by Gavin Lyall
Hakim scowled and his brown eyes glittered. “They cannot say that!”
“When we are all dead, they can say anything they like.”
Hakim went on scowling, then returned to his earlier conviction: “But they cannot kill us here.”
Ranklin suppressed a sigh. People had roosted smugly in “impregnable” fortresses since time began; meanwhile even flies had learnt better than to sit around while you fetched the swatter.
Maybe he should say that, but Hakim was still no soldier. So instead he asked bluntly: “What do you still have that is worth a ransom?”
Hakim hesitated.
“The Railway already knows. Who can I tell?”
“They . . . things. To make a plan. A . . . map.” Hakim was out of his depth here.
“Can I see these things?”
Another hesitation, then he called the boy and sent him into the tent. He came out laden with a plane table – just a fancy drawing-board, really – a satchel of drawing instruments, a theodolite, notebooks – and a roll of paper.
And now Ranklin understood.
He should, of course, have guessed – or deduced. Streibl, sent to take over, wasn’t a mere engineer, he was a railway planner – a surveyor. As the hostages had been. The paper, once unrolled, was what he now expected: a hand-drawn but very precise survey of the whole area, with trig points, spot heights and bearings neatly enumerated in Indian ink. The notebooks seemed to be about types of rock found, cross-referenced to the map.
This was what you needed to build a railway – and if you hadn’t got it, you must take weeks or perhaps months to do it again, with thousands of workmen standing idle in the building season. Certainly worth a ransom to start with, and now worth all their lives – when Zurga rescued it from among their corpses.
He looked at Hakim curiously. “You do realise that by hanging onto this stuff, you’ve told them you understand its value? And now they can’t pay the ransom, they have to storm this place to get it back? Did you, or your father, understand all along how valuable this was, or did someone . . .” He left the question unfinished: the answer had to be Beirut Bertie. Sabotaging the ransom, probably providing the rifles, even triggering the whole kidnap from the start; the man who knew this country and its people better than any European he’d met. Yes, our Bertie would understand the value of a survey.
He rubbed a hand over his face. So they had Bertie doing his best for France, Dahlmann and Streibl their best for the Railway and Germany, Zurga for his vision of Turkey, and himself and O’Gilroy putting in their few penn’orth for Britain. None motivated by self-interest, all honourable men.
God save the world from us honourable men.
24
“Please to be quiet as we pass here,” Bertie warned. “Above, there is a tunnel for the Railway, and it is guarded. But they cannot see this path, so . . .”
Soon after, an obvious path joined from that slope: the one Ranklin and Lady Kelso had descended from the tunnel a while earlier. And soon after that there was a damp, muddy patch and Bertie paused to study it. When O’Gilroy reached it, he saw that dozens of boot-prints had wiped out any mule-tracks. So now they might run up against the backside not only of mountain guns but their accompanying army.
Where the tributary joined, Bertie led across to the broad shingle beach and stopped there. “They have brought up soldiers by train,” he explained. “Probably from Adana. From the tunnel to the monastery they have to march . . .” he shrugged “. . . less than two hours. They must attack from in front, there is only one way, but the guns . . . What range do they have?”
“Mountain guns? – no more’n two-three miles.”
“So they may be up on the plateau or could be in the dry river before it.” He gestured beyond the distinctive peak. Corinna had been looking up at it, aware of what it reminded her of, but assuming that was just her, and its real name was Flagstaff Mountain or Finger Peak or something.
“In such mist,” Bertie carried on, “where would they put the guns?”
O’Gilroy knew the general principles of gunnery, and how to serve a couple of specific types, but of their tactical use . . . He shook his head. “No idea at all.”
“Then we can only assume they go no further than they must, and at any moment. . .” He got carefully off his horse, slid the hunting rifle from its scabbard – and pointed it at O’Gilroy.
“Please drop the rifle. I trust it is not cocked? Ah, thank you.” O’Gilroy had had no choice. He didn’t waste time saying daft things like “You wouldn’t,” or “What do you mean by this?” He didn’t know what Bertie meant, but was sure he meant it.
