The Somme Stations

by Andrew Martin

  We were in good nick, keeping the pressure nicely: little simmer of steam from the safety valve. I leant out to see … Yes, grey ghost in attendance at the chimney top. We’d finally found a good place for our billy-can full of tea (wedged behind the lubricator pipes), and we had the grenade in our locker for blowing the whole fucking lot up at short notice.

  On the debit side of the equation, it was pissing down; and if a shell landed on us or within ten feet then we were goners, not to mention – in view of the volatile load we carried – any other poor bugger within quarter of a mile. I put the odds against that happening at no higher than twenty-to-one, and I kept asking myself whether this meant that, after twenty trips, we’d definitely cop it? Captain Muir, the Oxford or Cambridge man, would know.

  Moving further under the cover of our mean cab roof, and closer to the fire, I took out my Woodbines, offering them about. No takers, and in fact Muir made another note. What was he writing? ‘Driver smokes Woodbines.’ Not for long, I wouldn’t be doing. This was my last packet; I’d have to start on the Virginians Select that the Chief had given me. Had the Virginians Select been selected by Virginians? It was a nicety that had occupied me ever since I’d clapped eyes on the packets.

  A shell landed – first of the night.

  It did not leave my ears singing, so it couldn’t have been very near, but I could not see where it was, since we were enclosed by the broken trees, which would appear to repeatedly walk forwards so as to commit suicide – being in such a terrible state to begin with – on the track before us, but always stopped short or over-stepped the rails at the last moment. Blowing smoke, I looked over the coal bunker. Both Oliver Butler and Dawson were staring back my way. I could not quite make out the expression on Butler’s face (being on the last wagon, he was too far off), but I didn’t doubt it was a sour one. He at any rate had apparently not discovered that I’d once nicked Harvey’s natural father, for if he had known, he’d have brought it up. Dawson put up his hand to acknowledge me. He also had a Woodbine on the go of course. Didn’t see him on Virginians Select. Bernie Dawson and his sort were just made for Woodbines. Why, the cigarette practically smoked him. There was something easy-going about the Woodbine man, and that was Dawson’s nature all right, except when he was on the John Smith’s bitter. He’d said nothing further to me about our close shave in Albert with Sergeant Major Thackeray, and this was just as I’d expected. It wasn’t shame that made him clam up; in fact, if you tried to bring the matter up, he’d just give you a polite smile and a faint look of puzzlement as if you’d been the one behaving badly, and so were being rather ‘off’ in recollecting the matter. Or perhaps he just didn’t remember. He had clean forgotten about the cut to my knuckle sustained in the Hope and Anchor, or so I assumed.

  Tinsley was shovelling coal again, but as he swung the little shovel towards the firehole, the engine jolted and he did a missed shot.

  ‘Oh heck,’ he said, and he was down on his knees picking up the lumps and chucking them in by hand.

  ‘Keen,’ observed Muir, who’d stepped over to my side to get out of Tinsley’s way.

  I nodded. ‘He lives to write himself down “passed fireman”.’

  ‘And what will he do then?’ enquired Muir, who obviously didn’t know much about footplate life.

  ‘Then he’ll fire engines,’ I said, ‘for a little while …’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Well, twenty years. After that, he’ll drive them.’

  Tinsley had just regained his feet when the engine gave another lurch that nearly over-toppled us all, not to mention the engine itself. The twins had walked the track the day before, looking for faults, but both engine and wagons were shaking about like buggery. I moved the reverser back a notch to quieten things down a bit.

  ‘That good old whirring,’ Tinsley said, nodding to himself, ‘that beat.’

  We emerged from the remains of Aveluy Wood and began to climb. The shell noise was fairly continuous now, but nothing had so far come near. The rain had found the right angle for soaking us, and the track was slimy into the bargain. I put down more sand as we came by the crater-pond where Captain Leo Tate had died. The water remained uncollected, looking black and evil; in fact the quantity was growing. The different rumble came as we went over the Ancre on the girder bridge, and Captain Muir leant out, doing his best to see the bridge and the water below. He made another note.

