The Baghdad Railway Club(80)

After his return from that jaunt, Shepherd had got hold of a rifle and shot a gazelle, parts of which were now roasting on the stones in the fire. The fat would spurt from the meat – it was very fatty – with red sparks. Otherwise the flames were invisible in the white light.

Watching Shepherd slay the beautiful animal, I was reminded that he must still be a suspect in the case of the murdered Captain Boyd. His explanation of the Turkish ‘treasure’ might have held water (I was inclined to think so), but that didn’t mean he hadn’t become aware that Boyd thought him a traitor.

Now, at the end of his exertions, Shepherd was taking a shower bath on the other side of The Elephant, which had been kept in steam as before. A Royal Engineer and one of the privates stood on top of the tender. They’d removed the cap off the water-filler hole, and were lowering into it at regular intervals a bucket on a rope. This they would then upend on to the man below. It was a service open to all comers.

Major Findlay, looking one degree redder than he had that morning, sat opposite me, on the other side of the fire, looking at a back number of The Times. I read, ‘New British Thrust East of the Vimy Ridge’. Turning the page, he caught my eye. There was nothing for it: he would have to speak to me.

‘You feeling better?’

‘A little.’

‘I was sorry to hear about your man – Jarvis, wasn’t it?’

I nodded, gave a mumbled ‘Sir.’

‘He was demoralised by the heat, no doubt . . . Or was it the attack? I suppose he’d never been under fire before.’

I felt the need to defend Jarvis. ‘He had been, sir. At Kut-al-Amara.’

Shepherd was approaching, fresh from his shower bath, hair combed back. He might have been stepping into the cocktail lounge of the Midland Grand Hotel, except that he wore his gun.

‘Were you there, sir?’ I asked Findlay.

‘Where?’

‘Kut.’

He shook his head. ‘Came up straight from Basrah. I’ve never eaten antelope before,’ he went on, looking at the spluttering meat. ‘I’m looking forward to it. Well, I think I am.’

Shepherd took hold of one of the folding seats. He’d caught the drift of our earlier conversation, and he wouldn’t let Findlay change the course of it, for he asked, ‘Did you happen to see Jarvis after the meeting broke up?’

‘Did I see Jarvis?’ said Findlay. ‘I was attempting to protect the lady. Not that she takes kindly to any sort of chivalrous display,’ he added, with great regret.

I spent the next little while revolving this answer, as no doubt did Shepherd. Findlay must have seen Jarvis, since Jarvis had taken the photograph from the club room and then we’d found it in Findlay’s pocket.

Shepherd offered a cigarette to Findlay, who took it, and began to smoke it rather crossly, it seemed to me. I had not seen him smoke before; I myself could not face a cigarette.

I looked up and saw a van speeding across the horizon. To my somewhat dazed mind it seemed to be towing behind it – sideways on – a gigantic cone. But it was only the sand that the wheels threw up. Captain Ferry was in that motor, I knew, together with a driver we’d picked up at Samarrah. It was one of the two radio vans. The other was also flying about in the vicinity. Sometimes the two would converge, and there would be a conference; then they’d roar off in opposite directions and attempt a wireless communication.

Findlay was now pacing near the rocks, while Shepherd was turning over the antelope steaks. It would soon be supper time, and all the party seemed to know it. At any rate, the Royal Engineers were converging on the fire, and I now saw that the two radio cars were racing towards us, dragging half the desert with them. They gave us a wide berth, so as to spare us the dust cloud, and came to a stop near The Elephant, where the four men climbed out. As the dust around them subsided, it was Captain Bob Ferry that I had my eye on. He went behind the engine, whereas the other three stayed by the vans. Since a stalemate seemed to have set in between Shepherd and Findlay, and since I didn’t feel like eating, I walked somewhat unsteadily towards The Elephant. I knew that telegraphy was somehow important in the case of Captain Boyd, and I meant to draw Ferry out about who had sent what to whom.

One fellow remained standing on the water tank of the tender, and as I walked around the rear of it, I saw Ferry standing naked. He looked if anything neater without clothes than he did with, and when the bucket of fairly cold and fairly clean water was pitched down on him, he looked neater still, for all the black hairs on his long brown body were immediately aligned by it. He’d got hold of a cake of soap, and he was lathering his bald brown head. I registered the gold signet ring on his left little finger, and I saw, nestling amid his chest hairs, another item of jewellery: a small gold crucifix on a thin gold chain.