The Templar Key, By Number One Author (Peter Sparke Book 3) Page 8

  In a moment of madness, one of the shadows did the unthinkable. He stood straight up, making a target that only yesterday would have been bullet-riddled within seconds. But no shots came. There was no one to fire. The enemy had gone in the night.

  Their officers were difficult to convince when they returned to their own lines. It was only when one of the shadows stood up on the lip of their own parapet, and remained standing there for long seconds without harm, that it began to be believed. The invaders had gone.

  Soon several men were proving their courage to their comrades by standing up boldly in the growing dawn light, gaining confidence with every minute. Still cautious, the officers checked that their waiting men were ready, in full equipment, ammo pouches brimming, bayonets fixed, then, in good order, they crept across what, only the night before, had been a deadly no-man’s-land. The silence from the empty enemy trenches gave the advancing troops courage. Men straightened up as they walked and whispered orders became low shouts of command as the men now walked more quickly towards the silent enemy line.

  The men left behind in their own lines saw that the enemy had gone and rose up and followed their comrades so that soon the ground between the trenches was full of bobbing figures, craning their necks forward at ground they had been dying to reach for months. A few muffled laughs were even heard from those who had reached the empty enemy lines first and had made trophies of the few strange flat helmets their enemy wore.

  The advancing soldiers heard the softest mechanical click and the hairs stood on their necks just before the first Vickers machine gun coughed into life. An avalanche of noise from British machine guns drowned out the desperate orders shouted in vain by the Turkish officers to take cover. The noise of the Rolls Royce armored cars roared through the dawn air and the hated silhouettes appeared, racing into the midst of the advancing Turkish troops.

  Men fell faster than they could be counted, bodies piled on one another as the wounded crawled under the dead to escape the inhuman sweeping reach of the Vickers guns. Within a few minutes of the armored car charge, the British infantry swept up the hill and along the line of the trenches they had abandoned hours before. Like medieval pikemen, they used their rifles and long bayonets to slaughter the shattered survivors of the machine gun barrage.

  Perched within the turret of his armored car, Bastian could see the flash of British bayonets in the dawn sun, rising and falling as they sought out the survivors amongst the Turkish troops.

  The few Turks who got back their own trenches desperately made ready for the last ditch defense of their lines, knowing the British were on their heels. They took position as best they could, faced their enemy and waited to die.

  Seconds turned to minutes as the agony of waiting grew. Their trenches were now barely manned and their lines would crumble at the slightest pressure. Behind them was nothing, no reserves, no deep lines of defense, only support units and what passed for aid stations. If they could buy them a few minutes respite from the British with their lives, they would do so.

  The British were clearly visible, lit by the growing sun and instantly recognizable with their flared tin helmets. They were moving around, but not advancing. Then the armored cars lurched into life and drove back through the British lines and down the hillside. Almost immediately the infantry melted away behind them, disappearing into the ground from where they sprung.

  Of the twenty-five Turkish officers who had crossed the start line, none made it back to their own lines. There was no one to give an order, so the sole-surviving Turkish sergeant walked along the barely defended trench, quietly murmuring to the quaking men, barely a dozen of the hundreds who had crossed no-man’s-land shortly before.

  Back behind British lines, Bastian tried to understand what he had just seen, what he had just done. He had fired the heavy Vickers machine gun before, during his first run from the trenches to the beachhead, but this had been different. As Wimbridge had driven the Rolls Royce into the flank of the advancing Turks, Bastian had seen whole groups of men tumble under the impact of his fire. The British trap had been so sudden that most of the Turkish troops had failed to fire back before they were mown down, and those who had been too slow to either retreat or throw down their weapons were slaughtered under the bayonets of the rushing British infantry.

  As soon as the Rolls was safely down behind the ridge line, Bastian ordered a halt and went out to corral the few Turkish prisoners for questioning.

  It was not a large group. Six dazed prisoners slumped against the hillside guarded by a lone British soldier. Bastian stood next to the guard for a moment, listening to the Turkish prisoners talk quietly amongst themselves. Much of their conversation consisted of names.

  “Did you see Ali?”

  “He was killed at the start.”

  “Do you think Captain Turan made it?”

  “He tried to reach the armored car, but he fell with Ercan, Altintop and the others.”

  Bastian took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and walked over the men.

  “You had a hard day today,” he said. The Turks stared hard at him, shocked that a British officer could speak so fluently in their own language. After a few seconds, a Turkish sergeant with a blood-soaked bandage partly covering his face, stood and took a cigarette from Bastian. He lit it and took a long draw, expelling the smoke with the slow relish of a man who was surprised to be alive, before looking directly at Bastian.

  “We can take a thousand hard days, but you will never get past.”

  Jacob’s Column

  “This was part of my family’s land.”

  Maryam’s voice came through the headsets which Sparke and Tilly wore. She tapped the helicopter pilot on the shoulder and instructed him to circle the area.

  “Over there are the ruins of a Roman town. This is where the battle of Jacob’s Column was fought by the Templars.”

  Maryam pointed straight down to the pilot who corkscrewed the helicopter down to land near the scattered stones.

