A Station In Life

by James Smiley

  Having said my piece I ushered Diggory aside to receive the incoming special, by himself, so that I could gauge his progress as a porter.

  Double-headed by a pair of 2-4-0 locomotives with racy, seven-foot drive wheels, the express train rumbled over the weighbridge points, past the signalbox, and into the ‘up’ platform where it came to rest with a brief shudder. The hiss of steam escaping from two engines, Fireking and Paracelsist, was so loud that it took hand signals to instruct Diggory. At first the lad was intimidated by the prospect of servicing such a long train but it took only a glance at his colleagues swabbing floors, scrubbing ironwork, wiping windows, trimming wicks and polishing lamps to spur him on. He was particularly pleased not to be Jack Wheeler scouring the station privy with hot soda in the playful gaze of so many high spirited carousers.

  I crouched next to Diggory while he labelled the soldier’s kit bag, and offered some advice. Firstly I explained that LSWR specials boasted up to three conductors to look after passengers, consequently he was unlikely to be hailed from all directions at once. Secondly, I assured him that a couple of guards were likely to be aboard to protect the train should it need dividing upon a steep gradient, and these too would be on hand to assist.

  However, I did feel it necessary to warn the youngster always to expect at least one sticky moment during the reception of a train like this. Experience had taught me that euphoric day trippers enjoying their annual liberation from the bowels of a factory were prone to delirium and explosive temper fuelled by smuggled bottles of ale. This being the lad’s first experience of a long distance train I decided not to undermine his confidence further, preferring him to discover the hazards for himself. An outing of East London dye workers and their bosses would inevitably include a coterie of inflated swells whose expectations exceeded their status, and who would alienate every ‘lacky’ at their beck and call. With this in mind, when the Guard’s door opened I hid behind a crate of carboys to observe the lad’s progress.

  I am proud to relate that Diggory behaved impeccably despite the conflicting demands placed upon him. Impeccably, that is, until he was summoned to the Guard’s ‘birdcage’ cabin to assist with the unloading of some domestic requisites for the Goods shed. In a promising show of willingness the lad carried off a tod of wool and three nails of calico without hesitation, followed by some items overlooked by the Guard of the previous ‘down’ train, but his lack of worldliness prepared him ill for the shock that was to come. In truth, this coloured even my cheeks.

  The young porter’s reverse came while he was removing a weighty cask of malt vinegar for the vicar of Saint Martha, and while being diplomatic enough to make no comment about the vicarage being a peculiar destination for such a consignment he could muster no such aplomb at sight of a pair of handmade bloomers addressed to Miss Emily Higham. Consequently he stumbled over a box of blank booking forms.

  Miss Higham, you may recall, was the Brigadier’s daughter and the delicious creature who had smitten Snimple, leading him into not-so-secret love trysts. For some reason the bloomers were lacking the anonymity of a wrapper and, worse still, the Guard was holding them up as if to try them on!

  Recoiling from the lustful abnormality to which my Junior porter had been exposed, especially at this formative time of his life, I set glass chinking against glass to extricate myself from the carboys. Alas, before I could intervene, Diggory became rubescent and impeded of speech. Being close to apoplexy myself, never having seen a guard modelling ladies’ underwear, I made undignified haste and my unexpected appearance in the door of the ‘birdcage’ startled the boggle-eyed Guard into stuffing the bloomers in his pocket. I was not deceived by his hasty return to innocent activity.

  “Hey, you!” I shouted. “What are you doing with those…? What’s that item of freight in your pocket?”

  The insalubrious Guard replied with a meaningless stammer but again I was not fooled.

  “You shall not dupe me, sir, I saw you with that pair of unmentionables. Why are they not wrapped?”

  “There’s been a spot of trouble,” the Guard found his tongue. “Honestly, guv. Look, I’ve got the address tag here.”

  “A personal garment of this nature should be travelling incognito,” I barked.

