by James Smiley
Mr Turner, presumably still in the grip of his sleepy spell, seemed unable to keep his eyes open. In deference to his handicap I taxed him only with trifles, but as our interlocution progressed I became suspicious that we were not reciprocating on the same topic. Indeed, abrupt proof was to follow.
“I never really knew my father,” he told me woozily. “When I was a nipper he left home and went back to Itinera.”
“It’s in Italy,” Jack advised everyone.
Humphrey observed my difficulty and set me straight with a confidential whisper.
“His father was an itinerant,” he said.
I bothered Mr Turner no more and broke up the meeting. While everyone was dispersing I apprehended Mr Maynard and ushered him to one side. A pucker gentleman with a milky eye, Mr Maynard satisfied me that not everyone at Upshott was idiosyncratic. The Horse Superintendent’s uniform was immaculate, and as we stepped outside I noticed storm clouds reflecting in the peak of his cap. I asked Mr Maynard if he would conduct me around his stables at some mutually convenient time, and waited while he stroked his waxed moustache proudly. However, there was no suggestion as to when this tour might take place.
“Tomorrow, perhaps?” I suggested.
Still Mr Maynard said nothing.
I examined the fellow’s gaunt profile for a clue to his silence and noticed that his milky eye was fixed lifelessly on the distance.
“Mr Maynard?” I tootled in his ear to regain his attention. “I do believe I should like to inspect your horses tomorrow, if you will.”
The Horse Superintendent broke his gaze abruptly and turned to me with a willing smile.
“I’m sorry, Mr Jay,” he apologised. “I thought you’d gone. Of course, come tomorrow.” Pointing a sinewy finger to the side of his head he explained: “Fraid I’m a trifle deaf in my right ear, don’t you know. Ruptured eardrum, apparently. Touch of artillery damage during the Crimea campaign when I served as a powder monkey.”
I wondered if he had suffered a direct hit.
“By and by, Mr Jay, I should be proud to show you my draught horses. Ay, and the baton mounts too.”
With the 12.32pm Giddiford passenger train due, Jack Wheeler began issuing tickets through his window as if they were sweetmeats while Humphrey Milsom brought his conversational personality and infectious laughter to passengers as he helped them across the footbridge with their baggage.
Diggory and Snimple, assisting a local gentleman bound for London, carried trunks dutifully from a hackney carriage to Platform Two. Capital bound trains had an air of importance about them and would always receive prior ‘right away’, the incoming service with its mainline connection at Giddiford Junction being no exception.
Observing the railway’s diversity of patrons, ranging from peasants with chickens to dapper dandies and pillars of the community succeeded by the usual entourage of baggage bearing servants, I knew that the loftier strata of society would remain aloof. They regarded fraternising with railway staff as unseemly and would converse only with a stationmaster, sans pleasantries, when his power over their dealings made it necessary. While in London I had overheard my vocation likened to that of a vulgar tradesman living above his shop.
It was while watching all this activity around the station that I noticed something out of place. A balding man, short and well dressed with a pince-nez perched upon his nose, was loitering with a newspaper spread before him by the Booking hall entrance. He appeared to be anxious about something and lowered his paper surreptitiously at frequent intervals to look around. During one such reconnoitre he paused and stared with disturbing intensity in my direction, his focus indiscernible, and very soon his demeanour changed from anxiety to anger. I decided to approach him to see if I could be of assistance.
As I neared the mysterious man he stepped forward and received Rose Macrames unexpectedly as she came out of the Booking hall. It was clear from their behaviour that the two were acquainted, so I slowed my pace and loitered within earshot. From here I overheard an angry exchange of words and saw Rose stare down at the bookish dwarf, whom I imagined to be a clerk or scribe of some kind, with fear and disdain. The antagonist removed his lenses and revealed tiny black eyes which countered her stare in venomous stillness. I recall his words well.
“You were quick out of the trap this time, Rosie; he’s only been here five minutes,” he sneered with cold, staccato cruelty. “But don’t worry, he’ll soon be in no position to help you.”
