‘The conditions in this camp are execrable,’ he railed at the German sergeant. ‘None of the men moving rocks outside were fit to work. These living conditions are not even fit for wild beasts. By your own admission you have no hospital or even a sick bay so men suffering from contagious diseases can be quarantined away from their healthy comrades.’
‘We keep the sickest men in here, and this is where you’ll find the officer you have been sent to replace, Captain Vincent.’ The German nodded to the guard who stepped forward and unlocked the metal cell door.
The cell was about fifteen feet square, stone walled and floored. The only light came from a small grating close to the ceiling. It took Vincent a few minutes for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. The smell was even more intense, foul, and overpowering than it had been in the corridor. He blinked and focused on three emaciated men slumped on the floor with their backs against the wall opposite the door. All three were dressed only in shorts without boots or shirts, and all were perspiring.
He stepped towards them. The quilts and blankets squelched beneath his boots, lice scurrying deeper into the folds of the bedding.
‘Captain Vincent, sir.’
He peered at the man who’d spoken. ‘Do I know you?’
‘Pearce, sir. You treated me when I was shot by a Turk in Kut.’
Vincent advanced towards the man. ‘How are you, Pearce?’
‘As you see, sir. I’ve been better.’ He held up his arms which were skinned and bloody.
‘What happened?’
‘Slipped down the rock face, sir, when I was gathering blasting debris. Caused a landslide that caught Radcliff and Purcell.’ He pointed to the men either side of him and Vincent saw that their hands, faces, and arms were as raw as Pearce’s.
‘I’ll see if I’ve anything that might help ease the pain.’ Vincent opened his doctor’s bag.
‘It’s not us you should be looking out for, Captain Vincent, it’s Major Crabbe, sir. He hasn’t moved or opened his eyes in two days.’ Pearce pointed to the corner.
Vincent went over too what he’d assumed was a bundle of rags. He used the tips of his fingers to move the quilt that covered Crabbe’s face and body.
Vincent checked Crabbe’s breathing and temperature before turning to the German sergeant. ‘This man’s face and body are badly bruised. What happened to him?’
The sergeant didn’t answer but Pearce did. ‘Major Crabbe took a terrible beating from the guards a month or so back and hasn’t been right since, sir, but the Turks drove him out to work just the same. He was complaining about pains in his chest before he collapsed.’
Vincent folded back the filthy blanket and ran his hands over Crabbe’s bare chest. He looked up at the German sergeant. ‘The state of this man is bloody disgraceful. He’s obviously been viciously attacked. He has two broken ribs and severe concussion. You have a moral duty to take care of these men, yet you have worked them …’
‘They are POWs and we have every right to work them,’ the German reminded him harshly. ‘They are paid for their work and we need that money to buy their food and pay for their lodging.’
‘Food and lodging. You call this lodging?’ Vincent demanded indignantly. ‘How much do these men get paid?’
‘Seven piastres a day, and every piastre is spent on them, but you cannot expect the Ottoman command to provide enemy soldiers with all the ridiculous luxuries they demand. We have our own troops to feed and care for. As for yours, we have complied with the conditions of the Hague Convention.’ The sergeant kicked a corner of Crabbe’s blanket. ‘We have given all of your British soldiers bedding, clothes, and food and we also allow them to rest when they are too lazy to work, as these men are.’
‘I see no care, and there is nothing in the Hague agreement about working men to death, and this man …’
‘Major Crabbe was beaten because he refused to obey orders.’ The Turkish commandant stood in the open doorway of the cell.
‘The conditions here are unacceptable and barbaric. The men are filthy, undernourished, and …’
‘They are prisoners, Captain Vincent, who refuse to wash or eat the food provided for them. If anyone is barbaric it is them. As they have thwarted all our efforts to clean themselves up we have assumed that they like living this way.’
‘Major Crabbe needs urgent medical attention, now.’
‘You are a doctor as well as an officer, are you not, Captain Vincent? You can treat him.’
