A Station In Life (24 page)

“Have Snimple assist
you, William,” I instructed the Rollingstock superintendent.

Mr Troke turned a
baleful eye upon me and maundered.  Maundering was his preferred form of
protest.  Naturally I ignored him.

“How came they to be
hither in the first place?” he amplified his complaint begrudgingly.

“Just move them,” I
retorted.

Mr Troke maundered
again.

“When shall we be free
of all this flux?” he asked himself, presumably referring to progress.

“By and by, Mr Troke, by
and by,” I forecast with unguarded sympathy.

“I’m glad to hear it,”
he spat.  “Then haply we shall be left alone to enjoy two days the same.”

“We are not a chaise
post,” I set him straight.

Also cluttering the
platform was a wicker basket containing four dozen rabbit carcasses destined
for Walsall.  For obvious reasons it was advisable to get these away smartly by
putting them aboard the Guard’s van so I had Diggory steel himself to do it.  Then
I asked the driver to slow his train at Exeter so that the Guard could throw
them off for a quick transfer to the GWR.  This practise contravened company
regulations but drivers seldom objected.

While consulting the
driver I noticed Rose Macrames strolling along Natter lane arm-in-arm with the
recently widowed miller of Upwater.  They parted company close to the station
but Rose did not bother herself to visit me.  How quickly the ladies grew weary
of me.

Bracing myself by the
carboys I opened my dread letter, but while reading the summons I was startled
by a heavy hand descending upon my shoulder.  This crude method of
communication, had it been applied any other time, I would have dismissed as
the price to be paid for working with uneducated bumpkins.  However, tense with
the possibility of imminent dismissal, not to mention talk of a curse, I jumped
and lost my hat.  This indignity amused passengers aboard the train no end.

If Blodcaster was famed
for its fishing, and verily it was, then news was about to be noised abroad
that nearby Upshott featured a vaudeville stationmaster, and that LSWR
excursions included a stop to see him.  Keen not to miss the performance a
multitude of pasty-faced Londoners lowered their compartment lights for a
better view.  So keen were they to participate in my undoing that they squeezed
their heads through the windows in hazardously tight bunches.

I turned to identify the
hand upon my shoulder and recognised its baggy knuckles immediately.

“How many times must I
tell you not to assault me, Mr Troke.  I am the stationmaster here,” I nettled.

“Where?” he asked
obliquely.

Past admonitions having
failed I had no reason to expect this one to succeed, nevertheless, for the
sake of appearances I brushed his finger-marks from my tunic and amplified my
caution.

“You have a tongue in
your head, sir, so use it!”

“It’s not long enough,”
he said.

My Rollingstock
superintendent recognised a good audience and was delighted by the roar of
laughter his impudence won him.  The excursionists, aroused by his unusual
brand of disobedience, suggested that we finish our act with someone being
sacked.  Worried that I might take their advice, and disappointed with the reverses
of performing in public, Mr Troke abandoned his gappy grin and stooped to
retrieve my top-hat.  This he did in the manner of a mummer taking a bow, and
after dusting off my symbol of authority, instead of returning it to me, he
inverted it and sallied towards the train to collect money.  Impaled upon my
glare of disapproval he finally relented and restored me to full uniform.  Now
his odious face hollowed with cross-eyed malevolence, for it had occurred to
him that such an abundance of admirers would have translated readily to a hat heavy
with coins.

Educing no response to
his evil stare, Mr Troke now redirected his attention to those who had egged
him to the brink of unemployment.  And, to my horror, spat at them.  The
consternation this vile gesture caused soon turned to anger and I was compelled
to defuse the situation by broadcasting my disapproval the length of three
carriages.  Though I reprimanded the fellow demonstratively, truth to tell, I
felt more inclined to berate him for his bad aim.

The insolent Mr Troke
took his medicine like a mouse and ran away.  This response baffled me at first,
then I realised that he was retreating from return fire.  Dodging the
insalubrious volley, I wondered what steps I might take to stem this growing
riot.  Luckily the ruffians aboard the train were in sufficiently good humour
to vent their displeasure entirely within the rules of this new sport to which
they had been introduced, and soon their coarse laughter was rippling up and
down the carriages again.

“I seem to recall
instructing you and Snimple to remove these semaphore arms, Mr Troke,” I reproved
my troublesome colleague.  “I wonder if you are deaf as well as stupid.”

This remark precipitated
further hilarity among the onlookers.

“Snimple’s gone home to
his lodgings, sir,” Mr Troke came back miserably.  “Am I to lift them thither
on my on?”

Another round of
laughter reverberated across the station.  Apparently everything that happened
in Upshott was funny, including a perfectly serious conversation.  At this
point I noticed the excursionists polling each other to see who would make the
next jibe.  The roll was quickly taken up by a pallid young man with a curtain
of black hair pulled lankly across his face.

