Night Train to Jamalpur(14)
17. The footplate crew of the Jamalpur Night Mail were British, and their engine was an Atlantic type, of British make. The driver was called Collins, the fireman Jackson, both covenanted men – that is, working for the E.I.R. for a fixed number of years before returning home. They were both late of the London and North Western Railway, where they’d been on a goods link. ‘I got pig sick of Willesden Junction,’ said Collins. ‘Simple as that.’ Now they were on expresses, albeit thirty-mile-an-hour ones. Reaching for Jackson’s shovel, I asked if I could ‘put a bit on’. I did so and, leaning over to inspect the results, driver Collins said, ‘You’ve done that before, haven’t you?’ Even though the engine was stationary, they had to keep a careful eye on the fire, the Bengali coal being so poor. There’d been good Welsh coal in London, and no dacoits to worry about, but there had been Willesden Junction. The two had been warned of the danger at this red signal, but in the event they hadn’t noticed the attack. ‘I never saw nothing,’ fireman Jackson said. Driver Collins was ten years older than Jackson, and would be returning home soon. He had a place lined up at Broadstairs, Kent. He had enjoyed his time in India. ‘Signed on for five years originally, but that turned into a twenty-year touch.’ He had married ‘a half-Indian lass, my green-eyed princess’, but she’d died ten years ago. ‘I still miss her, and I’ll tell you what else I’ll miss when I get back to Blighty.’ He nodded towards the shaking fire of the sun, which was beginning to climb above the horizon. ‘That old bugger.’
18. After talking to Collins and Jackson, I had returned to the exterior of the first class carriage and looked up at the doors. Judging by the marks on them, the dacoits had tried as hard, if not harder, to get into my compartment as John Young’s, before giving up and going to the end door. Their aim might have been purely to rob, and that certainly appeared to be the case. But it was not impossible they meant to kill John Young, or any other man in the carriage. The facts were compatible with John Young having heard them boarding the carriage, and having tried to stop their progress along the corridor towards one of the other four compartments. There had been a scuffle; Young had been shot. The bandit, or bandits, had fled, pausing only to take the money from the pocket book. Why not take the whole pocket book? I could not say, and perhaps they could not either.
19. Other thoughts were hard to shake:
a) I was probably deemed to have read a file that might have disclosed the sort of corruption that could earn a man twenty years in jail.
b) It was Major Fisher who had suggested we make the trip to Jamalpur, and that we do so on the night train of 23 April.
c) It was Fisher who had booked me into my compartment.
20. At five thirty in the morning, the night train to Jamalpur Junction remained stationary, protected by smoke bombs on the single track fore and aft. I was smoking a cigarette outside the first class carriage, and the yellow wooden destination board reading ‘Jamalpur’ seemed like a promise that would never be kept. The train did not move off again until six in the morning, by which time a riot was brewing in third class, and the heat had started.
II
We had arrived at the great railway colony and workshops officially known as Jamalpur Junction at 0900 hours on 24 April. The Indian sub-inspector travelled back with us. On arrival, Fisher, Canon Peter Selwyn and I were met by the sub-inspector’s governor, an Inspector Hughes, who ran the police operation at Jamalpur, and was also commanded the surrounding railway police sub-division. Hughes was equipped with a fine moustache, and rolling North-of-England tones that I liked listening to. (He’d cut his teeth as a detective on the Hull and Barnsley Railway before the war.) He walked us over to the great railway refectory, which was empty just then –the apprentices’ breakfasts having all been served – and which smelt of curry and carbolic. We sat down at one end of a long table, and a bearer brought tea, toast, jam and soda. We were joined by the sub-inspector and a new chap, also Indian. Our voices echoed as we talked, and we sat in a tight blue cloud of our own cigarette smoke. Hughes said that some of the bad lads who preyed on the trains were known, so an arrest wasn’t out of the question. The Indian officers then took formal statements from the three of us, and we were very politely fingerprinted.
The first class carriage in which the murder had occurred would be quarantined throughout the day, then sent back on the evening’s ‘up’ Night Mail to Calcutta. Our statements would be on that train as well, but Fisher and I would not be. We were to overnight in Jamalpur, as originally intended, and it seemed that Selwyn would be staying two nights with his friend, the Catholic chaplain. When the statements reached Calcutta there would be a tussle over whether the case should stay with Hughes and the railway police or be taken over by the civil police. There was also an outside chance that the Calcutta C.I.D. would put its oar in, but Hughes thought this unlikely. It took more than an act of banditry – even a murderous one – for those grandees to stir themselves.