Bhowani Junction

by John Masters

  ‘One of you two will have to be in close touch with me all the time,’ he said, as if I had not spoken, ‘so that my trolley patrols don’t run into unscheduled goods trains, specials, and so on.’ My God, he was hard, conceited, cocksure, insulting. ‘I’ll put a field telephone in here for you,’ he said. ‘Now, the reception of my battalion——’

  ‘Colonel, it——’ I tried again to tell him about railway regulations for the use of trolleys.

  ‘Please be quiet. I want you to show Mr Macaulay here where our trains will be put, so that…’

  From the corners of my eyes I saw Victoria staring at him. Savage went on, not looking at her, speaking slowly so that Kasel could keep up with his notes. Kasel wrote in shorthand quite well.

  When Savage finished I started telling him why all these things couldn’t be done. I knew my regulations, and half the things he asked were difficult and the other half impossible. I began to feel much better as I explained. I was getting my own back, because no one can argue with printed regulations. He sat there with his head bent down, saying nothing.

  When I finished he looked at me and said, ‘Your job is to get these things done, Mr Taylor, not to find reasons why they can’t be done.’

  It was like the electric shock again, or a spoke of ice rammed down my throat. I had begun to stutter—how could I make him understand?—when Kasel put his oar in. He said, ‘I think we can meet the colonel’s wishes, Mr Taylor.’

  Savage glanced at him and said, ‘Good. I’ll leave it to you.’ I turned as red as a beetroot. The sod! Savage swung round in his chair to face Victoria. Victoria’s eyes were like stone. He said, ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Jones.’

  ‘Initials and Army number?’

  ‘V. WAC-seven-four-six.’

  Lieutenant Macaulay wrote it down. Savage said, ‘Miss Jones, you obviously know the workings of the railway here, and you know the Army. Mr Taylor and Mr Kasel don’t know anything about the Army, and I don’t know anything about the railways. I want you to get back into uniform and be a liaison officer between us.’

  She said, ‘I’m afraid I have other things to do.’

  I said, ‘But——’ because really she didn’t have anything to do, and it would be wonderful to have her working with me, to help me with those gooddamned bloody stuck-up sods of officers. She frowned at me, and I held my tongue.

  Savage looked her in the eye for a while; then he said, ‘Very well. That’s all for the moment. Please send any new information to me to Kabul Lines, Mr Taylor. I’m going there now.’

  ‘In the cantonments?’ I said.

  ‘Are there two Kabul Lines here?’ he said. ‘We’ll be back tomorrow morning.’

  He got up. Lieutenant Macaulay handed him his hat and said, ‘Your hat, sir.’ Macaulay’s lips gave me the willies. Savage walked out. Macaulay stopped by Victoria’s chair and smiled at her and said, ‘Let me know if you change your mind, won’t you? He’s really not so bad to work with.’ He’d taken off his dark glasses, and I saw that his eyes were funny too, wide-set and dull. Then he went out.

  I sat there on the edge of my desk for a couple of minutes, then I grabbed my topi, jammed it on my head, and yelled at the top of my voice, ‘Oh, damn all the bloody military to hell!’ Then I asked Victoria to come along with me.

  While I was starting up the Norton I asked her why she’d told Savage she couldn’t help us as a liaison officer. I told her how disappointed I was.

  She said, ‘I don’t like him, and I’m not going to work with him. I’d have to call him “sir”!’

  That was true. I was pleased that she didn’t like him. But there was another thing; I felt queer because she had stood up to him and told him flatly she wouldn’t do it. I ought to have been proud of her, and I was, but I hadn’t stood up to him myself, which made the gap bigger between me and her.

  FIVE

  I was still thinking of Savage and Macaulay when I went down to Number 4 Collett Road that evening. I picked up Victoria and Rose Mary and Mrs Jones and walked with them to the Institute, where Sir Meredith Sullivan was going to speak to us about St Thomas’s.

  There were two Railway Institutes then, of course, one for Europeans and Anglo-Indians, and one for Indians. The Indians had not made theirs into anything, while ours was a fine big building with a dance floor and card rooms and a bar, just like the Club in cantonments. The Indians seldom used their Institute. They never spent any money on beer, rum, and whisky there, so there was no profit to improve it with. It was the same at the station. We had two running rooms there for the drivers, firemen, and guards who had to stop over an hour or a night between trains. The European running room was twice the size of the Indian one, and had comfortable beds and a room with chairs and magazines and packs of cards.

