Incompetence

by Rob Grant

  I'm going to give you them one at a time, that's how good they are.

  Door

  is

  locked

  'Door is locked.'

  And one more time:

  'Door is locked.'

  So.

  The door was locked!

  It was locked all the time.

  Gee, Huckleberry, maybe that's why I couldn't open the door myself in the fucking first place!

  He took away the page, offered me a friendly, but fatally final shrug and let down the blind, once and for all.

  My fingers slipped, and, this time, they wouldn't stop slipping.

  I scrabbled at the carriage surfaces, but they just plain refused to offer any kind of purchase.

  I slipped and slipped, I scrabbled and slipped.

  There was nothing to grab on to. Nothing at all. I had no way of stopping my slide before I slipped below the bottom of the carriages.

  Then something punched me hard in my back, and I did stop.

  I was lying flat out, now. My boots were jiggling about on one set of buffers, my shoulders were being badly buffeted by the other.

  I was uncomfortable, don't get me wrong: I was prone and helpless in the gap between two coaches of a speeding express with monsoonal rain hammering down on my defenceless body, on top of which I felt like an excessively heavy-handed sushi chef was practising his chopping skills on my shoulder blades; but at least I thought I was reasonably stable. I thought I could probably have held that position for some considerable time, barring mishaps.

  But I couldn't bar mishaps, could I?

  Exactly at that moment, as if cued by the great Stage Manager in the sky, the train decided to perform some kind of violent manoeuvre.

  I was thrown, I don't mind telling you. I had it in mind that trains, by their very nature, were incapable of attempting violent manoeuvres. I had it in mind that, in fact, that was the very point of rail travel: trains are supposed to go along in as straight a line as humanly possible, for as long as humanly possible, thereby avoiding the whole concept of violent manoeuvres altogether.

  Well, this particular train had different ideas.

  It began with a howling screech of tortured metal, which translated itself into a rapid series of vicious, sudden jolts.

  I was tossed about helplessly. I grabbed on to the buffers with my hands as best I could, but the jolts kept tearing them free. Miraculously, I managed to hang on. The screeching stopped. The jolts subsided.

  Somehow, I'd contrived to get myself turned completely over, so my forehead was now enjoying the metallic chopping delights of the buffeting buffers, and I was staring down at the tracks below.

  Then the screeching started up again.

  And the jolting.

  This time, I didn't hang on.

  This time, my feet were jogged up clear of the buffers, and came down short.

  As the toecaps of my boots hit the track, they caught a sleeper and yanked the rest of me after them.

  The buffers carved two neat scars down my forehead as they dragged themselves clear.

  My hands were flailing madly over my head as I disappeared under the carriage.

  THIRTY-THREE

  I did grab on to something. That metallic hook and eye contraption that links two carriages together, I think. I couldn't be sure. I had other things on my mind.

  I was kind of concentrating on being dragged along backwards at full stretch underneath a speeding train.

  My heels were juddering over each and every sleeper, threatening to snag one and drag me under. And there were a lot of sleepers.

  I tried kicking off with my heels and flailing at the undercarriage with my legs, in case there was anything there I could hook my feet onto. If there was, my feet couldn't find it.

  The question was: what would happen if I were to let go?

  Would I land on the track flush between the train's grinding wheels, so the carriage would pass over me, leaving me relatively unscathed, or at least on the right side of alive? Was that possible? Were the rail lines far enough apart to accommodate my bulk? Was the gap between the train and the track deep enough? Or was there some cruel, sharp machinery under the carriage that would split me down the middle like a Burns Night haggis?

  I really couldn't afford to take a chance.

  I didn't have much slack for manoeuvring. I let my arms go to full stretch, which didn't feel like an enormously safe thing to do, and tried to crank my neck forward to look down the length of the undercarriage. It was dark down there, and my face was jiggling like the blubber around a road driller's buttock cleavage, so it was pretty hard to make anything out.

  I tried craning my neck back, to see if I could get a better view underneath the carriage behind me, but I'm admitting to you now, I was slightly nervous the train might jolt again and the top of my skull might catch on a sleeper, removing it neatly, leaving me with a head like an egg cup so that anyone who took a fancy could dip a hot, toasty soldier into the middle of my sloppy, living brain. I know that doesn't count as positive thinking, but the image really put a crimp on my enjoyment of the situation.

  As far as I could tell, the undercarriage was clear except for a large lump of cruel, sharp machinery jutting down from the centre, serving God knows what purpose. What could it possibly be for? Why attach such a vicious and unnecessary device to the underside of a train, where it might cause lethal harm to an innocent person who, through no fault of his own, just happened to find himself wedged on the line beneath a speeding train? It beggared comprehension.

  If I survived this, if I lived through this day, I was going to write a very long, very stiff letter of criticism to the company that designed these trains.

  The howling started up again. The deafening screech of tons of protesting metal all around me. Sparks from the grinding wheels cascaded over my body.

  What the hell was this train trying to do? A fucking wheelie? Was it gearing up for some kind of stunt jump over a row of motorcycles?

