability in America in return for your money, Maud.'

‘Marriage!' Stunned, she stared at him in disbelief.

‘I'm sorry. I've shocked you.'

‘You've never evinced the slightest interest in me.'

‘This is not a romantic proposal but a business proposition. I never planned to work for the Lansing Memorial. I came to fetch my sister after our parents died. Newly qualified, it took every cent I had to get here. I wasn't in a position to turn down the post of doctor in the Lansing Memorial Hospital when it was offered, and after three years I've just about saved enough for my fare home. It takes money to set up a medical practice in the States. I don't have any, but you do.'

‘You want to use my money to buy into a medical practice?'

‘And buy or rent a comfortable house for you and your son. What do you say, Maud? I'm a qualified doctor, a hard worker with excellent prospects. I'm prepared to take you and your son on, give you my name and treat both of you with the respect you'd command from everyone in your new status as my wife and child.'

‘I've been married. Even taking financial considerations into account it's a great deal more than a business proposition.'

‘Ordinarily I'd agree with you.'

‘But not in this case?'

‘I'm trying to be honest.'

‘You've succeeded, Theo. To the point of brutality.'

‘You want romance?'

‘Not from you.'

‘Given your reputation, I think it would be optimistic of you to expect it from anyone, Maud.'

She took a deep breath and kept her temper in check. ‘You'd want us to live as man and wife?'

‘That would be entirely up to you.'

‘You'd want to share my bed?'

‘It's what married couples do.'

‘Sexual intercourse would be part of our “business arrangement”?'

‘I wouldn't force you, if that's what you're asking. If what I've heard is true, you like novelty and adventure in your private life. I have no objection to either because, as it happens, so do I. But I promise you, Maud, I would never rape you or coerce you into doing anything you didn't want to do. However, should you decide to marry me, the one thing – the only thing – I would expect from you is fidelity. I'm not as generous or forbearing as John Mason. If you were unfaithful to me, I'd throw you into the street without a cent. No payment, no insurance, and no annuity for you to draw on. You could live in the gutter for the rest of your life as far as I'm concerned.'

‘Thank you for making that perfectly clear.'

‘It's my only condition.'