Scorpion Sunset

by Catrin Collier

  ‘You want more?’

  ‘Dozens more.’ He faltered when he recalled saying the exact same words to Maud. He dismissed the memory from his mind, then slipped his arm around Rebeka’s shoulders and sat back, closing his eyes and turning his face to the sun. The sound of marching feet echoed from the gate. He opened his eyes. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked Crabbe when he walked up with Yana.

  ‘New influx of guards. I talked to one of the younger ones.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And?’ Crabbe teased.

  ‘Something must have happened to make you grin like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland.’

  Whoops echoed across the garden from the officer’s quarters.

  ‘The war’s over?’ John sat up.

  ‘One thing at a time, Mason. We’ve taken Baghdad.’

  ‘As of when?’

  ‘Last week apparently. That’s why we have new guards. The Turks have pulled back half their army. With luck this is the beginning of the end in Mesopotamia. Now the War Office can concentrate on taking the Western Front.’

  ‘Hopefully sometime soon.’ John drew Rebeka even closer to him. ‘And then we can all go home.’

  Baghdad

  May 1917

  ‘Baghdad nightlife, here we come,’ David finished shaving and splashed cologne on to his chin and cheeks.

  ‘Hoping to attract the mosquitoes?’ Peter asked.

  ‘You never know, there might be a stunning belly dancer prepared to throw herself at me.’

  ‘I’ll tell Georgie.’

  ‘Do and I’ll tell Angela you went out on the town to look for loose women. Did you know that John worked here?’

  ‘Here? You mean Baghdad here?’

  ‘I mean hospital here. Apparently he arrived heading a medical escort of sick British POWs. One of the orderlies who was working here at the time told me. The German doctors fled with the Turks, so when we took over this place, cholera and typhoid cases included, there were only nurses and orderlies managing the facility. But to be fair they didn’t try to wreck the place or destroy any of the medical supplies or instruments.’

  ‘Did the orderly say how John looked?’

  ‘Apparently he’d been driven into the ground. Once he’d been reassured that his patients would be attended to, he slept for days. But that’s John.’

  They left David’s room and walked out into the courtyard which was packed with scores of locals sitting patiently waiting for medical attention.

  ‘I feel guilty walking away from them,’ David confessed.

  ‘You’ve been on duty for months without a break.’

  ‘That’s war for you. No matter how hard we work or how many of us are on duty the queues of patients never get any shorter. As for the locals, they don’t need medical attention, only a good scouring and clean-up of their living conditions. I’ve seen more infected flea, bedbug, rat, sand fly and mosquito bites, and impetigo than any doctor should in several lifetimes.’

  ‘Forget them for the next couple of hours.’ They walked out of the gates of the hospital and turned into the street.

  ‘And all the sores, abscesses …’

  ‘Enough disgusting medical talk,’ Peter pleaded.

  ‘You want to go down here?’ David halted at the entrance to a narrow alleyway.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘It looks interesting. Just look at those second-floor balconies, they’re touching to form a roof over the street. Do you think the houses have moved since they were built?’

  ‘Perhaps they wanted to kiss.’

  ‘You’re a romantic idiot, Peter Smythe.’

  ‘You would be if you had a wife like mine – and a son.’

  David sniffed Peter’s breath. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘Only the medicinal brandy my doctor recommends to keep germs at bay.’ Peter continued walking on the main thoroughfare which was only marginally wider than the narrow lane they’d looked down.

  ‘Have you ever seen such a stinking slum?’ David questioned.

  ‘I’ll concede it’s worse than Basra, Amara, and Qurna.’

  ‘Worse – this place is a cesspit.’

  ‘We cleaned up the towns in the south, give us time we’ll do the same to this one,’ Peter said.

  David stopped outside a café and looked through the window. ‘Michael, Bowditch, Grace, Brooke, and practically every convalescent officer I’ve signed off duty are in there. Want to go in and find out what the attraction is?’

  Peter pushed the door open. Half the café was filled with Arabs lounging on wooden benches cradling glasses of mint tea. The other half was occupied by British officers, jugs of water and raki in front of them.