‘I need medicine and bandages, not just for Major Crabbe, but these men, disinfectant, drugs, men to help me clean this cell and wash the bedding …’
‘You have money to pay for medicine, bandages, disinfectant, and replacement bedding while this is washed?’
‘I will sign a promissory note. The money will be paid by the British government at the end of the war.’
‘Not good enough, captain. If we provide these things and pay for them out of our own pocket we will never be reimbursed. Disinfectant, medicines, and bandages are expensive.’
‘I have two sovereigns.’
‘Three and I may be able to bring you some of what you ask for.’
‘Don’t give him anything, sir,’ Pearce warned. ‘He’ll take your money and give you nothing.’
The commandant nodded to the guard who held out his hand.
‘Three sovereigns, but only after I’ve seen what they will buy,’ Vincent warned.
The cell door banged shut. The men walked away. Vincent went to the door and shouted through the grille but the men kept on walking.
‘Welcome to the cemetery, sir.’
Vincent turned to Pearce. ‘Sorry, Pearce, what did you say?’
‘Welcome to the cemetery, sir. That’s what they call this place. Only one hundred and forty of us Dorsets reached here out of the three hundred and fifty who left Kut. Last headcount Major Crabbe took we were down to less than a hundred and that was a month ago.’
Chapter Twenty
Turkish Prisoner of War Camp
November 1916
John had slung a blanket around his shoulders but he was still shivering when he sat on the wooden bench on the veranda of the hospital. A cold wind blew dead dry leaves around the enclosed space, piling them high beneath the corners protected by the overhanging balconies. Rebeka left the building wrapped in an army greatcoat. She carried a tray that held a brass pot and three glasses. She set it on the table in front of John and took a small book from her pocket.
‘Are you sure you want to progress to written Turkish?’ she asked.
‘There’s no point in speaking a language if you can’t read it. The merchants could be adding half a dozen camels on to the bills they ask me to sign and I wouldn’t know.’
‘You would because I always check the papers before you sign them.’
‘You’re not always around, Rebeka, besides, I need something to take my mind off this place and your lessons are the highlight of my day.’
Rebeka laughed. He reflected it was a delightful sound before realising he’d never heard her laugh before, and rarely seen her smile.
‘Your days are very sad, Major Mason, if these lessons of ours are the highlight, and it’s cold out here. We would be warmer and more comfortable in the kitchen.’
‘But we wouldn’t get fresh air. All prisoners’ days are sad. None of us can go where we want, or do as we wish, but as prisons go this one is not as bad as some.’
‘You have been in other prisons?’ she asked in surprise.
‘Not as a prisoner, but as a visiting medic when I worked as an army doctor in India. I visited a military prison there once a week.’
Sergeant Greening walked across the garden with the colonel who was the longest-serving and highest-ranking British officer in the camp, and as such had been unanimously elected commander of the British POWs. John rose to his feet and saluted.
‘At ease, Mason. Mind if I join you?’
‘Not at all, sir. You’re welcome to join
us for our Turkish lesson. Sergeant Greening and I would welcome a new fellow pupil.’
‘I’m grateful you’ve seen fit to learn the lingo, Mason. But it’s beyond my capability. Language sounds like monkey gibberish to me.’ The colonel lowered himself carefully on to the end of the bench. He knew and John knew he had yet to recover from the ill effects of the fever he’d picked up on the march from Kut.
‘The commandant just came to see me. He asked if I’d have any objection to the Turks sending prisoners here from other camps for medical treatment.’
‘British prisoners, sir?’
‘He did say there might be a few French and Russians as well, but mostly British.’
‘What was your answer, sir?’
‘No objections whatsoever provided they give us the accommodation, equipment, medics, and orderlies we needed to treat them.’ He nodded to the nearest house outside the wire. ‘He said he’d look into requisitioning that place.’
‘Provided we have the rooms, drugs, and equipment, sir, I’d welcome the work.’
