The Last Train to Scarborough

by Andrew Martin

  But the Captain was now looking at his pocket watch. I had not got to the meat of the story; I had not got to Paradise, but the Captain was nodding to the Mate, who turned to me and said, 'We are going, my friend.'

  He motioned me to stand.

  'Where?' I asked.

  'For'ard,' said the Captain.

  I rose with difficulty to my feet, and contemplated, through the windows of the chart room, the waves washing over the bows.

  'You're too deep laden,' I told the Captain.

  He nearly smiled, but it was the Dutchman who replied. 'We have a sea running,' he said, as if it was something the two of them had arranged between them.

  The Captain remained in the chart room, but gave his revolver to the Mate, who followed me down the steps we'd come up, and back alongside the fore-hold. It was now full morning, although not much of one: grey light and wild, grey waves, and the white moon still hanging in the sky, waiting to see if it was really day, but its turn of duty done. The grimy fore-sail shook, like something troubled - it wanted to take wing and fly.

  'You don't let any man come for'ard,' I said to the Mate. 'You keep the whole ship's company aft.'

  All save the man at the wheel. But I left him out of it.

  'You save your breath, I think.'

  'For what?' I said.

  'Sleeping,' he replied, and I heard myself asking, 'Was there something in the coffee? The second pot? Something for sleep?'

  Or was it the return of the thing that had done for me the first time?

  At any rate, the foc'sle took an eternity to arrive. With the movement of the ship, our way was all up and down and not enough along, and the sight of the sea exhausted me. It stretched away on all sides, with no vestige of land to be seen. At the end of our walk the Mate held open an iron door which gave on to a short ladder, and this I was meant to climb down. 'I'm all-in,' I said, more or less to myself, and I would have slept at the bottom, in the metal corridor, the companion way as I believed it was called. But another door was held open for me, and I stepped into an iron room about the size of an ordinary scullery.

  'What's this?' I asked.

  'Let us say... sick bay,' said the Mate.

  The Captain would not have tried a crack like that, I thought, but the Mate was a livelier sort, for all the greyness of his face. He closed the door with a clang and seemed to have trouble locking it, for the grating noise carried on for minutes on end, but it hardly mattered since there was no handle on the inside. On the floor, I could just make out a tarpaulin and a great, roughly piled chain with links about a foot long; one end of the thing rose up and disappeared through a hole in the roof, and that was about it as far as entertainment in the iron room went. So I put the tarpaulin about me, lay down in the space between the chain and the wall, and fell instantly to sleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was curious to discover whether I still had the knack of firing but did not get away to a good start: as we stood waiting to run onto the turntable, I couldn't open the firehole door, so Tommy showed me the trick of the lever.

  'It wants a light touch,' he said. 'The harder you try, the harder it is.'

  That went for the business in general, of course. It was all in the relaxed swing of the shovel. Tommy was now stowing two biggish-sized kit bags in the locker, ready for the off. (My own bag was already up.)

  'What've you got in there?' I asked him.

  'Toothbrush,' he said, 'and all that sort of doings.'

  'Who usually fires on this run?' I asked.

  'Oh, we have various,' he said, and he explained how that complication came about, which was something to do with the mysteries of Sunday rostering in the North Shed - and a bloody nuisance too, since he had to run out with some right blockheads. 'Here, do you think it'll be safe to drink the water in Paradise?' he ran on. 'What's the programme?'

  'My immediate aim', I said, 'is to find the blower.'

  I was searching for it in all the mix-up of levers and little wheels, and without a murmur of complaint Tommy dragged his bad leg over to my side again.

  'That's always the question when you're new to an engine,' he said, putting his hand on a certain little wheel.

  I put a bit of blower on to wake up the fire, then put coal in the four corners, where it was too thin. Being out of practice, I had trouble reaching the back of the box, but Tommy wasn't watching.

