The Baghdad Railway Club Read Online Free Page A

right.
    I observed this from across the lobby, in which only one or two of the islands were now populated. The man from the Railway Club happened to glance my way, and I knew that he now did recognise me, and at this for some reason he coloured deeper. It may have been just shyness, but he seemed somehow helpless at that moment. I felt it would be impossible to walk away from him, even though I also knew he would not necessarily welcome an approach. But I did approach, at which the coffee-and-cigarette man said something in a low voice to my quarry, and moved away.
    ‘Shepherd,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘We were at the Railway Club earlier.’
    He was a handsome fellow in the later thirties or early forties, slightly built, with crinkly dark hair. I gave him my own first name, but ‘James’ instead of Jim. He gave every indication of being a high-ranking officer. I had him down as a major at least, but it didn’t do to ask.
    ‘Thanks for the cigarette,’ I said. ‘A very decent smoke . . . It came from there, I suppose?’ I said, indicating the Eastern tent.
    Shepherd nodded, but said nothing. Was it a social mistake for a fellow to show knowledge of where another fellow bought his cigarettes? Shepherd was perhaps on the point of utterance when the man who’d occupied the kiosk swept across the lobby towards the front door, having collected his coat from somewhere. (It was a blue greatcoat – nothing in the least Mohammedan about either it or his grey felt hat.)
    Seeing me looking at the man, Shepherd said, smiling, ‘His name isn’t . . . Abdullah, you know?’
    I thought: I never said it was.
    ‘Care for a drink?’ he said, and I saw that this was the way of it with the man Shepherd: he was shy but well mannered. He would try to make up for any display of shyness, or the awkwardness consequent upon it, with a generous offer.
    A quick inspection of the lounges off the lobby told us that the Mahogany Room was the only one still boasting a fire. A dozen men sat in there, smoking hard. The first chairs we came to were set either side of a low table, and I could see Shepherd thinking, If we sit there, I will be interrogated , but we took those seats anyway. Shepherd set down his magazine, which unfurled itself to reveal . . . well, of course it was a copy of The Railway Magazine – the February 1917 number, I had it myself at home. He took his cigarettes from his top pocket and again offered me one. He set down the packet on the table. There was some writing in a foreign script, and a picture of a dark-skinned man in a fez hat walking through a pale-coloured desert at night with a rather paler woman in a red dress at his side. The man’s fez was the same shade of red as the woman’s dress. In the sky above hung a crescent moon and four stars. A waiter came; we ordered brandies (I didn’t care for spirits myself, but I knew they were the right thing to have, late on in a good hotel), and then sat back for an interval, blowing smoke and smiling. I was trying to look like an officer. Shepherd had no trouble in that regard, yet his shyness – or something else – prevented him from opening the conversation.
    We both found that we were contemplating the magazine. The covers of TheRailway Magazine were always either blue or green, and this one was green. Across the top of it – as usual – was an advertisement for ‘The United Flexible Metallic Tubing Company Limited. Works: Ponders End, Middlesex.’
    Shepherd put his hand towards it, saying, ‘Good old Railway Mag .’
    ‘I have it on subscription,’ I said.
    ‘Me too,’ Shepherd said, blushing again.
    . . . But having said this, he once again blushed, which suggested there was something shameful in it after all. Yet there couldn’t be if Shepherd did it. I was promoting him in my mind as the seconds went by. Only a lieutenant colonel – say – could afford to be so awkward.
    Another silence fell between us.
    ‘I was in it once,’ I said,