At this point a gusty wind picked up, driving Upshott wood into wild undulations, and I could hear no more of the intriguing conversation, only the distant clatter of the approaching train tossed playfully as if to make sport of its arrival. Puzzled by what I had heard, I returned to my duties.
As I made off I stumbled over a three-wheeled perambulator which the stonemason’s wife, Mrs Mitchell, was rocking to sedate her baby. I fear my clumsiness undid her work, and after apologising I gazed under the fluttering lace hood of the conveyance and forced a smile.
“How old is the mite?” I enquired politely.
“Charity will be three months tomorrow,” she told me proudly. “Isn’t she pretty?”
“Delightful,” I sighed.
In truth I had seen more delightful turnips but honesty is not the best policy of a stationmaster paid to spread contentment.
It was on my first day in charge of Upshott that I became acquainted with Doctor Bentley, the village physician. He was an appointee of the benevolent Lord Lacy. The doctor was standing betwixt his eldest son and Mrs Bentley, grappling with a windswept copy of The Times. Glancing up from his tangled newspaper, having recognised me as the new stationmaster, his glare of frustration yielded to an artificial smile. Without hesitation he strutted towards me and introduced himself with a prolonged and savage handshake.
“We’re off to Blodcaster market, Jay,” he advised me, his larynx crunching like gravel.
Releasing me from his clammy grip at last, Doctor Bentley stared into my eyes with a furrowed brow as if filled with compassion, and for a moment I thought he was going to diagnose me as incurable.
“Doubtless you are wondering why my spouse and I are waiting for the Giddiford train?” he surmised.
The puzzle had not occurred to me. Nevertheless, the outrageously pink gentleman broke into a superior grin and revealed the answer.
“I have a nephew in Giddiford who wishes to join us,” he explained. “So we are making the round trip aboard this train. My nephew will be waiting with his nanny at the station.”
“Bravo, an ingenious use of the railway,” I applauded the doctor, having been forewarned of his peculiar brand of arrogance.
I doffed my hat to Mrs Bentley, whom the doctor had omitted to introduce, and prepared to move on. To recapture my attention, the fellow waved his copy of The Times before my face.
“So, what do you think of ‘Dizzy’ then? If anyone can resuscitate Her Majesty’s interest in State affairs, he can. What?”
“I cannot fathom whether Disraeli is a man with a dream or merely a dreamer,” I responded neutrally. With the doctor frowning at me disapprovingly, I continued unabashed. “Disraeli would have us overlook the many reforms that have taken place under Gladstone. However, I am unqualified to express an opinion on such matters.”
“Dah! Few people are,” the doctor agreed robustly. “Which is why the vote is reserved for men of substance. Gentlemen like me, who have ventured beyond the parish boundary and can spell their names. Never mind, Jay, you may take my word for it, Gladstone fights shy of foreign affairs. An empire does not run itself.”
It was pompous of Doctor Bentley to suppose that I was unequal to the ballot box. I was tempted to remind him that in Parliament just seven years earlier, greater minds than his had granted all gentlemen of responsibility, including stationmasters, a voice at the poll. Indeed, I had only recently cast my very first vote, having missed the opportunity to do so in Eighteen-Sixty-Six.
Dispensing a perfunctory smi
le, I took my leave of the doctor before tempers were lost. Of greater imperative, if not importance, was the completion of the platform work. Excavations, spoil and loose slab-stones were proving perilous to passengers and giving rise to complaints from those it did not behove a stationmaster to displease.
While diverting passengers my thoughts returned to the matter of Rose Macrames and the bookish dwarf, causing me to wonder what their conversation had been about to effect such hostility. Later I consulted porter Milsom about the matter, but despite his vast local knowledge he knew nothing of the dwarf beyond having seen him occasionally in Blodcaster. He did heighten my interest in Rose, however, with these words:
“I don’t know why, Mr Jay, but that Macrames woman be in and out all day pesterin’ everyone with questions about the railway. Do e suppose she be a studyin’ the subject?”
