by James Smiley
Such was Miss Macrames’ dedication to the recovery of her accoutrement that her negotiation of the wooden steps to my lookout was that of a charging bull, and perforce I concluded that the possession was of immense value, perhaps webbed with finest Japanese silk with a handle of gold leaf. Having no encouraging news to impart I could think only to insulated myself from her approach and enjoy what remained of my solitude.
Upshott nestled on a hillside shelf with breathtaking views to the south-west, being to the north-east overlooked by three dappled tors, the lower slopes of which were dissected by smallholdings and other residences stretching down to the High street. Here the eye was beckoned to dwell upon the Norman tower of an Eleventh century church, the parish church of Saint Martha, its three bells being noted throughout the district for their pleasant timbre. Beyond the upper end of the village the High street climbed still higher to become the Blodcaster road, thereafter dwindling to the proportions of a cart track scribbled across a very precipitous approach to the pass which formed a droop between Upshott down and Upshott hill.
The serenity of this beautiful morning was medicinal, floating upon its stillness a rhapsody of birdsong themed by the thin, reedy call of pewits wheeling above their nests in the fallow fields around Upshott. The mournful lowing of cattle and the petite splashing of a little watermill dripping its spent juices into a race at the foot of a meadow were welcome companions to the warm breeze, and I was comforted at least by the natural half of my new world.
Noticing that Miss Macrames was now almost upon me I turned away and looked east, from which direction came a still more mesmeric sound. High among the meagre slopes of Splashgate hill where little ever happened, sparsely dotted sheep were bleating with a haunting loneliness that invoked in me a most strange and idle pondering.
I wondered what caused men to be so susceptible to female charm. Reinforcement of the mystery came when Miss Macrames blocked my view skilfully with a flirtatious smile. Her interception aroused in me a special interest in the alchemy of sensual relationship and, moreover, the significance of women bearing fidelity to past infatuations. Should I draw a romantic conclusion from Miss Macrames’ most enchanting likeness to my Elisabeth, for I could scarcely differentiate between the two lovely creatures? Until, that is, one of them spoke.
“Horace, here you are,” she squawked with what little breath remained in her lungs.
This short railway may have perforated my mind with muddle but Miss Macrames, by way of her hypnotic persistence, was now threatening to collapse it altogether. For some reason my response to this woman’s allure was one of complete emotional turmoil. I suppose that bucolic bliss was no match for the menace of a faulty steam engine, disturbingly mysterious ladies, an authoritarian squire, and a rotten smell from which there was no escape. Perhaps it was all just boiling inside my head like a cauldron. Anyway, briefly unable to focus my eyes, I measured in myself a lack of composure that needed rectifying and reminded myself that I was a stationmaster. Overstretched incumbents such as I, the records showed, were often driven to drink, women, or solitude, and eventually dismissed. Just now I perceived a shortfall in all three forms of escape taken together.
Nevertheless, a man should not crave retreat on his first day in a new job no matter how bad the onslaught, so I reprimanded myself sternly. Being of a reflective nature I looked to my past for a clue to my fragile aloofness and concluded that the propensity sprang from my singular upbringing rather than anxiety, recalling that even when I had gone to work for the railways as a lad, joining some thirty other junior clerks in a lively goods office, I had remained at my own disposal throughout. Truth to tell, my compulsive self-reliance, which had set me apart from my contemporaries, was probably the reason for my rapid rise though the ranks. I had gathered few obligations outside of my work and appeared to my seniors to be a dedicated railwayman. Upon promotion to relief stationmaster my isolation had been reinforced by countless short term postings around the south-west, allowing me no opportunity to cast down roots. So, if you will pardon the pun, at Upshott it was to be a case of ‘all change’ because here I had the opportunity to settle.
During my earlier years spent in the cities I had developed a distaste for the urbane way of life, the company of society swells exchanging neoteric humbug over dinner being in my eyes unequal to the simple offerings of a highly ordered, rural community. Upshott was a parish with no pretensions, and whilst I accept that such communities are generally reluctant to embrace a newcomer, in the case of a stationmaster it is different. Indeed, I had experienced a sense of belonging from my very first day here, while being shown around the station by the General manager, Mr Crump. At every step I had received a warm welcome from local dignitaries. Even if, subsequently, I were to displease half of them I should still have much to celebrate. Unless, of course, the half I displeased had the power to dismiss me.
