The Sapphire Child (The Raj Hotel #2) - Janet MacLeod Trotter Page 0,149

of Mussolini and his thugs.’

The smaller one, with a glistening bald head, pulled a face at the mention of the dictator’s name and drew his hand across his throat in a cutting gesture. He laughed at Stella’s alarmed expression.

‘What on earth are they doing in India?’ she asked.

‘They’re with the Free French. Got out of Indo-China, where they were road engineers, and have offered their expertise. They’re on their way to the army training camp at Roorkee. They’re very excited about the recent news that the Allies have landed in Sicily.’

The larger Italian nodded enthusiastically at the major’s words. ‘Fight for Italia – for freedom – it begins!’

Stella smiled at them and gave a thumbs-up gesture, astonished and impressed by their tale. It brought home to her how this war had tipped so many lives upside down right across the world. She shared out their picnic of tinned cheese, biscuits and bananas with the men, and then settled down to try and sleep in the stuffy carriage.

She dozed off to the sound of one of the Italians humming under his breath. In the early hours of the morning she was vaguely aware of the train shunting to a stop, but fell back asleep. It seemed moments later when the major was gently shaking her shoulder.

‘Time to get off,’ he said. ‘We’re at Dehradun.’

Stella looked around but their travelling companions had gone.

‘Got off at Roorkee,’ said Maclagan.

Stella had the strange sensation that she’d dreamt the whole episode of the itinerant Italians who had left their homes during the Great War and had been wandering the east ever since.

Stella was awe-struck by the size and setting of the Forest Institute. By travelling just three miles, they had left behind the noisy bustling streets around Dehradun’s railway station and entered an oasis of lush green lawns and trees dominated by a sprawling college of red brick and gleaming white pillars. Some of the lawns had been dug up and planted with wheat, a tell-tale sign of the war.

‘It looks like the viceroy’s palace in New Delhi,’ Stella exclaimed. ‘Apart from those mountains!’ She gasped at the sight of the Himalayan foothills looming behind, a shimmering blue in the heat.

‘Aye,’ said Maclagan with a wistful look. ‘Margo and I were lucky enough to live here for two years while I taught at the college.’ Then he said more briskly, ‘Come on, they might still be serving breakfast at the Cranstons’ bungalow.’

The major had arranged the accommodation for this trip. He would be lodging with the principal while Stella was given a room in the household of one of the instructors, Mr Cranston. The major introduced Stella to the instructor’s wife, a petite dark-haired woman. ‘I’ll leave you to settle in,’ said Maclagan, ‘and you can join me at the institute in an hour.’

Mrs Cranston welcomed Stella in with an excited flutter of hands. ‘Very pleased to meet you, Miss Dubois! How was your journey? I bet Delhi was roasting.’

Stella could tell at once by her looks and pronounced sing-song accent that she was Anglo-Indian, and it made her think fondly of her mother.

‘It’s very good of you to have me to stay,’ she answered.

‘Not at all,’ said Mrs Cranston with a kindly smile, and she ushered her into the dining room.

The next four days were spent at the college while Maclagan oversaw the testing of long lengths of Sitka spruce for use in aircraft. Stella observed the operations in a vast godown stacked with planks and smelling of pine resin. It made her yearn for the mountains and she was impatient for the second half of their trip, which would take them north to Mussoorie and beyond.

It was still hot in Dehradun, which was only twelve hundred feet above sea level, and Stella was thankful to retreat into one of the cool, high-ceilinged wood-panelled rooms of the college to type up the major’s findings. The place was busy with uniformed men from the different forces, all channelling their efforts into practical solutions for the never-ending demands of the war machine.

Stella searched the faces of those in khaki in the unlikely hope that Andrew might suddenly be among them. There was no reason that she could think of that would bring him to the Forest Institute, but she found increasingly now that she just couldn’t get him out of her mind.

At the end of the week, the major borrowed a car from the college and they set off in a heavy downpour for Mussoorie. The