shovel, I expected to find 1008 in the shed – put there by her driver. But she remained over the pit on the in-road with Kendall now up on the footplate. There was a quantity of engines round about, most being prepared for stabling, and there were happy shouts coming up from the blokes at work, whether in the engines, on top of them, or under. It was coming up to the time when they'd stroll off to the pubs for the latch- lifter (first pint of the evening) and a smoke. To these shouts, I joined my own, for I called over to Kendall: 'Can I take her in myself?' Like most firemen I was keen for any scraps of driving I could get.
He climbed down and I climbed up, and I thought he looked a little dazed. We exchanged some words during this crossing over: 'Warmed the brake, have you, Terry?' I said. T have that,' he replied. There was nothing to that conversation; we were as casual as you like, but it touched an important matter. It was necessary to give a couple of tugs on the engine brake after the engine had been at a stand – this to put steam into its chambers, and prevent condensation occurring when it was next used in anger. If the chambers were not warmed, and condensation occurred, the brake would not do its job.
There was no fire in 1008, but there was steam in the boiler, and that would take her into the shed. It was magical: an engine rolling under the power of a memory. I gave a scream on the whistle, and a yank on the regulator, not thinking about the brake. I did not need to warm it, for Grandfather Kendall had told me he'd done that.
At the very moment 1008 went under the shed roof I knew something was amiss: not with the engine, but with the whole business of engines and engine sheds. This beast was meant to be at large outdoors, and now it was confined to a building, and, as we rolled on, past the workbenches on the south wall of the shed, I thought: this is like a lion in a living room; it is not right.
I pulled the brake as 1008 approached its berth. Nothing. I pulled again, only this time I did so as a dead man.
'Want to know what brought me to this?' the little clerk was saying.
'Eh?' I said.
'Miles away, en't you?' said the clerk.
The sparks were still flowing from the cutting flame in the little room before us.
'I said 'Do you want to know what brought me to this?'' repeated the clerk.
'I shouldn't think there's any great mystery over that' I said, replacing my glasses.
'I've been with this company since I quit school. I'm fifty- two now. This year I rose to thirty bob a week, and it en't enough – not when you've a wife and kids, and ten bob a week rent to pay. Even so, I'd always operated the rule book to the letter. No surreptitious removal by yours truly of little titbits from the goods yard.'
He turned and looked at me.
'Don't believe me, do you?'
I shrugged. My mind was still at Sowerby Bridge, my eyes were on the flying sparks.
'Six months back, I saw a fellow having his boots cleaned on Coney Street. Dazzled up lovely they were, by that little bootblack in livery outside the Black Swan. Do you know the fellow?'
I nodded; I knew the chap. He had deformed hands – no thumbs – but was a marvel with a shammy leather.
'Well, I was minded to have my own boots done,' the clerk continued, 'seeing the job he'd done for the other fellow, so I walked up and sat down on his chair, and after he'd done the first boot, I said, 'By the way, pal, how much is it?' He said, 'It's a tanner, guv', and I stood up there and then, gave him thruppence for the one boot he'd done, and walked off. The price was too high, and I en't saying it was unreasonable, but I couldn't run to it.'
The sparks had stopped now. Sampson and the young fellow were crouching over the safe. Sampson was looking chuffed.
'It's pissing through it,' I thought I heard him say. 'Well that was when the light dawned,' the clerk was saying.'I looked down at that one clean boot all the rest of the day, and a fortnight later, I heard of a bloke who would be willing to supplement my wages.'
He nodded towards Sampson, who was back at his metal cutting.
'It was him, your governor, Duncannon. Of course he's not an easy bloke to get along with, but if I hadn't made his acquaintance I'd have run into debt six month since. Practically kept me out of the workhouse, he has.'
'And how will you feel when you come to serve your term?' I said.
'Beg pardon?' he said, in a startled voice. When I made no further remark, he rose to his feet, saying: 'Just going to see how things are getting on.'
He walked towards the office where, I noticed, the sparks had again stopped.
'Taking your flipping time, en't you?' the clerk asked Sampson, who was pushing his goggles up onto his forehead with one gloved hand.
'We're done now,' said Sampson. 'Here, you – catch.' I believe that I tried to reverse that instruction, by shouting 'Don't catch' as the rough oblong of red-hot steel flew towards the little clerk. But he did catch it.
PART FIVE
The Crack Boat
Chapter Twenty-one
Whatever had happened to his hands, the clerk could run, and he could scream, and it was as if this scream was the particular cause of an event that had been inevitable all along: the clerk running out of the shed mouth, and Sampson calmly making towards the shed mouth while shooting the revolver at the clerk.
I ran at Sampson as one, two, three shots were fired. As the fourth bullet was loosed, I crashed into the side of Sampson roaring 'Police!'
Sampson went down with the gun in his hand, and before any expression could come over his features, I heard Miles Hopkins calling, 'He's fucking right n' all!'
From down on the ground, I saw a figure walking along the tracks towards us from the southerly end of the station. As I watched, the man's thin hair blew upright in the breeze that had come with the dawn, and then it fell again. What I had said had miraculously turned out to be the truth, for it was the Chief. He wore his long overcoat, and was carrying a walking stick, except that this stick never touched the ground. It was no stick but a rifle. Somebody had noticed the disturbance in the shed, and he had been sent for. A call boy would have gone out from the station. The clerk was between us and the Chief. He was a dark, low shape crawling along one of the tracks towards the station, and then he was just a dark low shape. The Chief was hard by him now, crouching down. After a moment, he stood up and walked on. Valentine Sampson was frozen into a firing position, gun pointed at the Chief. It seemed impossible that Sampson would ever move. He was like a signpost, and Miles Hopkins was next to him, talking fast, reasonable-like, saying: 'Put the gun down, we can take the readies and be out of here…'
Sampson seemed to think it over for a second.
'I'll fire once more; see us right,' he said, and immediately did so.
The Chief went down.
Sampson and Hopkins were straight into the office, pulling money out of the hole in the safe, and putting it into the sack that the clerk had been made to carry. I looked out again. The clerk was still down; the Chief was still down. Behind them, the station was making its own dawn: a few more gas lamps lit as work started; a few men moving about. Had they heard the shots? One engine was in – standing at one of the bay platforms on the 'down' side, and so looking the wrong way. I looked sidelong to Sampson and Hopkins, still stowing money in the bag. Of the young bloke, I could see no sign. I started to run for the shed mouth, and the Chief rose to his feet from down
