The Baghdad Railway Club

by Andrew Martin

  *

  Lieutenant Colonel Shepherd and I sat in the same vis-à-vis as during our first proper talk: that is to say, we faced each other over a low table, with glasses of brandy before us. Only now there were revolvers – his Colt, my Webley – by the glasses, and whereas it had been the guests of the Midland Grand Hotel who had slept all around us on that occasion, it was now the residents of Baghdad who slept. Well, mostly. Distant shouts would come through the opened windows at the veranda. I had heard three wild cries of ‘Allahu Akhbar!’ from perhaps half a mile away as Shepherd had poured the drinks.

  He’d suggested we go back to his place for a nightcap. We drank in his main upper room, which had the same general set-up as my own: little furniture and all of it low, including a carved wooden chest by the wall. He had no flytrap, and so the room fairly swarmed with them, but Shepherd didn’t seem to mind, or notice. Indicating his gun, I said, ‘Mind if I . . . ?’

  He nodded, and I picked up the piece. It was a double-action, like most of the Colts in Baghdad. I said, ‘Jarvis told me Boyd favoured the single-action.’ I eyed Shepherd and he gave a half smile. ‘It’s a lovely weapon, the single. If I could lay my hands on one, I would do. A chap out on a desert patrol in the first week . . . he wandered away from the other fellows, and got held up by an Arab who took his gun off him: a single-action. The Arab was about to shoot the poor fellow, but he couldn’t understand the mechanism – didn’t know you had to cock it. Eventually, he gave up in disgust, and threw it back.’ Shepherd hesitated, blushed. ‘So of course our chap shot him.’

  A long beat of silence; then Shepherd said, ‘I ought to have gone after the picture myself.’

  Over my glass, I looked a question at him.

  ‘. . . Can’t have done anything for his state of mind,’ said Shepherd. ‘The photograph amounted to proof of adultery on both sides, and Boyd was quite a figure in Jarvis’s eyes. He wrote to the wife, you know, after the body was turned up.’

  The same wife who’d wanted me to pass on her love.

  I said, ‘Assuming we’re right about Findlay, what do you reckon Miss Bailey thinks?’

  ‘That woman is a closed book to me,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘You and she seem to hit it off pretty well, sir.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘as to that . . .’ and he coloured up and trailed off.

  ‘Maybe he was making himself a nuisance,’ I said.

  ‘My suspicion is that she has some idea of what’s happened but doesn’t know the full picture, and doesn’t want to. It stretches credibility to think she’s completely ignorant. She’s incredibly clever you know.’ He refilled our glasses from the brandy bottle and put his feet on the table. ‘She has a first-class degree from Oxford – only it’s informal.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she’s a woman. They can’t formally be degree-holders.’

  ‘Do you have a first-class degree sir?’

  He grinned. ‘I have what’s called a Gentleman’s Degree.’

  ‘Really, sir? Stevens made out you were practically a professor.’

  ‘Well, from his particular perspective . . .’

  I didn’t believe he had been particularly set back by the deaths of either of Stevens or Jarvis. He had enjoyed the game of going to Samarrah, which had done for the one, and he’d enjoyed the game of searching out the picture, which had done for the other‚ albeit by a wound self-inflicted.

  ‘My degree attests that I had a thoroughly good time in my three years at Cambridge, nothing more.’

  ‘I thought all Oxbridge types were highly academic.’

  ‘They’re all well off, Jim,’ he said, ‘all well off.’

  The voice of Manners had been echoing in my head: I must show discretion. But Shepherd and I had become quite confidential, and Manners could go hang. I would not let slip that I was on a secret job for the government, but I must step a little way into the open.

  I said, ‘There’s a damn silly rumour about yourself, sir . . .’

  I ought not to have said ‘damn silly’. That was me like a man trying to sound like an army captain. Anyhow I’d got Shepherd’s attention.

  ‘It says that when you were part of the vanguard, on the night the city fell . . . that you went into the railway station, and you met with a Turkish officer . . .’

