by Gavin Lyall
Damn it, what he wanted was for her to insist on going so that it was impossible to stop her, whatever came of it. Please, please insist . . .
He said: “There’s still time for you to back out, not go. I’ll support you, here and in London.”
“That’s very sweet of you to say, Patrick – but I did agree and we’ve come so far . . .”
“If you really want that . . .” But he had said back out, hadn’t he? – a phrase sure to raise her hackles and make her insist. He back-pedalled: “But I still don’t like the idea of Zurga coming down here ahead of us. He’s not part of the Railway, so what the devil has he been arranging, the last two days?”
But suddenly the German railwaymen noticed their guests had been left alone and rushed to show hospitality, burying them with friendly small talk. The atmosphere in the hall was cheery, bubbling over into frequent laughter. He had expected them to be gloomier, but perhaps their own arrival had brought hope, an imminent end to a frustrating delay.
* * *
The Vanadis churned at near-top speed through the quiet dark sea – though if O’Gilroy knew anything about the sea (he didn’t) hurricanes and waterspouts were waiting at the next corner. So he was back at his favourite seat, as near the centre of the ship as possible, at the big saloon table.
Corinna came in and threw a sheaf of telegraph forms on the table. “We’ve been wirelessing everybody and everything. We should be at Mersina by dawn tomorrow but the Railroad says they can’t be ready for me until the day after. Sorry and all that, but pressures of work and blah-blah.”
“Day after tomorrow? Reckon to have Miskal all dead and buried by then, do they?”
“It sounds like it. Damn, damn, damn. And there’s just about nothing I can do about it. Sure, I represent an important potential investor, but they’re only saying if I wait twenty-four hours they’ll have the red carpet dusted off and rolled out for me.”
“Can ye jest arrive there without an invitation?”
“How can I? The Railroad itself is the only route to the camp, no road or anything—” Seeing his surprise she said: “That’s normal: a railroad becomes its own road. Once you’ve laid a bit of track, you use it to haul up what you need for the next bit.”
She ignored his affront at her knowing more than he about such a masculine thing as railway building, and laid a small map on the table. It really was small, just a cutting from a German magazine showing the progress of the Baghdad Railway.
O’Gilroy leaned over it and identified a parallel rail and road (or track) joining Mersina to Adana—
“That’s about forty miles,” Corinna said. “That bit of railroad was built by a French company some years ago.”
—and before that, a road branching off at Tarsus—
“Tarsus?” he queried.
“Yes. Where St Paul was born, wasn’t it?”
—and heading inland over the mountains. And a few miles past Tarsus a rail spur doing the same thing: turning off inland, and ending after a few miles.
“That’s where the work-camp is. That spur’s about ten miles long and not open to the public. We could hire horses in Tarsus and ride up there alongside the railroad, but what would that do except show bad manners? And I’m sorry, but I can’t do that to Cornelius Billings or the House of Sherring.”
“But if they’re jest keeping us out while they get into a barney with a bandit—”
“Even if I were supposed to know that, what’s my complaint? It’s not my business how they deal with bandits. More my business if they couldn’t deal with them and let it delay them unduly.”
O’Gilroy stared gloomily at the sketch map. “We’re bug— stuck, then.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” she said thoughtfully. “We’ll have all day tomorrow from when we reach Mersina. I assume Matt and Lady K will get on out to the bandit hideout first thing in the morning, so even if we were going to the camp, we’d miss them . . . Why don’t we try to catch them at the hideout ourselves?”
O’Gilroy peered at the little map, but it barely showed the mountains, let alone a monastery tucked in among them. “Pity ye couldn’t get a proper map—”
“There’s likely no such thing. You’re spoiled: Britain’s probably the best-mapped place in the world. Down here, sailors have mapped the coast and archaeologists a few sites, but the rest –” she shrugged “– it’s travellers’ tales.”
“Then any idea where this monastery place is?”