Corinna, on the other hand . . . “What the blazes are you up to?”
Bertie picked up the Winchester and slid it into his empty gun case. “I am taking your horses, only for perhaps two hours, so please to remove what you may need for that time.”
“Do as he says,” O’Gilroy said resignedly. He dismounted and took his food package from the saddle-bag. “Got some idea ye’ll be able to take on an army better by yeself, have ye?”
“Possibly. I am – forgive me – still unsure about your loyalties. But be assured that I will return.”
“So after we’ve told you all we know,” Corinna said grimly, “you abandon us in wild country.”
Bertie smiled regretfully. “Only temporarily. But this matter is becoming so confused, I feel it is simpler to trust only myself. I do, you see, understand my own motives.”
She took her food parcel, then wrenched her big handbag free from the saddle and stood back, clutching it in both hands.
Bertie loosed the long leading rein from O’Gilroy’s mount and tied it to his own saddle, then indicated that O’Gilroy should tie Corinna’s horse in procession. O’Gilroy did so, and also stood well clear.
“Thank you.” Bertie lifted himself into the saddle, holding the rifle one-handed, his finger near but clear of the trigger. He kicked his horse forward, looking back to make sure the other two followed. Then he looked ahead.
Corinna took the Colt revolver from her handbag and cocked it as she strode forward. “M’sieu Lacan!”
Bertie looked round, began to swivel the rifle – and then stopped. She was standing four-square, feet planted apart, holding the pistol two-handed at eye level.
He said: “Do lady bankers also shoot people?” He glanced at O’Gilroy, who was wearing an expectant smile. That was not reassuring.
Then the second horse, still ambling forward on the leading rein, reached the rear of Bertie’s mount – which sensed this and pitched forward to lash a two-footed kick backwards. Bertie went one way, the rifle another, and both hit the shingle hard. O’Gilroy rescued the rifle first. It seemed undamaged; as for Bertie—
He raised himself carefully and painfully into a sitting position and began feeling his shoulders, elbows, ribs and ankles, swearing steadily in French.
“Really, M’sieu Lacan,” Corinna said, “I don’t think lady bankers should have to listen to such language.”
Bertie scowled at her, debonair manner quite gone. He was just a middle-aged man who had been thrown from a horse and lost control of the situation besides.
“Any bones broken?” O’Gilroy asked.
“Every fucking one,” Bertie said bilingually.
O’Gilroy nodded and went to sort out the horses, but in the end didn’t. Three “entire” Anatolian ponies tied together looked like a sport the ancient Romans might have invented. Luckily they seemed as good at avoiding kicks as kicking, and there was clearly no chance of them agreeing on which way to run off, so O’Gilroy left them to tire of it.
By then Bertie was practising limping with both feet, but hadn’t found any actual breaks. “Lucky yer well padded,” O’Gilroy observed. “Where was yer going?”
The easy way he handled the unfamiliar weapon discouraged conversational sparring. “There is a, sort of, back way to the monastery. Not to invade, but they would let me in.”
Corinna
looked at O’Gilroy. “If they’d let him in, we could—”
“No. Bit late for that. If the guns are pretty nigh in position, the Captain’ll know it before we get there.” He stood looking at the landscape in front of them. “Ye say there’s a dry river runs crosswise up there, and the guns could be in it? Any way we could come down at it? Like through them?” He gestured at the thinly wooded foothills of Unmentionable Peak.
* * *
The guard at the gateway thought he had heard or seen something – Ranklin couldn’t make out which. Now Hakim, and Ranklin beside him, were both peering. Visibility was still only half a mile but the mist wasn’t a sudden curtain, just a gradual fading out. The trench was just the faintest of dark lines where you might see a man upright and moving quickly, certainly not one lying still or crawling slowly. Ranklin could see nothing.
Hakim said: “They might be sending the ransom.”
