The Baghdad Railway Club (16 page)

That night, God willed that I did sleep – for about three hours – and I dreamed of Miss Harriet Bailey. We were riding horses in the park, galloping fast through a grove of lemon trees. In spite of the great speed, I could hear her perfectly clearly as she said, ‘Shall we make love, darling?’

I said, ‘How will we go about it?’ meaning
where
.

‘Oh, in the traditional manner,’ she said, and then her horse was gone, and she was sitting on the dusty ground, helpless with laughter at her own joke. I did not know what to think, and still did not when I woke up. I recollected the dream throughout the following morning as I worked – alone now – in the office I had shared with Stevens.

Lieutenant Colonel Shepherd had stepped through briefly from his own office in the morning, bringing rough drafts of two letters, outlining requirements of flat-bed wagons suitable for the carrying of shells. The letters were for a Mr Halder of Bombay and a Mr Jindal of Karachi, both of the International Office of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, Shipping Department. I was to make fair copies of the letters. I was then to make arrangements with the Deputy Chief of Staff to accommodate a Mr Singh of the same company, who would be arriving on the steamer from Basrah the day after tomorrow and staying for a week. He was a strict vegetarian and so special arrangements would have to be made there too. In addition I was given a bundle of maps, charts and tables relating to the line between Baghdad and the town of Feluja – a line that had been broken up by the Turks at certain points indicated on the charts. The question was whether it would be better to rebuild the line in the existing gauge – the broad gauge – or build a new one in the two-foot gauge, bearing in mind that a garrison of a size indicated by a further document was to be set up at Feluja. This had seemed rather a weighty responsibility, but Shepherd had assured me that I was merely expected to sketch out some initial thoughts on the matter. And so again, I wondered whether this was real work or not.

Before departing he told me that another trip to Samarrah had been fixed for the following Monday, and did I fancy it? I said I did (although I did not), and I asked the reason. This time a proper survey would be made of the line, and of the telegraphic wires alongside; a team of Royal Engineers would be riding with us. There would be an attempt to go further north, a little closer towards the enemy territory of Tikrit in search of rolling stock removed from Baghdad. After he’d quit the room I wondered about Shepherd: you’d have thought he’d want to stay out of the desert after what had just happened.

I made the fair copies of the letters‚ then turned to the bundle about the Feluja line. I started in on a document comparing the costs of the two-foot gauge with standard gauge. In rails, the saving was thirty per cent; in track ties, forty-eight per cent; in ballast, forty-four per cent. But then there were all the disadvantages of the small gauge. I decided I needed some sweet tea, and a bite to eat. I would walk down to the canteen, but first I moved across to one of the two cabinets in the room and opened the doors. This cabinet held bookshelves, and I surveyed the titles:
Superheated Locomotives
,
Glossary of Steam Locomotive Terms
,
Dining Saloons of the London and North Western Railway
. (Who had thought to load
that
on to a steamer, and send it up the Tigris to Baghdad?) There was also
A Geology of Mesopotamia
,
The Arab and His Ways
, and a book in French:
Chemin de Fer Impérial Ottoman de Baghdad
. I then spied a grey pamphlet:
Railway Clearing House Code Book
, and my heart sank even as I told myself that the book was everywhere where there were railways and railwaymen.

I first looked up the word I had sent to Manners: ‘GRUFF’. In the gloss on the railway code put forward by Manners of the War Office it had meant ‘Request identity of local agent’. I found its true meaning on the last but one page of the pamphlet: ‘Snowstorm cleared’.

Well, I very nearly laughed.

The midday call to prayer was rising from beyond the window. I took the pamphlet back to my desk, where I looked up the true meaning of ‘CRATE’, the reply I had received from Manners. It was there in the middle pages: ‘Expect circus train on Sunday’. Anyone in the telegraph office who knew the railway codes must have thought I was playing a very queer game.

I went down to the lobby, where the Baghdadis queued at the desks of the political officers, or the assistants thereof. A dozen fans whirred and rocked, yet still the sweat streamed down the faces of those officers. One (‘Agriculture’) had a white towel around his neck to keep the stuff off his shirt collar. I saw the red caps – the army coppers – still at their post, and a medical orderly was there too, bandaging the forearm of a sepoy, who was at the same time making a statement. I asked the red cap who was not taking down the statement what had happened:

‘Another stabbing, sir.’

