The King's Rifle: A Novel

PROLOGUE: CAIRO

1

Two years into the war, on a day so hot and stifling the usually bustling thoroughfares of Cairo were all but deserted, a spare, dishevelled looking Englishman with a stooping gait staggered through the city’s dark alleyways and bazaars, jostling with horses, camels, bicycles, mopeds, pushcarts, pedestrians and cars, looking, he said, for a chemist. To every hawker he approached and tried to speak to, on narrow, congested streets wafting with the odour of ginger, cumin, sandalwood and mint; and at every shisha-pipe-smoke-filled coffee house he wandered into, it seemed, as he struggled to speak but seemed only to slur, that he was looking for something which existed only in his fever-sapped imagination; that much was clear, that this strange man, dressed in a British army uniform that hung loosely on his shrunken frame, and wearing a major’s rank, was in the grips of a fierce and crippling fever. He shivered under the blistering heat, his teeth clattering as if he were in the deep chill of an English winter’s day.

‘Chemist,’ he mouthed. ‘Atabrine.’ But the words came out in a meaningless slur. Clearly the man was ill. And yet his deep-set, pale blue eyes glared defiantly from a bony, thin face overgrown with a shaggy beard.

Curses and insults followed him as he staggered from one side of the street to the other without looking where he was going, and as he crossed the road back and back again without any apparent concern for his life or for oncoming traffic. A donkey-cart messenger who ended up in a sewage drain when he swerved to avoid the man ran after him and heartily wished divorce on his parents; a jitney driver who stepped on his brakes only just in time leaned out of his car and threatened, firstly, to impregnate the officer’s mother, and secondly, to make a cuckold of him, and thirdly, to run him over next time. Then, in swift contrition, and asking God to forgive him for the sins of his mouth, the driver bundled the crazed British officer into his car and, having failed to draw out a lucid response when he asked where to take him, drove straight to the Continental Hotel in the city centre, which everyone knew was packed with Allied officers. There he palmed him off to the concierge, like an unwanted gift, and dashed back to his car, speeding off before the loathsome offering could be forced back on him. The driver need not have worried. He had brought Major Wingate back to the right place.

The concierge’s face was creased with worry.

‘Is the major all right?’ he asked.

The major was far from all right. But the ride in the car seemed to have given him back his tongue. ‘Take your filthy hands off me,’ he snapped. ‘I am not a cripple.’

The concierge winced and then bowed apologetically. ‘Of course, Major Wingate,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, sir. I was only trying to assist.’

Wingate was shaking violently, as if he was having a spasm. ‘The only help I need right now,’ he quivered, ‘is Atabrine. I must have Atabrine.’

‘Atabrine,’ said the concierge. He considered the word, mouthed it a few times, tried various ways of pronouncing it, paused thoughtfully and then shook his head. ‘The name sounds familiar, sir,’ he said gravely.

‘What name?’

‘Atabrine, sir. Is he one of our guests?’

The world spun around Wingate as he headed into the lobby. He went to the reception desk, ignoring an officer calling out to him from the crowded bar.

‘Tayib, Tayib,’ he said with obvious relief when he saw the receptionist, ‘get me some Atabrine.’

‘But Major Wingate,’ Tayib beamed solicitously, ‘I got you a whole bottle of Atabrine only yesterday.’

‘All gone,’ Wingate muttered.

‘All, sir?’ A line of sweat broke out on the receptionist’s brow.

‘I took the last two tablets this morning.’

‘That was meant to last a week,’ Tayib said gently.

Behind Wingate, at the bar across the lobby, the colonel was waving.

‘Someone is trying to catch your attention, sir.’

‘Get me another week’s dosage, will you, Tayib?’ He sounded desperate.

‘Colonel Mitchell, sir, is trying to tell you something.’

Wingate turned and looked, with evident distaste, at the colonel. ‘Ape,’ he hissed before swinging round again to face Tayib. ‘Well?’ he said.

