‘Oh, not many. Shouldn’t think. We’re no great socialites.’
‘Does Margaret mind?’
‘Maggie doesn’t mind about anything much. She’s a good girl.’
You could say this for Dougie Poole: he’d made a good marriage. He was no fool, either. He wouldn’t have risen so high in traffic if he had been; but he certainly was a rummy, and with the arrival of the second bottle in prospect, it was time for me to leave him to it.
IV
The Continental motor car was silent, as was its driver. The dark-suited secretary, who had been introduced to me as Mr Chakraborty, was likewise. Major Fisher had done little more than grunt as I climbed into the car at the railway station, and the R.K. himself had fallen to reading some document after greeting me, which he’d done this time with a salaam and not a handshake. Perhaps his religious calendar dictated that on this day he – or more likely I – was untouchable. In order to read, he had put on wire glasses. Observing him in the rear-view mirror, I saw that they did not in way lessen his youthful good looks, but made him look clever in addition.
After leaving town we had been driving, for most of the time, in a wooded valley. There was no rain, but a light morning mist. It might have been an English wood, except that the trees were too big, and there were tattered flags by the roadside. They had been brightly coloured but were now faded, as though a great celebration had been held some years ago: the prayer flags of the Buddhists. There were more Buddhists in Darjeeling than Hindus. We passed a snow-white waterfall and now all the trees gradually became pine trees. They gave off the same scent as the fire that had burned in Cedar Lodge when I had taken my early breakfast.
We turned off the road, and roared quickly up to a wide log cabin: the clubhouse of the course, evidently. We all climbed out of the car. Something more than a game of golf lay in wait, I was sure of that. In order to delay the moment of its starting, I took out my cigarette case. The R.K. watched me do it.
I said, ‘Care for a cigarette, Rajkumar sahib?’
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Take one of mine,’ and he trumped my battered silver-plate cigarette case with a solid silver one of his own. I helped myself to a cigarette – they were fat Turkish ones – and the R.K. lit it for me with his Dunhill lighter.
‘My name is Narayan, Captain Stringer,’ he said. ‘And I am a very bad Brahmin, as you can see.’ After a pause, he added, ‘But not bad in everything. When I marry, I will do it in the correct way. I will marry the one who chooses me, and I will seek to satisfy the requirements of the bride’s family.’
So that’s his game, I thought: he’s going to break the news that Bernadette has chosen him. Well, I would put him off, and I would not mince words in doing so. If trouble flared, I had my Webley in my golf bag (it being impossible to make a golf swing while carrying a revolver in one’s suit-coat pocket).
There were two other cars parked before the pavilion, but no other golfers to be seen. We bypassed it anyhow, walking directly to the teeing ground. That is to say, Fisher, the R.K. and I walked there while Mr Chakraborty and the driver remained loitering by the car; I assumed that one or other of them would go into the clubhouse to pay the green fee and find some caddies.
The course was nine holes only, ranging over a series of bright green hummocks that were dotted with little copses, and funny looking conical shelters, which might have been viewing posts, for these green hummocks marked the very edges of the Darjeeling uplands. Beyond was the great gorge in which lay a jumble of smaller hills that began to climb again at a distance of a hundred miles or so, and there the ascent culminated in the Himalayan range, but that white barrier in the distance was currently patrolled by greyish clouds.
On the teeing ground, it was obvious that I was the worst-equipped player, but I had expected that, and the discrepancy was not as great as I had feared. I had made my knickerbockers by tucking my twill trousers into my thick green stockings, but the R.K. and Fisher both sported the genuine plus-fours. My golf bag was, like Fisher’s, made of ordinary brown webbing, whereas the R.K.’s appeared to be made of white calfskin. But he, like Fisher and I, carried only half a dozen clubs, and none of us wore the speciality hob-nailed golf shoes. I was hatless. Fisher and the R.K. wore those wide, round jobs that I always thought resembled dustbin lids, and that I associated with newspaper pictures of sporting Americans. The R.K. must have been somewhat Americanised because he announced that the first hole was a ‘par-four’, whereas the English term – or at any rate the term always used at Hob Moor Railway course at York – was ‘bogey four’. On the teeing ground, Fisher was making ferocious practice swipes with his driver. ‘Let’s get off while we have the place to ourselves,’ he said.
