Redemption. - Redemption. Part 56
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Redemption. Part 56

Prime Minister Overrules Admiral Fisher and General French. British interests in Ottoman Empire are too great. Dardanelles operation imperative.

Foreign Minister Taking Turkey out of the war should be the 1915 priority.

Field Marshal Kitchener Supports Dardanelles operation. However, agrees with General French that no more land troops can be assigned to the campaign.

Churchill Time runs against us. The longer we delay the more opportunity Turks/Germans have to prepare defenses and the less likely it becomes to win peninsula quickly.

Suggests minesweepers force the straits at once, followed immediately by main battle fleet entering and using 2,000 Marines and 4,000 Anzacs to make coordinated landing.

Lord Kitchener Churchill is asking the impossible. Admiral Harmon feels it will take at least two weeks to clear the mine fields.

Churchill Admiral Harmon also has come to conclusion that naval gunfire alone will not subdue peninsula.

Lord Kitchener Will not support an early troop landing.

Namely: Island of Lemnos has been commandeered as an advance base for the assault on Gallipoli. Troops must be moved over from Egypt in orderly fashion and supplies and other support built up.

Moreover, General Darlington, Chief of Mediterranean Operations, refuses to commit troops until British 29th Division has arrived in theatre and is battle-ready.

Churchill Major General Brodhead, CC of Anzacs, complains that advance base at Lemnos is not being properly used.

Lord Kitchener Rather disdainful of Churchill's poke at the Army. Lemnos is taking troops in order of battle priority. Namely: Marines, sappers, assault troops, artillery, in that order. Support troops: quartermaster, headquarters people, etc., will go to Lemnos last.

Churchill Won't quit the argument. Brodhead argues strongly that special units such as mule transport are desperately in need of field training and must be given priority to go to Lemnos first.

Lord Kitchener Darlington doesn't agree, but he will look into Brodhead's problem.

Prime Minister Does not like the lack of unanimity. Outsiders such as Sir Edward Carson, the Ulster Unionist, are against the operation.

Asks Kitchener to name a date for troop landing so he can quiet growing opposition among party leaders and secret councils.

Lord Kitchener Field Marshal Kitchener feels that late April/early May is more realistic date for landing of troops.

The War Council meeting was adjourned with no one truly satisfied. A terrible stress had now been placed on the Anzacs and British forces in Egypt. The clean stroke of the swift sword of victory was badly dulled. Darlington had no feel for bold movement. The growing outside political opposition was putting a negative whisper over the operation.

As he went over the notes, Churchill brooded. As Churchill brooded, Cairo was about to burn.

72.

Sonya called to her girls to round up the squad's uniforms and bring soap and fresh towels to the fountain, where they had plunged in unison to cleanse their bodies of oil and clarify their minds. After they helped wipe the lads dry, Sonya sent the women from the villa and went off to make coffee-powerful coffee.

"From the beginning, Serjeant Yurlob."

"I was working in Pig Island on the requisition list. Upon leaving I saw that the Major's light was still burning and sought to get him to sign it. I knocked and upon entering saw that he was in a frightful state."

"What do you mean?"

"He had the eyes of a madman and was sweating all over."

"What in the name of God could it have been?"

"A letter was clutched in Major Hubble's fist. He thrust it into his pocket as though I would attempt to read it."

"I picked up the officers' mail," Johnny said. "The major had one letter. I personally took it to him."

"I received letters from both my parents today," Jeremy said. "There was nothing in mine to indicate any trouble."

"The Major ordered me to leave, brusquely," Yurlob went on, "but as I started out he said...'Wait, do we have any transportation from the motor pool?' There was only a supply lorry, the one with the bad gears. The Major ordered me to bring it around."

As they dressed, Yurlob sniffed a scent known to him as militarily improper. He studied the luxury about him with a straight face.

"Keep talking, I'm listening," Jeremy said, lacing his boots.

"Fearing the Major was in no state of mind to drive the vehicle, and as the vehicle was not in such a good state to be driven, I offered to drive him. He tried to start the lorry alone but, after nearly stripping the gears, agreed to let me take him into Cairo."

Sonya arrived with the first of the coffee and went to make more.

"I raced to Cairo just as Major Hubble instructed."

"What did he say to you? Any orders? Any indication of what was disturbing him?"

"All he asked was to take him to an out-of-the-way hotel where no officers would be. There is a small Sikh club in the Shari el Haram District off Pyramid Road, but hardly a place one takes an officer of the British Army. However, he insisted."

"I know that area from before the war," Modi said. "It is a gangster place."

"I stopped at the Hotel Aida. I registered for him and quickly took him to the room number twenty-two, the best in the place but hardly proper for a man of his stature. He commanded me to leave. I feared for him so I walked around outside to see if I could see his room. I did so. On the top of a building, off a very narrow alley, one could crawl to the edge and just see into a part of his room. I waited as several hours passed. Then others came into his room, quickly and quietly. As I reached his room, I was apprehended by two policemen guarding his door."

