A Station In Life (21 page)

“Horace, I have news,”
she called.

Unable to curb her
excitement, this buxom woman closed upon me and gave my cheek a devouring kiss,
her lips lingering afterwards as if having discovered a new delight.  Élise
smiled stiffly and left.  When I hurried away to my office, Rose followed me.

“Oops, I beg your
pardon, Horace, it’s just that I’m so excited,” she explained breathlessly. 
“I’ve tracked down one of the people who complained about you and he’s all but
admitted it was a lie.”

I halted abruptly by my
door.

“Who is he and why is he
doing it?” I asked.

“I don’t know.  He’s the
capstan operator at Chapel pit,” she said.  “I waited ’til he was on his way
home drunk and flattered him with a kiss, just a dainty one of course, and he
admitted to taking a bribe.  Well, nearly.”

“Nearly?” I queried her
grimly.  “Unless he can be persuaded to recant before railway officials, and reveal
his paymaster, I remain a dead duck.”

“But this is so unfair,”
Rose slumped with disappointment.  She took to my seat and sulked.  Her next
remark, however, was quite inexplicable.  “Why does this keep happening to me?”
she said, staring out of the window coldly.

While I was studying her
face for clues she abandoned my chair and hurried away.  I removed my hat and
sat at my desk, pondering my future with my buttocks warmed by the residual
heat of hers.

At 5.05pm Ondle arrived
in the sidings pulling a jury car from which alighted one dozen platelayers who
had hitched a ride home after their day’s toil.  It was not customary for
labourers, switchmen or platelayers to commute so commodiously, they often
having to walk up to ten miles, but Ondle was due back ‘on shed’ at this time
and could therefore provide a lift without repercussions.  The men had been
working at an isolated spot known as Chanting Bend on Lord Lacy’s private
estate and clearly taken the opportunity to do some shooting.  In such
circumstances fowling pieces were not the poacher’s stealthiest tool, loud
bangs tending to attract gamekeepers, but with a steam engine available for a
quick getaway different rules applied.

Jesting with each other boisterously,
the labourers encircled the jury wagon and apportioned the spoils of their trespass. 
Mr Swain, the Chief ganger, plucked a brace of rabbit from the pile of limp
carcasses and presented it to the locomotive crew, the two morkins shortly to
be hung with a knot of pigeon in a corner of the footplate.  Now the labourers
threw the remaining bounty over their shoulders and repaired to the Shunter, in
the hospitality of which establishment they would quench their thirsts and
forget their hardships for a good hour.

Observing this cameo of
railway life was a solitary man standing upon Platform One.  After switching
his gaze he stared at me intently and I felt there was something familiar about
him.  When I stared back at him with the same intensity he looked away and
pretended to be otherwise engaged.  Nevertheless I knew that he was observing
me, and decided that if he did not quit soon I would challenge him.

By the look of the
labourers their shoot had been good and much merrymaking was in prospect.  With
faces of liquorice and tattered waistcoats appended with epaulets of hare, duck
and pheasant, they had begun chaunting songs and ditties even before reaching
the bar, and by the volume of their singing I reckoned that between them they
would drain a good barrel of cider before staggering home to their wives. 
Whereupon, incidentally, the real ding-dong would begin.

The identity of the
solitary man was revealed when he donned his pince-nez to read Snimple’s
unreadable poster.  Thus reconfigured, his face became recognisable as the
bookish little fellow whom I had seen talking to Rose.  Consequently I decided
that if he was observing me then I would observe him back, from a distance.  A
direct challenge would be futile.  Any explanation the cove might tender for
his suspicious behaviour would probably be false.

Keeping my eye on this
spy I strolled across the yard to the little 2-4-0 tank engine that had imported
the platelayers and from here observed him through a narrow gap beneath the
boiler.  While so doing, I saw him adjust his location to improve his view of
me, whereupon I cleverly relocated myself to defeat him.  It was a game of cat
and mouse, but with the Beyer Peacock foundry on my side in the form of forty
tons of ancient ironmongery, the peculiar fellow had to settle for a general
view of the yard, presumably satisfied that I could not slip away unseen.