It was the kind of remark that made me glad of having brought the Webley. This course was in a lonely spot, and I was sure there would be many precipitous places in which an inconvenient Englishman might be done away with. Also, it appeared we were not to have our bags carried by caddies, which the R.K. apparently called ‘cadets’.
‘They are available by prior booking, Captain Stringer,’ he explained, while unwrapping a ball, ‘but they are generally off-duty Gurkha soldiers, and they tend to glare rather horribly when one addresses the ball. The consequence is that one usually misses entirely.’
So it appeared that this member of Indian royalty would be carrying his own bag.
‘Will you have the honour, Captain Stringer?’ he said.
I nodded in thanks, and stepped up. ‘Stroke play or match play?’ I asked, and nobody seemed to know, or care.
‘Just get on with it, will you?’ said Fisher.
‘We’ll play just for fun,’ said the R.K. ‘And do take your time,’ he added, with a glance of reproach at Fisher.
The green was four hundred yards off, at the end of a fairway pinched in at the middle by two copses. As I made my own address, Fisher was still making his practice swipes.
‘Major Fisher will now stand still,’ said the R.K., and this he did.
I took my usual three-quarter swing, the theory being that this was a quarter less likely to go wrong than a full swing. The ball made a hundred and fifty yards, approximately straight.
‘Trouble free,’ the R.K. said, pleasantly. He invited Fisher to play next, and he sent the ball fifty yards further. He was a decent hand at the game. Then the R.K. drove with a quick, short swipe of the ball . . . directly into the trees on the right.
‘Sliced it,’ he said, simply. ‘Why do I play this game?’
As we walked at a lick towards our three balls, Fisher said to the R.K., ‘Your stance is too open, isn’t it? Remember the invisible line that runs—’
‘Stop!’ commanded the R.K. ‘Or I shall be blinded by science.’
Fisher and I made our second shots, while the R.K. looked for his ball in the trees. He found it on the margin of the trees, made his address, and committed the same fault as before. ‘More of the same,’ he said, as he watched the ball land in a bunker to the right of the green. ‘It’s that world-famous Chinese torture, Captain Stringer,’ he said, as we marched on. ‘Death by a thousand slices!’
I looked back and saw two men – both Europeans – on the teeing ground behind us. Against all expectations, we had company on the course. Fisher had seen them. The R.K. enquired, ‘What is your home course, Captain Stringer?’
‘Oh, just the Hob Moor course in York, Yorkshire,’ I said, and he was nodding as though he knew it of old.
‘It’s the railway course,’ I said. ‘It’s on Corporation land, so it’s open to the general public. In practice that means people walking aggressive dogs . . . or small boys. The boys cricket on the greens when golf isn’t being played – and when it is.’
‘Oh dear,’ said the R.K. ‘This Hob Moor place is sounding worse by the minute!’
‘The clubhouse is an old carriage,’ I said.
‘Well, that’s charming at least,’ said the R.K.
He wouldn’t think that if he saw it.
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br /> We had now approached his sliced ball. The R.K. flashed at it. ‘That’s how to do a slice,’ he said, watching the result. ‘Just in case you didn’t know.’
And so it was for the next three holes. Fisher played reasonably well, and kept silence. The R.K., whether using brassie, mashie or niblick, would slice the ball to the edge of the fairway or clean out of bounds, and after each of these fluffs he would make some self-deprecating remark in his English that was good but ever so slightly ‘off’.
‘Mmm . . . misplaced,’ he would say, or ‘Misguided’, or ‘That transcended a joke.’
On the fifth hole, the R.K. was in a fairway bunker, having hooked the ball for a change. He selected his jigger. ‘My father is endeavouring to build a course in Suryapore,’ he said, ‘but we can’t get the right grass: the bent grass, you know – for the greens.’
