The Baghdad Railway Club(68)

But the question of Randall was lost amid the applause for my talk, and the noisy arrival of Wallace King and his assistant. As this fellow struggled with a mass of equipment, King cut off the applause for my speech with a raised hand. ‘I am Wallace King,’ he said. (Somebody said, ‘We know.’) ‘I will tonight exhibit a film of the famous archaeologist Miss Bailey . . .’

She nodded her head graciously.

‘. . . on a visit to Babylon. Rest assured, there is footage of the railway. My assistant also took some still photographs of the visit, and these will be passed around.’

The assistant – he and Jarvis were wrestling with the tripod stand of the projection machine – was never named, I noticed.

‘My assistant and I’, King continued, ‘will attempt to set up our equipment with the minimum of fuss and inconvenience to yourselves, so please do carry on with the next business of the meeting. However, I must warn you all that both the film stock and the gas used by the projection machine are highly flammable, and there is a real danger of an explosion. Once the projection machine is started, I must insist that all cigarettes be extinguished – and all pipes,’ he added, with a glance at Captain Ferry.

The next business of the meeting was a talk by one of the Royal Engineers on the subject of Euston station in its early days. He was mainly concerned with the sidings of Euston station, and almost all of his talk went by the board anyhow, what with King, the assistant, Jarvis and Layth clattering about with the projection machine, testing the flow of gas from canisters in haversacks to the light box attached behind the projector, and the hanging of the picture sheet – an ordinary white bed sheet as far as I could see – on to the wall opposite.

The end of the talk on Euston coincided with the dramatic climax of the preparations, namely the hanging of black cloth over the stained-glass window (which left the hot air coloured a murky blue and gold), and the lighting of the lime in the light box. Miss Bailey put out her Woodbine. There was now a white light on the picture sheet, black scratches flying through that light, which suddenly gave way to words, ‘WALLACE KING BRINGS THE WORLD TO YOU’.

‘Just a bit of header left over from my theatrical presentations,’ said King. ‘In the picture houses back home, by the way, it would cost you one and six to see this film.’

He wasn’t joking either. The desert now appeared on the screen. Well, two palm trees against a pile of stones, perhaps with the river flowing behind – it would have been the Euphrates rather than the Tigris. The next minute we were looking at the sky, and many black scratches were flying through it too – but there was also a great black flying crow in the picture. It was immediately obvious to me that the projection machine was redoubling the already stifling heat of the room. I moved my fingertips across my forehead, and sweat ran freely down the back of my hand.

‘It was very hard to get this shot,’ Wallace King was saying, and I thought: Who’s giving this talk? You or Harriet Bailey? We were now looking at the bird from a different angle. ‘It’s just a bit of scene-setting,’ said Wallace King, ‘bit of atmosphere.’

Harriet Bailey smiled and rolled her eyes in the direction of Shepherd, who gave a boyish grin back.

‘This was a month ago,’ said King, ‘when Miss Bailey went to Babylon to look at the, er . . . antiquities. It was not Miss Bailey’s first visit, by the way. I believe she went there many times before the war. That right, Miss Bailey?’

Miss Bailey nodded.

‘She went to see what sort of mess the Germans have made of the place . . .’ said King.

‘It was ruined before, Mr King,’ said Harriet Bailey. ‘In fact, the German team there did some excellent work of preservation.’

‘Tommyrot,’ said one of the Royal Engineers.

Now the view had changed: there was a small tank engine on two-foot-gauge track, steam flowing away rapidly from it.

‘Ah,’ said Miss Bailey. ‘This is what you’ve all come to see – a train.’

‘It’s a locomotive actually,’ said Shepherd, grinning and colouring up.

In the film, Miss Bailey walked up to the engine, and faced the camera. She was smoking. Three Royal Engineers took up position beside her. After a while, all their smiles ran out, and with an effort they all renewed them. ‘It’s not exactly the Orient Express, is it?’ said Miss Bailey. ‘Perhaps Colonel Shepherd will put us in the picture.’

‘. . . A pannier tank of German manufacture . . . Note the low-set boiler and short chimney for maximum stability on the narrow, rough-laid track. The line is of two-foot gauge. It was put in by the Germans five years or so ago, and runs from the ruins at Babylon just a little way south to a spot called Hillah on the Euphrates. It was connected to Baghdad but the Turks blew that stretch up a couple of miles outside the town. We mean to restore the connection.’