  A naked girl was dancing on top of a large table in the centre of the room. Musical accompaniment was provided by a trio: two men were playing peculiar stringed instruments that resembled lyres while a third thumped an out-of-tune piano. The resulting noise was weird and deafening.

  David raised his eyebrows at the expression on Peter’s face. ‘I presume this is what they call “Eastern Promise”.’

  Peter grabbed a chair and squeezed it in next to Michael’s at his crowded table. ‘Researching a political article or still searching for golden minarets?’

  ‘Absorbing background,’ Michael winked at David who joined them. ‘British majors at play. How do you spell “Knight” and “Smythe”?’

  Turkish Prison Camp

  June 1917

  Rebeka had set the table in the small kitchen in the hospital for her and John’s evening meal. She’d grated tinned cheese from a Red Cross parcel and beat it together with a few slices of leftover potato into an egg, milk, and tinned butter mix. She’d laid out tin plates, knives, and forks, and arranged a few flowers she’d picked in the garden in a bully beef tin she’d cleaned and polished. She looked at the clock on the wall. Another ten minutes and John should have finished his last patient round for the day.

  She was looking forward to spending some time alone with him. Mrs Gulbenkian and Hasmik were helping Major Crabbe move into a room in the officers’ quarters. John had discharged him from the hospital that morning to make room for four new fever cases and everyone was worried that the fever would spread throughout the other inmates in the camp.

  The door opened. She turned and smiled, expecting to see John. She backed into the wall when Mehmet advanced towards her. ‘You …’

  Mehmet tugged at the insignia on his sleeve. ‘I was promoted and sent to the regular army for killing people like you. What are you doing still alive?’

  ‘I work here – for the British soldiers,’ she added, in the hope he’d leave her alone.

  ‘An Armenian has no right to draw breath.’ He reached behind him, closed the door and turned the key. Locking them in together.

  Rebeka screamed.

  ‘Shhh.’ He pulled a long-bladed knife from a sheath on his belt. She opened her mouth to scream again.

  He silenced her by clamping his hand over her mouth. She felt his hand pulling at her dress, the bite of the tip of the blade at her throat. The sensations were horrifyingly familiar.

  Unlike in the desert, though, they galvanised her to fight back. She tried to wrench her head away from him but he forced his hand into her mouth. She bit down hard. He slapped her, sending her reeling into the wall.

  ‘Not again,’ she shouted, ‘not ever again.’

  Someone tried the door. When the lock held they banged on it.

  ‘Rebeka?’

  ‘John!’ Something sharp, agonisingly so, jabbed into her neck. She staggered. Dark shadows crowded in on her, rising from the ground, drifting down from the ceiling, closing in from the corners of the room.

  Warm, wet liquid ran down her neck, soaking her. The door crashed open.

  Someone hauled Mehmet from her. She saw Major Crabbe standing behind the Turk, heard the crack of bones snapping. Mehmet disappeared from her view.

  John wrapped his arms around her, and lowered her g
ently on to his knees. She looked up at him and clutched her stomach in an attempt to protect the child within her. She saw John’s soft brown eyes cloud in sorrow, felt his hand, warm, gentle on hers.

  She smiled up at him.

  ‘Don’t leave me … Rebeka …’

  She tried to say ‘never’ but she couldn’t speak. She could still see John, still hear him, but he was moving away from her. He grew smaller and smaller while the shadows continued to grow, swallowing him until there was only darkness and his voice, faint, fading into a single pulse that kept time with her heartbeat …

  John never knew how long he remained on the floor of the kitchen cradling Rebeka. But when Crabbe gently took her from him, he realised she’d died in his arms.

  Chapter Thirty

  Baghdad

  21st November 1917

  ‘Did you hear me, Knight?’ Colonel Allan looked him over with a professional eye. ‘I said General Maude’s dead.’

  ‘I heard you, sir. He’ll be sorely missed.’ It was the standard phrase David resorted to whenever anyone mentioned the dead or the dying.

  The entire force was immersed in death and had been for months. He was tired of administering morphine to ease men out of life and sitting beside death beds waiting for the last breath to be drawn so he could give the order to remove the corpse and bring in the next sick man.