The R.K. was looking over my shoulder as he spoke. ‘There is Mount Everest, by the way,’ he said. While clouds were gathering above our heads, the ones at that far distance had cleared sufficiently to show a mountain in between two other mountains – and rather smaller than them, being further away, as though shyly hiding.
But I would not continue the pretence of being on some pleasant tourist outing.
I said to the R.K., ‘I believe you know my daughter.’
‘Bernadette,’ he said, in a perfectly even tone after making his shot. ‘Friend of Ann and Claudine. I have danced with all of them, but Bernadette is the best dancer. I have danced three or four times with her, and I have heard her play piano as well. She plays like . . .’ I thought he might say ‘an angel’, but instead he said, ‘an earthquake . . . I love the sound of it. I was discussing this charming girl, and Major Fisher mentioned that you were her father.’
Fisher, having played his own second shot, had now positioned himself directly alongside the R.K., dwarfing him in size. I thought he must be ‘the heavy’: that must be it. Fisher and the R.K. had their backs to the green; my back was to the teeing ground.
‘It was then that I determined to meet you,’ the R.K. continued, ‘and hence my invitation to golf today.’
I heard a loud thump behind me, and a golf ball came to rest three feet behind my heel. The two men following had not waited for us to move out of range before teeing off.
‘That’s bloody rude,’ said Fisher, and he knew all about rudeness. He looked furious, whether because of the arrival of the ball or because of what it had interrupted I could not say.
‘We will let them play through,’ said the R.K., so we waved the two behind to come on, while we backed on to the semi-rough. The pair did not thank us as they walked up to their second shots. They were Englishmen all right. I heard one say to the other, ‘It was a cram exam, and I’m a good crammer.’
When the two had played a pair of decent approaches to the green, I said to the R.K., ‘You were saying about my daughter?’
But he was still watching the two Englishmen. ‘We will let them get well ahead,’ he said, before turning towards me once more.
‘My daughter,’ I repeated. But it had commenced to rain, and the R.K. said, ‘Let’s take refuge in that cadet shelter.’
V
The shelter was a little way inside the trees. It resembled a turret that had become detached from a castle. Close by was a guru’s tree, with painted lower trunk, and candles set into the roots. Affecting to be interested in this curiously placed shrine, I urged Fisher and the R.K. to go on ahead of me towards the shelter, saying I would catch them up in a moment. The tree had perhaps been chosen because of the dreamlike flowers that grew from creepers in its branches: giant khaki-coloured blooms that I believed were orchids.
I observed the caddie shelter. When Fisher and the R.K. were inside it, I took the Webley from my golf bag, and put it into a pocket of my suit coat. I then made my own way through the dripping trees to join them. The interior was unlined bricks with sacking and cigarette stubs on the floor. In the semi-darkness, I could smell the fustiness of the sacking, and a hint of the R.K.’s cologne. He removed his cap, and dabbed his brow with a good handkerchief. He smiled at me. Fisher, meanwhile, was fumbling inside his suit-coat pocket. He removed a metal tube, about six inches long – the very item, surely, that Canon Peter Selwyn had seen him attempting to conceal after the shooting of John Young. Fisher eyed me as he detached the end of the tube, and he removed from it a cigar. It was nothing more than the expensive sort of cigar retainer, made of silver plate or silver. It seemed that his days of smoking the little Trichies were over.
The R.K. was saying, ‘When Major Fisher pointed you out to me at the dance, he mentioned that he was your colleague on the enquiry team; he also said you’d worked on the narrow gauge railways in France. But excuse me – am I to speak of narrow, small or light railways?’
Major Fisher was sniffing his cigar.
‘Havana,’ said Fisher, when he saw me eyeing him.
I hesitated. The R.K. had asked a question about railways. Not about my daughter. I started in about how ‘narrow’ and ‘small’ gauge were interchangeable terms. A railway designated ‘light’ could be either, or it could be a railway of the standard gauge, but either way it would have been given certain exemptions by the Ministry of Transport as regards signalling, fencing, level crossing and so on. ‘But I am speaking of Britain,’ I added.
