over with tarpaulins, like beds with the top covers pulled right up – beds with a body lying in them. A fellow walked alongside it, a hand lamp swinging in his hand. As he approached, I whispered to Miles Hopkins: 'Is he one of our lot?' Miles shook his head, and the man with a lantern seemed a hero as he passed by with nothing more than a nod. He had not been 'fixed' in the parlance of Sampson and Hopkins; he would not have to go down in my report. He was a railwayman of the right sort. He had the greyhound looks of a driver, and I had a bet with myself that he was in the running department.
I looked again at the ink-spiller walking ahead of us, alongside Sampson. He was nattering away in an under- breath to our leader, but getting precious little back in return. I could not hear their speech because of the jangle and clang of the sidings, and the great boom of the passenger station away to our left. We had walked through into an area where it was not so much the goods that were being moved as entire wagons and trains – these were the marshalling yards. A line of hopper wagons kept pace with us to our left, winched forward by a capstan, hydraulic powered, attended by blokes in long coats, one of them working the treadle with his foot. Beyond it, a horse walked a line towing a single wagon full of broken wood and metal – a wagon full of nothing. There was a great crash to the other side, and a rake of vans, shoved by a pilot engine, moved on their own as though blown by the wind. The shunter trotting beside like a cowherd with his long braking stick in his hand was half in control of those vans, and half not… for any marshalling yard was a wild and dangerous spot.
Gaslight came and went as we marched on; braziers and blokes came and went. These gangs of fellows would look up to us, and we would walk on, and I'd think; good for you, mates, you're off the hook.
Ahead of us, there was a conference under a gas lamp between the ink-spiller and Sampson. As a result of this exchange we now struck out to our right, crossing tracks by barrow boards, proceeding away from the direction of the passenger station. We came to a tall row of vans, each with the same slogan on the side: 'This Van Contains 500,000 Tins of Rowntree's King Chocolate'. It was a private siding for Rowntree's factory, and the thought crossed my mind: we're never going to have sweetmeats away, are we?
Hard by the line of chocolate vans was a shunter's cabin made of old sleepers but half gone west. The clerk and Sampson walked up to it, and the clerk ducked inside, emerging presently with a long iron bar – a crowbar, I saw, as he came closer – and a hand lantern.
'These'll see you right,' he was saying.
We now moved on, same direction as before. There were just two shorter sidings beyond the chocolate road, before the limit of the railway territory was marked by a high brick wall. One of the sidings was a van kip – half a dozen reserve brake vans on a slope; the other was a rake of vans on which the names of different companies were painted:
'I have a copy of the manifest here,' the clerk was saying to Sampson. 'It's the fourth from the right, you want.'
I made out the names of the three vans directly before us: 'Finsbury Distillery Company', 'Morrison and Co., Sail Makers amp; Co., Rotherhithe', 'Nairn Bros, Spirit Merchants, Strand'. To either side, the train stretched away into darkness.
Sampson was nodding: 'All for London, right?'
'No, no,' said the clerk, 'all from London. This is a 'down' road, you see. 'Down' is away from London, while your 'up' lines… they take you to it.'
Sampson fixed a glare on the little man. There was a pause; the wind made a winding sound, as if working up to something. Sampson spat:
'Where they all off to?' he said, nodding again towards the vans.
'All different places. See, they're about to be cut. The Morrison and Co. – that's for South Shields. The Spirit van – that's…'
'Leave off for Christ's sake,' said Sampson, seizing the crowbar and lamp from the clerk. 'How long are they going to remain?'
'I have it set down just here,' said the clerk, turning the pages of the manifest; but he couldn't make it out in the darkness, and Sampson was already striding off over the cinder road towards a fourth van. As he closed on it, the white- painted name seemed to flare up: 'Acetylene Illuminating Company, Queen's Road, South Lambeth, London, S.W.'
Well, I'd seen those words before: in the Occurrence file handed me by Weatherill.
Sampson set down the lantern by the track and, gaining a foothold on the bogey, began scaling the van like a mountaineer on a rock face.
'New thing for me, this is,' said the clerk, looking on.
No answer from Miles Hopkins, who was watching his partner with a worried look. Sampson was trying to jemmy open the door on the van, which was locked with a padlock, and sealed with wire and a ball of wax.
'Come away, you bastard!' roared Sampson, who was spread out against the van.
'… Been writing abstracts all morning,' continued the clerk.
No reply again from Hopkins.
'I spent the best part of the afternoon consigning potatoes…'
Hopkins looked around, and down, at the little fellow.
'Best thing to do with 'em,' he said.
As Sampson grafted away with the crowbar, I heard the beat of an engine away to our right, towards the front of the rake of vans. This'll put a crimp in, I thought… If they're going to pull the vans away… Sampson continued to labour with the jemmy, and curse at the lock, while the talkative little clerk tried his luck with me:
'We had a new lad on this week,' he said. 'Silly bugger was charging for the weight of the sacks as well as the spuds.'
He looked up at me.
'You don't do that.'
'I know,' I said, and watched Miles Hopkins as I did so, but his eyes were stuck on Sampson. I wanted to say to the goods clerk: I'm on your side, pal, but then I thought: I'm not on his side. My job is to see him put away. I thought of asking his name – for the report – but he wouldn't have given it, and I would hardly have been able to bear hearing it if he had.
I looked again at the van. Acetylene was used to give light, but it could also be used in place of coal gas for burning through metal and was so used in any up-to-date engine shed. I looked down at the clerk: 'How long you been with the company?' I asked him. 'Nigh on forty year, and no bloody pay increase in ten. Four nippers I have, it just won't do… A fellow must keep his soul in his body. How long you been working for Mr Duncannon?' He was nodding towards Sampson; this was evidently the name he knew him by. 'About an hour,' I said. Sampson had climbed down from the van, the door still fast. But no: as he raised his lamp, I could see that the lock was busted, that the thin wire of the seal was floating in the wind as Sampson drew back the great sliding door like a mesmerist revealing something miraculous. I could make out only blackness inside, though. 'Bingo!' said the clerk. 'Nobbut six penn'orth o' steel, those padlocks!' As Sampson strode back towards us, there came a jangle from the right hand end of the rake. He wheeled about at the noise, and the vans jumped… then they settled again. 'They'll not move till midnight, I swear,' said the clerk. Sampson had the crowbar raised as he closed on the clerk. 'I'll bloody coffin you,' he was saying. 'I en't lying,' said the clerk. I'd taken his constant nattering as a sign of nerves, but he was turning out to have a lot of neck. 'How much money have you had off us?' said Sampson, still with the crowbar raised. 'Five quid,' said the clerk, 'and the rest promised, but it ought to've been ten quid down, that was the agreement as you know very well. We shook on that – thee and me.' The clerkly language was going to pot now. '… And that chap was looking on…' He pointed to Miles Hopkins. 'Ten quid down, and ten to follow, you said, if I could show you to the acetylene van. Well there it bloody is!'
'It's not going to be there for long though, is it?' Hopkins said quietly.
Squinting through the bogies of the vans before us, I saw a pair of boots on the far side. They paused, turned, walked. That would be the goods guard or shunter, signalling to the engine driver.
'I've never worked out why you don't order the stuff direct from the bloody company in London,' said the clerk.
Sampson shook his head as he swung the iron.
At the same moment Hopkins called 'Sam!' which might've been enough warning for the clerk, who any rate stepped back from a blow that would have done for him, had it struck him.
