Redemption - Leon Uris [334]
He found his smokes in the bedroom. Damned. No matches. Caroline’s purse. He called but caught a glimpse of her standing outside getting a breath of air.
Oh, what the devil. The purse was double normal size and he fished about, running his fingers over the bottom. As though magnetized, his hand felt something hard through the cloth. He traced it with his fingers.
Brodhead quickly closed the door and dumped the contents of the purse on the bed. The hard object was still there but not to be seen. He turned the purse over, studying its stiff bottom. There, a secret compartment.
Llewelyn quickly solved its riddle and stared at the Lenetti pistol.
* * *
“Well, it’s certainly good for one’s appetite,” he said, devouring a hunter’s breakfast.
“Beautiful day out,” she said.
“Well then, maybe we can take a little stroll?”
“I don’t want to get you too tired, too early,” she replied. “Ready for tea?”
“Yes, thank you.” He topped his breakfast with a pastry and a second cup. “You know, Caroline,” he said, rapping his fist impatiently on the table. “When we sadly have to part, I’m having it out with London. I say we resume the executions of the Easter Rising people. What do you think?”
“Oh, I think we’d better make a rule about politics.”
“In our class, isn’t it rather traditional to share a similar view?” he said.
“Freddie and Roger got along quite well with our differences.”
“So you think we should stop it.”
“It’s not making us look very good to the rest of the world, in that we’ve stated some very noble purposes for being in this war,” she said.
“To hell with what the world thinks! Did we care about world opinion when we went into India…or South Africa? Now the Turks, my late honorable enemy, there’s a crowd who knows how to keep traitors in their place. Armenia sided with Russia against the Turks, and by God, they’ve lived to regret it.”
Caroline was confused at his sudden turn. Word was just filtering out that the Turks had all but razed Armenia to the ground, killed all men of fighting age, and took old people, women, and children onto a death march all the way to Syria, guarded by the Turkish Kurds.
“The rumors of the death march are true?” she asked.
“Indeed. Those who survived the hunger, heat, rape, and beatings and got there alive were sent into huge caves in the mountainsides, hundreds of thousands of them, and the Turks sealed the openings.”
“Llewelyn, what has gotten you so irritated?”
“Traitors,” he answered. “Let me tell you something, Caroline. In Gallipoli, when I ordered the Australian Brigades over the Nek and the slaughter started, I had but one regret. I regretted that it was not Irish troops I was sending over. We’d have that fewer to contend with after the war.”
“That’s ghastly.”
“That’s how to put traitors down, and I daresay the world won’t give a piss in hell what the Turks are doing to the Armenians. Of course, we British are a bit too civilized for that, aren’t we?”
“Were we all that much better during the great famine!” she snapped. Your lousy crowd, she thought, had better get used to people winning their freedom. That’s what this country is going to be all about.
She stood up and started clearing the table testily.
He reached in his jacket pocket and tossed the pistol and its six rounds on the table.
“Sit down! Over there!” he commanded.
As she attempted to speak he repeated the command with a raging voice.
Caroline sank into the sofa while he took up a chair opposite her. He had a small revolver trained on her.
“Don’t move a hair. I’m a crack shot with this.”
“It would have been very much nicer if you simply inquired about the pistol. I’ve carried it for personal protection for twenty-five years. Roger gave it to me.”
“Six rounds of ammunition for two round chambers…hidden in a secret pocket…you see,” he said, breaking into a sob but still holding the weapon at her. “I thought