Night Train to Jamalpur(38)

‘What did he say to that?’

‘Not much. Then he said, “You’re the masters now, but we’ll be running the show before too long.” I said, “Good luck to you, pal. I’ll be long gone by then.”’

‘And where will you be?’

‘I don’t bloody know, do I?’

I noticed a singular sort of squirming happening beneath his brush-like moustache. To all appearances, he had now abandoned his interest in the shooting of John Young. As for the snakes, it seemed he’d never had much interest in them in the first place.

‘All set for tiffin?’ he said.

We were to have a meeting about our fact-finding with a chap from the Railway Board, and it was to happen over tiffin.

The fellow turned out to be called Ross Sinclair and to have one of those soft Scottish accents that nearly puts you to sleep. Our meeting took place on the veranda, beneath the creaking of a hand-pulled punka, and with rather inadequate shade. It was a rather rambling affair. The meal over, Sinclair suggested to us that the Railway would recruit a better class of employee if it advertised the posts in the railway journals.

‘Then you’d attract the railway hobbyists,’ I said, ‘. . . train watchers.’

‘Nutcases,’ said Fisher.

At this point Bennett joined us, together with his pipe.

I suggested a perimeter fence be erected around the railway lands of Howrah. I also put forward a theory I’d been developing about a certain type of twelve-ton covered goods van commonly used on the railway that had a small trapdoor in the side meant to allow a yard man with a torch to check on the contents . . . but which also allowed easy access to those contents for any suitably skinny villain.

‘Fair suggestions, Jim, but both a good deal too expensive.’

That was Bennett. He was definitely down on me, but he mustered a smile when Fisher started in on how he’d discovered that some storekeeper’s clerks were doing the job without pay.

Bennett said, ‘Perhaps you think some hidden advantage lurks in the holding of the appointment, Noel?’ Fisher had also come across a weighing machine inspector who owned a racehorse, and Bennett had a good chuckle at that: ‘Now I’d like to have a look at his post office savings account.’

But he was obviously still thinking of the snakes.

Ross Sinclair brought up the subject of Darjeeling. Fisher fixed his eye on me, and said, ‘You’re off up to the highlands, aren’t you?’

Bennett, re-filling his pipe, said, ‘It’s called having a change to the hills, Noel.’

I nodded.

‘Got your tickets yet, have you?’ asked Fisher.

‘Put in for them, yes.’

I’d put in for privilege bookings to Darjeeling through Jogendra, and they had been available to collect for some days since. It was the East Bengal Railway that ran that way, but it was possible to book for that line at the East Indian Railway booking office. And Jogendra had said it was regrettably necessary that I should go down to the booking office and pick up the vouchers myself, since they had to be signed for. It appeared that Fisher was yet to apply for his own booking, and he intended to do this directly and in person at the booking office.

‘Go down later and do the business together shall we?’ he suggested, lighting one of his Trichies.

It was just about the first instance of normal and friendly behaviour that he had shown towards me, and I didn’t like it one bit.


II

Mindful of what had happened the last time I’d set off on a railway journey with Fisher – that is to say, I had come close (I believed) to having my head blown off – I had resolved to travel apart from him on future occasions. But I had a morbid curiosity about his intentions. I could always make sure to stay awake in his company. And I would not be putting Lydia and Bernadette at risk, since they would be travelling separately.

Therefore, at three o’clock that afternoon, I was standing next to Fisher in the queue marked ‘Staff Tickets’ in the great marble booking hall of the East Indian Railway.

All the queues were long, the poojahs being in prospect. Most of the white sahibs waited in line with the Indians, but not all. Some would push to the front. They would say something like, ‘Excuse me there,’ but would not look at the men or women they had pushed past. If any Indian had objected, the queue jumper would have called in one of the two constables who stood in the doorway. They were Anglo-Indian, and they would side with the sahib, which was why folk of that persuasion would get short shrift from the Indians when independence finally arrived. If it did come to a row, the queue jumpers would not say, ‘I’m white so I must be allowed to go to the front.’ They would more likely say they were an officer from some important department, and it was essential for the smooth running of society that they get their ticket in double-quick time. I believed that, if Fisher had been in a hurry in the booking office, he would have shoved in front of a white as readily as a black.