The South Exmoor railway
operated four locomotives in all, two of them of contemporary design leased
from the LSWR, and two decrepit bargains of which Ondle was one.  This old
retainer was a visual conundrum and concealed me well.  It’s glistening copper
capped chimney and brass steam dome, both tall, curvy and pleasing to the eye,
were insulted by a cab that was little more than a sheet metal box with square
windows, and while reflecting that SER enginemen were lucky to have a cab at
all, I peered with great effect through its haphazard conglomeration of tubes and
rods.

Ondle’s driver leaned
from the footplate.  Expecting him to ask what I was doing, instead he shook
his head soberly and handed me a crinkled copy of the Daily Chronicle.  I
straightened the newspaper and read the column to which he was pointing and
learned of the slaughter of thirty people in a train crash at Clapham Junction,
caused by an inexperienced driver missing a signal and shunting his engine
across the path of a fast ‘up’ train.

Ondle’s driver removed
his cap and muttered a prayer, his supplication being not for the passengers
for whom he was doubtless sorry, but for the errable soul upon the footplate
whose lapse in concentration had caused the dreadful smash.

“He’ll be cast into
perdition,” said the engineman, his verdict reverberating around Ondle’s
olive-green and black cab.

“God forgives all
misdeeds,” I ventured, keeping a steadfast eye upon my mysterious observer.

“But not the maimed, or
the next of kin,” said the ruddy faced driver, snatching back the newspaper and
tossing it in the firebox.  “When a simple oversight leads to such carnage
there is death from both injury and shame.”

He was right, of
course.  Until the introduction of mechanical interlocking systems in the
latter part of the century, which prevented conflict between signals and
points, railway safety depended entirely upon staff vigilance.  All it took was
poor visibility or someone’s dull wit to give the grim reaper his next harvest.

Ondle’s fireman,
returning from the station privy with a pack of curl papers in his hand, doffed
his cap to me and climbed to the footplate.  As he neared the top rung of the
ladder he nearly caught my face with his boot and I backed away to preserve my
dignity, making myself visible to the platforms.  I backed away further still
when the engine’s cylinder cock blew noisily into my legs.  The driver,
deciding that he had no further need of my society, coaxed his locomotive over
the turnout and left me standing alone at the lineside.  Feeling somewhat
silly, I cast my eye about the station.  The spy was gone.

Earlier in the afternoon
I had given Miss Blake my spare latch key and knew that presently she was in my
scullery skinning and gutting a hare, so I remained on duty until 6.16pm to
‘right away’ the ‘up’ Mail before retiring to my corner table in The Shunter.  On
this occasion the purpose of my patronage was but to steady my nerves with a
malt whisky and cigar, for I was soon to see how good was the cook I had
hired.  I was stubbing out my cigar when Diggory flung himself through the door
at me.

“Your dinner’s ready, Mr
Jay,” he bellowed.

The landlord’s wife
roused herself from behind the bar, crossed the room with haughty disdain, and
removed the menu from my table.  I broke camp quickly and followed Diggory.

To complement my
steaming dish, Miss Blake handed me a bottle of sauce and two thick slices of
bread, then bundled together my soiled linen to pass on to a local woman who
took in washing.  I set about the meal and discovered that the spinster could
cook quite well, though it was easy to see why she had not snared herself a
spouse, for her conversation was of a dreadfully morbid bias.

Furthermore, she was
given to sudden bouts of staring.  For no apparent reason she would stop and
stare at a window, a wall, a corner, or perhaps a door, as do cats when
tormented by invisible things, and be possessed of heavy breathing.  I make no
bones about it, the woman gave me the creeps.

Miss Blake spotted me
placing her bottle of sauce to one side and took offence.

“We serves that down at
The Pheasant,” said she stiffly, pushing the sauce back at me.  Before I could
think of a polite way to decline the condiment she had uncorked the bottle and
tipped a portion upon my plate.  “Garn, try it, Mr Jay,” she cajoled me.  “I
makes it special, and ’tis popular with them sewage workers.”

I dare say it was
considered tasty enough by those with a stout stomach but such concoctions
played havoc with my digestion, so I ignored her.