  'We're booked to leave at five fifty-two,' he said, 'and we'll be in by three minutes past seven, or a little later depending on whatever slow freights are moving through Malton, and who's in the signal box at Seamer. There's one bloke there who ...'

  'What about this injector?' I cut in.

  'Have a go,' he said. 'See for yourself.'

  I turned the wheel of the injector that was on the blink (all engines have two and both have to be working tolerably well since their job is to put water in the boiler, and boiler water is what stands between any engine crew and an explosion). The wheel was stiff, but the injector made the right sort of singing noise, and the water level in the gauges rose without any bother. There was now more steam coming out of the overflow, however.

  'Looks worse than it is,' said Tommy, going back to his side. 'You'll have to put a little more rock on, what with the falling pressure. But it's nowt to worry about really.'

  'Good thing there's no hills on the way,' I said.

  'No hills, no tunnels, nowt. It's that bloody boring.'

  'I could never find engine driving boring,' I said.

  'I could,' he said.

  'When I was on the footplate, it was absolute life to me.'

  'Just try doing it for twenty years,' he said, 'then see.'

  A clang on the boiler plate from a shed attendant told Tommy he could roll forward onto the turntable. He drove while sitting on the sandbox, to spare his bad leg - and while talking.

  'Why d'you pack it in if you were that keen on it?' he asked, before he remembered what the Chief had said. 'Oh aye - your missus. She's the pushing sort, is she? Well, that's all right. You want a lass with a bit of go.'

  'You married?' I enquired, leaving off shovelling as we came to rest on the turntable.

  'Engaged just last week, Jim,' he said, as we began to revolve. 'Costly business that was: nine carat ring with garnet.'

  But he wore no ring himself, of course. Tommy was saying something about how he was pushing fifty now, but it was better late than never and she was a lovely lass. The eyes of every man in the shed were on us as we revolved. It made me feel quite embarrassed.

  Then we stopped with a jerk, and were arse-about-face to the shed exit. That was the first surprise, since I'd been banking on us going out forwards. I put the'gear to reverse, and Tommy gave a gentle pull on the regulator while talking about his intended, who was called Joan, who was twenty years younger than him and pretty well placed, being the daughter of the fellow who owned the shop called the Overcoat Depot on Coney Street. I kept up my end of the conversation by asking who made the giant grey coat, about fifteen foot long and covered in bird shit, that hung from the flagpole near the roof of the Depot, and Tommy not only knew the answer, but had a tale to tell about it as well.

  However, I left off listening as we came out of the shed into the heart of the railway lands, where the church bells were still ringing, but in colder and darker air. Over the tracks all around us hung red and green lamps, like rows of low stars, and each one meant something. I'd got my living in the middle of this mysterious web for years, but forgotten how it worked, and even Tommy Nugent had to keep silence for a while as he began to pick his way in the J Class.

  We first raced backwards towards a pegged signal and a red lamp that I was sure would check us. But we ran on past them, because it turned out they belonged to another track after all. We carried on going through the railway lands just as though aiming for the main 'up' and a run backwards all the way to London. But after clattering over a diagonal mass of tracks we came to a stop, and Tommy indicated for me to put us int
o forward gear. We were still some way off from the station, and I was interested to see how we'd get into it.

  We again clattered over the diagonal mass, this time heading forwards, and Tommy stopped us under the eye of the waterworks signal box, which was five hundred yards in advance of the station on the 'down' side. We then reversed into the echoing, bluish gloom of the great station, and buffered up to the little rake of Scarborough coaches that waited for us on a short platform, Number Ten, with Tommy talking again about what might or might not be waiting for us in the Paradise guest house, just as though what he'd done with the engine was of no account at all.

  I wound down the hand brake, leant out, and looked backwards. The coaches we'd backed onto had been brought up from Leeds, for we were about to make the second part of the Leeds-Scarborough run that Blackburn had done in its entirety, owing to the sickness of the York man. Our service, in fact, would be exactly the same as the one he'd worked into Scarborough.

