Respite meant leave in Cairo, and soon venereal disease added to the infirmities.
Cairo had centuries of experience in swaying to the whims of the conqueror, occupier, and tourist. They all wanted the same thing-bargains, booze, and women...preferably the illusion of a virgin. The soldier boys at the bottom of the ranks were young men. Nearly all of them were short on experience and felt they had to have a notch or two of girl-o in their belts to make memories before battle and to know they had joined the ranks of real men.
Cairo was having a reverse effect. The situation went from bad to rotten. Tempers grew shorter. The men, particularly of the Seventh Light Horse, returned lo camp in a state of agitation, after which Major Hubble drilled it out of them.
As for Rory lad, his dream of that oasis-that Champs Elysee apartment-was blown away with the desert sands.
In a compound close to battalion headquarters, there was a large stable with indoor riding rings that was in decent condition and mostly unused, except to house polo ponies for the ranking officers. Jeremy talked Chris into allowing him to have the building and supplying him with laborers to convert it into housing and office space for his gaffers. Each man had a private sleeping cubicle and a small office. Most activity centered around a conference room, which was a feet-on-the-desk, nonmilitary, friendly spot.
Christopher did not like the gaffers' privileged setup or their independence. He considered himself a top-notch officer and justified special treatment to the squad. A fine officer knew when to yield slightly...particularly when the gains would more than offset his "largesse." If Major Hubble learned one thing, it was that Jeremy's squad was the make-or-break of the battalion's unique commission. So long as they were out of sight and Chris did not have to buck heads with his brother, he yielded here and there.
One of the indoor riding rings had a grandstand that could hold two hundred men, or about a fourth of the battalion, at one time. In planning ahead, this would become a rotating classroom.
In Pig Island, a conference room walled with charts, the lieutenant and his three gaffers went as far as they could go on writing a workable mule manual, but the battalion desperately needed the expertise of the key men, a chief packer and a veterinarian.
Rory reckoned these missing chapters should be written substituting horses for mules. After all, the skeletons were the same and there were a whole range of similarities between the two animals. It stood to shorten the finishing time of the manual simply by replacing mules for horses and making whatever corrections were required.
The three gaffers awaited the arrival of the veterinarian in pig Island with more than usual anticipation.
Rory had met only one Jew in his life, a nondescript general merchant in Christchurch who was generally well liked for his generosity in extending credit to prospectors and folks who had had a bad season.
Chester knew of two or three Jews in Hong Kong bankers and money people. Actually he did not really know them, but had met them.
Johnny Tarbox did not know if he knew any Jews. He had seen some in his travels as a Royal Marine and actually suspected a member of his platoon was one.
Lieutenant Jeremy had known a few Jews here and there and found them to be decent sorts if treated decently.
They had a number of discussions and sought information about the Jews and everything they came up with was slimy...unsavory...crooked...and altogether enough to make one very uneasy.
They were trying to look at the person behind Lieutenant Jeremy when he entered Pig Island. Rory was first to see an accordion among the man's possessions, which he took to be a positive sign. He was a good-sized fellow, rough-hewn. Obviously he did physical work, which belied the rumor to the contrary.
"Lads," Jeremy said, "this gentleman is our vet, assigned to us on detached duty from the Zion Mule Corps. We've been chatting for the past hour and I know he's going to fit right in with the gaffer squad. Mordechai Pearlman...right to left, meet Serjeant Major Johnny Tarbox, First Serjeant Rory Landers, and Private Chester Goodwood."
Behind a wild beard came a split-tooth smile and a handshake capable of breaking bricks.
"Well, lads," Jeremy said to the three who gawked, "take care of our man here and show him the ropes. Now, let's get cracking on rewriting the chapters on ills, ails, and sanitation."
When Jeremy departed the awkward silence continued.
"Well now, Doctor, how's your English, sir?" Johnny ventured.
"Fine, how's yours?" Pearlman answered.
That helped.
"I have not been knighted so I am not a sir, and my doctor's diploma is somewhere in Minsk and not accredited by the British Army. Matter of fact, I'm not even a member of the army. I am an attached specialist...however...I know mules like you know women, Tarbox."
That loosened things up. "Now that's saying a mouthful," Johnny said, beaming.
Quiet again.
"So, maybe we better be talking tocklus," Pearlman said. "You are thinking, what is this Jew. No?"
"Aw, you know, we were sort of wondering, never having met anyone of your religious persuasion person-to-person," Johnny said.
"Sure, we're curious," Rory said. "Like, New Zealand isn't in the middle of Moscow."
"I think I like all of you," Pearlman said, "and I think you will all like me. I come filled with peace and love. Good?"
"Good."
"Good."
"Goodo."
"But no Jew jokes, good? Who of you beat the Australian heavyweight?"
"Guilty," Rory said.
"After I softened him up," Johnny added.
"No doubt you can also beat me up. But let me say and guarantee you, absolutely, with saber in my hand, I can Peel you into delicate slices, so thin, like smoked salmon. And I think we should understand this-"
"Because you've taken enough shit," Johnny finished his sentence. "Take off your worries and stand at ease, you're among cobbers."
"Cobblers? You are shoemakers?"
"We've a small squad. It's us and the Lieutenant, and you're most welcome here."
Pearlman's bear hug on Johnny clanged. Chester was all but crushed by it. Rory feinted a couple of punches and embraced him.
Everyone sighed in relief a number of times and then broke into laughter.
"So, what do we call you? Doctor?"
"They call me Modi back in Palestine."
"Modi?"
"Modi, short for Mordechai."