“Now, I be off to
Parson’s farm for to collect some eggs for my mother,” the spinster continued
in her thin voice.  “More’s the pity I shall ’ave ter come back ’ere again for
to clear the dishes.”

Upon hearing her last
remark I looked up and discovered Miss Blake staring at a corner.  Fortunately
she recovered from the distraction and left without laboured breathing.

By the time Miss Blake
returned I had finished eating and was preparing to invigilate upon the
platforms again.  The domestic had scarcely begun to clear the table when she
dropped a handful of cutlery and emitted a piercing shriek.  Thinking that she
had seen a rat I cast my eye about the floor, but the floor was quite ratless.

“Oh, forgive I, Mr Jay,”
she apologised.  “I thought I ’eard a noise.”  She then confessed: “Lor, ’ow
this place do make I nervous.”

“Nervous, why?” I asked. 
“Are you so afraid of trains, Miss Blake, that merely being in a railway
station distresses you?  If so, why did you accept this appointment?”

I have to admit that
until now I had not realised just how distracted the woman was.  Her uncertain
eyes gathered upon me in terror.

“Truth to tell, Mr Jay, ’tis
this place,” she blurted.  “I remembers what they unearthed ’ere when they were
a diggin’ the railway.”

Miss Blake fell to her
knees and clawed blindly at the scattered utensils.

“Unearthed?” I asked
impatiently.  “What do you mean,
unearthed?
”

“Dug up,” she advised me
spuriously.

“Yes, yes, I know what
unearthed means.  What did they dig up?”

“Remains,” said she
gravely, and began rubbing a fork as if it would unleash the Holy saviour. 
“Human remains, they were.  Found right ’ere on this very site.”

Having no taste for
spooky tales I called a halt to the spinster’s ghastly recollections
immediately.

“They were the bones of
a man,” she continued regardless.  “An evil man accordin’ to parish records.  But
no one would tell I what ’e ‘ad done to be denied a Christian burial.  Still,
God gave I an imagination, Mr Jay, and if the dead man did ’alf the things I
think ’e did then ’tis right they buried ’im ’ere.  Course, in them days no one
expected a railway to come through.  This station were built on unconsecrated
ground, yer see.”

“Like most,” I confirmed
wearily.

“I found the skull,”
said she.  “While a courtin’ a navvy boy.  We went among the mounds of spoil
all around ’ere for to find some privacy, then it ’appened.”  Miss Blake paused
from clearing the table and narrowed her intense red eyes upon the untouched
bottle of sauce.  “My, ’ow that ’andsome lad did chase I for a kiss.  Oh, I ran
away, of course, Mr Jay,” she advised me with a seemly smile.  “But not too
fast, mind.”

She removed the cork
from the bottle, savoured the spicy aroma unleashed by it, and giggled.

“This navvy boy liked
your sauce?” I asked.

“Oh, ’e did, Mr Jay,”
the woman purred confidentially.  She flinched, and I sensed that we were back
on the subject of the heathen burial.  “Now, course, I wish I ’adn’t run away,
for I ’adn’t gone but a few steps when I fell down an ’ole,” she declared. 
“And when I opened my eyes I were face to face with a skull!  Well, I couldn’t
stop a screamin’, so frit was I.  The navvy boy slapped my face but still I
couldn’t stop a screamin’ for to tell ’im what I’d seen.  Well, I reckon I must
’ave put ’is reputation in jeopardy because ’e ran away and never returned.”

“A sad tale,” I
sympathised.

“Often I finds myself a
wonderin’ where that navvy boy be now, Mr Jay,” the spinster reflected
hauntingly.  “But I don’t wonder where them bones is.  Them’s right under our
feet.”

“Nonsense.  I have no
doubt the remains were properly disposed of,” I assured her.  “There is nothing
unholy abroad in Upshott this day.”

Miss Blake did not
appear to hear my words of comfort.  Either she was in a trance or she was
listening to something unnatural.  Her wide-set eyes had become fixed in a
glasslike stare from the corners of their sockets and I decided that I could
tolerate her hysteria no longer.