Scorpion Sunset (29 page)

One was from Michael Downe, another from David Knight, both sent a month ago from Sheikh Saad. One from Georgiana had only taken three weeks to travel up from Basra but a letter from his brother Tom, also posted in Basra, had taken over six weeks. There was one from his parents with a six-month-old postmark. The sixth, with an Indian return address, was from Maud.

He opened Georgiana's letter first. As he read he imagined her frown as she pushed her spectacles back up her nose as she wrote, squinting down at the paper in between dipping the pen into the ink well.

Dear John,

It's extremely odd to be writing this when I know perfectly well the odds of you ever getting it are almost negligible. However, here goes. I do hope that you are well and totally out of character caring for yourself better than you are looking after your patients. What's that phrase Helen was so fond of using in the London Hospital? ‘Physician heal thyself because if you don't you won't be a blind bit of use to your patients'. Well, this is the point at which I stop rambling and say what I have to before I run out of paper.

Charles is dead, John, killed by a sniper at some awful place on the Tigris between Basra and Baghdad. David, Peter, and Michael were with him when it happened and they have all written the same thing. That there wasn't a single thing any one of them could do. One minute Charles was with them, talking and walking from one tent to another across the camp, the next he was dead with an Arab bullet in his skull. I know what reading this is doing to you. I loved the stiff upper-lipped idiot too, and I can't imagine carrying on living without him but living without him we must. I am too devastated to resort to platitudes about King and Country and a better place. The better place was here on earth with us. How dare Charles go and get himself killed! He left an absolute fortune which wasn't surprising when I thought about it. He and his father lived fairly frugally and there were an awful lot of generals in his family trees on both his mother and father's sides. Aren't they the ones who get the pick of the loot after battles?

Anyway, Charles appointed me and Michael executors of his will. Which brings me to the second awful bit of news, apart from bequests to Chatta Ram – Charles's half-brother as well as his bearer – I'll save that story – and Kitty, Charles's nurse girlfriend, Charles left the bulk of his estate to Maud's son, Robin, and acknowledged the baby his son. How the hell that happened I have no idea. If you want me to do anything for you about Maud – like start divorce proceedings – I will. Unfortunately I can't whiplash her, which is what I'd like to do as she disappeared after leaving the child at the Lansing and asking Mrs Butler to put him into an orphanage. At the risk of you thinking I'm being the over-protective cousin, she was never the right one for you, John. Too silly and flighty by half.

Robin is with Angela at present – how long for, neither I nor Angela have any idea. Now the baby is wealthy I suppose guardians need to be appointed and to that end I have written to Charles's father to ask him what he'd like to do with the child. As Robin is undoubtedly a bastard I can guess his reply. Damn, I'm running out of paper so my writing is getting smaller. Hope you can read this. Tom was invalided out and sent back to Blighty, he and Clary married in Basra just before they left. David feels terribly guilty at leaving you to go into captivity while he is living in the lap of luxury with the Relief Force – now rechristened the Baghdad Force I suppose.

John, I really am sorry that it didn't work out for you and Maud, but you don't need my sympathy. This bloody awful war is messing up everyone's lives. I love you and will always be here for you, and I'm staying in Mesopotamia until the bitter end – or Michael leaves, whichever comes first.

Your loving cousin, who kisses your photograph (on the cheek) and says a prayer for you every night,

Georgie

John sat back and considered what Georgiana had written. He explored his feelings and was disconcerted to realise that he didn't feel anything much at all. He tried to recall his reaction when he found the cache of letters Maud had exchanged with one of her lovers among the effects of a man killed in battle. All he remembered about that night was getting drunk and remaining drunk for months afterwards – in fact, right up until the moment he'd been court-martialled and sentenced to death in Kut.

But then that had been a somewhat sobering experience.

How did he feel about his wife's child? But not just Maud's child, Charles's too, poor boy, abandoned by Maud to live out his life in an orphanage, or if he was fortunate, an adoptive home.

