The Somme Stations (27 page)

I pushed my way over to the Dawson table, where Tinsley pushed a wine glass over to
me
, and slopped in some red stuff from a bottle in a basket. The kid was looking very chipper.

‘How are you going on, son?’ I said.

‘I feel a lot better since I was sick,’ he said.

‘What time was that?’

‘Eight twenty-five,’ he said. He was always exact as to time – it was the engine man in him. ‘Bernie here gave me a cigarette and that did me a power of good.’

Tinsley evidently had a weak stomach, but recovered fast. Had he chucked up on Spurn? Not to my
knowledge
. The drink had just made him a bit more forward, and a bit more lively too. He’d joined in my scuffle with Dawson after all.

One of the RE blokes was saying to Dawson, ‘But you’re a Londoner – how did you end up in York?’

Dawson took a belt of wine. He was popeyed, but in a jolly sort of way. He said, ‘The fact of the matter is that I
just got on a train in London …’

‘King’s Cross,’ Tinsley put in. He had to fix a place by naming the railway station.

‘… And you had a ticket for York,’ said the RE bloke.

‘I had a ticket for nowhere,’ said Dawson. ‘I mean,’ he added slowly, ‘
that I had no ticket at all
. And that’s why I got off at York.’

‘Eh?’ I said.

‘Oh, I missed that bit out,’ said Dawson. ‘The ticket inspector got on at York – ’

‘That would be old Jackson,’ said Tinsley with a grin.

‘ – So
I
got off,’ said Dawson.

‘And you’ve been here ever since,’ I said. ‘I mean
there.
I mean … no … ’

I must have put away a good deal more than I’d thought – that was always the danger of encountering the Chief anywhere near licensed premises. I was instantly sobered, however, by the loud French-accented cry that came from the man at the bar, ‘Mister Dawson, we have found the barrel of the John Smith’s beer!’

The RE man was saying to Dawson, ‘Hold on a minute, how did you get through the ticket barrier?’

But Dawson was making fast for the bar. He came back a moment later with an enamel jug full of the stuff.

‘Apparently, they found the barrel in the cellar,’ he said. ‘It’s odd that, because I mean, we’re
in
the cellar.’

He offered the beer around, and we all drank it from our wine glasses. Dawson did not talk as we did this. The talking fell to others. I watched him go back to the bar for another jugful after a matter of only a few minutes, and he did not offer this second one around. His face was changing as he drank, giving him the grubby, peeved look of the faces on the criminal record cards in the police office. The talk was going on merrily around me. A bloke was saying, ‘He was fucking kippered at
High Wood. Boche flame-thrower. Below the fucking belt is that.’

John Read … that had been the name of the bloke I’d charged with indecent exposure. He’d been the last man I’d arrested before enlisting, and he was William Harvey’s real father. What had become of him? Being drunk, it was hard for me to round up all the facts. They’d keep wandering away. He might well have gone to court and been lagged. He might have been sent down for six months. The Company solicitors would have handled the prosecution. They had all the witness statements … and if Harvey’s father had been gaoled on this charge, would young Harvey have known of it; and would he know I’d been the arresting officer? If so, it would give him a reason to hate me. But he
hadn’t
hated me, or if he had, he’d kept the fact well hidden. If he did know, he’d have a motive against me, whereas what Thackeray needed to find was a motive the other way about. Even so, this could be seen as the cause of needle between me and Harvey.

The man who’d talked about the flame-thrower was laughing – and laughing too loud – as I tried to get hold of the important questions: did Company Sergeant Major Thackeray know of my connection with Harvey’s true father? Next question: would he be likely to find out? And what would he make of the fact that I hadn’t told him? Well, I hadn’t told him because I hadn’t known. But he wouldn’t believe that.

I found myself eyeing Dawson. He seemed to meet my gaze, saying, ‘You fucking rotter.’

I thought: Here we go, another barney, and this time I won’t be palling up with him afterwards.

‘Fucking treacherous fucking copper …’ Dawson was saying, ‘Fucking
monkey
.’

