A Hundred Thousand Dragons

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  Jack stared at him. His stomach felt like water, but he forced himself to speak. He had heard rumours of how badly the Turks treated their prisoners, of the neglect and the harsh conditions, and he had also heard stories of what the Arabs could do, but for a German – a civilized, sophisticated German from the land of Beethoven and Goethe – to act like Von Erlangen was outside anything he’d ever imagined. Yes, there’d been stories of brutality, but those, surely, had been carried out by ignorant and frightened troops, not officers. ‘I don’t care what fancy name you call yourself,’ he said in as even a voice as he could manage. ‘You’re still bound by the rules of war. I’m a British officer.’

  Von Erlangen didn’t bother to look up.

  Captain Talaat and five other Turks entered the room and saluted. ‘You sent for us, Herr Oberstleutant?’ Talaat asked in German.

  Von Erlangen looked up then. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Did you find any papers or maps in the aeroplane?’

  ‘There were maps, Mein Herr, but no papers.’

  Von Erlangen frowned. ‘Were the maps marked in any way?’

  ‘No, Herr Oberstleutant.’

  Von Erlangen nodded, crushed out his cigar and lit another one. ‘In that case, Talaat, you’ll be pleased to hear, we have to do this the interesting way.’ He stood up, flexed his fingers and walked over to Jack. ‘You see, John,’ he said in English, ‘part of what keeps my men happy is providing pleasure. Illegitimate pleasure, but pleasure all the same. Take his shirt off,’ he added in German.

  Talaat drew out a knife, stepped forward, and taking Jack’s shirt by the back of the collar, cut down. Then he grasped the front and ripped, leaving the sleeves hanging where Jack’s hands were bound. He ran his hand over Jack’s chest as if he were inspecting a horse he was about to buy.

  Von Erlangen nodded towards the other four and they came forward. The leader, a thick-set, dark-jowled man, had a thin black leather whip in his hands which he coiled and uncoiled. His mouth worked with excitement.

  ‘Now,’ said Von Erlangen, casually flicking the ash off his cigar, ‘would you care to tell us what you were doing in Petra?’

  Jack shook his head, dumbly. He was roughly turned round and pushed face downwards on to the chair. The whip cracked. A line of fire ran down his back and he shuddered. The Turks laughed and the whip snaked out once more. Despite himself, Jack grunted. The hands holding his shoulders dug into the flesh as fingers of pain etched across his back. After the tenth crack of the whip he screamed. His scream encouraged the Turks and the blows came faster. Jack slumped, lying half over the chair.

  ‘Stop!’ Von Erlangen came forward and took the whip. He rolled Jack off the chair to sprawl helplessly on the floor. Von Erlangen knelt beside him and placed the butt of the whip under Jack’s chin. ‘What were you doing in Petra?’

  Jack shook his head once more and Von Erlangen tossed the whip to one of the waiting men. ‘Carry on.’

  There was a frenzy of pain, of shouts, of laughter and through it all the ribbon of fire kept falling and rising. Von Erlangen retreated to the desk and smoked his cigar, placidly watching while a human being disintegrated before him. When the cigar was smoked down to the tip he ground it out in the ashtray and walked to Jack, kneeling beside him again.

  ‘John,’ he said quietly. ‘John.’ There was a silence, broken only by Jack’s laboured breathing. Von Erlangen ran his hand softly over Jack’s face and waited for the blurred eyes to focus. ‘John, look at me. You were in Petra because of the gold convoy, weren’t you?’

  A tiny light of defiance flickered in the dark eyes.

  ‘If you say yes, John, I can get them to stop.’ His voice was tender. ‘Please help me, John. I want them to stop. Was it the gold, John?’ Von Erlangen looked up, nodded, and the whip whistled out once more. Jack whimpered and tried to writhe away. ‘It was the gold, wasn’t it, John?’

  ‘Yes.’ His voice was a distant whisper.

  ‘Where are they taking the gold to?’

  Von Erlangen was swimming in and out of focus. Jack had a brief moment of clarity and summoned up his strength. ‘Go to the devil.’

  ‘I am the devil.’ He stood up and dusted off his knees. ‘Get on with it, Essad. I know you’re waiting.’

  He stepped back and watched, a quiet smile on his lips as the cloth was ripped from his victim’s body.

