A Book of Railway Journeys

by Ludovic Kennedy

  Looking up at this point to confirm the small small bird in every particular he has mentioned, I find he has ceased to twitter, and has put his head under his wing. Therefore, in my different way I follow the good example.

  CHARLES DICKENS,

  The Uncommercial Traveller

  Lenin goes home

  In the train that left the morning of 8th April there were thirty Russian exiles, including not a single Menshevik. They were accompanied by the Swiss socialist Platten, who made himself responsible for the trip, and the Polish socialist Radek. Some of the best of the comrades had been horrified by the indiscretion of Lenin in resorting to the aid of the Germans and making the trip through an enemy country. They came to the station and besieged the travellers, begging them not to go. Lenin got into the train without replying a word. In the carriage he found a comrade, who had been suspected of being a stool-pigeon. “The man had made a little too sure of his seat. Suddenly we saw Lenin seize him by the collar and in an incomparably matter-of-fact manner pitch him out on to the platform.”

  The Germans overpowered them with meals of a size to which they were far from accustomed, in order to demonstrate to the Russians the abundance of food in Germany. Lenin and Krupskaya, who had never up to now been in any of the belligerent countries during this later period of the War, were surprised, as they passed through Germany, at the absence of adult men: at the stations, in the fields and the city streets, there were only a few women and children, and boys and girls in their teens. Lenin believed they would be arrested as soon as they arrived in Russia, and he discussed with his comrades a speech of defence which he was preparing on the way. But on the whole he kept much to himself. At Stuttgart, the trade union man got on with a cavalry captain and sat down in a special compartment. He sent his compliments to the Russians through Platten in the name of the liberation of peoples, and requested an interview. Platten answered that they did not want to talk to him and could not return his greeting. The only person who spoke to the Germans was the four-year-old son of one of the Russians, who stuck his head into the compartment and said in French: “What does the conductor do?”

  On the way to Stockholm, Lenin declared that the Central Committee of the Party must positively have an office in Sweden. When they got in, they were met and feted by the Swedish socialist deputies. There was a red flag hung up in the waiting-room and a gigantic Swedish repast. Radek took Lenin to a shop and bought him a new pair of shoes, insisting that he was now a public man and must give some thought to the decency of his appearance; but Lenin drew the line at a new overcoat or extra underwear, declaring that he was not going to Russia to open a tailor’s shop.

  They crossed from Sweden to Finland in little Finnish sleighs. Platten and Radek were stopped at the Russian frontier. Lenin sent a telegram to his sisters, announcing that he was arriving Monday night at eleven. In Russianised Finland, Krupskaya says, “everything was already familiar and dear to us: the wretched third-class cars, the Russian soldiers. It was terribly good.” Here the soldiers were back in the streets again. The station platforms were crowded with soldiers. An elderly man picked the little boy up and fed him some Easter cheese. A comrade leaned out the window and shouted, “Long live the world revolution”; but the soldiers looked around at him puzzled. Lenin got hold of some copies of Pravda, which Kamenev and Stalin were editing, and discovered that they were talking mildly of bringing pressure on the Provisional Government to make it open negotiations for peace, and loyally proclaiming that so long as the German army obeyed the Emperor, so long must the Russian soldier “firmly stand at his post, and answer bullet with bullet and shell with shell.”

  He was just expressing himself on the subject when the train whistle blew and some soldiers came in. A lieutenant with a pale face walked back and forth past Lenin and Krupskaya, and when they had gone to sit in a car that was almost empty, he came and sat down beside them. It turned out that, he, too, believed in a war for defence. Lenin told him that they should stop the war altogether, and he, too, grew very pale. Other soldiers came into the car and they crowded around Lenin, some standing up on the benches. They were jammed so tight you could hardly move. “And as the minutes passed,” says Krupskaya, “they became more attentive, and their faces became more tense.” He cross-examined them about their lives and about the general state of mind in the army: “How? what? why? what proportion?” reports a non-commissioned officer who was there.—Who were their commanders?—Mostly officers with revolutionary views.—Didn’t they have a junior staff? Didn’t these take any part in the command?... Why was there so little promotion?—They didn’t have the knowledge of operations, so they stuck to their old staff.—It would be better to promote the non-commissioned officers. The rank and file can trust its own people more than it can the white-handed ones.—He suggested that they ask the conductor to let them into a car with more space so that they could hold something in the nature of a meeting, and he talked to them about his “theses” all night.

  Early in the morning, at Beloostrov, a delegation of Bolsheviks got in, Kamenev and Stalin among them. The moment Lenin laid eyes on Kamenev, whom he had not seen in several years, he burst out: “What’s this you’re writing in Právda? We’ve just seen some numbers, and we gave it to you good and proper!” Lenin’s younger sister Maria was also there, and a delegation of women workers. The women wanted Krupskaya to say something, but she found that words had left her. There was a demand for Lenin to speak, and the train-crew, who knew nothing about their passenger except that he was somebody special, picked him up and carried him into the buffet and stood him on a table. A crowd slowly gathered around; then the conductor came up and told the train men that it was time to start on. Lenin cut short his speech. The train pulled out of the station. Lenin asked the comrades whether they thought that the group would be arrested as soon as they arrived in Petrograd. The Bolsheviks only smiled.