I did not allow myself to be entirely fooled by the reception, however, because in these early railway days a stationmaster’s ‘friendship’ could be cultivated with undignified haste, this being due to his necessary complicity in everyone’s dealings. It was a peculiar circumstance which could leave a fellow imperceptibly isolated, with few genuine friends. But then, were it otherwise, the stationmaster’s authority would have been compromised.
“Mr Jay… Horace… have you had time to look for my parasol yet,” Miss Macrames asked tentatively, manifestly aware that she was intruding upon my thoughts.
“I am engaged in the search at this very moment, Miss Macrames,” I replied.
My delectable pursuer gazed at me captivatingly then followed the line of my eyes. Her cursive glide delivered her to Platform One where she was disappointed to see no parasol. She returned her gaze to me.
“Oh, please, call me Rose,” she insisted fondly.
Averting my eyes I confined my reply to a brief smile. At forty years of age I had resolved never again to be stirred uncontrollably by anyone of the fairer sex, and although I had once been deficient in this virtue I now knew better than to foster the notion that I merited female company. I had come to prefer life’s more durable pleasures. A romantic heart abroad in Exmoor could delight without cloy in the daylong melody of birdsong, purple sunsets and starry skies, my appreciation of such things having been heightened by knowing the alternative. Overcrowded towns and foul forests of chimneys had produced squalid labyrinths of disease, and I baulked at the dreadful price some souls were paying for progress. It pained me to contemplate the twisted manner of growing up that the industrial conurbation inflicted upon childhood, myself having explored the path to adulthood in the breeze of dancing trees and shimmering waters. Little wonder the effect upon the formative mind of brick horizons, discoloured skies and evil smoke. While others cleaned the capitalist’s machine without interrupting its deafening, profit-making frenzy I was learning to trap and fish.
“Do you think my parasol is out there somewhere, Horace?” Miss Macrames rented me from my reflections again, her voice conveying a degree of hushed amusement.
“Perhaps,” I replied with my eyes still under lock and key.
I sensed a smile broadening itself upon her cherub-like dimples but continued to abstain from the feast lest I succumb to improper familiarity. Alas, all was lost when Lacy’s shrieking whistle startled us both and we shared a moment of spontaneous laughter which Miss Macrames did not appear to find unseemly. With some reluctance I brought our mirth to a close.
As the locomotive passed beneath us, having returned from Bessam, I glimpsed the fireman refuelling its hungry firebox. With each shovelful of coal he tossed through the fire-hole the engine’s exhaust turned from white linen to dirty sacking, a rhythm which drove Miss Macrames to the foot of the steps while I held a handkerchief to my face.
With shouts and gesticulations reverberating from its footplate the iron beast rumbled up to the timber trucks and crashed into them mindlessly. Couplings jangled and wheels chirruped, then clouds of glistening ivory engulfed
me as Lacy reversed to the headshunt with its rake of followers. As foaming steam curled about me and spread away into nothingness the crew of the visiting engine cut short their card game and returned to their own, much larger footplate in readiness to run around the vans remaining on Platform One. By this manoeuvre did they make up the 8.46am goods for Blodcaster.
“Shall I wait in your office, Horace?” Miss Macrames called to me.
Foolishly I was tempted to grant her permission for this but company rules forbade unsupervised access to places where confidential documents were filed so I shook my head.
“The Waiting room will suffice,” I called back without interrupting my vigil.
Suddenly Miss Macrames waved to me as if we had only just met and tricked my eye into lingering on her. With the advantage of height I could not resist forming a greater appreciation of her attributes and the sensually confected dress that contained them.
“It’s unusual to see Herod pulling a goods train,” she observed. “They usually put her on the fast Mail.”
These words cast an immediate spell upon me, for it seemed that the Heavenly Miss Macrames understood railways! Cupid had joined the fray and was clearly not bound by the Queensbury rules.
