The Somme Stations

‘Know nothing about signals, do you?’ said Oliver Butler. ‘They use a light. They ask for a password, just as we do here – only it’s done by flashes.’

At quarter to ten, every man was dead drunk, especially Dawson, and his face had that peeved look it had worn in the Bootham Hotel, but so far he had kept his behaviour in bounds. He was observing young Tinsley: ‘Thought you’d have turned in long since,’ he said. ‘Quite a stickler, ain’t you, son?’

‘Mmm… not quite the right word,’ said Oamer, who had rejoined the table, and it might be that Dawson gave this remark the go-by (for it was certainly meant in a spirit of amiability), or it might be that he gave a rather narrow look to our over-educated Corporal. At this point, Oliver Butler stood, and fixed his cap on. He looked about the room, and picked up one of the newspapers. He was off to the jakes.

In drink, Tinsley had become even more of a railway nut, and he now started in about how, when he graduated to driving, he’d oil round his engines not only at the start of a run, but at all principal stations on the run. After a few minutes of this, Dawson, who’d made two visits to the beer barrel since Tinsley had started on his speech, looked over and said, ‘Stow it, kid,’ and I thought: right, he’s turned.

I said, ‘Lay off him, won’t you?’

Dawson, who was walking over to the beer barrels yet again, turned and said, ‘Watch it, copper. I’ll stop the bloody clock on you.’

The room fell quiet at that, and there came only the sound of the storm. Scholes was eyeing me, looking apprehensive. I saw that Oliver Butler had returned, and that he was soaking wet but grinning by the door as he looked back and forth between Dawson and me. Dawson necked another pint rapidly as Oamer called, ‘That’s enough, Dawson. Time for some shut-eye.’

Dawson turned a questioning scowl on Oamer.

‘Bed,’ said Oamer.

‘Bide,’ said Dawson, shooting Oamer’s favourite word back at him.

I said, ‘Turn in, Dawson,’ and it was a deliberate provocation, since I had no authority to order him anywhere.

‘I don’t see your fucking stripe,’ he said.

Well, we were right back in the Bootham Hotel, with Oamer in place of the Chief. The difference was that the Chief could lay out any man. I walked towards Dawson; he walked towards me. I heard the ocean creaking, the wind ramming the walls, the strange whirlings of hot air within the stove. Part of me thought: I’ll be in France within the week. I had my passage booked. Giant fucking Saxons will be waiting to put my lights out. For a certainty, one of them’s going to succeed – and the condemned man doesn’t have to take lip from anyone. As we closed, Dawson said, ‘Here comes the constabulary,’ and he was holding his pint glass in such a way that I couldn’t tell whether he meant to drink from it or crown me with it. I ducked back; he ducked back; I came forward again with fists raised; Dawson came forwards likewise, but then he ducked back again for no good reason, slipped and cracked his head on one of the barrels.

‘You’ll pay for that, copper,’ he said, and I was caught between laughing and looking out for a bit of assistance, because Dawson had smashed his glass in the fall, and he was coming at me with the jagged edge of it.

‘You should never drink,’ I said.

‘It’s the likes of you that drive me to it, copper,’ said Dawson.

I looked down at my hands, and spat on them as we closed again. I didn’t know why, but I’d seen the Chief do it. I put my fists forward, and the broken glass, which Dawson happened to be swinging at that moment whisked against the edge of my right hand. There was a line of blood over the two outermost knuckles. Dawson had seen it; he looked… I would say surprised. I don’t believe any other man in the hall had noticed the blood, but a moment later it was just… people in motion, the room turning round, boots trampling on the broken glass, the roaring of the storm all around. I couldn’t get a belt in at Dawson, and he couldn’t get one in at me. The two of us were muffled by others… and it was Oliver Butler who was between us: Oliver Butler and Oamer, and I believed that even young Tinsley was involved. But it was Butler who’d come in first, and kept Dawson from me.

