‘What will happen to me, Sahib?’ the sepoy begged.
‘Wounding an officer while trying to desert? You’ll be shot at sunrise,’ the major declared. He shouted down the second line. ‘Where’s that bloody medic? Doesn’t he realise it’s an officer in need of assistance.’
Basra, Friday 31st December 1915
Michael shook Cox’s hand before striking a Lucifer and lighting the oil lamp. The flame sent shadows dancing around the rooms, throwing Sir Percy Cox’s face into dark, sardonic profile when he moved his chair away from the pool of light.
Cox lifted an attaché case from the floor and extracted a file.
‘Is this about Harry, sir?’ Michael ventured.
‘It’s about you, Mr Downe. I believe you could be useful to us.’
‘The military, sir?’
‘King and Empire, Downe.’
‘When I volunteered for the army, sir, I was rejected.’
‘On physical grounds. A leg injury incurred in childhood, when you fell from a tree in the middle of the night.’
Michael looked at him in surprise.
‘Correct?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You studied German and French at school, passed all your examinations with distinctions, unlike your brother Harry, and went on to read History at Cambridge. Education completed you accepted your father’s invitation to join him at Allan and Downe’s Bank. Earlier this year you married your cousin, Lucinda Mason. A month after the outbreak of war you applied for a position as war correspondent to the Daily Mirror. Posted to France, you requested a transfer to the Mesopotamian Front. Your request was granted at the beginning of December.’
‘You know a great deal about me, sir.’
‘I know a great deal more than those basic facts, Mr Downe. You met a Mr Smith in your editor’s offices the day you left England. He telegraphed me, alerted me to your talents, and suggested you might prove useful to the Political Department of the Indian Expeditionary Force.’
‘As I’ve already pointed out, sir, I have no military experience.’
‘Few political officers have …’ Cox paused, and Michael sensed he was choosing his words carefully, ‘what you would call a conventional military background, Mr Downe. In fact blind obedience is a disadvantage in the field of politics. Take your brother for example. His military career was hardly exemplary before he joined us. I’ve recruited archaeologists, journalists, engineers, and naval officers, among others, and the one characteristic they all had in common was the ability to think for themselves, especially when they were in a tight corner.’
‘Harry was always at his most inventive when he was in trouble.’ Michael smiled in spite of the emotionally crippling pain that struck whenever he thought of his brother.
‘It was precisely that trait that made him a brilliant political officer. Every success the Indian Expeditionary Force achieved until Ctesiphon owed something to his efforts. He averted several disasters and saved more lives than he was aware of.’
‘Perhaps because he spoke fluent Arabic and could pass a native.’
‘That undoubtedly helped, but Arabic can be learned, Mr Downe. As for passing as a native,’ the political officer indicated Michael’s divan.
Michael hadn’t noticed the robes laid on the camel-hair rug that covered it. He picked them up. ‘These look like the ones in the chest in Harry’s room.’
‘I brought them in. Wearing those and the headdress you would be indistinguishable from your brother, Mr Downe. The resemblance will open doors closed to officers of His Majesty’s Army, including myself. As for the Arabic, your brother became fluent in a matter of months. I could assign you a syce who has proved himself an excellent Arabic tutor.’
‘I have a bearer.’
‘When you go upstream you will need horses, and horses require a syce to care for them, Mr Downe.’ Cox rose to his feet. ‘You don’t have to give me an answer now. Meet me in the Basra Club the day after tomorrow. One o’clock.’
‘Would you expect me to give up my post as the Mirror’s war correspondent?’
‘No, Mr Downe. It affords excellent cover for any tasks we might assign you. We would of course pay you for your services, initially at a captain’s pay rate.’
‘I am more concerned about being able to fulfil my duty to my country than remuneration and I’m still not sure what I can do to help you,’ Michael demurred.
‘Spoken like your brother, Mr Downe. You resemble him in more ways than appearance. As for fulfilling your duty, I wouldn’t have invited you to join us if I wasn’t certain that you will do just that. To your own detriment, if the situation calls for sacrifice.’ He went to the door.
