found himself waiting; for footsteps, a remembered voice, some message from Margaret to tell him not to go, she’d changed her mind. It was a bad state of mind to get into but he couldn’t help himself. No message came.
It was nearly three of the clock before he walked out to the Burrell and built steam. He uncoupled the Margaret and turned her, shackled the load to the push pole lug and backed it into the road. A difficult feat but he did it without thinking. He disconnected the loco, brought her round again, hooked on, shoved the reversing lever forward and inched open on the regulator. The rumbling of the wheels started at last. He knew once clear of Purbeck he wouldn’t come back. Couldn’t, despite his promise. He’d send Tim or one of the others: the thing he had inside him wouldn’t stay dead, if he saw her again it would have to be killed all over. Arid once was more than enough.
He had to pass the pub. The chimney smoked but there was no other sign of life. The train crashed behind him, thunderously obedient. Fifty yards on he used the whistle, over and again, waking Margaret’s huge iron voice, filling the street with steam. Childish, but he couldn’t stop himself. Then he was clear. Swanage dropping away behind as he climbed towards the heath. He built up speed. He was late; in that other world he seemed to have left so long ago, a man called Dickon would be worrying.
Way off on the left a semaphore stood stark against the sky. He hooted to it, the two pips followed by the long call that all the hauliers used. For a moment the thing stayed dead; then he saw the arms flip an acknowledgement. Out there he knew Zeiss glasses would be trained on the Burrell. The Guildsmen had answered; soon a message would be streaking north along the little local towers. The Lady Margaret, locomotive, Strange and Sons, Durnovaria; out of Swanage routed for Corvesgeat, fifteen thirty hours. All well…
Night came quickly; night, and the burning frost. Jesse swung west well before Wareham, cutting straight across the heath. The Burrell thundered steadily, gripping the road with her seven-foot drive wheels, leaving thin wraiths of steam behind her in the dark. He stopped once, to fill his tanks and light the lamps, then pushed on again into the heathland. A light mist or frost smoke was forming now; it clung to the hollows of the rough ground, glowing oddly in the light from the side lamps. The wind soughed and threatened. North of the Purbecks, off the narrow coastal strip, the winter could strike quick and hard; come morning the heath could be impassable, the trackways lost under two feet or more of snow.
An hour out from Swanage, and the Margaret still singing her tireless song of power. Jesse thought, blearily, that she at least kept faith. The semaphores had lost her now in the dark; there would be no more messages till she made her base. He could imagine old Dickon standing at the yard gate under the flaring cressets, worried, cocking his head to catch the beating of an exhaust miles away. The loco passed through Wool. Soon be home, now; home, to whatever comfort remained…
The boarder took him nearly by surprise. The train had slowed near the crest of a rise when the man ran alongside, lunged for the footplate step. Jesse heard the scrape of a shoe on the road; some sixth sense warned him of movement in the darkness. The shovel was up, swinging for the stranger’s head, before it was checked by an agonised yelp. ‘Hey ol’ boy, don’ you know your friends?’
Jesse, half off balance, grunted and grabbed at the steering. ‘Col… What the hell are you doin’ here?’
De la Haye, still breathing hard, grinned at him in the reflection of the sidelights. ‘Jus’ a fellow traveller, my friend. Happy to see you come along there, I tell you. Had a li’l bit of trouble, thought a’d have to spend the night on the bloody heath…’
‘What trouble?’
‘Oh, I was ridin’ out to a place a’ know,’ said de la Haye. ‘Place out by Culliford, li’l farm. Christmas with friends. Nice daughters. Hey, Jesse, you know?’ He punched Jesse’s arm, started to laugh. Jesse set his mouth. ‘What happened to your horse?’
‘Bloody thing foundered, broke its leg.’
‘Where?’
‘On the road back there,’ said de la Haye carelessly. ‘A’ cut its throat an’ rolled it in a ditch. Din’ want the damn routiers spottin’ it, gettin’ on my tail…” He blew his hands, held them out to the firebox, shivered dramatically inside his sheepskin coat. ‘Damn cold, Jesse, cold as a bitch… How far you go?’
‘Home. Durnovaria.’
De la Haye peered at him. ‘Hey, you don’ sound good. You sick, ol’Jesse?’
‘No.’
Col shook his arm insistently. ‘Whassamatter, ol’ pal? Anythin’ a friend can do to help?’
