The Last Train to Scarborough (9 page)

I
was curious to discover whether I still had the knack of firing but did not get
away to a good start: as we stood waiting to run onto the turntable, I couldn't
open the firehole door, so Tommy showed me the trick of the lever.

'It
wants a light touch,' he said. 'The harder you try, the harder it is.'

That
went for the business in general, of course. It was all in the relaxed swing of
the shovel. Tommy was now stowing two biggish-sized kit bags in the locker,
ready for the off. (My own bag was already up.)

'What've
you got in there?' I asked him.

'Toothbrush,'
he said, 'and all that sort of doings.'

'Who
usually fires on this run?' I asked.

'Oh,
we have various,' he said, and he explained how that complication came about,
which was something to do with the mysteries of Sunday rostering in the North
Shed - and a bloody nuisance too, since he had to run out with some right
blockheads. 'Here, do you think it'll be safe to drink the water in Paradise?'
he ran on. 'What's the programme?'

'My
immediate aim', I said, 'is to find the blower.'

I
was searching for it in all the mix-up of levers and little wheels, and without
a murmur of complaint Tommy dragged his bad leg over to my side again.

'That's
always the question when you're new to an engine,' he said, putting his hand on
a certain little wheel.

I
put a bit of blower on to wake up the fire, then put coal in the four corners,
where it was too thin. Being out of practice, I had trouble reaching the back
of the box, but Tommy wasn't watching.

'We're
booked to leave at five fifty-two,' he said, 'and we'll be in by three minutes
past seven, or a little later depending on whatever slow freights are moving
through Malton, and who's in the signal box at Seamer. There's one bloke there
who ...'

'What
about this injector?' I cut in.

'Have
a go,' he said. 'See for yourself.'

I
turned the wheel of the injector that was on the blink (all engines have two
and both have to be working
tolerably
well
since their job is to put water in the boiler, and boiler water is what stands
between any engine crew and an explosion). The wheel was stiff, but the
injector made the right sort of singing noise, and the water level in the
gauges rose without any bother. There was now more steam coming out of the
overflow, however.

'Looks
worse than it is,' said Tommy, going back to his side. 'You'll have to put a
little more rock on, what with the falling pressure. But it's nowt to worry
about really.'

'Good
thing there's no hills on the way,' I said.

'No
hills, no tunnels, nowt. It's that bloody
boring.'

'I
could never find engine driving boring,' I said.

'I
could,' he said.

'When
I was on the footplate, it was absolute life to me.'

'Just
try doing it for twenty years,' he said,
'then
see.'

A
clang on the boiler plate from a shed attendant told Tommy he could roll
forward onto the turntable. He drove while sitting on the sandbox, to spare his
bad leg - and while talking.

'Why
d'you pack it in if you were that keen on it?' he asked, before he remembered
what the Chief had said. 'Oh aye - your missus. She's the pushing sort, is she?
Well, that's all right. You want a lass with a bit of go.'

'You
married?' I enquired, leaving off shovelling as we came to rest on the
turntable.

'Engaged
just last week, Jim,' he said, as we began to revolve. 'Costly business that
was: nine carat ring with garnet.'

But
he wore no ring himself, of course. Tommy was saying something about how he was
pushing fifty now, but it was better late than never and she was a lovely
lass. The eyes of every man in the shed were on us as we revolved. It made me
feel quite embarrassed.

Then
we stopped with a jerk, and were arse-about-face to the shed exit. That was the
first surprise, since I'd been banking on us going out forwards. I put
the'gear to reverse, and Tommy gave a gentle pull on the regulator while
talking about his intended, who was called Joan, who was twenty years younger
than him and pretty well placed, being the daughter of the fellow who owned the
shop called the Overcoat Depot on Coney Street. I kept up my end of the
conversation by asking who made the giant grey coat, about fifteen foot long
and covered in bird shit, that hung from the flagpole near the roof of the
Depot, and Tommy not only knew the answer, but had a tale to tell about it as
well.

However,
I left off listening as we came out of the shed into the heart of the railway
lands, where the church bells were still ringing, but in colder and darker air.
Over the tracks all around us hung red and green lamps, like rows of low stars,
and each one meant something. I'd got my living in the middle of this
mysterious web for years, but forgotten how it worked, and even Tommy Nugent
had to keep silence for a while as he began to pick his way in the J Class.

We
first raced backwards towards a pegged signal and a red lamp that I was sure
would check us. But we ran on past them, because it turned out they belonged to
another track after all. We carried on going through the railway lands just as
though aiming for the main 'up' and a run backwards all the way to London. But
after clattering over a diagonal mass of tracks we came to a stop, and Tommy
indicated for me to put us into forward gear. We were still some way off from
the station, and I was interested to see how we'd get into it.

We
again clattered over the diagonal mass, this time heading forwards, and Tommy
stopped us under the eye of the waterworks signal box, which was five hundred
yards in advance of the station on the 'down' side. We then reversed into the
echoing, bluish gloom of the great station, and buffered up to the little rake
of Scarborough coaches that waited for us on a short platform, Number Ten, with
Tommy talking again about what might or might not be waiting for us in the
Paradise guest house, just as though what he'd done with the engine was of no
account at all.

I
wound down the hand brake, leant out, and looked backwards. The coaches we'd
backed onto had been brought up from Leeds, for we were about to make the
second part of the Leeds-Scarborough run that Blackburn had done in its entirety,
owing to the sickness of the York man. Our service, in fact, would be exactly
the same as the one he'd worked into Scarborough.

