‘I wish I did. Believe me, Kalla, I know no more than you.’
‘Please,’ she begged, ‘take me with you. I will do anything you ask, cook, clean, fetch, carry …’
‘I have a syce and a bearer.’
‘I don’t want to return to my mistress. She will sell me to other men, and it will be hard to love them after you.’
‘I’m sorry, Kalla. If I could take you with me, I would. But it’s impossible.’ He thought for a moment. ‘How much would it take to buy your freedom?’
‘More than I will ever earn.’
‘I will talk to Abdul tomorrow. Ask him if you can stay here, in this room, while I’m upstream.’
‘You would ask Abdul that for me?’
‘I’ll pay the rent in advance and give you some English sovereigns in case you need money. But I don’t know when I’ll be back’.
‘I will wait for you for as long as it takes you to stay at the front and write for your editor.’
‘I may be gone for weeks – months even,’ he warned. ‘I may not even return to Basra if the army moves forward.’
‘I will still wait.’ She moved over him pressing him down into the mattress. ‘Even when I am no more than dust blowing across the desert I will still be waiting for you.’
Basra, mid-morning, Monday 3rd January 1916
Michael stood in the doorway of Abdul’s coffee shop. He studied the paddle steamer bound for Ali Gharbi and wondered if it was strong enough to withstand the river currents. There was more rust than paint above the water-line, which begged the question: what was concealed below by the muddied waters of the Shatt al-Arab. The engines coughed and wheezed as though they were in the final stages of pneumonia, and although there were queues of men and animals waiting to board, the level of the river hovered well above the Plimsoll line.
The wharf area around the craft was bedlam. Sepoys and bearers shouting at and to one another as they scurried up and down the gangplanks, hauling supplies, officers’ kits and luggage. A third gangplank aft of the vessel was reserved for horses, and Arab syce and Indian bearers were leading the officers’ mounts on board and into the make-shift stables on the lower deck.
Michael joined Daoud, who was patiently standing back with the horses he’d bought: a chestnut ex-cavalry mount, sold on when the owner, a captain, had been invalided to India after being wounded at Nasiriyeh, and a handsome black hunter whose owner had been killed in the same battle.
‘How are Toffee and Brutus doing, Daoud?’ He stroked the hunter’s muzzle.
‘Better than those skittish grasshoppers, sir.’ Daoud indicated a couple of greys that snorted, bucked and reared whenever they were led within kicking distance of the gangplank. ‘I wish we could have bought you a third mount, sir. You may need one.’
‘You insisted there was nothing suitable for sale.’
‘There wasn’t, sir,’ Daoud protested.
‘We might find something upriver.’
‘Half-starved nags and walking skeletons, sir,’ Daoud prophesied. ‘There’s no grazing beyond Amara upriver.’
‘Your turn.’ Michael slapped Brutus’s rump as a syce beckoned Daoud forward. He saw Daoud, Toffee, and Brutus on board before making his way back to the coffee shop. Adjabi was leaving the building with a line of Abdul’s waiters in tow. All loaded with his kit.
‘Sahib, your attaché case and travelling bag are on a chair at your table. This is the last of your luggage. I will see it safely into the hold. I have reserved a chair on deck for you and a berth in a cabin.’
‘Thank you, Adjabi. I’ll follow you shortly.’
‘I’ll guard your chair until you are there to sit on it, Sahib.’
Abdul handed Michael his attaché case and bag. ‘It was a pleasure to have you in my humble house, Mr Downe.’
‘Thank you for your hospitality, Abdul.’
‘I will care for Kalla, keep other men from her door, and feed her only the best food. I will also continue to keep your brother’s things safe, Mr Downe. Never fear. I look forward to your return.’
Michael tucked his attaché case under his left arm and shook Abdul’s hand. He glanced up the stairs and decided against returning to his room to say a last goodbye to Kalla. Tears and hysteria he could have coped with but her dry-eyed anguish was difficult to bear.