‘Doctor Hamid–’ Tayib began.

‘Sod him.’

‘Indeed, sir. But the prescription I got you yesterday came from Doctor Hamid, and Doctor Hamid left Cairo only this morning to visit his father in Alexandria.’

‘I need Atabrine. I’m putting my trust in you, Tayib. I’ll be in my room.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, Major Wingate.’

The receptionist watched Wingate struggle unsteadily towards the lift. Then he called out to the concierge, ‘Ahmed.’

The concierge sauntered over to the front desk.

‘I need some Atabrine,’ Tayib said.

‘What happened to the batch I picked up yesterday from Doctor Hamid?’

‘Can you or can you not get me some from your brother-in-law?’

‘Why can’t you get it from Doctor Hamid?’

‘Why must you always answer a question with a question?’ Tayib leaned closer and said, ‘I got quite an earful from him yesterday when I telephoned for the batch you picked up.’

‘Doctor Hamid loves the sound of his own voice. Especially when he’s about to slap you with a heavy bill.’

‘That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the major simply came to me and said, Tayib, get me some Atabrine. ’

‘Naturally. He seems to think Atabrine grows on trees.’

‘So I telephoned Doctor Hamid. And he said to me, Where’s the patient? Bring him here to my clinic, he said. Tell him I want to see him. ’

Atabrine was known to be toxic and unpredictable. Even when taken in the recommended dosage, the doctor explained to Tayib, it was sometimes impossible to tell its side-effects apart from the worst symptoms of the illness it was meant to cure. It had been known to induce a deep psychosis in some people and had sent others into a coma. It was crucial, Doctor Hamid said, to examine the patient before prescribing Atabrine. But Tayib knew that it was futile to go back to Wingate with such a message.

‘So I said to him, Doctor, I said, I cannot bring Major Wingate to you. He’s just spent the last year or so in Abyssinia fighting the Italians. There’s a rumour something went badly wrong for him out there and he’s lost his marbles. ’

‘That’s no rumour.’

‘It’s Atabrine or my job, I said to him. So he took pity on me and said to send someone along to pick up a week’s dosage. Next time, he said, remember I’m a physician, not a pharmacist.’

Down by the lift, Wingate was resting against the wall, shaking as he waited for the lift to come.

‘Did you know that back in Abyssinia your major was a colonel?’

‘No!’

‘May I divorce if I tell a lie. And what happens the moment the Italians surrender? What happens after the Abyssinian war is over? He’s ordered by his commanders to report immediately to GHQ Cairo. Why? Well, no one knows. But the first thing he got when he went to GHQ was news that he was now a major. A demotion. I don’t know what crime he committed in Abyssinia but I hear he might even be facing a court martial. There’s more to that man’s haggard, wasted look than malaria. There’s a cloud hanging over his head. And I for one feel no sympathy for him. He’s the rudest, most uncouth guest I’ve ever encountered in all the years I’ve worked here. Did you see him on the day he checked in? He arrived chewing an onion. An onion, Tayib. Don’t get me wrong, I do like onions. But an onion is not an apple. At first I thought it was an apple he was biting into so greedily. But it wasn’t an apple. The man was eating a raw onion. You think you’ve seen everything, Tayib, and then you meet a creature like that. Vile. Vile.’

‘How soon can you get to your brother-in-law?’

‘My brother-in-law is a cheap, lying, fornicating quack.’

‘That may be so, but I didn’t ask for a description of your brother-in-law.’

‘He’s a slimy back-street abortionist.’

‘The question is, does he have Atabrine?’

‘I wouldn’t go to him if I had a sore throat.’

‘Do me this favour, Ahmed.’

The lift had arrived. As he went inside, Wingate missed a step and ended up on his knees. Tayib immediately reached for the phone. ‘What that man needs isn’t more Atabrine. He’s had too much of that already. Go back to your post, Ahmed. This is no matter for a quack abortionist. I’m calling the Royal Army Medical Corps.’

