The Blackpool Highflyer js-2

by Andrew Martin

  'What's he on about?' said Clive as we began rumbling towards the Joint station.

  'He said the bloke we're to take on is a pill.'

  As we crawled along, I looked down at a patch of coal, cinders and bright weeds – green and black nothing. But there was a paraffin blow-lamp and grinding wheel there, with a spare grindstone about the size of the famous one from ten days ago. I had never noticed either of these items before, but I somehow knew they had always been there. The question was: had there been a second spare? I would ask John Ellerton, who was standing watching us go, with his bowler right back on his head, pleased at the sight of another engine going off to be at large in the world. Everybody liked John Ellerton: he had very honest blue eyes: Irish eyes, as I thought of them for some reason.

  'I believe I know him,' said Clive.

  'Who?'

  'The pill. They always give you the same bloke at York – he's like a sort of warning not to come back.'

  I was more than a little anxious over the run. Paul, the socialist missionary, and his governor, Alan Cowan, were down on excursions. Paul had denied having anything to do with the wrecking of 1418, but would be hardly likely to say so if he had been behind it. But no. If you were wrecking trains to make a point, you would own up to it, providing you knew you couldn't be found.

  If the wreckers were after mills then here was another: White's. Then again, if they were after Hind's Mill only, we'd be all right.

  The wife had settled in there quite nicely, working for her Mr Robinson and not either of the Hinds. She'd told me they were trying to discover for themselves who'd placed the stone. I'd asked her if they knew she was married to me, the fireman of the engine, and she'd said, 'I don't know. I keep mum over that.'

  Could it be that the wreckers owed a grudge to Highflyers, or big engines in general?

  That was something that had come to me in the Evening Star, and if it was the case, we were in for a trouble-free day, for we had under us one of the standard radial tanks of Mr Aspinall. They were a little longer than your common run of tank, but were to be counted a close cousin of a kettle put up against a Highflyer.

  Clive, doing his checks, had found dust on the regulator, on the engine brake – all over the shop, really – but he'd smiled at it. I fancied that after a few long days on the Rishworth branch he was feeling light-hearted at the thought of Scarborough. It was a pretty spot, and something new in that we'd not worked an engine there before. Also, we were not booked to do a double trip, so the two of us would be able to try some of the pubs before 'coming back passenger'.

  Our carriages were waiting at platform six at the Joint beside the blackboard on which Knowles, the stationmaster, had written 'special train, white's mill', and so on, with all the fancy underlining, even for this little tank engine. He was just finishing off as we came in. He could have farmed out this job, but he had a better hand than anyone in the Joint, and he knew it. As we floated up alongside – Clive had got the cut-off just right, as usual – Knowles looked up fast, then away. I looked at Clive, but he was miles away, holding his leather book and staring at the pressure gauge, even though it was at the right sort of mark. It struck me there and then that I'd never seen Clive pass a single word with Stationmaster Knowles.

  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 o
ne 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.

  'Natty dresser, your mate!' roared Billington.

  I was trying not to look along the line, for I had no control over what might be placed there.

  'Shabbiness', I shouted back at Billington, 'is a false economy.'

  'Is it buggery,' said Billington. He had views on everything.

  We were now running up to Kirkham Abbey station, and we would have been touching seventy when I spied the distant signal through the scratchy spectacle glass. It was off.

  'Did you spot that?' shouted Billington.

  'Aye,' I said, and he seemed put out. I wished he would slow down. A distant signal, even when off, meant proceed with caution.

  'Now the "home" is the hardest spot on the whole bloody line,' Billington was saying. 'Half hidden in the bloody woods… It controls the level crossing that's just around the bend here.'

  'All the more reason to slow down, then,' I muttered, shovelling coal. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, if the distant was off then the home would be off too, and there'd be no trouble, but a cart stuck at that level crossing would put the kibosh on all right.

  We were really galloping now, and the damned wood seemed more of a forest, unwinding endlessly around the bend on the 'down' side, with no sign of the home signal. You could see very well how a branch might have fallen. There were so many of the buggers, after all.

  I was glad to see Clive put down the book and stand up.

  'I'll take her back now if it's quite all right,' he said to Billington.

  'What for?'

