Night Train to Jamalpur(50)
‘Sahib, that is impossibility.’
‘What are you talking about, man? They’ll jump at the chance to go first class.’
‘Sahibs, train is late. I am blowing whistle.’
And as I leapt back up, he did so, and the train began drawing away, the locomotive barking violently, and giving a long, shrieking whistle as though from annoyance at the delay. Regaining our compartment, I told Deo Rana what had occurred, at the same time as opening the window blinds to verify that – yes – the Europeans had remained on the platform rather than risk the snakes. I wondered how many other, similar scenes had occurred at Howrah in recent days. It occurred to me that if the perpetrator put even one serpent in second or third, then he might single-handedly start to reverse the tremendous increases in ridership seen over the recent years; but he – or they – seemed to be fixated on first.
As we pulled away, I sat down and began to inspect the picture-taking machine. The big feature was that it could take pictures without the need of plates, films, printing or dark room, and so no third parties need know what you’d photographed. Fisher and I had been equipped with one apiece, and he’d already used his, I believed, to take pictures of unguarded entrances to certain railway properties. This was the first time I’d used mine, and I was doing so at the suggestion of Deo Rana, who’d booked the thing out of the police office stores on my behalf. You pointed it, and pressed the button (there was only one), and the image came out on what resembled a postcard: one of a dozen or so held in the cartridge attached to the back of the contraption. The thing was fully loaded anyhow, and there was a flash bulb attachment. I set it aside, and began looking out of the window. Deo Rana was doing the same, and his face betrayed no expression as he contemplated the ragged people who made their homes on the margins of the lines, and who at this time of day could be seen breakfasting on low-loaders parked in sidings, or making their ablutions on the track ballast.
On aggregate, the Grand Chord headed west, but it curved north in its early stages, and we were running a little way inland of the milky morning river, over which the sun was climbing. After a while, the factory chimneys of Calcutta gave out, and we were into a region of scrub and paddy fields, with occasional thickets of palms, and crumbling blue or orange buildings that looked temple-like to me. But then the factories (jute mills in the main) resumed, with the mercury climbing steadily all the while, so that I had to mop my brow, causing Deo Rana to turn towards me with what might have been the beginnings of a smile. ‘Too much of heat, sahib,’ he said.
After twenty minutes, we called at Bally, where the American tourist, Walter Gill, had been found dead in company with a sawscale viper. Half an hour later, we climbed down at Sheoraphuli, and the sound of the train pulling away was replaced by the sound of gulls circling overhead. They – and the hot breeze blowing over from the river – made the place seem like the seaside. The station was small, and quiet. The main part of town, and the river docks, lay beyond the opposite platform, which could be reached by a dusty footbridge. There was no local man to greet us. Well, we had not been expected . . . but we had been seen, and the door of a station office closed further along the platform on which we stood. We walked along the deserted platform, passing a drinking fountain on which was posted a sign: ‘Help the Railway to Help You’, and below was a list of instructions, such as ‘Do not take a bath in the drinking fountain’. Beyond the platform buildings, and the door that had closed, we turned left into a station yard: a square of hard mud. In one corner was a cow; in the opposite corner, a man sat on his haunches, smoking elegantly. Near the cow was the place to which I had been directed by the anonymous letter: a small blockhouse, with padlocked door. There was a sign on the door, and Deo Rana read it aloud in a thoughtful way, as he liked to do, to practise his English: ‘Please Knock.’ With one kick, he smashed down the door, and we entered the blockhouse.
The first thing I saw inside the blockhouse was a pasteboard box, on which appeared the words ‘Whisky, when it is good, is the embodiment of progress and happiness’. It was full of bottles of Dewar’s whisky. The room was crammed full of boxes and crates, about a third holding types of whisky, and it was all the good stuff: Dewar’s, White Horse, Old Smuggler, and none of your ‘Loch Lomands’. There was a good deal of brandy into the bargain, mainly Hennessy’s. There was an ice chest in the corner, and that was full of bottles of Beck’s. There was no ice in the chest, and the bottles were somewhat dusty, but they were highly saleable nonetheless. There were cigars and cigarettes, mainly Piccadillies. Behind me, Deo Rana cried ‘Watch, huzoor!’ and I tensed and turned with gun in hand, but he was only indicating a supply of silver plate watches, made by the Imperial Company of Calcutta. Some of these goods might have been the legitimate possessions of the East Indian Railway. The whisky might, for example, have been purchased for station dining rooms, but even the items so acquired did not belong in this dark and dusty lock-up, and most of the booty here had simply been lifted from the private-owner wagons entrusted to the railway for transit.