Old Reuben Booth was our train guard once again, and he
was now waiting below for the coupling up and the vacuum-
brake test. Knowles was walking away along the platform.
You'd think he'd stay to look over a vacuum test once in a
while. It was more important than getting the blackboard
right. There again, he would have to talk to
us
in the process.
Maybe he was a shy sort really. Maybe he knew we were up
to the job, and could be left
to
ourselves.
Reuben told us the train weight, then said: 'A hundred and
fifty souls,' and as he did so
his
colour fell and he gave a sigh.
He looked all-in.
'What exactly is this trip in aid of, Reuben?' I said.
'Holiday,' he said, and then, breathing hard through just
standing still, he looked along the line towards the Beacon
Hill Tunnel, which we would be entering presently. After a
while of doing that he took out a paper from his coat pocket,
saying: 'I have it all set down here
. . .
Founder's birthday,
White's Mill. . . Trip's out to Skegness ..
.
No, sorry, to Scarborough.'
'Much obliged, Reuben,' said Clive, who turned and rolled
his eyes at me. Then he looked back at Reuben, asking: 'Is the
founder coming with us, sitting up in first class all on his tod,
like that slave-driver Hind?'
'Hind was with his old man,' I reminded Clive.
'From what I've heard,' said Clive, 'that tots up to the same
thing as being on
his
own.'
'No, there's no First on,' said Reuben, 'and, no
...
founder's
not coming along today.'
'Why not?' I said.
'On account of
...
fellow's been dead this fifty year.'
So he was one of
those
kind
of
founders.
The mill hands were coming up to the carriages, trooping
along in gangs of half a dozen at a time from the Lamb Inn on
platform five, which always opened early for excursions.
'What do they make at this place?' I called down to Reuben.
'Blankets,' he said. 'White's blankets
. . .
Red
they are, generally speaking.'
The excursionists
all
gave a cheer
when
Reuben waved his
green flag, which he did
in a
way all his own: like a man very
carefully
drawing
a
diagram in
the
air.
They were all still
leaning out when we got the starter from Halifax, but they
dodged back in sharpish when we reached Beacon Hill Tunnel,
into which fifty years' worth of engine smoke had rolled, and
mostly stayed. It was cool inside, but you got the shaking,
shrieking darkness into the bargain. For the first time I felt a
little of my new nervousness in the tunnel dark. It was the
stone on the line that had done it.
In the tunnel, I took off my coat. Turning about, I felt for the
locker. Although stone blind I worked the catch without difficulty, but when I tried to shove my coat in there it wouldn't
go. I threw open the fire door, but the red shine came only
up to my knees, and did not help me with the locker, so I
leant out of the engine, watching the dot of light grow and
resolving to be patient.
We came out of the tunnel and the mystery was all up: a
carpet bag was crammed into the locker, taking up all the
space. Clive was looking across at me from the regulator.
'Not the common run of stores,' he said, 'I know.' He took a
pace towards me and heaved at the bag so that it went further
inside the locker. He then fished out a book that was in there
alongside the bag. He handed it to me, saying: 'Reuben gave
me this. It was left behind on the Hind's excursion.'
It was
Pearson's Book of Fun.
'I've seen it before,' I said; 'it belonged to the kid whose
mother died. We'd better get it back to him.'
Clive nodded, in an odd, dreamy kind of way, and I
guessed he must be thinking I was nuts: the kid had lost his
mother, so he would not be in want of
Pearson's Book of Fun.
I
had not told Clive how I had botched things in the compartment after our smash, so he could not see what was driving
me on: guilt.
'What's become of the lad?' I asked him, though I had a fair
idea.
Clive shrugged and said, 'I reckon Reuben can tell you.'
I could have guessed he would say something of the sort.
Clive coasted and glided; he put away all serious stuff.
The pill was waiting for us at York all right. Full name:
Arthur Billington.
'Now then’ he said, climbing up.
Then, before we could say anything back, the starter signal
came off and he bellowed: 'Right then, you've got the road, so
frameV
He had a very loud voice.
