Megiddo's Shadow (19 page)

As we lost sight of the men, the squeaking wheels and tuneless voice slowly faded away.

One last straggling Aussie on a pack mule clopped past us. “It's all yours, Tommies,” he said hoarsely, “the land that God forgot.”

With his words echoing in our ears, we mounted and followed the path into the valley. On the other side of the rums, Dr. Purves and two orderlies tried to wake up a trooper who appeared to have fainted.

It was a long ride before the Jordan Valley opened around us, distant shadowy hills lit by moonlight. It was well past midnight, but still it grew hotter. I had to work to suck in the heavy air.

We found our camp of bell tents, and it dawned on me that the Aussies had left the place hours before. The Turks could have moved in while we were in the hills.

“Can't wait for daylight,” Cheevers said. “I'm sure that'll bring a break from this heat.”

We fed and watered our horses, working through the night because the day would be too hot for us to lift a finger. As the sun rose it revealed a desolation only the Devil could've dreamed up: a low, flat valley of white marl and salt, spotted with swamp, stony plain, patches of dense scrub, and a thin layer of dry grass. The land had never known ram. Lumps of dried flesh—dead camels—lay here and there as though dropped from the sky, a sky that had never seen a cloud. A hot breath of wind drove the salty dust into my
eyes. Occasionally, a thirteen-pounder gun would roar just to let the Turks know that His Majesty's troops were still here.

Our section spent the morning oiling open water to kill the mosquito larvae. Flies and hornets attacked us, and under every stone lurked spiders, scorpions, or centipedes with huge pincers, the true rulers of this valley.

When we returned to our tents we learned that the man who had passed out in the valley had died. “Just gave up the ghost,” Pitts said. “Bembridge from B Squadron. His constitution couldn't take it. They'll bury him at Jericho.”

We were too sluggish to do much more than nod sadly. Had I known him? Trooper Bembridge. Poor sod.

It became so hot that we were ordered to rest in our tents. I stripped naked, but that only gave the sand flies more flesh to feast on. I tried to imagine playing hockey or making angels in the snow, to little effect. Even Cheevers couldn't get a wink in.

It didn't matter; whenever I closed my eyes I saw Emily, with a sad smile on her face. She'd been tattooed to my eyelids, to my thoughts. I couldn't escape the weight of my sorrow. I had often written letters to her in my head, but now I had no words for anyone, and no future to think about.

I recalled the moment I'd set my identification disk at Mother Mary's feet. I'd prayed for my safety, but why hadn't I prayed for Emily's? If I had, perhaps God would have tapped the bomb and turned it into a dud. It would have taken only the slightest effort for him to save her. Nothing more than a flick of the wrist. A bile filled my mouth.

Reveille sounded in the late afternoon, and I stumbled out into the oven, blinking away sweat. I passed a thermometer on a post. At the 115-degree mark someone had drawn an arrow and written:
This is where brains boil
. The thermometer read 132.

We layered three blankets on our horses' backs to prevent heatstroke. Buke's dark color sucked up every ounce of sweltering hotness, and he looked as though he'd been galloping for hours.

At lunch we had tea, which somehow seemed to cool my insides. When I opened my tin of bully beef I discovered that the meat had melted into a dripping soggy blob of fat. A mass of buzzing, fighting vermin attacked it, and I shook them off the tin, quickly forking two bites. The flies beat about inside my mouth, forcing me to spit it out.

“Don't waste food, Bathe.” Hargreaves was standing over me, holding two halters. “You and Cheevers, come along. We have to get the lieutenant's horses.”

I left my half-empty tin to the flies, and we trudged up a hill peppered with lava rock. Below us, troopers on horseback and lines of wagons trotted through the valley, raising a column of dust. “That's a ruse, to make the Turks think we're a battalion,” Hargreaves explained. “Don't get on my bad side or you'll be eating dust with them.” He laughed. It seemed as if ten years had passed since he'd killed that Turk.