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Chapter Eight — Downhill struggle
Lacy had something of a face, and an impudent one at that. The engine’s port-hole style windows resembled eyes, and its tall chimney looked like the nose of an aristocrat. With the regulator shut off, Lacy’s piston rods slapped like tired feet as it trundled into the station.
The locomotive rested gratefully while my porters moved in to open the regiment of wooden doors behind it, most of which were locked. The practise of locking passengers aboard trains was a legacy from the days when rustic folk with no understanding of speed would try to alight between stations. Company records showed that the South Exmoor’s very first public train had been blighted by the death of a woman who, while travelling in an open Third class carriage, had attempted to retrieve her hat from the lineside after it blew off. More recently a local farmer had lost his leg to a signal post when he stepped off a train to speak with a neighbour waiting at a crossing.
The train’s two guards handed down parcels, carboys, and cages of domestic fowl from the brake van while Driver MacGregor, anxious not to miss the starting flag, leaned precariously from the footplate to see past the crowds milling about upon the platform.
When all the passengers had boarded I blew my pea-whistle, its trill painful enough at close quarters to scatter lingering well-wishers and bystanders, then raised my arm to start the train. With my whistle echoing back from Splashgate hill and a green flag fluttering in the Guard’s hand, Driver MacGregor ‘popped’ Lacy’s whistle and opened the regulator. It seemed to me as a railwayman that an excessive head of steam had been built up for the downhill run to Giddiford, for Lacy’s safety valve was blowing noisily, but MacGregor lived by his own rules so I kept my observations to myself. A few seconds later the locomotive was woofing softly into motion along Fallowfield embankment, the little carriages in its wake jostling each other boisterously.
As the Guard rode by in his cabin at the rear of the train I handed him a wooden box containing a jar of goat’s milk and a basket of eggs. These comestibles, which were the produce of Upshott station, I had marked ‘free of charge’ to be delivered to the stationmaster at Giddiford Junction in accordance with a custom begun by Mr Mildenhew.
Now that the train had removed the outbound passengers, my staff and I were faced with a small but demanding number of arrivals from Busy Linton and Blodcaster. By the look of them, most had been shopping or bartering while others were clearly on more important business. All would require handling in strict ‘pecking order’ lest there be an outrage.
Among those who had stepped off the train were six railway labourers. When I enquired of their purpose their foreman handed me a job sheet authorising his men to dig out Platform One using tools obtained from the Platelayer’s hut. With Jack Wheeler calling me urgently from the opposite platform I returned the document without detailed scrutiny and left the gang to commence their work.
Making my way across the footbridge I encountered my Booking clerk coming the other way, smelling as though he had been embrocated in lamp oil.
“Mr Jay, sir, we ’ave to record one more drum of oil as ’aving been stolen,” he informed me gravely, adding with a gurgle of delight, “but it aint been stolen yet!”
I halted abruptly.
“I have no time for riddles, Mr Wheeler?” I cautioned him.
“Bait,” Jack explained. “We’ve put out a drum where it’ll easily be took. But it’ll be the last one to go. The culprit won’t come back for more. Not after a dose of this one.”
“I cannot sanction the putting of company property at risk,” I responded gravely.
“This particular drum aint no good to the company no more, sir. We’ve spiked it,” Jack confided. “You did say we could go ahead, Mr Jay.”
“Regrettably,” I concurred, pondering the price of Jack’s resourcefulness. “I think you had better explain to me exactly what you have done.”
This was a mistake. At once I was peppered with the kind of specious scientific twaddle that only another Jack Wheeler would understand.
“Simple as pie,” he serenaded me. “You won’t believe this, Mr Jay, but according to a book I read, North American savages communicate over long distances using telegraph signals made of smoke. And that’s ’ow we’re going to stop our oil ration from being plundered. We’re going to smoke the thief out.”
“Jibberish,” I snapped. “Savages would have no idea how to erect telegraph poles, even if by some witchcraft they could make smoke travel down the wires. You should be more careful what you read, Jack.”
I waved Wheeler away but he ducked.
“Wires don’t come into it,” he advised me tetchily.