‘Thought you’d say that which is why I told him yes. Although he did warn that finding more POW medics to assist you might be a problem.’
‘Townshend allowed too many of our doctors to go downstream with the wounded when he surrendered Kut.’ John nodded when Rebeka offered him and the colonel tea.
‘Townshend made a great number of mistakes when he surrendered Kut. That was one of many and not the worst.’ The colonel took the glass Rebeka handed him.
‘The fact that he wants us to treat prisoners suggests that there are other POW camps within easy travelling distance of this place, sir,’ John commented.
‘It does. He also said that given the isolated nature of the countryside around here, the distance from the sea, and how far we are from any densely populated areas or railway lines, there’s talk among the higher echelons of the Turkish command of giving all British POWs greater freedom.’
‘In exchange for what, sir?’
The colonel hesitated then looked John in the eye. ‘Signed guarantees from every officer and orderly that we won’t try to escape.’
John fell silent.
‘So, my suspicions are correct, there are plans afoot in the camp?’
‘I’ve already said I won’t leave Turkey while any of our men remain in captivity and need medical care, sir.’
‘So I can rely on you to sign the guarantee and stay put, Mason. I wouldn’t expect any the less of you. But you’ve avoided answering my question.’
‘I know nothing about any escape plans, sir.’
‘And you’ve probably taken care to know nothing about the subject.’
‘I’m busy in the hospital, sir. I spend practically every waking hour here. I have no time left for gossip.’
‘I understand you. Be so kind as to pass down a warning from me. If anyone does manage to get out of this place, they’ve a long trek in front of them. The chances of any one of us, even the fittest – and heaven only knows there are few in here who can be described as even moderately healthy – walking to Russia, or reaching the coast, stealing a boat, and sailing to Cyprus are not good. Just ask anyone with thoughts running in either if those directions one question. Are they prepared to risk every man they leave behind being punished for what will undoubtedly turn into a foolhardy and failed attempt to gain their freedom?’
‘I’ll see that your message is passed on to all the officers and orderlies, sir.’
‘I suppose I can’t ask any more of you.’
‘Before you go, sir, is there any more news on the situation of the Armenians?’ John glanced at Rebeka. ‘I would hate to lose either of my nurses.’
‘The last time I spoke to the commandant about them was shortly after your arrival. I told him what you told me, that you found their nursing services invaluable. He hasn’t mentioned their presence here since, neither have I. Least said, least thought of, but I have noticed that the little girl, Hasmik, isn’t it?’
‘It is, sir.’ John confirmed.
‘Has become something of a favourite both with our men and the Turks. She adds a touch of humanity and home to this foul situation of ours.’ The colonel rose awkwardly to his feet and leaned heavily on his cane.
‘You should rest, sir,’ John advised.
‘If I rested any more I’d be dead, Mason. See you at the chess club this evening?’
‘If I’m not needed here, sir.’
‘Hope you’re not. You’re the only decent player we have.’
‘One day I may even beat you, sir.’
John looked at Greening after the colonel had left to walk back to the officers’ quarters. ‘You have some people you need to talk to urgently, Greening?’
‘I do, sir.’
‘Pass on the colonel’s message in it’s entirely.’
‘I will, sir.’
‘Do you think Mrs Gulbenkian, Hasmik, and I will be able to stay here with you until the end of the war, Major Mason?’ Rebeka asked after Greening had followed the colonel.
‘I hope so. We had mail again yesterday. I’ve been meaning to ask, has Mrs Gulbenkian heard from her cousin in America yet?’
‘No, sir, but she’s sure she will, and when she does he’ll send her money for passage to America for her and Hasmik.’
Rebeka felt the side of the small brass teapot. It was still warm so she refilled John’s glass and poured a tea for herself.
‘We’ve never really talked about your family, or Mrs Gulbenkian’s. You don’t have to now, but this war can’t last forever and we all need to make plans for when it’s over.’
‘Where will you go, sir?’
‘Back to my country I hope.’
‘To work as a doctor?’
