CHAPTER FOUR
‘How the hell do you stand it, Sid?’ Lock said, batting away at the flies circling his head.
He was standing with Singh in a claustrophobically hot alleyway, directly opposite a busy cafe on the main thoroughfare in the Ashar district of the city. Half of the alley was in shadow, the other in blinding sunlight, which bleached the bricks white and radiated such a heat that it reminded Lock of standing in front of an open oven. The flies were insufferable, drawn, no doubt, to the lumpy brown liquid that ran down the open gutter in the centre of the hard earth floor of the alley. The stench caught the back of Lock’s throat until he was forced to breathe through his mouth. But this was just an open invite to the flies, so he closed it again and immediately wanted to gag.
‘I recommend you keep a lighted cigarette between your lips at all times, sahib,’ Singh said.
‘I’d rather have one of those kleinflammenwefers.’
‘Sahib?’
‘A flamethrower. Like a water hose, but it sprays ignited petrol. The Germans have been using them against the French, poor bastards, outside of Verdun.’
Singh shook his turbaned head slowly. ‘That is … inhuman, sahib.’
‘That is modern warfare, Sid.’ Lock patted the big Sikh on the arm, and sparked up a cigarette.
He puffed away energetically at first, creating a huge cloud of blue tobacco smoke around his hat-covered head, and grunted with pleasure. It worked. The flies seemed to move away from him to Singh. But, as he had already commented, his Indian friend didn’t seem to be bothered by them. He didn’t even seem to notice as the black pests buzzed around his youthful and chiselled face, settling on his forehead to feast on the beads of sweat that trickled from beneath his turban and down the edge of his large, straight nose to be lost in the neatly groomed mat of his beard.
‘Disgusting,’ Lock said.
Singh just grinned again, brown eyes shining brightly.
‘You should be seeing your back, sahib.’
Lock glanced over his shoulder. His sweat-soaked shirt back was a mass of crawling flies.
‘God damned—’ He brushed his hand over his back, but it only served to disturb the insects briefly. ‘I wish we could get off this street.’
Lock turned his attention back to the cafe opposite and continued to puff away on his cigarette. He was glad that he’d taken Sid’s advice earlier, too, of leaving his tunic and tie behind and to just wear shirtsleeves. He even had a pair of shorts on for the first time since arriving in the Middle East, though they made him feel oddly naked and he had already made the decision to change back at the first opportunity.
The area was busy with off-duty officers, soldiers and the local populous, merchants, traders, and women carrying bundles of food and other goods. The market was close by and the central Post Telegraph Office was only a few hundred yards away around the corner, too. Runners, mostly uniformed sepoys, were hurrying to and fro, weaving in and out of the crowds, slips of paper clutched in their sweaty fists all depicting, no doubt, vital pieces of information purporting to the state of the hot water supply in Brigadier General such-and-such’s quarters. Lock snorted to himself. He wanted a bath, but a cold one, an iced one.
Lock checked his watch, pulling the hot metal back plate away from his clammy wrist. Already the timepiece, the silver-cased François Borgel trench watch with the wide leather strap that Major Hall had given him prior to the advance on Barjisiyah Woods, had left a pink indentation as if it was trying to melt into his skin.
‘He’s been in there for a good quarter of an hour now, Sid. What the hell is he up to?’
‘Perhaps, sahib, he is taking refreshment.’
‘Bollocks, Sid. Since when has the sergeant major taken refreshment? He’s too wound up to relax. No, he’s up to something, I can smell it.’
Half an hour earlier, Lock and Singh were keeping a close tail on Underhill, having picked the sergeant major up as he left the barracks in the Sarraj district. They kept out of sight and followed him as he hurriedly made his way through the Hanna-Sheikh Bazaar, batting off eager vendors as if they were so many irritating flies.
The bazaar was a mass of clashing colours, smells and sounds. The creaks of wooden cartwheels melded with the shouts of alarm and of greetings to fellow traders and passing shoppers. Arab men, bent forward, carried huge sacks of produce on their backs, while the Arab women used rough-weaved baskets of reed balanced upon their heads.
