Redemption. - Redemption. Part 46
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Redemption. Part 46

"Fascinating," Jeremy said.

"For the military they must be way better than a horse when it comes to transport," Rory said.

"How's that?"

"I've had them up in the mountains at night. They don't spook at fire or noises. Ever watch their ears turn in the direction of sound? I'd wager they are excellent sentries."

"How high is your average mule?"

"Our bucks ran around thirteen hands, jennies a hand shorter."

"How much did you feed them a day?"

"Oh, I'd say twenty pounds of mix."

"What will they carry?"

"About three hundred pounds, including their pack."

Ellsworth went into the art of packing, knots, ties, halters, common ailments, care, sanitation. In the ensuing hours the Captain did not elicit a wrong or unsure answer. If this Landers chap didn't know, he'd just say so.

At last Captain Ellsworth held up his hands and looked to Lieutenant Hubble to see if there were any further questions. "Thank you, Private Landers," Jeremy said. "If you'll wait outside we'll call you back, shortly. Oh, by the bye, Tarbox tells me you knocked out the Aussie heavyweight champion."

"Big target, sir. He was wide open."

When the door was closed, Captain Ellsworth nodded in the affirmative and Serjeant Major Tarbox grinned widely. "Hubble, if you don't want him, I'll take him," the Captain said.

"I pray to God he writes well enough to put together a simplified manual."

"I've just the man to actually write the manual, sir," Tarbox said quickly.

"Who is he?"

"Private Chester Goodwood. Actual fact, he's English."

"Does he know anything about mules?"

"He knows about writing. He wrote the love letters for half the lads aboard the Wagga Wagga. I mean he used words like 'jasmine blooming in the spring.'"

"And he's a pal of yours?"

"Sir, this kid's old man is Sir Stanford Goodwood, a big-time banker in Hong Kong. He'll be of unspeakable value when it comes time to work out the logistics."

"Very well, we'll interview him later," Jeremy said. "So, you wouldn't hesitate to give Landers a go as paddock master?" Jeremy confirmed with the Captain.

"I'd wager on him," Ellsworth retorted.

"I have a good feeling, too," Jeremy said. "He's not a wild man, is he, Tarbox?"

"We're Kiwis, sir. We're not like that Aussie crowd, no sir. Rory Landers has a very sweet disposition."

"We still need several more key men, Captain, and I don't see them here," Jeremy worried.

"Let me look over some of the people at my base," the Captain offered. "We've a couple of groups arriving with mule experience. There's a Punjab battalion of mule-packed mountain howitzers. I'll find you a good packer and trail boss. Sikhs, you know, fierce fighters."

"The turbaned chaps?"

"Yes, and they all speak English. You will need a veterinarian. A lot of the horse care and mule care is the same but, nonetheless, mules have their special problems. Hummm, see here. We've gotten in a group of Palestinian Jews who we will be training for our transport. Some of these chaps ran mules for the Russian Army, I'm told, and used mules for farming in Palestine. There's bound to be several vets among them or, at least, someone with enough background to do the job.... Let me jot a note here...Punjab packer...Jew vet, English-speaking..."

Rory was once again welcomed to be seated.

Landers, we've had to diddle you about for reasons of military security. What I tell you now is still hush-hush for several days. Kindly hold your breath before you scream"

Rory closed his eyes and braced himself.

"Captain Ellsworth here is the chief veterinarian for the British divisions stationed in the south."

"I figured the Captain to be a vet," Rory said.

"You're shipping me to the mules, aren't you?"

"No, we're shipping the mules to you. All cavalry units have been disbanded and are being recommissioned as infantry, mostly. The Seventh New Zealand Light Horse is now the mule transportation battalion for the Anzac forces."

"No cavalry, sir?"