“Why,” he mocked, waving
his muffin hat in the air, “not only is the governor a fool but the drudge is a
weakling!”

This impertinence
triggered an outright cascade of mockery and I decided that enough was enough. 
Ignoring railway protocol I stood Mr Troke aside and gave the excursion train
its ‘right away.’  As the boggle-eyed Guard swept by in his van he squinted at
me through his half opened ducket window.

“Sorry about the
knickers, Stationmaster,” he called with an irreverent snigger.

Seeking redress I
confounded the cove with an unsettling observation.

“If you wanted to avoid
being reported, sir, you should have invented a different story.  Plums are not
yet in season.”

At last the station was
peaceful again.  I swivelled my heel and instructed Mr Troke in the manner of
his conduct should he wish to remain upon the railway.  Without further ado he
sought Diggory’s assistance and removed the semaphore arms, all without a
single maunder.

To spare Miss Higham the
embarrassment of knowing that her bloomers had been aired in public I crossed
to the Parcels office and re-wrapped them in person.  This operation I completed
just in time to avoid a second mortifying event, for no sooner had I safely
concealed the garment in brown paper than a footman of the Brigadier arrived to
collect them.

Upon my second attempt
to read my dread letter, which doubtless heralded my undoing, I partook of some
goat’s milk fortified with brandy.  Truth to tell, it was mostly brandy, and
just as well because the summons iterated numerous further complaints against
me.  Thus apprised I was to account for myself before Board members in ten days
time, commencing Nine-Thirty in the morning, with the possible outcome of
summary dismissal.  Even should I remain in post my reputation would be tarnished. 
Which made me wonder.  Would the station curse finish me off or would it keep
me in place to suffer further humiliation?

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Chapter
Twenty-One — The walking hog pudding

Briggs, a handsome
Beattie tank engine of the 2-4-0 design, was in the dairy siding marshalling
wagons for the afternoon milk train, and because Driver Hiscox was methodical
in the execution of his duties I perceived no need to supervise, but my plans
changed when I chanced upon a pair of refurbished ‘ticket boxes’ lying beneath
the footbridge steps.  I recognised these as integral to a traffic control
system known as ‘staff-and-ticket’, but if staff-and-ticket was to be
introduced upon the South Exmoor Railway it portended ill for the General
manager, Mr Crump, for he had threatened to resign rather than be associated
with the system.

Perhaps I may point out
that the ‘ticket’ referred to had nothing to do with the kind issued to
passengers, nor had the ‘staff’ anything to do with employees.  Railways upon
which ‘up’ and ‘down’ trains shared the same track would always employ a safety
system to avoid a head-on collision, and in the present one the driver of each
train was required to be in possession of a unique baton before proceeding.  In
the new system the ‘staff’, another type of ‘baton’, was held by someone who
could authorise many trains in the same direction by issuing tickets rather
than the staff itself, thus avoiding the need to retrieve the staff by horse
rider after each train.  All he had to do was verify that the staff was safely locked
away at the time.  The introduction of telegraphic communication made this
possible.

If the South Exmoor was
to implement staff-and-ticket then there were implications for the workforce,
especially Mr Maynard whose fast horses would be sold off.  Yet as one of the
line’s principal stationmasters I could not understand why I had heard nothing
of this apparently imminent development, not even so much as a whisper, and
certainly no talk of Mr Crump resigning.  All I knew was that the LSWR company,
prior to taking over the line, was empowered to demand such improvements under
a precondition written into the contract between the two companies in
Eighteen-Fifty-Six.  With crossing loops being constructed at Widdlecombe and
Busy Linton to increase the line’s running capacity to four trains I had expected
a more technical system than staff-and-ticket.

To return you to the
story I shall set the station clock to 4.15pm when Briggs’s presence in the
station provided me with the opportunity to ask driver Hiscox about the
company’s plans for the future.  Hiscox was the man most likely to know of any developments
being considered at Boardroom level.  He, unlike most enginemen, had moved in
good society and was a company confidant.

When Briggs returned
from the headshunt to propel a rake of flat-trucks to the milk dock I set off
across the tracks for a word  Trudging the ballast while the trucks were being loaded
with churns I chanced to glimpse Jack Wheeler talking to the strange little man
I had seen, the one wearing a pince-nez, so I halted and reversed a few paces. 
Their conversation seemed highly surreptitious, taking place in a secluded
corner of the beer garden at the rear of The Shunter.  Since my proximity upon
the milk spur was unknown to them, and because of the clandestine nature of
their business, I advanced close enough to hear what was being said.  A
reprehensible act, I confess willingly, yet still I leaned against the boundary
fence with my top-hat held to my ear to amplify their voices.