  Shepherd had set down both cigarette and glass; he did not take his eyes from me. He was indicating that he knew I was more nervous than him.

  ‘. . . That you met with a Turkish officer,’ I said again, ‘and that . . .’

  ‘And that what?’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s true enough so far.’

  I was thinking I should never have started in on this, and that if it hadn’t been for the brandy, I never would have done.

  ‘It’s that you went into the station and received from the Turk a quantity of . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Treasure.’

  ‘A bribe?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Shepherd now did the following. He caught up his revolver; he stood; he holstered his revolver. He turned on his heel and quit the room. I believed he’d gone downstairs, and I eyed the chest against the wall. I moved rapidly towards it, lifted the lid. It was one of the emptiest chests I’d ever seen. I sat back down, and a moment later, Shepherd re-entered the room holding a tin box about a foot square. It was pretty; lavender-coloured with swirling Arabic script on it – Turkish Arabic, perhaps. Shepherd set it on the table, sat down.

  ‘Turkish delight,’ he said, pouring two more brandies. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come in with me, Jim?’

  Pouring two more brandies, Shepherd said, ‘I must say, the fellow was extremely courteous; spoke beautiful French and said that even though we were at war, he hoped there would be no unpleasantness between us. He said he would like to reach an accommodation with me. He was in charge of the last train of the Turkish retreat. It was in steam and we walked the length of the platform looking through the windows by the light of his lantern: three passenger carriages and one goods van. It was full of wounded Turks, but there was a quantity of ordnance in the goods van. He meant to take the train out. He said we’ll have a scrap over it if you want, and some more men will die, and if you manage to stop us leaving you’ll have a hundred Turkish wounded on your hands – or words to that effect. I said, “You can go if you uncouple the weapons.” He agreed to that, and while the job was being done, he said in jocular fashion, “We’ll be back to reclaim Baghdad shortly, in the mean time please keep it in good order for us” – which was a bit rich, since he and his pals had spent the past twenty-four hours blowing the place up. He asked me whether I’d heard of the great railway from Berlin to Baghdad that his people were building. I said I’d attended a lecture on the subject just a few weeks before. He said, “You have a passion for railways.” I didn’t contradict him. He took me into the station buffet, or one of them – what was left of it after the Turks had ripped the place up. Not the tea place, where I believe Boyd was found on the Friday before last. Not the tea place at all. It was the coffee place next door.’

  Well, I’d been in there myself, but I had decided against any further declarations.

  Shepherd reached forward and opened the tin. He took out a handful of what appeared to be coins, passed one to me. I saw the Arabic inscription on one side, the image of the locomotive on the other, and the eyehole on the top, so that a green and red ribbon might be threaded through. It was covered in white powder.

  ‘There’s a display to do with the Berlin–Baghdad line in the coffee place,’ said Shepherd. ‘These are, or were, a feature of it. Copper medals minted by the Turkish government for small investors in the line.’ He eyed me, smiling. ‘I have not invested in the Berlin–Baghdad railway, Jim. The extent of my treachery is that I accepted the half dozen of these medals that he put in this tin, which was lying about on the floor, and handed to me. They’re quite worthless, I assure you.’

  I nodded. ‘What’s the white powder
?’

  ‘Lick it,’ he said.

  It was sugar.

  ‘This tin once held Turkish delight. I suppose that when I walked away from the station holding it, the medallions inside must have . . . rattled about rather. Who started this rumour about me, Jim?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. I was in bother now, for of course there’d be no rumour, just the allegation of Boyd, which might or might not have been leaked.

  ‘Jarvis,’ I said, since Jarvis was dead.

  ‘Jarvis?’ said Shepherd, and he looked sidelong for a while. ‘I’d almost counted him a friend.’

  ‘He didn’t believe it for a minute, sir,’ I added hastily. ‘He said it was a shame you didn’t know about it yourself. Then you’d be able to nail it.’