He thought about the boy for a moment. He was Charles's son and Charles was dead, so the boy was in need of a guardian. Peter and Angela would be ideal, especially as they were already caring for the child, but what if they had their own child. And then there was General Reid. No one could deny he was the boy's closest living relative, apart from Maud, who'd abandoned him, but General Reid had at best been an absent and remote father to Charles even when they'd lived under the same roof.

The obvious course would be to take the boy back to Clyneswood and Stouthall where he, his brother, sister, cousins, and Charles had grown up. Tom would probably already be back there with Clary. At the end of the war Georgie would possibly return to Clyneswood and him –

He had a sudden vision of a Sunday afternoon in the garden on a sunny day, playing cricket with Tom, Michael, Harry, Charles, Georgie, and his sister Lucy, while their respective parents drank tea on the terrace with the vicar.

Tom and Clary would hopefully have children. Charles's son – he scanned Georgie's letter to check his name – Robin should have at least one or two cousins to play with, if not, there were always the village children.

He had a sudden longing to be sitting on the terrace where his parents had sat, watching the next generation play cricket, tennis, and rounders.

His dreams had never moved far from Stouthall, or the old Georgian manor in a West Country village that he had planned to buy and live in with Maud and a houseful of children. The one and only thing that had changed in his dream was the identity of his wife.

Bagtsche Turkish Prisoner of War Camp

October 1916

Captain Gerald Vincent walked down the long dark stone corridor in company with a Turkish guard and German sergeant. The stench was foul and overpowering. Raw sewage mingled with cold sweat, vomit, and the feral odour of rats. He looked through the metal gratings into cells floored with filthy damp quilts and blankets so louse-ridden he could see the creatures moving from six feet away.

‘The conditions in this camp are execrable,' he railed at the German sergeant. ‘None of the men moving rocks outside were fit to work. These living conditions are not even fit for wild beasts. By your own admission you have no hospital or even a sick bay so men suffering from contagious diseases can be quarantined away from their healthy comrades.'

‘We keep the sickest men in here, and this is where you'll find the officer you have been sent to replace, Captain Vincent.' The German nodded to the guard who stepped forward and unlocked the metal cell door.

The cell was about fifteen feet square, stone walled and floored. The only light came from a small grating close to the ceiling. It took Vincent a few minutes for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. The smell was even more intense, foul, and overpowering than it had been in the corridor. He blinked and focused on three emaciated men slumped on the floor with their backs against the wall opposite the door. All three were dressed only in shorts without boots or shirts, and all were perspiring.

He stepped towards them. The quilts and blankets squelched beneath his boots, lice scurrying deeper into the folds of the bedding.

‘Captain Vincent, sir.'

He peered at the man who'd spoken. ‘Do I know you?'

‘Pearce, sir. You treated me when I was shot by a Turk in Kut.'

Vincent advanced towards the man. ‘How are you, Pearce?'

‘As you see, sir. I've been better.' He held up his arms which were skinned and bloody.

‘What happened?'

‘Slipped down the rock face, sir, when I was gathering blasting debris. Caused a landslide that caught Radcliff and Purcell.' He pointed to the men either side of him and Vincent saw that their hands, faces, and arms were as raw as Pearce's.

‘I'll see if I've anything that might help ease the pain.' Vincent opened his doctor's bag.

‘It's not us you should be looking out for, Captain Vincent, it's Major Crabbe, sir. He hasn't moved or opened his eyes in two days.' Pearce pointed to the corner.

Vincent went over too what he'd assumed was a bundle of rags. He used the tips of his fingers to move the quilt that covered Crabbe's face and body.

Vincent checked Crabbe's breathing and temperature before turning to the German sergeant. ‘This man's face and body are badly bruised. What happened to him?'

The sergeant didn't answer but Pearce did. ‘Major Crabbe took a terrible beating from the guards a month or so back and hasn't been right since, sir, but the Turks drove him out to work just the same. He was complaining about pains in his chest before he collapsed.'

