Winds of Eden by Catrin Collier Read Free Book Online

matting, their owners’ protests silenced by liberal donations of silver rupees from General Townshend’s war chest. The result was a prospective battlefield within the town where communications could be carried by runners from one battalion to another and troops swiftly deployed to any area under attack if – or what was more likely – when the Turks broke through the outer defences.
    Their boots scuffed the unmade roads as they avoided stinking pools of stagnant effluents. They passed mud brick houses and clumps of palm. On their right, at the eastern edge of town, the ink-black outline of the town’s gibbet stood high above the riverbank, reminding Peter of a woodcut illustration he’d seen in a book of medieval torture.
    By tacit agreement they shouldered their kitbags and quickened their steps.
    â€˜It’s cold enough to addle a man’s brains and frost his eyes.’ Peter pulled his muffler higher over his face.
    â€˜Not to mention shrivel his balls. There I go, showing my gutter origins again.’ Crabbe was a phenomenon rare in the British Army until the onset of war had decimated the ranks of officers. He was a ‘ranker’, a private who’d risen beyond sergeant to second lieutenant and on to major by dint of brilliant soldiering.
    â€˜I’ve been meaning to ask. Do you ever regret leaving the ranks?’ Peter side-stepped to avoid a mound of slimy, foul-smelling, mouldering vegetable waste.
    â€˜I did until peacetime soldiering became wartime soldiering. It’s easier for an officer to accept a ranker when he sees one ducking the same bullets. What hurt the most was the reaction of the non-commissioned officers. I felt orphaned when they told me I was no longer welcome in the sergeants’ mess.’
    â€˜As an officer they never allowed me in, but judging by the noise emanating from their quarters on celebration nights, the non-coms know how to enjoy themselves.’
    â€˜That they do,’ Crabbe agreed.
    â€˜Talking of the mess, why did I agree to leave a nice warm room to accompany you on this mission of mercy?’
    â€˜Because you’re kind.’
    â€˜More like the mess was so warm I’d forgotten how cold it is out here. It only seems like yesterday we were complaining it was hot enough to fry eggs in the sun, not to mention our boots and brains. Now it’s too damned cold for penguins.’
    â€˜How many of those have you seen lately?’ Crabbe asked.
    â€˜Don’t be pedantic. Why the hell do we have to fight in this cursed land of extremes?’
    â€˜Because king and country put us here.’ Crabbe, the elder by more than twenty years, answered philosophically.
    â€˜They should have put us somewhere else.’
    â€˜Like the Western Front?’
    â€˜At least we’d be within kicking distance of Piccadilly. I’ve forgotten what London looks like.’
    â€˜You’d only see it if you were given Blighty leave.’
    â€˜Leave – what’s that?’ Peter feigned innocence.
    â€˜It’s described in your officer’s handbook.’
    â€˜Johnny Leigh collected all the ones he could find in our billet last night to feed the stove.’
    â€˜Did they keep you warm?’ Crabbe enquired.
    â€˜Not for long.’
    They continued past the ordnance and a row of private houses that had been knocked into a single building by the engineers and transformed into a general hospital by the Medical Service. The entire street had been commandeered. The bank and exchange was now a dressing station for the sepoys and the largest private house requisitioned and converted into an officers’ hospital.
    Mules, awaiting transfer to the cooks, brayed in the makeshift slaughter house as they skirted the Indian and Gurkha billets.
    â€˜I could get used to this quiet,’ Crabbe commented.
    â€˜Quiet! Can’t you hear the screams of the Turkish wounded in