"No cavalry. One does not question command decisions and orders. It is apparent, is it not, that there will be no need for cavalry in the upcoming campaign. I want you on the gaffer squad as a troubleshooter for anything and everything as we make this transformation. Your main assignment now is to write a manual, and after that you will be the battalion's paddock master in charge of the four to five hundred mules we are expecting. And, to ease any pain and put you in the proper mood, there are first serjeant's chevrons to go with the job."

"Congratulations, Landers," Captain Ellsworth said.

"Captain, let us be off to the mess. I'll see you gentlemen in two hours. Bring along this, uh, Good...?"

"Goodwood, Chester Goodwood."

Rory was a knot of intertwining bulging muscles, jaws clamped, fists clenched, neck veins distended. He turned to Johnny Tarbox with "killer" written all over him.

"You dirty no good son of a bitch!" Rory commented. "You knew about this yesterday. You fed me to these fucking mules when you went through my questionnaire. You could have torn up the fucking questionnaire. They'd have never known! You rotten son of a bitch!"

"Oh, I betrayed you, that it?"

"You son of a bitch!"

"All right, so I dispose of your questionnaire, then what? You end up shoveling shit in the paddock as a fucking private. Want a transfer! Fuck yes, I'll get you a fucking transfer to the fucking infantry and you'll march in the fucking desert in the fucking sun till you fucking drop! You! You ought to be kissing my feet, you asshole. First Serjeant chevrons! Five fucking years in the Royal Marines and I'm a fucking lance corporal and ten minutes and you're a first serjeant! You dumb shit! There is no cavalry! And they didn't consult me on the matter!"

Rory fell into a chair and blinked. As the enormity of Johnny's recommendation sank in, Rory put his face in his hands. "I'm sorry, Johnny," he sniffled.

"And me, going into the ring with that fucking Butcher monster and letting him rain blows on me."

"I said I'm sorry. I really mean I'm sorry."

"And know something?" Tarbox said standing over Rory. "You should kiss my feet for getting you into the gaffers with the only decent pommy officer in Camp Anzac."

"You going to keep ragging on me, now? I said I'm sorry."

"Lookit these pommies," Tarbox went on, "and remember how lucky we are to have Lieutenant Hubble. What's more, he's a genuine blue blood, a viscount. Fucking son of a fucking earl, that's what!"

Rory looked up to Johnny and Johnny became worried. "What's the matter with you, Rory?"

"They're Ulstermen. Is he...is he the son of the Earl of Foyle?" Rory rasped.

"Something like that."

"Jeremy and Christopher Hubble," Rory whispered. "Jeremy Hubble."

63.

After several individual forays into Cairo, Serjeant Major Tarbox and Rory Landers, sporting his new first serjeant chevrons, got the distinct impression that Cairo was not Paris.

Rory had come from the stillness of Christchurch into the bombast of an untidy swarm of crowds, shrill sounds, impatient horns, wild aromas, glaring sun, strangely hidden women in black, unkempt streets-all a confused bazaar that was the ancient system of order the Cairenes thrived in.

The city was now host to a new army, and every vendor and every beggar, bar, brothel, omnibus tour, cameleer, and merchant reacted. Thousands of newly minted and carved genuine ancient artifacts, as well as a brigade of guaranteed virgin prostitutes, suddenly appeared.

The influx of soldiers' cash and their enormous thirsts produced foul vetches of native wines and beer leaving a trail of upchucks and near blindness.

The greed of the sellers was boundless. It was not as though they had invited this foreign army to their city.

In short order the Anzacs and the British despised Cairo, and the feeling was mutual except for the Pound Sterling. Coming from a land where a handshake was a man's honor, the Aussies felt taken in. As a result, in their flamboyant campaign hats they led a number of rowdy retributions. The Cairo police were a bit timid, so the military patrols were cleaning up messes from dawn to dusk and back to dawn.

Rory, Johnny, and Chester had a priority: to find an oasis of solitude in the maniacal melange.