‘Why didn’t he go to them in the first place?’

‘If I could read minds, Ahmed, do you think I would be trapped behind this desk?’

He dialled the operator and asked for the RAMC.

In the lift, Wingate somewhat groggily tried to call his floor but his hands seemed to have gone into sudden revolt and every time he thought of a new task for them, no matter how basic, they simply hugged the wall tighter and refused to obey him. The ache in his head, just above his eyes, was like a migraine followed by a kick in the skull. He could barely see, and when he could see, the effort was so draining, so painful, he closed his eyes and prayed that he would pass out. Even with his eyes shut, he could see vividly the cut-glass chandeliers and electric lamps hanging down the ceiling of the lobby. They twinkled like countless stars and see-sawed dangerously–any minute now they would come hurtling down and crush him in the lift. He was drenched in sweat; his heart was beating furiously, his uniform glued to his skin.

‘I’m Tim. Tim Mitchell,’ a voice said, distant and echoing, as if from the far end of a tunnel.

With his half-opened eye Wingate saw a gathering shadow hovering over him. The voice and the shadow merged into a clean-shaven face which widened into a gleaming set of dry white teeth and a spongy, eager smile. ‘I haven’t had the honour of meeting you, Major Wingate. I just wanted you to know that I’ve heard of your campaign in Ethiopia. Indeed, I’ve read all your reports and I think…’

‘Not now,’ Wingate said. ‘I need to get to my room.’

‘Of course,’ the colonel said. He pressed the button for the fifth floor. ‘As a matter of fact I’m billeted right next door to you. I said as much this morning in a letter to Gwen. I hope you don’t mind. I told her that I’d had the honour of living next door to Wingate of Ethiopia.’

Wingate didn’t ask him who Gwen was, but Mitchell told him anyway. ‘Gwen,’ he announced, pulling out a photograph from his wallet, ‘is my dear fiancé. We got engaged in Plymouth two weeks ago, just before I set sail for Egypt.’

‘Colonel,’ Wingate said weakly, ‘what makes you think I care one jot about your private life?’

‘That’s rude, Wingate.’

But it also shut him up, which was all Wingate wanted. As the pneumatic lift made its slow ascent to the fifth floor, Wingate blacked out for a few seconds. But the young colonel didn’t seem to notice this. Wingate’s reputation, carved out of a series of outlandish myths and true but hard-to-credit exploits, had preceded him and, in Mitchell’s eyes, his behaviour only served to confirm legends of the man’s extreme eccentricity.

As they arrived at the fifth floor, Mitchell came out of his sulk. ‘Major,’ he said, ‘how did you come up with the name Gideon Force?’

‘Colonel,’ Wingate said before leaping out, ‘how did you come by such a perfectly dull mind?’

‘Are you always this odious?’

‘Only to toadying spies from GHQ.’

The world was starting to spin out of control. Wingate tried to get away from the colonel, to get to his room as quickly as possible. But he could barely see and could only barely stand upright, let alone walk. In the corridor, he careened into the wall, clung to it and began to slither towards the door to his room. Mitchell watched him first with irritation mixed with amusement then with concern.

‘Is something the matter with you, Wingate?’

‘Haven’t you seen a man with malaria before?’

Mitchell grabbed hold of Wingate by the shoulders and swung him round. ‘Your room is this way.’ He guided him in the right direction. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

‘Yes.’ Wingate was trying to reach for his key.

Mitchell helped him insert the key into the lock. ‘May I come into your room for a moment?’

‘You may not. Why?’

‘I was going to use your telephone to call a doctor.’

‘I just told you that I’ve seen a doctor. I’ll be fine once I’m rested.’

‘Look here, Wingate. This is an order. I want you to leave your door unlocked.’

‘Why?’

‘So I can pop in