Scorpion Sunset by Catrin Collier Read Free Book Online Page B

glowing in the embers of what would have been a cook fire if they’d had anything to cook.
    He stretched, rose, and walked over to the tent Greening and Dira had erected. Behind it under the watchful eye of Baker and Roberts, lay the bodies of four men who’d died during the night.
    â€˜Have you been on duty long?’ John asked Baker.
    â€˜Relieved Sergeant Greening ten minutes ago, sir. The natives have been creeping out and about under cover of night. The sergeant was concerned they might try to steal the clothes and boots from the dead.’
    â€˜We need to dig a grave.’
    â€˜Already done, sir. Jones and Williams finished it before they turned in. Sergeant Greening told us to hold off putting the bodies in it until this morning.’
    John nodded. He’d expected six, not four deaths in the night. He ducked into the tent. Greening was sitting bolt upright, his back against a tent pole, but his eyes were closed and judging by the noise he was making, he was sound asleep. Dira was watching over the four men lying on ground mats.
    John examined them. All four had dysentery and two were so dehydrated he hadn’t expected them to last the night but they still clung to life. The other two were burning with fever. He opened a water bottle and moistened their lips.
    â€˜Private Jones caught a couple of fish last night, sir,’ Dira volunteered,
    â€˜Edible ones?’
    â€˜We’ll find out at breakfast, sir. About the burial party …’
    â€˜We’ll leave it until the sun is up, Dira.’
    John left the tent and looked out over the desert. Touched by the first rays of sun the gravel was turning gold. Soon the sun would blister the air until it wavered in mirages. The air temperature would rise from cool, to warm and before the hour was out reach unbearably hot where it would remain until sunset.
    He wished he’d slept longer, remaining in that other wonderful world that had begun to haunt him. A world where he was sailing … to where?
    Home? With a woman who loved him. He thought of Maud, the way she’d looked at him whenever they’d been alone together. A secret look he’d believed she’d kept just for him … then he remembered her baby.
    Baghdad
    May 1916
    The house was no different from any of the others that lined the street opposite the bazaar, except in size. It was treble the width of its neighbours. The outside was plain, with nothing to indicate the inner life lived behind the four-storey walls. The front was studded with massive heavily carved double doors that looked as they would withstand a battering ram. High above them a roof terrace capped the building. Thatched by swathes of palm matting, it afforded some shade from the glare of the sun.
    A tall slim Arab dressed in a gumbaz and abba, his head covered by a kafieh and plain black agal, stood behind the balustrade. Coffee cup in hand, he watched a procession of ragged, sick British troops being whipped and bullied by Turkish soldiers and Arab irregulars as they were driven along the street and through the entrance to the bazaar. A few had tabs on the collars of the remnants of their tunics. Tabs that identified them as British officers, but officer or rank, all were clothed in rags and most were doubled over by the pain of dysentery or cholera.
    The natives lining the streets shouted, screamed, and jeered at the men, spitting in their faces and throwing slops at them whenever they passed within range. But most of the Jews and Christians in the crowd stood back in sombre silence, to the annoyance of the guards who frequently lashed out at them as well as their prisoners.
    A shorter, slighter man wearing an eye patch joined the Arab on the terrace. He stood next to him watching the scene being played out far below for a few minutes before speaking in Arabic.
    â€˜They could have marched the British along the river where there wouldn’t have been so many people to throw filth at