Winds of Eden

Winds of Eden by Catrin Collier Page B

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Authors: Catrin Collier
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soon as they were out of earshot.
    â€˜I was made to roam the open desert not sit behind the walls of a town.’
    â€˜We’re safe here,’ she reminded.
    â€˜We’re imprisoned. I can’t bear to sit back doing nothing except watch Hasan suffer. He’s getting no better and he knows it. If only I’d managed to get him out of that Turkish camp sooner …’
    â€˜You did well to get him out at all.’
    â€˜I rescued a shell, not a man.’
    â€˜Mitkhal …’
    He ignored her and walked into the courtyard. Gutne stayed on the terrace and watched him sit on one of the benches. He pulled the flask from his robes and drank. She heard the doctor talking to Furja in the room behind her.
    The doctor left, and a few moments later Furja joined her.
    â€˜Hasan has a fever.’
    â€˜He will fight it as he has fought everything else,’ Gutne assured her.
    â€˜And if he recovers? We can’t keep our men locked up forever, Gutne.’ There was resignation as well as sadness in Furja’s voice.
    â€˜Aren’t you afraid that if Hasan leaves, he’ll remember he was a British officer?’
    â€˜Terrified,’ Furja conceded. ‘But I have him for now, and for a while longer. The doctor has forbidden him to exert himself until all signs of fever have abated and he is completely well. That won’t be for months.’
    â€˜Pity the doctor cannot forbid Mitkhal to leave.’
    â€˜I’ll remind Mitkhal of his duty to you and his son, Gutne.’ Furja moved to the door.
    â€˜Save your breath, Furja,’ Gutne advised. ‘You’d have more success caging a lion.’

    The Basra Club, Thursday 30th December 1915
    Charles Reid waved to Angela Smythe when he saw her walk through the door into the club. He didn’t rise to meet her. Despite the best efforts of the medics in Basra’s military hospital, his leg wound hadn’t healed. Crippling pains shot from his ankle to his thigh every time he tried to stand, which was why he’d been rolled into the club in a wheelchair, and given strict instructions not to leave it.
    â€˜You look very elegant,’ he complimented her, when Angela joined him at the prime table he’d commandeered next to the stove.
    â€˜As elegant as a Basra Jewish tailor’s idea of Paris fashion allows. Sorry I’m late. I returned to the mission to disinfect myself and change after my stint in the Lansing so I’d be safe to touch.’ She kissed his cheek.
    Basra’s military medical resources had been overwhelmed by the tide of British casualties that had flooded downstream after the Battle of Ctesiphon, so the Turkish POW and native wounded had been diverted to the Lansing Memorial Hospital, a charitable institution financed and run by an American Baptist mission. Angela’s brother, Dr Theodore Wallace, worked there under the direction of Dr Picard. As inundated as the British Military facilities, every available pair of hands in the mission had been roped in to help at the Lansing. Even Angela’s, although she usually taught in the mission school.
    â€˜Disinfect – fever’s broken out?’ Charles signalled to the waiter.
    â€˜No, thank heaven. Since the cold weather began we haven’t had a single fever case that wasn’t rooted in wound infection. But a Turkish POW has developed gas gangrene.’
    â€˜Poor man, and poor you having to quarantine him and scrub out the ward.’
    â€˜When I left, Sister Margaret was barking orders louder than any sergeant major and Theo and Dr Picard were cowering at their desks in their office. Neither is brave enough to stand up to her.’ She frowned. ‘I was amazed when I received your invitation.’
    â€˜Colonel Allan prescribed the outing. He thought it would “cheer me up”.’
    â€˜Doesn’t he realise that everyone who knew Harry and John Mason has been devastated by their

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