Underhill skirted by a withered old Indian man holding out green coconuts fresh from the Karachi boat; and pushed aside an elderly Arab, who was standing beside a stack of caged, beady-eyed chickens, his sandalled feet only just visible above the carpet of white feather and potent faeces. The sergeant major slipped and cursed at the trader and his birds, and hurried on. It was obvious to Lock that Underhill had an appointment to keep, despite Singh’s doubts, for no man would want to be walking so fast in this heat, and the sergeant major would never miss an opportunity to stand and berate a native.
‘Sahib, he perhaps just has the Basra hop? Look at the way he clenches his buttocks,’ Sid said, as they struggled to keep up.
Lock smiled, but he wasn’t about to give up his theory. Underhill was a devious man and, no matter what Major Ross kept insisting, was untrustworthy and one of many who wished Lock ill.
Despite their working together under duress the previous month, when they both found themselves being chased out of Daurat while trying to track down the pipeline saboteur1, the men had a history that went back to Lhasa in 1904. Lock could not, would not, forget or forgive what he’d seen Underhill do. The sergeant major was a bastard and knew that Lock had something on him that could utterly destroy his military standing. And the military was everything to Underhill.
However, Lock did have a nagging doubt, a faint voice whispering in the back of his mind, reminding him that Underhill was no idiot. Paying someone to gun him and Singh down in the streets – although Lock was convinced that he was the true target; Sid was just unlucky in that he happened to be standing right next to him when the would-be assassin struck – it just wasn’t the sergeant major’s style. The act wasn’t beyond him, of course, but Lock knew that Underhill would rather do the deed himself. Lock still believed the sergeant major was up to something highly suspicious and that was enough for him to keep trailing him. He was determined to discover just what it was. Besides, he told himself, it was better than lying around in damned hospital. Despite the flies.
Lock grunted. If he was honest, this was actually fun. Of course, Underhill could be on White Tab business, as Ross had said he was, but there was no sign of the American girl that the sergeant major was supposed to be chaperoning.
They arrived at a crossroads. Lock watched as Underhill, standing staring across the street, removed his topi and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. Was that a signal? Lock followed the sergeant major’s eyeline, scanning the faces sat in and walking by the cafe. His eyes shot back.
‘Look, Sid, beside the awning support on the left, half in shadow. Is that …?’
‘Yes, sahib. I see. It is Bombegy.’
‘Curiouser and curiouser, my friend.’
Lock couldn’t be sure, but from where he was standing, the skinny little cook appeared to be making hand signals. Then the Indian bobbed his head and scuttled off to the right, where he was quickly swallowed up by the crowd.
‘Shall I follow him, sahib?’
Lock put his hand up to stop Singh. ‘No, Bombegy will keep. Let’s stay with the sergeant major for now.’
Underhill checked his watch, then dodging a passing ox-drawn cart and the milling pedestrians, he trotted across the street and into the open front of the Café Baldia. Lock urged Singh to hurry and both of them dashed into the alleyway. It offered a good vantage point to spy on the cafe frontage where natives, Indian and British officers, and a few of the lower ranks, were sitting out on the pavement sipping lime juice or hot mint tea. Underhill had chosen an empty table j
ust inside and was sat stiffly erect with his back to the wall. Lock could see the sergeant major’s bristly whiskers twitching as if he was muttering to himself.
‘You seem nervous, Ebenezer, old chap,’ Lock said.
‘Sahib?’
‘Underhill. His Christian name is Ebenezer. Like Scrooge.’
Singh nodded his head. ‘Charles Dickens. Very good, very fine storyteller.’
Lock kept his eyes on Underhill. The sergeant major placed his topi on the chair beside him and checked his watch again. A scrawny Arab shuffled up to him, wringing his hands obsequiously. Underhill said something and the Arab nodded and shuffled away again. But rather than wait for whatever beverage he had ordered, Lock was surprised to see the sergeant major rise from the table and, not forgetting to take his topi with him, follow the scrawny Arab further into the cafe where he was quickly swallowed up by the gloom.
That was fifteen long minutes earlier.
‘Right, Sid. Enough of this. I’m going in. You wait here in case he comes out from around back.’
Lock didn’t wait for Singh’s reply as he stepped out of the alleyway into the blinding, concussive sunlight, and made his way across the road to the cafe.