  We passed what Tate had called the Old Station; next came Holgate Villa. Men were moving about beyond it. What lot were they?

  A new feature came up now: a passing loop. I could just make it out in the dark. In time there’d be a control point there. The twins had been part of the gang that had put that in – made a decent job of it, too, since we didn’t jar on the points. We came into the next lot of trees, and were descending now, so the bloody things seemed to be coming up too fast. I turned and indicated to Oliver Butler that he might screw down his brake a little. Dawson saw my hand signal too, and he would do the same. We were now surrounded by the sound of German shells and our own gun batteries blazing away. There was a point with the noise of battle where you stopped trying to pretend there’d ever been any such thing as silence, and this was it. I wanted a cigarette but didn’t have any left. The second bridge came up, and the gate in the ditch: Naburn Lock. I turned again at this, and eyed Butler. He returned my stare for a short space of time, then swivelled away.

  We rocked on, going over new track now. Presently, Tinsley indicated the manned control point coming up. I went over to his side, and saw a white lamp, and the outline of a man holding it. As we approached, the man became a nervous corporal of the Royal Engineers. I went back over to my side, and saw where the branch curved away into a region of shell holes, spike-like trees, ditches and, by the looks of it, exploding shells. But what did the white light mean? It ought to have been green or red. I knocked off the regulator, and we cruised up to the corporal with the lamp. Tinsley gave me a quick nod, since pre-judgement of a stopping point was one of the great skills of engine driving, and I’d hit the spot exactly.

  I leant out, and the corporal came up to me, lamp in hand. I bent down, and he craned up; our heads were separated by not more than a yard’s distance, but still I had to roar, ‘What’s that mean?’ while pointing down at the lamp.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, looking down himself. ‘Filter’s fallen out.’

  For an RE man, he was a gormless bugger.

  ‘What filter?’ I bawled, ‘Green or red?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘green.’

  ‘Safe along there, is it?’

  He sort of shrugged, saying, ‘Gunners are still at it,’ and that was just the trouble: the Germans evidently had a fix on the gun positions along the branch, but as long as our guns were being fired, shells were needed. By shouting directly into Tinsley’s ear, I got over that he was to jump down and check the setting of the points for the branch, since I did not trust this clot holding the light.

  Three minutes later we were rolling along the branch at five miles an hour, with a barrage coming down around us. Three had come down within thirty yards, and I had started to shake. I tried to hide this by moving about, touching the controls of the engine, even if they did not need to be worked. Muir was stock still, gripping the engine brake and not taking notes. Tinsley was talking to himself, and he seemed to be repeating over and over the virtues of his hero, Tom Shaw, although I could only make out snatches, as he moved between the coal bunker and the firehole door: ‘An incandescent fire of medium thickness,’ I heard him say. ‘Dampers shut, firehole door open otherwise blow off.’ Ahead of us, frightened-looking men of the Royal Artillery were coming out of the trees, and some of those trees were on fire. At the sight of the blokes, I pulled up. The gormless corporal had obviously had enough about him to alert them, by field telephone, to our arrival. Oliver Butler was down, and talking to them. It was his job to liaise as regards unloading the shells. Dawson walked up to the foot-plate, and stood on the st
ep.

  ‘What’s this place?’ he said.

  ‘It’s a position,’ I said. ‘The first of two.’

  ‘Are you planning on stopping here for long?’

  Another shell came, drowning him out.

  The conclusion of Butler’s conference with the gunners was that we would all have to help cart the shells to the gun position off in the trees. That suited me. The faster we could get unloaded the faster we could clear out. We formed a chain with the artillery blokes – about twenty in it, all told, including Muir. I took up my own position some way into the trees, and could see one of the Howitzers we were feeding, and the gang of blokes around it. The gun was like a dangerous animal – a giant dinosaur-bird that couldn’t take wing, but kept trying. Every time it spat out another shell the blokes span away from it with blocked ears, and the wheels of the bloody thing leapt a foot in the air.