Cracks, whines and thuds shattered the air around them. Earth jumped from the patch in front of the doorway. They heard the distant rattle of a machine-gun.
Abruptly behind a nice thick wall, Ranklin growled: “Ça, cen’est pas une rançon.”
Lady Kelso looked up as Ranklin came in, moving cautiously on the uneven floor in the flickering lamplight. “So it’s started.”
“Yes.”
“Do I understand one man’s been killed already?”
“Yes. They all flocked to the front wall to return fire and one got his— got shot in the head. The rest are being a little more cautious now.”
“But there’ll be others?”
Ranklin nodded. “I think there’s worse to come.”
She stood up. “Well, I didn’t come here to be Florence Nightingale and I haven’t any first aid kit, but I’ve tended a few bullet and sword wounds before. They either got better or they died,” she added matter-of-factly.
Ranklin nodded without knowing why. “I came to ask if you’re ready to go if we can find a way out.”
“I understand there’s a secret way—”
“Then for the Lord’s sake—”
“No. They can’t take horses that way, and Miskal can’t walk. And anyway, on foot won’t they hunt us all down?”
“Not if we act like brigands and not soldiers. In this country a handful of rifles could hold up a battalion. But not cooped up here.”
She said: “If you can get Hakim to go, I’ll stay here with Miskal.”
“For God’s sake—”
“I don’t think they’d harm us. Not if you’re free to spread the word.”
She wasn’t being brave. Not what men usually call brave. Just . . . matter-of-fact, perhaps. Making the best of each moment that arrived.
Hakim came up to them. He glanced at his father, ignored Lady Kelso, spoke to Ranklin. “Snaipe effendi, do you claim to understand machine-guns? Why does it shoot so well at such range?”
Ranklin was about to start on the merits of a heavy tripod well embedded, then realised that wasn’t the point. He took his big field-glasses from inside his coat. “Someone out there has a pair of these. Give these to one man with good eyesight, and I suggest you appoint one sharpshooter to fire back. Do you know the range to the trench?”
“Six hundred and eighty-five metres,” Hakim said with a hint of a smile. “We paced it when we got the new rifles.” His people might not be much help around the house, but they were very practical when it came to weapons.
Then, very faintly, came the sound of a bugle call. He and Hakim looked at each other, then ran for the stairs. The call itself was unintelligible, but it had to signal something. They had reached the open air when there was a distant thud and, a few seconds later, an explosion out to the east.
Ranklin made it to that wall in time to see a whiff of smoke dissolving in the air perhaps a hundred yards off. After a while, the bugle called again.
“Artillery,” he told Hakim. “Controlled by that bugle. You must get your men into the cellar.” And when Hakim hesitated: “They can’t shoot back at something they can’t see. And they’ll be bursting shells right overhead in a minute.”
Perhaps the simple, practical gesture of lending the field–glasses had been crucial in getting Hakim to listen to him; it may also have helped Hakim’s authority. Now he herded his reluctant warriors downstairs. Ranklin stayed where he was; despite what he’d said, it would take several more shots to get the range.
The bugle sounded again, a long, unmusical message. About a minute later there was another thud and explosion, much louder, but this time to the west where a cloud of dust was settling beyond the edge of the ravine; the shell had fallen short, hitting the rock face a few feet down. And that had been “common shell”, high explosive, not shrapnel like the first. Two guns? – and firing different types of shell to make observing the results easier? The guns must be spaced well apart . . .
Hakim, standing a few steps down towards the cellar, had said something. Ranklin waved him quiet. “It’s all right, I’m an Army officer. Artilleur.” Was that the right word? Never mind. They had to be dismountable mountain guns – brought in those boxes from Germany? Probably a bit lighter shell than the French 75’s he’d commanded for the Greeks, say ten or twelve pounds. And low velocity, so that if you stayed alert, you’d always hear the gun before the shell arrived. Moreover, on this rocky ground, he’d have used only common shell, with its all-round effect; shrapnel was dangerous in only one direction, bursting in the air and spraying its bullets forwards like a flying shotgun. And air bursts were notoriously difficult to judge for range.