‘And I am speaking of the tiny Indian state of Suryapore,’ said the R.K., ‘where my father wants to build a railway – a light railway – to carry from our two small mines of coal to our principal river, which is in fact our only river, for onward shipment. I am employing Major Fisher here to implement this project.’
‘But Major Fisher works for the East Indian Railway,’ I said, eyeing the man once again.
‘Not for long,’ said Fisher.
I asked at random one of the numerous questions swirling in my mind: ‘Where did you two meet?’
‘At the Tollygunge Club,’ said the R.K. ‘I was told Major Fisher was in the railway business somehow, and I resolved to engage him in conversation . . . I like a challenge, you know.’
We both looked at Fisher, who lifted the cigar to his lips and viciously bit off the end.
‘You shouldn’t do that with a Havana,’ I said.
‘Stow it,’ he said.
I turned to the R.K., asking simply, ‘Where do I come in?’
The R.K. said, ‘You will be returning to Britain at the end of August. Major Fisher and I wonder whether you would be willing to act as our agent in the mother country. It would be a short commission, but well worth your while in the monetary sense. We would want half a dozen locomotives, perhaps twenty covered goods wagons and a small number of coaching vehicles. We have settled on the two-foot gauge, and so you would be required to hunt up the war-surplus stock.’
‘Can’t you find the two-foot gauge in India?’ I said.
‘If I were you,’ said Fisher, who was finally lighting his Havana cigar, ‘I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’
‘Some of the British war surplus did come out here, Captain Stringer,’ said the R.K., ‘but it has often been badly tampered with. It all seems to have been through something much worse than a mere war . . . and so we look to the homeland.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, I’ll be happy to try and help.’
‘Good,’ said the R.K. ‘We can refine the details over the coming weeks. This is for you, Captain Stringer, to seal the deal.’
He removed a silver hip flask from his golf bag; he passed it to me. In sheer relief, I took a sip of what was probably excellent whisky before thinking about it, and then – also before thinking about it – I passed the flask back to the R.K. He managed to refuse it by smiling and bowing.
‘But you must have it back,’ I said.
‘Oh, but you will never manage to give it back,’ he said, still smiling. ‘You are stuck with it.’
Of course, no Hindu would share in that way. I coloured up, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t asking
me to visit his home state, and he wasn’t asking me to take Bernadette there. He did not seem particularly interested in Bernadette: she was just a dancing partner, and I found myself, in spite of everything, a little put out by that. But on balance I was greatly relieved. Fisher had not acted in concert with the R.K. to kill me on the night train, and it appeared that he had not been carrying a silencer on that train either. Rather, he had been carrying an expensive cigar in an expensive cigar tube, both purchased on the strength of having hit the jackpot with the R.K. I assumed that he had wanted to ride up with me to Darjeeling in order to sound me out on small gauge railways, and make sure I was the man for the job.
Fisher had now stepped outside the caddie shelter. It had stopped raining; there were golden gleams of sun in the sky, and the guru’s tree looked much prettier and less sinister to my mind. I covertly returned the Webley to the pouch in my golf bag.
We resumed our game on the sixth hole, a dogleg. I played a safe, short shot with my mashie. The R.K. attempted the same. I didn’t see where his ball went, but he made another of his curious observations after the hit: ‘I am in the artificial sand.’ He meant another bunker. Fisher took out his driver. He meant to try and cut the corner.
‘Hold this,’ he said, handing me his cigar.
He succeeded in his attempt.
As he reclaimed his cigar I said, ‘I fancy a couple of these.’
‘Yes, well, you can buy your own can’t you?’
‘Where from?’
‘I had this from Hatzopolo’s on Lindsay Street.’
‘In Calcutta?’
‘That’s the only Lindsay Street that I know of,’ he said, and we all walked on at our habitual fast pace.
Behind us, the two Englishmen were mounting the teeing ground. They had been off taking their own shelter from the rain, and were now to the rear of us once again. Mine was the first ball we came to. I hit a bad hook, and it clattered into the trees. There was no point looking for it. I took another ball from my bag, unwrapped it, and this time found the apron of the green. The R.K., meanwhile was frowning in the sand trap.
Night Train to Jamalpur Page 19