  There was a roaring in Jack’s ears as more blows landed. There was the smell of garlic and filth. He drew his head back and cracked his tormentor’s face as hard as he could and then the violence he had been dreading burst upon him. Shame twisted him as unclean hands grasped his body. He tried to roll away but there was nothing but this white wall of agony. As the Turks stood up, panting, something deep inside had fractured and was dying.

  Von Erlangen knelt beside him once more. He reached out and stroked Jack’s hair gently. ‘John, make them stop. Tell me where the gold is going to, John. I don’t want them to hurt you, John. Where is the gold going?’

  John. John. John could tell them. Jack wasn’t a traitor but this was someone called John. A tiny voice in his head whispered ‘No!’ but that, too, was dying.

  ‘Where is the gold going to, John?’ The voice was very tender and John wanted kindness then. ‘Where is the gold going to, John? Is it Petra?’

  It was so much easier to agree. ‘Petra,’ he breathed.

  Von Erlangen smiled and carried on stroking Jack’s hair. John turned his face so his cheek would be stroked too. ‘Who was flying with you, John? Who was the passenger in the plane?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Not . . . allowed . . . to . . . tell you.’

  Von Erlangen sighed and taking a poker from the fireplace, put it in the fire until the tip glowed bright red. He snapped his fingers and one of the Turks handed him a knife. He turned Jack over, cut the rope that bound his hands, then rolled him on to his back again. ‘You see, John, what you are making me do.’ He took one of Jack’s hands in his, then inspected the glowing end of the poker carefully. ‘If I put this on the back of your hands, the nerves will shrivel and you will be left with useless claws. You can’t fly then, can you?’ Von Erlangen lightly touched Jack’s knuckles with the glowing metal, watching his reaction with satisfaction. ‘You like flying, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you make me put it in your eyes, you’ll be blind. Blind pilots can’t fly. Now, who was flying with you?’

  Jack didn’t care about the future; there was only the present and all he wanted was the pain to stop. He watched as the poker came nearer, then threw back his head and screamed as it was pressed under his shoulder-blade. Von Erlangen held the poker close to Jack’s face.

  ‘Who was flying with you, John? Who was your passenger?’

  The red tip was flickering by his eyes. The heat from it was hurting.

  ‘Who was flying with you, John?’

  ‘Craig. Durant Craig.’

  There was an indescribable light in the ice-chip eyes. ‘Craig? Where’s Craig now?’

  ‘With the Arabs.’

  The poker still flickered by his eyes. ‘Which Arabs?’

  ‘The Beni Sakr.’

  ‘Are they going to Petra?’

  ‘Yes. Soon, very soon.’

  Von Erlangen put the poker back in the fire, smiled broadly and got up. ‘That’s all I need to know, John. You’re a traitor. Traitors aren’t fit to live.’ He looked at the Turks and gestured to Jack on the floor. ‘You can finish him off,’ he said in German. ‘Finish him off,’ he repeated in English, savouring the words.

  As the Turks closed in once more, Jack whimpered in terror and grasped Von Erlangen’s leg convulsively. ‘You said you’d make them stop.’

  Von Erlangen kicked Jack away in disgust, and walked to the desk, indifferent to the scene behind him.

  A soft, damp cloth washed his face. Jack flickered his eyes open. Freya was kneeling beside him, her face drawn with anxiety. She smiled in relief as he opened his eyes and said something
in German which he couldn’t catch. Her voice was kind and he felt a surge of gratitude. She had a basin full of water and was wiping the blood away from his wounds. Her hands were cool and gentle. She held a glass to his lips, but his throat was too dry to swallow and the water ran down the side of his mouth. Patiently, she tried again, and this time he was able to drink a little. ‘Did I tell them?’ he mumbled.

  She listened intently, obviously working out what he’d said. ‘Ja.’ She put the English words together with difficulty. ‘It is over now.’

  A great wave of despair washed over him. He was a traitor. He wanted to die.

  Von Erlangen was sitting, writing at his desk. Jack rolled himself over on to his elbows and crawled painfully across the room. Von Erlangen laid down his pen and waited for him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You said I could die.’ His voice broke. ‘Please.’

  Von Erlangen picked up a revolver from the desk and toyed with it before aiming it at him. Jack rested his forehead on his hands and waited, empty of all emotion.