And at that word I was let off. I might be a copper, but I was certainly not a monkey. I turned and there was Thackeray himself. He was with another military policeman. They were
the only two blokes not holding glasses. The second bloke had a smaller moustache – not as good as Thackeray’s, but Thackeray was being big about it, smiling at him. There were about twenty standing blokes between us and him. He did not appear to have heard Dawson’s remarks – not yet – although the bar had gone a bit quiet. The barkeeper, seemingly panicked out of his good English, said ‘English police here! End of beer and wine!’ (Bars closed early in the garrison towns. Perhaps it was ‘time’.) This caused uncertainty in the bar and another moment of silence, but Thackeray seemed to be indicating to the barkeeper that he was quite all right to keep on serving. I assumed he thought that blokes at the
front
were entitled to a bit of a drink-up occasionally. The stream of chatter started up again, and it might have been enough to keep Thackeray from hearing as, Dawson, standing, called out, ‘The enemy’s
that
way, in case you’ve forgotten.’

That was twenty-one days’ field punishment right there – if not five years in a military prison – but Thackeray did not react. I began pulling Dawson towards the door (with Tinsley in tow), going a roundabout way, so as to avoid Thackeray and friend. When we were about halfway to the door Thackeray, who I really believed had not yet spotted us, laughed at something his mate said, at which Dawson yelled out, ‘Can it, you warphead!’

Thackeray stopped laughing He began turning his head our way as I fairly threw Dawson at the half-open door of the bar. We tumbled out onto the steps.

‘Did he clock us?’ said Tinsley. ‘If he clocked us, he’ll
never
leave off.’

‘John Smith’s bitter …’ I said, as we made our shambling way along the half-illuminated street that led to the railway station.

‘Where?’ said Dawson.

‘You should lay off it,’ I said, and he made no reply.

The railway station was packed with blokes. It too was half shrouded in darkness, but how can you keep a railway station secret? As we got there, two long dark trains came in. One was going to the war and one was going away. We climbed onto the one going
to
.

‘I’ll just give her a breath of steam.’

Tinsley, shovelling coal, looked up at me and grinned. It had been the right thing to say.

Then – since I’d caught a bit of a chill – I pressed my right nostril and blew snot from my left down onto the footplate, at which his grin faded.

‘I’ve just swept that,’ he said.

‘It’s a bloody footplate,’ I said, ‘it’s not carpeted.’

The light was fading over the Dump as I eased back the regulator. We would be the first train to go out. We had six carriages on – and Oliver Butler as chief brakesman. He stood on the rear of the back wagon, controlling its brake, and it would be his job to tell Dawson when to apply the brake on his own wagon, which was the third. It was to be hoped that these two brakes and those on the engine would do the job. Two other trains were all ready in the sidings to come onto the main ‘Up’ – the line that led to the front, where the ‘hate’ was building up nicely. The sky over there glowed green and red, colours that periodically shook.

Tinsley and I had both had a tot of rum. We’d taken it in the running office, where the lines going forward were all mapped out on a blackboard. Oamer had drawn thick lines (with the side of the chalk) for the lines already put down, and thin lines (with the end of the chalk) for the extensions and branches that would be laid shortly by the Butler twins, amongst others of
the tough, silent, platelaying breed. Control points on the line – both existing and planned – were also marked. These took, or would take (since only one was actually operative at that moment) the form of one or more blokes in a dug-out. They would be equipped with a telephone and a lamp for indicating to the engine crews whether they could proceed.

We were stuck with this Somme offensive, which was a very bloody and slow one. Some of the New Army Battalions had been half wiped out, and word was that the whole of the town of Accrington was draped in black, for the Accrington Pals had had a particularly hard time of it at the start of the show.

The business in hand for us was the endless bloody scrap over the village of Pozières, or what was left of it. The narrow-gauge railway now went a little further towards that shattered village – about level with the latest line of reserve trenches, but there was also a new feature: a branch off to the right, which is to say to the east, for the supply of batteries targeting German strongholds at spots like Bazentin le Petit, Delville Wood, Ginchy, Combles. It was hoped to capture these places and make of them a new front.

