The Necropolis Railway

Chapter Twenty

Friday 18 December

On the morning after Smith's funeral, Crook eyed me very closely as I took my token. Walking across the barrow boards towards the shed, I had to stop for one of the two Piano Fronts to come out. Clive Castle was on it. He also gave me a long look, and the only good thing to say was that there was as much curiosity as coldness in it, which I put down to him trying to guess how I would fare with the man who'd brought me on burnt to a cinder.

When the Piano Front had gone past, I saw Vincent and Hunt coming out of the Old Shed talking closely, and I couldn't help but wonder what business had taken them in there.

Then Flannagan was before me: he had one boot in the ash and one on the track, so he was about on a level. He told me, in between a good deal of cursing, to light the fire in Thirty-One because they wanted to find a leak of steam. This was a turn up, and I quite fancied the idea of it, but I said I took my orders from the Governor.

'He's taken sick again,' he said, lurching towards me and putting on a boss, 'so hard lines: Mr Nolan says you'll have your orders from me.'

I followed him up to the engine. 'All the water needed's in the tanks,' he said, and left me to it.

Well, I gave it a go but I still could not throw coal to the front of the box, and the harder I tried, the more my shovel banged against the top of the firehole. I started picking up the lumps and shying them down to the front by hand but even that didn't really come off because they were so heavy. Half an hour later, with bad coal cuts to my hands, I set off to look for kindling, but naturally nobody was helpful because I was the Governor's little favourite and had been Smith's little favourite, and that last gentleman dying didn't seem to have done me any good at all. At the top of the shed I did come across an old ladder, though, which I took back to Thirty-One and began smashing up, feeding the rungs into the firehole. Then I went to the rag store, where a bloke was ripping rags. I said, 'Have you got any soaked in oil?' and he said, 'Fuck off.' So I went over to the oil cans with a wheelbarrow full of rags. The oil cans were upside down in a line in the most freezing part of the shed; there was daylight and cold racing in through holes in the walls all around, piercing me like swords. It was a puzzle why they had the oil in the coldest corner, because when the temperature was below a certain level it would hardly flow. I stood there holding the rags under the oil taps. I knew it wasn't the right way of going about the job, but I doubted anyone would put me straight.

After a while I wheeled my rags back to Thirty-One, and I'd just begun stuffing them in the hole when Arthur Hunt sprang onto the footplate. We stared at each other for a long time. 'Get out of it,' he said, so I started to climb down from the footplate on the other side. 'Not off the engine, you clot,' he said, and there was something about the way he spoke that made me look at his face again, but there was nothing there except the usual fierceness.

His long body suddenly folded, and he was looking through the firehole. 'What's that in there?' he said. 'A ladder,' I said.

He nodded; he didn't seem to think it was so out of the way. 'All right,' he said. 'Go to the stores and get a tin of kerosene. Tell them you've been sent by Lord Rosebury.'

In the stores, they were very surprised to hear me come out with it but Lord Rosebury did the trick, and they gave me the stuff in double-quick time. I fairly ran back – for this turn up had put me in a fever of excitement. Hunt was winding the rags around bits of wood, and shoving them through the firehole door. When he'd done this, he took out a match, lit it, and held the flame between our two faces. He turned and dropped the match in the hole, and the fire started straight off with a soft rolling roar. 'One match,' he said, turning back to face me, 'gives you five hundred horses. Not such a bad exchange, is it?'

Then, for a marvellous moment, he smiled, and my whole dream of high speed seemed to come alive. 'A life on the footplate is the best sort, isn't it?' I ventured, because although I was somewhat more doubtful on that score than I had been before, I did still hold it to be true.

'An engine driver,' said Arthur Hunt, 'is an Adonis in every way: a first-class man in mind and body, and it is no wonder that he commands the respect of his fellows as a result.' I nodded; this really was a bit of all right.

'But a driver is also a piece of dirt beneath the chariot wheels of the big man,' continued Hunt, becoming fierce once more. 'It's, "On that engine or you'll be up the bloody road in two minutes." You're hanging out to get your air, you're choking to bloody death, everything's red hot, you've got wind, rain, fog, broken rails -' He broke off here and, looking back into the firehole, said, 'You need to put a bit more on at the front.' 'Oh, but how?' I said.

There and then he showed me how to swing a shovel. He showed me how the common sort of fireman did it, then how the better sort went about the job. The thing was to let your bottom hand slide on the handle, and not to try, so I tried very hard at not trying but it didn't really come off, so Hunt said, 'Imagine you're chucking the lumps at White-Chester – aim straight for the bollocks.' That didn't really do it either, but he made out I was improving. He told me that any fireman will be chucking coal for years on end before being passed for driving, and that you'd finish up a cripple unless you kept your movements to a minimum.

I was just wondering why he had stopped putting me on ice when he said, 'We have a mutual improvement class on Monday evening at eight o'clock. Would you come along?' 'Who will be there?' I said, after a pause.

'Besides myself?' said Hunt, and he was back to his dead voice now. 'Besides myself there will be Vincent, Mr Rose… Mr Nolan and Mr Flannagan will come along too, I should think.' 'Mr Flannagan?' I exclaimed. 'He is all for improvement,' said Hunt. Well, I thought, there's a lot of scope for it with him. 'You are not to let on to anyone about it,' he said. 'Where does it happen, Mr Hunt?' 'In the office at the back of the Old Shed.' 'Of course,' I said. "Thank you very much, Mr Hunt.' I tried to smile at him, and he tried to smile back.