I drank off the Scotch . we &apos;d better find out , I said . another one , Sergeant ? he grinned . may as well make a night of it , sir , do n&apos;t you think ? we made it quite a session . in the next two hours I gathered more information about Sergeant Ellison than I had in all the time I &apos;d known him . the bar at the Bloomsbury was a quiet sort of place , and we drank just about enough to loosen our tongues . that was all to the good because , apart from a load of irrelevant data , I picked up an odd fact about him that , though it seemed unimportant , came in very handy later on . I tried to draw him out on Malaya and the rubber plantations , and after a time he weighed in with some of the problems of Indian labour . strikes , it appeared , had always been blowing up on the flimsiest pretext , and he went on to talk about one that had threatened to paralyse production just before the war . that , he remarked , was when I learnt to drive an engine . you mean a railway engine ? a small one . he grinned . much smaller than anything you &apos;ll see down at Ravi , but the cab lay-out &apos;s roughly the same . we had a branch line connecting the plantation with the main Singapore track . when the strike came we had to keep the wagons on the move , and there was only one way to do it . I asked him half-jokingly whether he thought he could drive the Calcutta-Peshawar express . if I had to drive it out of hell into heaven , he said , I &apos;d at least have a damn good try . we were neither of us talking in deadly earnest , and I &apos;d no idea then that I &apos;d ever need to ask him to drive a locomotive . yet when the time came that I needed a driver and seconds were precious , the little that I &apos;d learnt about him that evening snapped into mind with a sweetness that made all the difference . looking back , I learnt quite a lot that was useful in the course of that couple of hours at the Bloomsbury . it was close on eleven o&apos;clock when I left , and as I turned the jeep towards the gates , another car came blaring up the road from the station . it was an American make , half the size of a tank and unmistakably belonged to Sarwate . I &apos;d seen it too often at Dalgoorie to have any doubts about that . I caught sight of his face , all flesh , peering through the windscreen , and beside him a woman in a sari . I could n&apos;t see her features . she was turned away from me , but she seemed to be young . it must have been the Scotch , but right at that moment I felt very much alone , a world away from Fay . I muttered an entreaty that the next three nights at least would be quiet ; then , swinging the jeep on to the tarmac , I followed Sarwate up the hill . 22 . a luscious little windfall . I slept soundly from midnight to six in the morning , and woke feeling more thoroughly rested than I had for ten days . there &apos;d been no hornet-buzz from the bazar and no jangling telephone-bells in the small hours . some distant Hindu deity , possibly Vishnu the preserver in one of his nine incarnations , had lent an ear to the prayer of an unbeliever and laid a peaceful hand on Kulachi . that was one thing to be thankful for at any rate , and to me there was another that was equally if not more important . this was Tuesday . it was August the eleventh , and Fay was arriving from Delhi . I slipped on a pair of sandals , snatched myself a quick , cool shower and a dollop of breakfast , and ran the jeep down to area headquarters with the airy feeling that in spite of the heat I was going to remember this day as a pleasanter landmark of monsoon 1942 . Betty had only just arrived , but she &apos;d called at the signals section on the way and picked up what messages there were . one of them was sealed in an envelope and labelled top secret - obviously from G.H.Q - and I slit the flap and pulled out the folded slip of paper with all kinds of misgivings . not that I was desperately worried about Fay . I &apos;d spoken to her on the phone less than twenty-four hours before , and she had n&apos;t seemed in any way upset ; but , from my own narrow shave outside the Kutcherry , I knew just how little was needed to spark off an outbreak of violence , how swiftly a peaceful street could become as dangerous as a valley in the path of a crumbling dam . the mere mention of Delhi , on this of all days , was calculated to set all my nerve-ends tingling ; and with the press and radio clamped into virtual silence on the subject , there were only two sources of news : rumour , which was wild and unreliable and reports from G.H.Q , which were reliable as far as they went , but which , I suspected , never told more than a quarter of the truth . still , casting an eye down the message , I did n&apos;t see anything to cause immediate concern . the only mention of Delhi was in the context of student demonstrations , but all hell , it seemed , had been let loose in Bombay . a railway station had been raided , a government grain-shop looted and burnt , telegraph wires cut and stones thrown at trains . the police and the military had had to intervene and there &apos;d been a number of casualties , some of them fatal . there &apos;d also been some firing in Lucknow and Poona , and more trouble in Ahmedabad ; but it was even more disturbing to find no reference at all to what had happened at Kulachi . at least half a dozen places were detailed in connection with what were called minor disturbances , but I could n&apos;t spot Kulachi anywhere among them . that made me think , not once but three times . I knew