All Honourable Men

by Gavin Lyall

  Zurga rode calmly to the rescue. “But to pay the money will not change Miskal Bey’s mind. Only you can do that, Lady Kelso. And end the matter in peace – for his people as well as the Railway.”

  She was cool to any idea coming from Zurga, however sensible. And, Ranklin guessed, she probably didn’t trust a word he said. But in a sudden change of mood, she smiled. “Very well, you’ve persuaded me, Zurga Bey. But if I don’t succeed, then my opinion doesn’t count for anything. You must do whatever you think best.”

  Dahlmann couldn’t have been more relieved than Ranklin, but at least he could show it. “Thank you, Lady Kelso. And you also, Zurga Bey. Do you have anything more to say?”

  Perhaps Lady Kelso’s change of mood was catching, because Zurga’s politeness seemed more than formal. “I much regret I still do not agree with Lady Kelso about Miskal Bey, though I do not know him. But, like her, if I fail I cannot tell you what you should then do. But also I must tell you that some of the Committee, the Government, will not want you to pay money to a man they think –” and he looked carefully at Lady Kelso “– is a bandit. So if you must pay, it must be most secret.”

  It was a nice speech, seemingly not too rehearsed, and it put their little play back on track after Lady Kelso’s surprise derailment. And the story was now as Gunther had been selling it nearly a week ago.

  Dahlmann said gravely: “Thank you, Zurga Bey. That is an important matter – secrecy. Now: I have already the opinion of Dr Streibl.” He seemed to remember Ranklin, and asked politely: “Mr Snaipe – do you feel you can say what your Foreign Office might recommend?”

  Ranklin said: “Four hundred thousand seems a bit of an odd figure – was it the result of bargaining or does it translate into something easier in Turkish money?”

  “An interesting observation. No, not in Turkish money, but the demand is for half a million francs, to be paid in new French gold coins. As you all know, such coins are the most common in Turkey, but at the Deutsche Bank we do not have so many, not new, so we must get it from the French Imperial Ottoman Bank in Constantinople. We will tell the French it is for wages and supplies. So I must beg you not to mention this to anyone – and especially, Mr Snaipe, your colleagues in the British Embassy.”

  “Oh, absolutely our little secret,” Ranklin said. “As long as the French Bank isn’t going to be surprised at you suddenly wanting that much in coin . . .”

  Dr Streibl abruptly came down to earth to say: “In Turkey almost all payment is in coin, only a few in Constantinople use the banks. And in summer we have perhaps thirty thousand workers building the Railway who must be paid, and also fed from food bought locally. Nobody is surprised that we need a lot of coin.”

  Ranklin doubted the average Turkish worker saw any gold coin, not unless he got paid yearly, but he had another thought to raise: “One other thing occurs to me: with half a million gold francs, old Miskal Bey’s going to be able to buy a sight more repeating rifles, if he’s a mind to.”

  “But that,” Dahlmann said smoothly, “is why we must hope Lady Kelso – or Zurga Bey – will manage to change his mind.”

  The meeting dispersed slowly back to the saloon and sleeping compartments in a sober mood. The thing that struck Ranklin was that if the gold was coming from a French bank in Constantinople (and why should Dahlmann mention that at all if it weren’t true?) then it wasn’t already aboard this train.

  So what, if anything, was?

  11

  In the service carriage, O’Gilroy was coming to realise he had to hit someone. The train staff had not made him welcome. They hadn’t expected anyone to bring a manservant, and when he took the fifth bunk in the sleeping compartment, it left only one spare for everyone to dump his kit on (their boss, who seemed to be called Herr “Fernrick”, shared another compartment with the chef, and good luck to him. In O’Gilroy’s experience all chefs were mad, bad-tempered, and had access to knives).

  Only Albrecht, who tended the boiler and anything else mechanical, spoke English, and O’Gilroy had virtually no German. But this allowed them to make jokes about him in front of his face and that had kept them reasonably sunny for the first twenty-four hours. But in the bustle of preparing lunch while he lay on his bunk and smoked, the insults got plainer and demands to get out of the way less reasonable.

