Maybe he should say that, but Hakim was still no soldier. So instead he asked bluntly: “What do you still have that is worth a ransom?”
Hakim hesitated.
“The Railway already knows. Who can I tell?”
“They . . . things. To make a plan. A . . . map.” Hakim was out of his depth here.
“Can I see these things?”
Another hesitation, then he called the boy and sent him into the tent. He came out laden with a plane table – just a fancy drawing-board, really – a satchel of drawing instruments, a theodolite, notebooks – and a roll of paper.
And now Ranklin understood.
He should, of course, have guessed – or deduced. Streibl, sent to take over, wasn’t a mere engineer, he was a railway planner – a surveyor. As the hostages had been. The paper, once unrolled, was what he now expected: a hand-drawn but very precise survey of the whole area, with trig points, spot heights and bearings neatly enumerated in Indian ink. The notebooks seemed to be about types of rock found, cross-referenced to the map.
This was what you needed to build a railway – and if you hadn’t got it, you must take weeks or perhaps months to do it again, with thousands of workmen standing idle in the building season. Certainly worth a ransom to start with, and now worth all their lives – when Zurga rescued it from among their corpses.
He looked at Hakim curiously. “You do realise that by hanging onto this stuff, you’ve told them you understand its value? And now they can’t pay the ransom, they have to storm this place to get it back? Did you, or your father, understand all along how valuable this was, or did someone . . .” He left the question unfinished: the answer had to be Beirut Bertie. Sabotaging the ransom, probably providing the rifles, even triggering the whole kidnap from the start; the man who knew this country and its people better than any European he’d met. Yes, our Bertie would understand the value of a survey.
He rubbed a hand over his face. So they had Bertie doing his best for France, Dahlmann and Streibl their best for the Railway and Germany, Zurga for his vision of Turkey, and himself and O’Gilroy putting in their few penn’orth for Britain. None motivated by self-interest, all honourable men.
God save the world from us honourable men.
24
“Please to be quiet as we pass here,” Bertie warned. “Above, there is a tunnel for the Railway, and it is guarded. But they cannot see this path, so . . .”
Soon after, an obvious path joined from that slope: the one Ranklin and Lady Kelso had descended from the tunnel a while earlier. And soon after that there was a damp, muddy patch and Bertie paused to study it. When O’Gilroy reached it, he saw that dozens of boot-prints had wiped out any mule-tracks. So now they might run up against the backside not only of mountain guns but their accompanying army.
Where the tributary joined, Bertie led across to the broad shingle beach and stopped there. “They have brought up soldiers by train,” he explained. “Probably from Adana. From the tunnel to the monastery they have to march . . .” he shrugged “. . . less than two hours. They must attack from in front, there is only one way, but the guns . . . What range do they have?”
“Mountain guns? – no more’n two-three miles.”
“So they may be up on the plateau or could be in the dry river before it.” He gestured beyond the distinctive peak. Corinna had been looking up at it, aware of what it reminded her of, but assuming that was just her, and its real name was Flagstaff Mountain or Finger Peak or something.
“In such mist,” Bertie carried on, “where would they put the guns?”
O’Gilroy knew the general principles of gunnery, and how to serve a couple of specific types, but of their tactical use . . . He shook his head. “No idea at all.”
“Then we can only assume they go no further than they must, and at any moment. . .” He got carefully off his horse, slid the hunting rifle from its scabbard – and pointed it at O’Gilroy.
“Please drop the rifle. I trust it is not cocked? Ah, thank you.” O’Gilroy had had no choice. He didn’t waste time saying daft things like “You wouldn’t,” or “What do you mean by this?” He didn’t know what Bertie meant, but was sure he meant it.
Corinna, on the other hand . . . “What the blazes are you up to?”
Bertie picked up the Winchester and slid it into his empty gun case. “I am taking your horses, only for perhaps two hours, so please to remove what you may need for that time.”
“Do as he says,” O’Gilroy said resignedly. He dismounted and took his food package from the saddle-bag. “Got some idea ye’ll be able to take on an army better by yeself, have ye?”
“Possibly. I am – forgive me – still unsure about your loyalties. But be assured that I will return.”
“So after we’ve told you all we know,” Corinna said grimly, “you abandon us in wild country.”
Bertie smiled regretfully. “Only temporarily. But this matter is becoming so confused, I feel it is simpler to trust only myself. I do, you see, understand my own motives.”
She took her food parcel, then wrenched her big handbag free from the saddle and stood back, clutching it in both hands.
Bertie loosed the long leading rein from O’Gilroy’s mount and tied it to his own saddle, then indicated that O’Gilroy should tie Corinna’s horse in procession. O’Gilroy did so, and also stood well clear.
“Thank you.” Bertie lifted himself into the saddle, holding the rifle one-handed, his finger near but clear of the trigger. He kicked his horse forward, looking back to make sure the other two followed. Then he looked ahead.
Corinna took the Colt revolver from her handbag and cocked it as she strode forward. “M’sieu Lacan!”
Bertie looked round, began to swivel the rifle – and then stopped. She was standing four-square, feet planted apart, holding the pistol two-handed at eye level.
He said: “Do lady bankers also shoot people?” He glanced at O’Gilroy, who was wearing an expectant smile. That was not reassuring.
Then the second horse, still ambling forward on the leading rein, reached the rear of Bertie’s mount – which sensed this and pitched forward to lash a two-footed kick backwards. Bertie went one way, the rifle another, and both hit the shingle hard. O’Gilroy rescued the rifle first. It seemed undamaged; as for Bertie-
He raised himself carefully and painfully into a sitting position and began feeling his shoulders, elbows, ribs and ankles, swearing steadily in French.
“Really, M’sieu Lacan,” Corinna said, “I don’t think lady bankers should have to listen to such language.”
Bertie scowled at her, debonair manner quite gone. He was just a middle-aged man who had been thrown from a horse and lost control of the situation besides.
“Any bones broken?” O’Gilroy asked.
“Every fucking one,” Bertie said bilingually.
O’Gilroy nodded and went to sort out the horses, but in the end didn’t. Three “entire” Anatolian ponies tied together looked like a sport the ancient Romans might have invented. Luckily they seemed as good at avoiding kicks as kicking, and there was clearly no chance of them agreeing on which way to run off, so O’Gilroy left them to tire of it.
By then Bertie was practising limping with both feet, but hadn’t found any actual breaks. “Lucky yer well padded,” O’Gilroy observed. “Where was yer going?”
The easy way he handled the unfamiliar weapon discouraged conversational sparring. “There is a, sort of, back way to the monastery. Not to invade, but they would let me in.”
Corinna looked at O’Gilroy. “If they’d let him in, we could-”
“No. Bit late for that. If the guns are pretty nigh in position, the Captain’ll know it before we get there.” He stood looking at the landscape in front of them. “Ye say there’s a dry river runs crosswise up there, and the guns could be in it? Any way we could come down at it? Like through them?” He gestured at the thinly wooded foothills of Unmentionable Peak.