  ‘But where did the rumour come from?’ said Shepherd. ‘Where did it originate?’

  We both drank our brandies; I was lost for any reply.

  ‘Wait a bit,’ said Shepherd. ‘Did it come from Boyd? Because he was on the spot; he saw me in the station, saw me coming out.’

  I could see that this must be a terrible idea to him: that the man whose murder he was trying to solve should be the source of an evil rumour about him. I shook my head. My shirt was entirely sodden.

  ‘I really couldn’t say, sir,’ I said.

  ‘Because if it was known that Boyd was saying those kinds of things about me, and if it was Findlay who did for him, then he might have felt that he could act with impunity.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Since the blame would fall . . . on me.’

  He gave a half smile, and a look of wonderment, as though he admired the cleverness of the idea.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The sun was orange, then red – then it merged with the whiteness of the sky, and set about doing its damage in earnest. I watched it through the window from my bed. It seemed to shake slightly, with the intensity of its hatred of the world.

  The night before, I had once again neglected to close the sun shutters. At seven or so, Ahmad had come in with sweet tea, and questions concerning the whereabouts of Jarvis. I had waved him away from behind the mosquito net, and felt bad about it.

  I lay in a half doze, and at mid-morning I reached for my bed sheet, and pulled it over. I was shivering – or shaking anyhow – at the same time as sweating. I had got properly ill, and it was almost a relief. I could not think exactly why I was ill‚ but it was what was meant to happen in Baghdad. I would put myself under the doctor – there were plenty of them at the Hotel, and in the hospital by the cavalry barracks – and then there would be someone else making the decisions in my case.

  With an effort, I rose from my bed, and closed the sun shutters. Having been almost cold, I was now back to roasting. I lay down again. Was cholera the trouble? I did not think so, since I did not have the runs. I pictured Captain Boyd and Major Findlay at the station. They would have met, judging by the condition of Boyd’s body, on the day before I turned up in Baghdad . . . met at Boyd’s favoured ‘safe place’, the place in which he’d also set up the meeting with me. Well, it was out of the way and yet within easy reach of the ranges where, as a gunner, Boyd might have spent a good deal of his time. In the tea place, there would have been some conflab: ‘You keep away from her, you understand?’ It being impossible to reach agreement, they had started a fight.

  I thought of Jarvis. I would write to his parents. ‘I am very sorry to have to tell you . . .’ Ought I to state that he had made away with himself? A man born into the officer class would know that sort of thing automatically. What was the form? Perhaps the adjutant would write in the first place, stating the truth as per the coroners’ courts – that he took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed. I would then follow up saying that he had come under great strain from the climate while performing his duties in exemplary fashion. If I myself died before I could write it . . . then at least I wouldn’t have to.

  At five, I crawled from under the mosquito net, ate two ginger biscuits and boiled water for tea. I returned to the bed, and rolled up the mosquito net, thinking it was a very ridiculous article. In this town, you might as well try to keep the air off as the mosquitoes.

  When the sun began to drop, I dressed, and slowly pursued my way back to the cavalry barracks. I wore my gun. On arrival at the gate, I saw that another gymkhana was in progress. I held out my identity card to the sentry, saying, ‘I want to see Major . . .’

  I had meant to confront Findlay, but I knew I wasn’t up to it.

  The sentry appeared to be scowling. A horse had broken away from the general criss-crossing of the field, a woman on it. When Miss Bailey saw me beside the gate, she still came on, but with less enthusiasm. I took my cap off.

  ‘Captain Stringer,’ she said, and the sentry seemed amazed that I knew her. He was probably amazed that I knew anyone, given the state of me. The two of us – three if you included Miss Bailey’s horse, from which she did not descend – moved a little way from the sentry, but it was clear that ours was going to be a short talk. The horse was bucking about, kept wanting to start off towards its gallop in the park, and Miss Bailey gave every indication of wanting it to do just that. Neither horse nor rider was still for a minute, as I said, ‘Are you quite all right, after last night, I mean?’

