Night Train to Jamalpur(49)

I believed it had been Major Fisher inside the tonga.





Chapter Seven



I

I woke shortly before dawn on Monday. I dressed in the bathroom so as not to disturb the wife. All ready and laid out on the cabinet were cigarettes, pocket book, revolver. I exited the suite as quietly as possible, and put my boots on outside the door. As I walked through the dimly lit lobby, I was surprised to see several of the uniformed bearers sleeping on the couches or the floor, and to hear snoring coming from behind the reception desk. I found the chowkidar sleeping in his lodge, and I had to wake him so that he would open the gates of the hotel compound and let me out. I stepped out into the soft green darkness of Calcutta, where the first market stalls were being put up on Chowringhee, but the trams had not yet started, and nor had the heat . . . so I could walk fast. There were some cyclists about, but not the orderly bicycling clerks. The early chaps were weirder. One came out of the gloom on a tricycle with two chairs belted on the back. Then came another, with another two chairs, followed by a pair of tricyclists carrying between them the table corresponding to the chairs. They all turned into Esplanade Row, and the latter two shouted as they co-ordinated, but they did not wake the little sepoys who slept on pavement mattresses, like so many toy soldiers fallen over.

Fairlie Place was quiet. For the first time, I saw no bathers on the Armenian Ghat, and no traffic block on the Howrah Bridge. But by the time I had crossed the river, there was light in the day; my hat had become heavy, and Howrah was fully alive, with the cranes swinging over the barges at the jetties, the men shouting, tongas arriving and departing, and the air full of the burning of Bengali coal. I entered the station. On the concourse, the crowds swirled while the engines waited, fuming beyond the platform gates.

I made for gate three, where a stopping train for Moghalsarai was about to set off along the Grand Chord. It would be calling at the spot called Sheoraphuli.

Deo Rana was waiting at the gate as arranged. He saluted and handed over a square leathern case about eight inches by eight. I lifted the lid of the case. Inside was a bit of kit called a Mandelette Picture-Taking Machine. ‘Easy to operate?’ I said, and Deo Rana shook his head.

‘Buggeration,’ I said, until I remembered that in Deo’s case this meant yes.

‘Even for little child,’ he said.

Beyond the gate, the train was being boarded by means of the usual free-for-all.

‘Would you care to come in first class with me, Deo?’

‘Thank you, sahib, I would like.’

By agreeing, he was putting himself in the way of the snakes; and that was exactly why he had agreed. We located the one first class carriage and climbed up. We had not booked, and it appeared we could take our pick of the seats. Walking along the hot, dusty corridor we passed one compartment after another with not a soul inside. The whole carriage, in fact, was empty. I dragged open one of the doors, and as I was stepping in, Deo Rana said, ‘I first, huzoor.’

‘Nonsense,’ I said, and so we split the duty of checking the compartment for snakes.

We took our seats, and Deo Rana said, ‘Webley gun, huzoor. You have?’

I took the piece from my shoulder holster and handed it over.

‘Comes very handy,’ he said. Deo Rana liked guns – guns and snakes.

After finding all in order with the Webley, he returned it to me, and we sat back.

We waited for the sound of the pea whistle. I checked my watch: it was six fifteen, and we had been due away at 6.12. We waited a further minute.

‘They are not hurrying up at all,’ said Deo.

I had thought I heard raised voices from the platform, and now they came again. Telling Deo Rana to sit tight, I quit the compartment and stepped down on to the platform again. A party of Europeans with bags and suitcases were rowing with the Indian train guard. Their leader was a young English fellow.

‘Yes, I daresay first class is, as you say “most height of luxury” but we don’t want to go in first.’

‘But you are having tickets and bookings for first itself.’

‘But we want to travel in second, and we want you to find us an empty compartment.’

‘But there is no empty, sahib.’

Now a woman stepped forward from the party: ‘Look we’re quite happy to go in third class if necessary. We just don’t want to get attacked by poisonous snakes, is that so unreasonable?’

A conference was taking place between another two of the males in the part, and they now took the guard aside, and began a low muttering with him. One of the Europeans took out his pocket book. They were offering baksheesh; offering to pay not to go in first . . . and being turned down by the looks of it. Either way, the original fellow had now lost patience. He strode over to the guard, shouting, ‘Look, you go and take some bloody Indians out of second class and put them into bloody first!’