Free All Honourable Men by Gavin Lyall Page B

find.”
    â€œMebbe we should start a union.”
    Neither the time of year nor time of day made the train popular, so they had a first-class smoker to themselves and could step out of character while Ranklin explained their purpose.
    â€œOh – did you hear about Gunther van der Brock getting killed?”
    â€œI did that.” O’Gilroy’s face turned grim. “And a whisper around the parish that somehow we’d been mixed up in it. I been keeping me head down on that front.”
    Ranklin nodded gloomily, though it was no worse than he’d feared. “He
may
have sold the Railway plot to the FO, and it
may
have been the Germans who had him killed – so they
may
be suspicious of anybody like us turning up on this trip.”
    â€œThank ye for telling me. What was ye thinking of doing about it?”
    Ranklin shrugged. “Just keeping an eye open for it. . . Are you armed?”
    â€œI am.”
    â€œI’m sorry; but that had better go out of the window before we cross the frontier. I don’t think a manservant would carry a pistol, and we have to assume they’re going to search our baggage at some point.”
    â€œAnd yeself?”
    â€œGoing into brigand country, I think the Hon. Patrick would bring a pistol. You can always borrow it if needs be.”
    â€œYer usual popgun,” O’Gilroy said sourly. He loved anything mechanical and new, and nothing more than his Browning semi-automatic pistol. Ranklin had simply pocketed a Bulldog revolver, such as any gentleman might sport unsuspiciously. O’Gilroy despised it, but really, so did Ranklin. As a Gunner, he didn’t think anything that fired less than a 13-pound shell was serious.
    â€œAnd we’re going all the way to Constantinople?”
    â€œAnd beyond. We stick with Lady Kelso.”
    O’Gilroy lit another cigarette. “Then ye’d best be giving me one of yer lectures, ’fore we meet up with anybody.”
    A
lecture?
Ranklin felt he should haul a lantern-slide projector out of his hand-baggage, cough and ask if he could be heard at the back. But some précis of whatever country they were heading for had become a necessary routine. O’Gilroy’s self-assurance made it too easy to forget how much basiceducation – and educated conversation – he had missed by being born in an Irish back street.
    On the other hand, he had no fashionable opinions and prejudices to unlearn.
    Ranklin coughed (he couldn’t help himself) and began: “I’ve only spent a few days in Constantinople years ago, so this is very much school-room stuff. . . The Turkish Empire’s a big place. Theoretically it covers most of North Africa and the Levant as far east as the Persian Gulf. So it’s got a very mixed bag of inhabitants: Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, a lot of Greeks and God-knows-what-else. And the average Turk doesn’t think much of any of them.
    â€œUntil a few years ago, it was officially run by a Sultan. Real old-school sort: corrupt, murderous, looted the treasury and so on. Then he got shunted aside by a thing called the Committee for Union and Progress – they seem to be mostly Army officers and usually known as the Young Turks. But as someone said: ‘They’ve got hold of the dog’s collar, but has anyone told its fleas?’
    â€œSo we’ll probably find the fleas still in charge: the bureaucrats. I’ll give you one example I came across of just how weak the central government is: it can only collect five per cent of taxes itself. It has to farm out collecting the other ninety-five to the governors of provinces and districts. Gives them a figure, and anything they collect above that, they keep. Plus the bribes, the
baksheesh
, for doing their jobs. . . well, you can see why most of them
buy
their positions. And why a railway linking things up better appeals to the Government,” he added.
    â€œThings are a bit different in