An eves dropper seldom
hears good of himself and this was no exception.  My stomach knotted when I
heard Jack making disparaging remarks about me, claiming that I was
discourteous to passengers and unreasonable toward colleagues, and that he was
considering making an official complaint.  Still more disturbing was the apparent
delight of his co-conspirator.  The bookish little man was so excited by Jack’s
bile that he issued a pat upon the shoulder as an incitement to proceed with
the complaint immediately.  At this point the two men’s collusion called for
whispering and above the clatter of milk churns I could hear no more of their
plans.  Morose with dudgeon I marched away not caring if they heard me.

The swarm of torment
inside my head now joined by another wasp I crossed the Tramway to interrupt one
of driver Hiscox’s rare moments of inactivity, stepping between two milk trucks
to reach him.  Bent forward with the vigilance of a sneak-thief, mindful of a
Great Western clerk who had been crushed between wagon buffers engaged in a similar
shunt, I saw Hiscox stepping down from his charge to do some oiling.  I
straightened up and quickened my pace.  Footplatemen were always more
approachable at ground level.  Unfortunately, before I could reach the fellow I
was intercepted by the spinster woman, Serena Blake.  She was taking a shortcut
even more perilous than my own.

“Be there anythin’ in
particler yer’d like I to get for yer dinner, Mr Jay?” she tested me nervously.

Though generally apt to
ignore her, I halted enthusiastically.

“As a matter of fact
there is,” I replied.

For some while I had
been troubled by a craving for hog pudding and advised her of it, having as yet
tasted nothing so fine as that served from a stall at the fair.  Perchance to compensate
for all my woes I decided to put the spooky spinster to the test, for I might
overlook all manner of shortcomings in a domestic who could make a reasonably eupeptic
copy of fairground hog pudding.

“I bin ’ad a word with
my mother about yer noises,” she volunteered.  “I’ll tell yer all about it
later, Mr Jay.  But so’s yer got somethin’ to think on, my mother says ’tis all
for to do with them standin’ stones up on Splashgate ’ill.”

Thus apprised that
ghoulishness ran in her family, I moved on.

By now Briggs was gone. 
The engine had set back to the weighbridge loop making it necessary for me to
wend another hazardous path, this time through Ivor Hales’s serried
vegetables.  With Hiscox stepping off the footplate again I confess that I sped
at the expense of some tomatoes.  Seeing so many of them squashed before they
could ripen I was unsettled by the allegory and slowed my pace, wondering why I
should be so concerned about a railway upon which I probably had no future.  A
moment later I was hurrying again, for railway life was in my blood.

Driver Hiscox was still
at ground level when I finally reached him, nonchalantly sauntering the last
few paces, calculating that I had best wheedle my way into his confidence with
a little flattery if I wanted to trade information.  Indeed I had learned that
while flattery is ever transparent to a third party it is always usefully
opaque to the recipient.  To this end I complimented the fellow on his mastery
of the regulator while swiftly entraining so many wagons, and assured him that
I was not the only person to think so.  Next, with a comradely smile, I revealed
my discovery of ticket boxes under the footbridge steps.  As expected, flattery
did the trick.  The normally reserved fellow stowed his oiling can aboard the
engine, returned my smile, and invited me to reveal all.  This I did, and after
listening intently he wiped his streaky hands to fill his tobacco pipe.

“Well now, there’s a
thing, Mr Jay,” he mused.  “So you’ve got ticket boxes, eh?  That’s very
interesting.”

“Does this mean Mr Crump
is on his way out?” I enquired humbly.

“I’ve not heard,” he
replied after a brief reflection.  “Mind you, I do hear there’s been a wrangle
at the joint board meeting and I think everyone knows this baton rider business
can’t go on.  But as for resignations, I’ve heard nothing.  Nay, I should think
there’s been some sort of compromise, Mr Jay.  Now that we’ve got all these
telegraph circuits rigged up I should think the staff-and-ticket system could
be operated even to Benjamin’s satisfaction.”

Driver Hiscox lit his
pipe and went into a trance.  I had become invisible.

Having learned nothing
substantive I returned to my office to catch up with incoming paperwork.  While
thumbing through various documents I came across the first manoeuvrings in the
long anticipated cider war between the local dignitaries, squire Lawrence
Albury and Brigadier Sir Aubrey Higham KCSI, the two major apple growers in the
valley.  Three quarters of the rough brew from Albury Hall, which was popular
with farm hands and railwaymen, was exported to London and Manchester and it
seemed to me that squire Albury made highly profitable use of the railways he
so despised.