  When we got to the Institute, Victoria went off to play whist. I would have said she got rid of me, almost, so I spent most of the evening in the bar. We used to have good Murree and Solan beer in that bar. I kept an eye on Sir Meredith Sullivan, and about eleven o’clock went to ask him if he was ready to speak to everybody. He was, so I got up on the dais and rang a bell, and everyone crowded on to the dance floor. The younger people sat down on the floor, and the older ones took the chairs that were all round the walls. When they’d all settled down I raised my hand and announced, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Meredith Sullivan will now address us on a subject that is very important for all of us.’

  Sir Meredith came forward, and I sat down. He began to talk about St Thomas’s. He told us what we already knew—that the Presidency Education Trust had had a good offer for the school buildings and grounds and wanted to accept it. He was on his way to meet with the trustees in Bombay. He wanted to find out what our feelings were so that he could tell them. He said, ‘Let anyone speak.’

  He stood there, waiting. He looked terribly ill and very tired. Someone spoke up and said, ‘I think it would be a damned shame to sell the school, sir. My boy is going next year. Where else can he go?’ There was a big murmur of people agreeing. Then they began to clap their hands, and soon everyone was shouting, ‘No, no!’ ‘It is our school!’ ‘They have no right to sell it,’ and so on. It made me feel good just to hear them. No one was going to push us down the drain without a fight.

  Then I saw Victoria standing up, taller than the others. She lifted her arm and said loudly, ‘Sir Meredith, I think we ought to ask the Trust to accept the offer and sell the school. What is going to happen in a few years’ time, when——’

  People interrupted her, and I felt as if I were being pulled in half, because she was so brave but she was so wrong and I loved her. As soon as she had finished, though no one could hear what she said after a bit, everyone shouted that they didn’t agree. Sir Meredith Sullivan stood there listening to it all.

  Finally he said, ‘You seem to be outnumbered, Miss Jones’—he knew who she was. Then he spoke to all of us again and said, ‘You wish me, then, to tell the trustees that St Thomas’s must be kept going at all costs?’

  We all shouted, ‘Yes,’ and clapped our hands like mad. I watched Victoria as I clapped, and I saw her pushing out of the ballroom through the crowd. Her face was tight and beautiful, but I knew she wanted to cry. I left Sir Meredith—that was a bad thing to do, but I had to—and worked my way round after Victoria.

  She had reached the outside doors by the time I caught her up, and Ted Dunphy was talking to her there. They didn’t see me, and I stopped short. Dunphy was standing in front of her, twisting his hands with nervousness. I heard him say, stuttering all the time, ‘I—I just wanted to tell you that I b-believe you are right, M-Miss Jones. D-Don’t think everyone is against you, p-please. I’m not. I think you are absolutely right.’

  Victoria smiled at him through her tears. Ted was a young driver, and he was in love with Victoria, I knew that. He worshipped her.

  Then a fellow came to tell me Sir Meredith Sullivan wanted to speak to me, and I had to go back with him while Victoria glanc
ed at me and went out through the big doors to the outside.

  Sir Meredith kept me for half an hour. I don’t remember what it was about, because thinking of Victoria wandering about and crying was like having the fever. As soon as I could I got out of there, leaving them all, and went quickly to Victoria’s house. I knocked. No one answered, so I went in. She wasn’t there, and I went out of the back door, across the lawn, through the bushes, and on to the line.

  The signal light shone red among a lot of floating stars. A little pencil of white light shone straight down from the bottom of the signal lamp, just enough to make a short stretch of rail look like a silver bar. I smelled cigarette smoke and heard an engine puffing slowly a long way off, and the low murmuring, almost growling noise, that Bhowani City makes at night from across the waste land beyond the line.

  I knew where to go to find her, because in the old days we had often met to talk under that signal.

  I saw the end of her cigarette and then the shape of her, and I whispered, ‘Are you there, Victoria? Oh, Victoria, I am glad I found you.’