He returned to the quay and sensed someone watching him. He looked around and he caught the eye of a man crouching in the stern of a mahaila, one of the high-masted, colourfully painted, low-slung native boats that plied the river. The vessel was berthed above the paddle steamer and the man was ignoring the shouts of his fellow crewman as he continued to blatantly stare in his direction.
Charles’s description of Harry’s orderly echoed through Michael’s mind.
“He’s Arab, huge, with the face of a brigand.”
It was difficult to gauge the man’s height as he wasn’t standing, but his handsome, hawk-nosed features certainly resembled the Boys’ Own adventure books’ illustrations of a brigand. Had he been the figure in Harry’s room? The one who’d emptied the chest of the sovereigns?
The man knew he was watching him, yet made no attempt to avert his eyes. Michael looked around for Abdul. He retreated to the door and called his name.
‘I thought you’d be on board by now, Mr Downe.’
‘There’s a man watching me. Could he be my brother’s…’ Michael recalled Abdul’s reaction when Charles had referred to Harry’s “orderly” ‘… friend?’
‘If someone is staring at you, Mr Downe, he could be an acquaintance of your brother who recognises the family similarity.’
‘Please, Abdul, take a look at the man.’
Abdul reluctantly left his backgammon board and joined Michael in the doorway.
‘He’s on board that mahaila.’ As Michael spoke, a short wiry man on the quayside untied the ropes that had secured the boat and flung them to a man on board.
Michael ran up the quay, before he reached the mooring, the boat was in the centre of the river, its sail halfway up the mast fluttering in the wind. All he could see of the man he’d been watching was a rapidly diminishing shadow moving around the deck.
‘Was it Harry’s friend?’ he demanded of Abdul when he returned.
Abdul shrugged. ‘All Arabs look the same, Mr Downe.’ A smile curled the corners of his mouth when he repeated a stock phrase British officers resorted to, whenever they described natives of every land other than Britain.
The whistle blew on the paddle steamer. Adjabi appeared at the top of the gangplank and waved to Michael.
‘You will continue to ask if anyone has seen my sister-in-law?’
‘Yes, Mr Downe, as I promised,’ Abdul assured him. ‘You don’t want to miss your boat.’
Michael ran up the gangplank.
‘I will take you to your chair, Sahib. I have placed it next to Major Chalmers and his friend Captain Heal.’ Adjabi led Michael on to the forward deck.
‘Scribbler, meet Martin Heal. Join us,’ Richard held up a bottle of beer when he saw Michael.
‘Thank you.’ Michael took the beer but kept his eye on the sail of the mahaila as he sat on the rattan chair between Richard and Martin.
‘You see Charles this morning?’ Richard handed Michael a glass.
‘No, I said my goodbyes last night.’
‘Would you believe he was trying to get himself posted to one of the command boats?’
‘Yes.’ Michael continued to watch the dot that was the mahaila.
‘We will be in time for this show, won’t we?’ Martin demanded. ‘Only there were rumours …’
‘There are always rumours,’ Richard cut in. ‘Everything in good time, as the vicar said to the tart.’
Michael glanced at him.
‘The waiting’s always the worst.’ Richard slurred and Michael realised he was drunk. Either he’d started early, or hadn’t finished drinking since the night before. ‘Gives a man time to think of all the good chaps who’ve
gone before him.’ He lifted his glass to Michael. ‘Men like your brother.’
‘You knew him well?’
‘Everyone knew Harry Downe. War’s a damned sight less interesting since he’s been gone.’
Chapter Seventeen
Confluence of Tigris and Euphrates below Qurna, leading to Shatt al-Hai, Tuesday 4th January 1916
Although Mitkhal knew the mahaila couldn’t possibly out-race the paddle steamer, he resented Zabba’s cousin, Habid’s, decision to leave the main waterway of the Tigris before dawn on their second day out of Basra. They turned up one of the side channels below Qurna and sailed into the network of ancient waterways and canals that had been hacked through the marshes by the engineers of ancient civilizations long lost to human memory.
Mitkhal had lost sight of the steamer at sunset on the first day but logic hadn’t prevented him from hoping that the vessel would stop to take supplies and men on board at Qurna and they’d catch up with it on the voyage to Ali Gharbi.