It was cooler under the large canvas awning that stretched across five or six tables and benches. No one gave Lock more than a cursory glance as he weaved his way towards the inside of the cafe, a stuffy, dark room buzzing with conversation and laughter. The scent of lime and mint was stronger in here, as was an underlying odour of stale sweat and cooked meat. Lock followed his nose and passed through the obligatory beaded curtain that hid the horrors of the cook’s domain. He emerged into a filthy, dimly lit kitchen. Here, the scrawny Arab whom Lock had seen talking briefly with Underhill moments earlier, was now arguing loudly with an Indian man. He was crouched down spooning some lumpy mixture up off the greasy floor and back into a blackened cauldron. A second Indian was working away at the stove, engulfed in steam and the distinctive aroma of grilled fish. All three men were too focused on what they were doing to notice Lock as he deftly slipped across the kitchen and through a door on the far side.
Lock was standing alone in a cramped, dank corridor. A single grimy window was high up on the wall to the right, but it threw little light into the gloom. Lock fumbled in his pockets and fished out a match and scratched it against the rough stone wall. Cupping the flame, he could see that the corridor doubled as a storeroom and was stacked from floor to ceiling with tins, sacks of grain, coffee, packets of tea, baskets of dates and earthenware pots of olive oil. Quite a stockpile for a humble street cafe, Lock thought. He moved forward and something small and brown darted across the hard earth floor in front of him and disappeared amongst a stack of crab tins. The flame went out.
‘You’re not the only rat around, are you?’ Lock said.
He struck another match. Lifting it higher, and moving on past the rows of produce, Lock eventually came to a dead end where a tatty, foul-smelling Persian rug hung limply down from an iron pole fixed to the wall. Lock pressed his palm against the surface of the rug and it gave until it came up against something solid. He drew the rug to one side, exposing a wooden door so riddled with woodworm that it was a wonder to him that it still stood. Light was coming through from the other side in a dozen places and Lock could also hear low voices in conversation. He let the rug fall back, shook out the match, then lifted the rug once more, stepped behind it, and let it fall back again. He was now hidden from view should anyone enter the storeroom from the kitchen.
The air was fetid in the small space between the rug and the brittle door and soon Lock felt the prickly itch of heat as sweat began to rise all over his body. He pressed his face to the rough, cool surface of the wood, feeling the flaking old paint scratch at his cheek, and peered in through a jagged slit to the room beyond.
Lock had a momentary and inexplicable flash of guilt at this game of eavesdropping, then immediately dismissed it as a ludicrous response. Underhill was behaving suspiciously and as his superior officer and an officer in the White Tabs, he had a right, a duty, to find out what the sergeant major was up to.
Beyond the door, through the gap that wasn’t as convenient as it could be, for Lock had to stoop and half-crouch to get a good view, pushing the brim of his hat up against his forehead, he could see a plain room furnished with a table and two chairs. There was natural light inside, and Lock guessed it would be from another grimy window cut high into the wall, similar to the one that illuminated the corridor-cum-storeroom behind him. Seated in one of the chairs, surrounded by a thick cloud of blue-grey tobacco smoke, was a fat, sweaty man who, when he wasn’t puffing on the large cigar jammed between his thick, fleshy lips, was mopping at his face and neck with a red and white polka dot patterned handkerchief.
Lock didn’t recognise the man, though his close-cropped, white-blond hair and his flushed complexion gave him away as a North European; Scandinavian, Dutch or, perhaps, German. He was dressed as a businessman, in a dark cotton suit with a shirt and tie. There was a felt trilby on the table beside an ashtray and a small black box. Opposite him sat Underhill, as stiff and as uncomfortable as he always looked when ‘at ease’. He was saying something and nodding, but Lock couldn’t make out the words. There was another object on the table between the two men, and Lock watched as the businessman gathered it up, put it carefully inside the black box, and closed the lid. Underhill handed the fat businessman a coin purse. In exchange, he was passed the black box. The sergeant major then got to his feet, put the black box in his side pocket and held out his hand. The fat businessman rose also, shook Underhill’s hand, said something relating to Bingham-Smith, and both men laughed.
