Bhowani Junction (42 page)

The man in the car said, ‘My dear fellow, what on earth are you all doing out in this terrible weather? You’ll catch your deaths. Who
are
those people?’ He looked at the corpses with the Gurkha hats over their faces.

Colonel Savage said, ‘Oh, we’re all playing soldiers, Nigel.’

The man said, ‘Yes, yes, of course. I suppose you have to, to keep your wonderful little fellows happy. Do excuse me, Rod
ney. Paul has run away and sent me a telegram from Gondwara, of
all
places, that he’s working in the club there. I’m going to persuade him to come back.’

‘Paul’s the chef, isn’t he?’ Colonel Savage said.

The peculiar man in the car said, ‘Yes. We had a silly misunderstanding over some
foie gras
. How’s Victoria?’

Victoria said, ‘I’m very well thank you, Nigel,’ and the old man said, ‘Good. Keep beautiful, my dear. Nothing I can do for you, Rodney? No? Well, good-bye, good-bye.’ Then he pulled his head in, and the car drove on.

Colonel Savage started to laugh—silently at first, but soon he was bellowing. Govindaswami and Ranjit began to laugh with him, and Victoria was absolutely shaking. I didn’t really see anything to laugh at, but I couldn’t stop myself from laughing with them, so there we all were, shrieking like lunatics, at five o’clock in the morning on the Deccan Pike a couple of miles outside Shahpur.

Victoria finally got herself under control and said, still giggling a little, ‘Are you sure you don’t want any morphia before we go back, sir?’ and Colonel Savage bawled at the top of his voice, ‘WiIl you bloody well leave me alone, woman? Go and do good works elsewhere. Buy a pair of shoes for the manager of the Cholaghat cement-works railway. How many men do you want to look after, anyway?’

She said, ‘One,’ and scrambled into the jeep beside me, and I began to curse and swear under my breath, because I’d left my shoes in the Mayni Tunnel.

Also by John Masters in the Story-tellers series:

NIGHTRUNNERS OF BENGAL