“None at all – except it must be somewhere north of the camp, more into the mountains. And there must be another way to it: a monastery will have been there hundreds of years before the Railway.”
O’Gilroy nodded, then said: “I’m wondering where Bertie is.”
“Oh Lord, I’d forgotten . . . Will he go to the camp?”
“Not him,” O’Gilroy said firmly. “If he’s conniving with this bandit feller, it’s without the Railway knowing. He’ll have his own road there.”
“Probably the one we’re looking for.” She paused, calculating. “There’s an American consul in Mersina, he’ll have heard of the House of Sherring . . . I’ll see if I can get a telegram to him.”
She saw O’Gilroy’s expression and shook her head. “No, not telling him anything except when we expect to get in. You don’t give consuls time to think up more reasons why you shouldn’t do something.”
* * *
The Railway camp’s dinner was good and plentiful, but it had the bland, uncertain taste of food prepared by cooks who weren’t born to that cuisine and didn’t really know if they were getting it right or wrong. Streibl and the camp Aufseher, an elderly white-moustached man in respectable clothes and obviously ex-military, shared their table. The Aufseher made the conversational running, asking about the London weather, music, the comfort of their journey – topics as bland as the food.
Halfway through, a younger engineer came in to apologise and call Streibl away. Lady Kelso and Ranklin avoided catching each other’s eyes and both started talking simultaneously.
After coffee, they were escorted to their tents on a side street of grass as yet not quite trampled to mud. Lady Kelso’s was guarded by by a Turkish soldier in a long overcoat, a slung rifle and a lambswool cap like Zurga’s.
The floor of Ranklin’s tent was raised off the ground by duckboards covered in old carpets (the one thing Turkey wasn’t short of: in its lifetime a carpet could go from a wall hanging to a stall awning to being cut up for saddlebags). There was also a charcoal brazier – lit – and a washbasin and jug of water. Ranklin took off a minimum of clothing, washed perfunctorily, and was trying to organise his canvas camp bed for maximum warmth when Streibl and Zurga asked permission to come in.
“We have thought about a change to the plan,” Streibl began awkwardly.
“That Zurga isn’t going to see Miskal? We heard about that,” Ranklin said, deliberately unhelpful.
“Ah . . . no, not about that. . .” Streibl sat on a camp stool. “But . . . will Lady Kelso herself take to Miskal the ransom?”
Ranklin hadn’t expected that. His instinct was to stay as far clear of the ransom as possible. And it seemed reasonable it would be Snaipe’s instinct, too. “No. Most certainly not. Surely, her mission and the ransom are alternatives. If you’ve decided she’ll fail, send the ransom up instead.”
“Perhaps, but—”
“I think you are forgetting,” Ranklin said firmly, “that Lady Kelso is on a mission for His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The ransom is nothing to do with that. I must therefore advise her not to link herself with it in any way whatsoever.”
Zurga was standing at the brazier, automatically holding out his hands to it, but so detached that Ranklin sensed he was, by now, in charge. He had abandoned more than the beard: he was now a soldier in soldier’s country.
Gloomily, Streibl tried one more throw: “Then would she take a message to Miskal Bey?”
“Provided it is open, and I can rea
d it, then I may advise her—”
“But surely—”
“Lady Kelso is not a courier for the Baghdad Railway Company. She is on a mission for His Majesty’s Secretary—”
“Yes, yes. You have said that.” He glanced at Zurga and got heavily to his feet.
Zurga asked: “May I ask where you obtained that coat?” He indicated the sheepskin affair now spread on the camp bed.
“My brother brought it back from India. He’s in America at the moment, so . . . It seemed made for this sort of country.”
“Most suitable. I ask because there was an Englishman who fought with the Greeks against us in 1912, an officer of artillery, and we heard that he wore such a coat. They called him the Warrior Sheep.”
“Really? The Warrior Sheep? Most amusing.” Ranklin forced a laugh. Damn it! – to risk your alias with a scruffy old coat . . . “Was he any good – as a warrior?”
