The Baghdad Railway Club (5 page)

On the quay, an English private blocked my path.

‘Are you Jarvis?’

‘Sah!’ he said, and he snapped to attention, which was quite the right thing for him to do, but he also eyed me curiously, which was not.

‘I’m Captain Stringer,’ I said.

‘Sah!’ he said again. He then became normal, and it was good to hear a Northern accent. He said, ‘The base is this way, sir. We’re in the Hotel Grande Bretagne – Hotel Great Britain that is, sir.’

‘I know,’ I said.

He held out his two arms for my pack, and I gave it him.

The dockers were still chanting the name of their God as Jarvis said something about ‘. . . I hope this place will be a home-from-home for you, sir.’

We joined a flow of soldiers walking up a kind of dirty sluice that rose up from one side of the quay, and this took us into a packed narrow street, the road not much wider than a footpath, where we came up against the doorway of a very compressed mosque with green lanterns burning on either side of the entrance. A loud singing rose up from somewhere, and made me start.

‘Time for prayer, sir, time for prayer,’ said Jarvis, ‘always at it, they are. Five times a day, starting at dawn. If you should go in there‚ sir . . . take your shoes off. Don’t put your hands in your pockets, and don’t put your hands behind your back either, sir.’

We pushed through a crowd of beggars. Jarvis was saying something to them in their own language – sounded friendly enough. Well, he was a friendly-looking chap: small, round-faced, and dead keen. ‘Chirpy’, that was the word. As we pushed on past the beggars, he said, ‘It goes without saying, sir, that you don’t go into a mosque in
shorts
. One of the officers did that yesterday, sir, and there was a bit of . . . well, there was a bit of a riot really.’ (In khaki drill, which was the cotton version of service dress, short or long trousers might equally be worn.) ‘See any lions on your way up, sir?’ Jarvis enquired.

‘No – dogs. Plenty of dogs.’

‘This place is full of dogs too,’ said Jarvis. ‘Yellow, they are. And starving.’

I said, ‘Is it quite the thing to wear shorts?’

Jarvis did not, and his trouser legs looked even more sweat-soaked than mine.

‘Frowned on in the officers’ mess,’ he said.

‘But a good deal cooler,’ I said.

‘I’ve been thinking much the same myself, sir. Nearly put my pair on this morning. I will if you will, sir, how about that?’

I wasn’t sure that was quite the sort of thing a batman should be saying to his officer. He seemed a smart customer, Jarvis, and that could be good or bad.

‘Is it a long walk to the Hotel?’

‘It’s not a long walk to anywhere, strictly speaking. Town’s about a mile and a half by a mile, sir. Three-quarters of it on this side of the river, one-quarter on the other.’ He paused, before adding, ‘It’s a walled city, sir, so you know when you’ve come to the end of it.’

I’d read something about that: Baghdad was the first fortified city of the Turks against the Persians.

‘What’s beyond the walls?’

‘To be quite honest with you, sir,’ said Jarvis, ‘. . . graves. Then the desert.’

‘How far away is Johnny Turk?’

‘Beaten back to about a hundred miles on all sides, sir. He’s mainly to the north, sir, beyond Samarrah. Their central point is a spot called Aleppo.’

‘Any danger of ’em coming back?’

‘Certain to try, sir, but it’s a question of when. Both sides are in their summer quarters, as you might say. Our boys were chasing the old Turkey cock out at Ramadi last month, sir, and it was too hot for campaigning even then.’

We were now into what I first thought of as an alleyway, but which was in reality – I would soon realise – a typical street of Baghdad. The ‘roadway’ was half broken cobbles, half mud dust. There were arches at intervals overhead, and three of these in succession boasted great storks standing one-legged upon them. Some of the walls were blank stone, with faded posters and barred windows, so that it looked like we were passing a succession of small prisons, but some held shops or places of business, and I had glimpses of Arab life in dark, hot, oil-lit rooms – grey stone relieved by colourful carpets and cushions. We came to a building enclosed in scaffolding.

‘Reconstruction,’ said Jarvis. ‘That’s the order of the day out here. Well, that and fatigues and parades and
waiting
, sir.’