  Sparke had been on too many helicopter journeys to see them as anything but a chore. In fact he had once been a passenger on what was believed to have been the longest single helicopter flight ever, but it was not a feat he ever wanted to repeat. Tilly was first out of the aircraft.

  “Helicopters aren’t as much fun as they look,” she said.

  Sparke was wearing chinos and walking shoes, Maryam was beautifully attired in classic tourist casual, but Tilly was dressed for work. Unlike the others, she had spent a lot of time in the field as a researcher, so her dusty hiking boots, faded shorts and light fleece gave her the air of someone at home. She walked over to the few scattered ruins that were all that remained of the Roman settlement, then returned to the helicopter for her rucksack and camera and began systematically to photograph the site. After a few minutes she paused, then flipped open her smart phone to take a GPS position for latitude and longitude. As she worked, Maryam turned to Sparke.

  “I’m pleased that you decided to take me up on my offer,” she said.

  “I needed the break from work, I suppose,” he said.

  “We saw the whole thing on TV,” said Maryam. “Your business makes for good news coverage. The world would be interested to see the inside your world. Have you thought about sharing your work through a documentary?”

  “I’m not the right person to ask. We have media people who handle all that, I’m glad to say.”

  “And if we asked them, what would they do?”

  “Probably ask me.”

  “And you would say ‘no’, I guess?”

  “Yes, I suppose I would.” He thought for a moment, feeling that Maryam deserved a better answer. “The incident with the ship, we won that one. The salvage crew got out alive and in reasonable shape, the Marines jumped out of their plane, blew holes in a ship, then cut their way into the hull without any injuries. But we don’t always win. The work our company does is mostly dull planning work, but when incidents go live, well, sometimes things don’
t work out and people can end up hurt, or even dead. I wouldn’t want to be selling video clips of people’s tragedy.”

  The two stood quietly for a moment as Tilly worked amongst the stones. Aware that he had not only snubbed Maryam’s offer, but had probably insulted her profession, Sparke struggled for a way to break the awkward silence he had created.

  “Your family owned this land?” said Sparke.

  Maryam turned towards him and nodded.

  “At that time it was not possible for foreigners to own large areas of land here, but it was possible to be granted sole use, and my great-great-grandfather agreed with the Ottoman officials that our family would take on all of the land from the high pass, back up there.” She pointed up into the hills behind them. “And down to the river about ten kilometers that way.”

  “Were these ruins important to the family?” said Sparke, gesturing to the stones that Tilly was examining

  “No idea, but they are the only things of note here. Our family had a farm down near the river, but it was flattened when they put the new road through. Apart from that, there are a few buildings up at the pass and there was a monastery somewhere hereabouts at one time.”

  Tilly had now finished at the ruins and had walked back over to the parked helicopter where she sat in the shade, peering at her tablet computer. She did not look as though she would welcome distraction. Sparke looked at the jumbles of stone, largely buried in sandy soil.

  “Why is it called Jacob’s Column? Or is that a stupid question?”

  “It’s not a stupid question,” said Maryam. “It seems that in the thirteenth century, someone called Jacob climbed to the top of one of those columns and sat there until he died twenty years later.”

  “And he did this because?”

  “God told him to do it.”

  “Hmm,” said Sparke. “I think God was quite into that sort of thing then. Now, not so much.”

  “No, not so much,” agreed Maryam. “He seems to be working flat out responding to requests for help on American television talent contests.”

  Sparke smiled, noticing that Maryam’s Australian accent grew slightly stronger as she relaxed.

  Over by the helicopter, Tilly stuffed her computer back into her scuffed rucksack and pulled out a sun-bleached hat with a wide brim to ward off the growing sun. She paused and took a long drink from her water bottle, seeming to gather her thoughts before walking over to where Sparke and Maryam stood.

  “Find anything of interest?” said Maryam.

  “Hmm, yes, perhaps,” said Tilly. “Some of it good, some less so.”

  She paused again.

  “We have quite a lot of sources that reference the Jacob’s Column shrine, and they are pretty consistent in terms of its location. We can say, with a high degree of certainty, that this is the site.”

  Maryam looked keenly at Tilly.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Well, possibly. It’s about the battle. You see, one of the things you told me was of specific interest to you, and any program you make about the area, was the Battle of Jacob’s Column. Assuming this is the actual site of the shrine, I would be very surprised if the battle took place here.”

  Fourth Independent Armored Reconnaissance

  “Get this off to Fleet, Army Command, and a copy to The Boss, would you?” Bastian said to Wimbridge, as he ducked out from his tent. He then stopped dead and snapped to attention when he saw Fellows.

  “Captain Fellows,” said Bastian, “this is a pleasant surprise, sir.”

  Fellows had last seen Bastian in Portsmouth, over a year before. At their last meeting, Bastian had been barely hours out of officer training, notable only for his high performance marks and his ability to speak both Turkish and Greek. Now he looked and sounded like an officer.

  “So, this is the Fourth Independent Armored Reconnaissance Troop of the Naval Brigade, is it?” Fellows glanced over a Rolls Royce armored car being loaded with boxes of ammunition for the Vickers gun, and a second car with its engine covering lifted and a group of men working deep within the machine.