“Perhaps.” He stroked his cheek past the scar. “Or lucky. It is the same thing, for warriors, I think.”
“Well,” Ranklin said, determinedly cheerful, “he wasn’t my brother, anyway. Probably some other chap who’d served in India. I think most of our officers do, sooner or later.”
“Ah, India. . . always there are Englishmen fighting in other people’s countries.”
“I don’t think it’s only Englishmen; history’s full of mercenary armies . . . The Irish fighting for Napoleon, the Pope’s Swiss Guard . . . Perhaps warriors just gravitate to wars.”
“Perhaps so. But they cannot expect to be loved by those who fight for what they believe. Or to be trusted.”
Streibl was already halfway out of the tent and looking impatient. Zurga gave a little smile, a nod, and followed. Ranklin sat down on the bed and wished he had a drink, a proper one. Perhaps Lady Kelso . . .
Ever the Compleat Traveller – more compleat than he, anyway – she had a small silver flask of brandy. Ranklin took it almost neat.
“I’ve just had a visit from Streibl and Zurga . . .” He told her about Streibl’s requests and his refusal.
“What was all that about?”
“I’m not sure, but perhaps they’ve counted the ransom and found it lacking. And—”
“Do they suspect you?”
“Not of that. . . I’d have to have known about the ransom all along and come to Constantinople with a load of lead discs. But I dare say they’d like Miskal to suspect me. Anyway, getting us to take it to him would help blur the issue for them.”
She thought this over. “But we could have taken a message for them. Then opened it and read it and found out more of what they’re planning.”
He looked up in astonishment: really, women had absolutely no standards. Also, why hadn’t he thought of that?
“Er . . . yes. Bit late to change our minds . . . But may I tell you what I think?”
“Please do. What do you think, Patrick?” She was suddenly a dutiful little girl at kindergarten. “Or is your name really Patrick? I suppose it might not be.”
Along with the smell of the charcoal brazier, there was a feminine scent in the air and even – remarkable in this landscape – the crushed-grass smell tents ought to have. They were sitting decorously apart, her on a stool, he on a spare camp-bed – not hers – and talking in little more than whispers.
“Never mind that. . . I now think the Railway’s always had a three-step plan. First comes your appeal to Miskal. Then paying the ransom; I don’t believe Zurga ever intended his own visit, that was just to explain him away. But then, when they’ve got their engineers back, they have to make sure Miskal never tries this sort of thing again. And the surest way to do that is kill him and all his crew. I think that’s Zurga’s real job, as an Army officer – only I can’t guess how.”
“Zurga can’t do much just by himself,” she said slowly. “He’ll need . . . well, something. Have we seen any sign of that?”
“We wouldn’t. Think about it: Miskal must know everything that goes on in this camp. Even now there’s nearly a thousand workers here, I gather, and the people running the coffee-houses and stalls, men coming and going all the time. If I were Miskal I’d have half a dozen informers here.”
“Yes, I suppose so . . .”
“And the Railway must know that. So whatever they’re planning they’ll keep it out of the camp. If Zurga’s going to attack the monastery . . .” he paused, trying for the umpteenth time to work out how; “. . . he’ll get there by some other route.”
“And you’re sure that’s what he’s planning?”
“Why else is he here? I think he’s quite capable of storming the monastery while we’re there and then saying Miskal killed us – except that might kill the hostages, too. The ransom shows the Railway hasn’t abandoned them . . . And in a way, they’ve become hostages for our safety, now. But,” he added, “when this is over, you might try and persuade Miskal to go back to the desert or wherever.”
“And I told you, he doesn’t belong in the desert – or ‘wherever’.” Her dutifulness was all gone now.
Ranklin made a vague helpless gesture. “He can’t win against the Railway. It’s just too big a project, thirty thousand men working on it in summer, so Streibl said. Nobody really controls something that size: it has its own momentum. If Miskal stays where he is, the Railway’s going to crush him.”