  EDMUND WILSON,

  To the Finland Station

  The Englishman abroad

  Foreigners in your compartment could also be a blight. One report told of an English gentleman who mounted a second-class carriage in Prussia and attempted to engage the two ladies there in amicable conversation. After a while, one of them broke their stony silence with the remark: “Sir, it would seem that you have never travelled second class before, and do not know how to behave.”

  “I must confess, madame, I have not,” replied the Englishman, for once getting the upper hand. “I have previously travelled only by first and third class. I have observed that in first class, the passengers insult the railway staff, whereas in the third class the railway staff insult the passengers. Now I learn that in second class, the passengers insult each other.”

  Another Englishman travelling on the continent, Lord Russell, was acclaimed for putting a native with whom he was sharing a compartment in his place. As the train drew out of the station the foreigner proceeded to open his carpet-bag, take out a pair of slippers and untie the laces of his shoes.

  “If you do that, sir,” proclaimed the great Victorian jurist, “I shall throw your shoes out of the window.”

  The foreigner remarked that he had a right to do as he wished in his own country, so long as he did not inconvenience others. Lord Russell demurred. The man took off his shoes, and Lord Russell threw them out of the window.

  Yet another article told of the phoney Belgian baggage inspector who allegedly haunted Nagelmackers’s trains departing from Ostend. Equipped with a cheap season ticket and a steel measure one metre long he would enter a compartment, engage the passengers in cordial conversation and then whip out his rule, measure a suitcase, “assume his official bearing and address the owner with becoming severity as follows: ‘Sir, your portmanteau is five centimetres over the prescribed length. I am one of the company’s inspectors and charge you at once five francs tax on unauthorised luggage.’” And the timorous English paid up to the scoundrel.

  MARTIN PAGE,

  Lost Pleasures of the
Great Trains

  DAWN

  Opposite me two Germans snore and sweat.

  Through sullen swirling gloom we jolt and roar.

  We have been here for ever: even yet

  A dim watch tells two hours, two aeons, more.

  The windows are tight-shut and slimy-wet

  With a night’s foetor. There are two hours more;

  Two hours to dawn and Milan; two hours yet.

  Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore...

  One of them wakes, and spits, and sleeps again.

  The darkness shivers. A wan light through the rain

  Strikes on our faces, drawn and white. Somewhere

  A new day sprawls; and, inside, the foul air

  Is chill, and damp, and fouler than before...

  Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore.

  RUPERT BROOKE

  First and Third Class, 1891

  Lord Curzon’s valet

  The train was waiting at Victoria Station and there remained but three minutes to the time when it was scheduled to leave. In front of the Pullman reserved for Lord Curzon clustered the photographers, holding their hooded cameras ungainly. The station-master gazed towards the barrier. Already the two typists were ensconced in the saloon: Sir William Tyrrell in the next compartment had disappeared behind a newspaper: the red despatch boxes were piled upon the rack, and on the linoleum of the gangway Lord Curzon’s armorial dressing-case lay cheek by jowl with the fibre of Miss Petticue’s portmanteau. I waited with Allen Leeper on the platform. We were joined by Mr. Emmott of Reuter’s. “Is the Marquis often as late as this?” he inquired. “Lord Curzon,” I answered, “is never late,” and as I said the words a slight stir was observable at the barrier. Majestically, and as if he were carrying his own howdah, Lord Curzon proceeded up the platform accompanied by the police, paused for a moment while the cameras clicked, smiled graciously upon the station-master, and entered the Pullman. A whistle shrieked, a flag fluttered, the crowd stood back from the train and began to wave expectantly. It was then that I first saw Arketall. He was running with haste but dignity along the platform: in his left hand he held his bowler, and in his right a green baize foot-rest. He jumped on to the step as the train was already moving. “Crakey,” said Arketall, as he entered the saloon.

  Leeper and I sat opposite each other, going through the telegrams which had been sent down to the station from the Foreign Office. We sat there in the green morocco chairs of the Southern Railway: the marquetry on the panels behind us squeaked softly: the metal reading lamp chinked ever so slightly against the glass top of the table: to our right the houses of Purley, to our left the houses of Lewisham, passed rapidly below us in the autumn sunshine: someone came and told Leeper that he was wanted by Lord Curzon. I pushed the telegrams aside and leant back in my chair. Miss Petticue was reading the Royal magazine: Miss Bridges was reading her own passport: I had ample time to study Arketall.

  He sat opposite to me at the end of the saloon. A man, I should have said, of about fifty-five; a tall man, at first impression, with a large naked face and large white bony hands. The fine Victorian modelling of his brow and chin was marred by a puffy weakness around the eyes and mouth: at certain angles the thoughtful refinement of his features suggested a drawing of Mr. Galsworthy by George Richmond: he would then shift his position, the illusion would pass, there would be a touch of red ink around the eyelids, a touch of violet ink about the lips: the pallor of his cheeks, the little bleached ridges around his mouth, would lose all suggestion of asceticism: when he leant forward in the full light of the window he had the appearance of an aged and dissolute pro-consul. His face, if he will forgive my saying so, seemed at such moments, self-indulgent. “That man,” I reflected, “drinks.”