  The first gun position accounted for nearly half our load of shells. An artillery bloke handed Oliver Butler a chit that I knew to be a proof of receipt. At that moment I heard the whistle of a 5.9. We all crouched low and it came down on the other side of our train, nearer the front than the back. Another came down half a minute later in the same position; then a third. It seemed to me the Germans had us under observation; or anyhow that they’d got a fix on the gun position we’d just delivered to, but were persistently aiming a little long. Then again, if they hit shells on the three wagons that remained loaded we’d all go up, train crew and gun position both.

  ‘Are we to let the Germans blow our engine up?’ Tinsley yelled.

  ‘The question isn’t the engine,’ I yelled back, and another fucking shell came. ‘… It’s the ammo coupled up behind it.’

  ‘I think it’s the engine,’ said Tinsley.

  I said, ‘Well, there’s no point hanging about here. We either go and get it back or we leg it.’

  ‘I vote leg it,’ said Dawson.

  ‘No,’ said Tinsley, ‘we get it.’

  I turned round and made a gesture indicating that Dawson, Oliver Butler and Muir should get clear. They might think of alerting the gunners as well.

  ‘Rendezvous at the control point, Stringer,’ said Muir, which meant we would be retreating to the junction, abandoning the second delivery. Muir seemed only too keen to get away, and I couldn’t help thinking that our own Captain Quinn probably wouldn’t have backed off in such a hurry.

  I looked at Tinsley and he looked at me; we began to approach the simmering engine at a steady pace. It was important somehow that I did not trip on a root or snap a burnt branch, and I had a fancy that Tinsley was looking at the business in the same way: we were stealing the engine back. Another shell came down on the far side of it, and that was a little further off than the previous, but then came another that was closer, and I had the idea – although it seemed impossible – that the Baldwin had rocked on its rails.

  ‘Twenty tons,’ I shouted at Tinsley, ‘and it bloody tilted.’

  ‘Five tons of coal ’n’ all,’ he said.

  We were within ten feet of the engine. If the pair of us cop it now, I thought, I will never see my children again; Tinsley will never graduate to the footplate; the wife will never get her kitchen garden … and I will never read The Count of Monte Cristo. But I wasn’t going to do that anyway.

  We got to the engine, and climbed up. The pressure was fine; the fire was fine. A shell came. Tinsley screwed off the brake, and I pulled the reverser. Another fucking shell – couldn’t these fucking Krauts leave off for a single moment?

  ‘I’ll just give her a breath of steam!’ I practically screamed at Tinsley, and we started to roll. He was dead white. I recall that he was nervously running his filthy hand over the few pimples he had about his chin. He was the age for pimples. He wasn’t shaking, however, whereas I had once again started to shake. As we rolled under the rain of shells, I tried to tell myself that the difference was down to Tinsley’s not having as much to lose – no wife and no children to leave behind – but there was no reason why a lad shouldn’t have more pluck than a man of thirty-three.

  I had come to the end of my courage; I was in sore need of a Woodbine, but I’d smoked my last. There was just one chance left … I put my hand inside my soaking greatcoat, and felt my tunic pocket. Well, I was on bloody velvet: a whole packet of the Virginians Select! I’d forgotten I’d had them there in reserve. I had no match, but Tinsley would have one. Who ever heard of a fireman without a match? He saw my hand as I took the light, and he said, ‘Cold!’ so as to provide me with an excuse for shaking. I thought: he’s up to the mark, this kid.

  We’d rolled back to the control point, but the shells were still falling, and the half-witted corporal was nowhere to be seen. He’d taken refuge in his dugout. Dawson and Butler were waiting. Butler held a hurricane lamp; I could see by it that he had a strange expression on his face; I couldn’t make it out. Behind him, Muir was shouting into the dugout. I believe he was saying that we would have to return to Burton with our half load, and that the half-witted corporal ought to telephone through to the gun position expecting a delivery, and tell them it was no go. If the next Baldwin had already set off from Burton Dump, we would have to work out a crossover at the passing loop.

  I then heard Butler’s shout: ‘Good work Stringer! Bit of all right that!’

  That was him all over. He knew that the odd word of praise counted for more than if he’d come out with them all the time. It was a kind of power that he exercised.

