A Station In Life (8 page)

“Those are very unusual
flowers, Snimple.  What are they called?” I coaxed him.

The porter beamed up at
me with a spotty, weathered face and told me proudly:

“Chrysanthemums.”

I had not heard of them
before but railway employees were renowned for ‘rescuing’ exotic items of
freight that had gone astray.  Indeed, employees without the moral guidance of
a vigilant stationmaster were inclined to make them go astray in the first
place.  ‘Ullage’ was the euphemism used by weighbridge clerks.

“And where did they come
from?” I tested him.

“China,” he replied
blankly.  “They grow ever sno well by the railway.  I think they like the
snoot.”

I began to understand
the fellow’s nickname, for he was indeed simple and troubled with a speech
impediment.

“And do they benefit
from that mulch?” I enquired.

“It’s treated snewage,”
he replied helpfully.

“Oh, from the sewage
farm,” I jollied him.

“They give it away
free,” he said, filling me with horror.  “Sno we filled a chaldron truck with
it.  There’s plenty left over if you want any.”

Perhaps there was
something to be said for treated sewage, for the border flowers were certainly
colourful.

I wondered if
‘chrysanthemums’ was their proper name or merely Snimple’s pronunciation of it.

I declined the porter’s
offer and made for the coal siding where I located the offending truck parked
against the buffer stop.  Its cargo, unlike coal, was humming with bluebottles
and liberating a stench fit to induce nausea.  I hailed Mr Troke and ordered
him to have it removed at once.  Mr Troke stared at me with a gappy grin and
bloated white eyes and set me wondering if Upshott station was really a working
home for odd fellows.  This possibility placed a question mark over my own
appointment.

“Mr Troke, you are the
station’s Rollingstock superintendent and I want to see this rollingstock
rolled out of here as a matter of urgency,” I remonstrated.  “If this substance
remains here we shall have an outbreak of typhus.  There is little point in our
benefactors engineering the safe disposal of such waste if people like you
fetch it back again.  Can you not see, fellow, the stuff is not yet fermented.”

“I had nothing to do
with it,” Mr Troke retorted defensively.

“Its presence in this
yard requires your collusion,” I parried him.

“Whither shall I send
it?” he whined, suddenly abandoning his hauteur.

“Dispose of it how you
will,” I snapped.

By now my most fervent
wish was to be as distant from the insalubrious cargo as possible, for I could
bide its proximity no longer even if Mr Troke was unruffled by it.

“We could wait ’til no
one’s looking and attach it to a passing train,” Mr Troke suggested.  “You
could create a diversion while I do it, Mr Jay.”

“Good Lord, are you
serious?” I gasped.  “We shall do no such thing.”

Mr Troke appeared
crestfallen by my rebuttal and sulked, suggesting that his proposition had been
in earnest.

“Have it tipped in the
river Ondle,” I instructed him.  “Secure the Giddiford baton when no train is
due and use a company horse to draw the truck to the viaduct.  You may tip the
ghastly sullage over the side.”

Had I recommended this course
of action two years later I could have ended up in prison for contravening the
‘Rivers Pollution Act’.  Even by this time such activity was considered
antisocial, but with a diabolical smell interfering with my reason I could
think of no better solution.

The departure of the
Timber and Goods train was nearing and Mr Phillips duly arrived with his piece
of chalk to mark the wagons with their destinations.  While doing this he
looked my way accusingly and pinched his nose.  About the same time, a
smallholder pulling a tilt-cart crammed with vociferous geese came by and
halted a few feet away from me to recover his breath.  He too was enfeebled by the
wafts of putrefaction and wheezed desperately, his geese bearing the imposition
in indignant silence.  The old man cast about for the culprit, his face cockled
with disgust, and I hastily hid behind a barrel.  But I was not well concealed
and the drover’s keen eye settled upon me with a prolonged and knowing stare of
disapproval.  Having not the least idea what explanation I might tender, I took
flight.  Alas, had I done so in less haste I might not have taken sanctuary in my
most hated place, the Telegraph room.

The Telegraph room,
incidentally, was barely large enough to share with a hung up overcoat, and
watching the receiver chatter rapidly within its four bare walls intimidated me
woefully, as did most technical advances.  I had once been told that nothing
sharpens the wits of a young lad more than a spell of duty in a telegraph
office, but I was neither a young lad nor a pencil so I had no desire to be
sharpened.  Notwithstanding my apprehension, however, either I became a skilled
operator or I followed in Mr Mildenhew’s footsteps.