  ‘No, Lothar!’ Freya Von Erlangen quickly crossed the room and put her hand on his.

  Von Erlangen paused with his finger on the trigger. ‘No?’ He lowered the gun. ‘It makes little difference to me.’ His eyes flicked back to Jack. ‘No. I won’t kill you, my dear John. You want it too much. Besides, the carpet you’re lying on is a Tekke Bokhara. It’s too valuable to soil with your brains. I’ll give you to the Turks. They might slit your throat for you.’ He picked up his pen and returned to his writing.

  ‘Was it worth it, Lothar?’ asked Freya in German.

  Von Erlangen clicked his tongue, irritated by the interruption. ‘Of course, my dear. Vital.’ He half-turned. ‘Ask Talaat to take him away, would you?’ He yawned, delicately covering his mouth with his hand. ‘My God, I’m tired. Yes, of course it was worth it. When Craig arrives we’ll be waiting for him.’

  The Turks didn’t slit his throat. They didn’t do anything much, apart from carry him to a prison cell, and leave him there. The next few days were spent in a daze. All Jack really knew was that Freya Von Erlangen helped him drink, helped him eat, cleaned and bandaged his wounds, and without her he would have died. He fell in love with Freya in those few brief days. Perhaps it was easier to think of Freya than of what he had done, but she filled his world and gave him the strength to live.

  Three days had passed before he was able to sit up and take stock of his cell. It was a bare mud-brick room, lit by a small slit of a window high up in the wall. There was no bed, just a blanket on a dried mud ledge against the mud wall and a bucket to use as a lavatory. It was crawling with vermin, which, if he hadn’t been so spent, would have revolted him. By the fourth day he was able to stand and was let out under the care of a bored Turkish guard to empty the bucket and to walk briefly round the yard. He was so clearly incapable of any resistance that the guard relaxed, leaning in the shade of the wall while Jack stumbled a few hesitant steps.

  One guard was inclined to be friendly. He had been a waiter in London in his uncle’s restaurant before the war and wanted to exercise his small stock of English. His name, he told Jack, was Basak. He was a keen supporter of Fulham Football Club and was disgusted to hear that football matches had been suspended for the duration of the war. Their halting conversation about Fulham, Arsenal, Manchester United and Preston North End must be, thought Jack, one of the most unexpected ever conducted in the sun-baked fortress of Q’asr Dh’an.

  It was Basak who gave him the news. The convoy had arrived in Petra and, under the eyes of Von Erlangen’s men, hidden in the city, had rendezvoused with the Beni Sakr, led by Craig. From what Jack could make out from the guard’s hesitant English, the convoy had left the gold and set off, back into the desert. The Beni Sakr celebrated their new wealth with much singing and dancing. At that moment Von Erlangen and the Aityeh had struck. It was, Jack gathered, a massacre. He didn’t want to know any more.

  About a fortnight later, Jack was sitting against the wall in the shade of the parade ground, Basak beside him. The gates of the fortress were open, and outside, a party of green-clad Turks toiled in the sun, moving rocks. Jack couldn’t think what they were doing, then it struck him he had seen men doing similar work before. More than that, he’d done it himself. He sat up, suddenly interested in the work beyond the wall. They were clearing a landing strip, surely?

  He turned to ask Basak if he was right, then decided against it. Basak probably wouldn’t know, and he didn’t want to betray any interest in the activity outside the fortress.

  Basak, indifferent to what was happening outside the gates, was deeply depressed. He wanted to go back to Turkey, to Anatolia. More than that, he wanted to go back to his uncle’s restaurant, where he was respected, the owner’s nephew, in his beloved London, where, one day, he wanted a restaurant of his own. He hated Q’asr Dh’an, he hated the desert, he hated the dust and most of all, he hated the Arabs.

  There was an abandoned city some distance from the fort, a place of gaping tombs and whispering ghosts, where the Arabs had massacred a party of Turkish soldiers. Most of the soldiers had been his friends. It was Beni Sakr work, led by that chief of all devils, Craig. The soldiers were mown down by machine-gun fire and horribly mutilated after death. The way the Beni Sakr treated their fallen victims was unmistakable. Basak pronounced Craig’s name Krig and it took Jack a few moments to work out who he meant.

