The spymaster left, and I looked at Suren. One eye was still badly bruised, and his cheek bore the scar of a cut. For an official of the Post Office, he certainly lived a dangerous life. Nevertheless from his expression one would think that all of the trials he’d been through in the last forty-eight hours were as naught compared to what he was about to embark on. I should maybe have offered him some comforting words, but I’ve never been one for sentiment, and besides I had a telephone call to make.
‘Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To leave a message for Annie,’ I said. ‘Let her know we’re still alive.’
I made for a Nissen hut close by. Inside, an airman in blue overalls sat snoozing behind a desk, waking with a start as I entered and slammed the door behind me.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I need to use your telephone,’ I said, in the tone that officers learn at prep school and which the lower orders are conditioned not to question. ‘Official business.’
‘Of course, sir,’ said the airman, oblivious to my civvies and lack of identification. The deference which honest hard-working Englishmen paid to those of their countrymen who pronounced their ‘t’s, enunciated their ‘aitches’ was as predictable as the tides. Not that I was complaining. Having attended the most minor of minor public schools, the right accent had opened more than a few doors and now given me access to a military telephone.
I dialled the operator and asked to be connected to Chowringhee 2657.
Annie’s maid answered after what felt like several rings too many.
‘Memsahib gone to bed. She is returning home only few minutes ago,’ she protested.
‘Please fetch her,’ I said. ‘It’s important.’
Annie came on the line half a minute later.
‘Sam? Is everything all right?’
‘For now. Dawson’s arranged passage on an aircraft for Suren and me. We should be in Bombay before the evening.’
‘How very pleasant for you both.’
‘It’s hardly pleasant,’ I said. ‘Suren’s still a fugitive and I have to pretend I’m working for the Post Office.’
‘Post Office? Not the police?’
‘No.’
‘Does that mean you can’t arrest Gulmohamed?’
‘That would seem to be the case.’
‘Any idea what you’re going to do?’
‘I’ll think of something,’ I said. ‘Maybe I could post him back to Calcutta. Second class.’
‘I’ve some friends in Bombay,’ she said. ‘Influential people. I could put you in touch.’
A stab of jealousy flashed across my chest. Of course she did. There were bound to be men in Bombay who fawned over her in the same way her admirers in Calcutta did.
‘I’m sure Suren and I can handle this without their help,’ I said.
It was a stupid thing to say. One should never look a gift horse in the mouth, even if the particular horse was an admirer of Annie’s.
‘Of course you can,’ she said, her voice taking on that exasperated tone I’d become all too familiar with. ‘Just like the two of you have handled everything so fantastically so far. But I’m not going to argue with you, Sam. Just let me know when you reach Bombay.’
The plane was one of those huge, lumbering Vickers numbers: two sets of wings hung around a bulbous fuselage and engines the size of small cars. I’d always been keen on aircraft, even through the war years, stuck in a trench as the flyers of the RFC free-wheeled in their kites overhead.
I greeted the captain and crew, which is more than I can say for Suren, who seemed struck dumb by the whole experience. Indeed, getting him onto the plane was like persuading a dog into a bathtub.
‘I’ve never been on an aeroplane before,’ he said.
‘I can see that.’
‘Are they safe?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Unless there’s a crash. But that’s pretty rare these days. Otherwise I expect those fine flying johnnies in the cockpit would be doing a different job.’
‘Have you flown before?’
‘A few times,’ I said, ‘during the war. Reconnaissance work over German positions. Compared to that, this’ll be a breeze. For starters I don’t expect anyone’ll be shooting at us. Not until we land at any rate.’
The interior was just a hollowed-out tube with a row of shelf-like seats along both sides, with harnesses to stop passengers from flying across the cabin in the event of turbulence. We seemed to be the only passengers, other than a sackful of military correspondence. The engines started with a roar and the Vickers Vernon began to rumble across the airfield. Suren, his knuckles taut, dug his fingers into the padding that passed for seats, screwed his eyes shut and uttered a prayer, I assumed, to the Hindu god of aircraft.
My stomach lurched as the beast took off. Suren still had his eyes closed but his expression suggested it was now less out of fear and more out of an attempt to keep his breakfast down. It was only once the plane had levelled off that he summoned the courage to open them.
‘Are we up?’ he said, shouting to be heard over the noise of the engines.
I nodded and pointed him to a porthole.
With a bit of goading, I persuaded him to unbuckle his harness and look out of the window. He peered out then turned round and beamed like a schoolboy.
‘Everything is so small. So beautiful!’
That much was true. From up here, the country looked ordered and picturesque, a land of green fields and model villages. It was only when you got back down to earth that the truth punched you in the face.
From then on, he was glued to the window almost all the way to Cuttack, strapping himself in at the last minute and closing his eyes for the landing.
As the plane sat on the field, a staff car drew up. I held my breath as an officer stepped out, accompanied by an adjutant with a briefcase. They shook hands and the adjutant handed over the case. The officer made for the plane. He had one of those faces – like the melted wax at the base of a candle.
The door opened and the man, a major, judging by the pips on his shoulders, ducked beneath the low ceiling.
He was surprised to see two men in civvies sitting there, more so as one of them was an Indian with his face swollen like an aubergine. Still, he was polite about it, introducing himself as Major Parker of the Rajputana Rifles. I knew little about the regiment but still more than I did about the Indian postal service, which both Suren and I purported to represent.
Fortunately the major didn’t prove to be the talkative type, preferring to spend his time sitting at the opposite end of the cabin, and as the plane took off once more, he buried his nose in a file of documents pulled from his briefcase.
As for Suren, with both his fear and the novelty of the flight beginning to wane, the lad finally fell asleep and I too must have succumbed at some point, because the next thing I knew, the plane was descending and out of the window I saw the turquoise blue of the Arabian Sea.
I nudged him and he awoke with a start.
‘Look out there.’ I pointed to the azure waters beyond the porthole.
He stifled a yawn. ‘Where are we?’
‘Just over Bombay.’