Ironically, a still uglier
threat lurked in those telegraph wires, a threat to which I would be exposed by
the very act of learning to use the apparatus.  You see, prior to this
invention a stationmaster was truly the master of all he surveyed, little
interfered with by his superiors at Headquarters where administrative inertia
was his guarantee of autonomy.  Now, alas, the electric telegraph was bringing
to every station on the network, no matter how remote, the minute-by-minute
dictates of management.  So, not for much longer could my ignorance of Samuel H
Morse’s ‘clicking’ and ‘clacking’ immunise me from Albion’s new age of
accountability.

Nursing a heavy heart I
left the Telegraph room and stood in the weakening sunshine for a while to
absorb the industry of my surroundings.  The pallid sun was soon eclipsed by
Herod’s feathery coils and I moved on to avoid the inevitable shower of smuts. 
As I strolled with my hands behind my back I saw on the Parcels platform a
number of fleeces being tied in bundles and labelled with their various
destinations, and by the Goods shed some empty mushroom pallets being unloaded
and stacked for return to Hunt farm.

Later, upon the
forecourt, I came across one of my clerks holding back some children who had
gathered to watch Lacy complete another trip over the tramway hauling timber
trucks.  Its wheels grinding, Lacy crossed the running line and entrained some
loose goods vehicles in the south siding before detaching the whole ensemble. 
As the engine scooted away to the coal staithe its safety valve lifted and
released a deafening tuft of steam, the abrupt onset of which gave me a start. 
I had developed a phobia of hissing white feathers sprouting suddenly from
engines.  I recovered from the spasm to find Humphrey gazing at me from his
vantage point upon the parcels platform.

“Watch out, sir, she’s
ready to blow,” he called gleefully.

The porter with the mischievous
sense of humour adopted a wilfully straight face, tipped his cap politely, and
moved on.  I could see that I would never be allowed to forget my mistake.

Humphrey’s jibe reminded
me that I had intended to challenge driver MacGregor on the subject of sticking
safety valves.  The fact that his was working presently did not guarantee the wellbeing
of railway patrons long term, so I crossed the line to speak with him.  It
proved necessary to shout above the noise of escaping steam and of coal being
shovelled into the bunker, nevertheless the reply was clear enough.

“She’s snod,” the blunt
Scotchman advised me.  After this he shrugged his shoulders and ceased to
recognise my presence.

To entrain the waiting
goods wagons and, more importantly, to escape my interference, MacGregor
reversed Lacy away over the level crossing, causing pedestrians to leap aside. 
The fireman, left behind, knocked me off balance as he jumped from the staithe
to catch up with his crewmate.  Not wishing to be dismissed so easily I hurried
to the front end of the train to meet MacGregor and resume our conversation,
but he saw me coming and halted his charge out of reach, where mud, deep ruts
and oily puddles acted as a deterrent.

Herod, a much larger
locomotive, was waiting nearby and so I took the opportunity to introduce
myself to the driver, who was leaning idly from the footplate.

“Good day, sir, I am the
new stationmaster here,” I opened.

“How do you do,” the
skeletal fellow shouted back above the handsome 2-4-0’s deep boiler rumble. 
“I’ve sent my fireman to hold Lacy where she is.  I need to drop the bag in,”
he added, referring to the water column.

“You will be running
late,” I pointed out.

“Can’t be helped,” he
replied.  “She’s got a thirst, this one.”

He took the fireman’s
coal pick and clouted a reluctant valve with its handle.  The rumble softened. 
“Mind you,” he continued, “it’s not so bad descending to Giddi’.  She drinks a
good thirty gallons a mile climbing up to Blod’.  With a gradient of
one-in-forty through Upford cutting I don’t wonder this branch of yours needs
four engines.”

Herod’s burly fireman
returned and unhitched the locomotive for its trip to the column.  The coupling
hooks rang out as the locomotive and its rollingstock parted company, and the
fireman climbed adroitly back to the footplate.  Here he began foraging the
coal bunker to satisfy his workhorse’s relentless appetite.

“Looks as though we’ve a
few hundredweight left over,” he mumbled with a sly grin.

I thought the fireman
was talking to himself, and since the driver ignored him so did I.

“He’s talking to you,
stationmaster,” the driver chirped unexpectedly.