  They were a miserable looking lot, the half dozen or so boarding at York for Scarborough - didn't seem to want to drag themselves away from the gaslights of Platform Ten. In summer, Scarborough was a better place to be than York but in winter the scales tipped, and York was better. As the passengers boarded, our train guard climbed down from his van, and came walking up. Had he been briefed by the Chief? Had he buggery. He was a big bloke, with a blank white face behind blank glasses. I half turned away from him, and began shovelling coal as he handed a docket to Tommy. I could tell he was eyeing me, but if Tommy never had the same fireman twice it ought not to signify.

  In fact, Tommy didn't even bring up the subject.

  'Injector exhaust's playing up worse than usual,' he said to the guard, who might have worked that out for himself, since he was standing in the hot cloud the leak was making. He said nothing as Tommy talked but stood motionless on the platform until his glasses had completely steamed over from the leak. He then turned and walked back to his guard's van.

  I left off shovelling when he'd gone, and said to Tommy, 'He's not a York bloke, is he?'

  'Les? He lives in Scarborough.'

  'Not at the Paradise guest house, I hope?'

  'No - he has a flat near the goods station.'

  'Quiet sort, en't he?'

  'He's half blind is Les White,' said Tommy, as though that was somehow an answer.

  He left it to me to look for the 'right away' from the platform guard. Tommy was nattering away as I looked out, and was still nattering when the whistle blew. He did hear it though, because he gave a tug on the regulator, and we started rolling.

  '... Half blind,' Tommy repeated in a thoughtful sort of way.

  'That's why the traffic office took him off the footplate.'

  'He'd been a driver, had he?' I said, and we were making a new noise, owning to being on the iron bridge over the river Ouse, which rolled black under the riverside lamps.

  'Passed fireman, Les was, but failed his eye test for driving. So now he's a guard. Just counts the carriages, makes up his dockets ... then sits in his van playing chess.'

  'Who against?'

  'Himself. Seems rum to me - I mean to say, how can you ever win? There again, though, how can you ever lose? Funny thing about those cheaters of his ...'

  I was counting off the dark landmarks of retreating York: railway laundry, cocoa works, gas works.

  'Cheaters?' I said.

  'His blinkers.'

  'You what?'

  'Less glims. Those bloody bins of his ...'

  'You mean his spectacles?'

  Tommy frowned.

  'Aye,' he said after a moment, as though the word would just about do at a pinch. 'He got 'em about a year since, and they somehow made him silent. I don't know how but they sort of choked him off. Trainload of crocks we are - him with his eyes, me with me leg.'

  That's right, I thought, and the engine's jiggered into the bargain.

  The junction for Hull was to the right, and we clattered over the complication of tracks. Next thing we were flashing through the little halt for Strensall barracks, and I said, 'This is where you did your leg, the Chief told me. At the barracks.'

  Tommy nodded and half smiled.

  'Didn't hurt too much, I hope?'

  'I didn't know a deal about it,' said Tommy. 'I went unconscious, you see. Funny thing is, when I came around, I was chattering away like billy-o.'

  'Really?' I said. 'About what?'

  'About all sorts.'

  And while Tommy Nugent talked about what he'd been talking about when he was accidentally shot, I tried my best to balance fire and water, periodically breaking off to look out of the side of the J Class.

  It felt fine to be swinging the shovel again, and just after the village of Flaxton, Tommy, who'd been going on about what a white bloke my governor was, interrupted himself (so to speak) to come over to my side, clap me on the back, and say, 'I wish I had you firing every Sunday'.

  I was quite choked by this, almost felt the tears springing to my eyes, and I said, 'You think I'm up to the mark then?' which of course I shouldn't have done but I wanted to hear it again.

  'She's steaming like a fucking witch,' Tommy said, making his way with difficulty back to his sand box, and that was even better. No praise that might come my way as an articled clerk could ever mean so much, of that I was sure.

  The ruins of Kirkham Abbey came up on the right - a standing shadow in the gloom - and I said, 'Tell me about Blackburn.'

