The Necropolis Railway

Chapter Twelve

Thursday 3 December

I did not see Vincent until that Thursday. He was in the cleaners' mess eating his snap, and as I entered he walked out straight away, leaving some onion skins behind. That was probably because he'd heard I'd been on the footplate of Thirty-One, or because he was still not firing on the half despite the death of Mike; or just because he had his knife into me the same as everyone else. I didn't have the opportunity to tell him what I thought about Mike, which was just as well, because Vincent was the fifty-face man, and you couldn't tell him your innermost thoughts.

At the end of that day I kept a new promise I had made to myself (for I had nobody else to make it to): I went into the Turnstile, the pub just outside the engine-shed gates, and I dare say I was one of the few fellows ever to have stepped in there alone and with no prospects of a chat. It was a bare, blank place with two bars separated by a screen: there was no difference between the two, but one was for footplate men, the other for all the rest of the blokes. I don't know why, but I liked it; I thought it was the heart of something – and it was packed out.

I had only seen pubs from the jug-and-bottle doors, where Dad would send me from time to time, but as I said, he did not hold with taking a drink inside a pub. He wasn't church and he wasn't chapel or anything at all in the religious line; I suppose it came down to this: that a pub was a place where smart boots cut no ice.

I had stepped into the part that was for 'the rest'. Fighting my way to the bar, I got myself what the fellow in front had asked for: a glass of 'half and half. I didn't know what either half was, but after one sip I knew I'd better go carefully with it. The engine men, on the other side, took their ale in pewters. I looked all about me, watching the blokes chat, and wondered how it had come about that I was watching these revels but not joining in the fun. Presently I spied Flannagan, the charge cleaner. With his funny legs, this fellow was made for leaning up against a bar and that's what he was doing. As he talked to two young fellows I'd seen about the place cleaning, fetching tea for Flannagan and so on, I thought that perhaps one of my troubles – when it came to understanding all the exploits going on about me and getting myself some pals, which probably went hand in hand – was that I had not yet stood a drink for any Nine Elms man. The fact was that I had not stood anybody a drink anywhere, but I knew it was a manly sort of thing, and this was the place to start.

'Two gallons of linseed oil,' Flannagan was drawling, 'one gallon of paraffin, about a pint of bloody Brasso…' As I moved towards him with a weird sort of smile fixed onto my face, his talk gradually got slower as though he was a clockwork toy winding down, and when I was right alongside him, he stopped completely, with nothing but a look of disgust left on his face.

I had forgotten that the fellow to be bought a drink had to want to have one bought for him. So I turned away, and it immediately seemed that Flannagan got wound up again. 'Half a ton of rags, about a mile of bloody emery paper -' 'You're exaggerating now,' said one of the lads near him.

'I'm fucking telling you,' said Flannagan, 'and it still comes off black as night. That fucking engine was built dirty.'

'Get away, Mr Flannagan,' said one of the young fellows -but in a scared voice.

Back at the bar I tried to steady myself after this latest calamity. Looking up, I spotted Arthur Hunt in the drivers' part. Vincent was on one side of him, Rose on the other. Vincent shouldn't really have been in there, since, although he was passed, he hadn't gone up. But he was Hunt's nephew, and what Hunt said went. Hunt was smoking a cigar, his sharp nose going forwards and his hair swept back. Vincent was quiet, just watching his uncle as though he was a god.

Barney Rose was looking semi-drunk, but Hunt was a different person altogether in the company of another engine man, even one as slack as Rose. I put my anxieties about the pair of them aside, and saw two engine men enjoying a drink after their turn, picturing them both on express rails, slamming down the lawn to Bournemouth.

'Dear old Teddy?' Rose suddenly said to Hunt, and it was evidently a great crack because they both laughed a good deal. It was strange to see Hunt do this because his face altered out of all recognition. Rose said, 'Chamberlain.'

'Joseph Chamberlain?' said Hunt in a thoughtful sort of way, rising as he did so and walking towards the bar. 'Now if that gentleman had not had all the advantages this world has to offer,' he called back to Rose, 'then I think -' 'I've got it,' called Rose. 'Plumber!'

Hunt purchased two more pewters of beer. 'I'm not so sure,' he said, going back with the ale. 'I mean to say, there's a fair amount of skill in that.'

Rose took a long pull on his beer. 'Plumber's mate, then,' he said after a while. 'What are the duties of a plumber's mate?' asked Hunt.

'Carrying spanners,' said Rose. 'Brewing up for the plumber.' Hunt nodded. 'And do you need certificates for it?'

'I'm sure that a couple of testimonials would suffice to get you a start in that line.'

'But where would a clot like Chamberlain get a decent testimonial?' 'Mr Balfour might give him one?'

'Mmm,' said Hunt, and I hoped he was going to smile again, because I liked to see what happened to his face when this novelty occurred. But thinking better of this, I finished my drink and left before he could look up and see me and have his evening spoiled.