Jesse ignored him, eyes searching the road ahead. De la Haye bellowed suddenly with laughter. ‘Was the beer. The beer, no? OF Jesse, your stomach has shrunk!’ He held up a clenched fist. ‘Like the stomach of a li’l baby, no? Not the old Jesse any more; ah, life is hell…’
Jesse glanced down at the gauge, turned the belly tank cocks, heard water splash on the road, touched the injector controls, saw the burst of steam as the lifts fed the boiler. The pounding didn’t change its beat. He said steadily, ‘Reckon it must have bin the beer that done it. Reckon I might go on the waggon. Gettin’ old.’
De la Haye peered at him again, intently. ‘Jesse,’ he said. ‘You got problems, my son. You got troubles. What gives? C’mon, spill That damnable intuition hadn’t left him then. He’d had it right through college; seemed somehow to know what you were thinking nearly as soon as it came into your head. It was Col’s big weapon; he used it to have his way with women. Jesse laughed bitterly; and suddenly the story was coming out. He didn’t want to tell it; but he did, down to the last word. Once started, he couldn’t stop. Col heard him in silence; then he started to shake. The shaking was laughter. He leaned back against the cab side, holding onto a stanchion. ‘Jesse, Jesse, you are a lad. Christ, you never change… Oh, you bloody Saxon…’ He went off into fresh peals, wiped his eyes. ‘So… so she show you her pretty li’l scut, he? Jesse, you are a lad; when will you learn? What, you go to her with… with this…’ He banged the Margaret’s hornplate. ‘An’ your face so earnest an’ black, oh, Jesse, a’ can see that face of yours. Man, she don’ want your great iron destrier. Christ above, no… But a’… a’ tell you what you do…’ Jesse turned down the corners of his lips. ‘Why don’t you just shut up!’
De la Haye shook his arm. ‘Nah, listen. Don’ get mad, listen. You… woo her, Jesse; she like that, that one. You know? Get the ol’ glad rags on, man, get a butterfly car, mak’ its wings of cloth of gold. She like that… Only don’ stand no shovin’, ol’Jesse. An’ don’ ask her nothin’, not no more. You tell her what you want, say you goin’ to get it… Pay for your beer with a golden guinea, tell her you’ll tak’ the change upstairs, no? She’s worth it, Jesse, she’s worth havin’ is that one. Oh but she’s nice…’
‘Go to hell ‘You don’ want her?’ De la Haye looked hurt. ‘A’jus’ try to help, ol’ pal… You los’ interest now?’
‘Yeah,’ said Jesse. ‘I lost interest.’
‘Ahhh…’ Col sighed. ‘Ah, but is a shame. Young love all blighted… Tell you what though.’ He brightened. ‘You given me a great idea, ol’ Jesse. You don’ want her, a’ have her myself. OK?’
When you hear the wail that means your father’s dead your hands go on wiping down a crosshead guide. When the world turns red and flashes, and drums roll inside your skull, your eyes watch ahead at the road, your fingers stay quiet on the wheel. Jesse heard his own voice speak dryly. ‘You’re a lying bastard, Col, you always were. She wouldn’t fall for you…’
Col snapped his fingers, danced on the footplate. ‘Man, a’ got it halfway made. Oh but she’s nice… Those li’l eyes, they were flashin’ a bit las’ night, no? Is easy, man, easy… A’ tell you what, a’ bet she be sadistic in bed. But nice, ahhh, nice…’ His gestures somehow suggested rapture. ‘I tak’ her five ways in a night,’ he said. ‘An’ send you proof. O K?’ Maybe he doesn’t mean it. Maybe he’s lying. But he isn’t. I know Col; and Col doesn’t lie. Not about this. What he says he’ll do, he’ll do… Jesse grinned, just with his teeth. ‘You do that, Col. Break her in. Then I take her off you. OK?’
De la Haye laughed and gripped his shoulder. ‘Jesse, you are a lad. Eh…? Eh…?’ A light flashed briefly, ahead and to the right, way out on the heathland. Col spun round, stared at where it had been, looked back to Jesse. ‘You see that?’ Grimly. ‘I saw.’ De la Haye looked round the footplate nervously. ‘You got a gun?’ ‘Why?’ ‘The bloody light. The routiers…’ ‘You don’t fight the routiers with a gun.’ Col shook his head. ‘Man, I hope you know what you’re doin’…’
Jesse wrenched at the firebox doors, letting out a blaze of light and heat. ‘Stoke…'
‘What?’
‘Stoke!’
‘OK, man,’ said de la Haye. ‘All right, OK…’ He swung the shovel, building the fire. Kicked the doors shut, straightened up. ‘A’ love you an’ leave you soon,’ he said. ‘When we pass the light. If we pass the light…'