  'Well it's just that we've only got three ton of coal and the way you're going -'

  'It wants some knowing, this signal does,' Billington was saying, and the words seemed to be shaken out of him by the motion of the engine. He was refusing to give up the regulator.

  On the 'up' side was the ruined abbey. I caught a glimpse of white stone and white dresses against the bright green fields, a parked motorcar and some toffs standing within the broken walls, as if they were downhearted at having got there before it all collapsed.

  We were being shaken to buggery, running far too fast for this stretch. Billington should not have been at the regulator. I fancied that he was racing because he wanted me to miss seeing the signal. Then he could point it out and get the glory. We should have told him about the stone on the track the week before because it might have checked him, made him think us jinxed.

  I looked across at Clive, who was sitting on the sandbox. He would be going through hell at what Billington was doing to the engine, but he was back at the Pearson's Book of Fun.

  Billington was shouting to me: 'Signal's coming up your side. Got your eye out?'

  Clive looked up, and I thought he was going to say, 'She wants a brush on the brakes!' Instead he began to read aloud from the book: '"Why"', he shouted over the rattling of the engine, '"is a football round?'"

  'What?' I called out, because I couldn't credit this.

  Then three things happened: Billington yelled: 'Any second now!' Then he gave a cry of 'Bang off!' and there was the home signal for Kirkham Abbey, half hidden as promised. It was off so we were fine, but Clive was back at the regulator, Billington was tottering away towards my side, and we were slowing down. Clive hadn't exactly crowned him. There could have been nothing more than a shove, but it might have been the devil of violence, for I had never seen Clive riled before, or even move fast, come to that. Why, he must have risked crimping his trews, and Pearson's Book of Fun was left lying before the fire door. I put my shovel down, picked it up and brushed the coal dust off. I was going to return this to the kid, and I meant to return it clean.

  The book was mainly riddles and the solutions were at the back. I was so light-headed that I searched out a poser from the first pages. 'Why is a football round?' I said, as we went through Kirkham Abbey station at a speed moderate enough to let me see a puzzled look coming onto the face of the porter.

  At first Clive didn't answer, and I asked again, this time nodding to Billington – who was sulking like a camel behind me – to let him know that he might have a hazard too, but of course he wasn't game after what had gone on.

  'Because if it were
square,' Clive shouted back, 'the players would be kicking too many corners!' He turned to me and grinned.

  When, not long after, we came up to the great signal gantry at Scarborough, which must have had fifty boards mounted on it, Billington spoke up for the first time since Kirkham Abbey: 'Work it out your bloody self,' he said.

  The tracks going under the gantry were a mass of X's, and I wished we could look up the answer at the back of Pearson's Book of Fun, but we picked our way by degrees to the right excursion platform, and Billington bolted as soon as we got in.

  But the queer thing was that so did my mate. No sooner had Billington scarpered than Clive was jumping down from the footplate, with the carpet bag in his hand, joining the steeplechase of excursionists racing down the platform for the ticket gates.

  'Sign off for us, will you?' he called back.

  I looked at the platform clock. It was nearly midday.

  'Who's to put the engine in the shed?' I shouted at him.

  'Thissen,' he said, with a big grin.

  'Won't we take a pint?' I called, feeling quite dismayed.

  'Sorry, Jim!' he called back. 'Got a bit of business in hand!' And he was off along the platform, but he turned after a few seconds, and with the excursionists flowing away on either side of him he called back once again: 'Scarborough and Whitby Brewery Company – South Shore.'

  'Shall I see you there?'

  He shook his head. 'The pale ale,' he said. 'It's the best thing out!'

  I opened the fire doors, put on a bit of blower, then I stepped down with Pearson's Book of Fun in my hand. There were about twenty excursion platforms in all at Scarborough. Three-quarters were taken, and the rakes of silent carriages were like empty streets, but streets standing under glass in a milky light. Reuben Booth was coming towards me along the empty platform, moving dockets from one hand to another, like a conjurer trying a card trick he can't remember. It was all luggage-in-advance business.

  As soon as he saw me he stopped and looked at the book. 'Pearson's Book of Fun: Mirth and Mystery, edited by Mr X,' he said slowly. 'Clive gave it to you then, did he?'

  'I mean to return it to the lad,' I said.