I had no idea to what
the fireman was referring, or why the driver appeared so puzzled, so I cleared
my throat and asked.

“A few hundredweight of
what, sir?”

The fireman grinned
sinfully as if in collusion with me.

“Oh, I understand,
there’s someone about,” he winked, shovelling dusty black rocks into the
firebox.  “We have to be discreet about these things, eh?  Usual arrangement,
is it?”

Still I did not
understand.

The LSWR locomotive, its
firebox at last sated, belched dense yellow fumes aloft with a hollow grunt. 
The bronchial fog, caught upon a fickle breeze, swirled down across the
platform and enveloped me.  My distress, it seemed, was comical, causing the
footplatemen to cluck with laughter.

“Filthy stuff,” I
reviled them, brushing the smuts from my shoulders.  “Filthy!”

“That’s what I call
poetic justice,” the driver guffawed.  “We got this ‘filthy stuff’ from
Giddi’.  Ay, that’s right, we coaled her on that soft Kentish slack of yours. 
Our steed is accustomed to a diet of good Yorkshire to keep her breath sweet.”

He leaned from the
footplate confidentially.

“So it’s Widdlecombe’s
turn this week, is it?” he purred.  “You should have said.  I thought you were
just being coy.”

The footplatemen’s words
continued to make no sense and I frowned angrily, causing Herod’s cab to boom
with laughter again.  The creaking locomotive crept away to the water column,
taking with it the smell of hot metal and sizzling tallow.

I straightened my hat
and crossed to Platform One.  Here Humphrey approached me for a word.

“Did I hear e complain
about the quality of the coal, Mr Jay?” he asked.  “If e asks I, twern’t
diplomatic to do so under the circumstances.”

“Showering a
stationmaster with smuts is not diplomatic either, Humphrey,” I replied.

“But e don’t understand,”
Humphrey sighed with exasperation.  “Didn’t ol’ Mildenhew tell e about the coal
ration, Mr Jay?  Didn’t he tell e we don’t get enough house coal for the
winter?”

“Not that I recall,” I
replied with a sinking feeling.

“Well, sir, generally
speaking, the official ration’s all used up by the end of January, e see, so we
gets engine coal when we can.  We has an arrangement, so to speak.  Builds up a
stockpile.”

“I see,” I said, realising
that I had blundered.

“When a foreign engine
comes up the branch and takes on South Exmoor coal, the crew don’t usually
wants to take it back to the mainline, e see.  Our coal be banned in Exeter. 
Residents complain about the smoke, I hears tell.  So we gets the leftovers
from the tender and Headquarters don’t have a tally on her.”

“When you say ‘we’ get
the coal, Humphrey, who exactly do you mean?”

“Upshott station, as a
rule, but if we aint quick about it then Widdlecombe gets her,” he advised me.

“Then I have a feeling
that Widdlecombe will be warmer than Upshott this winter,” I said, and
retreated to my office shame-faced.

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Chapter
Seven — Peculiar people, at Upshott

The Timber and Goods
train was departing, its trucks percussing and spreading out with a caterpillar
ripple as their couplings lost slack.  The exhaust beat of two locomotives
rapped upon Upshott hill like carpet beaters as two terraced columns of smoke rose
majestically into a sky becoming prismatic with rain-clouds.  A hitherto
oppressive day was freshening up portentously, the silvered hills now dappled
with galloping shadows, so I made for the Booking hall to tap the barometer.  I
had taken no more than a few steps in this direction when a wail emanated from
the Goods office.  The peculiar sound blundered through my troubled mind and anchored
my feet to the spot.

Although I had been
warned of my Goods clerk’s inclination to burst into song I was shocked by it
nonetheless and found the noise difficult to reconcile with contentment. 
Apparently Mr Phillips’s passion was for the opera, his knowledge of which being
sustained by the occasional excursion to Covent Garden.  Indeed, since being
widowed, paying for such trips was the gentleman’s only use for money, and
succumbing to the urge to emulate the performers he so admired was, in the
meantime, his only other indulgence.

Apparently the scholarly
fellow had agreed, as a result of an impassioned request by his colleagues —
nay, an angry demand — to render his aria only while alone in his office, and
then only with all windows and doors closed.  Clearly such baffles were no
match for the fulminations of this clerk and I was compelled to unseat my
top-hat and peer around the Goods office door to applaud him.

Edwin Phillips fell to a
flustered silence upon discovering that he had attracted an audience.  His
studious, alabaster face erupted into an uncomfortable grimace and his monocle
fell from his eye.