  As we rolled, he climbed onto a wagon, as did Dawson; Muir got up onto the footplate once again. He congratulated Tinsley and me, and I thought it only fair to say, ‘You’ve the boy to thank really.’

  Tinsley’s determination to reclaim the train had probably saved the life of every man in the vicinity, for the shells were continuing to fall where the train had been, and I was sure that one or more had landed square on the line over there. As we trundled backwards, we did seem to be leaving the worst of it behind, and I gradually stopped shaking. Of course, the kid had seen me, so I’d have to take care about talking down to him in future.

  We came to Naburn Lock, and I opened her up a bit as we started reversing along the gentle ascent to the New Station, then the passing loop. As Holgate Villa was drawing slowly forwards on my right, I drew Tinsley’s attention to rather low water in the gauge. I then looked backwards, and saw Dawson at his brake, smoking and looking sidelong, and Oliver Butler on his brake behind. I turned back forwards. Tinsley was working the injector as another shell came, and we both ducked at the sound of its whistling flight, knowing the cab walls and the cab roof would give some protection either from the blast if it was high explosive, or from the bullets and pieces of shell casing if it turned out to be shrapnel. All the shells that had come near so far that night had been H.E., but this was shrapnel. I knew by the spattering sound – like a harder rain – of the metal fragments on the wagons and shells behind. I turned around, and I saw – too fast – the white face of Oliver Butler. There was nothing – by which I mean there was nobody – between me and him. Dawson was down, stretched flat on the shell boxes of his wagon. I didn’t even knock the regulator off, but began scrambling over the coal bunker to get back to that wagon. At the same time, Butler was coming forward from the back of the train. He got there before me, and he removed Dawson’s tin hat, and put his head close to Dawson’s, as though listening for breath. But when I got up to the two of them, I knew there would be none. I stood, balancing on the wagon and looking down at Dawson’s face, which Oliver Butler had turned slightly to the side. The shrapnel had blown in from the left, coming under the tin hat, and taking that side of the head away. Most of the funny moustache remained, which he would now never either grow to a proper length, or shave off entirely.

  The next evening, Fusilier Dawson, not being an officer, was buried a decent distance away from Tate in the little graveyard behind the lifting gantry.

  There were not above a dozen greatcoated mourners, standing i
n steady rain, including Oamer, Oliver Butler, the twins (who had dug the grave), Tinsley and myself, and work – including engine movements – still carried on at the dump so that the engineer who doubled as chaplain had to shout ‘In the midst of life we are in death …’ and I thought: We are certainly in the midst of shunting.

  I noticed that the chaplain-priest had marked his place in the prayer book with a used match, and I didn’t think he’d have done that if it had been an officer he was burying. He retained the match in his hand while reading the service, and I had a powerful urge to knock it away.

  As the twins set about filling in the grave, Oliver Butler came towards me, meaning to speak (I thought), but turned away at the last.

  That same night, three more Baldwins came to the Burton Dump on the materiel train, together with a couple of dozen new wagons and many more track lengths for carrying forward and making new lines.

  It was the start of a flood of equipment.

  A lifting gantry and a new lathe came; more telephone lines led into Oamer’s running office, and all the time the shells piled up in the yard. The weather worsened, dissolving the mud of the Dump, so that the shacks began to tilt at weird angles, and along with the rain came cold. The blokes moved slowly between the huts, and salutes – never a big feature of the place – went by the board as they passed each other, huddled in greatcoats and oilskins or, failing that, lengths of tarpaulin. I would see Captain Quinn wandering about, usually in company with Muir, and saying things like, ‘This incessant rain is unfortunate.’

  One night the materiel train brought in a 9.2-inch rail-mounted gun – a thing about the size of a house. The twins came out of the detachment hut to look at it (‘Oh mother!’) and I saw Quinn going up to the Royal Marine blokes who’d accompanied it in, and asking, ‘What are you planning on doing with that thing?’ Well, they had thought of firing it – and from Burton Dump. Quinn was having none of that. It would betray our position in an instant. But it took him two days of office work before he could get shot of the thing.