With the Tigris behind them, Habid set a course for the Shatt al-Hai, a river that diverged from the Tigris south of Kut al Amara. Given the number of military vessels plying the Tigris between Basra and Ali Gharbi it was a sensible decision but Mitkhal wasn’t in a mood to be sensible.
Stunned by the similarity between Harry’s brother and Harry, all too aware of the risks to Harry and Furja should anyone – even Harry’s brother – discover that Harry was still alive, Mitkhal wanted to talk to the man and find out if he resembled Harry as much in character as he did in appearance.
‘We’re heading for Kut by the back door.’ Mitkhal stated the obvious as he manned the rudder, negotiating a course through the reed beds.
‘This course is safer. Less chance of being held up by British river traffic and the military police.’
‘More chance of meeting pirates.’
‘I know them and they know me.’ Habid pointed to a stall and makeshift wooden smoke house outside a reed and mud village. ‘Breakfast?’
Mitkhal adjusted the rudder and took down the sail. He was hungry but his resentment escalated as he sat with his back to the prow watching Habid gossip with the fishermen who crewed the small, canoe-like native mashufs and the sailors from the mahailas who’d also been seduced by the smell of fresh bread and smoking fish.
In Furja’s house he’d felt restless – fettered and imprisoned despite his pleasure in fatherhood and Gutne’s company. Now he was heading upriver he felt guilty for leaving Harry seriously ill and the women unprotected apart from Farik. Zabba had promised to take care of them but what if Furja’s father or husband tracked her down and turned up in Zabba’s with a dozen or more well-armed tribesmen?
Would the British officers who patronised Zabba’s whorehouse fight them off? The more he considered the situation, the less faith he put in the British military to protect Zabba’s brothel or her ‘friends’ in the secret house. The British had enough to do in fighting the Turks without making enemies of the friendly natives in Basra and he was certain that’s how the officers in British Headquarters would categorise Ibn Shalan and his tribesmen. Especially if Shalan brandished the treaty Harry had negotiated with him before the war, a treaty that had secured Shalan’s protection for the Anglo-British oil pipeline in exchange for weapons.
For all that Furja was Shalan’s daughter and Gutne his sister, Mitkhal knew that, if the sheikh considered circumstances warranted it, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill Harry or either of the women or their children. Furja had committed an unpardonable sin in the sheikh’s eyes by taking Harry’s daughters and fleeing the tent of Ali Mansur, the second husband he had chosen for her.
By flouting Shalan’s edicts, Furja, Harry, and their children posed a threat to the sheikh’s authority within the tribe, and as Gutne and his son’s presence in Furja’s house confirmed that he’d helped Furja and her daughters escape Ali Mansur, his and his family’s lives would be forfeit too.
Mitkhal narrowed his eyes against the watery winter light and scanned the reed beds. A flock of ducks hurtled upwards. Startled by a wild cat – or human predator? He hadn’t forgotten that it was a Marsh Arab, Ibn Muba, who’d betrayed Harry to the Turks and identified him as a British officer.
Marsh Arab, Bedouin, town Arab in the pay of Ibn Shalan, Turk – and British who would no doubt ship Harry back to Britain or at the very least an Indian medical facility if they found him alive. It seemed the entire Middle East was ranged against him and Harry and those they loved.
Habid interrupted his thoughts by splashing through the shallows to the boat. ‘These are so good I brought you one. I thought it might chase away the sour expression on your face.’ He handed Mitkhal a bread flap filled with smoked fish.
‘Thank you.’ Mitkhal took it, smelled the fish and fresh bread, and bit into it.
Habid climbed on board and sank down on his haunches beside Mitkhal. ‘Word on the bank is the British are preparing to move upstream from Ali Gharbi tomorrow.’
‘Towards Kut?’ Mitkhal didn’t know why he was asking when all the talk in Basra had been gossip and guesswork as to when – not “if” – the British would muster their forces to relieve their beleaguered troops.
