Scorpion Sunset

by Catrin Collier

‘They called us Force D and sent us to Sinne. You know what the Arabs say about Mesopotamia. ‘When God created hell it was not bad enough so he made Mesopotamia …’

  ‘And added flies.’

  Crabbe and John turned to the man who’d spoken. An immaculately tailored German captain, who looked cleaner than any man had a right to given the country they were in, bowed and clicked his heels.

  ‘Gentlemen, you are British officers?’

  ‘We were,’ Crabbe replied dryly.

  ‘Hauptmann Meyer at your service.’

  ‘Major Mason,’ John indicated Crabbe, ‘Major Crabbe. Excuse us for not rising. We’re tired after taking our daily stroll, Captain Meyer.’

  ‘You British and your sense of humour. Major Mason, Major Crabbe. Cigarettes?’ Meyer took two packets from his tunic pocket and handed them one each.

  Crabbe eyed the captain suspiciously. ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘A gift to enemies I admire. The odds were stacked against you but you fought bravely, and held out through many more months of siege than your king or country could reasonably expect of you. Skeletons would be fatter than your officers and men.’

  John asked. ‘Do you know where we’re being taken?’

  ‘The Turks don’t confide in us Germans and contrary to what you might have heard, German Command doesn’t wield any authority over our Ottoman allies, but I suspect you’ll be taken to Turkey and housed well away from the front lines.’

  ‘So we’ve heard,’ John opened his packet of cigarettes.

  ‘Our rank and file?’ Crabbe pressed.

  ‘They need labourers to build the final sections of the Berlin-Baghdad railway.’

  ‘Surely they won’t expect the men to work until they’ve recovered their health?’ Crabbe questioned.

  ‘The Turks can and will, Major Crabbe.’

  ‘Then they’ll kill even more of our men than they already have.’ Crabbe had difficulty containing his anger.

  ‘I have a cousin who was captured on the Western Front. He wrote to his mother from a prison camp in England to assure her that he is being treated well, as are all his fellow German POWs. Germany is caring for the British POWs just as conscientiously. I know, because my father is in charge of one of the prison camps and he takes his responsibilities for the welfare of the soldiers who have surrendered to the Germans very seriously. But the Turks,’ Meyer shrugged, ‘are different. They do not place the same value on life as we Europeans. I doubt ten out of every hundred British soldiers here will live to see your country again. Good evening, Major Mason, Major Crabbe.’

  Armenian Christian Apostolic Church, Kharpert Plain, Ottoman Empire

  April 1916

  An icy cold permeated upwards from the flag-stoned floor and filtered through the stone walls of the church. It froze the air and Rebeka’s blood. It didn’t help that she, like all the Armenian women and children packed into the building at rifle point by Turkish gendarmes, was too paralysed by fear to move. Terrified of what lay ahead, surrounded by the dispossessed, deafened by the wails of hysterical women and the cries of children upset by the sight of their mothers’ tears, she remained crouched on the floor, aware that whatever fate had in store, it was out of her hands.

  Like their menfolk who had been ordered to report to the town square three days ago, the women and children had been told to make their way to the church at two o’clock that afternoon with sufficient food for three days’ travel and a change of warm clothing. After waiting patiently in a slow-moving line for over an hour a Turkish gendarme had ticked her, her mother’s, grandmother’s, and sisters’ names off a list so thick it resembled a book.

  Her mother had settled their family as close as she could to the altar rail on the premise that proximity to hallowed ground would ensure God and the Blessed Virgin would look after them, especially her grandmother, who was confused as to what was happening. Their neighbour Mrs Gulbenkian, the dairyman’s wife, laid claim to a patch of floor next to them.

  ‘You know all our men are all dead?’ she whispered.

  ‘How dare you suggest such a thing?’ Rebeka’s mother demanded indignantly. ‘The men have been marched south to work on farms where we will join them.’

  ‘You choose to believe the gendarmes’ lies?’

  ‘They wouldn’t have asked the men to bring warm winter clothes as well as food for three days if they had meant to kill them. The gendarmes would have shot them in the town square when they assembled. They collected them to work in the fields to produce food for the Ottoman Army. Everyone knows that the Turks make poor farmers.’

