Scorpion Sunset Read Free

the British POWs, who was to say that the men who’d settled for a full stomach weren’t right, when it looked highly likely they’d all be dead soon.
    â€˜Bloody fool,’ Crabbe muttered as Evans left.
    â€˜He is,’ John agreed. ‘But only a fool would be here. The wise men sorted themselves cushy berths in Whitehall before Force D was dreamed up by the Indian Office.’
    Crabbe gave a crooked smile. ‘You have to laugh.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜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 …’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Gentlemen, you are British officers?’
    â€˜We were,’ Crabbe replied dryly.
    â€˜Hauptmann Meyer at your service.’
    â€˜Major Mason,’ John indicated Crabbe, ‘Major Crabbe. Excuse us for not rising. We’re tired after taking our daily stroll, Captain Meyer.’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜So we’ve heard,’ John opened his packet of cigarettes.
    â€˜Our rank and file?’ Crabbe pressed.
    â€˜They need labourers to build the final sections of the Berlin-Baghdad railway.’
    â€˜Surely they won’t expect the men to work until they’ve recovered their health?’ Crabbe questioned.
    â€˜The Turks can and will, Major Crabbe.’
    â€˜Then they’ll kill even more of our men than they already have.’ Crabbe had difficulty containing his anger.
    â€˜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