Bhowani Junction [antikvár]

Chapter One IH A D a fine Norton that year, in Bhowani. It's got smashed up since, but it was looking good the day I went down to see Victoria after she came back from the Army. I got to the house, cut off the engine, and sat there in the saddle while it coughed, hiccupped once or twice, and died. The truth is I was afraid to go in. She'd been away a long time. She was an officer. She'd have changed. I left the bike on its stand and walked round toward the side of the house. It was Number 4 Collett Road, it and Number 3 being joined together—what they call a semi-detached bungalow at Home. Then there's about thirty yards of grass between Number 4 and Number 5. Number 5 is semi-detached with Number 6. Collett Road is in the Railway Lines, where we railway people live. Tliere are really three separate Bhowanis—the Railway Lines, the cantonments, where the English live, and the city, where God knows how many thousand Indians are packed in like sardines. I was still afraid to go in. I stood for a while looking down between Number 4 and Number 5 at an engine on the line beyond. The main railway hne runs past the back of all those bungalows on Collett Road. I like to hear steam engines breathing. That one was an old 2-8-2. It stood there hissing softly, waiting for the signal to change. It was a very hot and quiet afternoon, that, early in May 1946. I could see the upper part of the engine and tender above the line of straggly bushes at the bottom of the Jones's compound. The crew were all Wogs. They like to be called Indians, especially nowadays, but I always call them Wogs in my mind still. We used to have that run, but it was always Wogs by 1946. It