the Brig had sent a wire up to district , and both Rob and Scattergood must have made their own individual reports , and yet what I &apos;d seen down in the Sadar bazar was n&apos;t even classed as a minor disturbance . I looked down my nose at the message , and wondered what the hell sort of trouble G.H.Q meant when they talked about a student demonstration . then I realized abruptly that it was n&apos;t worth the effort . even if they meant what Rob described as wilful bloody murder , there was nothing I could do to prevent it . Delhi was a hundred and fifty miles across the Ganges plain , and that was a damned sight too far . in six hours Fay would be sitting in a train , and until it was time to wheel the jeep down to Jagapur to meet her , the best thing I could do was to forget the whole business completely . I floated the message-form to Betty and told her to file it . and give the D.S.P a tinkle , I added . see if he &apos;ll be down at the Kutcherry in half an hour &apos;s time . I want to have a word with him about a bungalow at Ravi . she reached for the phone , but before she could so much as lift the receiver the bell began to ring . damn , I said . find out who it is . she found out . it was Rob , and I took the phone from her . I was just going to toddle down and see you , I told him . I &apos;ve a small twist of dope about our friend from Asifabad . I heard him chuckle down the wire . I &apos;ve got more than that . I &apos;ve a packet right here that &apos;ll make your eyes pop . oh ? what &apos;s in it ? another twist of something that &apos;s turned up at last . that tells me a hell of a lot , does n&apos;t it ? yes , he said , it &apos;s meant to . d&apos; you want me to guess ? not while we &apos;re talking on the blower . just get toddling , old son . I told him I &apos;d be with him in roughly ten minutes . make it five , he urged . this is manna from the skies . it &apos;s a luscious little windfall if ever there was one . what shall I bring then ? a spoon or a penknife ? neither , he said . pack a thinking cap . that &apos;s all we &apos;re going to need . I did more than toddle . I was down at the Kutcherry in six minutes flat . Rob was standing by his desk gazing down at a black metal box on the floor . it was the sort of box that anyone could have bought in any of a thousand bazars : a small tin trunk , flat-topped , fitted with a hasp and staple and secured by a padlock . there were millions of them in India . this one , from the look of it , had seen better days . it was scratched and dented , the hasp was broken and some sharp concussion at some time or other had strained at the hinges . the paint had long since lost all its gloss , but I could see very faintly the letters M.F lacquered in white on the lid . some windfall , I remarked . do n&apos;t kick it , said Rob . sit down . have you heard about the bus ? what bus ? first one down the hill from Dalgoorie this morning . struck a patch of oil on one of the hairpins and nose-dived over the side of the khud . I was n&apos;t surprised . the buses on the winding road to the hills were the kind I remembered on country routes in England back in the late nineteen-twenties : rattling affairs , sparingly sprung , with bulbous horns and a single door at the rear . they were driven with erratic and reckless fury by a team of Sikhs , and on the odd occasions when necessity had forced me to use them I &apos;d suffered a multitude of hideous deaths in the course of an hour &apos;s fertile imagination . I said as much to Rob , and asked him how far this one had dropped . five hundred feet , almost sheer , he replied . finished up in a stream . little of it left except for the chassis . any military personnel aboard ? no . there were only five passengers . six with the driver . devil of a shambles , though . seemed to be bodies here , there and everywhere . anyone escape ? killed four of them , he said . simply had n&apos;t a chance . but the two on the back seat threw themselves out . they &apos;re in the I.M.H , one with a couple of broken legs . the other got away with cuts and a bump on his head like a pigeon &apos;s egg . he &apos;s the luckiest beggar still breathing this morning . who is he ? I asked . a friend from the hills . that &apos;s a bit of his property . Rob pointed to the box . tossed off the luggage grid the first time the bus turned over . fell in a clump of thorns and lodged there . luckily for us it burst at the seams , and when the sub-inspector from Dalgoorie saw what was in it , he sent down for me . and you impounded it . I borrowed it , said Rob , and all the other personal belongings I could find scattered on the side of the hill . took them into safe custody till I could discover whose they were &amp;hellip; . as soon as you &apos;ve taken a look at that little lot , I &apos;m having the hasp riveted back into place and the box delivered to the I.M.H . it &apos;ll be held in store for a certain patient and he will n&apos;t be any the wiser . when I picked it up he was flat on a stretcher , out to the wide , and the sub-inspector &apos;s down at his bedside to give him all the flannel he needs as soon as he begins to worry . I turned the box around and stared at the letters stencilled on the lid . but who the devil is he ? I queried . Goanese , said Rob , handing me a clue . a thin , sallow streak of mixed Dago and Madrassi . waves a stick in front of that lousy set of saxes at the Mayfair . Fernandes ? Manuel Fernandes . I knew him , of course . he was the boss of Sarwate &apos;s dance band . 