Gas lights, yet unlit and of ancient design, stuck out from the walls. We passed a man in a doorway rolling cigarettes and setting them neatly on a table top; then some sort of shop or store with what looked like beautiful but battered biscuit tins containing pastries. Next came a shop that evidently sold water – in bottles or leather skins. Jarvis turned to me, saying, ‘Excuse me one second‚ sir, if you don’t mind,’ and I watched from the doorway as he stepped into the shop and spoke a few words of Arabic to the blokes inside, who seemed to know him of old, and grinned quite enthusiastically at him.

‘Like a bloody mental ward in there, it is, sir,’ he said, stepping back into the street.

‘What were you saying?’

‘
Taze su
, you see‚ sir – means fresh water.’

So he’d been telling them what was in their shop.

Jarvis said, ‘Your first camel, sir.’

I looked forwards, and there it was – seemingly bowing to both sides of the street as it walked. It carried a great wooden crate on top of a saddle that looked to be made of a collection of carpets. It was being led, so to speak, from behind, by a fellow constantly flicking its rump with a stick, like a man playing the drums. From this you’d have thought the camel meant nothing to him, and yet he’d decorated the saddle with little silver bells.

Jarvis said, ‘Looks like it’s got two left feet, doesn’t it, sir? But then it’s not at home in the town. Ship of the desert, sir – and it’s said you do feel a little seasick when you’re up on board.’

The camel stalked past.

‘. . . Until you get the rhythm that is.
Gemel
or
jemel
, it is, sir,’ Jarvis ran on, ‘so it’s an easy one to remember.’

‘You’ve a pretty good grasp on the language, Jarvis.’

‘Made a bit of an effort, sir, bit of an effort. When we first came here, I was thinking: Right, where’s the blinking pyramids?, if you’ll pardon the expression, sir. Ignorant, I was, but I’ve decided to make a study of the place. Mesopotamia, sir. The land between two rivers – that’s what that means. There’s an Arab saying: “When the devil created hell, he saw it wasn’t bad enough, so he created Mesopotamia, and added flies.”’

‘I should say that’s about right.’

‘But I
like
it, sir. I have a guide-book:
City of the Khalifs
. This was quite the place to be, sir – about a thousand years ago.’

‘Were you in the scrap when we took the town?’

‘No‚ sir, but I was in the show at Kut – the first time we went in there; before the siege. September 1915 – worst month of my life, sir. Then I was at Basrah, having a fairly easy time of it. I came up here on the steamer four weeks ago.’

‘What were you up to in Basrah, Corporal?’

‘Motor-car driver. Then I was batman to another gentleman, sir. Then I went back to driving.’

There was a tap on my shoulder, I turned around, and an Arab was there, holding out a bottle of water. It was one of the blokes from the water shop. Behind him, a rather irritated voice called out, ‘Can you smile? He’s giving you a present.’

Beyond the Arab, in the crowd of the street, a man stood next to a cine camera on a tripod stand. I knew immediately what it was, even though I’d never laid eyes on one before. It resembled a thin wooden case stood on its end. The operator – he squinted into a hole at the back of it and wound a handle on the side – wore an officer’s uniform but with no badges of rank. You’d have thought he was a colonel from the way he gave orders, however.

‘Take the bottle and thank him!’

I took the bottle from the Arab, nodding briefly at him.

‘Oh God!’ said the man at the camera, who’d left off winding the thing, and was standing next to it with hands on hips, the better to let me see the great patches of sweat underneath his arms. All the Arabs at his end of the street were looking at him, and I could tell he liked that no end. ‘Look, do you know how scarce fresh water is in this town? We’re all drawing it from wells, and putting lime in it, and boiling it and doing God knows what, and here’s this chap giving you his last bottle in recognition of his liberation from the bloody Turk . . . Respond appropriately, please.’

I eyed the bloke, shading my eyes against the low sun. ‘It’s not his last bottle!’ I called back to him. ‘He’s got a bloody shopful!’

The Arab with the bottle was smiling at me, and nodding.

‘Look,’ said the cameraman, ‘can you just take the bottle again, but with a bit of enthusiasm this time?’

The Arab seemed dead set on
offering
the bottle again – fancied himself an actor no doubt. Had he been put up to the whole business by the cameraman?

‘Look,’ that bloke was now saying, ‘don’t bother. There’s no light anyway.’

And slinging his camera over his shoulder, he turned on his heel, and walked the other way down the street, with his little fan club of Arabs in tow.

I turned around, and another bloody camel was loping by, and giving off such a rancid smell that I was put on the edge of a swoon, what with the persistent heat, and the strangeness of it all. I took the stopper off the bottle and drank down the water. I saw Jarvis sitting on a doorstep. He was looking down at his dusty boots.