  ‘They want to get rid of all of us Armenians because we are Christians. The Turks want a Muslim country, which is why they killed our men. The gendarmes shot the old men who couldn’t walk and the cripples first,’ Mrs Gulbenkian asserted.

  ‘They loaded them into carts. I saw them pass at the end of our road. As soon as the carts were out of sight of the town, the gendarmes pulled the weakest from the carts and shot them. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear the sound of the rifles.’

  ‘They were warning shots.’

  ‘The American missionary Mr Brackett and Mr Bilgi followed the men when they were marched out. Mr Brackett told me himself that he had seen the bodies of all our men, including the old and the crippled. He recognised your husband’s corpse and my husband’s, and Anusha’s Ruben. Every last one of them, all of them had been shot and their bodies heaped up in Green Horse Canyon.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Rebeka had never seen her mother react so fiercely. ‘And I’d appreciate you keeping your lies and stories to yourself, Mrs Gulbenkian. Do not repeat them in front of my mother and daughters.’

  ‘First they killed the men, now it’s our turn,’ Mrs Gulbenkian persisted. ‘Soon there’ll be no Christian Armenians in Turkey or the whole of the Ottoman Empire. They only waited three days to collect us so they could be sure there’d be no men left in hiding to fight for us or our honour.’

  ‘Enough! Stay away from my family!’ Rebeka’s mother ordered.

  Mrs Gulbenkian shrugged and turned her back to them.

  ‘Do you think Mrs Gulbenkian could be right?’ Rebeka whispered into her mother’s ear.

  ‘I think she is talking a lot of nonsense. Look after Mariam and your grandmother while I see to Veronika and Anusha. Too many of the gendarmes are looking at them for my liking.’

  Rebeka, the second of four daughters, had long accepted that she was the ‘plain one’. She had been relegated to working in the jewellery business founded by her maternal grandfather, because there was little hope of her attracting a financially secure husband. She didn’t resent her status, though; rather she revelled in the independence it gave her, like her mother’s spinster sister.

  Her mother retied the scarves around Anusha and Veronika’s heads so the cloth hid as much of their faces as possible, as well as their hair. Mrs Gulbenkian occasionally looked in their direction but when Rebeka’s mother glared back at her she didn’t attempt to speak to them again.

  Time crept on. The shadows lengthened and more and more of the gendarmes entered the church. Apparently oblivious to its holy purpose they shouldered their rifles as they stood in front of the door, laughing and joking amongst themselves. Occasionally one of them would point to an exceptionally pretty girl and the others would snigger and make lewd comments.

  Her sister Veronika was the first to be singled out. The gendarme who grabbed her arm, Mehmet, had always had an eye for her, and a reputation every girl in the town feared. When he tried to drag Veronika forcibly from them, her mother screamed and clung to her, locking her hands around Veronika’s waist.

  Horrified, Rebeka grabbed Veronika’s leg, Anusha her arm.

  ‘You will not dishonour my daughter.’

  Those were the last words her mother spoke.

  Mehmet released his hold on Veronika, and her mother clasped her in her arms. He turned, lifted his rifle, aimed, and fired.

  The bul
let lodged in Veronika’s temple.

  Her mother screamed. A second gendarme fired. Her mother’s body fell across Veronika’s.

  Mehmet reloaded his rifle, pointed it at Rebeka and Mariam, and stretched out his hand to Anusha. Her eldest sister didn’t protest, she rose and allowed herself to be led outside, as so many other girls were.

  The church door remained open. The screams of the ‘chosen’ women and girls wafted in, high pitched, harsh, disturbing and discordant.

  ‘They are being dishonoured.’

  Rebeka looked into Mrs Gulbenkian’s eyes.

  ‘Come, child, I’ll help you cover your mother and sister.’

  She took two sheets from one of the bags her mother had packed and handed one to Mrs Gulbenkian. The whole time she helped the older woman lay out her mother and younger sister, she listened to the screams and wondered when it would be her turn to be ‘dishonoured’.