“The Bristol and Exeter sorting train,” I confirmed with boyish excitement.
Miss Macrames emitted a titter of triumph and left for the Waiting room.
I settled myself and glanced at my fobwatch, noting that with Herod’s truncated goods train ready to depart, workings were back to schedule. Lacy’s task now was to shunt the twenty or so timber empties to Bessam forest for loading with pine so that they would be ready for Herod’s next visit. Timber, most of it destined for a large sawmill in Salisbury, was an important source of revenue for the railway.
I descended the footbridge steps and peered around various office doors to make enquiries about the lost parasol, then scrutinised numerous dusty nooks and crannies into which it might have fallen. Unable to return to Miss Macrames with good news I widened the search beyond the station, and drafted a letter to the Lost Property clerk at Headquarters. Miss Macrames’ approached me again, apparently no longer interest in her parasol.
“So how are you finding Upshott station, Horace?” she enquired keenly. “I know railway work is very demanding.”
“Indeed it is, Miss Macrames, but it is something in which a man can take great pride,” I responded. “I would rather serve a railway than till a squire’s land or turn an industrialist’s wheel or claw minerals from a speculator’s pit.”
Miss Macrames gave me another of her knowing smiles, suggesting that she found me a trifle pompous.
“I’ve told you, Horace, call me Rose,” she reproved me mildly before regaling me further with her knowledge of railways. “Do you know, I read in the Cornhill that the London & South Western railway company has negotiated purchase of the Devon & Cornwall’s new line from Lidford to Devonport. I expect you approve of that, Horace?”
“I do, Miss Macrames,” I confirmed. “An act of Parliament approving the change of hands is in its final stages, and is the prelude to the London and South Western’s long anticipated London to Plymouth line. I believe an alternative route to Brunel’s broad gauge is much vaunted by the businessmen of Plymouth. Broad gauge is an inconvenient legacy to say the least.”
“Hoorah! So the Great Western’s monopoly over trans-Atlantic traffic is doomed,” she celebrated unexpectedly.
Was I dreaming? I had not enjoyed a conversation like this since Elisabeth, back in the days when I did not have to conduct both sides of the conversation.
I was about to applaud Miss Macrames for her appreciation of railway affairs when a pretty young milk maid from Harvey’s farm was ushered into the Waiting room by Humphrey Milsom. A freckled little thing, she curtsied dutifully and waited while Humphrey asked me, on her behalf, if I knew of a complaint about a leaking milk churn. Before I could declare my ignorance of the matter, Miss Macrames rounded on her furiously.
“Can’t you see the Stationmaster’s busy,” she squawked.
Judging by the expression on Humphrey’s face as she shooed the timid young maid away I believe the porter thought he was witnessing a predator chasing off a rival. Lacking the conceit for such a notion myself I settled my nerves and allowed Miss Macrames to seize my attention again with a sweet smile.
“The new link will also put an end to gauge transhipment losses at Saint David’s,” she opined knowledgeably.
“Indeed so,” I agreed with my wits insufficiently recovered to add anything of interest.
Humphrey rumbled a private observation and left. Having composed myself, I cleared my throat.
“Without the blight of transit damage,” I said, “Ondle valley can look forward to a new era of prosperity, for it is pitiful to see so much produce failing to reach the markets intact?”
Had Miss Macrames been my Elisabeth I should have made her captivating lips say that places like Ondle valley had little to complain about, its inhabitants enjoying the benefits of progress without the growing pains. Railways may have brought to every class of citizen the opportunity to travel faster than the pull of a beast but the foundries which cast them had sundered not one soul hereabouts from the light of day.
Once again the imperative of railway life rented me from my thoughts. Tipping my hat to Miss Macrames and stepping out onto the platform I observed Herod storming Splashgate embankment noisily, apparently having been delayed by the late arrival of its baton rider. I watched the engine’s thundercloud spread through the telegraph wires and deposit a wintry snowfall upon lineside trees before descending to erase the cattle that grazed beneath them. Snow never thawed so quickly, for in no time was Herod barking under Three Arch bridge and into the deep cutting where the portal of Splashgate tunnel would turn it into a worm.