‘My brother … Do you know where I can find his wife?’ Michael asked.
‘Unfortunately not, Mr Downe. She appears to have gone to ground.’
‘In Basra?’
‘Or the desert.’
‘Major Reid mentioned Harry had an Arab friend.’
‘He had several, Mr Downe.’
‘He mentioned a name – Mitkhal.’
‘They were close,’ the political officer acknowledged.
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Like Mrs Downe, he appears to have gone to ground.’
‘He’s alive?’ Michael persisted.
‘I’ve heard nothing to indicate that he’s dead.’
‘Could you get a message to him?’
‘I can try.’
‘Could you please tell him that Harry’s brother is staying in Abdul’s for the next day or two and he’d like to see him?’
‘I make no promises, Mr Downe, but I’ll try.’ He shook Michael’s hand, opened the door, and strode down the corridor to the head of the stairs. Michael followed him as far as the landing.
He turned his back on the stairs and looked down at the inner courtyard. It was enclosed on all four sides by the building. Several hooded oil lamps burned, illuminating carved stone and wooden benches set on marble tiles. Potted palms drooped; sad winter victims of the buffeting wind and rain. A brass-headed marble fountain was caked with rotting foliage, but it took little imagination to picture the garden in summer, cool and inviting in the shade of the high walls.
He looked up. There were no drapes at any of the windows that overlooked the inner yard. Theo Wallace was standing in front of bed in a room diagonally opposite. Two dark-haired women, both naked, were kneeling before him on the divan. The women were doing things he’d seen depicted in the pornographic postcards his fellow students had passed around his college. Things he’d never imagined any woman doing willingly to a man, yet both of Theo’s ‘ladies’ were smiling as broadly as Theo who was obviously enjoying their ministrations.
‘Mr Downe?’
Embarrassed at being caught playing the voyeur, Michael started. Abdul was behind him.
‘I was seeing a visitor out …’ Michael glanced at the empty staircase.
Abdul ignored his explanation. ‘I’ve brought you a girl. If you don’t find her pleasing I can show you a selection.’
‘No, thank you,’ Michael stammered. ‘I don’t need a girl.’
‘If you’d prefer a boy …’
‘No! Neither –’ Michael could feel colour flooding into his cheeks.
Abdul barked an order. A girl moved out of the shadows.
‘Take her or view some others, Mr Downe. You’d disrespect my hospitality if you refuse.’
Michael recalled Theo Wallace’s warnings about annoying Abdul but he simply couldn’t look the girl in the eye.
‘I speak English, Mr Downe, and I would try to make you as happy as I did my captain before he was killed.’
Michael looked up from the bare henna-painted feet of the young girl. Dressed in a simple red robe, her most striking feature was her enormous brown eyes.
‘Mr Downe?’
Michael nodded to Abdul and managed a murmured, ‘Thank you.’
‘You are Mr Downe’s for as long as he stays here,
Kalla.’
The girl replied in Arabic.
‘Can I send a servant with anything else you require, Mr Downe? Food, drink?’
‘No, thank you.’ Michael opened the door of his room, the girl followed. She closed the door behind them and removed her robe.
‘Kalla …’ embarrassed by her nudity, Michael faltered.
‘You don’t find me pretty?’
‘Very pretty.’
‘You were watching Dr Theo and his girls. I could send for another girl …’
‘No!’
‘Then I will try to be enough for you, Mr Downe.’
Chapter Thirteen
London, Saturday 1st January 1916
Georgiana entered the exclusive, masculine confines of the gentlemen’s club and picked her way around mounds of luggage to the desk. The vestibule, stairs, and main hall were crowded with men in military uniforms. The navy was rubbing shoulders with the cavalry, infantry and flying corps, and all appeared to be either coming or going through the double doors that led on to St James’s Street. She pitied the sprinkling of sober-suited civil servants, who looked positively drab in comparison to the men in uniform.
