The Baghdad Railway Club(2)

The younger one softened to the extent of saying, ‘It’s members-only but they generally don’t ask for cards to be shown.’

‘I am a member,’ I said, ‘and I do have a card.’

‘I haven’t seen you before,’ said the younger one.

I’ll bloody clock you in a minute, I thought, while saying, ‘I’m a corresponding member.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘York.’

I was thinking about The Albert public house. They served topping beer at only tuppence a pint, and they ran to hot dinners. Did I really want to hear about the Berlin–Baghdad railway? It was a scheme, as I recalled, that had come to grief in the war, like many another: a German attempt to connect with . . . what was it called? Asia Minor. At first we hadn’t troubled about it, but as Germany became the enemy we’d tried to block it. The thing had never been finished, as far as I knew – had never reached Baghdad, anyhow. There was fighting over there now of course – us against Brother Turk and the Huns, with the Arabs somewhere in between, and more men dying of heat than bullets. An engine driver I knew called Kemp had gone out to Egypt with the East Yorkshires. He’d reasoned that you couldn’t dig trenches in sand, so he reckoned he’d be better off than the blokes in France, but I heard that when he came back for his first leave, he’d lost two stone, and spent the whole time looking for a mosquito net in the York stores – without success. He’d seen the Sphinx, and reported it no higher than a tall tree. As to the digging of trenches . . . It was possible in sand.

The elderly party was now unlocking the door, and a couple of blokes were approaching along the dark street. They looked like Railway Club types. I stepped off the doorstep of 92 as they came up. The elderly party explained to them about the change in the programme, and they took it easily in their stride. In fact, they didn’t look at all surprised. Then all the four blokes went in. I saw a couple of others coming up, and I eyed The Albert pub behind them. I was just starting towards it when it seemed instantly to disappear from the street. All that had happened . . . the lights had gone out. It had closed, as any pub was liable to do at any time in the war. There seemed nothing for it: I turned back towards number 92, and walked in.

*

The talk was given in the Club Room of the Railway Club, the holy of holies. Downes, the speaker, had pitched up while I’d been along the corridor in the Gentlemen’s, draining off my pint of London Brown.

He turned out to be a slightly built, sandy-haired fellow, who wore a thick guernsey beneath his suit-coat. The elderly party who’d been on the doorstep was called Mr Short, and he was the Deputy President of the Railway Club. The President sent his apologies, as did John Maycroft, the humorist, who was ‘unavoidably detained on the south coast’. Short was still cut-up over this loss and Downes, sitting beside him ready to start his talk, put a brave face on it as Short said how he personally had been ‘particularly looking forward’ to hearing of the lighter side of the railways. There was then some Railway Club business.

We were all reminded that the monthly meetings were continuing during the Crisis, even if it had been necessary to suspend the annual dinners. One of the members, Mr N. McCracken, had recently distinguished himself by winning the M.C., but then again, two members had been killed in action during the past month. It appeared, from listening to Short, that the Railway Club was at one and the same time both the leading railway society in the world, and desperately in need of new members. Therefore, a recruitment drive would soon begin, and we were all reminded that serving men paid only half the subscription. Short was sorry about the absence of tea; a collection for War Relief would be taken after the talk. He then gave the floor to Downes.

I spent the opening minutes of his talk wondering why the fellow wasn’t serving with the colours, since he was about of an age with me – early thirties – and why the fire wasn’t lit, since the room was chill, and with a feeling of damp. I then looked all about the room, the pale green walls of which were covered in railway photographs and drawings, not over-clean. Some of the photographs showed the Railway Club members on the steps of signal boxes, or the tops of footbridges, and I believed that I recognised some of the faces in the room from these photographs. There were fourteen in the audience, including Short and his inquisitive young pal from the front door. Most had cigarettes on the go, but I’d smoked my last Virginian in The Albert. Amongst the clutter of pictures on the wall was a cigarette machine – Churchman’s, but they’d do, and I wondered whether it would be all right to stand up and put in my sixpence for a carton.