‘With my father if he’ll have me.’ He began to tell her about Stouthall, the house he’d grown up in, and of his family, the clinic his father ran, how he’d like to turn his father’s hospital into a facility that catered for the men who’d become sick as a result of the wounds and injuries they’d sustained in the war. Then he realised, yet again she’d turned the subject away from herself.
‘What about your home and your family?’ he asked. ‘Will you return to your home town at the end of the war?’
She shook her head. ‘Mrs Gulbenkian and I have talked about it, but all our people are dead. Not just our families but our neighbours. Everyone we knew.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘All except Mariam, the sister I told you about.’
‘But you have Mrs Gulbenkian and Hasmik.’ John shivered. ‘I’m cold.’
‘So am I, but I warned you it was freezing outside, sir.’
‘So you did.’ He finished his tea, loaded the tray and led the way into the kitchen that served the hospital. Most of their food was cooked in the building that housed the junior officers and carried over to them but they used their small kitchen to make tea and toast bread.
She took the tray from him. He sat on the bench next to the stove, and held his hands out to the warmth.
‘Don’t tell anyone this,’ she looked over her shoulder before shutting the door, ‘but Hasmik is not Mrs Gulbenkian’s daughter.’
‘Then why would Mrs Gulbenkian say she is?’
‘She didn’t, really. I think you men just assumed Hasmik was Mrs Gulbenkian’s daughter.”
John thought about what Rebeka had said. ‘You’re probably right, but that doesn’t explain why Mrs Gulbenkian would want us to believe that she’s Hasmik’s mother.’
Because all they have left from the old life is each other.’
‘And you?’
She sat opposite him. ‘Mrs Gulbenkian was our neighbour. Her husband was murdered along with my father, my brother-in-law, and all the other men in the town. She had no children and because she had only herself to worry about, she stood up to the gendarmes who force marched us into the desert. Hasmik’s mother was the butcher’s wife. When they killed her and Hasmik’s sisters Mrs Gulbenkian held out he
r arms to Hasmik. None of the rest of us dared. Hasmik ran to her and Mrs Gulbenkian has taken care of her ever since.’
‘The only one of your family you’ve spoken about is your sister Mariam who was taken by the tribesmen. What happened to the others?’
She looked down at the floor and began to talk, and once she started she couldn’t stop. John sat beside the stove and listened as she recounted the horrors. How Mehmet, a common criminal that the Turks had made a gendarme and placed in a position of power over the Armenians, had tried to drag Veronika away from her mother, Mariam, Anusha, and her in the church, and how Mehmet had shot and killed Veronika and her mother when her mother had protested.
‘After Mehmet killed my mother he pointed his rifle at Mariam and me. Anusha went with him to save us. Only Anusha returned to us in the morning. The gendarmes took Veronika and my mother’s bodies in the night. I saw them lying next to those of my aunts when we were marched out the next morning. They were all naked and covered in blood. After the gendarmes finished using them, they killed all the women and girls who’d tried to fight them. Like my aunts had fought.’
‘What happened to your sister Anusha?’
‘She threw herself in the river when she could no longer bear to be used by Mehmet. She was shot before she drowned.’ Rebeka raised her eyes to John’s. ‘The guards used all the women, except the very old. Some of the children like Hasmik escaped sometimes because the older women hid them in the dark. They covered them with their skirts. But they didn’t always escape, and before the Arabs found us they used Hasmik. You know the guards used me too … they … they …’
She broke down, sank beside him on the bench and sobbed. Harsh, rasping sounds that tore from her throat and lungs. John slipped his arm around her.
‘What they did to you was disgusting and unforgiveable, Rebeka.’ He pulled a clean bandage from his pocket and handed it to her.
She took it wiped her eyes and straightened her thin shoulders. ‘I should have found the strength to kill myself as Anusha did. Or at least fight back like Veronika …’
‘You would have been killed, Rebeka, and life is precious.’
Scorpion Sunset Page 23
