Scorpion Sunset Read Free Page B

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.
    â€˜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 bullet 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.
    â€˜They are being dishonoured.’
    Rebeka looked into Mrs Gulbenkian’s eyes.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜What else do you like in a woman, Major Knight?’ Georgiana flirted mildly as she stepped inside.
    â€˜Wit.’
    â€˜Beauty?’ Georgiana sat with her back to the driver.
    â€˜Can’t have everything, Dr Downe, and your spectacles are slipping down your nose.’
    â€˜My eye-glasses invariably slide down when I use face cream.’ She pushed them back up.
    â€˜Perhaps they’re telling you that you don’t need to use face cream.’
    â€˜Is that an attempt to flatter me?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜Harry wasn’t just my brother, he was my twin.’
    â€˜Even better, for you that is. So, to return to my favourite topic of conversation, me, do you consider me exceptionally good-looking?’
    â€˜Not enough to outweigh your faults.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜You drank too much at the lunch Charles organised when you, Peter Smythe, and my brother Michael came downstream after the surrender of Kut.’
    â€˜You kept a tally of what I was drinking? Knowing I’d been besieged,