by James Smiley
“Those be fine porkers,” Mr Milsom observed with a twinkle in his eye. “Too bad if the authorities require their destruction. Terrible waste, don’t you agree, Mr Jay?”
It occurred to me that I, the new Stationmaster, was being tested and needed to impose my stamp of authority quickly.
“They are all accounted for, Mr Milsom,” I warned the porter. “If they are to be destroyed, lamentable though this may be, the carcasses will be counted carefully by the Inspectorate and no meat shall be spirited away to anyone’s table.”
“No, sir,” came a mournful reply.
To have my authority compromised so soon would have been inexcusable so I changed the subject promptly lest I hear another improper suggestion.
“According to today’s traffic book the 7.45am is bringing down from London a private horse-carriage, the property of one Lawrence Albury,” I revealed. “The conveyance is a somewhat splendid cabriolet, I am told, so I want to see it set down on its own wheels without incurring so much as a finger mark. The price of it I dare not enquire. However, that said, I am bound to add that we shall need to uncouple it smartly. The diagram allows precious little time for additional operations and I do not wish to see trains delayed. For a branch-line the South Exmoor has an envious tradition of good time-keeping, and I expect every man, however humble his station, to respect this. Most rural railways are infernally slow, do you not agree, Mr Milsom?”
“Indeed I do,” the portly porter chortled proudly. Then, eyeing me deedily, he added: “Between e, me, and the fence post, Mr Jay, old Mildenhew experienced a lot of trouble with squire Albury. The squire did not welcome the comin’ of the railway and almost prevented its construction. Luckily the Lacy family, upon whose estate stands the village proper, were entirely in favour of the line. Twer Lacy money and influence that got the Act through Parliament, and twer the re-surveyin’ of the line through Lacy property that ultimately defeated the squire. Squire Albury be a mean and unreasonable man, Mr Jay. The earthworks along the new route nearly bankrupted the company before the line were even completed. There’d have been no need of a lengthy tunnel if…”
“I am familiar with the history of this line,” I interrupted the fellow.
However, Upshott’s font of local knowledge was not to be suppressed.
“Yet as soon as the line were open the crafty ol’ weasel expanded his quarryin’ business and laid a mineral line out to Splashgate,” he persisted. “Now the hypocrite sells stone to masons as far afield as Lincolnshire, all via the very railways he despises. The blighter even accuses this railway of bringin’ unwanted strangers into the valley.”
“Disrespect for one’s superiors is unbecoming,” I cautioned the porter.
“Well, sir,” he replied complacently, “with respect to e, if Squire Albury be ‘superior’ then I be glad to be inferior.”
I tutted and eyed the porter deedily, not that my reproach did much to deflect him from his discourse.
“Supposin’ I tell e we be a platelayer short, Mr Jay,” he persevered. “Ol’ Albury’s game-keeper shot him in the foot. Pure vindictiveness if you asks I, for the poor fellow were back on the railway when the shots were fired. E can’t expect navvies not to poach, no more than e can expect them not to quaff cider. Tis a pity the railway runs hard by the Albury estate, that’s all I can say.”
“I am not surprised to hear of your malevolent squire,” I replied. “Upshott is a beautiful place. In my experience beauty is an ointment and quite incomplete without a fly in it. Nevertheless, we must be careful. This fly is highly influential.”
I sensed Mr Milsom rocking inwardly with laughter.
“How far away is this Longhurdle farm?” I enquired as we tarried by the pig pen, seeing no sign of either my Booking clerk or farmer Smethwick.
“Well now,” answered Mr Milsom, “funny enough it be on the dreaded Albury estate, which might account for Smethwick’s sour demeanour. Tis about half a mile down the lane on the other side of the stream. Jack should have returned b’now, right enough. Still, we must count our blessings, Mr Jay, for I’ve heard no shots from Smethwick’s scattergun. His fowling piece do make a very distinctive noise, e see. It be a kind of toot followed by a snort. The cove loads her with rock salt to make the injury sting.”