  Chapter Two

  Basra

  May 1916

  Dr Georgiana Downe left the Lansing Memorial Mission House, where she lived with the staff when she wasn’t on duty in the Lansing Mission Hospital, and closed the front door behind her.

  ‘Good. That’s what I like, a punctual woman.’ Major David Knight stepped down from the carriage he’d hired and held the door open for her.

  ‘What else do you like in a woman, Major Knight?’ Georgiana flirted mildly as she stepped inside.

  ‘Wit.’

  ‘Beauty?’ Georgiana sat with her back to the driver.

  ‘Can’t have everything, Dr Downe, and your spectacles are slipping down your nose.’

  ‘My eye-glasses invariably slide down when I use face cream.’ She pushed them back up.

  ‘Perhaps they’re telling you that you don’t need to use face cream.’

  ‘Is that an attempt to flatter me?’

  ‘Not at all, you wouldn’t be with me if you were too ravishing. I’m allergic to women who are more handsome than me.’ He sat opposite her and ordered the driver to move on.

  Georgiana laughed. ‘Harry used to warn me about good-looking men who were too besotted with themselves to love anyone or anything else.’

  ‘I miss Harry. Life was always fun when he was around. Everyone who knew him adored him. You were fortunate to have him for a brother.’

  ‘Harry wasn’t just my brother, he was my twin.’

  ‘Even better, for you that is. So, to return to my favourite topic of conversation, me, do you consider me exceptionally good-looking?’

  ‘Not enough to outweigh your faults.’

  ‘For a woman who’s only met me in the company of others until this moment, you have very decided and fixed opinions on my personality.’

  ‘You drank too much at the lunch Charles organised when you, Peter Smythe, and my brother Michael came downstream after the surrender of Kut.’

  ‘You kept a tally of what I was drinking? Knowing I’d been besieged, under fire, and starved in Kut for months and months.’

  ‘Harry’s warnings about unsuitable men also extended to drunkards.’

  ‘That’s rich coming from Harry. I’ve watched him open a fresh bottle of brandy when every other man in the room was under a table.’

  ‘Including you?’

  ‘Including me,’ he conceded. ‘Every man with sense drinks too much in war. It’s the only escape.’

  ‘I’m tired of discussing you.’

  ‘Surely not – but never mind, we can always return to the riveting subject later.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You need to ask? How long have you lived in Basra?’

  ‘This is only my second free evening since I arrived and I slept through the first. I don’t know how hard you work in the Basra Military Hospital but we doctors in the Lansing Memorial are drowning in patients. Not just the Turkish POWs you send us but the locals who can’t get treatment anywhere else. Our shifts last round the clock.’

  ‘So you know nothing of Basra’s wonderful nightlife?’

  ‘From what Michael tells me, it’s centred on the Basra Club, the Basra Club, and the Basra Club.’

  ‘Your younger brother is right. Although he seems to have found an interesting place to live. Abdul’s has quite the reputation among British officers.’

  ‘Michael lives there from a sense of duty.’ She had trouble keeping a straight face as she said it and he knew it.

  ‘Don’t tell me you believe what you’ve just said.’

  ‘A war correspondent needs to keep up-to-date with events and from what I gather most events in Basra start in the back rooms of Abdul’s. Or so Michael tells me.’

  ‘Or upstairs in the brothel,’ David added. ‘Or so Harry told me. He had a room there too.’

  ‘I know, I used to write to him there when I worked in London.’

  ‘About this dinner …’

  ‘You’re wondering if I’d prefer to eat in the respectable security of the dining room or risk scandal by accompanying you to one of the private rooms?’ she questioned.

  ‘Some of the private rooms are very comfortable.’

  ‘With bedroom and bathroom attached, or so I’ve heard.’

  ‘I’ve been told that too. So, public dining room it is.’

  She smiled. ‘The privacy afforded by a private room may help me to understand you better.’

  ‘You want to understand me?’

  ‘I’m curious as to whether or not you deserve your reputation.’

  ‘I have a reputation?’ He gave her the full benefit of his smile.

  ‘You didn’t know?’ She had to concede, if only to herself, that he was very good-looking. Possibly the most handsome man she’d ever met. His hair was white-blond, his eyes a deep cerulean blue. Piercing and full of mischief.