  Our arrival at Dover somewhat disconcerted Arketall. It was evident that he was proud of his competence as a travelling valet and anxious to win confidence by a brisk display of merit. Before the train had come to a standstill he was out on the platform, his face assuming the expression of “Leave everything to me.” He was at once brushed aside by an inspector of police and two Foreign Office messengers. A phalanx of porters stood behind the inspector and leapt upon our baggage. The Foreign Office messengers seized the despatch boxes. Before Arketall had realised what had happened, Lord Curzon was walking slowly towards the boat chatting to the inspector with not unconscious affability. We strolled behind. Arketall came up to me and murmured something about passports. I waved him aside. There was a man beside the gangway with a cinematograph, the handle of which he began to turn gently as we approached. I glanced behind me at Arketall. His attitude had stiffened suddenly into the processional. “Arketall,” I said to him, “you have forgotten the foot-rest.” “Crakey!” he exclaimed as he turned to run towards the train. The other passengers were by then beginning to dribble through the pens in which they had been herded: I leant over the taffrail, watching the single agitation meeting the multiple agitation: widows hurrying along searching frantically in their reticules for those yellow tickets which would take them to Bordighera: Arketall, in acute anxiety, breasting this fumbling torrent with his bowler in his hand. A policeman touched me on the shoulder: he was holding the foot-rest. “His lordship generally requires this with him on the voyage.” But by then Arketall was but a distant dome-shaped head bobbing against a panic stream. The little cords that tied the awning above me were pattering against the stays in an off-shore wind: in the gap between the pierheads a swell tumbled into foam, the inner harbour was wrinkled with scudding frowns: clearly we were in for a rough crossing. I took the foot-rest to Lord Curzon. He was sitting at his cabin table writing on loose sheets of foolscap in a huge flowing hand: his pencil dashed over the paper with incredible velocity: his lips moved: from time to time he would impatiently throw a finished sheet upon the chintz settee beside him. I adjusted the foot-rest. He groaned slightly as he moved his leg. He was much too occupied to notice my ministrations. I returned to the deck outside. A voice wailed to me from the shore: “It’s gone; it’s gone.” Arketall flung into the words that forlorn intensity which throbs in the earlier poems of Lord Tennyson. I replied by reassuring gestures indicative that he should come on board. He was mopping his forehead with a large linen handkerchief: little white drops were still forming on it as he stood panting beside me. “Crakey,” he gasped. “You had better go downstairs,” I answered, “it is going to be rough.” He closed one eye at me. “A little peg ay don’t think.” His words, at the moment, had little apparent meaning.

  I did not see Arketall again until we were approaching Calais. I found him talking to Sir William Tyrrell outside the cabin. “Now Ostend,” he was saying, “that’s another question. Nane francs a day and no questions asked.” “And no questions asked,” he repeated looking wistfully at the sand dunes. The inspector came up to me with a packet of passports: he said he would hand them over to the commissaire de police on arrival. I took them from him, desiring to solve a problem which had often assailed me, namely, whether Lord Curzon made out a passport for himself. It was there all right—“We George Nathaniel,” and then his name written again in the blank spaces. That amused me, and I was still considering the curious associations evoked by such official Narcissism when we sidled up to the Calais landing-stage. The gangway was immediately opposite Lord Curzon’s cabin: on the pier below stood the Consul in a top-hat, and some French officials: I went in to Lord Curzon and told him we were arriving: he was still writing hard, and paid no attention: on the settee beside him was a pile of foolscap and at least twenty envelopes stamped and addressed. A muffled jerk showed that we were already alongside. Sighing deeply Lord Curzon addressed and stamped the last envelope. “Send me that valet man,” he said. I fetched Arketall, telling him to hurry as the other passengers were being kept waiting: there they were on my left secured by a cord across the deck, a serried wedge of passengers looking their part. Lord Curzon emerged genially from his cabin at the exact moment the gangway was fixed: Arketa
ll followed with the foot-rest: he stumbled as he stepped on to the gangway and clasped the rail. “Yes, I thought he was drunk,” said Sir W. Tyrrell as we followed in our correct order. Lord Curzon was being greeted by the Representative of the French Republic. He moved slowly towards the train, leaning on his ebony cane; behind him zigzagged Arketall, clasping the green baize foot-rest. “Hadn’t we better warn the Marquis... ?” I asked. “Oh, he’ll notice it soon enough.” Lord Curzon had paused by the train to say a few chosen words to the Consul. Behind him stood Arketall, very rigid as to the feet, but swaying slightly with the upper part of the body, bending slowly forwards and then straightening himself with a jerk. We left for Paris.

  Following their arrival in Paris, Lord Curzon and his party endured a hectic round of diplomatic activity, dined at nine that evening, and enjoyed what rest they could before boarding the train for Lausanne early next morning.