A Station In Life (5 page)

I looked over his
shoulder to see if Miss Macrames was still admiring my manliness, but saw only
Lawrence Albury’s emissary approaching me with a muslin bag.

“Mr Albury trusts his
new carriage will reach him in pristine condition and without delay,” he
smoothed dutifully, handing me the gift.

“Please convey my thanks
to Mr Albury, along with my assurance that his magnificent cabriolet has, and
will, come to no harm,” I thanked the servant, peering inside the bag.

It contained a plucked
goose, gifts to stationmasters being common currency at this time.

After my optimistic
exchange with the coachman I expected him to leave the station and return later,
but instead he took to a platform bench and settled to observe.  Unperturbed by
this I ordered the uncoupling of the passenger carriages from the timber trucks
and gave the Blodcaster train its ‘right away’.  So far, so good, for despite
all the difficulties everything was running but one minute late.  Though it was
not accepted practise to give the ‘right away’ to a ‘down’ train before an ‘up’
train there was, I perceived, no alternative.

While I was waving the
timber wagons into Platform One, Mr Wheeler tugged my arm impishly.  I cocked
an ear with apprehension, for my Booking clerk was a foxy fellow characterised
by a mat of tightly curled hair and ever the twinkle of mischief in his eye. 
When he grinned, which was often, either something unwholesome had occurred or
was about to.

“Mr Jay, sir,” he
crooned, “Tom Turner and me ’ave devised a scheme to catch the lamp oil thief.”

I was puzzled.  From
what I had heard, sleepy Tom Turner could not catch a turnip.

“Not now, Mr Wheeler,” I
retorted.  “Can you not see I am busy?”

“But sir, we need your
permission to go about it,” he pestered me.

Because I knew Jack
Wheeler had something of a reputation as a trapper I succumbed, and with a wry
grin I gave him the permission he sought.  This, of course, was a naïve and
foolish act by a green stationmaster who had yet to learn that Mr Wheeler’s trick
was to wait until his superiors were distracted before seeking permission to go
about a dodgy enterprise.

“Be careful what you get
up to, Jack,” I cautioned the clerk.  “Burglars are not hares.”

Mr Wheeler was visibly
flattered that I should call him by his Christian name and began blinking
wildly.  His face shrank to a bunch of wrinkles then expanded to a wide,
bewildered grin.  This malady I had witnessed before.  Jack Wheeler, it seemed,
had a full facial tick.  Still twitching, the fellow scuttled away to the
Ticket office to assist Mr Milsom.

Once the banking engine
had pushed the empty timber trucks forward into Platform One, various signals
and points were set and I was able to give the ‘up’ passenger train its ‘right
away’.  Heads turned as the locomotive’s departing whistle spawned a string of
echoes.  With these tooting among the hills like a shepherd’s flute I watched
the boxlike carriages clatter and sway onto Fallowfield embankment.  They stamped
their feet like ill disciplined soldiers until there was nought left of them
but a smear of steam upon the highway crossing at Rington Road.  The train finally
plunged into the precipitous Upford cutting and I heaved a sigh of relief that
the worst was over.

Alas, not only was my
sigh premature, it was doubly misplaced.

Intending to steal a few
minutes to make enquiries about the ‘belle in white lace’, as I had come to think
of her, I was heading towards the station offices when a wizened old lady
intercepted me claiming that her eyesight was too poor to read the train
times.  Like most simple souls hereabouts she was more probably illiterate, but
I felt it wise to play along while beneath her raised walking stick.  To my
consternation the lady thrust the full edition of
Bradshaw’s Universal
Timetable
into my hand and insisted that I read it aloud.  All of it! 
Explaining that such an exercise was impractical I delved into the appropriate
section for her and prepared to voice its contents.

Before I could utter a
word I was distracted by a series of impatient whistles coming from the coal
dock.  I had forgotten about the pilot engine with the cabriolet in tow!  Ivor
Hales made one of his rare excursions from the signalbox to remedy my
forgetfulness.