Dawson sat down on the edge of the stage, dazed, shaking his head. Oamer walked over to him, and a deal was struck between them. Dawson would have one more pint then go off. Meantime, Oliver Butler walked (dead straight, for he could hold his beer) over to his brothers, who were wrestling near the stove – which seemed to have been brought on by the sight of the other scrap. Butler said, ‘Time for the boys to turn in now,’ and a deal was struck there, too:

‘One more go on t’ ’oops, Ol,’ said Andy, or Roy. (They called their brother ‘Ol’, his full name being too much of a mouthful in their rapid patter.)

The two hurried back to the board, and played again in the way they’d started out the last time. Andy pitched his three hoops as Roy yelled, ‘Missed, Andy-lad… Missed Andy-lad… Missed Andy-lad,’ then Roy started his turn. When the first hoop missed, and Andy shouted, ‘Missed, Roy-boy!’ Oamer held up his hands:

‘We’ll take the rest as read, I think.’

They paid him no mind, and completed the ritual. Oliver then asked them, ‘Do the boys need to pay a visit?’

The pair clapped their caps on their heads, then one of them turned and opened the door. When they saw the storm, they both said ‘Oh mother!’ before dashing out into it with great enthusiasm. A few minutes later, they came back laughing (and sodden), and trooped off to the back rooms, with Oliver Butler following.

‘Rum,’ observed Oamer, who was standing near the stove, pipe in hand, and I wondered what it would take to stir him up. Nothing had done so far.

At quarter after ten, he and I put out the lamps, all except one, and when Oamer went off to his kip, I settled down by this remaining light with the Yorkshire Post, since I was too squiffed for The Count of Monte Cristo, which I had in fact yet to start reading.

But I couldn’t concentrate, so I examined my cut knuckle. The cut would be practically gone by morning. My mind was full of thoughts of France. I stood up, rounded up the stray glasses and put them near the barrels on the stage. The stove was still burning, and the door was open. I closed it, in case sparks might blow out. Oamer had left the message from Captain Quinn about our posting, and the list of valorous railway-men folded together on the table top, and I didn’t touch those. I then made for the warren of rooms at the rear. The men slept on their groundsheets with greatcoats over, and folded tunics for pillows. I searched out an unoccupied room with a lit candle in my hand. All the doors were ajar, or not there at all, and it was like a little exhibition of sleeping men. Young Tinsley and Dawson were both well away in the first two booths, while Scholes slept with a sort of smile on his face – music running through his head, perhaps, and not thoughts of France. I’d not seen him smile since the day of his enlistment. One thing Oamer and Butler had in common: their quarters were neat, and they both kept hair brushes by their pillows. The next room was empty, and that was because the twins had shared, and they both occupied the next one along. They lay down next to each other, but were not asleep. They had not made pillows of their tunics, and their discarded uniforms lay in a trail between the door and where they lay. There was a candle stub between them, and as I looked in (neither saw me, I was certain of it), one of the pair blew it out.

‘I see it’s gone dark in here,’ said the other.

‘You can’t see in the dark,’ said the first, and that set them both spluttering with laughter.

My own room smelt of distemper; it held three pasteboard boxes full of old screws. It had a little window, too. I looked through it, and the storm was still there.

I was woken by the sound of a motor; I stood and walked over to the window. There was a guilty look about the weather, as though it was aware of having overdone it the night before. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the tangled wrecks of half a dozen ships on the sand, but there was only the gentlest breeze, a milkiness to the waters, and a War Department van pulling to a halt. It was the breakfast bloke from the farm. I was bursting for a piss, but otherwise feeling not too bad, considering. I pulled on my boots and walked out, past the gallery of sleepers. All the blokes seemed arranged as when I’d turned in, down to the trail of clothes leading between the door of the twins’ room and the twins themselves.

The bloke had the back of his van open and the hot boxes were stacked in there.