"Didn't the police draw a crowd?"

"No, no. They came in quietly without causing a disturbance, and there were whispers, only whispers from his room."

"Are you smelling the same rat I'm smelling, Jeremy?" Rory asked.

"Yes, go on, Yurlob."

"Inside his room are four policemen, a police inspector, and a civilian. Major Hubble is on the bed without clothing and only barely conscious. I would think, drugged. I smell chloroform. On the floor they pull back a sheet over a woman who has been murdered. It appears she is a prostitute. The civilian tells me to find Lieutenant Jeremy Hubble and gives me this address. He warns me to remain secret or it will be the Major's life."

"Farouk el Farouk," Chester said.

"That's him," Jeremy agreed.

"Jaysus," Rory muttered, "a dead whore on the floor and a British officer in a blown-out state. It's a setup, Jeremy."

"Did they ask you about ransom?"

"No," Yurlob answered. "Only to bring you alone to the Hotel Aida at once."

"The Lieutenant has refused to let us pay for the villa, as you know," Rory said. "How have you been paying for it?"

"I set up a line of credit through Weed Ship & Iron in London. My mother runs the office. I've paid Farouk el Farouk through Cook's Travel cheques."

"Well, it looks like they're after a nice big one. If that's all there is to it, maybe we're in luck," Rory said. "They're always scratching around for something like this. How many ranking officers do you suppose have been blackmailed in this city? It's their game. Jeremy, why the hell would your brother want to go to such a dump?"

"Obviously, he got some terrible news. What makes you so optimistic we can get him back?"

"If it were cut and dried-officer goes to seedy hotel, gets a prostitute, murders her, is unconscious himself. Police arrive. What do they do in normal circumstances? They would take him in and book him on charges. But they didn't do that."

"I see it," Modi said. "A middle-ranking British officer and a murder would draw a crowd. There is no crowd. Cairo becomes a small town. The word gets to the right people that there is a live fish on the line at Hotel Aida."

"Ruddy bastards," Jeremy grunted.

"Thank God all they want is money. That gives us an opening," Rory said, moving into command.

"You're bloody right, cobber," Johnny said. "I say we pick up a couple dozen troops in some bars and rush the place."

"No, no brute tactics. We can't get anyone else involved. They want to keep it hush-hush. We have to protect the Major."

"He's right, Johnny," Jeremy said.

"How'd you get here, Yurlob?" Rory asked.

"Taxi. He is waiting down the street."

"Where's the lorry?"

"About three blocks from the hotel."

"Shit, I hope it still has wheels on it."

"It is fine," Yurlob assured. "I put it in the yard of military police station. There is a small Sikh unit. My cousin is guarding it."

"Chester, can you drive it?"

"We'll find out," Chester answered.

"You say the lobby seems as if everything is normal?"

"Yes."

"Big lobby, little lobby?"

"Fair size. A very active hotel."

"Do you think, like, Modi and Johnny can just walk in and up the stairs to the Major's room?"

"Yes, but what about the police?"

"There are some short lengths of pipe left over from repairs on the fountain. Knee-cap the cops at the door and take their pistols."

Johnny and Modi nodded.

"I'll find the place on the roof where Yurlob watched. Can you reach the Major's room from there?"

"With a leap."

"Can you hear the railroad bell clock?"

"Clearly."

Rory looked at his watch. "When it strikes six, it means five o'clock. On the fifth bong...Johnny and Modi hit the cops at the door. I'll come through the window. Yurlob, throw the Major under the bed and guard him."

"I want Farouk el Farouk," Jeremy hissed.

"I'll take the inspector," Rory said.

"But what of the other four armed policemen?" Yurlob asked.

"We'll think of something. We'll improvise. Jeremy, you and Yurlob take the taxi. We're five minutes behind you."

"Rory!" Sonya cried.

"Oh Christ, are they going to take this out on you?"

"Do not worry. I am halfway to Alexandria. You are wonderful boys. Please smash in Inspector Rawash's face. He has given me twenty years of misery."

The room was much as Serjeant Yurlob had described it. Christopher was strewn on a dirty, lumpy mattress with a dirtier sheet half covering him and he was mumbling incoherently.

"It's me, Jeremy!"

Christopher was glassy-eyed, but focused to some sort of recognition, then flopped back down.

"Where is his uniform?"

Inspector Rawash, who was very easy to identify, nodded to the closet door. Jeremy fished through the pockets and found what he was looking for-a vial and a letter. He lifted the cap on the vial and sniffed it.

"Cyanide," Rawash said.

"Yours or his?" Jeremy asked.

"His."

The letter was from Christopher's wife, Hester. It was but a page in length. She wrote that she had never really loved him and that life in the confines of the earldom was insufferable. She had fallen in love with an ordinary fellow, a musician. She had become pregnant and they had run off together, far away from Ireland and the British Isles.