Having been paid his compliment, Mr. Ngono was prepared to shrug if off.
‘It is nothing,’ he said. ‘Simply the extremely remarkable quickness of my mind. Improvements occur to me with the utmost frequency. It is a sort of knack.’
Chapter 37
Purely through the exchange of telegrams, Mr. Frith felt that he was getting to know the character of the new Governor pretty well. And it was obvious that Amimbo was in for something of a change.
The keynote of the message was restraint. Because of the impending trial, ceremony was to be cut down to a minimum, they said. The Regimental band was out; and the Reception Party at the Residency was to be postponed indefinitely. Reading between the lines, Mr. Frith formed the impression that Mr. Anthony Drawbridge, C.B.E., late of Kuala Lumpur, would probably prefer things that way even if there had been no crisis.
It was easier, however, for Whitehall to advocate restraint than it was for the Superintendent of Police in Amimbo to enforce it.
The Coronation Flyer, with Mr. Drawbridge on board, was due to pull into the terminus at 8.15 p.m.; and already by 6 o’clock, the scale of the demonstration had become alarming. At the sight of organised groups of people, all chattering excitedly and carrying long bamboo poles with slogans wrapped round them, the Superintendent began to wish that he had ignored the order to keep things normal, and had called for the usual riot-barriers to be erected.
As a last minute precaution, therefore, and acting solely upon his own initiative, he closed the station approach and instructed the Station Master to keep the main doors shut.
Meanwhile, the Station Master’s wife’s party at the top of Platform 2 had been getting nicely under way. The Station Master had got two of the porters to place the family settee and two easy chairs up alongside the ticket collector’s booth; a trestle table with cakes and tea and iced drinks had been arranged conveniently in the middle; and, around a large crate marked ‘PERISHABLE IMMEDIATE’, the Station Master’s wife and three of her friends were now seated.
Their numerous children, all in their best clothes and heartily fed up with waiting, were either swarming over the coal bunkers or sitting disconsolately on the points, casting dice among the railway sleepers.
And, all the time, through the marshalling-yards, the demonstrators with their banners had been pouring in. What at 7.15 had been no more than a desultory sprinkling had, by 7.30, become a host. The bottom end of Platform 2 was packed solid; and, as the late-comers arrived, those in front were irresistibly thrust forward onto the track.
In the mêlée some of the poles became entangled; some snapped; and those of the banners left with only one support had to be waved aloft like flags.
By 7.45, the suspense was becoming intolerable. The Station Master had removed the crate, and asked for the points to be cleared. His wife’s friends and their children were arranged in a prim double row as though they were having their photograph taken, and the Station Master himself had moved over to the reception side.
When Mr. Frith arrived at ten minutes to eight just to make sure that everything was in order, he was hysterically and tumultuously cheered.
He had, in point of fact, only just been able to get there at all. That was because the Superintendent—preoccupied by his immediate problem of cordoning off the station—had omitted to tell Mr. Frith’s chauffeur. In consequence, the poor man found himself confronted by a palisade of park benches and litter bins placed across the roadway and, when he had cleared a channel for the car, he was astonished to find the waiting-room and booking hall, where the reception party was to assemble, barred and bolted against him.
The next moment of excitement came precisely at 8 o’clock when the Station Master, looking vaguely apprehensive, walked down the platform to the Signal Box. The crowd all turned to watch. They saw the Station Master mount the steps, enter the little glass box and go into close conference with the signalman.
A moment later both men came out onto the observation platform and, shading their eyes with their hands, stood there staring out along the single track that dwindled away into the distance.
So far, the reason for the inspection was a secret shared only between the two of them. But the Station Master did not see how it could remain so for much longer. The plain truth was that they had lost the train. And, what was worse, they had no means of finding it.
When everything was working smoothly, three pings on the electric telegraph in the signal box indicated that Amimbo-bound rolling-stock had just passed Ketebebe inspection point, and was in the twenty-five mile home stretch. The gradient was gentle and downhill all the way, and forty to forty-five minutes was usually all that was needed for the train to complete the journey.