“What do you want done
with that private horse carriage, Mr Jay?” he called.

I nodded to the
signalman and shied away from the engine driver’s glare of disapproval, then
looked across the platform sheepishly at the squire’s coachman who was still
watching me with a deedy eye.

“About my parasol,
Horace?” I heard Miss Macrames ask as she tapped me on the shoulder with
singular persistence.  “I can see you’re busy but I want something done the
moment you’re free, please.”

Oddly, her brusque manner
melted spontaneously into an enticing smile animated by fluttering eyelashes.

Returning my attention
to the wizened old lady, whose ill contrast sobered me before another fantasy
could take hold, I handed back the railway timetable and suggested that she
consult Humphrey Milsom.  This settled, though little else, I trudged across
the ballast to the waiting locomotive.  This was Number 205, bearing the bronze
nameplate ‘Lacy’, and was a Beattie well-tank engine of the 2-4-0 wheel
arrangement.  The locomotive was on extended lease from the London & South
Western and its driver, a stocky fellow with flame red hair and an explosion of
a beard, was scratching his head through a tartan Tam o’ Shanter while staring
at me quizzically.  From his pose I sensed that I had overlooked something
important and it caused me great foreboding as I approached the footplate.  To
mask my doubts, I smiled upwards innocently.

Although I could see no
movement in the driver’s jaw, from somewhere beneath the flaming bush upon his
face came a question clipped to melodic curves by a Highland accent.

“Have ye no crane?”

By now my mind was perforated. 
Having served only in large stations it had not occurred to me that Upshott would
have no yard crane of its own for unloading light cargo.

My memory thus jolted, I
recalled that in such circumstances on the SER it was customary to request in
advance a mobile crane from Giddiford.  Had I done this, the crane would have
arrived behind the very item of cargo it was required to lift.

“I shall be back in one
minute,” I told the incredulous driver.

Upon returning to
Platform One, the squire’s  coachman apprehended me.  I crossed my fingers that
his fractious master did not require the cabriolet immediately.

“Mr Albury requires his
new carriage immediately,” the servant told me anxiously.  “He has important
calls to make this morning.”

I turned and saw the
evidence standing in the station forecourt; a team of fine white horses waiting
to be harnessed.

“The conveyance cannot
be made available just yet,” I told him bluntly, aware that I was
inconveniencing the valley’s second-most powerful family and certainly its most
hostile.  “We do not have a crane with which to unload it from the railway
truck.”

My candour disarmed the
coachman briefly.

“Surely you can
requisition one by telegraph?” he suggested with begrudging civility.

“This I have already
done,” I bluffed, shying away from his suspicious squint.

Since his arrival the
coachman had been watching me like a falcon.  He knew that I had not entered
the Telegraph room but such was the mystique of railway communications that he
did not challenge me on the matter.  As luck would have it, Lacy’s whistle
tooted again, the driver being required to perform many duties while in
Upshott, so I exploited the distraction and slipped away.

“A pretty state of
affairs, I must say,” the coachman called after me.

Had I anticipated
needing a crane, even belatedly, I could have asked driver Hiscox to deliver a
written requisition to Headquarters upon his arrival in Giddiford, but it was
too late now.  Hiscox’s ‘up’ train had departed several minutes ago.

As if to mock me, the
two bright new telegraph wires above my head twanged loudly and caused me to
look up.  They were playing host to a band of rooks which, it seemed, could
find greater use for the telegraph system than I.

The next ‘up’ train that
could convey my request for a crane would not pass through Upshott until
10.48am, three hours from now.  In any event, no matter how I made the request,
and even assuming the crane was available, the earliest ‘down’ train by which
it might be delivered to Upshott was the 1.08pm passenger.  Far too late to
avoid conflict with Squire Albury.  The best I could do now was to give my
requisition to the driver of the next ‘up’ train, surreptitiously if I wished
to remain a stationmaster, and place telegraphy tuition atop my list of
priorities.  Although this was a workable plan it did not rid me of my
immediate embarrassment.

