I went back to Collins, and enquired, ‘How long does it take to reach London?’
‘Three minutes,’ he said.
It appeared those two words were about the limit of his conversation. Ferry had returned to the vicinity of his desk, where he stood smoking, and looking down at the bustle of boats on the Tigris.
‘Where will the reply come to?’ I asked Collins. Without looking up from his desk, he stabbed the air with his pencil, indicating the man at the desk over‚ opposite Captain Ferry’s.
This chap commanded two machines. Tape was coming from both, and he was reading one of the tapes. I took up station next to him, and he gave me a narrow look before going back to reading the tape. I thought: Is this message for me? No, couldn’t be. It had come too quickly and it was surely too long. The message was in Morse, whereas the one coming from the second, bigger machine was in actual words that seemed to flow on unread for ever. (I made out ‘. . . Religion has a great influence over the Arab . . .’) This second machine was operated by compressed air, and made a kind of sucking noise at frequent intervals. I became aware of a similar sound closer to me, and Captain Ferry and his pipe had come up close. The clerk tore the Morse tape from the first machine, and handed it to Ferry, who read it thoughtfully with pipe in hand, before placing his pipe in his mouth, and quickly twisting the tape with his long brown fingers into a perfect, pretty bow.
I found myself saying, ‘I was told to expect an immediate reply,’ whereas in fact I had been advised by Manners not to wire at all.
Ferry removed his pipe from his mouth. ‘That means’, he said, ‘. . . tomorrow.’ He added, ‘At the earliest . . . I should think. A runner will be sent to you.’
I nodded. ‘Much obliged,’ I said.
‘You’re in the railway section,’ said Ferry. ‘Has Lieutenant Colonel . . . Shepherd interested you in his Railway Club?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m going along tonight. Will you be there?’
A long period of smoking followed from Captain Ferry, during which time he saw that my own cigarette was coming to an end, and so fetched an ashtray for me from a window ledge.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Good,’ I said, which rather got across whatever he had wanted to say next, requiring him to smoke for a while longer as he mustered the words for a second time.
‘. . . I will be,’ he said, ‘although I have no particular interest in railway topics. Except perhaps for . . . railway telegraphy.’
Nice, I thought. He probably knows the railway code book backwards. But then what could it matter if he thought that, by ‘GRUFF’, I meant ‘Blockage on the “up” line’ or whatever might be its meaning in the railway code? (I could not just then recall it.)
‘However,’ Ferry was saying, ‘the Club, as I understand it, is not really to . . . do with railways. The main concern of Lieutenant Colonel Shepherd seems to be—’
And at this the receiving clerk cut in, for the Morse printer had started up again, and the matter was evidently urgent.
‘Excuse me,’ said Ferry, and he turned to the machine.
Being fascinated by Captain Bob Ferry, I contrived – by means of lighting another cigarette near the doorway – to delay my departure from the telegraph office. As I looked on, Ferry stood over his man, and read the tape coming from the machine. He tore it off, and quickly made another bow of it while walking to the safe that stood alongside his desk. He put both paper bows into the safe, glanced up and saw me watching him do it. He removed his pipe from his mouth, and called, ‘I will . . . see you this evening, Captain Stringer.’
And still the words spooled unread from the second receiver.
Chapter Nine
Trying to picture the Baghdad Railway Club, I had kept thinking of the original Railway Club in Victoria Street, London, namely a dusty room, green-papered walls crowded with pictures of trains – something like that, only hotter. The reality of the matter was as follows:
The Club was housed in a three-storey building that had once been grand. On each floor, overlooking the small square – Quiet Square – was a window of coloured glass and a faded red veranda. A sign projected: ‘The Restaurant’. The front door gave on to a hot, dark lobby into which a spiral staircase of fancy ironwork descended. Arab voices echoed from rooms off. I had been told to go to the third floor and here I smelt pipesmoke, and found Captain Bob Ferry sitting alone at a long table, his lean, dark form strangely decorated with geometric patterns of blue and red-brown light from the window. His hat was off, and he was quite bald.