‘Towards Kut,’ Habid confirmed. ‘According to our most excellent cook, Mohammed, who gathers and digests information as birds do breadcrumbs, most of the desert tribes have joined forces with the Turks outside the town.’ Habid lifted his bread flap from its palm leaf wrapping and took an enormous bite.
‘The Bedouin are not there to fight with the Turk, only to scavenge from the battlefield when the bullets stop flying.’
‘Whatever they’re there for, they’re not inside the town walls with the British, which means things don’t look too well for the British interlopers.’
‘They haven’t looked well for the British since the battle of Nasiriyeh,’ Mitkhal reached for his water bottle.
‘From where I’m standing, I regard British and Turk the same. Both have no business here. They should return to their own countries and leave this land to those who have always lived here.’
‘The Marsh Arabs? The Bedouin? The Bani Lam, the Shias, the Sunnis …’ Mitkhal paused to take another bite.
‘At least we’d be fighting and killing our own kind who were born and bred here.’ Habid looked out over the riverbank. ‘Allah only gave us enough land to bury our own, not the hordes intent on colonising us.’
Mitkhal thought of Shalan, Furja, and Gutne. He’d been mad to leave them for horses … then he recalled the expression on Harry’s face when he realised Dorset was real, not just a dream.
‘What do you think, Mitkhal?’
Mitkhal looked across at Habid and realised he’d been too lost in his own thoughts to listen to him. ‘You’re right, all the interlopers should leave.’
‘And then?’
‘We can start quarrelling amongst ourselves as to who should govern us.’
Habid laughed. ‘You are a born diplomat, my friend. Zabba said you were going upriver to look for horses?’
‘I am.’ Mitkhal was wary, wondering what else Zabba had told Habid.
‘The British look after their animals but upriver …’ Habid shook his head. ‘There’s no grazing. Animals soon become skinny and sicken. You want good horses pay a visit one dark night to the British Military stables in Basra. But take your gun, because their sentries are well armed, and if you’re wise you’ll collect friends who also have guns to go with you.’
‘I’m not insane enough to try to steal livestock from Kut. The horses I want belong to a friend. He was taken ill and was forced to leave them behind when he travelled downriver by boat.’
‘These horses. They’re inside Kut?’
‘Close by,’ Mitkhal hedged.
‘Let me know before we’re in sight of whoever’s guarding them, so I can kick you off the boat.’
Mitkhal smiled. ‘I will.’
‘You give me your word?’
‘You have it.’
Lansing Memorial Mission, Basra, Tuesday 4th January 1916
‘Come in,’ Maud called in response to a knock at the door.
Mrs Butler bustled in with a tea tray.
‘Mrs Butler, good morning.’ Maud set aside the book she’d been reading. ‘How kind of you to bring me tea.’
‘I thought you might enjoy a mid-morning drink and as I was making it I realised so would I.’ Mrs Butler set the tray on the desk and glanced into the cot, which the nursemaid, Badia, had as usual pulled close to her in the alcove. ‘He looks so angelic sleeping there. Reverend Butler was only saying this morning that you’d hardly know there was a baby in the house. I thought I heard him crying once in the night but I couldn’t be sure whether it was him or one of the cats.’
‘It was him, but once Badia fed him he soon fell back to sleep.’ Maud turned to the nursemaid who was sitting head down, working her way through a pile of mending, apparently oblivious to the conversation, although she was beginning to wonder just how much the woman understood.
‘Reverend Butler and I talked this morning,’ Mrs Butler announced, as though she rarely communicated with her husband. She busied herself with pouring tea and spooning sugar and lemon slices into the cups. Maud sensed her hostess was embarrassed by the information she’d been entrusted to impart and decided to pre-empt her.
‘You and Reverend Butler have been very kind, Mrs Butler, but now Robin has arrived, it’s time I made plans to move on and set up my own establishment.’
Mrs Butler finally met Maud’s gaze and there was unmistakeable relief on her face. ‘We wouldn’t hear of you leaving us until your baby is at least six weeks old, Maud.’
‘That is very kind of you. It will give me time to look for suitable accommodation, and, unless you allow me to poach Badia, a nursemaid.’
Winds of Eden Page 17