‘May I help you, ma’am?’ The clerk, who’d acquired the manners of senior royalty during thirty years of service in the club, looked down his long nose as though he were vetting her for a position below stairs.
‘Miss Downe for General Reid.’ Georgiana had learned not to use the title of Dr in the environs of male conclaves. It led to mirth or raised eyebrows and she wasn’t in the mood to combat either.
‘Miss Downe, my apologies, I didn’t recognise you.’
‘Like everyone out there I’m pretending to be a fish.’ Georgiana peeled off her rain-sodden hat and coat.
‘Yes, madam.’ He didn’t evince the flicker of a smile. ‘Bellboy, relieve Miss Downe of her outdoor garments.’
A uniformed boy left the head of the line assembled to the left of the desk, rushed forward, and took Georgiana’s umbrella, coat, and hat.
‘We will acquaint General Reid of your presence, Miss Downe. Please take a seat in the ladies’ waiting room. Boy.’ The clerk summoned the second in line.
‘I know the way, thank you.’ Georgiana walked into the bland characterless room. It held a row of upright mahogany chairs and a low table, nothing else. No pictures adorned the walls, no magazines littered the table. There weren’t even curtains at the windows.
The clerk moved in slow, unhurried motion as he wrote a note, folded it into an envelope, addressed it, and placed it on a silver tray before handing it to the boy. The boy walked away from the desk ringing a bell and calling,
‘Message for General Reid. Message for General Reid’
The clerk walked to the door of the ladies waiting room, ignored Georgiana and closed it, softly but firmly. It opened a few minutes later and her godfather entered.
She left her seat. ‘Uncle Reid, it’s good of you to stand me lunch here.’
‘Not at all, Georgie. Glad you could make it. We’ll eat better in the club dining room than any restaurant in these days of food shortages and requisitions. The staff still have time to look after the older members, although the committee have taken on so many new members the club is more like the Tottenham Court Road these days than the oasis of calm and quiet it used to be before the war.’
‘Like everywhere in London, it’s full of people coming and going.’ She took her godfather’s arm. ‘As for doubts about the quality of the food, mine were laid to rest when I saw men from the War Office Agricultural Department heading upstairs.’
‘You recognised them?’
‘They dined at Clyneswood the last time I was home.’
‘Your father was probably softening them up in the hope of hanging on to enough breeding stock to replenish his barns and cowsheds.’
They walked up the stairs into the mahogany-panelled dining room. The head waiter glided across the polished floor to greet them.
‘General Reid, always a pleasure. Ma’am, sir’ He pulled out a chair for Georgiana and when she was seated, unfolded the linen ‘slipper’ in front of her place setting and shook it over her lap.
‘Would you like to order now, General?’
‘I think so. What do you say, Georgie?’
‘Fine.’ All she wanted was the preliminaries to be over with so she could ask her godfather if he’d managed to get her a berth on a Mesopotamia-bound ship.
The waiter leaned conspiratorially towards the General. ‘May I suggest menu number one, General? The potato soup, halibut collards, roast goose, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, cauliflower, and for desert honeycomb mould and devilled almonds.’ He handed them leather-bound menu holders.
‘You may, but I’ll take roast potatoes instead of mashed and you know I can’t stand cauliflower. Tastes like wallpaper paste.’
‘I could substitute peas and carrots, sir.’
‘Good man. Menu suit you, Georgie?’
‘Yes, thank you, Uncle Reid.’ She glanced around as she handed back the unopened folder.
The room was full of middle-aged and elderly men. A few were accompanied by women young enough to be their daughters, in some cases granddaughters. Georgiana had seen the sceptical look in the head waiter’s eyes the first time she’d visited the club and the general had introduced her as his “goddaughter”. It had taken a dinner with her father and Dr Mason for the waiter to realise that some club members did choose to eat at the club with family and friends.
The wine waiter appeared.
‘I know you’ll tell me it shouldn’t be drunk with goose, but we’ll have the 1909 claret and a bottle of the house champagne. Unless you have a preference, Georgie?’