  She didn’t say anything, and I could see the wet on her eyes by the signal light. I tried to tell her why I hadn’t spoken up to defend her in the Institute. I told her I couldn’t, because I didn’t agree. She said she understood. She said it was obvious that she and I didn’t think the same about a lot of things, important things. I kicked at the ballast with my foot so that the stones crunched together under the toe of my shoe. I said, ‘I love you, Victoria. I know what you feel. I understand, honestly I do.’ I was trying to find some way of helping her, of persuading her she’d be happier if she closed her eyes and fought alongside the rest of us.

  She didn’t answer. While I waited for her to speak I moved a little so that some of the red from the signal lamp shone on my face. I must have looked bad, frightening. The engine puffed slowly, like breathing, over there under the Sindhya Hills.

  Victoria sighed, and I tried to catch her in my arms. Words were no good. I could smell her hair and her scent all together with the hot steel smell of the railway.

  I am very strong, and I was crushing her and couldn’t let go because if I did I was afraid she’d leave me for ever. I didn’t let go until she said, not angry but tired, ‘Let me loose, Patrick. No, I don’t hate you. I’ve just changed, that’s all.’

  I wanted to cry, because she and I had been so close in everything, and we weren’t any more; and because Colonel Savage was able to make me so stuttery and foolish; and because everyone was moving into our places, like the Indian crew on the goods train; and because for me there was no question of thinking what was best, what was right—I had to have Victoria, I had to grovel in front of Savage, I had to fight the Indians for my rights.

  The signal wires hissed over their pulleys beside us, the counterweight of the signal level flopped up, and then I knew that my face shone green and wet instead of red and wet. I tried to apologize to Victoria. I told her again that I loved her. I said, ‘What are we going to do?’

  She said, ‘You and I?’

  ‘No. We, we people,’ I said, meaning us Anglo-Indians.

  And then she said something which, although she spoke bitterly, made me feel better, because it meant she realized the brick wall she, we, were up against. Savage, for instance. He might have been friendly to both of us, but he’d just been as cruel as he could. He was a leopard, the way I’d been thinking in my mind all the time So my heart jumped when she said, ‘What are we going to do? We? If we stay the way we are we’re going to run the bloody railway, of course! Isn’t that what we were born for, man?’

  SIX

  On that Monday morning, the day the Gurkhas were due to arrive in the afternoon, Victoria rang me up early. Her voice was trembly with anger, and at first I thought it was me she was angry with, but she said, ‘Patrick? Listen to this. This is a telegram for me from the WAC (I) Directorate in Delhi: “Leave cancelled owing to temporary emergency. Report forthwith repeat forthwith to O.C. First Thirteenth Gurkha Rifles Kabul Lines Bhowani Cantt for temporary duty as special liaison officer. Administrative details follow. Acknowledge. All informed.” Isn’t that the limit?’

  She waited for me to say something, but to tell the truth I was delighted. I thought someone up there in Delhi had realized the situation and sent the telegram. I said, ‘That’s going to help me a lot, Victoria.’

  She answered impatiently, ‘Don’t you see he’s done it—Colonel Savage?’ She said that he must have sent off a telegram as soon as he left my office on Saturday. She said he must know Mrs Fortescue, who was the head lady of the WAC (I)s.

  I asked her what she was going to do about it. She didn’t answer for a time. Then she said, ‘I could go sick. I could send a telegram saying I wasn’t fit enough to report. They’d never find out.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘That Colonel Savage will send his doctor down to look at you as soon as the trains come in, you mark my words.’

  She was silent again, and it was funny how clearly I got the impression of what she was doing and thinking at the end of all that telephone wire. She was biting her lip and frowning. She was thinking, I hate him; but she was thinking, I must do my duty. How could any of us know then how serious the emergency might be? She was remembering what Govindaswami had told us. At last she said, ‘He’s got me. I’ll have to do it.’

  I said, ‘Will I see you here tomorrow, then, do you think?’

  She said, ‘I suppose so. I’ve got to find my uniform and get it ironed.’ And she hung up.