  Nearby, a line of circular tents had been pitched neatly with a small tin-roofed hut at the far end, near the rocky hillside. Two Triumph motorbikes stood on their stands next to the last tent in line, which had a wooden sign with the words ‘Troop Commander’ scrawled on its rough surface.

  “Yes, sir,” said Bastian. “In fact it is the only Independent Armored Reconnaissance Troop, but we thought calling it the Fourth might make it sound a little more imposing.”

  Fellows hid a smile and glanced around at the small, but obviously well-maintained compound.

  “Very imposing, indeed, Lieutenant Drysdale-Behier. Care to give me the tour?”

  Since being transferred to shore duty as part of the Naval Brigade, Bastian had taken his brief from The Boss literally and spent his days, often alone on his motorbike or with one of the armored cars, visiting the front lines to interrogate prisoners, reading the few captured documents that fell into Allied hands, and occasionally listening in to radio or telephone communications when a wire was tapped. Somehow, from being a single Intelligence officer, he had managed to accumulate a group of two dozen men, two armored cars, and a number of motorbikes.

  “You have created quite a private army here,” said Fellows.

  “Well, sir, the Admiral seems to have been quite happy with what we have been producing, so they…well…they keep giving us more people and kit. Can I ask if you have been getting our summaries, sir?”

  “Yes, yes I have. Interesting. Very.” Fellows paused for a second. “Very broad-ranging. The Boss reads them, too. Useful.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question, sir?” said Bastian. “If there is anything else we should be looking for, could you let us know? I’m never completely sure that the summaries I send back contain what you need.”

  Fellows sat down on a rickety dining chair that made up the only piece of furniture in the tent, apart from a camp chair and a desk made from an old door on two oil drums. He looked at Bastian closely, and then decided that the direct approach made sense.

  “We have had a ground force here for over six months and every attempt the Turks have made to dislodge us has failed,” said Fellows. “From the reports we have been getting from you, it looks as though Turkish losses are at least as high as ours.”

  Bastian had no access to Allied casualty figures, but he was not surprised to learn that losses on both sides were equally high. He had seen whole Allied battalions virtually wiped out over recent months.

  “The question the top brass are faced with is whether one more big push might break through the enemy defenses on the ridge lines.”

  He looked closely at Bastian.

  “We need to make a judgment on how long the Turks can keep up the fight. What is your evaluation?”

  Bastian had spent months questioning hundreds of Turkish prisoners, and was, without doubt, in a better position than any other Allied officer to make a judgment on their willingness and ability to keep up the struggle. He had learned, however, when submitting his reports, to keep judgments to a minimum and stick to facts. He flipped back the canvas cover to the entrance to the tent.

  “Wimbridge!”

  “Sir.”

  “Bring in the Turkish prisoner they brought in last night.”

  “Which one, sir?”

  “The Major.”

  A few moments later, an exhausted face appeared at the door to the tent. His uniform was dirty and bloodstained from a wound on his neck. Bastian stood up and moved the camp chair to the center of the tent, offered it to the prisoner with a wave of his hand, then sat on the edge of his makeshift desk.

  “You were captured last night,” said Bastian, abruptly in Turkish. The officer glanced sharply at Bastian as prisoners always did when they heard their own language being spoken easily by a British officer.

  “Yes,” said the Turk.

  “Your troops have attacked that hill many time
s, often with more men. You must have known you would not get through.”

  “My job is the same as yours. I carry out orders, I don’t plan attacks.”

  Bastian nodded.

  “Here, you are safe. You will receive medical treatment and regular rations. Everything we need comes straight off our ships. I think things are not so easy on your side of the lines?”

  “Not so bad,” said the prisoner. “We have no lack of bullets.”

  “I have noticed,” said Bastian. “We know, from other prisoners, that the Turkish Army cannot hold out for much longer.”

  “You are better informed than I am, I think.”

  “We know the Turkish High Command intends to pull back any day.”

  At this, the prisoner smiled slightly.

  “No, we will not retreat from here. We need to fight you, to stop you somewhere. We may not win in Egypt, but we cannot lose in our own country. Better to fight in this wasteland than in Constantinople.”

  Bastian thanked the Turkish Major and sent him back to join the other prisoners. Then he turned back to Fellows.

  “What did he say?” said Fellows.

  “Same as they all say, sir. They know that if they let us pass here, they will just have to fight further inland.”

  “So you think we can’t outfight them?” said Fellows sharply.

  “I think if we keep killing them, eventually they will break. It seems that every casualty we inflict costs us one of our own, so it looks like a bit of a bit of a slugging match, sir. If we are willing to keep up this level of pressure, eventually the Turks will collapse. They are running out of everything, including men. They’ve stopped transferring units out of the line. They keep them in the fight until they are more or less wiped out. Then they send a replacement unit in which absorbs any survivors.”

  “When you say ‘eventually’, how long do you think that could take?”

  “I wouldn’t like to guess, sir.”

  “You might not like to, but that is what you need to do. How long do you think the Turks can keep up this level of defense?”