We walked by a thousand or so horses made of reeds, complete with fake saddles and feed bags. It looked as though they were grazing on the hillside. The few Hun planes that spied on us would surely be fooled. Hargreaves
kicked one of the horses over. “If the Turks have fallen for it, we'll be outnumbered three or four to one, but don't let that bother you.”

“Bother me?” Cheevers said. “I'd welcome a tea party with Johnny Turk. We could stick bayonets in their bellies and use them as parasols.”

Hargreaves clapped him on the back and handed across the halters. “We need more ugly buggers like you! Go get the horses.”

Cheevers charged up the hill, and Hargreaves squinted toward the Turkish side of the valley. “Won't be long before we give 'em all a good pounding, Bathe. Then we can get out of this hell hole they call the Holy Land.”

I wasn't sure if he was trying to begin a conversation or not, so I kept quiet.

“Are you gettm' on well these days?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Good. I want my men to be fightm' fit and ready to spit fire. If you have any complaints, come to me. Do you understand?” He put a hand on my shoulder and I cringed a little.

“I do, Sergeant. Thank you.”

He tightened his grip, making me wince. “I know you whined to the lieutenant about that Turk.”

A chill, impossible with the heat, crawled over my skin. How long had he known?

“You're soft, Bathe. In the head, the heart, and the guts. Soft men die out here, or their softness leads to good men getting it. You have no place in this war.”

“I belong—”

“You don't have permission to speak!” He smacked me in
the stomach, shoved me onto the rocks, and put his boot on my chest. “If you go bellyaching behind my back again, I'll wring your neck. Just shut your gob and follow my orders, and you might survive.”

The rocks poked into my spine, but I didn't move. He waved his boot near my nose, then lowered his foot to the ground. “Get up, Bathe.”

I set my hand on the ground and felt a sharp pain on my wrist. “Ahhh!” I screamed. “Good God!”

A scorpion skittered away, tail raised. A pinprick on my hand bled freely and my fingers went numb. “I got bit!”

“Lordy me,” Hargreaves said with a laugh. “For the life of me, I can't remember what to do for scorpion bites.”

I yanked my knife from my belt and sliced a line across the sting, watching my blood flow out of the wound. I sucked and spat out blood and venom.

“What happened?” Cheevers yelled from above us. He was leading the horses down the path.

“Clumsy Bathe fell and was bit by a scorpion. You help him to the doc and I'll take the horses to Ranee.” Hargreaves grabbed the halters and left with the horses.

“Squeeze it out!” Cheevers said. I pinched droplets of blood onto the salty earth until my hand was stained red. “Harder, chum! You don't want to get poisoned. Harder!”

He helped me stand up and steered me onto the path. “I'll take you to Purves. How'd you fall?”

“I … tripped.”

I felt woozy and began seeing double as we stumbled slowly down the hill. An angry line from a trooper's song stuck in my head:

At the aid post, Dr. Purves greeted us. “You look like death warmed over, Trooper. What happened?”

“A scorpion bit me.”

“Nasty business,” he said, inspecting my hand. “You cut it open? Brave of you, but pointless. The next time you get bit, lower your arm and wipe the wound. We'd better get some Condy's into you.” He opened a packet. “Crystal permanganate of potash. This will sting, but it'll get rid of the venom.” He rubbed a handful into my wound. It stung worse than the scorpion had. I held still as Purves dressed the wound. “I would have given a seminar on snakebites and insect stings, but we left too quickly. You better take a cot.”

“But I have to water the horses.”

“Blackburn and I can do it,” Cheevers said.

“No. It's only a bite, for heaven's sake.” I said this even though I couldn't make a fist.

Dr. Purves pushed me toward a cot. “Lie down, Trooper Bathe. That's an order! You might start vomiting or having heavy heart palpitations.”

“See ya, chum,” Cheevers said, sweeping aside the tent flaps.

I lay back and a sudden bout of weakness washed over me. My arm was still on fire, and I was sweating. Still, I found the energy to chuckle.

“What's so funny, Trooper?” Dr. Purves asked.

“This is just our first day in the valley.”