‘Jarvis,’ I said, and I could see he was in a bath of sweat. All of a sudden, a great strain seemed to have been thrown upon him. He too had got hold of a bottle of water, but his was full. As I looked on, he set it down in the gutter, and I did likewise with my empty one.

‘Drunk the water, did you‚ sir?’ he enquired, rising to his feet.

I nodded.

‘You said it was fresh,’ I said.

‘I was just trying out the word really, sir,’ he said. Suddenly, he looked all-in. And now a man leading a train of white donkeys was coming between us, trapping Jarvis against the wall.

‘Who was that bloke with the camera?’ I asked Jarvis over the top of a donkey.

‘Wallace King that is, sir,’ he said, and he seemed to know the man of old, and to be bored by the idea of him. ‘Famous back home, he is – in the music halls. I mean the picture houses – made dozens of films. He’s out here making newsreels. I should think every Tommy in the place has been filmed by him – most of the sepoys too.’

Night was dropping rapidly. The air had a green-orange sort of tint to it; the temperature seemed if anything to be climbing. I put this to Jarvis, who said, ‘It is a bit cooler at night, but it’s more humid because the moisture’s not burnt off. Directly we arrive at base, I’ll fix you up with a glass of something cold sir, how about that?’

I said, ‘The Arabs don’t drink, do they? Alcohol, I mean.’

‘Not really, sir, no. They do smoke though,’ he added, as if that made up for it. ‘Do you know what you’ll be wanting after a week or so, sir? Tea in a cup. Tea comes in glasses here, and very small ones at that, but my advice, sir . . . get used to it.’

The street widened into a square, and there was the hotel – the front of it (the rear I had already seen, overhanging the river). It had a golden dome; palm trees criss-crossed in a series of Xs in gravel beds to either side of the main entrance, two parked phaetons, two sentries looking very casual. New telegraph poles marched across the square, spoiling its appearance, and carrying wires to the top of the Hotel. Jarvis showed his identity card, muttering something about ‘Escorting Captain Stringer, seconded to Corps HQ.’ I myself was not required to show my papers. I might have been a parcel the sentries were taking delivery of.

‘. . . And raspberry jam,’ Jarvis was saying as we entered the Hotel, ‘there’s no raspberry jam in the whole of Baghdad, and once you know that, sir, you really want it. But forget about it. Forget all about it. Honey, that’s the big thing here.’

The lobby was dark and it took me a while to accustom myself to the gloom. A giant notice-board headed ‘PART ONE ORDERS’ had been fixed to one of the wood-panelled walls. The floor was black and white tiles, with palms in wicker baskets, wicker chairs and tables about the place. The reception desk was not in use. Before it stood a row of smaller desks, and behind each sat a political officer of the British Indian Army.

These were my fellows. I was a political officer too. We had left our own army units behind, soared above them, so to speak, in order to become a species of civil servant. But whilst our political, and supposedly peaceable purposes were indicated by the white tabs on our uniforms (I’d sewn mine on while sailing up on the
Mantis
), we still wore our badges of rank and most of us – including all the men at the desks – wore our guns.

White cloths were draped over the front of their desks, and Arabic and English words had been crudely painted on to these, so as to signify the business of the fellow at the desk. I read ‘Police’, ‘Transport’, ‘Agricultural’, ‘Commercial Department’, ‘Taxes’, ‘Trade (Import–Export)’, and there were queues of Arabs at the last three named, some sitting, some standing. They wore beautiful robes, and a couple held gnarled sticks. It was horribly hot in the lobby. I looked up: no ceiling fans, but at either end of the rows of desks, banks of free-standing electrical fans whirred and swayed.

Jarvis was saying, ‘Second floor, sir. The billets are all on the second floor, with the hotel rooms kept just as they were. All the other rooms are offices.’

An Arab was now carrying my bag, and so the three of us climbed the wide staircase. On every step, a strip of rubber had been placed so as to save the carpet from the dusty boots of the British Indian Army.

‘I think you’ll find your quarters to be quite cushy, sir,’ said Jarvis.

‘But it’s only for one night, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘That’s right, sir. Your place is off Park Street.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Over by the park, sir,’ he said, and we might have been talking about the streets of York. ‘I’m off there first thing in the morning with an orderly, and we’ll set it all up for you.’