“One o’ clock is far too
late, Mr Jay,” the coachman insisted.  “My master will not countenance such a
delay.  I think you do not appreciate Mr Albury’s influence in the district.”

While listening to the
uncompromising servant’s rant I heard the whistle of a locomotive only a mile
or so distant, and turned to look.  A plume of steam was rising from Upford
cutting so I summoned Jack Wheeler.

“The Giddiford train
appears to have stopped on the line,” I queried him.

“She’ll be at
Fallowfield crossing,” he confirmed.  “Driver ’Iscox often stops there to take
on pottery from Bessam.  The potter reckons we break too many pots ’ere at the
station.”

I was taken aback by
hearing of this unofficial activity, and suspected that the practise had more
to do with handling charges than breakages, but I recovered quickly and marched
over to the porter’s boy who was weeding a flowerbed nearby.

“Diggory,” I commanded
the lad loudly, “I want you to take a horse from the company stables and ride
down to the ‘up’ train with a message to pass on to the Giddiford yard
superintendent.  Hurry now, you must catch the train while it stands at
Fallowfield crossing.”

While the lad saddled a
horse I scribbled a note requesting urgent use of the mobile crane, suggesting
that it be despatched to Upshott at once using any motive power available. 
‘The
customer is extremely important’
, I added.

The boy took my note,
engaged the stirrup, and looked down at me with a guileless frown.

“You want me to ride up
to the ‘down’ train,” he confirmed erroneously, pulling his sluggish mount in a
circle.  I fancied he was being impertinent.

“Well you may act the
fool, lad, but this is an emergency,” I berated him.  “You will ride down to
the ‘up’ train.

Truth to tell, I was very
nearly as amused as annoyed by the lad’s pun, but contained my mirth lest he be
encouraged to overstep the mark habitually.  At sight of him galloping along
the edge of the railway towards Fallowfield my spirits were lifted wonderfully.

I returned to the
coachman, whose colourful green tunic piped in gold was something of a focal
point on the now deserted platform, and reassured him that everything possible
was being done to release his master’s conveyance.  He removed his black, plush
top-hat and mopped his brow anxiously, then rounded on me.

“Nevertheless, this is
quite inexcusable,” he snarled.  “Quite unprecedented.  My master simply will
not countenance delay.  He requires his new carriage immediately.”

Had the station not been
bounded by cast-iron fencing and furnished generally with decorative seats,
lamps and other obstructions I might have considered unloading the cabriolet
laterally onto a platform, but given the situation I could think of no
alternative to suggest.  Jack Wheeler came forward with an idea.

“There’s a big crane up
at Bessam forest,” he proffered.

“For lifting logs,” I
retorted with a high degree of irritation.  “It is merely a log hoist, as I
recall.  Hardly suitable for setting down a finely burnished carriage.”

“But if we use sacking
and broad leather straps we can get ’er on the ground inside twenty minutes,
and without a scratch,” Wheeler insisted.

“Twenty minutes!” the
coachman seized upon the estimate.  “That will do… just!  Please, go ahead with
your plan, sir.  Go ahead immediately.”

The coachman donned his
hat proudly, but only after adjusting its silk cockade by an imperceptible
degree.

I felt uneasy about this
solution but took comfort from the fact that the squire’s personal coachman had
sanctioned it.  Mr Wheeler reminded me of another important point.

“Also, Mr Jay, the old
squire ’as a foul temper and likes to lash out with ’is riding crop.”

“Perhaps your idea is
workable,” I concurred.  “But in all earnest, Jack, that cabriolet must not
receive the slightest score.”

“I know that, sir,”
Wheeler responded with a facial twitch.

I took a deep breath and
in an act of supreme blind faith gave the nod.  Jack Wheeler bounded across to
Lacy, scrambled aboard the footplate, elbowed the driver aside, and raised his
arm as if leading a cavalry charge against the Ashanti.