  But Savage didn’t waste any time, and I saw her that afternoon, I was busy all morning with my own work and making the arrangements for the reception of the Gurkha troop specials. Mrs Williams rang up to suggest that the ladies from the Railway Lines ought to have hot tea ready for the British officers of the Gurkhas when they arrived, and I agreed. That will make Savage more polite to us, I thought, because he will owe us something. It was going to be impossible to work with him if he always thought we were just useless obstructionists. I had found out that he did know Mrs Fortescue, and it was quite likely that he would be a personal pal of Mr Hindmarsh (H. J. K. Hindmarsh Esquire, C.I.E.), our General Manager.

  I went down to the yards well before the troop specials were due in. The ladies and I gathered at the Yard Foreman’s office in the middle of the yards. We were talking together there when Victoria arrived with her father. An engine was shunting over the hump close beside us, and there was a roll of wheels and clanking of buffers all the time.

  At the same time Colonel Savage and Lieutenant Macaulay arrived from the opposite direction. Victoria drew herself up and saluted Savage very carefully. He saluted her just as carefully. He looked her up and down as she stood there, and said, ‘You can wear mufti whenever you like. Women and uniforms don’t go together.’

  ‘Especially when they’ve got such good figures. Better than Betty Grable,’ Lieutenant Macaulay said.

  I agreed with Savage about women in uniform. Victoria would look good in a sack, but those WAC (I) clothes were not pretty. She wore a tight, short drill skirt, a khaki shirt, and a fore-and-aft hat perched on the right side of her curls—and khaki stockings and big brown shoes and a blue shoulder cord. I happened to know everything underneath was also plain and khaki, because she’d showed me when she got her first uniform.

  Victoria said to Savage very stiffly, ‘This is my father, sir. He is an engine driver.’

  Macaulay said, ‘Oh.’ He probably never expected Victoria, who was so beautiful and a subaltern, to have an engine driver as her father. Savage turned to Mr Jones and held out his hand. The wide brim of his Gurkha hat was starched and straight as a board. He wore it almost flat on his head, while Macaulay’s was tilted very much to the right and showed a lot of curly fair hair under it on the left. I hung around dose by them, waiting to speak to Victoria.

  Savage said to Mr Jones, ‘I’m sorry we had to take your daughter away from you, sir.’

  I started, and Victoria d
id too, to hear Savage calling Mr Jones ‘sir’. Mr Jones wrung Savage’s hand very hard and said, ‘Oh, don’t call me “sir”, sir.’

  ‘Well, you’re a father,’ Savage said and smiled. That was the first time I saw him smile. I couldn’t believe it was the same person who had got out of the train on Saturday, this smile was so hot and brilliant, and it crinkled all his face round his eyes. ‘We’ll look after your daughter,’ he said. ‘She’ll be living at home with you. She’s going to help Mr Taylor and me to help you to keep the trains running.’ He’d seen me by then and nodded to me when he mentioned my name.

  Mr Jones said, ‘Good, jolly good! She is a clever girl, Colonel, and works hard. But she is a woman, eh?’

  ‘She looks like one,’ Savage said and glanced again at Victoria. Victoria caught my eye, and I think I know what was on her mind. She was wishing her father wouldn’t be taken in so easily. These people were snobs really. But Pater said, ‘Yes, man! But she works well, for a woman. You should see the reports she got while she was at the General Headquarters.’

  ‘Colonel Savage doesn’t want to hear about that,’ Victoria said, blushing and angry.

  Mr Jones said, ‘I expect he knows, girl. You do not become a lieutenant-colonel in the military department while you are such a young man for being a fool. You are not forty, Colonel, I bet?’

  ‘Thirty-four.’

  I was surprised. Why, he was two years younger than I was. He looked older.

  Mr Jones said, ‘Thirty-four! Well, well. My grandfather was a military man, Colonel. Sergeant J. T. Duck. He retired from the Queen’s Fusiliers in eighteen sixty-three. He was the first man to take a train from here to Gondwara when the line was built.’

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ Savage said. He looked interested too, but Macaulay yawned behind his hand.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Mr Jones said He was wearing his topi then, and his bandanna stuck out of his pocket. Macaulay was looking at Victoria and stroking his moustache, and I suddenly thought, My God, that bastard wants to have ber in bed with him; and for the first time I realized that though Victoria would see more of me in this work, she would also see more of the young British officers.