"Modi, aye, that's a fine name, indeed."
Late into the night the lads were praising Allah for Modi's arrival. Not only had he given the corrections on "Ills, Ails, and Sanitation," but he had edited the entire manual.
"You boys have done a fantastic job, working in the dark like this," Modi complimented.
"I want to tell you, the Brit manual might as well have been written in Russian," Chester said. "I bent my mind trying to translate it-untwist it, that is."
"This is just what's needed. Very simple. And you tell me everyone in the battalion is a horseman."
"That's right."
"Very, very many things the same. But mainly, the men are comfortable around a big animal.... That will cut out weeks and weeks of mule feeling out the soldier and soldier feeling out the mule."
Mordechai Pearlman's mind leapt ahead. He had been told bluntly by Lieutenant Jeremy that the sand was running through the clock a lot faster than they wanted it to.
"You have classroom, I saw."
They walked over to the ring where the stadium seats had been built. One company at a time for each lecture. Four lectures a day. Give me a month, he thought. Thank God they know horses.
"Each company should have given men with special veterinary training. They will be used the same way you use medics. We have an aid station. We have them on the trail with mule trains."
"I'll talk to the Lieutenant tomorrow," Johnny said.
"I want to pick these boys myself," Modi asserted. "I train them, they'll be great."
Jesus! They'd come upon a work monster. They returned to Pig Island and kept going on the manual for four hours after the midnight oil was burned out. Modi stretched and produced a bottle of vodka.
"I know it's not regulations, but I'm unregulated," Modi said. "Besides, it's the last bottle of Russian vodka in Palestine and I think we should finish it."
Rory locked them in and Mordechai Pearlman opened wide his accordion and introduced them to the first of his repertoire of Russian-Yiddish-Hebrew-Arabic-and-Greek songs. It was a golden kind of moment. They were dead tired and tipsy, and Modi's voice was filled with passion and soul. Not even knowing what the words meant, one could be brought to tears. Jesus!
"Got a wife, Modi?"
"What makes you think?"
"You're an old fart, like Johnny. Past thirty."
"Past forty," Modi answered, "almost fifty. No, no wife."
Modi turned over the vodka bottle and grimaced. Empty. "Only thing good to come out of Russia," he said setting the bottle aside.
"Did I hear once that Jews don't drink?" Johnny asked.
"They don't," Modi answered, "so I have to drink for all of them that don't drink." He scratched his beard in thought. "We're all comrades, right?"
They agreed.
"I have something to tell you three men. It is something the rest of the battalion is not to know until combat. Obviously we will rotate our mule trains so each animal same and rests the same number of hours. It appears we will be working very tough terrain, and if we develop a static front we will have very little room to maneuver. Fahrstaht? Understand?"
"Aye."
"We will have no room...no pasture to rehabilitate an injured animal and rest him up till he can return to the trains. Any animal too sick or lame, who can't go back to duty in two or three days, is to be destroyed. New mules will be fed in to us."
Rory fell back in his chair and closed his eyes.
"Rory, you are paddock master?"
"Aye."
"And yourself, Johnny?"
"I've got a title, I'm not sure what it means or how to do it. Apparently there is nothing in the books on my kind of duty."
"What is it?" Modi asked.
"I'm to be the beach master. Indicates we'll be landing from ships, I'd say."
"That answers a lot of questions about destroying the animals. We're probably to be supplied from the sea. Well, Rory, you and I will have to make the decisions to destroy...and when we get the pack master, he can also do it."
Rory led a silence in which he came close to fainting. He felt Pearlman pat his shoulder over and over. "That's war. It's worse to see men die."
"At least they had a choice," Rory mumbled.
"I don't think so," Modi answered, with a knowing of wars past.
Two days later Serjeant Yurlob Singh, Third Sikh Mountain Howitzers, was brought to Pig Island. He was slender but military-ramrod, turbaned, his beard meticulously groomed hair by hair. From a sect of legendary fighters, Yurlob was annoyed to be transferred, yet totally proper and totally unfriendly as he snapped out his answers. He gave off an air that anyone who asked him a question was to be answered as though he were an idiot for asking.
For the next several days Yurlob tortured Chester Goodwood, demanding letter-perfect instructions on the very intricate art of packing.
"Yurlob is driving us nutty," Rory complained to Johnny Tarbox. "You can't get near the bugger."
"We're lucky to have him," Johnny retorted.
"He treats us like we're monkeys."
"We are, according to him."
"What's going on, John? You on that raghead's side?"
"Hey, Rory. Yurlob has had to work a hundred times harder to earn his respect and get his chevrons than we did. His dignity is his entire life...but don't you know, he's a man. He's away from his own cobbers and he's a little bit scared inside. Remember, he's covering his fears. You know what I mean?"
"Yeah," Rory said, "I know. It's only, I wish, maybe a smile. Maybe some trust?"
"That will come," Johnny said. "Meanwhile, he'll teach this battalion packing like they were loading fine porcelain on the backs of those animals."
Rory had become more and more amazed by Johnny Tarbox and the way he sized up men. Christ, if men could only admit fear without being ashamed.
As the mule manual slugged to conclusion, a large shipment of equipment arrived, including saddles, blinds, shoes, ribbings, lines, canvas, leather, coronas, and a blacksmith shop.
This allowed a detailed training schedule to be laid out, including daily lectures by Yurlob Singh, Modi, and Rory. Everything was falling into place. They had a hardened battalion of nearly seven hundred men with animal experience, enough equipment to train with, and a manual.
They had everything now. Everything except mules.