misfortunes of others.
I turned aside from the door, closed it, retreated back into the office in spite of the heat (I was trying to banish the image of Wright, I suppose). For some reason, I walked over to the office notice-board. A photographic portrait of Constable Scholes had been pinned there. Why? I had no notion. It was not official; he was not in uniform. Perhaps he thought it flattering, and had put it up for swank. Or had someone put it there as a joke? I looked at the face, considering: moustache went down, eyes went down;
I heard bootsteps from outside; the door banged open, bringing in the noise of a train whistle, traces of a hot black cloud, and Old Man Wright. I distinctly recall thinking: there’s a bloody great empty space in the middle of this notice-board, when Wright leant over my shoulder and fixed a notice into that very spot with a single pin. I read:
PROPOSED FORMATION OF A NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY BATTALION
In order to meet the case of those who would prefer to enlist among men whom they know, application has been made to Lord Kitchener for authority to enrol a North Eastern Railway Battalion of his new Army, and if sufficient support is given it is hoped that sanction will be obtained. The Directors feel that many men who might otherwise hesitate to serve among strangers would be prepared to join such a battalion.
All trained men 45 years of age and under and untrained men 19 to 35 years of age should apply to their District Officers for full information.
‘Bugger,’ I said, and Wright gave out a single bark of laughter. I now did turn about, and he was watching me with a kind of smirk.
‘Actually, I’d been
Wright pulled a face, as if to say: ‘Don’t come it.’
‘You’ll be training at Hull,’ he said. ‘They’ve commandeered Alexandra Dock.’
I figured the docks at Hull, and could picture nothing but rain.
Wright himself was out of it, of course, being in the middle sixties, as was the Chief. The difference was that the Chief resented the fact. The first Kitchener appeals posted up about York had asked for men aged up to thirty, which had put
‘I must do my duty,’ I said to Old Man Wright, ‘England’s in peril.’
‘Too bloody true,’ he said, sitting down at his desk and unfolding that day’s edition of the
‘A hundred and sixty-three killed…’ he said. Looking up at me, he added, ‘Over
According to the
I decided to scout him out, and as I stepped out onto platform four, a train came in and I caught a small shower of condensed steam. Our little girl, Sylvia, had a word for this: a ‘train cloud’. Not a rain cloud, but a train cloud. She was clever with words. The fireman, leaning off the footplate, gave me a grin, which might have been by way of apology. I gave him a wave back anyhow. Footplate men were in reserved occupations, so he could afford to smile.
A man sat on a baggage trolley outside the First Class waiting room. His suit told me he wanted to be
I knew that porter – name of Bernard Dawson – by reputation. He was from down south. He was evidently fond of a glass of wallop, and his face was crumpled in such a way that you could tell he was a cockney just by looking at him. Also his moustache was famous on York station. It was hardly there. It was as if he’d drunk some brown Windsor soup about a week before and not washed since. The Night Station Master, Samuels, had a campaign against it, said it put off the passengers, that Dawson should either shave or let it grow out. But Dawson paid no mind. He was his own man. That said, he didn’t take against the man with the topper.
‘Sorry, guv,’ he said.
Topper hadn’t heard him, since he was being pestered by his wife in the carriage doorway: ‘But I want a change of magazine’, she was saying.
Ahead, and to the left of me, two engines stood alongside each other at the bay platforms, three and two. One of the North Eastern’s 4-6-0s and one of Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway’s of the same wheel arrangement. A lad looked on, comparing them. I’d seen him about; I believed he was a cleaner in the North Shed, an aspirant driver as I’d once been myself. The first engine – ours – was not over-clean, whereas the other gleamed.
I nodded at the kid, saying, ‘I reckon the Lanky’s shown us up there.’
‘That’s just what I was thinking,’ said the lad, and he coloured up, being a loyal company servant. Beyond him, I saw two gangers or platelayers entering the station from the south end: two blokes who looked like gypsies – dark, and long-haired; they were railwaymen, but dressed anyhow, in old corduroy suits. That was one privilege of the permanent way men; another was that they could enter a station by walking on the tracks. There weren’t too many besides those.
I walked through the ticket gate, with hands in pockets. It was something to be able to saunter in and out of the principal traffic centre of the North without needing a ticket; it was something to be a three pound ten a week man set fair for promotion to inspector. It was something, but not enough. I had been growing bored, and the thought of fighting in a war excited as well as scared me. For much of the past few years, I had lived a quiet life under the iron station arches, like Jonah sleeping in the belly of the whale.
I crossed in front of the bookstall. ‘A Railway Battalion’ I read, on the board advertising that day’s
‘First Class return?’ I heard a clerk calling out to a man in a dinty bowler. ‘That’ll be four pounds ten and six!’
Dinty bowler turned his head aside, thinking it over.
‘Maybe not, eh?’ the ticket clerk yelled through the glass.
Beyond him, in the hot darkness of the booking office, I saw the ticket office deputy superintendent. I saw him in profile. He was not shouting, but smoking a pipe and staring into the middle distance. He was of an age with me but looked older; a little overweight, freckled, with wavy red hair – and quiet natured, evidently something of an intellect. He’d once said something about Homer, the ancient Greek, and so the ticket clerks all called him ‘Oamer’. I couldn’t recall his right name. Would