Was he just impressing himself with his own knowledgeable deductions? At least he felt more on a par with the enemy commander – Zurga, presumably – but the big difference remained: Zurga had two guns and he had none. And Zurga wasn’t hurrying, with minutes between each shot. Unfamiliar gun crews, perhaps, and taking time to get troops forward into that trench to mount the final assault. But they still had half the day.
The next shrapnel shell seemed to explode with just a large pop, right against the front wall. Ah! – he’d been hoping that would happen before they got the range right. He peeked around the gateway, saw smoke eddying at the base of the wall, and crawled towards it.
Firing shrapnel, you got a number of “grazes”, shells that hit the ground before the time-fuse burst them. Indeed, some gunners claimed you hadn’t got the right range (given the variations in the fuses) unless there was one graze in every five shots. And there it was: a score mark ripped across the rock and earth before the wall. He took out the compass and sighted carefully back along it . . .
Machine-gun bullets clattered into the wall behind him. He cringed as flat as he could, and glanced back – and there was Hakim and another, standing in the gateway, laughing unconcernedly. If the Englishman could show his disdain for shot and shell by taking bearings on shell scrapes, then by God they weren’t going to be outdone.
He screamed: “Get back!” and grabbed Hakim in a rugby tackle and tried to fling him through the gateway. The second burst of machine-gun fire arrived – accurately – and they all three collapsed inside amid screeching ricochets and stone fragments.
Once they had sorted themselves out, the other Arab lay groaning with a bullet through the stomach. In a good field hospital he might – might – survive. Out here it was a slow death in a lot of pain.
When he had been carried to the cellar and Hakim had been persuaded to order all the others back down, Ranklin turned on him. “D’you want these Ottoman conscripts to defeat your father? D’you want him tried for treason? Or more likely, just executed here, like a dog, to be rid of him?” He over-rode the indignant protests. “You’ve lost two men already and not caused the enemy a single casualty! Is that good? You have to be a great –” perhaps soldat wasn’t much of a compliment: try “warrior” “– guerrier like your father, and you will defeat those farmers out there. But by being better guerriers than they. Now, let me see the map.”
It had got left upstairs but
there were plenty of volunteers; Ranklin made them wait until the next shell had burst. With the map spread on the floor, he used the surveyors’ own instruments to plot the bearing: 155 degrees. The gun could be on the edge of the plateau or down in the dry riverbed, further along than they’d had to go. His bet was the riverbed: up on rock, the gun would hop around with the recoil, needing elaborate relaying after each shot.
But to hit the wall of the ravine, the other gun must be on the far side of it, again in the riverbed but half a mile or more from the first – probably well out of sight of it. Dividing your guns was unconventional, but being able to fire on both sides of the monastery as well as the front was sensible. Zurga was no fool.
Perhaps Hakim was beginning to realise that now, and see the future as Zurga planned it: more casualties if he exposed his men, being overwhelmed by attacking troops if he didn’t. The men crowding the cellar stared at him openly, waiting to see if their enemy or their leader was in control. This was where you needed discipline, not courage: even in an army the situation would be bad, but this brave mob could fall completely apart.
“I would post one man upstairs to watch,” Ranklin said conversationally. “A sensible one. Have him shout down that he’s all right after every shell-burst. You’ll know when they’re going to attack: the bugle calls will stop, both guns will fire together – as fast as they can. The machine-gun, too.”
In a lamplit corner, Lady Kelso was carefully tearing the clothing from the newly wounded Arab’s body. He screamed as the air reached the wound.
Perhaps the scream helped. Hakim gave out authoritative orders – and was obeyed. Lady Kelso came past to rinse her hands in a brass bowl, leaving the water rust-red in the lamplight. “Is this the ‘worse’ you expected?”
“Artillery. Mountain guns. I should have thought of them.”
“There’s nothing to be done about them, I assume.”
“There might be . . .” Only two guns, too far apart to support each other if attacked . . .