  ‘Quite all right, but how are you? And I was very sorry to hear about your man.’

  Well, there were any number of ways she could have found out about Jarvis. It wore me out to think of them.

  ‘I suppose it was all too much of a strain for him,’ she said. ‘Are you quite all right, Captain Stringer? because you don’t look it.’

  I said, ‘I’m curious about Captain Boyd.’

  ‘Captain Boyd? Captain Boyd is dead,’ she said, with no change in the agitation of herself and the horse. ‘He was killed at the railway station.’

  ‘I know – that’s why.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I could say everything or nothing, except I didn’t have the energy for the former. I recalled what I’d said to the southpaw at number 11 Clean Street. ‘I was at school with him,’ I said.

  ‘You were not,’ she said. ‘If you’re going to go to the lengths of lying about it, I suppose you must have a good reason for wanting to find out about him.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I do.’

  ‘But I can’t help you, I’m afraid.’

  And she was off.

  ‘Are you coming up to Samarrah?’ I called after her, and whilst galloping away and holding down her bowler, she shook her head.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Another driver from Corps HQ took me to Baghdad station, and this time I arrived to find a great sense of stir: Tommies on long ladders repainting the place; the repair of both the tea and coffee salons was being taken in hand. In the railway territory beyond, work gangs were fettling three new locomotives; a vacuum engine was being fitted to the turntable. And once again The Elephant stood ready and facing Samarrah.

  It was seven in the morning, and I was feeling a little better, but still not right. Major Findlay, swathed in cavalryman’s clobber, was standing beside the tender and speaking to one of the Royal Engineer officers who would be riding with us, together with a couple of their own batmen. Besides the holstered revolver, a .303 short-magazine Lee Enfield rifle was held by a strap over Findlay’s shoulder. About his neck were three bandoliers of ammunition, a haversack and a canvas water bag. He carried a rolled groundsheet, and wore cord riding breeches and long boots. All in all, he could have done with a horse, and indeed he was saying, ‘Strange to be unmounted, though. Do you know, I very nearly brought a bag of oats!’

  He had brought a dozen saddles for delivery to Samarrah, and these had been loaded into the Turkish veranda carriage that was again coupled up to The Elephant. Stacked alongside them were some other Samarrah-bound crates, but our mission was to do with looking over the railway lines rather than provisioning the garrison, which received most of its supplies by ri
ver or by motor from Baghdad.

  The Royal Engineer now moved away from Findlay, who was left looking handsome but too red-faced on the platform, and above all sad. For one thing, he must now have discovered that Miss Harriet Bailey would not be riding with us. But he himself could not back out of the trip; it would not be honourable.

  I tried to imagine his movements after the break-up of the club meeting.

  The important photograph had shown the former sweetheart of his own sweetheart (it was all these silly, romantic-story terms that came to mind when I thought of the matter). If Findlay had killed his rival in love, namely Boyd, then he would have gone all out to get back the picture. If he had not killed Boyd, then he would still – being a gentleman – have gone after it, to save Miss Bailey’s honour and spare her blushes (as the papers read by the mill girls had it). My guess was that he had got it back by finding Jarvis and ordering him to hand it over. Perhaps he’d given him a terrible slanging into the bargain, threatening who knew what punishments for making away with the private property of another person, and a lady at that. On the face of it, Findlay seemed mild enough, but the behaviour of an officer in company with his fellows was no guide to his behaviour with other ranks, and having seen that picture he wouldn’t be in a good mood.

  On top of this, Findlay must now suspect that he was being thought the likely killer of Boyd, since he knew that other parties were interested in the photograph that incriminated him. He knew Jarvis had gone after the photograph, but who did he think had sent Jarvis? Or did he think Jarvis was acting alone? It all depended what Jarvis had told him in his last moments. It occurred to me for the first time that Findlay might have thought I’d sent Jarvis in after the photograph. Jarvis was my batman, after all.