I gazed upon the sloping furrows beyond Natter brook and saw nothing stir, save the odd swooping peewit and a peppering of crows, so with time to spare I taxed my Senior porter a little further on a matter to which he had already alluded. In the interest of a cordial relationship, I address him by his forename.
“Humphrey, pray tell me more about this disappearing lamp oil,” I asked.
Humphrey cleared his throat to reply but before he could speak I noticed the Stores clerk gazing through the cobwebbed window of his wooden hut by the sidings.
“Perhaps I should have a word with Mr Turner while I am on this side of the track,” I ventured.
“Arr, t’would be a waste of time today, Mr Jay,” Humphrey rattled. “Tis best if I asks Tom to see e tomorrow.”
“Come now, Humphrey, how might a Stationmaster be wasting his time consulting a Stores clerk?” I levied the fellow.
Mr Milsom hesitated to reply, and once again I found myself waiting for his mental penny to drop.
“Well, sir, quite easily,” he explained at last. “Tom Turner be goin’ through one of his sleepy spells. You’ll get a quicker uptake on him tomorrow. Tis not the dullard’s fault, sir. Word has it the moon takes him.”
“The moon?” I roared. “Sleepy spells have nothing to do with the moon, dear fellow. Has Mr Turner ever been in the tropics?”
The porter ignored my question, changing the subject briskly.
“Arr, talkin’ of tomorrow,” he said, although I could recall no mention of it, “we’m a gettin’ a surprise visit by an unexpected train.”
“How so?” I quavered, baffled by this enigmatic reverse in our conversation.
“Tis true, Mr Jay,” Mr Milsom confided. “Between e, me, and the fence post, our top brass be entertainin’ bigwigs from the London and South Western Railway. The London swells be payin’ our line a visit, but the pity of it is they aint told no one they’m a comin’.”
I stared at Mr Milsom blankly. If this visit was a secret then how did he know about it? It occurred to me that the porter was baiting me so I held my tongue.
“Percival Hiscox told I,” he declared at last, revealing his source of information. “Driver Hiscox has connections in the company hierarchy, e see. Perhaps e can discover more by eaves-droppin’ on the telegraph, Mr Jay.”
By now I was becoming familiar with Mr Milsom’s use of the word ‘e’ when he meant ‘you’ but his habit of lingering on the word ‘telegraph’ unsettled me so I nodded grimly and made off to Platform One.
Back to contents page
Chapter Three — Threats from a pig farmer
I decided to have a word with Driver Hiscox, with whom I was already acquainted. He was a dedicated footplateman and, like me, an ex London and South Western employee. It was widely believed that Mr Hiscox had, as a young man, assisted Joseph Locke in firing up the rocket in preparation for the Liverpool-Manchester Railway’s inaugural service nearly forty-five years earlier. I refer, of course, to the same Joseph Locke who had been a pupil of George Stephenson and gone on to become the London and South Western’s Chief Mechanical Engineer.
The taciturn Percival Hiscox was too modest a man to boast of past glories and so his humble silence upon the matter was generally taken to be confirmation. He had certainly been an engineman during railway infancy, and because of this become one of the ‘kings of speed’ without first having served as a cleaner or fitter. Whilst inscrutable by nature, old Hiscox was a man of his word and known personally to the directors of both the SER and LSWR. I anticipated, therefore, that he would make a useful connection.
I tarried awhile on the lower steps of the footbridge and surveyed the vegetable garden surrounding the signalbox. Mr
Hales was to be congratulated on his lineside plot, for it was usually only the two-trains-a-day signalman who found time to cultivate so much. A dozen or so rows of sprouts had been earthed up, next to which some carrot tops and lettuces were breaking through the rich red soil. Beyond the signalbox was a goat tethered to a stake to provide milk for the station. The beast’s tugging had created a circle of baize-short grass blemished only by the tall clumps of hemp-nettle for which it had no taste.