  ‘Craig?’ he repeated stupidly. ‘But Craig’s dead.’

  Basak shook his head vigorously. ‘No. He escapes and kills many, many peoples.’

  The next evening, the gates of the fort stood open again. Jack looked yearningly at the outside. Was it a landing strip? With Basak beside him, he got as close to the gates as he could. No one paid him any attention as he stood in the dying light, in the shadow of the wall.

  He turned round as Freya approached. She looked worried. She drew him away from Basak who, with a shrug of indifference, leaned against the wall and picked his teeth.

  ‘John, listen to me,’ she said in German. ‘Oberst Hirsch will be here very shortly. He is being flown in.’

  Flown in? So he was right. It was a landing strip the Turks had constructed.

  ‘You are going to be questioned.’

  Jack’s stomach turned over.

  She glanced around to see if they could be overheard. ‘What do you know of the Beni Sakr?’

  ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

  Her face twisted. ‘They won’t believe you. I know you talk to Basak. He told you about the bodies? The bodies of our men?’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘Craig did it, Craig and the Beni Sakr. The gold was being taken to the coast. When it didn’t arrive we were told. My husband found the bodies. Oberst Hirsch is coming here to investigate.’ Her mouth quivered ‘My husband believes you will know where Craig and his Arabs have taken the gold.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said desperately. ‘I know nothing about it.’

  ‘He will kill you,’ she said quietly. ‘He is Ozymandias. He will watch you die and . . . and I don’t want you to die.’

  In the distance came the unmistakable growl of a Mercedes engine. Instinctively he looked up to see the tiny black speck in the sky.

  ‘Oberst Hirsch,’ she breathed. She reached out her hands to him. ‘I’m sorry, John, so sorry.’ She walked away, her head bowed.

  Basak came up beside him. ‘Time, yes?’

  ‘Let me see the plane,’ begged Jack, pointing to the rapidly growing speck. Basak, totally indifferent, shrugged and resumed picking his teeth.

  The plane, easily identifiable as a Rumpler Taube Dove, with its distinctive, bird-like wings, circled overhead, flying low above the fort.

  The pilot circled once more then came in to land, gliding down before rumbling to a halt on the sand. The pilot climbed out, stretched his shoulders, then hurried round to salute the officer now climbing out of the cockpit.

  Jack sank back into the shadows as Von Erlangen came a
cross the square. There were formalities and a few brief words, then the two senior officers went inside. The pilot relaxed and, catching sight of a Turkish officer, called out something about a drink. The Turk replied and the pilot walked over to him, obviously wanting to know the way to the Mess.

  The plane was tantalizingly close and Jack suddenly knew it was now or never. He would have to risk it and it would have to be now, while the plane was still warm, before the propellers needed to be turned to start the engine.

  Jack sprinted for the cockpit of the Dove and flung himself aboard. Basak, taken completely by surprise, didn’t react until Jack had clambered over the side.

  Jack lashed out and caught Basak across the throat, hearing him grunt with a real regret. He fumbled over the unfamiliar controls, then the plane roared into life and he was away, skimming over the level sand. He remembered that the controls were reversed and thrust the joystick forward, utterly exhilarated, as the plane soared into the air.

  From beneath him came the crack of rifles but he didn’t care. He wouldn’t care much if they’d hit him, as long as he didn’t have endure another interrogation. Glancing back, he saw the white faces like dots on the parade ground, then settled down to fly back to Petra. With any luck, the fuel dump would still be there and that would get him home.

  TEN

  It was incredible, thought Jack, that outside the window, the birds still sang and the lawnmower still clattered over the grass. He was in Hesperus, where he had fled to once before, wounded by Von Erlangen. Sitting in Uncle Phil’s homely library, in a sagging armchair, with a friend beside him, was like a second homecoming, an echo of that first. The solid reality of the present – the library, the books, the smell of cigars, the worn leather armchairs and, most of all, Arthur’s concerned face – grew, forcing the stomach-churning terror of the past back into yesterday, back into the sealed-up vault of the over-and-done-with.

  Only it wasn’t over and done with.

  Arthur Stanton let out a deep breath. ‘Bloody hell, Jack, I had no idea you’d been through anything like that. Why on earth didn’t you tell me before?’