But that shock was immediately overtaken by a second one, for just at that moment, the door to the snooker hall opened, and the barmaid walked out looking determined. It was horrible to see her at large, out from behind her bar. I had made the thing happen by willing it not to, and all I could do was turn away from her as she approached and move towards the main door.
'Evening, gents,' she said, as she approached the door in my wake.
Only Sampson responded.
'Rain's coming in,' he said, and even as he did so, she pushed the door closed, saying,'… Lot of other strange articles besides.'
The door shut on her voice, and on the band of burglars. I was outside and they were in. Here was freedom at last – I could run away and give the alarm. But instead I just stood there and counted to five before the door crashed open and they all came out in Indian file, Sampson at the head, saying:
'Will you walk alongside me, little Allan?'
Why had I remained? Perhaps the answer was something to do with the biblical words quoted by friend Lund: 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Sampson placed his right arm very gently about my shoulder, but his friendliness was not a safe guide to anything. As we walked, his free arm was rummaging in one of his pockets. He picked out two tenners and handed them over to me, saying, 'More to come later… Now do you have any questions for me, little brother?'
'Yes'1 said. 'Where are we going, and what are we doing?'
We were certainly not going towards the Lost Luggage Office, but had turned left into the tracks and shadows of the Rhubarb Sidings, where half a dozen wagons stood solitary. They'd either been a train or were destined to become one but, it being Sunday evening, any shunting would most likely be put off till morning. So they just stood, like a lot of people in a room who didn't get on, and would not speak to each other.
'Tonight' said Sampson, 'we're going to have away two thousand pounds.'
I immediately thought of the new villas along Thorpe-on- Ouse Road. You could buy the whole row for two grand. Sampson – the explanation completed as far as he was concerned – was now striking out across the tracks towards the buildings that lay behind the Lost Luggage Office. These were workshops where until lately a good many of the Company's engines had been built, but now the work had been moved, perhaps to Carlisle. I'd read of the change somewhere. The door of the first empty engine shop stood open. The inside was dark. I couldn't see a bit, but could guess at the size of the place by the extra coldness, and the ringing sound of a man's boots. It was the newcomer, the youngster, going on ahead. Hopkins was now standing alongside me, Sampson having moved forward with the new bloke.
'What's going off?' I asked Hopkins.
'… Scouting around for the bull's-eye they left lying about on the last visit,' he said.
For a minute nothing occurred except for bell-like sounds from the shed interior.
A light then flickered from twenty yards off, like something looking for balance. The bull's-eye lantern had been found. We moved towards it, as the little flame was replaced by a wide, soft red beam. It roved in a half circle around the shed showing a lake of oil on the stone floor, a row of barrels, a tangle of broken bogeys, and then a sight that stopped the breath on my lips: a long locomotive swinging in the middle of air, like a bear rearing on its hind legs. Nobody spoke, for it looked like a hanged man, too. It was Sampson had hold of the lamp; he played it over the dangling engine. It was only a boiler in fact, swinging at a forty-five-degree angle, suspended at the firebox end from the chains of an overhead crane.
The beam was at rest now, showing nothing but dust and cinders moving in the cold air – a red cloud. We caught up with Sampson, and he moved off again. Presently, he came to a stop, with the light steady again, picking out a tarpaulin. The young bloke pulled it away, to reveal not one but two cylinders half buried in a pile of coal with a sackful of stuff lying between them.
'There's the acetylene,' said the young bloke, 'and there's your oxygen.'
The second cylinder was a little bigger than the first – both were taller than a man. The first was the white one that we'd nicked from the goods yard. The second – the oxygen cylinder – was the colour of rust.
'Now, will it act?' said Sampson, and he fished in the sack for a tool with which he unloosened the top nut on the cylinder. The oxygen came out, with the sound of a man with his finger to his lips saying 'Shhh!' for a long time.
'… Tell you what'd be a bit of a lark,' Sampson said, over the noise of the leaking gas,'… send a bloke in here at night, give him a box of matches… put him to search out the cause of this noise. He'd find it all right… but it'd be the last thing he did.'
He turned towards the young bloke, saying, 'What do you reckon to that, Tim?' Silence for a moment, before the young bloke answered: 'You'd need a fair amount of oxygen to cause a bang. It's the acetylene that's the dangerous stuff.' Sampson thought about this for a minute, before asking: 'Can I smoke when I'm on the job?' 'That's right out,' said the young bloke. Sampson and Tim were now heaving the oxygen cylinder on to their shoulders. Sampson then directed his lamp towards the second cylinder and the sack, before flicking the light towards Miles Hopkins. 'You and Allan take the tank, mate,' he said. 'And you…' he added, flicking the beam at the little clerk,'… you fetch the sack.' He and the young bloke led off, with the red beam of light showing the way between the black objects inside the shed. The two of us had all on to carry the cylinder -1 was beginning to see why I was needed. Behind us, the little clerk was saying: '… Only moved under special certificate, those things are.' We all walked on, as the clerk continued: 'A carbon of every document touching the movement of inflammable gases is forwarded to a special office at the clearing house.' He was at my heels now, saying: 'You seem a little out of your element here, pal.' 'Stow it,' I said. There was just the length of the cylinder between myself and Miles Hopkins, and I didn't want the clerk planting suspicions in his head. 'You're just the quiet sort, I suppose.' 'Aye,' said Hopkins from up ahead, 'and we could do with a few more like him.'
Chapter Twenty
We came out of the old loco erecting shop, and turned right, heading still further into the railway lands, and away from the city proper. We were in a place not meant for boots, but for wheels, and it was stumbling progress that we made towards wherever we were going. We'd left the Rhubarb Sidings behind now, and come to the railway and carriage sidings that lay alongside the dozen lines coming from the south into the station.
After a couple of minutes, we stopped for a breather, setting the cylinders down on the black track ballast before a row of sleeping carriages – Great Northern and North Eastern Joint Stock – and that's just what they were doing: sleeping. They screened us from the running lines leading to the station, so I could not see the train that went rocking past just at that moment with a tired, Sunday-night rhythm. Only it was probably Monday by now.
We trooped on, crossing the running lines. Why were there no watchmen about? The betting was that Sampson had fixed them, too. We crossed the 'up' tracks, and were about to step on to the 'down' lines when the young bloke pointed right. A train was at a stand within the station, down side. It would be heading out shortly. We set down the cylinders, and watched as it fumed under the great station roof. We could see the guard's green lamp moving on the platform alongside the locomotive, and what a fuss-box the bloody man was: to and fro, back and forth beside the boiler of the engine. The cylinder cocks were opened presently, however, and the engine began to move through its cloud of steam.
It rocked along in our direction, and every one of us turned to face away, yet the driver, a friendly sort, gave two screams on his whistle, and not only that (I couldn't help but turn about, so catching a glimpse of this), he also stuck his head out of his side window, and waved at us. He had to stand at a crouch as he did it, for all North Eastern Company engines had the cab windows placed too low. So the fellow had put himself out to be amiable, and got nowt in return. It would be nothing to him, though: he would have his mate to talk to, the tea bottle waiting on the ledge above the fire doors, the prospect of some good running on clear Sunday night lines. I admired the man – already gone from sight, Doncaster bound – and I hated him at the same time.
We picked up the cylinders once again, and I thought of Edwin Lund, searching the Gospels in the Lost Luggage Office, trying to seek out God's way. Was it God who'd set me down on the tracks and not up on the footplate? I had no answer to that, so I thought again of Lund: he was the winder; he turned the rope and I