22
The Vanadis crept into Mersina harbour just before dawn. Or at least, that was where everyone on board hoped she was creeping through the dark mist. It was a tense, soft-breathing time. The engines churned slowly, almost silently, so the ting of the engine-room telegraph and the shouts of the man taking depth-readings in the bows were clearly audible. Corinna and O’Gilroy were up and watching from the portside rail, and they weren’t alone: a surprising number of spare crewmen were there as unofficial lookouts, willing the land to show itself – but not too close.
“I shall be going ashore to wake this consul,” Corinna announced. She was looking warm but not elegant in a coarse fur coat down to her knees and a hat tied on with a scarf. “Are you packed?”
“I am, but I’ve been thinking—” O’Gilroy began.
“Always a mistake,” Corinna said, and if he had been listening properly, he’d have realised that wasn’t a quip but a warning.
“It could be bad country up there . . .”
“You’re going to get masculine and protective; I have perfect pitch for that. So you think I’ll be in the way?”
The yacht’s fog-horn let off a blast that made them jump. The sound faded, echoless, into the mist and nothing answered. It had sounded not authoritative but a plea.
O’Gilroy said doggedly: “I was near ten years in the Army, South Africa and all, and we was trained for this sort of thing. . .”
“I’ve ridden through rough country before. D’you know what parts of the United States are like?”
“Ye know I don’t,” with impatient sullenness.
“And you’ve never heard of Isabella Bird in the Rockies? Or Gertrude Bell, for Heaven’s sake, in this part of the world itself and down through Syria? And what about Lady Kelso herself? – she’s literally twice my age.”
“But with the bandits and all—”
“There’s bandits all over the world. And women die from tripping over carpets in their own drawing-rooms. I’m not doing something stupid and I’m not doing something I haven’t done before. And I’m only doing it to help Lady Kelso out—”
“And there could be nearabouts a war starting up there! A shell from a mountain gun isn’t going to stop and ask whose daughter ye are!” O’Gilroy flashed, now truly angry.
“No, and it’s not going to rape me or take me hostage for being what I am. So at least I’ll get fair treatment from it!”
Then a ripple of shouts and sighs ran along the deck as an irregular line of lights showed ahead – well ahead – and the shapes of other ships and their sparks of coloured light formed in the mist. The Vanadis’s engines beat more confidently and
she swung in a half-circle, stopped and dropped anchor a couple of lengths from the Loreley.
* * *
Dawn came later in the mountains. Later than Ranklin had dragged himself from his tent, anyway. Some of the lamps hung on poles and stalls were still alight, defining the line of the camp’s high street, leading the way towards the mess hall and coffee.
Streibl was already there, almost alone at this time, though there was clattering and chatter from beyond the partition to the kitchen. Ranklin mumbled a greeting and poured himself coffee, then flopped into a chair. After one cup – as a guest he was doomed to a small, polite demi-tasse while Streibl drank from a big mug – he helped himself to a fresh bread roll and potted meat.
Lady Kelso came in. At the time Ranklin was in no state to realise it, but she must have thought for weeks about what to wear for the moment when she would re-meet her Arab lover. And had decided on a tricky balancing act between East and West – but done with taste and expense. She might look just a dark bundle, but Miskal would appreciate the fine wool and silk, and see that the shawl she was obviously ready to use as a Muslim head-covering was in dark blue, not black. Both her own woman and a reminder that she had been his woman seemed to be the message; God knows if she’d got it right.
“And we’re off as soon as we’ve finished breakfast?” she asked brightly.
“When you are ready.” Streibl seemed sombre, subdued. “The horses are being saddled now.”
“Are you coming with us?”
Streibl seemed surprised at the idea. “No, you will have a guide . . .”
Ranklin asked: “All the way there and back?”
“I think he will not want to go into Miskal’s monastery, but—”
“Then may I see a map of the countryside, please? I’m still responsible for getting Lady Kelso back safely.”