  So he was going to have to hit someone. The old manly ritual. Knock one of them down, helpless, to show he was as good as they. Ten years ago, the thought would have cheered him. Or rather, he wouldn’t have had the thought, just lashed out from instinct. Now, at least he’d be working to a plan.

  Of course, if they all ganged up on him, he’d be beaten to a pulp. But he didn’t think that would happen. It would mean broken bones and bloody faces and how would that look when serving dinner? The row could go all the way up to the Kaiser.

  It wouldn’t be enough to pick on the smallest of them, which let one of the waiters off the hook. Nor Albrecht, partly because of the English, but also because he seemed the butt of jokes himself, being a Bavarian among Prussians. Which left the second waiter or, preferably, the guard. He was beefy enough, and if his face got marked, he wasn’t on public display.

  The moment came after lunch. He had volunteered to help with the washing up, and they had seen to it that he got well splashed with greasy water. He was back in the compartment routing out a clean shirt when the guard jostled him and snapped for him to step aside.

  “Fuck off,” O’Gilroy said over his shoulder.

  That didn’t need translating. He felt everyone in the compartment go still.

  The guard’s What-did-you-say? didn’t need translation, either.

  “Tell him,” O’Gilroy said to Albrecht, “to learn some manners or bring his mother along to protect him. Tell him!”

  Albrecht did, hesitatingly. There was a moment’s pause, then O’Gilroy felt the guard’s hand clamp on his shoulder and spun around, trying for a head-butt, realised he couldn’t make it and followed up with a left-hand punch whacking into the guard’s stomach. As he folded forward, O’Gilroy yanked him up by his lapels and rushed him against the door, slamming it shut and knocking a waiter aside.

  “Bugger around wid me and I’ll break every fucking bone in yer body!” he spat. “Verständen?”

  The guard hung there, pop-eyed and gurgling for breath. Then the door tried to open behind him. O’Gilroy pushed him away, a cannon off the waiter and onto a bunk. The door opened and Herr Fernrick stood there, moustache bristling, eyes glaring.

  Everyone except the guard snapped to attention, and O’Gilroy realised he had, too. The scene had an old, familiar feel to it.

  Fernrick started to speak.

  “Tell him,” O’Gilroy instructed Albrecht, “that I started it and I apologise.”

  Albrecht began, but Fernrick shut him up. He looked at O’Gilroy. “Thank you, but I understand enough English . . . This place is too small for trouble, too small for trouble-makers. Do you understand? If anything more happens, I will report you to your master.”

  He switched back to German to say what must have been much the same except longer and with a mention of the Kaiser. Then he slammed out.

  As they relaxed with a collective sigh, O’Gilroy made a vulgar gesture at the closed door. And someone laughed. Then someone handed him his shirt off the floor, another gave him a cigarette.

  It’s only in schoolboy stories that the man you’ve beaten shakes your hand and becomes your friend for life. Quite likely the guard had become his enemy for life, but what mattered was that the rest now accepted him. Just like in a new barrack room. Which wasn’t surprising, since he was now certain they were all soldiers.

  * * *

  With the party complete and now hooked up to a proper train – and one of the fastest in the world – the journey took on a new sense of purpose. Indeed, they let most of their own purposes drift into limbo and the journey take over. As they were bustled across the last of Bavaria and through Salzburg into Austria, they picked
their favourite chairs and invented their own time-spending routines – just as a visitor to a strange city will quickly adopt a certain table at a certain café as his own. They were all used to long passive journeys by train and ship; it was what most travel was about.

  And the longer they travelled, the more the view from the train windows became unreal, just exquisitely-painted stage scenery of snowy peaks, the onion domes of Orthodox churches, wayside shrines. It needed no caring, no interpretation; turn one’s eyes to a book or magazine and it was gone. A stop became like the end of a balloon journey, an unwelcome bump back into reality.

  They were due into Vienna soon after eight in the evening and Dahlmann announced that dinner would begin immediately they left. So they had to dress first, and Ranklin summoned O’Gilroy to “help” by sitting and smoking a cigarette.

  O’Gilroy mentioned that the staff were all soldiers – “Except the chef, probly. He’s just barmy like them all.”

  Ranklin considered. “I suppose it’s not surprising. I believe a lot of the Kaiser’s staff are soldiers; he likes having them around him. What have they been doing? Close-order drill in the corridor?”