  There was a new, violent force tugging at my arms. They really wanted to let go, but I had to override them.

  The screeching went on and on, amplified demoniacally by the confines in which I found myself. The sparks kept on showering me, the sleepers grabbing at my feet.

  I couldn't do it. I couldn't hold on.

  No matter how I tried, my fingers started straightening themselves. I was shouting 'No! No!' like my fingers were going to listen to that kind of pathetic begging.

  I was going to let go. Like it or not, I was going to let go.

  I tried to find some kind of hope. Maybe that cruel chunk of inexplicable machinery was unique to the previous carriage. Or maybe the guard's carriage was a completely different design altogether, a vastly superior model that managed to fulfil all its functions without requiring any lethal undercarriage additions whatsoever.

  Then the screeching stopped and the train lurched forward, and somehow I managed to tighten my grip.

  In this small moment of relative quiet, I did have a chance to think. There might still be a way to live through this. There might just be a way. It would require perfect timing and more than a little luck, but we all know I've got plenty of both. Those, I have in spades, my friend.

  All I had to do was let go and roll quickly over to my right before the under-train slicing machine got to me, timing it so I hit the gap between the wheels perfectly.

  I'll admit, there were a lot of things that could go wrong with the plan. There were far too many unknowable variables, to start with. I had no idea what speed we were going, for instance, or how long a span of time I would have between the moment my body hit the track and the moment the obstruction obliterated me. I had no idea how many wheels a train carriage might have, or how far apart they might be. Nor did I have the slightest inkling if there would be sufficient space between the line and the undercarriage for me to fit my body through when I tried to roll out clear. I would have liked to know all of these things, and if I'd had t
he time and the facilities I would have investigated them in full. I would have assimilated all the variables, double-checked all the measurements, performed all the calculations, and possibly even built a working scale model before I even thought about attempting such a blatantly stupid stunt. Perhaps even two or three working scale models. I would have also liked a short break before I tried it; possibly even a nap and a shower. If I were really pushing the boat out, I would have plumped for a fortnight's vacation in the Maldives, followed by a six-month intensive course in undertrain diving and railway-line rolling, held by the world's leading experts in the field, until I could safely accomplish the manoeuvre in my sleep.

  But I didn't. I didn't have those luxuries. All I had was this short interlude between now and whenever the next howling, screeching, spark-showering incident occurred to come up with the plan, and the plan would have to do.

  I braced myself. I was trying to decide whether it was better to try and hold on for as long as I possibly could, or to let myself go immediately before my brain had time to mull the whole thing over and see sense, when the matter was taken out of my hands. Literally.

  The trained lurched, the metal shrieked, the sparks flew and my fingers were wrenched clear of their grip. I scudded on my backside along the track in the bedlam din of the yowling wheels and the hellfire glare of the strobing sparks. I was still travelling in the same direction as the train, hats off to good old Isaac again, but I was slowing down thanks to massive arse friction, likewise courtesy of the good Doctor. I would have been better off if I'd been facing the other way, in that I'd actually have been able to see things like wheels and deadly protruding machines before they reached and passed me, but I didn't have time to visit the complaints department.

  I saw a set of wheels flit past my head, and I rolled to the right.

  The roll was good. I timed it well. I can't say there was a whole lot of skill involved, I just closed my eyes and went.

  I hit the gap between the wheels perfectly.

  And I wedged myself quite firmly between the train and the track.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Well, that wasn't in the plan. Getting wedged twixt train and line. That wasn't what I wanted to happen.

  The train was dragging me along the line face down with me straining my neck back to stop the savage metal from planing away my nose and the rest of my facial features.

  I had a sneaking feeling I wasn't going to be able to travel like this all the way to Vienna.

  In front of me, it was November the fifth, the fourth of July and the Venice Carnivale all at the same time. The screaming wheels were shedding great plumes of sparks like a barrage of firecrackers had landed in an ammunition dump.

  I had no choice but to watch the sparks as they launched themselves at my face with considerable ferocity.

  And then I realised the sparking wheels were getting further away from me.

  Or to put it more accurately, I was getting further away from the sparking wheels.

  I was being slowly dragged backwards.

  And behind me, there would be another set of wheels.

  Sooner or later those wheels would catch up with me.

  Sooner or later those wheels would buzz-saw me in half like a Damien Hirst exhibit.

  And the first I'd know of it was when the wheel hit my scrotum.

  Well, that wasn't what I had planned for my future, Ma. Never did it figure in any of my career plans to be slowly sliced in two from the bollocks up by the wheels of a train. I'm pretty sure I never ticked the box of that particular option.

  I tried not to think about it.

  I tried to focus on getting from under the train. But this powerful image kept slamming into my mind's eye and breaking my concentration, and I just couldn't shake it. I couldn't help thinking of the moment just after the wheels had passed through me: of me lying there for a couple of seconds with an extremely pained and shocked expression on my face, then each half of me plopping either side of the line like two gigantic portions of lobster thermidor.

  I had to find a way of rolling free.