Due to a visit in Cairo years earlier as a Royal Marine, Johnny Tarbox boasted he could better cut through the maze of grubs, gooks, and geeks. Johnny hunted down the boss of the Terrier pack outside the camp gate and came up with a full-blown thug named Walid.

The Terriers performed all manner of duties in the camp, from polishing shoes to running errands to escorting new arrivals up the pyramids.

Walid operated the employment center, assigning the better jobs to members of his extended family, friends, and those who kicked back the most baksheesh.

Figuring he was playing the system, Johnny offered a goodly sum of five quid to put him in touch with the right man in the old city.

Walid's promises were extravagant and, for another two quid, Johnny could be connected with the "protector" for the lively Aguza District.

Tarbox knew that somewhere in those dark and twisting lanes with all that hollering and those delicious and non-delicious smells, there had to be a jewel of a hideaway...with belly dancers to the right and belly dancers to the left...and decent booze.

"We have to have decent booze."

"My man will take care of you, first class," Walid promised, and Johnny felt pleased with himself for cutting through all that chasing around and Oriental red tape.

First Serjeant Rory Landers took on the center of Cairo on the east side of the river and the Buluq District. A string of two- and three-star hotels lined the river bank. Rory felt a rooftop apartment with three bedrooms would be definitely in the realm of possibility.

As for Chester, they were worried about sending him into the morass of the marketplace. He was doing a bang-up job working on the mule manual. In fact, he was doing all three of their jobs.

However, when Rory and Johnny returned to camp a bit down in the mouth, Chester reckoned that Cairo had certain similarities to Hong Kong. Johnny and Rory agreed to let him join the search but ordered him to cruise only in the safer areas.

It was their fourth trip in, an overnighter, to stage the all-out hunt. They synchronized watches and fanned out They would return to the bar across from their hotel near the railroad station at two-thirty the following day.

The clock in the rail tower tolled three, which actually meant it was two o'clock because the clock was an hour off. The city shuttered itself for the midday respite from the debilitating wet heat fuming up off the Nile.

Rory was the first to return. He fended off the foul brew they attempted to foist on him and, after a lengthy discussion, won the debate with a bottle of uncut, unopened, brand-name gin.

Rory watched as the swirl of Terriers ground to a listless few, except for the kids still hustling Muslim worry beads, Catholic rosaries, kaffias, and trinkets they couldn't mail to the girls back home.

Johnny Tarbox appeared like a mirage with steam shimmering up around him. He fell into a chair, limp.

"Nothin'."

"Nothin'."

"Fucking roaches had pet rats."

"Wouldn't put a pommy officer up in them."

"The Casbah has eyes and ears," Johnny said nipping the gin with an "ah." "We'd be paying off half the gangsters in the old city to keep from getting our throats cut. They're all sweaty and hairy and dirty in there, and the men are even worse."

Rory was unable to resist a beggar kid leading a blind and hideously warped old man. His coin brought on a swarm. He settled for a wooden crucifix carved from the true cross and shouted them away.

Johnny jerked a thumb in the direction of the island in the middle of the river. "There's where it's at, Rory. When the Brits take over running a country, they make it comfortable for themselves at a cheap price. The Zamalek District has got the only beds in town without fleas."

"Are you sure it's off bounds?"

"Not officially, but they've got military police on every bridge, and patrols sweep up anything that looks like an enlisted man. We're scum, cobber."

"Makes you really want to fight for them."

"Yeah," Johnny muttered, "officers' country deluxe...staff officers' country. Nobody under a light colonel better blow his bugle over there. We got a tour of the gardens once when I was here. Like hotels you see in moving pictures...villas...gardens."

A number of egalitarian plans began rotating in Rory's mind.

"I hear you thinking, cobber, forget it. Anyhow, I found the best whorehouse in the old city-semi-exclusive-some real nice lookers in there. I think it's a cold tub for me and then I'll go fall in love," Johnny said.

The clock in the train tower rolled half past three. It was two-thirty.

"Jesus!" Rory cried.

"Wot!"