‘Native job, was it?’

‘They all are,’ he said.

The sepoy gave me a sheepish smile. It was rough luck on those boys. Because we’d taken over their country some time ago, they had to help us take over someone else’s – this latest acquisition being the one place on earth more infernally hot than their own land.

Just then the door behind the man opened; it gave on to a room that was also part of the red caps’ set-up in the hotel. A military police sergeant came out of it, together with a rather seedy-looking fellow that I recognised. It was the pock-marked man I’d seen coming out of the post room in the Residency when I’d telegrammed to Manners. Evidently, he was being taken in charge for some misdemeanour. No, wait. He was being let go – didn’t look too pleased about it though, and he gave a glare at the red caps before making towards the main doors of the lobby. He’d been let off with a warning, I decided.

I followed the man out into the glare. He turned sharp left‚ then left again; he was into a short street leading down to the quays, and here he was pushing at the door of the place known as The Oasis. Officially this was Wet Canteen Number Two, but somebody had painted an oasis on walls with three beautiful women lying about in it wearing white summer dresses. I followed him in. The place had electricity; perhaps not enough of it though, for the central ceiling fan turned too slowly, and the bright lights flickered. The place (being close to the river) smelt of sewage, and was horribly hot. There was a makeshift bar at the far end with a tea urn on it, some very British-looking cakes under glass, and beer bottles, still in their crates. The pock-marked man was after beer, and the orderly was turning him down flat.

‘Not while five o’clock,’ he was saying – a bloody-minded Yorkshireman, by the sound of him. The pock-marked man was unexpectedly Irish, and with a high, fluttery voice. He said, ‘What a depressing outlook this is: I’ve a choice of mouldy rock cake and a cup of stewed tea or
nothing
.’ He ought not to have been talking to me, since I was an officer and I hadn’t talked to him, but he
was
doing.

I said, ‘Are you going to salute?’ and he did after a fashion, saying, ‘Sorry about that, sir, I’m not right in myself. I’m a sickbay case, I think.’

I said, ‘You’ve been in with the monkeys,’ and that pulled him up sharp, as it did the orderly standing behind him. An officer shouldn’t speak of His Majesty’s Military Mounted Police in that fashion. I had a pocketful of rupees and I put some on the counter, saying, ‘I want to have a talk with this man on Corps business, and we’d both like a bottle of beer.’

The bottles were given over, and I sat the Irishman down at the furthest table from the orderly, who continued to eye us from his post during the following.

The Irishman was Private Lennon. He’d been born in Ireland but lived in London. At least he did when there wasn’t a war on. After I’d got this out of him, he said, ‘What’s this about, sir?’

‘A confidential matter,’ I said.

He was eyeing my white tabs.

I meant to ask him something about methods of communication from the Residency. I didn’t know quite what, but I kept thinking of the bunch of keys he’d been jangling.

I said, ‘They were putting the screws to you. Do you want to tell me why?’

‘Are you Intelligence, sir?’

‘Correct,’ I said immediately. Well, I could always deny it. Anything claimed by a man like Lennon could be denied.

‘Do you really not know?’ he said.

I gave that one the go-by, since he evidently believed I
did
know what he had been questioned about, or that I would be able to find out with no trouble.

‘See, sir,’ he said, ‘I work in the Residency, second floor—’

‘As what?’

He shrugged: ‘General knockabout – mainly in the post room. We’re all trusted men in the post room – have to be. But those coppers don’t trust me, sir.’

‘That’s a shame,’ I said, ‘why ever not?’

He took a belt on his beer, weighing me up; I took a belt on mine.

‘They think I’m sending ordinary mails by the bag.’

‘The bag?’

‘The diplomatic bag.’

‘Ordinary mails,’ I said, ‘you mean ordinary
blokes’
mails?’

‘That’s correct sir. That’s what they think.’

It would be a way for your average Tommy Atkins to avoid having his letter read over by an officer. But I didn’t see quite how it would work. I said, ‘The diplomatic mail only goes to government offices, or the offices of our allies.’