  O’Gilroy told briefly about the fight and Herr Fernrick’s intervention—

  “Who?”

  “The chief butler, Swiss Admiral, that’s his name.”

  “I think you mean Fähnrich. It means senior n.c.o. Colour sergeant.”

  O’Gilroy nodded slowly, letting smoke trickle from his nose. “Ah. Then I wasn’t so clever as I thought. They’re not hiding it, jest not saying it neither . . . Give me some money: I’ll rate better with cigarettes and a bottle of me own to share round.”

  Ranklin gave him a sovereign. “Where do they hide the bottles?”

  “In the coal for the boiler. Herr Fernrick don’t inspect that.”

  In so many things, armies are all the same.

  For many Orient Express travellers, Vienna was the end of the line; from here, it was downhill socially to Budapest, Belgrade and Sofia, and a month too early for visiting Constantinople. So the train loitered while baggage was unloaded and most of the remaining passengers got out to buy cigarettes and newspapers, smoke, chatter, try to peek into the Kaiser’s carriages, and generally get in the way.

  Ranklin saw O’Gilroy scurrying off to shop as he stepped down. Dahlmann and a group of bankers or Embassy officials were already in conference in one patch of lamplight. Their chef was doing a deal in chicken and fish with the Express’s kitchen. A young man in evening dress accosted him.

  “Patrick Snaipe? I’m Redpath, from the Embassy. Just popped along to see how things were going with you and Lady Kelso.”

  “Very civil of you. Come aboard and meet her.”

  They eased past the guard, who had deserted the baggage compartment to protect the main carriage from riff-raff, and Ranklin introduced Redpath to Lady Kelso. She gave the lad five minutes of undiluted charm while Ranklin stood by and had philosophic thoughts. Such as: small men tend to be temperamentally quite different from big, tall men, but small women are femininity more concentrated. How about that for a theory? Perhaps there was something in the Viennese air; there was a Dr Freud here who was having some pretty daft ideas about people, so he’d read.

  Then he thought of something more important and interrupted: “I say, can you send a cable for me?”

  “Of course, just the sort of thing I’m here for.” So Ranklin wrote out a cryptic message to “Uncle Charles” at a London club address. If the Commander read it properly, he would know that Gunther’s firm was responsible for Ranklin’s untimely end, if he met one. There was some small satisfaction in arranging revenge ahead of one’s death.

  The dull, and doubtless soggy, Hungarian plain of the Danube slipped past in the night. Even the stop at Budapest barely rumpled Ranklin’s sleep and they clattered across the iron bridge into Serbia and Belgrade while still at breakfast.

  Now they had not only left Europe’s drawing-rooms, but gone through its back door and into the ramshackle outhouses of the Balkans. Dahlmann collected their passports, warned them to stay put, and hurried off. Ranklin saw him ally himself to one of the train staff and start haggling with Serb officials. Alongside the severe well-fitting Orient Express uniform they looked scruffy down-and-outs.

  And that, really, was the whole story: the Express travelled across Europe in a private metaphorical tunnel lined and protected by sheer wealth. Only if you got off might you become fair prey; as long as you stayed aboard you were untouchable. The argument, obviously, was about whether the private carriages belonged in the same tunnel – although these certainly weren’t the first such to be attached to the Express.

  Ranklin reckoned himself and O’Gilroy to be fireproof behind the diplomatic passport; anyway, Britain wasn’t a player on this bit of the chessboard. But Zurga . . . He realised the Turk was keeping to his sleeper.

  The discussion outside ended and Dahlmann came back on board to announce: “We may proceed, but a Serbian officer must ride with us through Serbia to Nis.” He tossed the passports onto a table and hurried through, presumably to warn Zurga.

  Moving unhastily but smoothly, Ranklin scooped up the passports, handed Lady Kelso hers, Streibl his, took his own and was left with a handful of solely German ones for Dahlmann, the staff and one must be for Zurga. So they were smuggling him through the Balkans as a German citizen. Which was sensible, but placed Zurga even further in the Baghdad Railway camp.