  I wrenched my body, I kicked at the air, I wriggled, I squirmed, but I wasn't getting anywhere. I needed something to give me leverage, something to kick off. I didn't dare risk kicking at the ground in case my foot got caught in a sleeper and I was dragged back all the faster, delivering my juicy, unprotected sweetmeats to the cruel blade of the wheel at the speed of a rocket-fuelled dragster.

  I raised my left arm, the arm that was outside the train, and slammed my palm against the side of the carriage.

  And still I didn't budge.

  I slammed it again, harder this time.

  And this time I did budge.

  It was only a fraction, and it didn't completely dislodge me, but it was sufficient to send me scudding back towards the very wheel I'd been trying to avoid.

  I heard it howling behind me. I'm pretty sure I felt its sparks cascading onto my legs.

  I kicked inwards with my left leg -- it was an involuntary thing, my body instinctively trying to protect the family jewels, I expect -- but my foot actually made contact with the side of the wheel, and I just kind of plopped free and rolled out.

  And I made it.

  I made it out over the track and from under the train.

  I really did. I made it. I mean, don't try this at home, kids, but it is possible to roll out from under a speeding train. I know, because I've done it.

  I hit something that stopped my roll. Something very hard and unyielding. It knocked out what little wind I had left in my body, and sent me rolling back in the other direction.

  Of course, the other direction was the direction I'd just come from. The other direction was back under the train.

  Well, excuse me; I didn't want to go back under the train. I'd just expended a not inconsiderable amount of energy with the precise objective of not being wedged under a train.

  But I was helpless. Helpless. I kicked and thrashed, but I couldn't stop rolling.

  I felt the track roll under my back.

  I waited for the coup de grace.

  But it never came.

  The train had passed me.

  The train had gone.

  I lay there for a couple of seconds, grateful now for the rain on my face. Now it felt like angel kisses.

  And then I realised something. The track wasn't vibrating. The track wasn't vibrating, and I could no longer hear the train. I wondered why.

  I hauled myself to my feet and turned.

  The train was standing at rest not fifty metres away from me.

  The train had stopped.

  The obstacle I'd bounced off was, in fact, the tail-end of a station platform. If I'd held on for maybe thirty seconds longer, the whole death-defying rolling manoeuvre would have been utterly unnecessary.

  I walked along the track to the maintenance steps and dragged myself up.

  My first instinct was to wrench the guard's van door off its hinges and make good on my plan to Jean-Claude Van Damme the bastard to death, but I wasn't up to it. I was feeling pretty weak, as a matter of fact. A geriatric bedridden incontinent could have probably beaten the living crap out of me with a half-filled colostomy bag, truth be told.

  People were gawping at me.

  And no wonder.

  My suit was in tatters. My hair was matted and wild. My face was streaked with grime and grease -- they don't clean the underside of those carriages, you know. I fully intentioned to mention that oversight in my stiff letter to Railouest. I must have looked like a comedy professor staggering out of an amusing lab explosion. I had bumps, I had bruises, I had blisters. I had a broad band of friction burn from the railway line straight down the middle of my body. I could probably have applied for a job as head freak in a circus sideshow. I'd have been the star attraction. The crowned heads of Europe would probably have flocked in droves to see The Incredibly Battered Man.

  I noticed I was limping. I looked down at my feet. The soles of my beautiful boo
ts were hanging off, flapping freely with every step. The toecaps were missing, too. My beautiful boots. I don't think I cried, but I wanted to.

  I mustered together what I thought was a pretty good facsimile of dignity, and flapped down the platform like I was wading shin-deep through glue to find myself a nice, comfortable compartment to die in.

  It turned out the train did have a first class carriage, after all. There was a guy in waiter's livery standing by the steps that led to it. He didn't help me on board though. I didn't blame him. He probably couldn't believe I was happening. I climbed the steps, found a seat and fell into it.

  Or, to cut a long story short: I caught the 12.27 to Vienna.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I tried to catch some shut-eye. I wasn't particularly tired, I just wanted to close down for a wee while and let my body do some auto repair work. But the truth is you can't get any kind of useful sleep on a train. There's a well honed system specifically designed to prevent it. It's very clever.

  The seats, for instance. The seats are made just a little bit too uncomfortable. Even if they've got a recline control, they only tilt back by a maximum angle of seven degrees. There is no discernible difference between a seat that is fully upright, and a seat that is fully reclined. Really. You'd need a very good protractor and a lot of patience to detect the difference. Many times, I've sat in one of those seats and pressed the tilt button, only to find it's already completely reclined.

  And the seat cover material is hand-picked to be just a little too rough for comfort; not quite out and out hessian, but not far off. Just rough enough to leave an indelible sackcloth impression on your face if you're foolish enough to try resting on it for thirty seconds.

  And the headrests. What are they? They aren't what they claim to be. They aren't rests for the head. Not unless you've got a metre-long neck. And they put those crazy little pillows on them. Tiny little Barbie pillows, set just that little bit too high to reach with any useful part of your head.

  And the armrests. They're not armrests -- they hurt. They're hard metal poles loosely covered in hessian. Have you ever tried to use the middle armrest with someone sitting next to you? You can't both use it, that's for sure.