NINE
The first fat droplets fell that evening from low scudding clouds. Flashes of lightning scarred the sky.
The monsoon. Far more than just rain, it sustained life, brought forth the promise of new birth, broke the heat and vanquished drought. It was the country’s saviour, India’s true god.
It had been building for some time now. The staccato showers that always preceded it had come and gone, and the barometer, thermometer and anemometer all pointed to this being the real thing. The natives at least were in no doubt. They rushed out into streets and turned their heads skyward.
The rain began to fall more rapidly: a growing percussion on the rooftops as the wind picked up, swaying the trees in the street and carrying the scent of marigolds on its breath.
How does one explain the monsoon to someone who’s never experienced it? As we left our lodgings it fell as a curtain, a sheer veil of water that dropped suddenly and continued for hours. It took only seconds to be soaked to the raw.
Surrender-not looked heavenward. ‘It’s auspicious to commence a journey during the rain,’ he said. ‘At least that’s what my father thinks. He’d say the gods are smiling on us.’
‘You’re sure they’re not laughing at us?’ I asked. ‘Anyway, I thought you said he wasn’t religious?’
‘He’s not,’ he replied, somewhat enigmatically.
The short trip between the veranda and the waiting taxi was enough to leave us drenched.
‘Howrah station,’ I ordered the driver.
‘Hā, sahib,’ he said, nodding. He started the engine and began to navigate his way through the tempest in the direction of the river.
The approaches to Howrah Bridge were bad at the best of times. Tonight the scene resembled one of those paintings of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Men, animals and vehicles jammed the narrow artery. There were bullock wagons laden with sodden goods, rain-lashed, lunghi-clad farmers, their baskets balanced precariously on their heads, and semi-naked coolies pushing old carts overloaded with produce, all competing for space with trucks and omnibuses. All were headed towards the same destination – the huge building on the far shore, lit up by arc lamps and looking more like a Roman fort than a railway station.
Our taxi inched across the bridge as the lightning flashed ever closer. On both sides, a flotilla of small boats and steamers plied the channel between the Armenian ghat and the ferry terminal on the opposite shore.
We reached the Howrah side as the clock on one of the station’s towers struck half past nine. The taxi pulled to a halt and a red-shirted coolie hurried over and flung open the door. His face was creased and grey with stubble, and on his head sat a dirty white turban.
‘I carry your luggages, sahib?’
‘How much?’
‘Eight annas.’
‘Too much,’ I replied. ‘Four.’
‘Six,’ he shot back, wrestling the case from my hand. ‘Kon platfrom?’ he asked.
‘Platform one,’ said Surrender-not, emerging from the cab.
‘Platfrom one, very good, sahib,’ said the coolie as he turned and plunged into the crowd of commuters with our cases on his head.
Walking into Howrah station was akin to entering Babel before the Lord took issue with their construction plans. All the peoples of the world, gathered under the station’s soot-stained glass roof. White, native, oriental, African; all jostled for space in the crowded ticket hall, as farmers, pilgrims, soldiers and salarymen fought their way to the platforms in the hope of passage to their desired destinations. Whatever else it might be, Howrah station was not for the faint hearted.
A white man could, should he choose to, spend his days in Calcutta living in pretty much splendid isolation, without ever having to deal with any natives other than his servants. But Howrah station was like a watering hole in the savannah, where all animals from the highest to the lowest were forced to congregate cheek by jowl, the one place in the city where an Englishman, by necessity, had to confront India at its rawest.
The place smelled of fish, fresh produce and damp clothes. Underpinning it all was the smell of smoke from the engines, and the constant chorus of the hawkers touting their wares. Cries of ‘Komla Lebu’ and ‘Gorrom Cha’ competed with the continuous announcements from the station Tannoy-vital information intoned in English and Bengali, and incomprehensible in both.
Platform one, often reserved for VIP trains, was situated on the far left of the concourse: cordoned off by velvet ropes and brass stands, it was an oasis of calm in the maelstrom. Waiting there stood a handsome locomotive and train of six carriages, each painted in green and gold and embossed with the Royal Seal of Sambalpore, a leaping tiger under a crown.
Back on the concourse, to the sound of barked orders, a cortège of sepoys in dress uniform, with an English officer at their side and a coffin on their shoulders, progressed solemnly through the crowd. The casket was draped in the Union flag and garlands of flowers and was flanked by the Dewan and Colonel Arora.
A hush descended as the cortège passed by and people touched their hands to their foreheads in reverence for the dead. As the crowds parted, I caught sight of a man in civilian clothes and my blood froze. He might have been out of uniform but the moustache and the pipe clamped firmly at the corner of his mouth were unmistakable. Major Dawson, chief of Section H and head of the military’s intelligence operation in Bengal. At least I assumed he was the head. It’s hard to be sure exactly who is in charge when you’re dealing with secret policemen. As far as I could tell, Dawson ran the show, which made it all the more surprising to see him here, watching the cortège of a dead man pass by.
He hadn’t spotted me, which was just as well. Our relationship was somewhat fractious. He suspected me of meddling in Section H’s affairs and I suspected him of having tried to kill me at least once. If he spotted me boarding the train, it was a pretty safe bet that the Viceroy would know about it before bedtime, and that might present some problems for Lord Taggart, given how fastidiously he’d avoided mentioning my participation in this little jaunt to Sambalpore in his report.
I crouched down and pulled at Surrender-not’s shirt. He spun round angrily, probably thinking that someone was trying to pick his pockets. It was a fair assumption to make. More money was stolen from pockets in Howrah station every day than went missing from Calcutta’s banks in a year. His expression changed when he saw me, though.
‘Dawson,’ I whispered, gesturing towards the intelligence officer.
Surrender-not looked over, then dropped to a crouch. ‘What’s he doing here?’
‘Good question.’
‘He’s not in uniform. Do you think he might be going somewhere?’
‘I doubt he’s off on his holidays, Sergeant,’ I said, ‘but whatever he’s up to, it could make things rather uncomfortable if he sees me here. You’ll need to distract him while I slip on to the train.’
‘What should I say to him?’
‘I’m sure you’ll think of something.’
Surrender-not swallowed hard. ‘Very well.’ He nodded, stood up and made his way through the crowd towards the major. Soon he was within ten feet of the man and trying to attract his attention.
‘I say, Major Daws—’
He was cut off in mid sentence as a farmer the size of a barn barged into him, sending him flying. As if on cue, another gorilla of a man hurried over. Both men positioned themselves squarely between Surrender-not and the major and made a rather splendid show of helping the sergeant back on to his feet. I turned to see Dawson’s reaction, but he’d gone, disappeared into the crowd. I didn’t hang about trying to find him. Instead, I stood up and rushed towards platform one.