Night Train to Jamalpur(11)

The oldish man said, ‘I heard a noise.’

‘You would do,’ said Fisher, indicating the body. ‘He’s been bloody shot, hasn’t he?’

Behind Fisher, two sleepy-looking Indian servants were emerging from compartment five.

The oldish man half turned towards Fisher. ‘Before that. I mean from outside.’

I said to nobody in particular, ‘How did the shootist get into the carriage?’

I stepped over Young’s body, and went into his compartment. I turned on the light.

‘That’s all the dabs on the switch messed up,’ said Fisher, who was standing in the doorway. But I was not so concerned about fingerprints. It was more important to get the lie of the land. The compartment was much as I’d seen it when talking to John Young, except that his bed had obviously been slept in; or at least lain in. I looked down again at the body. His suit coat had been thrown over his lower legs, and the pocket book had been thrown down on it. Ten-to-one that was now empty of money, but it ought not to be touched.

‘Dacoits,’ I said.

‘You going to open that?’ said Fisher, indicating the door leading to the outside world. I unlocked it, and it swung open, disclosing the wide blue Indian night, the sound of a million crickets, and a smell like the interior of some great, hot barn. Under the blue light of a quarter moon, I saw an Indian on a stationary horse – might have been five hundred yards off. There were two other Indians on horses a few hundred yards further off again, and they were waiting for him. As I looked at the nearest man, he turned his horse and began riding away towards his fellows, going along the top of an embankment crossing a network of dried-out paddy fields. He was a raggedy-looking man in white; his thin arse went up and down like the ticking of a clock.

‘That’s bloody nice, isn’t it?’ said Fisher.

Behind Fisher, a uniformed Indian leant into the compartment from the corridor. ‘What has been going on here?’

‘Oh, good of you to turn up,’ said Fisher.

The Indian was in white with a red turban and a wide leather belt around his waist. A long stick was wedged into the belt. He was a ‘watch-and-ward’ man, part of the force that guarded the trains. Fisher indicated the Indians riding away towards the horizon. ‘There you are, pal,’ he said. ‘Throw your bloody stick at them, why don’t you?’

The corridors of the train were not continuous. It was therefore impossible to get from one carriage to another while the train was moving. The watch-and-ward man had entered by means of one of the two doors leading down from the carriage at the ends of the corridor, and that was obviously how the dacoits had got into the carriage, and they had done so, of course, while the train was at a stop, or slowing to a stop.

I jumped down from the compartment; the dirty track gravel hurt my bare feet. The Indians were now gone from sight. I looked up at the outside of the compartment door. It was splintered near the lock. So the bandits had tried to come in to John Young’s compartment this way before moving to the end door. I walked three paces over the track ballast, and looked up at the outside of my own, locked exterior compartment door, and my heart beat faster as I saw that it too was splintered. If anything, it was in a worse state than John Young’s door. They’d tried to get into my compartment as well. I walked further along: none of the other compartment doors showed signs of any damage. All the doors looked high up from down on the ground with no platform, but you’d have no trouble getting at them while sitting on horseback.

Fisher had jumped down from John Young’s compartment, joining me on the track ballast. Behind him came the watch-and-ward man, and another watch-and-ward man, for they always worked in pairs. Fisher commenced to light a Trichinopoly cigar.

I said, ‘What stopped the train?’ and it was the second watch-and-ward man who answered: ‘Signal, sahib.’

We were at the single-line working, the site of a predictable stop, and any stopped train was a target for dacoits.





Chapter Two



I

Thirty-six hours later, the ‘up’ day train from Jamalpur back to Calcutta was being trailed by its own tall shadow, and the shadow of its steam. The train had the luxury of tracks, but the shadows had to make do with red stony ground. At a spot called Sahibgani, we had gone into the station restaurant to eat a ‘Hindu military meal’, meaning chapattis and curry with meat. I doubted that the Hindu soldiers went in for cheese and biscuits and a glass of port, but we had been offered that after the main course. I had turned down the port because of my quinine tablets, whereas Fisher had turned it down because he never touched a drop of alcohol . . . which always made me think he was saving himself for something, somehow. We had then boarded the train again.