They
were a miserable looking lot, the half dozen or so boarding at York for
Scarborough - didn't seem to want to drag themselves away from the gaslights of
Platform Ten. In summer, Scarborough was a better place to be than York but in
winter the scales tipped, and York was better. As the passengers boarded, our
train guard climbed down from his van, and came walking up. Had he been briefed
by the Chief? Had he buggery. He was a big bloke, with a blank white face
behind blank glasses. I half turned away from him, and began shovelling coal
as he handed a docket to Tommy. I could tell he was eyeing me, but if Tommy
never had the same fireman twice it ought not to signify.

In
fact, Tommy didn't even bring up the subject.

'Injector
exhaust's playing up worse than usual,' he said to the guard, who might have
worked that out for himself, since he was standing in the hot cloud the leak
was making. He said nothing as Tommy talked but stood motionless on the platform
until his glasses had completely steamed over from the leak. He then turned and
walked back to his guard's van.

I
left off shovelling when he'd gone, and said to Tommy, 'He's not a York bloke,
is he?'

'Les?
He lives in Scarborough.'

'Not
at the Paradise guest house, I hope?'

'No
- he has a flat near the goods station.'

'Quiet
sort, en't he?'

'He's
half blind is Les White,' said Tommy, as though that was somehow an answer.

He
left it to me to look for the 'right away' from the platform guard. Tommy was
nattering away as I looked out, and was still nattering when the whistle blew.
He did hear it though, because he gave a tug on the regulator, and we started
rolling.

'...
Half blind,' Tommy repeated in a thoughtful sort of way.

'That's
why the traffic office took him off the footplate.'

'He'd
been a driver, had he?' I said, and we were making a new noise, owning to being
on the iron bridge over the river Ouse, which rolled black under the riverside
lamps.

'Passed
fireman, Les was, but failed his eye test for driving. So now he's a guard.
Just counts the carriages, makes up his dockets ... then sits in his van
playing chess.'

'Who
against?'

'Himself.
Seems rum to me - I mean to say, how can you ever win? There again, though, how
can you ever
lose
? Funny thing about those cheaters of his ...'

I
was counting off the dark landmarks of retreating York: railway laundry, cocoa
works, gas works.

'Cheaters?'
I said.

'His
blinkers.'

'You
what?'

'Less
glims. Those bloody bins of his ...'

'You
mean his spectacles?'

Tommy
frowned.

'Aye,'
he said after a moment, as though the word would just about do at a pinch. 'He
got 'em about a year since, and they somehow made him silent. I don't know how
but they sort of choked him off. Trainload of crocks we are - him with his
eyes, me with me leg.'

That's
right, I thought, and the engine's jiggered into the bargain.

The
junction for Hull was to the right, and we clattered over the complication of
tracks. Next thing we were flashing through the little halt for Strensall
barracks, and I said, 'This is where you did your leg, the Chief told me. At
the barracks.'

Tommy
nodded and half smiled.

'Didn't
hurt too much, I hope?'

'I
didn't know a deal about it,' said Tommy. 'I went unconscious, you see. Funny
thing is, when I came around, I was chattering away like billy-o.'

'Really?'
I said. 'About what?'

'About
all sorts.'

And
while Tommy Nugent talked about what he'd been talking about when he was
accidentally shot, I tried my best to balance fire and water, periodically
breaking off to look out of the side of the J Class.

It
felt fine to be swinging the shovel again, and just after the village of
Flaxton, Tommy, who'd been going on about what a white bloke my governor was,
interrupted himself (so to speak) to come over to my side, clap me on the back,
and say, 'I wish I had you firing every Sunday'.

I
was quite choked by this, almost felt the tears springing to my eyes, and I
said, 'You think I'm up to the mark then?' which of course I shouldn't have
done but I wanted to hear it again.

'She's
steaming like a fucking witch,' Tommy said, making his way with difficulty back
to his sand box, and that was even better. No praise that might come my way as
an articled clerk could ever mean so much, of that I was sure.

The
ruins of Kirkham Abbey came up on the right - a standing shadow in the gloom -
and I said, 'Tell me about Blackburn.'

'Hasn't
your governor put you in the picture?' said Tommy.
'
Well
then ...'

Between
Kirkham Abbey and Malton - which was our only booked stop - Tommy told me all
he knew about the fellow.

Leeds
and York were both in District One of the company's Rifleman's League, which
was where Tommy did his shooting after having been invalided out of the
Territorial Army. He and Ray Blackburn had first met two years ago at a
shooting match in the York range at Queen Street, behind the station, and since
there were only three other clubs in District One, they'd shot against each
other a few times since. Nugent said that Blackburn was 'quiet - a slow and steady
sort of bloke'.
Being
slow and steady, he was 'better at the deliberate targets
... not a great hand at the quick-firing'. But a good shot all the same. 'He
had a good eye,' as Tommy said.

After
that
first
meeting, the Leeds and York teams had gone for a drink in
the York Railway Institute.

'They'd
bested us,' said Tommy, 'and the losers generally buy the winners the first
drinks. But Ray came straight up to me, put out his hand, and said, "Good
shooting. Now what will you have?'"

That
had impressed Tommy no end, especially since his firing had been 'all over the
shop' that evening. What had impressed him still more though was that Ray
Blackburn had turned out to be a tee-totaller, so Tommy hadn't had to buy him a
drink back. 'Refused outright - wouldn't even have a lemonade.'

'He
never drank?'