He was leaning over the side straightway, barging Clive
out of the way and eyeing up the big signal gantry we were
rolling up to. I happened to give a glance over in the direction
of York Minster, which, I always fancied, was sitting on an
island, and which seemed to rotate as we went past.
Billington was shouting about signals. 'One, two, three,
third from the right - that's the bugger you want. And he's
come off! He's come off! You're right as rain for Haxby now.'
Clive gave one of his gentle pulls on the regulator.
'Open her
up,
lad,' said Billington.
'Would you like a turn yourself?' said Clive.
'Aye’ he said. 'Shift over, shift over,' and Clive came across
to my side.
Billington gave a great tug on the regulator, and straightway I knew his kind: all hell and no notion. Two weeks before
I would have laughed at him. Now, I wanted Clive back at
that regulator. He'd been going too fast over the Fylde, but
he'd stopped the Highflyer in time, after all. Well, nearly.
'There'll be a nice big hole in your fire now,' Clive told me,
in low tones.
I saw that he was right, so I took up my shovel. We ran
crashing through the little station at Haxby, and as we did so
that tranquil spot was filled with the voice of Billington,
roaring: 'What have we got on?'
'Excursion,' I said.
'You two blokes work spare, do you?'
We were rushing through the village of Strensall now, at
such a rate that I caught sight of a porter on the platform
pushing half a dozen people back from the edge.
'We work excursions,' said Clive, as we shot out once more
into countryside. 'We're the Sowerby Bridge excursion gang,'
he added.
I thought how much I used to like the sound of that.
'At York,' said Billington, 'you'd be called the
spare
gang.
Do you
have
a spare gang at Sowerby Bridge?'
'No,' said Clive.
'That's because you're it,' said Billington.
Clive was giving me the eye, smiling but frowning at the
same time.
'What do you do when there's no excursion on?' Billington
was shouting.
'Relief,' I shouted.
'Relief, spare ... Comes to the same thing!' yelled Billington.
Clive showed me by hand signs that he wanted the footplate given a spray with the slasher pipe. I was glad of any
distraction, and as I set to he hung out of the side with his
blue jacket fluttering, looking along the line ahead. Very
noble, he looked, with his grey hair lashed back. Was this
the thing between him and Knowles the stationmaster?
Clive was a handsome sort but just a little bald; Knowles
was a well set up fellow, but not so fetching to the fillies (I
guessed). They both dressed up to the knocker, so there it
was: deadlock.
I hosed down the footplate with the boiling water, calling
out to Billington to mind himself, but he was too busy squinting through the spectacle glass and talking thirteen to the
dozen about how we had Kirkham Abbey coming up, and
how the signals all about there were a mare's nest.
'The only blokes who might be called "spare" at Sowerby
Bridge', Clive was saying when he swung himself back onto
the footplate, 'would be the pilots.'
Well that hit home, shut Billington up for at least two
minutes.
But then he bellowed out: 'Now you've got distant,
outer
home, and
home
signals to look out for!'
'How far short of Malton are we?' I asked him.
No answer.
'It was shortly before Malton that a smash nearly happened,' I went on. 'I read of it in the paper.'
'Kirkham Abbey's five mile short of Malton,' Billington
yelled back, presently. 'But don't bother thissen about that,
you've the fucking signal to look out for.'
So we were in the danger zone. And I wasn't over-keen on
the name Kirkham Abbey either - too like Kirkham in the
rival county of Lancashire where Margaret Dyson had come
to grief at my hands. I would not give it up yet.
'But where was the tree on the line?' I shouted.
However, Clive was at Billington's shoulder now. 'You can
shut her off for a bit now, can't you?' Clive asked him; 'let her
cruise through.'
'What do you think this is?' said Billington. 'A bloody yacht?'
Clive shook his head and sat down on the sandbox to read
Pearson's Book of Fun.
I carried on with the shovel, trying to fix
the fire. With the sun right overhead it was very hot work.