The Necropolis Railway

Chapter Twenty-Two

Monday 21 December

At five to eight in the evening, I clocked off, not at all liking the way Crook took the token from me, looked at his clock, and followed his note of the time with a full stop stabbed into his ledger with a force fit to break his nib. Then, instead of leaving the yard, I walked back into it, heading for the blind house that guarded the Old Shed, stepping over half of the twenty-three roads with my boots going into shaking puddles between the tracks and the rain blasting across my face. As I approached the mutual improvement class, I thought of that left-behind house as nothing more than an enormous, infernal well-head, where, once through the door, you would roll over in air and plummet instantly to the bottom of a mile-deep black hole.

The Old Shed itself was more fearful still, but if you are destined to shine there are some things that you must do, and you always know what they are. I had thought of splitting to the Governor, but in that case all the half thought of me would be true, so the matter could not be handled like that. I had to find out their programme.

It was eight o'clock when I entered the Old Shed. I walked into that locomotive graveyard holding a bull's-eye lantern. The rain didn't stop hitting me when I stepped under the roof of the shed, but just whirled about the broken engines in a strange way. Who was the man who came over and wrote the numbers in chalk on the boilers and buffer beams, and why did he do it? How could there be improvement of any sort in this place? But there was one thing that gleamed, and I glimpsed it on a pile of ash straightaway. Picking the thing up, I saw that it was the weighty brass handle of an engine brake, brought to a beautiful finish, but for no reason. Well, it would come in handy if I had to crown somebody. I slid it into my coat pocket, where it fitted snugly from wrist to elbow, and walked on. At the top of the shed I struck some wooden lean-tos that were mainly smashed, but there was one brick building a little more solid than the others; it even had a door. I lifted the latch and walked in. There was a table, and I put my lantern down upon this, from where it shone onto a wooden model showing the workings of the motion of a locomotive. I turned the lamp and saw a chimney breast of crumbling black bricks, then some dusty bookshelves. I walked closer to these with my lamp in my hand. They had Continuous Engine Brakes by Reynolds, of course – about a dozen editions of it. I saw also Power in Motion, Fuel: Its Combustion and Economy and The Correct Use of Steam, along with books that seemed to have no connection with railways – Well Digging, Boring and Pump Work, Practical Organ Building – and others even further off the mark, such as Fabian Essays by George Bernard Shaw, King Lear by Shakespeare, and the works of Dickens.

Turning back to the table, I spotted two candle ends. I lit these from my lantern, causing enormous posters on the walls to leap out at me: 'Every Member Shall Obey the Chairman', I read; 'No Member Shall Ridicule Another On Account of Lack of Knowledge'; 'Smoke Is Waste'. On the table I also saw papers headed 'A. S. L. E. amp; F.' – this was the name of the union. They had it in some sheds and not in others -1 didn't think it had got into Nine Elms. I picked up one of the papers and shone my light on to it: 'Fellow Members,' it began, 'It is my most painful duty to inform you that our worthy and respected General Secretary passed away from this mortal flesh at about 2 p.m., 20th September 1901…'

Just as I was putting the paper down, I heard a mighty clang, and all the breath stopped on my lips. I walked towards the door, and there came another clang, then a third and a fourth, like a bell ringing in an abandoned church. I came out of the brick hut and shone my lamp down one of the middle roads. Nothing but a line of broken locos on either side of the beam, but the clanging carried on. I walked a little further across the top of the shed, and tried my lamp down another line. Nothing again but the noise. It was getting louder, and the clangs were becoming more frequent.

I tried yet a third road, and there they were: the men of the half-link, with a couple of others besides, were approaching. They were little more than shadows behind their lamps, but I was able to make out that the smallest of them, Vincent, was carrying a metal bar of his own, with which he was striking the broken engines as he advanced in a line with his fellows. As I watched, a gust coming through a hole in the wall pulled all their coats to the right.

I turned back towards the little room, and stood at the door, listening to the banging of Vincent's metal, which made different sounds, like slow, monstrous music, according to whether it was striking an old boiler or something solid such as a pair of buffers, but which was becoming more deafening by the second, all the same. It was as though a slow train crash was happening all around me.

Arthur Hunt and his little gang were all out to get me, and it made no difference that Rowland Smith had died. They knew of the note he had written to me, and of the one I had written back. They knew I knew they had done for Henry Taylor and Mike: Taylor was killed because he was Rowland Smith's man, and had done something to rile one or all of them, and Mike knew what had happened to Henry Taylor so he had to go too. Then they had got round to the source of all their troubles, which was Smith himself, and they were certain I knew what they had done: they had taken paraffin from Nine Elms and they had burned him in his own flat. This explained all, and as for Sir John Rickerby… well, that old gent could be put out of the picture, for he was an old crock who had fallen over at Brookwood and there was an end to it. I moved across the back of the shed, away from the road down which the half-link was coming, and somehow I struck my lantern against something. The buffer of a locomotive? I couldn't see. I couldn't see anything, for my part of the shed was in darkness now, which was the way it was always meant to be. Among the fearful banging there came a cry: "There he is!' And at that, there was not a particle of fear left in me, but just the need to run. I flung down the useless lantern and hared straight into a metal wall. I had struck the side of an engine, and done so head first. My mouth was all blood, and I spat and spat, and still it came.

The clattering was everywhere, now, and in among it were cries I couldn't make out. I wanted more light and less noise. I whirled about and darted forwards again, this time with my hands out before me, but they struck an engine soon enough. I turned again, turning about and about, trying to finish so that I was facing the black mouth of the shed where the rain and the night waited. But whenever I moved forwards I touched an engine. The whole shed seemed to have been picked up and turned about, so that the locomotives were set across my path to the entrance. But that couldn't be – I had simply faced the wrong direction twice.

The half-link were spreading out; I could see the flashes from their lamps, and the banging… It seemed they were all at it, and I knew this was how they did their murders: as though they were playing a game. I thought I would go distracted with funk, yet I wheeled about for the third time and began to make my run.

I ran hard with my hands out, and as I ran I realised that the banging had stopped, but that that was not good. At any moment the stick would be smashed into my face. No, some sixty tonner would fly forwards to check me, and what good would my brake handle be against either? The banging of the half-link men and their strange cries had stopped, and everybody, it seemed, was waiting for my smash. I ran and I ran, with my arms out to the side of me now, skimming two rows of engines, keeping them in their place, parallel with my running and not against me. I came out of the shed into the freedom of the rainy night, with the fires and the lamps of the yard. That wasn't a safe place for me either, though, so I kept on running.