*     *     *

Dr. Purves took good care of me. He was the only other person in the regiment who had known Emily. When I told him the bad news, he said, “Such a damn waste. She was a fine, dependable nurse and a bloody good woman.”

It was a week before I could use my hand properly again. By that time fifteen men had been taken with heatstroke and sickness. Another week passed and the count was over a hundred. The road became a tram of medical wagons leaving every morning, dust trailing behind them.

I watched my back whenever I was around Hargreaves. “You're kind of a useless tit until that hand heals properly,” he'd said, “so you've got dust duty.”

I joined the columns riding up and down the valley creating dust. All day I breathed it in and at night I coughed it out.

At one point a German aeroplane flew over our column and dropped pamphlets that read:
Flies die in July, men in August, and we will bury you in September
.

“At least they have a sense of humor,” Blackburn said.

After three long weeks, we were ordered out of the valley. Our numbers had been reduced from more than five hundred healthy men to a little more than a hundred and fifty. Thirteen had died. All we had left was enough to fill a squadron.

When night fell we rode back up the dusty path toward Jericho. As a joke, God sent a cloud our way that teased us with two or three raindrops. No one had the pep to talk. Halfway up the path yet another trooper fell off his horse and was tossed into a medical wagon.

The cloud spit on us some more; then the spit slowly turned into a warm shower, moonlight making the drops sparkle silver. We let out a ragged cheer and dismounted, taking off our sun helmets and opening our mouths to catch the ram. Then, as if a silent order had been given, we stripped naked. The officers watched from their horses and laughed. Ram washed off dust and sweat, revealing our young bodies, glistening white. We were barbarians about to charge naked into battle.

Chaplain Holmes rode up the line. “Cover thy nakedness!” he shouted, but he was grinning. “For shame! What would your mothers think?”

We mounted our horses again and rode on, wearing only our boots. As we passed our replacements, a regiment of Light Horsemen, the Aussies gaped at us.

“They've all gone barmy!” one shouted.

For the first time in months I felt completely clean. We left the Valley of Death behind us.

A
week later, Lieutenant Ranee led our motley squadron west toward the Mediterranean. He was now our highest-ranking officer, the only one still healthy enough to ride.

“Something's up,” Blackburn said. “In every camp we passed, men are training. There'll be action soon.”

We crested a hill to find a regiment of Indian lancers eyeing us from beneath their turbans. Most of their officers were British men who also wore turbans.

We dismounted next to them and picketed the horses. Giving Neddie's rope a good tug to be sure it was tight, Cheevers said indignantly, “We're not riding with cow-worshippmg Indians, are we? The brass have gone daft.”

“They're the Second Lancers,” Blackburn replied. “I did a quick head count and they're short a couple hundred men.”

Lieutenant Ranee disappeared into a tent with officers from the Indian regiment. The Indians looked cunning and angry, with neatly trimmed little beards or smooth faces. They outnumbered us three to one, but we glared back. What did we have in common with Indians?

A dark-skinned NCO, grinning crazily, crossed over to our side and sat cross-legged in the grass next to us.

“Hello. My name is Ranjeet Singh. May I say what an extraordinarily great pleasure it is to meet you!” At first I thought he was making fun of us, using such formal-soundmg words. “The regiment and I are extremely pleased you will be joining us.”

Cheevers made a raspberry and rolled his eyes.

“You are not equally pleased?” Ranjeet narrowed his eyes. “Upon such an insult, I once ripped the intestines from my enemy and fed them to the baying jackals.”

“You what?” Cheevers began to get up, but I pushed him back down. “He insulted me, Bathe. At least, I think he did.”

Ranjeet made a raspberry, then winked.

I laughed out loud. I couldn't help myself. Cheevers gave me a hard look; then I hit him in the arm and he laughed, too. “You were only joking!”

“Absolutely yes! Yes!” Ranjeet exclaimed. “A real wise-cracker, wasn't it? All the sowars laugh at my splendid humors.”

“They have to,” I said. “You're an NCO.”

Ranjeet guffawed, showing a gold tooth. He waved and several Indian sowars approached, sitting across from other troopers, exchanging cigarettes.