Night Train to Jamalpur(73)

‘Captain Stringer,’ he said. ‘Delighted to see you here. I hope the mountain air is clearing your mind of any Commission of Enquiry headaches with which you may be afflicted?’

It was difficult to know what to say to that.

‘As a loyal servant of the Company, it would be quite wrong of me to suggest that you have been enjoined to clean the Augean stables, Captain Stringer, but—’

‘There’s a lot to be getting on with,’ I said, ‘yes. But I know you’re pretty hard-pressed in traffic as well.’

‘Quite so, and to continue the equine train of thought, we are rather changing horses in mid-stream. You may have heard that we had considered putting in to the Board for substantial new orders of rolling stock.’

‘Passenger or freight?’

‘Oh, both. We had conducted the necessary surveys, and armed ourselves with a pretty watertight case . . .’

‘But surely’, I said, ‘there’s no shortage of passenger carriages at least. At any one time there are hundreds standing idle around Howrah. A carriage might be there for a couple of months between runs, surely? And they’re not properly guarded, hence all this snake trouble.’

Askwith’s expression did not change, because it could not change.

‘The Board might well have made that very same point, Captain Stringer, had we proceeded with our application. It is likely they would also have trotted out the familiar line that when Indian passenger carriages are overcrowded, the Indians simply resort to travelling on the roof!’

I gave the half smile that seemed to be required.

‘Such observations are always likely to be made by those unacquainted with the plans and diagrams from which we work. Nevertheless, in consideration of the economy drive presently underway, we propose to withdraw our application for supplementary stock, and I will propose instead a more scientific system of rotation.’

Askwith was raising his glass in greeting to someone over my shoulder.

‘And how would that work?’ I said.

‘In essence, the periodical repairs ought to occur after a certain number of miles rather than a certain period of time. That way, the number of running miles would be kept permanently in view, and in place of a mass of irrelevant documentation I would like to see introduced a new and simplified distribution card – a universal document, you see – for every rake of carriages or wagons, these to be filled out by the running men, and also used as a record by the traffic managers.’

‘I see,’ I said, because I almost did.

But now the woman who’d been signalling to Askwith came up and claimed him, and I went looking for the wife, while revolving all that Askwith had said, and wondering above all why why he’d given me all that technical stuff. I knew I’d found Lydia when – during another pause in the music – I heard an aggrieved male voice saying, ‘You seem awfully keen to get the British out of here.’

He was in a sitting-out room together with Lydia and half a dozen others. The speaker was somewhere at the top of the Boss Class, a friend of Askwith’s. His name was Kendall, I believed, and he had public school written all over him.

‘I don’t wish to be rude,’ he said to Lydia, ‘but you could make a start by leaving yourself.’

‘My passage home is booked for 30 August on the P&O line,’ Lydia said, which was true enough. ‘On returning, I will be giving a series of talks to some organisations I am involved with, and I will speak of the charm, politeness, modesty and forbearance I’ve met out here.’

‘She means from the natives,’ somebody said, rather bitterly.

‘I mean from the Indians.’

‘They’re not all forbearing,’ said Kendall. ‘There are people at this dance who’ve been the victims of revolutionists.’

‘Who?’

‘Major Askwith,’ said Kendall. ‘He was riding on a tram in Calcutta, and he—’

‘Had his hat removed, yes.’

‘He could have had a sunstroke.’

‘Yes,’ said Lydia. ‘But instead of that, he walked into the Army & Navy Stores and bought himself a new hat.’

‘I was talking to him at the Governor’s tea party,’ said Kendall. ‘Do you know what that man does to bring on young Indians in his department of the railway? Damn it all, we’re here for their own good.’

Lydia said, ‘So British India is one big charitable endeavour?’

Silence for a space.

‘You could say that, yes.’

A clever-looking old woman in a long Victorian dress gave a snort at that. She very delicately took a thin cigarette from a silver case and lit it. She was enjoying herself no end.