  I eyed the Guard deedily while he explained that the wrapper had disintegrated in the juice of some French plums. The plums had been squashed during gauge transhipment and the fellow was boasting that he had extracted the bloomers from the mess just in time to save them from being spoiled. Whilst I had no grounds to doubt him I did return his sudorous leer with a glare of disapproval.

  In these times there were no secrets from the local stationmaster, for I now knew that the vicar of Saint Martha pickled unbelievers, and that Miss Emily Higham wore handmade undergarments imported from Paris. The boggle-eyed Guard handed me a company mail pouch.

  “Oh, guv, the Guard of the ‘up’ train forgot to drop this one off,” he smirked, confident that he had vindicated himself.

  Opening the pouch I discovered one letter, addressed to me, sealed by the company secretary. This, I had no doubt, was the revised date of my disciplinary hearing. Dispirited, I stepped off the train and pocketed the letter until I could gird myself with something to steady my nerves. Meanwhile my nerves were jangled further when, detouring to the porters’ cloakroom to coax Diggory out of hiding, I scraped my ankle against a semaphore signal arm. Several of these had been stacked haphazardly upon Platform Two for collection by a contractor, and such a menace did they pose that I summoned Mr Troke to relocate them to the foot of the water tower immediately. My demise as a figure of authority was now well in the making.

  “Have Snimple assist you, William,” I instructed the Rollingstock superintendent.

  Mr Troke turned a baleful eye upon me and maundered. Maundering was his preferred form of protest. Naturally I ignored him.

  “How came they to be hither in the first place?” he amplified his complaint begrudgingly.

  “Just move them,” I retorted.

  Mr Troke maundered again.

  “When shall we be free of all this flux?” he asked himself, presumably referring to progress.

  “By and by, Mr Troke, by and by,” I forecast with unguarded sympathy.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he spat. “Then haply we shall be left alone to enjoy two days the same.”

  “We are not a chaise post,” I set him straight.

  Also cluttering the platform was a wicker basket containing four dozen rabbit carcasses destined for Walsall. For obvious reasons it was advisable to get these away smartly by putting them aboard the Guard’s van so I had Diggory steel himself to do it. Then I asked the driver to slow his train at Exeter so that the Guard could throw them off for a quick transfer to the GWR. This practise contravened company regulations but drivers seldom objected.

  While consulting the driver I noticed Rose Macrames strolling along Natter lane arm-in-arm with the recently widowed miller of Upwater. They parted company close to the station but Rose did not bother herself to visit me. How quickly the ladies grew weary of me.

  Bracing myself by the carboys I opened my dread letter, but while reading the summons I was startled by a heavy hand descending upon my shoulder. This crude method of communication, had it been applied any other time, I would have dismissed as the price to be paid for working with uneducated bumpkins. However, tense with the possibility of imminent dismissal, not to mention talk of a curse, I jumped and lost my hat. This indignity amused passengers aboard the train no end.

  If Blodcaster was famed for its fishing, and verily it was, then news was about to be noised abroad that nearby Upshott featured a vaudeville stationmaster, and that LSWR excursions included a stop to see him. Keen not to miss the performance a multitude of pasty-faced Londoners lowered their compartment lights for a better view. So keen were they to participate in my undoing that they squeezed their heads through the windows in hazardously tight bunches.

  I turned to ide
ntify the hand upon my shoulder and recognised its baggy knuckles immediately.

  “How many times must I tell you not to assault me, Mr Troke. I am the stationmaster here,” I nettled.

  “Where?” he asked obliquely.

  Past admonitions having failed I had no reason to expect this one to succeed, nevertheless, for the sake of appearances I brushed his finger-marks from my tunic and amplified my caution.

  “You have a tongue in your head, sir, so use it!”

  “It’s not long enough,” he said.