  He continued to stand in the centre of the ward. He couldn’t see the floor for men laid head to toe in every available inch of space and in every direction. Cholera had broken out eight weeks ago closely followed by typhoid fever. They’d run out of beds in the first two days.

  The only saving grace was the lack of wounded. The battle for Mesopotamia was, in theory at least, still be being waged against the Turkish troops retreating North back to their own country, but according to dispatches all fight had left the Ottoman Empire. Meanwhile his battles were continuing here.

  ‘Where do you want me to put him, sir?’

  David stared uncomprehendingly at the two orderlies carrying a stretcher.

  ‘This man, where do you want me to put him, sir?’

  ‘Anywhere where there’s an inch of space, orderly.’ He looked around for Allan but there were simply too many people crowded into the ward, upright and horizontal.

  ‘Corridor’s full, sir. The ward’s full …’

  David glanced at the stretcher. ‘No! Please, no. Not Smythe.’

  ‘Colonel Allan says it’s Typhoid Fever, sir.’

  David opened Peter’s shirt and saw the rash. ‘The office. Push the desk and chair against the wall.’

  He tried to follow the orderlies but his legs refused to obey the commands his brains sent. The room swirled around him, gathering speed it moved faster – and faster – than any childhood roundabout. He grabbed a kidney dish from the stretcher and retched.

  ‘Sir … sir …’

  Singh caught him. David heard his orderly say, ‘Make up two beds in the office.’ He closed his eyes. He would leave everything to Singh. Just for a little while.

  Turkish Prison Camp

  November 1917

  Crabbe watched John walk into the kitchen and sit at the table. Yana took a plate of food she’d put in the stove to keep warm and set it in front of him.

  ‘Thank you.’ John looked at it but made no attempt to eat it.

  Yana pushed Hasmik towards him. The girl offered him a piece of paper that had been torn from a notebook. ‘I made a drawing for you, Major Mason.’

  John took it from her and Hasmik climbed on to his lap.

  She laid the drawing on the table. ‘That’s me.’ She pointed to a small round-faced figure with stick arms and legs. ‘That’s you.’ She indicated a similar larger figure standing behind her. ‘And that’s Rebeka looking down at us from heaven.’

  John sensed Crabbe and Yana holding their breath. He smiled in an attempt to put them at their ease. ‘That’s beautiful, Hasmik.’

  ‘Mrs Gulbenkian says Rebeka’s watching over all of us all of the time. And the man who hurt her has gone and will never hurt anyone again.’

  ‘That’s right, Hasmik. He won’t hurt anyone ever again. ‘

  ‘Come on, young lady. Bed for you.’ Yana scooped the child from John’s lap.’

  ‘Must I?’

  ‘If you’re good I’ll tell you a story.’

  ‘Hagop and the Hairy Giant?’

  ‘If you give Major Mason and Major Crabbe goodnight kisses.’ Yana held the child fast while she swooped down and kissed first John then Crabbe.

  ‘Clean plate by the time I get back, Major Mason. We haven’t an ounce of food to waste.’

  ‘I know, Yana, thank you.’ He picked up his fork.

  ‘Hasmik didn’t mean anything,’ Crabbe explained by way of an apology after Yana left with the child.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We had to tell her something.’

  ‘I know, Crabbe,’ John reiterated.

  ‘Foul thing to happen. If I’d been in the kitchen when that bastard came in …’

  ‘If any of us had been in here it wouldn’t have happened. You killed him with your bare hands. That’s more than most men would have done.’

  ‘Too late.’

  ‘There’s no point in going over it or talking about it, Crabbe. What’s done is done.’ There was no anger, only immense sadness in John’s voice.

  Crabbe indicated John’s plate. ‘If you don’t eat that Yana will have your guts for garters.’

  ‘It’s been a long time since I heard that expression.’

  ‘I warned you I climbed out of a Glaswegian gutter.’

  ‘You’ve been a good friend, Crabbe. I wouldn’t have survived without you.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘I’m serious.’ John countered. ‘The war will end soon. If we’re fortunate we’ll be allowed to go home, and I meant what I said about you, Yana, and Hasmik coming to Stouthall with me.’

