inside, carrying their patient.
Maurice looked up in alarm as Laine wove her way through the desks of his staff. “Hide us, Maurice. Quickly. Order your men to say nothing. We’re being followed.”
“Laine Harkness, as I live and breathe—”
“Do as I say, Maurice. This instant.”
Maurice’s face blanched, but for once he showed some sense. Without a word he ushered them into his private office and shut the door. She could hear him in the main office ordering his staff to get to work and to keep their traps shut.
He returned a moment later and stared at them aghast. “Laine, old thing.” He pushed a strand of hair heavy with pomade off his forehead. “What sort of shenanigan is this?”
Chandra’s moan caught everyone’s attention, and Jai laid her down on the string cot. Eshana joined him as he kneeled at the girl’s side. The shouts of the crowd outside penetrated the thick walls of the station.
Laine worked up a smile. “Maurice, old thing...” She sidled close to him and injected a breathy tone into her voice. “I just had to come to you. For help. I knew you were the man for the job. So capable, so quick.” Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. She stuffed down her smarting conscience at this deception. “Oh do help me, Maurice. I’m in terrible trouble.”
The gaze he turned to her was not that of the simpleton she’d assumed he was. The light in his eyes flattened, and he shot a glance at Jai and Eshana caring for Chandra. Not the nicest of men, but as she’d said, he was quick to understand a situation. “So, Laine, it was you who riled up the Hindus. And you expect me to hide you, and that—” He waved a dismissive hand at the girl on the cot. “—that thing from the temple.”
“That thing as you call her is a human being.” She regretted the steel lacing her voice. She needed to butter him up, not add his anger to that of the rabble outside. “I’m sorry, Maurice. But she’s my patient, and I would no more abandon her than I would you if you were in pain.”
He stopped at that. “Laine, why can’t you enjoy a bit of fun instead of taking sides with the natives? For months I’ve asked you out, and you’ve cut me dead each time.”
She squeezed his upper arm. “I know, but in all honesty, I’ve not felt like dancing lately. It’s not you, Maurice...I suppose I’ve seen too much....”
“The war?”
“Yes, the war.”
He nodded on a sigh. He knew very well that even if all had been paradise she still wouldn’t have taken him on. But for whatever reason—his overblown pride probably—he let her off the hook. “I want to help you, Laine.” He frowned at the three Indians clustered in the corner. “But what the blazes do you expect me to do for you? And I assume this girl?”
A flash of people running past the window made all their heads shoot up. Collectively they held their breath. Maurice strode to the window and snapped the cane blinds shut. He pulled on the cords to open them a sliver and peered outside. “The police have arrived.”
“I need a first class compartment, private for myself and the two girls to Bombay.”
His brows rose. “Not asking for much are you, Laine? I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
The babble of voices outside rose in crescendo. She sank to a chair. “There must be something you can do.”
The gazes of Jai and the two girls followed Maurice as he paced the floor.
“All right, let me think.” Maurice shut the blinds. “You’re asking me to break the law, and I hope you realize I could lose my position as traffic superintendent if this ever got out. But I’ll take you in the staff carriage that’s used for railroad business at the back of a goods train heading to Bombay.” He started muttering to himself and left the office.
“Will he truly be helping us?” Eshana rose up from beside the cot.
Jai filled a glass of water from a pitcher on the desk and placed it against Chandra’s lips. “Or is he fooling you, Matron, and plans to give you up to the police?”
Laine gave them a helpless shrug and kneeled on the floor to take Chandra’s hand. “Do you want to come with Eshana and me? We can take you to a place of safety, and you’ll never have to be a temple girl again.”
Chandra’s eyes brimmed, and Laine leaned over to catch her whisper, “Please...I am wanting to go to this place Eshana has been telling me of.”
Maurice returned twenty minutes later, put a finger to his lips, and gestured for them to leave the office. Laine searched his face. Would he betray them? But as she stepped out of his office the empty spots at each desk filled her with hope. Through the windows outside, she saw that the crowd still eddied in search of them. She could only pray. But pray to whom or what?
Eshana followed her with Jai carrying Chandra. Maurice led them to a back room filled with crates and trunks. Double doors at the far end of the box room were closed, but from below the doors they could hear the hissing of the Bombay Mail.
“You and the other girl will have to change your clothes behind that partition.” Maurice handed her two sets of men’s grimy overalls and turbans to cover their hair.
Their disguises wouldn’t bear much inspection, but it might be enough to get them through the jostling crowd. Minutes later when Eshana and she had changed, Maurice whispered to Jai to place Chandra into a long crate, with holes gouged here and there and filled with straw.
Eshana helped him lift the girl into the crate, whispering to her in Hindi, “Do not be afraid at this confinement, Chandra. It is only for a short time, and then you will be released, free to enjoy the good things God is preparing for you. Are you trusting me?”
The girl seemed to understand, and though her mouth trembled she remained quiet.
Maurice tacked the lid down with a few nails and signaled for Jai to help him lift it onto a cart, next to the one containing Laine’s baggage. He kept his eyes on his watch. The minutes ticked by with only the steam outside to dull the ruckus of the angry crowd.
Maurice looked up. “You can’t all go out at once. I’ll start with Laine—”
“No, take the crate first and then Eshana.”
He leveled a look at her. “You asked for my help, Laine old thing, and I’m doing it my way. If this scheme goes belly-up then I can at least get you away. You, not your little Indian chums. When I open the door, out you go and walk straight across the platform, down the length of the express. The goods train is at the very end. Up into the staff carriage, and then I’ll send your friend. I’ll follow with the crate. The man will have to take care of himself I’m afraid.”
She turned to Eshana and Jai to apologize with a look for Maurice’s lack of tact and to thank Jai for his help. But neither Eshana nor Jai appeared to notice her.
Over his hands, held as if in prayer, Jai inclined his turbaned head toward Eshana. “Though you are not Sikh, I know that you are a true woman of God. So I give you this Sikh blessing. May your devotion to the Lord be perpetual. May grace be showered upon you...and your sustenance be the perpetual divine singing of the Glories of the Lord.”
In