  My Rollingstock superintendent recognised a good audience and was delighted by the roar of laughter his impudence won him. The excursionists, aroused by his unusual brand of disobedience, suggested that we finish our act with someone being sacked. Worried that I might take their advice, and disappointed with the reverses of performing in public, Mr Troke abandoned his gappy grin and stooped to retrieve my top-hat. This he did in the manner of a mummer taking a bow, and after dusting off my symbol of authority, instead of returning it to me, he inverted it and sallied towards the train to collect money. Impaled upon my glare of disapproval he finally relented and restored me to full uniform. Now his odious face hollowed with cross-eyed malevolence, for it had occurred to him that such an abundance of admirers would have translated readily to a hat heavy with coins.

  Educing no response to his evil stare, Mr Troke now redirected his attention to those who had egged him to the brink of unemployment. And, to my horror, spat at them. The consternation this vile gesture caused soon turned to anger and I was compelled to defuse the situation by broadcasting my disapproval the length of three carriages. Though I reprimanded the fellow demonstratively, truth to tell, I felt more inclined to berate him for his bad aim.

  The insolent Mr Troke took his medicine like a mouse and ran away. This response baffled me at first, then I realised that he was retreating from return fire. Dodging the insalubrious volley, I wondered what steps I might take to stem this growing riot. Luckily the ruffians aboard the train were in sufficiently good humour to vent their displeasure entirely within the rules of this new sport to which they had been introduced, and soon their coarse laughter was rippling up and down the carriages again.

  “I seem to recall instructing you and Snimple to remove these semaphore arms, Mr Troke,” I reproved my troublesome colleague. “I wonder if you are deaf as well as stupid.”

  This remark precipitated further hilarity among the onlookers.

  “Snimple’s gone home to his lodgings, sir,” Mr Troke came back miserably. “Am I to lift them thither on my on?”

  Another round of laughter reverberated across the station. Apparently everything that happened in Upshott was funny, including a perfectly serious conversation. At this point I noticed the excursionists polling each other to see who would make the next jibe. The roll was quickly taken up by a pallid young man with a curtain of black hair pulled lankly across his face.

  “Why,” he mocked, waving his muffin hat in the air, “not only is the governor a fool but the drudge is a weakling!”

  This impertinence triggered an outright cascade of mockery and I decided that enough was enough. Ignoring railway protocol I stood Mr Troke aside and gave the excursion train its ‘right away.’ As the boggle-eyed Guard swept by in his van he squinted at me through his half opened ducket window.

  “Sorry about the knickers, Stationmaster,” he called with an irreverent snigger.

  Seeking redress I confounded the cove with an unsettling observation.

  “If you wanted to avoid being reported, sir, you should have invented a different story. Plums are not yet in season.”

  At last the station was peaceful again. I swivelled my heel and instructed Mr Troke in the manner of his conduct should he wish to remain upon the railway. Without further ado he sought Diggory’s assistance and removed the semaphore arms, all without a single maunder.

  To spare Miss Higham the embarrassment of knowing that her bloomers had been aired in public I crossed to the Parcels office and re-wrapped them in person. This operation I completed just in time to avoid a second mortifying event, for no sooner had I safely concealed the garment in brown paper than a footman of the Brigadier arrived to collect them.

  Upon my second attempt to read my dread letter, which doubtless heralded my undoing, I partook of some goat’s milk fortified with brandy. Truth to tell, it was mostly brandy, and just as well because the summons iterated numerous further complaints against me. Thus apprised I was to account for myself before Board members in ten days time, commencing Nine-Thirty in the morning, with the possible outcome of summary dismissal. Even should I remain in post my reputation would be tarnished. Which made me wonder. Would the station curse finish me off or would it keep me in place to suffer further humiliation?

  Back to contents page

  Chapter Twenty-One — The walking hog pudding

  Briggs, a handsome Beattie tank engine of the 2-4-0 design, was in the dairy siding marshalling wagons for the afternoon milk train, and because Driver Hiscox was methodical in the execution of his duties I perceived no need to supervise, but my plans changed when I chanced upon a pair of refurbished ‘ticket boxes’ lying beneath the footbridge steps. I recognised these as integral to a traffic control system known as ‘staff-and-ticket’, but if staff-and-ticket was to be introduced upon the South Exmoor Railway it portended ill for the General manager, Mr Crump, for he had threatened to resign rather than be associated with the system.