‘Well there you are‚ sir. That’s just what I told the gent with the red cap on.’

‘You couldn’t use the diplomatic bag to send a letter to Mrs Jones of Sycamore Avenue.’

‘Exactly right, sir. I rest my case.’

He drained his glass.

I took from my pocket . . . not rupees this time, but a one-pound note. I set it on the table before us. A pound note went a long way in Baghdad.

‘I notice that you haven’t exactly denied the charge. Only told me why there’d be no point doing it.’

‘No point at all, sir.’

I picked up the note, and made to replace it in my pocket book.

‘Of course,’ said Lennon, ‘it might be different if your brother worked in the bag room of the War Office in London.’

I set the note back on the table, and pushed it a little way towards Lennon.

‘Now if I pick that up,’ he said, ‘you’ll arrest me on a charge of taking bribes.’

‘Try me,’ I said.

‘You’re the only officer who’s ever bought me a drink, sir.’

‘Just so,’ I said.

He swiftly pocketed the note, and I said, ‘I will now arrest you on a charge of taking a bribe unless you help me out with my special duty.’

‘You’re very bad for my nerves, sir, do you know that?’

‘Do you want another glass of beer?’

He nodded and I got two more. When I returned to the table, he said, ‘I’ve decided it’s official business you’re on sir, although of a secret sort. And the money I take to be fair wages.’

We both nodded for a while. I was thinking of the letter sent by Boyd to Manners at the War Office. That had gone via the diplomatic bag. Had its contents been somehow leaked? What exactly
were
its contents? I had not had sight of it, but I knew that in it Boyd had told what he’d seen at the station, and set out the case against Shepherd. I asked Lennon, ‘Are you aware of anybody trying to find out the content of letters sent in the diplomatic bag?’

‘No.’

‘But that does not mean you haven’t put other letters into it – ordinary letters.’

‘It doesn’t in itself mean that sir, no.’

‘If for instance a fellow wanted to send a mucky letter to my wife.’

‘Now
that
doesn’t sound like secret service business,’ he said.

It seemed to me – weighing the fellow up – that Lennon
had
added letters to the diplomatic bag, but had probably
not
taken from it, since that would be too big a proposition . . . In which case I was thrown back on the question of the
telegrams
. According to Manners, the ones sent by Boyd (both before and after the sending of his
letter
) had not disclosed any names, either of people or places. But it would be worth trying to make sure of that; and to find out about any other wires sent by Boyd. Since a copy was kept of all messages, it would be possible to do this given access to the records. Sitting back in my seat, so as to appear relaxed, I said to Lennon, ‘Do you have the keys to the telegraphic office at the Residency?’

‘Now there’d be no point having those keys,’ he said. ‘A sentry is posted outside at all times, and in any case the place never closes.’

‘I need to find out what was sent by a certain man and where to.’

‘When?’

I thought back. When would Boyd have been sending? He had first wired to the War Office the day after the fall of the city, which meant March 13th. The wires arranging the rendezvous at Baghdad station, or the ‘safe place’ (which turned out to be no such thing), were sent the third week of April. That was the end of his communication with the War Office. But Boyd might then have sent any number of other telegrams to other people up to the day I found his body: May 24th, Thursday last.

I said, ‘Between the fall of the city and last Thursday?’

‘Then you don’t need the telegraphic office.’

‘No?’

‘You need the strongboxes in the room around the corner. That’s the archive. Everything sent up to the end of last week will be in there.’

‘Can you get me in there and can you get those boxes open?’

‘For a pound?’ he said.

‘For your freedom from arrest.’

‘And another quid when the job’s done, sir?’

The man was incorrigible.

‘We’ll see about that,’ I said.

At ten that night, I presented my identity card to the sentry at the Residency, and passed into the quadrangle. The horse smell, the heat, the falling darkness, the puttering of a generator, one or two whispered conversations proceeding on the overhanging verandas . . . The man Lennon waited by the fountain. It still did not work. He had been trailing his hand in the green water, but he stood up snappily enough when I approached, and he very nearly saluted.