This evening, however, there had been no pings. Either the train had not yet reached Ketebebe, or the duty officer had forgotten to report it. The Station Master—by now to the shouts of encouragement of the spectators—hurried back to his own office. Afraid that it might be taken as somehow reflecting on his own efficiency, he did not immediately break the news to Mr. Frith. He simply sat, helplessly staring at his watch, wondering how long it would take to get steam up on the shunting engine so that he could go out in search of the missing express.
On the platform opposite, Mr. Ngono was going round to make sure that everyone understood the night’s battle orders.
‘First, you will raise your banners above your heads, all shouting out most loudly “Welcome” or “God bless” or simply “Hurrah”. That will be as the train draws in. Then I will fire my starting pistol which gives off an extremely loud report. That will be after the train has stopped. At the signal, you will immediately rush pell-mell onto the platform, still calling out your greetings in shrill voices, and tear past the Governor, not even pausing to glance once in his unimportant direction. It is Mr. Das who is the hero remember, not this new man.’
Mr. Ngono paused because he was breathless.
‘And have no unwholesome fears whatsoever about the consequences,’ he added. ‘Throughout the whole stampede from start to finish, I shall be standing right at the very back directing everything. Like a good General in his headquarters I shall be there, leading you from behind.’
While Mr. Ngono was still addressing his supporters, the Coronation Flyer, in a cocoon of escaping steam, was standing motionless, six miles on the other side of Ketebebe.
Having kept close to schedule all the way from Nucca, the extra weight of the Governor’s coach had at last proved too much for it. With a noise like a bomb explosion six feet of copper tubing had suddenly burst open, sending nuts, bolts, splinters, and rivets flying off into the gloom of the surrounding jungle.
Heads were now thrust out of every carriage window, and the guard was going down the entire length of the train patiently explaining that it was nothing. No one, of course, believed him, but it was nice all the same to find someone who behaved as if he cared.
And the guard did more than merely reassure. He brought the whole of the Company’s emergency drill into operation. This meant climbing the nearest telegraph pole so that he could tap the wires. The passengers watched fascinated as the guard—a large, brightly uniformed man— re-emerged on the track carrying crampons, lengths of wire, a canvas seat-belt to support his weight once he was up there, insulators, pliers, bull-dog clips and a hand-telephone complete with earphones.
And as the guard mounted slowly, inserting his footsteps one by one before him as he went, the passengers gazed admiringly. Somewhere above them, invisible in all that steam, were the wires. It was like being spectators at the Indian rope-trick seeing their companion disappearing into the darkness above.
Nor in the ordinary way would there have been any special cause for anxiety. The guard had, many times, done it all before: indeed, he rather enjoyed the moment when at last the distant voice answered and, having got his breath back, he was able to begin his rigmarole with the words: ‘Guard Boku, No. 37, here. I have the honour to report a breakdown at …’
But o
n this occasion it was different.
The telegraph pole was already slanting inwards slightly, like a palm tree bending over a lagoon. Also, despite the creosote, the white ants had been at work upon it: they had fed, penetrated and feasted there: a six-inch cavity on the far side might have been carved out of a bath sponge. Also, since his recent promotion, the guard had been putting on weight: he was appreciably heavier than at the time of his last ascent, and not so nimble.
At first, everything in the exercise went well. The pole sagged a little as he mounted it; but, as he was suitably slow and cautious, there seemed no cause for alarm. It was not, indeed, until, still buttoned-up in his railway uniform, he had reached the very summit that he was conscious of how far the pole was already tilting over. It was like the escape ladder on a fire engine. And, as he thrust out his hand to grasp the wire his centre of gravity shifted. The pole could stand no more of him. With a wrenching sound like cloth tearing, it snapped off about three feet from the ground. That was when the equipment failed in the signal box, and Ketebebe was cut off from Amimbo terminus.