To this day I could not observe a vegetable garden without being transported back to an event in my life which reshaped my outlook miserably. I had been working just such a plot when my betrothed, having appeared quite unexpectedly, rode her gelding through my vegetables and declared that she had grown tired of me in favour of another. So thrifty had she been in disposing of her unwanted goods that she did not even seek to recover the eternity ring that she had given her devotee. I was stunned with disbelief and rendered inconsolable for months. I simply could not understand how I had been so insensible to the warning signs, for her assignations with a schoolmaster, I learned later, had been long standing and much observed by others.
I had grown up believing that in the heart of every woman lies a lifetime of love, the man who wastes this being a fool, but now I was purged of all such romantic notions. The thunderbolt had taught me that a woman’s heart can be just as indifferent to companionship as a man’s. As a result of which, lest my delusions cause further distress, I thereafter confined myself to admiring the fairer sex remotely and would be charmed by female company only in the absence of commitment. Further, to keep myself mindful of this new stratagem I continued to wear the eternity ring. What token of folly could better deny nourishment to fancy than this? Delusions about my appeal to women stood no chance against such a sour souvenir.
In further evidence of Mr Hales’s beaver-like nature, sundry bicycle machines were propped against the signalbox steps. Manifestly these were awaiting repair. From his vantage point in the box, Mr Hales acknowledged with a proud smile my interest in his activities. He had noticed me studying a row of strange plants.
“Are these love apples per chance?” I called up to him.
As a boy I had been made to eat them boiled with honey and found them quite beastly.
A commotion prevented Mr Hales from replying. Mr Wheeler had sprinted out from behind the Weighbridge office and was trying to warn me of something. A dozen or so chickens, which had been pecking quietly upon the railway track, were now squawking and running amok.
Farmer Smethwick appeared and began waving his crook angrily at the clerk whose patronising attempts to calm him proved infuriating. I watched the two antagonists circle the grain shed then come to rest gesticulating at each other across the pen of pigs.
Curiously, Mr Hales ignored the fracas as if it were an everyday occurrence and stepped out onto the signalbox balcony to continue our conversation.
“That’s right, Mr Jay,” he called down. “Tomatoes! You shall have one or two when they are formed.”
“Thank you,” I replied with a sickly grin.
“Everyone hereabouts calls me Ivor,” he informed me then retreated to his levers.
My attention was drawn to further uproar from the cattle pens where I observed farmer Smethwick marching towards me, his colour as high as a ripe plum, grunting with each step as if kicked in the stomach. He seemed unaware of Jack Wheeler following him skittishly at a safe distance. Mr Wheeler froze in horror as Smethwick and I met nose-to-nose, whereupon the pig breeder’s gritty voice became a drill in my ears. Yet for all his loudness, the strange fellow could not articulate himself clearly, delivering his words with the incoherent drawl of a drunkard.
Trying to understand the rustic I cocked an ear and listened intently, indicating with my hand that I wished him to lower his voice. In defiance, the pig breeder raised his voice and adopted a menacing tone. I held my ground, narrowing my eyes and holding my tongue.
The farmer, whose tallowed black hair lay across his sweaty forehead in menacing spikes, peered at me with half closed eyes as if doubting my credentials. Not to be intimidated, I continued my silent stare of authority.
Unfortunately my steadfast pose was undone by the unexpected appearance of Elisabeth behaving strangely upon Platform One. A vision of loveliness as ever, she was gazing pensively at the sky. When I squinted to improve my view of her, for it was a bright day, I became aware that the figure was not Elisabeth at all. Indeed, this was a different vision of loveliness, one such as I had never seen before, and it did not hail from my imagination.
My own age, or thereabouts, the beautiful woman standing outside my office had brunette curls and inquisitive brown eyes which distance could not diminish. And she was wearing a most charming outfit. As a result I stared at her unashamedly, admiring her pale green dress shaped most fashionably by a large bustle flounced-trimmed in lime, the whole fabric being contrived to tease the eye with a hue of fine, white lace. I knew at once that my reverie would not be kept in check by a mere ring.
Fortunately an alternative remedy was at hand, and it required only that I transfer my gaze. When the beautiful lady’s exquisite little bonnet dissolved into a pig breeder’s huge, matted beard my malaise and my blood curdled simultaneously. Had a stray eye not returned to the woman and caught sight of a dimpled smile quite clearly directed towards me, indicating that my presence was required upon the platform, my focus would have remained with Smethwick. But my eye did stray and I was lost.
