Death on a Branch Line(47)

After the Chief had quit the platform, the station master called across the tracks to me:

‘Was he the one?’

‘Eh?’ I called back. ‘How do you mean?’

‘The one that was at Tamai?’

It was unlike Hardy to be coming forward. He seemed galvanised for the first time since my arrival. He ignored Woodcock, who sat on the bench, smoking.

‘How did you know?’ I asked Hardy, as I cut across the barrow boards.

‘Well,’ he said, as I gained the ‘up’, ‘he looked the part … about the right age …’

‘What do you mean by that?’ I said, challenging him – although to say anything to Hardy was to challenge him.

‘Oh,’ he said, and he took a step back into the booking office.

Somehow emboldened by the Chief’s rejection, I stepped into the booking office after him.

Trapped heat and dust made the place suffocating. The tall desk was still covered with a jumble of papers, but some of the books had now been stacked on the counter where stood the ABC telegraph machine. But that must be dead since the line was down. As before, the arrangement of soldiers had pride of place on the strong table, and it seemed that Hardy was minded to talk about it.

‘The push for Khartoum,’ Hardy said, indicating the soldiers on the table. ‘Thirteenth of March, 1884, east coast of the Sudan. I show the British square,’ he ran on, as he knelt down beside the table, quite heedless of his uniform. His head appeared over the brown-coloured board like a desert moon. As he spoke, he touched the tops of soldiers’ pith helmets with his fingertips, moving from one to another like a kind of blessing.

‘The square was formed against a massing of the Mahdi’s forces …’

‘The dervishes, as they were known?’ I said. ‘The fuzzie-wuzzies? They wanted to kick Egypt – and us – out of the Sudan?’

‘Correct,’ he said, ‘quite correct. In the square there were all sorts: York and Lancasters, Marines and other regiments besides, but I show the York and Lancasters only. You might have brought your friend in for a look,’ he said.

This was a turn-up: a bit of steeliness in his voice, as if I’d let him down.

‘He was in a hurry,’ I said, ‘– business up at the Hall.’

Hardy appeared to show no interest whatsoever in what might or might not be happening at the Hall, but carried on moving his fingers across the ranks of little soldiers. They wore khaki uniforms with white bands on the tunics and pith helmets and white puttees. Some wore moustaches, and these did not come standard but were various in shape and size.

I asked Hardy: ‘Did you paint them yourself?’

‘Sable brush,’ he said briskly.

‘It’s well done.’

This compliment seemed to check him for a second, but he made no acknowledgement of it.

‘We have three poses. First, standing,’ he said, indicating upright soldiers; ‘… then kneeling to repel,’ he went on, indicating others; ‘and finally kneeling to fire. It’s the Winchester rifle, of course,’ he added, standing back, as if for a better view of his own creation.

‘You haven’t modelled the Mahdi’s men,’ I said.

He blew out his cheeks.

‘Leave those chaps to the imagination,’ he said, ‘and they don’t bear thinking about too much. They slashed hands and arms first – then go for the head and body. Wouldn’t take prisoners, mind you, but then nor would we – not at Tamai. It was life or death.’

He advanced on the table again, and shifted a couple of the kneeling figures a few eighths of an inch.

‘The square was broken, you know,’ he said, looking up. ‘I don’t show it broken, but it was, and you saw the character of the British soldier: officers and men risking their lives for each other.’

All I could think to say was ‘Yes,’ for I’d been quite knocked by Hardy’s speech. He lived for this miniature display.

‘I should imagine that if you’d been in that lot,’ he said, indicating the display, ‘then everything that happened next in your life would be of quite minor importance.’

I thought of the Chief. Certainly he was not over-anxious.

‘… quite minor importance,’ repeated Hardy, who then took a deep breath and looked at me. ‘All my paints and all my brushes,’ he said, ‘… all stolen last week.’

‘Well, don’t look at me,’ came a voice from the doorway, and it was Woodcock the porter.

He leant against the door frame, smoking.

‘This is Mr Hardy’s little war,’ he said, addressing me. ‘Nice, en’t it?’