To me, this spectacle epitomised railways, for even our humble branchline cut through nature’s toughest obstacles to bring people together along with the fruits of their labours. How easily I could visualise Herod bursting into daylight at the far end of that tunnel with its ensemble of trucks joggling undulantly alongside the dazzling, glassy expanse of Splash lake while making its steady climb to lofty Blodcaster. Passing through each hamlet in turn its wagons would tap out their steely folksong of liberation in lyrics recalling tortuous roads and highway robbers, to remind the moorland folk of their debt of gratitude to that despised conqueror of the wilderness, the railway navvy.
Something happened and my blood ran cold.
I felt my bones lock as the report from a powerful explosion bounced to and fro among the hills and died away reluctantly, leaving me unsure which direction it had come from. Along with the birds in the trees and the livestock in their pens I held still with apprehension, and into the crevice of silence so formed tumbled Mr Milsom’s words of warning about Lacy’s sticking safety valve.
The footbridge steps seemed impossibly steep as I floundered up them, at the top observing a giant balloon of steam curling skywards from the treetops of Bessam forest. I called Humphrey. I called so loudly and with such trepidation that my voice cracked then failed altogether, causing Ivor Hales to throw open his window to investigate the disturbance.
“Humphrey!” I yodelled. “Lacy has exploded!”
It chilled me to recall that in my youth I had witnessed the aftermath of a boiler explosion in Southampton and consequently understood how extremely injurious to footplatemen such accidents were. As a Junior clerk I had leapt from the Goods office upon hearing that same fragor and encountered a shunting engine with its middle section disembowelled in a mass of splayed boiler tubes. Everything within fifty feet had been blasted with the boiler’s scolding contents, leaving at the centre of the swirling, eerie scene a lifeless driver and his mate. Both men were twisted so grotesquely by the discharge that the sight of them caused me nightmares for months.
I hurried back down the footbridge steps to meet Humphrey, whose normally ruddy face was now drained of colo
ur. He too had been running, and at such a pace that the poor fellow required several seconds to regain his breath before he could speak.
“What be the matter, Mr Jay?” he wheezed at length.
“Lacy’s boiler has burst! Did you not hear the bang, Humphrey? It must have been that faulty safety valve. We must summon helpers to the scene immediately.”
Humphrey’s colour returned instantly and the fellow began to rock with subdued laughter. His face contorted, and contorted further until, finally, he convulsed openly. There was nothing I could do but wait for him to recover from his uncontrollable hooting. Obviously I was mistaken about Lacy. Nevertheless the matter required an explanation.
“Steady on, fellow,” I cautioned him.
“Forgive I, Mr Jay. Most reprehensible,” he choked at last. “But they’m a blastin’ over at Splashgate quarry today. They does it every Monday.”
Humphrey choked again and pulled out an enormous handkerchief to blow his nose. Too flustered to speak, I returned to the footbridge to take another look across Bessam forest. A plume of steam further along the tramway revealed that Lacy was still busy marshalling trucks at the logging station. Relief overtook me to the extent that I slumped against the handrail.
Another blast from the squire’s quarry thudded and echoed back off Upshott down, causing my nerves to knot a second time. When I straightened up I was embarrassed to observe Ivor Hales staring at me with a restrained grin. However, such was my deliverance that I began to laugh myself. Louder, even, than Humphrey.
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Chapter Six — Woe overload
I explained to Miss Macrames that I had been unable to locate her parasol but had alerted the Lost Property clerk at Giddiford. During our intercourse I heard the clatter of wooden wheels upon cobblestones and the snort of eager horses outside the station and realised that the squire’s coachman had returned from Bessam forest. I bade Miss Macrames good day and hurried through the Booking hall to enquire how the unloading of the cabriolet had gone. Before I could reach the double-doors at the far end of the hall, Jack Wheeler sprang out in front of me and blocked my way. Ignoring the clerk’s feeble attempt to explain his rude behaviour I squinted into the dazzling daylight of the forecourt beyond his shoulder and beheld the silhouette of the splendid timber carriage with its four white horses.
