The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [349]
The mildness, however, proved to be deceptive; for just as the train was due to leave, two late arrivals pushed their way into the carriage, asserting loudly that they had reserved it for their own use and that Ash and Mr Stiggins were occupying it illegally. The interlopers were both members of a well-known trading concern, and they had obviously dined far too well before setting out for the station, since they seemed incapable of understanding that the number of the carriage they had reserved did not tally with the one they were attempting to occupy. Either that or they were spoiling for a fight, and if a brawl was what they desired, Ash was more than willing to accommodate them. But he was forestalled.
Mr Stiggins, who had been sitting peacefully on his berth while Ash and the guard attempted to use reason, rose to his feet as one of the intruders kicked the guard's legs from under him, toppling him backwards on to the platform outside, while the other aimed a wild punch at Ash, who had leapt to the guard's assistance.
‘You leave this to me, sonny,’ advised Mr Stiggins soothingly, and put Ash aside without apparent effort.
Ten seconds later both intruders were lying flat on their backs on the platform, wondering dazedly what had hit them, while Mr Stiggins tossed their belongings after them, apologized on their behalf to the ruffled guard, shut and fastened the carriage door and returned placidly to his seat.
‘Well I'll be damned!’ gasped Ash, unable to believe his eyes. ‘How on earth did you do that?’
Mr Stiggins, who was not even out of breath, looked faintly embarrassed and confessed to having learnt his fighting in the Navy and ‘brushed up on it’ in bars and other places – notably in Japan. ‘Them Japs is up to all sorts o' tricks; and very useful I've found 'em,’ said Mr Stiggins. ‘They lets the other bloke do all the work and knock 'imself out, so's ter speak. Simple, if you knows the way of it.’
He blew gently on the cracked skin of a knuckle, and glancing out of the window at the still recumbent gladiators, remarked in a tone of concern that ‘if them pore young fellers didn't look slippy’ they were going to miss the train, as no one among the gaping crowd of bystanders seemed to be interested in carrying them to their carriage. ‘Let's ‘ope it'll be a lesson to them both to go easy on the likker in future. As the Good Book says, “wine is a mocker, strong drink is ragin’.”
‘Are you a teetotaller, Mr Stiggins?’ inquired Ash, regarding his small companion with considerable awe.
‘Cap'n Stiggins,’ corrected that gentleman mildly. ‘No, I likes a nip now an' then, but I don't 'old with wallowin' in it. Moderation in all things is me motto. One swaller too many, an' there y'are takin' on all comers an' like as not endin' up in the clink. Or, as it may be, missin' yore train like them pore young drunks are adoin' this very minute… there, wot did I tell yer?’
The guard, taking his revenge, had blown the whistle, and the train pulled out of Bombay Central Station a mere ten minutes late, leaving behind two would-be passengers who sat holding their heads and groaning amid scattered hand luggage and grinning coolies.
Ash learned a good deal about the little Captain during the remaining days of the journey, and his admiration for the Captain's fighting powers was soon equalled by his respect for the man himself. Herbert Stiggins, nicknamed ‘Red’ for reasons not wholly confined to the colour of his hair (he was known up and down the coast as the ‘Lal-lerai-wallah’, the ‘Red fighting-fellow’), had parted company with the Navy almost half a century ago while still in his teens, and was at present engaged in the coastal trade, plying mainly between Sind and Gujerat. The Morala had recently been damaged in a collision with a dhow running without lights, and her owner explained to Ash that he had been in Bombay