Lock slunk away from the door, throwing the rug back, and quickly made his way through the stacked goods back to the door to the kitchen. He hesitated, with his fingers on the handle, and glanced back to see a spill of light and a hand reaching out from behind the rug, about to pull it aside. Lock wrenched open the door and darted across the kitchen, bursting through the beaded curtain, colliding with the scrawny Arab and sending the tray of terracotta beakers that he was carrying flying. There was a shout of irate Farsi, but Lock just kept on going, squeezing by a fellow Australian, a bronzed lieutenant in the Flying Corps, who was about to tuck into a plate of what Lock had earlier seen being scraped up off of the kitchen floor.
‘I wouldn’t eat that, mate,’ Lock said, as he rushed on through the cafe and back out into the dazzling daylight of the oppressive street. He sidestepped the pedestrian traffic and disappeared into the shadows of the alley opposite where Singh was still waiting. Drenched in sweat, his shirt glued to his back, Lock stood bent double, hands on his knees, wheezing and gulping in huge lungfuls of fetid air. His head was throbbing and stars were dancing before his blurred vision.
‘Sahib?’ Singh said, putting a huge palm on Lock’s shoulder.
Lock waved the Indian’s concern away, straightened up and groaned as he stretched his back. He nodded his head in the direction of the cafe.
Underhill had just stepped out from beneath the awning, followed closely by the fat businessman. The two men didn’t bid one another farewell, but turned in opposite directions without a second glance.
‘You … follow the fat man, Sid. I’ll … take our dear … sergeant major,’ Lock said.
Singh frowned down at his captain. ‘Sahib, I think perhaps you should be back in the hospital.’
‘Nonsense. I’m … just a little … out of practice. Close … close thing … The … they … nearly saw me.’ Lock grinned up at Singh. ‘I’m all right … Honestly … Now get after the fat man … Havildar.’
‘Sahib.’
Singh reluctantly left Lock’s side, and made his way west along the thoroughfare in the trail of the waddling businessman, whose trilby hat stood out like a beacon amongst so many turbans, topis and kufiyas.
Lock pulled his hat off, wiped his brow with his rolled-up shirtsleeve and gathered himself for a moment. He put hi
s hat back on and stepped out of the alley and headed east, after Underhill.
The sergeant major was already quite a way ahead of him, weaving in and out of the throng of people, aggressively brushing off the inevitable offers of trinkets and wares that were shoved under his nose. He was easy enough to see, but Lock was struggling to keep pace, feeling weaker and more light-headed with every step. The sun was directly behind him now and its heat was punishing on his neck.
‘Think, Kingdom. Where’s the bastard going?’ Lock muttered under his rasping breath. ‘Back to barracks? To meet someone else? Ross perhaps?’ He had to get a look at what was in that box. A million questions raced around his mind as he pressed on. Was the sergeant major up to no good? The fat man … Was he a German? One of Wassmuss’s agents? If so, then was Underhill a spy? A traitor? The rat? And what about Bombegy? And what about Bingham-Smith? His name was mentioned in that room, too, he thought.
Lock stopped to rest. His head was swimming. He put his hand out to lean against a wall, and closed his eyes. He knew he should move on, he knew he should keep after Underhill, but all he wanted to do now was to sit and perhaps sleep for a while. Even the flies had stopped being a bother to him.
Lock groaned. Someone was kissing him. He could feel the wetness of … something? A tongue? Licking him, licking his face? Amy? There was a snuffling close to his ear, then the cold wetness again.
‘Sahib? Sahib?’
Lock opened his eyes. He was surprised to find that he was no longer leaning against the wall, but was sat on the floor, legs stretched out before him. Singh’s face loomed close.
‘Was that you, Sid? Kissing my ear?’
‘No, sahib. A dog.’
‘A dog?’
‘Yes, sahib. A puppy. It will not leave you.’
‘Salt.’
‘Sahib?’
‘The salt in my sweat.’
‘No. It will just not leave you. Look.’
Lock followed Singh’s indication. Barely a foot away sat a mangy mongrel puppy, one ear perked up, the other flopped forward. Its head was slightly inclined and two brown eyes glinted back at him. It was panting, its pink tongue hanging down, covered in white spittle, its tail wagging ferociously in the dust.
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