We would be running along the new branch, and delivering our goods to two gun positions served by it. As we rolled away, I noticed that about half the blokes at the Dump, some holding lamps, had turned out to see us go off. They were watching the fruits of their labour, namely the start of the regular runs. Riding with us on the footplate was Captain Muir, the quiet sort who’d been dead wrong about us all coming back in one piece from the last run. He kept making notes in a little book that he pulled periodically from his pocket.

By shutting off steam, and opening the sand valves, I avoided wheelslip on the greasy rails as we climbed the incline to the first of the trees, and he made a note of
that
– or, more likely, of something altogether different, since I did not believe he was familiar with engine driving techniques.

I looked at Tinsley, who was shovelling coal.

‘Little and often with the coal and water,’ he said – this for the benefit of Muir, by way of explanation, because in moving to the firehole Tinsley would keep requiring the officer to step aside. ‘Little and often … That’s Tom Shaw’s motto,’ he said to me, as he closed the firehole door. I frowned at the kid, and he hesitated for only a fraction of time before cottoning on and
opening
the firehole door. That was one way to keep our production of smoke to the minimum – draw in cold air so as to discharge the products of combustion.

We were in good nick, keeping the pressure nicely: little simmer of steam from the safety valve. I leant out to see … Yes, grey ghost in attendance at the chimney top. We’d finally found a good place for our billy-can full of tea (wedged behind the lubricator pipes), and we had the grenade in our locker for blowing the whole fucking lot up at short notice.

On the debit side of the equation, it was pissing down; and if a shell landed on us or within ten feet then we were goners, not to mention – in view of the volatile load we carried – any other poor bugger within quarter of a mile. I put the odds against that happening at no higher than twenty-to-one, and I kept asking myself whether this meant that, after twenty trips, we’d definitely cop it? Captain Muir, the Oxford or Cambridge man, would know.

Moving further under the cover of our mean cab roof, and closer to the fire, I took out my Woodbines, offering them about. No takers, and in fact Muir made another note. What was he writing? ‘Driver smokes Woodbines.’ Not for long, I wouldn’t be doing. This was my last packet; I’d have to start on the Virginians Select that the Chief had given me. Had the Virginians Select been selected by Virginians? It was a nicety that had occupied me ever since I’d clapped eyes on the packets.

A shell landed – first of the night.

It did not leave my ears singing, so it couldn’t have been very near, but I could not see
where
it was, since we were enclosed by the broken trees, which would appear to repeatedly walk forwards so as to commit suicide – being in such a terrible state to begin with – on the track before us, but always stopped short or over-stepped the rails at the last moment. Blowing smoke, I looked over the coal bunker. Both Oliver Butler and Dawson were staring back my way. I could not quite make out the expression on Butler’s face (being on the last wagon, he was too far off), but I didn’t doubt it was a sour one. He at any rate had apparently not discovered that I’d once nicked Harvey’s natural father, for if he had known, he’d have brought it up. Dawson put up his hand to acknowledge me. He also had a Woodbine on the go of course. Didn’t see
him
on Virginians Select. Bernie Dawson and his sort were just made for Woodbines. Why, the cigarette practically smoked
him
. There was something easy-going about the Woodbine man, and that was Dawson’s nature all right, except when he was on the John Smith’s bitter. He’d said nothing further to me about our close shave in Albert with Sergeant Major Thackeray, and this was just as I’d expected. It wasn’t shame that made him clam up; in fact, if you tried to bring the matter up, he’d just give you a polite smile and a faint look of puzzlement as if you’d been the one behaving badly, and so were being rather ‘off’ in recollecting the matter. Or perhaps he just didn’t remember. He had clean forgotten about the cut to my knuckle sustained in the Hope and Anchor, or so I assumed.

Tinsley was shovelling coal again, but as he swung the little shovel towards the firehole, the engine jolted and he did a missed shot.

‘Oh heck,’ he said, and he was down on his knees picking up the lumps and chucking them in by hand.

‘Keen,’ observed Muir, who’d stepped over to my side to get out of Tinsley’s way.

I nodded. ‘He lives to write himself down “passed fireman”.’

‘And what will he do then?’ enquired Muir, who obviously didn’t know much about footplate life.

‘Then he’ll fire engines,’ I said, ‘for a little while …’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Well, twenty years. After that, he’ll drive them.’