  A Serb officer in a high-crowned peakless cap and a worn great-coat down to the ankles of his semi-polished boots came in, saluted with a slight bow, said a few inscrutable words of Serbo-Croat and sat in a corner. Dahlmann came back and picked up the passports, looked at them, at Ranklin – who was deep in a book – and finally said nothing.

  With Belgrade, they had seen the last of the Danube and the wide plains. Soon they had turned up the valley of the Morava, winding gently but tighter into the hills that would become mountains and last the next twenty-four hours. Gradually the sodden fields beside the river were left behind and drifts of snow, worn like the land itself, appeared on the hillsides. Both landscape and snow got fresher as they climbed away from cultivation. Early March is no time to admire what mankind does to the land.

  They stretched an untalkative luncheon until they slowed into Nis, a market town with buffalo-carts and peasants in baggy white trousers trudging the muddy streets. The Serb saluted, bowed, said another something and got off – and it was as if an aged and disapproving grand-parent had gone to bed. Streibl made a weak joke about the Serb commandeering a buffalo for his return to Belgrade and they roared with laughter. Ranklin decided he would have a cognac, and Streibl joined him.

  “What about poor Zurga Bey?” Lady Kelso said suddenly. “He hasn’t had anything to eat since breakfast. Have them bring him something as soon as we’re moving.”

  Dahlmann protested that it would upset the kitchen, the servants—

  “Fiddlesticks,” said Lady Kelso. “If they won’t do it, I’ll cook him something myself.” And Ranklin and Streibl backed her up.

  Perhaps Dahlmann was trapped between the correctness of not wanting to offend the Kaiser’s staff, and seeing his group united for the first time by an irresistible party spirit. In any event, while Ranklin fetched Zurga from his sleeper Dahlmann said God-knows-what to Herr Fernrick, and a meal of soup and warmed-up chicken was produced. Fernrick’s revenge came in insisting his own men were off duty and making O’Gilroy serve the damned foreigners.

  Lady Kelso stayed in the dining-saloon with Zurga, and Ranklin found himself next door talking to Streibl. With that atmosphere and the cognac, the railwayman talked happily – breaking off to point out interesting or faulty construction details beside the line – but always railways, railways, railways.

  “Ships discovered the world, but only railways can make it tame, civilised. When a ship passes, in a few minutes there is no sign. The sea is not changed. But the railway changes the land forever.
Think of America, when it was a land of savages and wild animals, if I could have worked on those great railways. . .” His eyes glowed behind his thick glasses.

  In fact he had worked on the German Mittel-Afrika scheme, making a railway of the old slave route inland from Dar-es-Salaam. They laid the first rails directly into the surf from lighters, dumped a locomotive atop them – and they had a few metres of a railway that would build itself across 700 miles to Lake Tanganyika. Through jungle and swamp and rock, beriberi, malaria and sleeping-sickness. Through drought where they needed one water-carrier for every workman, and then more to lubricate the rock-drills. Or water that was plentiful, but so full of minerals that it encrusted and jammed the works of the engines. And all, apparently, on a diet of dried mud barbel. Ranklin hadn’t a notion of what dried mud barbel was, but the mere sound of it . . .

  He sucked on his pipe, nodded, and let himself be swept along with Streibl’s rambling odyssey. The man was a visionary, but his visions were of steel, his dreams held together with greasy nuts and bolts.

  “Beyond there –” he gestured towards the front of the train “– is half the world. From Constantinople, one day we can go by train to Arabia, Persia, India, China. From Berlin to Peking – can you think of that? To join the West to the East, to trade with the people of half the world.” Then he suddenly grew sombre and his gaze turned fierce. “And one old man with some rifles is in our way. Can he stop such an idea? Can he be permitted to stop it?”

  “Oh, no,” Ranklin agreed, since some answer seemed called for. “And, of course, the engineers themselves, their families. . .”

  “Yes, of course,” Streibl said, as if he’d forgotten and were trying to catch up.

  “And how long have you worked on the Baghdad Railway?”

  “I do the first survey on some sections – ach! they are always changing the line so as not to go too near the frontier and offend the Russians or too near the coast so battleships could bombard it – then I go to Africa again, then to work at head office . . . Politik,” he muttered. “It is good to be out again.”