  ‘You amaze me.’ He laughed a deep throaty chuckle that had the effect of broadening her own smile.

  ‘You most certainly do among the nurses who’ve worked with you,’ Georgiana elucidated. ‘I would like to discover if you’re really as dangerous and wild as they’ve suggested.’

  ‘I take it that you have talked to these nurses who’ve been privileged to work with me?’

  ‘Angela Smythe organises tea parties for them. She invited me along.’

  ‘I thought you were too busy working for a social life.’

  ‘I manage to spare the odd hour occasionally to drink tea.’

  ‘What happens if you find out that I’m not “dangerous and wild”?’

  ‘I’d be disappointed.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It would mean that I’d have to look elsewhere for excitement on my rare leisure evenings.’

  Northern Mesopotamian Desert

  May 1916

  The ground was even colder than the air, the only warmth emanating from Mariam’s small body as she lay across Rebeka’s lap. Rebeka pulled her sister even closer, covering her ears with her skirt as the women who’d been picked to ‘entertain’ the guards that night were dragged from the group. A few – those who had not yet learned that fighting back wasted energy better put to use in trying to survive – screamed and attempted to lash out at their assailants. The only rewards they received for their efforts were beatings.

  Rebeka saw her sister Anusha rise when Mehmet beckoned and her heart went out to her.

  ‘Even as a baby everyone could see Anusha was going to be a beauty, not just in your family but in the town. Men’s heads would turn when she passed them in the street when she was small. It pains me to sit here and watch while that filthy beast puts his hands on her. He’s not fit to wipe her boots …’

  ‘What was that you said, Grandma?’ A guard thumped Mrs Gulbenkian’s ankle with the barrel of his rifle.

  She stared up at him defiantly. ‘I said we need food, water, and milk for the children.’

  The man laughed. ‘And where do you think we’re going to get them? There are no shops here.’ He lifted his head and stared up at the sky, ‘Only the heavens. You’re a Chris
tian, pray to your God. He might send something down.’ The man grabbed Rebeka’s chin, and wrenched it towards him. Rebeka closed her eyes but she still sensed the man staring at her.

  ‘You’re ugly.’ The man released Rebeka and grabbed the girl next to her. ‘You’ll do.’

  Rebeka exhaled slowly lest he detect her relief. She felt sorry for the milkman’s daughter who’d been sitting beside her but not sorry enough to volunteer to take her place. She opened her eyes again and winced as fingers clamped painfully on her shoulder, digging into her flesh.

  ‘I’ll take care of Mariam.’ Mrs Gulbenkian reached out and lifted Mariam from Rebeka’s lap.

  Rebeka didn’t protest. She’d tried to fight the first time she’d been ‘chosen’ and still bore the swellings and bruises.

  The gendarme dragged her to the fringe of the group of women. He grabbed the neck of her dress.

  ‘Strip!’

  It was her last and only garment. If he tore it from her she’d be left naked, as some of the other women already were. She did as he ordered and stood before him, shivering. He poked and prodded her breasts and thighs, laughing as he did before pushing her to the ground and kicking her legs apart. All around, women and girls were suffering the same indignities she was being subjected to.

  The man unbuckled his trousers and dropped them before landing on her, bruising her flesh. His breath stank of rotting food, his body of filth and stale sweat. His eyes, wide dark pools in egg-shaped whites, stared crazily into hers.

  She left him and what he was doing to her and retreated to her ‘memory table’. One of the best gifts her grandmother had given her and her sisters. She could still hear her grandmother’s voice the first time she told them about it.

  ‘Everyone has a memory table, but not everyone knows how to use it. The women in our family lay them with Great-Grandmother’s lily-embroidered linen cloths, the white ones we keep for Easter and birthdays, but they are not set out with plates, silverware, almond cakes, and wine. They are furnished with your own very special memories. Some gleam silver with reflected moonlight, some with the tarnished light of the dying sun on a summer’s evening, and some dance, bright and cheerful: red, pink, white, cream, and blue, like newly opened flowers at sunrise. But be careful to select only the best. The ones when you were happiest.