Of course, what the
squire truly resented about railways was their class neutrality.  His often
heard mantra was that God gave us the railways to transport educated people and
their merchandise, not peasants, chickens and upstarts.  Like many wealthy
people he feared freedom of movement among the masses, believing that it would
undermine civilisation.

Eating apples and cider
apples, like the cider itself, were a bulk export from the district but neither
producer owned sufficient wagons to fully clear his orchards during picking
time.  Consequently, every year, the rival growers would hire extra trucks from
the SER to get their produce to market.  This year squire Albury had sent my
Booking clerk a requisition for an extraordinarily large number of wagons. 
Indeed, the number he supposedly required matched exactly the number available
for hire.  This was no coincidence.  Somehow the cheat had received
intelligence about the SER’s rollingstock disposition and planned to deprive
his competitors of transport.

The squire was
overlooking one thing, however.  To wit, Upshott’s new stationmaster.  My
allegiance was to the brigadier and his stronger yet sweeter Xissington cider,
and whilst I could not pronounce the word Xissington without first having
partaken of a glass, I saw no reason why this agreeable brew should be delayed
by a rival’s shenanigans.  To this end I ‘accidentally’ mislaid the
requisition.  Perhaps it fell into the pot containing Mr Mildenhew’s wilting
aspidistra.  Who knows?

Alas, by this foolhardy subversion
did I become an active agent in the cider apple war.  But then, what need of
neutrality has a man whose tenure is moribund?  Little would neutrality have
lasted anyway, given that a stationmaster’s position in the community lies at
the intersection of everyone’s business.  At least I would join the fray on my
own terms and in the knowledge that I would be gone by the time tempers flared. 
I indulged myself a wild chuckle.

With my paperwork done
and the station quiet I accepted a challenge from Mr Troke to play him at
draughts, confident that a cross-eyed Rollingstock superintendent would be easy
to beat.  The game ended at 5pm, if not in my favour, but I reflected proudly
upon how an intelligent opponent can stimulate even a simpleton to think
logically.

A peewit flapped above
the station, its reedy call familiar to my ears, and while looking up I was
distracted by the spooky spinster waving to me from my upstairs window.  About
the same time I caught the tang of hog pudding, and verily it invoked
fairground music so I set off towards my quarters in high anticipation.  Climbing
the stairs I passed Miss Blake in hasty descent.  Having set out my meal she was
in flight as if from something dire, pumping past me with all the wear and tear
of the possessed.

“Tis on the table, Mr
Jay,” she gasped.  “Now I must be away to the village, for I’ve to collect a
pair of button boots from the cobbler and time grows short.”

I fancy it was really the
stirrings of my ghost that propelled her.

The hog pudding looked
promising, but before putting it away I decided to take a peek through my
window.  A wise stationmaster never misses an opportunity to catch his staff on
the dodge.  Much to my pride, however, everything appeared to be in order. 
With the exception of the spinster woman hastening along the platform, Upshott
station was a picture of reassuring tranquillity.  Incidentally, I make no
apology for the tautonym ‘spinster woman’ for it amused me to dub her so at the
time and continues to invoke her memory to best effect.

Mimicked by my
reflection in the window I groomed myself in readiness to sit.  However, and
somewhat disappointingly, one final glance at the platforms taught me that my
pride in Upshott station was misplaced.  The scene was no longer one of
tranquillity.  Diggory had reversed into view, stooping as if in search of a
mislaid valuable, and Mr Troke was sauntering towards a puncheon cask upon
which he eventually parked his posterior with legs dangling uselessly like an
abandoned marionette.  With his jaw bouncing lethargically upon a wedge of
tobacco, the fellow now retreated to that peculiar world between his ears,
presumably to recuperate from the daily rigour of doing nothing.

It is common knowledge
that a dullard will recover from a trance quicker than a wiseacre, and in this my
Rollingstock superintendent was an exemplum.  Uncannily aware that he was being
watched he looked up suddenly and stared back at me, the sorrowful bulge of his
porcelain eyes compelling me to conclude that he was tormented by the aroma of
my dinner.  I opened my window to strengthen the whiff of it.

“Hog pudding, Mr Troke,”
I called down.  “Stay where you are, I may toss you a scrap.”

Mr Troke did not see fit
to laugh.  Nor was he shamed into returning to his duties.  He simply continued
to stare so I shut the window and sat down to eat.  As I took up my knife and
fork I realised, for the first time, that the spinster woman’s superstitious vagaries
had insinuated my mind.  It was merely suggestion, of course, my mind playing
tricks upon me, but I thought I heard an unaccountable noise.  It sounded like
the creak of my door opening.  Indeed, my door was now wide open as if someone
had entered the room yet, as far as I could see, no one had.  With every hair upon
my neck upended I closed it and reprimanded myself for being impressionable.