Now, nearly three hours later, things were looking brighter. The guard had been recovered from the bushes on the far side, dusted-down, consoled and made comfortable on a mattress of mailbags and the softer kind of parcels piled up in a corner of his van. The engine driver had hammered down and sealed off the steam-pipe connected to the starboard cylinder, and his fireman was now stoking up the engine again to see if anything else had been shattered in the explosion.
At twelve-fifteen a.m., the Coronation Flyer got moving on one cylinder; and, feebly assisted by its own traction-power, it freewheeled into Amimbo.
By then the platforms were deserted. The Station Master’s wife’s party had broken up early because of the children; and by midnight the last of Mr. Ngono’s supporters had thrown down their banners and gone away in search of what bars and night-spots might still be open.
Mr. Drawbridge, grateful for the extra hours of sleep upon the train, arrived thoroughly fresh and rested. He apologised to Mr. Frith for having kept him waiting, and added that it was all just the way he had hoped it would be—no fuss, no formality, no native demonstrations, nothing.
He got straight into the Governor’s car and was driven off to the Residency.
Only Mr. Talefwa remained behind to welcome Mr. Das. The two of them looked sadly isolated standing there in the lamplight at the end of the already empty platform. Mr. Talefwa presented the naturally dishevelled appearance of any man who has been taking his night’s rest in twenty-minute snatches on a single plank bench with the initials of the railway company carved into it.
Nor was Mr. Das looking at his best. Only on arrival at Nucca had he discovered that his reservation was third-class, and he had travelled through two nights with eight other people and a live chicken in the same compartment. Mr. Das’s own luggage was simple. It consisted merely of a wicker hold-all, tied round with string, and a pair of shiny, new-looking shoes that he was carrying under his left arm.
By then it was three o’clock in the morning. The city was entirely still. With dawn just upon them, even the owls had ceased their hooting, and the police had all gone to bed.
Suddenly there was a loud report, a bang that brought faces to windows and set the local babies screaming. It was Mr. Ngono who was responsible. He had been quietly on his way home with a friend, when his companion, slightly drunk, had chosen to speak disparagingly of the night’s arrangements. He had even suggested that Mr. Ngono’s chosen position over by the exit was so far back that, even if he had still been there at the time to give the word of command, no one in front could possibly have heard him.
Mr. Ngono, slightly drunk himself, was in no mood to take that kind of talk. Then and there, to show how it would have sounded if the Coronation Flyer had been even reasonably on time, he had raised his right arm and fired off his starting pistol.
Chapter 38
There was now less than a week to go before the trial, and every bit of accommodation in Amimbo was booked solid. The special correspondents, reporters, radio men and observers were all there; and the Supervisor at the G.P.O.’s telegram counter had accepted tips, bribes and prepayments from everyone who came to him promising them all exclusive day-and-night priority facilities on Amimbo’s solitary outgoing line. The other line had been commandeered outright by the Government.
As for Mr. Drawbridge—though still in Mr. Frith’s eyes, distinctly on probation—he had been accepted.
An ordinary, easy-going sort of human being in many ways, he had on his second day announced that he preferred working on ground level, and had told his A.D.C. to get the large desk, Sir Gardnor’s desk, carried down into the east wing.
It was an unheard of departure from practice: the desk had been up in the Library ever since the Residency had been opened. But it was immediately recognised that there was the stamp of greatness about such a decision. At all levels, people were relieved to think that at last Amimbo really had a Governor again.
Also, he had done all the right things. He had been nice to the discarded A.D.C. whom he had found hanging, ghostlike, around the Residency, and told him that he looked forward to seeing him at mealtimes. He had called on Lady Anne and Sybil Prosser at Crown Cottage, staying on for tea in the neglected garden, overlooked by the windows of the Portuguese Consulate. He had visited Old Moses in the prison hospital, and arranged for a daily delivery of fresh Jersey milk from the Residency farm.