Georgiana was growing increasingly impatient and wondered if she’d ever be left alone with her godfather.
‘Fine,’ she repeated.
‘You’d think a young girl would be more enthusiastic about champagne, wouldn’t you, Henry?’
‘May I suggest aperitifs on the house, General?’
‘Suggest away when it’s on the house,’ the General answered. ‘Georgie?’
‘Yes, please.’ She didn’t care whether she drank seawater or ate sawdust. All she wanted to know was whether or not her godfather had managed to get her into the Queen Alexander Imperial Nursing Corps.
The wine waiter clicked his fingers. A junior waiter appeared and filled their sherry glasses.
‘Thank you,’ Georgiana took her glass and touched it to the General’s.
‘What are we toasting?’ he asked.
‘My joining the QAINC.’
‘I’ll discuss that with you in a moment.’
Determined not to be deflected, she said, ‘In that case we’ll drink to a swift end to the war.’
‘Won’t be this year, I’m afraid.’
‘Next.’
‘Probably not even then.’
‘Dear God, how many more young men have to be sacrificed?’
‘If we can advance the line in France, break the siege of Kut; smash the Germans in East Africa …’
She interrupted. ‘Did you get me a berth on the ship that’s heading for …’
‘Don’t say it.’
She looked over her shoulder. ‘You think there are spies in the club?’
He tapped his nose again with his forefinger. ‘Can’t be too careful.’
‘Did you get me a berth?’ she reiterated impatiently.
‘I tried my best, Georgie. If you were a nurse I could have swung it but you know what the military think of female doctors.’
‘I’m better qualified and more use to the wounded than any nurse.’
‘You don’t have to convince me, Georgie, but I’m afraid this particular scheme of yours has hit barbed wire. There’s absolutely no way I can get you to Mesopotamia. I talked it over with your father and your Uncle Mason.’
‘They didn’t need to know.’
‘I couldn’t keep your plans from your father. He and D
r Mason are my oldest and closest friends.’
‘My plans are no concern of my father’s.’
‘They are when you enlist my help. Your father was furious that you’d even asked me to try to arrange your passage.’
‘He would be.’
‘Think of him and your mother, Georgie. They’ve lost Harry …’
‘Harry’s alive,’ she contradicted vehemently.
‘I was about to remind you that Michael’s out there. They have no idea when, if ever, they’ll see him again. If by some miracle you’re right and Harry is alive, Michael and Tom will find him.’
‘They’ll be too busy writing reports and doctoring the sick to look.’
‘Georgie, please, don’t blame your parents and everyone who loves you for wanting to keep you in London. You’re doing sterling work for the war effort, here, caring for the wounded.’
‘Last week I was moved from surgery on to the women’s medical ward in the London Royal Free Hospital. A fat lot of good I’m contributing to the war effort there.’
‘I thought you were a surgical registrar.’
‘I was, until a male doctor invalided from the front took my job.’
‘You can’t think of him as taking your job, Georgie. Rather think that by working in the Royal Free Hospital you’ve freed a man for the front. That’s what war is about. The men go off to fight. The women stay at home …’
‘And worry themselves sick?’
‘Bit unfair I know, while the men cover themselves in glory.’
‘In this war more men are being covered in the mud and blood of the Western Front and the deserts of Mesopotamia and Gallipoli than glory,’ she said bitterly.
He patted her hand. ‘Doctoring men or women, you’re doing vital work where you are, Georgie. My advice to you is, forget Mesopotamia. Concentrate on what you’re doing here.’
Their soup arrived.
Her godfather looked across at her. ‘I did try to get you into the nursing corps, Georgie.’
‘I believe you.’
‘You have to give up any idea you have of joining the QAINC.’
‘Uncle Reid …’
‘I asked, Georgie.’
‘Did you really?’ she challenged.
‘I did.’ The General set down his spoon. ‘Everyone I spoke to was sympathetic.’
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