  Perhaps I may point out that the ‘ticket’ referred to had nothing to do with the kind issued to passengers, nor had the ‘staff’ anything to do with employees. Railways upon which ‘up’ and ‘down’ trains shared the same track would always employ a safety system to avoid a head-on collision, and in the present one the driver of each train was required to be in possession of a unique baton before proceeding. In the new system the ‘staff’, another type of ‘baton’, was held by someone who could authorise many trains in the same direction by issuing tickets rather than the staff itself, thus avoiding the need to retrieve the staff by horse rider after each train. All he had to do was verify that the staff was safely locked away at the time. The introduction of telegraphic communication made this possible.

  If the South Exmoor was to implement staff-and-ticket then there were implications for the workforce, especially Mr Maynard whose fast horses would be sold off. Yet as one of the line’s principal stationmasters I could not understand why I had heard nothing of this apparently imminent development, not even so much as a whisper, and certainly no talk of Mr Crump resigning. All I knew was that the LSWR company, prior to taking over the line, was empowered to demand such improvements under a precondition written into the contract between the two companies in Eighteen-Fifty-Six. With crossing loops being constructed at Widdlecombe and Busy Linton to increase the line’s running capacity to four trains I had expected a more technical system than staff-and-ticket.

  To return you to the story I shall set the station clock to 4.15pm when Briggs’s presence in the station provided me with the opportunity to ask driver Hiscox about the company’s plans for the future. Hiscox was the man most likely to know of any developments being considered at Boardroom level. He, unlike most enginemen, had moved in good society and was a company confidant.

  When Briggs returned from the headshunt to propel a rake of flat-trucks to the milk dock I set off across the tracks for a word Trudging the ballast while the trucks were being loaded with churns I chanced to glimpse Jack Wheeler talking to the strange little man I had seen, the one wearing a pince-nez, so I halted and reversed a few paces. Their conversation seemed highly surreptitious, taking place in a secluded corner of the beer garden at the rear of The Shunter. Since my proximity upon the milk spur was unknown to them, and because of the clandestine nature of their business, I advanced close enough to hear what was being said. A reprehensible act, I confess willingly, yet still I leaned against the boundary fence with my top-hat held to my ear to ampli
fy their voices.

  An eves dropper seldom hears good of himself and this was no exception. My stomach knotted when I heard Jack making disparaging remarks about me, claiming that I was discourteous to passengers and unreasonable toward colleagues, and that he was considering making an official complaint. Still more disturbing was the apparent delight of his co-conspirator. The bookish little man was so excited by Jack’s bile that he issued a pat upon the shoulder as an incitement to proceed with the complaint immediately. At this point the two men’s collusion called for whispering and above the clatter of milk churns I could hear no more of their plans. Morose with dudgeon I marched away not caring if they heard me.

  The swarm of torment inside my head now joined by another wasp I crossed the Tramway to interrupt one of driver Hiscox’s rare moments of inactivity, stepping between two milk trucks to reach him. Bent forward with the vigilance of a sneak-thief, mindful of a Great Western clerk who had been crushed between wagon buffers engaged in a similar shunt, I saw Hiscox stepping down from his charge to do some oiling. I straightened up and quickened my pace. Footplatemen were always more approachable at ground level. Unfortunately, before I could reach the fellow I was intercepted by the spinster woman, Serena Blake. She was taking a shortcut even more perilous than my own.

  “Be there anythin’ in particler yer’d like I to get for yer dinner, Mr Jay?” she tested me nervously.

  Though generally apt to ignore her, I halted enthusiastically.

  “As a matter of fact there is,” I replied.

  For some while I had been troubled by a craving for hog pudding and advised her of it, having as yet tasted nothing so fine as that served from a stall at the fair. Perchance to compensate for all my woes I decided to put the spooky spinster to the test, for I might overlook all manner of shortcomings in a domestic who could make a reasonably eupeptic copy of fairground hog pudding.