Just as I was about to respond to the woman’s most charming summons, Jack Wheeler, providing yet a third remedy, captured my attention with a series of wild hand signals. It occurred to me that the message he was transmitting through the flailing of his arms was much like Morse code, being more hypnotic than informative, and I was quite unable to decipher it.
Lapsing into another trance I was startled by the pig breeder’s harsh voice registering his presence a second time. His belief, I fancy, was that sooner or later I would be shocked to attention by mere mention of his name. Of course, it was too late now, for my eyes were to be drawn by him no more. Consequently, twice further was he disappointed. Although, in the end, I was disappointed too, for in the wake of a blink the platform was deserted.
I wondered if this latest vision of loveliness had been another figment of my imagination. Then I realised that fantasies do not leave behind a lingering fragrance, and there was most definitely a sweet scent drifting across the station. Thus persuaded, and believing that the ‘belle in white lace’ wished to speak to me, I rallied my thoughts and resolved to discover her identity as soon as possible. Alas I knew that the task would be tricky because I had only two clues to go on; her appearance, and an elusive aroma, but to hamper me further I now held the rank of stationmaster and would have to apply discretion. Polite society allows little latitude for private investigation.
It was not long before the belle’s delightful bouquet was supplanted by the vile breath of a work-stained pig farmer, a man so determined to cause me apprehension that he interposed my gaze with his rutted face, point blank.
“My name is Smethwick,” he grated even louder, causing his latest recitation to reverberate off the goods shed wall.
I stood back. The cove’s mantra, uttered thrice and now painfully loud, had become the pluck of a taut wire. Nevertheless I continued to demonstrate that the magic word ‘Smethwick’ invoked no terror. In truth it invoked great terror but I held my ground.
Begrudgingly, and quite suddenly, Smethwick lowered his voice and became bent. At last he appeared amenable to civil dialogue, the matter of our relative social standing being settled. Yes, his local stationmaster had got the better of him.
“Why are my pigs still here?” he asked. “I have a buyer expecting them in Blodcaster.”
“Well, Mr Smethwick,” I replied stoutly, “the company is not at liberty to convey your pigs out of the district until the swine fever alert is over. Therefore I advise you to remove your livestock forthwi
th so that we may disinfect the pen.”
Somewhere beneath the congealed tufts of Smethwick’s beard was a chin. It lifted with hastily gathered pride and I could see that the farmer was loth to cooperate with an imposition of such inconvenience. So pugnacious was he that my stance rekindled his anger and induced him to fisticuffs. As I peered through his raised knuckles I observed perspiration gathering like gnats, and eyes growing obsidian with rage. Should he dare to punch a pillar of the community such as I he knew that he would have to explain his actions to a magistrate so he moderated his anger and body-barged me instead. Unharmed, but calculating him to be infested with fleas, I took a precautionary step backwards.
“Swine fever be damned,” he railed me. “Stationmaster Mildenhew would have known better than accuse me, a Smethwick, of taking sick stock to market. Just who do you think you are?”
“Horace Ignatius Jay,” I replied loftily, after an extrinsic pause.
Smethwick reached into his waistcoat and produced a crinkled company docket. He staggered forward with it and I stepped back again. He staggered forward a second time and I stepped back a third time. This cavort continued until the equal of a minuet. Then, as if startled by something, the belligerent cove halted abruptly and became slumped with defeat. Realising that he was finally beaten he librated pathetically. Quite irrationally, I felt sorry for him and wondered if perhaps my decision would ruin his livelihood.
“I had a buyer!” his futile voice punctured the stillness of the station one last time.
Again the farmer’s protest twanged back from nearby brickwork, but this time I found him so pitiful that I extended my hand in sympathy.
This was a mistake. The cur boiled at my condescension and spat in the direction of my boots.
“This docket constitutes an agreement and you have reneged on it,” he warned me. “You’ll pay for this, Jay. I’ve a long memory.”