  ‘If you’re absolutely sure there’ll be real work that I can do there and you’ll rent or sell us a house, we’ll come.’

  ‘There’s just one thing. I want to sail home from Basra.’

  ‘Why on earth would you want to go back to that God-forsaken hole? It will only remind you of Harry and Charles …’

  ‘It will, but that’s why I want to return. There’s someone there I need to say goodbye to.’

  ‘Mitkhal and Harry’s wife?’

  John dropped his fork. ‘Please, eat this for me, so I won’t offend Yana.’

  ‘You have to eat.’

  ‘I will tomorrow. I promise. It’s just that now, right now, I need to be alone, Crabbe. Thank you.’

  ‘What are you thanking me for?’ Crabbe pulled the plate of bully beef stew towards him.

  ‘Killing Mehmet. If you hadn’t I would have tried and I would have made a right mess of it because I’ve no experience of killing – intentionally that is. And that’s the last I want to say about him.’

  ‘But not Rebeka,’ Crabbe murmured. ‘We all have to remember Rebeka.’

  ‘As if we could ever forget her.’ John rose and left the room.

  Baghdad

  December 1917

  David was only vaguely aware of his surroundings. Whenever he opened his eyes it was to see orderlies cleaning the blood, secretions, and pus that flowed from every orifice of his and his Peter’s bodies. The entire ward, including the office he and Peter were laid out in, was soaked in bodily fluids and hazy, almost as though they were all under water. Sometimes he managed to focus. When he could, he looked across at Peter, who always seemed to be tossing and turning in delirium. His friend had aged decades, not years, since they’d been struck down. His skin had thickened until it resembled old yellowed parchment, and there was an underlying ominous bluish tinge which he’d come to dread seeing as a doctor, because it invariably heralded death.

  His mind constantly wavered and he found it difficult to retain a grasp on reality or determine whether it was his or Peter’s bre
athing that sounded so loud. When he screamed in the agony of muscle cramps, he often turned to see it was Peter, not him making the noise.

  He retained enough medical acumen even in delirium to know that he and Peter were both dying and it was only a matter of time before the burial party would pick up their shrouded corpses. Having lost all control over his body he lay on the thin pallet drifting in and out of consciousness, amazed every time it registered that he was still breathing – until the moment he realised Peter was no longer lying next to him.

  He reached out to the empty mattress. Singh stayed his hand. He looked into his orderly’s eyes.

  Singh nodded.

  He moved his hand. It felt ridiculously heavy. He laid it on Singh’s arm. ‘I’ll be with him soon. Get …get …’ David knew what he wanted to say but he lacked the strength to say it. ‘Dressings …Plug me.’

  ‘Sir?’

  He could see Singh thought he wasn’t rational. ‘Plug my ears, nose …every orifice, I’m leaking, dying … make no difference … save you work … you shouldn’t clean my mess … Tell Georgie I love her.’

  He was vaguely aware of Singh bringing a sheet and dressings, of lifting him on to the sheet …wrapping him … then nothing.

  Smythes’ Bungalow

  December 31st 1917

  ‘Happy New Year.’ Georgiana touched her glass to Angela’s. ‘Christmas wasn’t like Christmas at all and this New Year doesn’t feel very celebratory.’

  ‘It might tomorrow when we lunch at the Lansing. That was a knock at the door.’ Angela rose, glanced in the mirror, and patted her hair into place. Georgiana knew Angela had hoped, just as she had, that Peter and David might wangle leave for Christmas. When they hadn’t arrived for the holiday the hope had been postponed to the New Year.

  The maid knocked and opened the door. ‘Dr Wallace, ma’am.’

  Theo walked in. Angela took one look at him, stepped back, and sank down on a chair. Her hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘Angela …’

  ‘No!’ Her scream was agonising, bestial in its intensity. ‘The fighting’s over …’

  Theo kneeled before his sister and wrapped his arms around her. ‘It was typhoid, Angela. They did all they could …’

  ‘No!’