“I trust the spiked lamp oil will not harm anyone?” I cautioned him with resignation gaining the upper hand.
“Oh no, Mr Jay,” he came back emolliently. “Me and Tom ’ave tested it.”
Boasting the complicity of Tom Turner, a man afflicted with tropical sleeping sickness, did little to elicit my confidence but there was no stopping Jack now.
By the time Lacy returned with the 1.08pm ‘up’ train the workmen had reduced Platform one to the same parlous condition as Platform two. There were ugly trenches everywhere. I was standing over one of them, wondering what to do about passenger safety, when I saw Doctor Bentley smiling at me knowingly from a carriage window. His affectations did not deceive me so I returned him an equally knowing smile of pointed brevity. The practitioner, confident that he had gained the psychological advantage over me, doubtless now intended to recommend that I refer to him the victims of railway accidents and passengers taken sick aboard trains. I suspected that by this patronage he fancied I would seek to improve upon my standing with him.
Driver MacGregor approached me and raised his tartan tammy in salutation.
“Theers a carpet o’ mushrooms on Fallowfield common, Mr Jay,” he confided with his orange eyes bulging. “Worth a visit, I’d say. They look like Blushers, they do.”
I thanked him for his tip but made no plans to have any picked. Blushers are too easily mistaken for toadstools. The Market goods was clearly going to lose time on its return journey, but I had no authority over footplatemen so I concluded our conversation tersely.
“You have a copy of the company rule book, I suggest you read it.”
With a wave over MacGregor’s shoulder I authorised his train to leave and he raced to the footplate to set Lacy barking at the gradient. In the drifting smoke and steam I thought I could smell freshly harvested mushrooms sizzling upon a fireman’s shovel.
Vexed by my snub, MacGregor opened Lacy’s regulator too quickly and caused his engine to lose adhesion on the rails. With its wheels spinning and its connecting rods gyrating he applied the sprinkler, but the sand was damp and a volcano of sparks erupted from the chimney. Passengers of every social standing scattered from the falling embers. Little arsonists disguised as fairies floated down upon bonnets, hats and wigs and ignited a bundle of newspapers. Of necessity I ignored the rapidly growing ring of flames and rushed to the assistance of a lady whose screams, it turned out, belied the extent of her singe. Neverthel
ess I was obliged to pacify her while burning newspapers threatened an adjacent wooden shelter.
Despite the terror MacGregor had caused by his carelessness it was with utter contempt for haste that he shut off steam to his fruitlessly chugging engine, and with no sense of urgency did he apply the brake to halt his six carriage train when it began to roll backwards. Had the Guard in the rear van not applied the axle-brake promptly, requiring a large hand-wheel to be spun furiously, there would have been a notifiable incident.
Humphrey poured a bucket of sand over the burning newspapers and examined a scorched copy of Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post to see if it contained anything interesting. Meanwhile I hurried to the locomotive to express my irritation. With an unlit briar-root projecting from his beard, MacGregor leaned unfussed from the footplate and absolved himself of all blame, making his fireman the scapegoat. ‘Morgan the Fire’, as he was known, was hurling coal into the dangerously overheated firebox to cool it, his face featureless in the white heat.
“Yeed nay ken he’s from the valleys,” the Scotchman complained. “The coof’s blown holes in the firebed.”
Baffled by the technicalities and confounded by the driver’s devilish grin, I marched away leaving Jones cursing in his native tongue and MacGregor casually removing a blockage from the stummel of his tobacco pipe.
On the second attempt, Lacy pulled away smartly and was soon pounding Longhurdle, leaving in its wake a number of angry people to be pacified. In this endeavour my staff proved their worth. Humphrey’s avuncular banter did much to calm the distraught, many of whom had been showered with sparks at the very moment they were complaining about the dangerous state of the platforms, and I was hectored with demands for compensation from passengers whose clothes had been scorched. Most of the claimants were unprincipled opportunists claiming the ruination of their ‘Sunday bests’ while able to provide no supporting evidence beyond the odd smear of ash. Fortunately the weather took a hand and drove the malingerers away.