And now, with the trial right on top of them, he had just closed his final session with the law officers. The four men had moved through into the anteroom where the drinks were standing, and Mr. Drawbridge had re-lit his pipe.
‘It’s not for me to say,’ he told them. ‘It’s your side of the house. Just make everything so much easier if the fellow would agree.’
The Attorney-General did not reply immediately. He was the one that Mr. Drawbridge had been looking at; and he was the one who, earlier, had shown himself most frankly dubious about the whole proposal. Gentlemen’s agreements were delicate plants by nature; and, in his experience, the atmosphere of Central Africa was usually too humid for them.
‘Great mistake to let them suspect any weaknesses on our side,’ he said.
‘Exactly,’ Mr. Drawbridge told him. ‘That’s why you are the only person who could handle it. We agreed on that in there.’
His pipe was not drawing properly, and he broke off to see what another match would do. When he spoke again, he kept interrupting himself as he sucked at the mouthpiece.
‘It’s entirely … up to you,’ he said. ‘Let’s leave it shall we … if you should run into him … and the time seems ripe … you can touch on it… otherwise we go ahead as we are … let’s see what happens.’
The next morning, the Attorney-General was still feeling apprehensive, but Mr. Drawbridge had got the better of him. That was why, against his better judgment, he was now on his way down from his own quiet chambers where the fans were always turning, to the hot airless common room where counsel read over their briefs, and sent their clerks out for little cardboard cups of iced water. It was Mr. Das he was looking for.
And, as the Attorney-General feared, there he was. Sitting at the wretched little table, that was all that the Courts provided, he was bent over his document like a watchmaker. He was so deeply absorbed in what he was reading that, at first, he did not hear the Attorney-General when he addressed him.
The Attorney-General addressed him a second time.
‘May I introduce myself?’ he asked, a trifle louder. ‘My name is Ramsden, David Ramsden. I’m the Attorney-General.’
Mr. Das looked up without speaking: it was a Summons for nonpayment of something back in Lagos that he had been reading, and he was endeavouring to conceal it by spreading his outstretched hands flat over it.
‘I shall be appearing against you tomorrow,’ the Attorney-General went on pleasantly, ‘so I thought it would be as well if we met first.’
&nb
sp; This time the pause was so long that the Attorney-General became puzzled.
‘You are Mr. Das, are you not?’ he asked.
Mr. Das inclined his head ever so slightly: it was in the manner of a rather formal bow.
‘Then, if you have time, perhaps we could have a few words together.’
While he had been sitting there, Mr. Das had not been idle. He had been scooping round with his foot under the table trying to locate his brief-case. With a sudden swift movement like a conjurer he grabbed at it, slammed it down on the table top and thrust his other papers away safely and out of sight inside. They had reached him only that morning, redirected from Freetown, and they made rather depressing reading: they were all bills, demands, dunning-letters, urgent requests for loans from close friends, bad tidings from his family in Madras, mourning notices.
He jumped up and shook hands.
‘You are more than kind,’ he said. ‘It is a great honour.’
Because there was a managing clerk, his arms full of ledgers and box-files, waiting to use the same table, the Attorney-General suggested that they should go outside. He had considered proposing his own office, and then had thought better of it because it savoured too much of intrigue. Together he and Mr. Das walked as far as the front steps. The heat there was roasting.
‘Shall we talk here?’ he asked. ‘It’s more pleasant. Because of the breeze, you know.’
‘Wherever you say,’ Mr. Das replied, shading his eyes against the glare.
‘And how is your client?’
Mr. Das gave his usual polite bow.
‘Well, thank you,’ he replied.
‘But off his food, I hear.’
‘That is so.’
The Attorney-General had, for a moment, caught Mr. Das’s glance. The dark, heavily lidded eyes had been turned full on him. Not that he had been able to make out anything of what was going on behind them: they seemed, indeed, to be singularly uncommunicative sort of eyes.
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