  'Hasn't your governor put you in the picture?' said Tommy. ' Well then ...'

  Between Kirkham Abbey and Malton - which was our only booked stop - Tommy told me all he knew about the fellow.

  Leeds and York were both in District One of the company's Rifleman's League, which was where Tommy did his shooting after having been invalided out of the Territorial Army. He and Ray Blackburn had first met two years ago at a shooting match in the York range at Queen Street, behind the station, and since there were only three other clubs in District One, they'd shot against each other a few times since. Nugent said that Blackburn was 'quiet - a slow and steady sort of bloke'. Being slow and steady, he was 'better at the deliberate targets ... not a great hand at the quick-firing'. But a good shot all the same. 'He had a good eye,' as Tommy said.

  After that first meeting, the Leeds and York teams had gone for a drink in the York Railway Institute.

  'They'd bested us,' said Tommy, 'and the losers generally buy the winners the first drinks. But Ray came straight up to me, put out his hand, and said, "Good shooting. Now what will you have?'"

  That had impressed Tommy no end, especially since his firing had been 'all over the shop' that evening. What had impressed him still more though was that Ray Blackburn had turned out to be a tee-totaller, so Tommy hadn't had to buy him a drink back. 'Refused outright - wouldn't even have a lemonade.'

  'He never drank?'

  'Never,' said Tommy. 'He would smoke the odd small cigar, and that was it.'

  When the two had met for a second time, after a shooting match in Hartlepool, it had been the same story over again. Blackburn had shot well, Tommy not so well, but still Blackburn had bought the round, expecting nothing in return. This combination of superb shooting and not requiring a drink had quite floored Tommy - 'I mean, talk about gentlemanly' - and I had a suspicion that it was on this account,

  rather than because of any deep acquaintance, that he'd come to Scarborough.

  'If Ray Blackburn's been done in,' said Tommy, 'then I want to know who's done him, and I want to be up and at 'em.'

  'Did the Chief ask you to come on this job, or did you ask the Chief?'

  'I wanted to know if I could help at all,' said Tommy, drawing back the regulator.

  'It does you credit to risk your neck for a stranger,' I said, and Tommy coloured up at that.

  'I en't risking me neck,' he said, but whether because he doubted his own words or because he was embarrassed at being praised we went on in near silence for the next little while, with
Tommy just occasionally adjusting his position on the sandbox, as though his bad leg was giving him jip.

  'Of course, he was religious,' I put in, as we flew through the little station of Huttons Ambo. (It was too dark to see, but I knew the long platform signs there from memory: 'Huttons Ambo: serves also High and Low Hutton'.)

  'That's right is that,' said Tommy. 'Catholic. I can't remember how I know that but he was the sort of bloke ... you just couldn't help but know. Not that he was pi. It just came off him.'

  'Radiated,' I said.

  Tommy nodded.

  ' . .. Sort of thing. 'Course, with that particular lot, there's no bar on drinking, quite the opposite in fact. So there again he was just that bit different. Mind you, that lass of his ...'

  'His fiancée?'

  'I only saw her once - easy on the eye but a bit of a tart, if you ask me. Led him a right bloody dance.'

  'What did he look like?'

  'Nice looking fellow. Dark, biggish - very dark eyes.'

  As we closed on the market town of Malton, Tommy gave up on Ray Blackburn for a while, yawned and limped over a couple of paces to glance at my fire. 'Dead spot back centre,' he said. 'Big coal makes a dead spot,' he added, going back to his perch. 'You want it about the size of your fist.'

  It wasn't a criticism, I told myself, so much as just a passing remark. He hadn't meant to take back his earlier praise. As I put on coal, I was half aware of Tommy opening the locker door. A little later, as I continued shovelling, he was pulling a night-shirt and under-drawers from one of his kit bags, and when I looked over at him again, he was pointing a fucking rifle at me.

  Chapter Twelve