The Baghdad Railway Club(4)

Aleppo – which I’d never heard of either – turned out to be in ‘Upper Syria’. One part of the Berlin–Baghdad railway came down – rather shakily – from Turkey and went there. It then drifted right towards this place Nusaybin, which was in ‘Upper Mesopotamia’. The other part crawled up from Baghdad towards a spot called Samarrah, petering out somewhere between there and a spot called Tikrit. Both Samarrah and Tikrit sat on another, more wriggly hand-drawn line signifying the River Tigris. Baghdad itself was on that river, as were the only places marked on the map as being south of Baghdad, namely Kut-al-Amara and Basrah.

Downes, having regained his seat, watched as we passed the map amongst ourselves. ‘The labour on the Nusaybin stretch’, he said, ‘is supplied by British prisoners of war, taken after the fall of Kut, then force-marched north.’ Again he eyed us individually, as though asking each man: ‘You can see that I’m crocked. But what are you going to do about it?’

The fellow who’d said he hadn’t heard of Aleppo – and who had the map in his hand just then – spoke up again.

‘But hold on, chap,’ he said, ‘you’re being too depressing. Don’t you read the papers? Townshend’s gone. Maude’s the chap now, and the War Office is giving him everything he wants. Part of his army’s outside Kut as we speak. He’s already nibbling at the Turks, and the big push up from Basrah is bound to come soon, then we’ll be into Baghdad and running the whole show in Mespot.’ He flicked the back of his hand against the pessimistic map, making a sharp crack that threatened to tear it.

The name of Kut was just then in all the newspapers, as it had been nearly a year before. On that previous occasion, our forces under General Townshend had been besieged there, and had finally surrendered, not that any such word had appeared in print. Instead there had been talk of ‘the end of a heroic defence’ or ‘the conclusion of a siege’. Now we seemed likely to have our revenge, and Kut, gateway to Baghdad, would soon fall.

‘If we take Baghdad . . . where does all this leave the Berlin–Baghdad railway?’ It was the inquisitive kid in the muffler who spoke (and he still wore the muffler, too).

‘Up the pole!’ said the bluff man. ‘It’ll be the British–Baghdad Railway!’

He was pleased with that, and he looked round at us all.

‘Tell that to the British prisoners blasting tunnels in the Anatolian mountains,’ said Downes, and the bluff fellow scowled.

. . . And he did not clap when Short rose to his feet to give the vote of thanks to the speaker, and to say that next week’s talk would be on ‘Byways of Bradshaw – some curiosities of the railway timetable’. The War Relief collection was taken, and the audience filed out. But not the quiet man who’d given me the cigarette. He was talking to Downes, who at first was standing, painfully, with his stick, but the other politely urged him to sit down. It seemed that, in his quiet way, he had a good deal to say.

I trooped down the stairs behind Short and his friend in the muffler, who said, ‘Shouldn’t all that have come under Official Secrets? It was a bit near-the-knuckle, anyhow. And did you hear that fellow sticking up for Johnny Turk? I suppose they “didn’t have any choice” about giving our boys what for in Gallipoli?’

‘Apparently’, said Short, ‘Mr Hayward does a very good skit about a rather dim fellow who comes up to London from the country, and buys a ticket for the Central Line on the Underground. He says to the clerk, “But there’s no destination stated.” “That’s correct,” says the clerk, “all our tickets are alike.” “But how,” says the rather dim fellow, “will I—”’

‘“. . . Will I know where I’m going?”’ put in the younger man. ‘It’s an old joke.’

And he was still scowling.

*

In our third-floor room at the Midland Grand Hotel, the wife was looking down at the carpet with arms folded in disapproval.

‘You’d have thought it would be a fitted carpet,’ she said, kicking away at the end of it.

I ought to have known that, given the chance to have a holiday in one of London’s premier hotels at someone else’s expense, she’d object. She was a snob like Dad – the trouble was, she was snobbish about his snobbery.

‘I think the rooms above have only got linoleum,’ I said.

‘Well, that’s no comfort to me,’ said the wife. She walked over to the window, and pulled back the curtain. ‘And what’s that?’ she said, looking down.