Vincent folded back the filthy blanket and ran his hands over Crabbe's bare chest. He looked up at the German sergeant. ‘The state of this man is bloody disgraceful. He's obviously been viciously attacked. He has two broken ribs and severe concussion. You have a moral duty to take care of these men, yet you have worked them …'

‘They are POWs and we have every right to work them,' the German reminded him harshly. ‘They are paid for their work and we need that money to buy their food and pay for their lodging.'

‘Food and lodging. You call this lodging?' Vincent demanded indignantly. ‘How much do these men get paid?'

‘Seven piastres a day, and every piastre is spent on them, but you cannot expect the Ottoman command to provide enemy soldiers with all the ridiculous luxuries they demand. We have our own troops to feed and care for. As for yours, we have complied with the conditions of the Hague Convention.' The sergeant kicked a corner of Crabbe's blanket. ‘We have given all of your British soldiers bedding, clothes, and food and we also allow them to rest when they are too lazy to work, as these men are.'

‘I see no care, and there is nothing in the Hague agreement about working men to death, and this man …'

‘Major Crabbe was beaten because he refused to obey orders.' The Turkish commandant stood in the open doorway of the cell.

‘The conditions here are unacceptable and barbaric. The men are filthy, undernourished, and …'

‘They are prisoners, Captain Vincent, who refuse to wash or eat the food provided for them. If anyone is barbaric it is them. As they have thwarted all our efforts to clean themselves up we have assumed that they like living this way.'

‘Major Crabbe needs urgent medical attention, now.'

‘You are a doctor as well as an officer, are you not, Captain Vincent? You can treat him.'

‘I need medicine and bandages, not just for Major Crabbe, but these men, disinfectant, drugs, men to help me clean this cell and wash the bedding …'

‘You have money to pay for medicine, bandages, disinfectant, and replacement bedding while this is washed?'

‘I will sign a promissory note. The money will be paid by the British government at the end of the war.'

‘Not good enough, captain. If we provide these things and pay for them out of our own pocket we will never be reimbursed. Disinfectant, medicines, and bandages are expensive.'

‘I have two sovereigns.'

‘Three and I may be able to bring you some of what you ask for.'

‘Don't give him anything, sir,' Pearce warned. ‘He'll take your money and give you nothing.'

The commandant nodded to the guard who held out his hand.

‘Three sovereigns, but only after I've seen what they will buy,' Vincent warned.

The cell door banged shut. The men walked away. Vincent went to the door and shouted through the grille but the men kept on walking.

‘Welcome to the cemetery, sir.'

Vincent turned to Pearce. ‘Sorry, Pearce, what did you say?'

‘Welcome to the cemetery, sir. That's what they call this place. Only one hundred and forty of us Dorsets reached here out of the three hundred and fifty who left Kut. Last headcount Major Crabbe took we were down to less than a hundred and that was a month ago.'

Chapter Twenty

Turkish Prisoner of War Camp

November 1916

John had slung a blanket around his shoulders but he was still shivering when he sat on the wooden bench on the veranda of the hospital. A cold wind blew dead dry leaves around the enclosed space, piling them high beneath the corners protected by the overhanging balconies. Rebeka left the building wrapped in an army greatcoat. She carried a tray that held a brass pot and three glasses. She set it on the table in front of John and took a small book from her pocket.

‘Are you sure you want to progress to written Turkish?' she asked.

‘There's no point in speaking a language if you can't read it. The merchants could be adding half a dozen camels on to the bills they ask me to sign and I wouldn't know.'

‘You would because I always check the papers before you sign them.'

‘You're not always around, Rebeka, besides, I need something to take my mind off this place and your lessons are the highlight of my day.'

Rebeka laughed. He reflected it was a delightful sound before realising he'd never heard her laugh before, and rarely seen her smile.

‘Your days are very sad, Major Mason, if these lessons of ours are the highlight, and it's cold out here. We would be warmer and more comfortable in the kitchen.'