'Five quid,' continued the clerk, looking only a bit surprised at having missed death by an eighth of an inch, 'and I know I've not a cat's chance in hell of seeing the rest.'
Sampson was looking at nobody and nothing. The rake of vans seemed to fidget once more. What was going off on the footplate of that shunting engine, I could only guess.
'I'll settle this,' I said, and Valentine Sampson looked at me:
'You'll fucking what?' he said, with dead eyes.
'I'll settle it,' I said again, rather shakily.
He nodded and, speaking softly for the first time since we'd entered the goods yard, said: 'I know you will, little Allan. I know it.'
I walked up to the train, which was still shifting, restless. It was going to be shifted at any moment… and I didn't step between those wagons for the clerk's sake. It was for my own, for I'd look such a clot if he was brained on my watch. The high side of the acetylene van was on one side, the spirit merchant's van on the other, and as I bent down to the coupling, I thought: I am in the valley of the shadow of death. Going under a train without the knowledge of the driver was not so much against regulations as plain suicide. I pulled up my sleeves. The wagons were loose-coupled, thank Christ – anything else would have been irregular for freight – and there was no vacuum pipe to wrestle with. I lifted the great, greased hook, and just then the train rolled, throwing me down on the sleepers, but there was suddenly freedom and space to one side of me. I stood up to see the back of the spirit van being pulled into darkness. I stood up at the side of the track, and thought I could make out the guard's van in the opposite direction; I was still standing. The engine had taken roughly three quarters of what it wanted. On the footplate, they should have been able to tell by the beat, and the guard would stir himself before long, but we had a couple of minutes while perplexity set in.
Valentine Sampson was walking towards me, the iron bar still in his hand. He flung it down and embraced me, fairly squeezing the life out of me for… Well I counted the time in my head: one, two, three, four, five clear seconds.
'Tell you what,' he said to Miles Hopkins when he'd finally left off, 'we've struck lucky with this one.'
Then he was up in the van, monkey-like again, and Miles Hopkins with him. All the rest happened at a lick: the two in the van grafted away and after a few seconds I saw what looked like a cannon sticking through the door of the van – the thing weighed about as much too, as I found out being the one expected to steady the brute as it was lowered down. It was a white, steel, gas cylinder, evidently full, with a big brass nut on the top, and warnings of fire, explosion and other scrawlings in chalk on the side. Sampson and Hopkins leapt down after it, and the three of us were just about able to manage it as we made our escape towards the wall of the goods yard. This time the clerk led the way, gabbling away as before:
'Ten tons of spuds I've to get away before sparrer-fart, and more besides. I'm going to have the bloody Ai Biscuit Company down on me like a ton of I don't know what, bloody biscuits, I suppose, and all the kid's bloomers to set right. Sacks he charged for, which he shouldn't have; porterage which he should've, he bloody did not…'
We'd come to rest by the goods yard wall – at what turned out to be a gate in the wall, which happened to be open – and the clerk was pointing the way, as though seeing us out of his parlour. There was a sign next to the gate:
'North Eastern Railway: Public Warning. Persons are warned not to Trespass on this Railway or on any of the Lines, Stations, Works or Premises connected therewith. Any person so Trespassing is liable to a Penalty of Fifty Shillings. Signed, C. N. Wilkin, Secretary.'
The three of us heaved up the cylinder again, and carted it through the gate into a black, windy, dog-barking wilderness, where Mike, the Blocker, stood waiting with a pony and cart.
Chapter Fifteen
After we'd been rolling for half a minute, I realised that we were on the cinder track, where the Camerons had been done in. The excitement of events had bolstered me up, but now I wanted to go straight to the Chief with my evidence. I had no time for my own thoughts though, for Mike was looking back at me from his driving seat.
'Reckon I should apologise for lamming you in the face, mate,' he said.
'Right,' I said. 'Well, I'm sorry for calling you a fucking rotter.'
'Fairly brings a tear to the eye, it really does,' said Miles Hopkins, grinning. He was on the perch next to me, while Sampson was crouching over the cylinder. It was as if he wanted to prettify the thing, for he was brushing off the chalked warning that began: 'DANGER! On no account to be used except by…'
I should not have let things get this far.
Instead, I asked, 'What's this thing in aid of, then, mates?' pointing at the white cylinder.
'We'd have been in lumber back then, but for you, Allan,' said Sampson, not answering the question.
He was now rolling the cylinder into a tarpaulin that had lain on the cart. He did it as carefully as though putting a baby in a blanket.
'You were just champion, Allan,' he went on, 'the way you fettled that train…'
Miles Hopkins, the weird smile once again about his lips, began a speech I wasn't keen he should finish:
'How come you knew what was what on the…?'
'Nowt to it,' I said, interrupting.
'You're coming on like anything, Allan,' said Sampson as the pony and cart approached the goods station, the centre of events, once more. The drays were still flowing in, either side of the clock house that stood in front of the entrance.
We struck Leeman Road before turning into Station Road, right in front of the railway offices. There was a small dark court between the offices and the building facing, which had been the old station hotel, and was now used for storage. The main doors of each building faced one another, with their gas lamps dangling above, but the lamp over the entrance to the store was never lit. Beyond the two buildings ran a cobbled lane called Tanner Row, which was one long terrace of tall black houses. Set in the middle of that terrace, and overseeing the stand-off between the old hotel and the offices was a pub: the Grapes. Its front window was in three sections, and each one carried a word. The three words glowed out darkly towards us: 'Wines' 'And' 'Spirits'.
Sampson, with one foot steadying the gas cylinder, was looking thoughtful.
'What's the next business?' I asked.
Sampson's and Hopkins's eyes locked.
Sampson said, 'A week Sunday?' speaking more to Miles Hopkins than to me.
He got the nod from Hopkins, and said again 'A week Sunday', this time addressing me.
'Quite a long space between now and then,' I said, and it was queer: I felt somehow let down. I would be back to waiting and worrying for a week. Sampson nodded, seemingly to himself. I risked another question. 'Will that be the day of the big show?' I said,'… the great doing?' 'We've a few more movables to collect first,' said Hopkins, and I thought it a little odd that he should have answered the question. Mike had turned us over the river by Lendal Bridge, and along Blake Street, where half a dozen gas standards awaited us, and no people. 'Where are we to meet then?' I asked. I noticed another glance fired between our leader and his lieutenant. At the end of it, Miles Hopkins shrugged, and Sampson looked down at his boots, and his beloved gas cylinder. I knew what he was about: he was revolving in his mind the low pubs of York. 'The Grapes,' he said, looking up. 'The one we've just passed?' I said, for there were half a dozen houses called the Grapes in York. The one in Tanner Row was a smart place, frequented by a superior grade of clerk. It was as though, having netted the cylinder, the gang could afford to put on swank. I decided to go fishing again. 'So it's one more little job, with a big one to follow?' Sampson nodded. 'Big one's a little way off, though.' 'What he's saying' said Hopkins, nodding towards me, 'is that he's not had his wages.' He was wrong over that, but I was glad he'd spoken up. The only reason I'd not mentioned the matter of payment was that I was a policeman playing a double game – simple as that. Sampson put his hand in his pocket book, and after some thought gave me a pound, saying: 'You kept the line beautifully today, kidder.'