“Gilbert and Sullivan,”
he declared obliquely then, with a curiously blank expression, awaited my
response.

Regrettably I had none,
for I could think only that any member of the fairer sex would envy his
abundance of fine curly hair, although she might not require the dark beard and
moustache that accompanied it.

“Gilbert and Sullivan?”
I queried him.

Brandishing an antique
quill-pen, Mr Phillips applied a cavalier punctuation stroke to a neat column
of figures then dipped his quill into an ornamental ink pot before
condescending to enlighten me.  This pen, incidentally, had earned him the
cognomen ‘Scratch’ in certain quarters.

“My latest discovery,”
he told me imperiously.  “You mark my words, Mr Jay, those two musicians will
one day be famous or there is no justice.”

“Then we must do them
justice,” I replied vigorously.  “The thunderclaps you are broadcasting in
their names shall not enhance their prospects, I’ll warrant.”

At this point the
fanciful fellow saw fit to disregard my presence.  With over-acted nonchalance
he took up his quill and resumed scratching at his documents.

The 12.32pm passenger
train for Giddiford was to be the next disruption to my tenor and I calculated
that I had just enough time to take a spot of lunch at The Shunter beforehand. 
The Shunter was a tavern conveniently located across the station yard, and
before leaving I locked my office door and told Jack Wheeler where I could be
found should anyone need me.  Having taken care of this I set off for a pint of
cider and a good, fat sausage.

Jack Wheeler raced into
the bar, fell into the chair next to me, and squealed in my ear.

“The Stores ’ut’s been
burgled again, Mr Jay, and in broad daylight too.  I reckon the thief must be
invisible.  We’ve been usurped by a phantom.”

I mopped my chin with a
napkin and gathered my wits.

“Phantom?  What
phantom?” I fretted.

“The lamp oil thief,”
Jack replied slowly as if instructing a sluggard.

I managed to drain my
glass before being ushered away but a distasteful break of wind prevented me
from finishing my sausage.

“That’s not all,” Jack
reminded me with his nose pressed against his fobwatch.  “Everyone’s gathered
in the Booking ’all to make your acquaintance, Mr Jay.  It’s three-quarters
Eleven gone.”

“Looking at my own
timepiece I did not see the need for such haste, but haste we made.

“Your watch runs wildly,
Jack,” I remarked.

The clerk ignored me.

As we hurried across the
forecourt I saw Lacy running ‘light engine’ towards Blodcaster, its speed
reduced to allow a flying exchange of batons at the signalbox.  Assuming Lacy
was not running late, this put the time at 11.50am, therefore my watch was the
one running wildly and Mr Hales would have another timepiece to repair.

While running headlong
to keep up with Jack, compelled to hold down my hat like an ungainly oaf, I
marshalled my thoughts on how best to address my staff.  I had been instructed
by the General Manager to issue the lower ranks a warning about time-keeping,
for it was reputed to be poor at Upshott, but before I could compose a sobering
discourse upon the subject I was waylaid by a delegation of villagers whose
untimely interception threatened to destroy my own good example.

Thus was I placed upon
the horns of a dilemma because either I stopped to receive the visitors, which
would make me a hypocrite in the eyes of my staff, or I continued and made
myself appear inaccessible to the public.  Aware that either outcome was bad I
decided to stop and receive the delegation, then redact from my speech the part
about punctuality.

The plaintiffs, I
learned, had banded together to protest over the absence of a train to take
visitors to Blodcaster for the cattle and yarn market each Monday.  Their
spokesman, a gruff fellow by the name of Collins, proprietor of Xissington
tannery, pointed out that Mr Mildenhew had undertaken to do something about the
‘disgraceful situation’ yet not acted.  I sympathised with him, for it was
inconvenient to be limited to the regular services of 7.45am and 1.08pm on this
increasingly popular day, but in so doing I unwittingly misled the delegation
into believing that the remedy was in my gift.  I doffed my hat, bade the
lobbyists good day, and was gone like a will-o’-the-wisp, for the public little
understood the stultifying administrative inertia of most railway offices.

In the gloom of the
Booking hall a line of expectant faces stood on parade before me and I squared
my shoulders, venturing only as much levity as would not encourage
indiscipline.  With the exception of Jack Wheeler, whom at first I ignored, I
shook hands with each employee in turn regardless of whether we had met
previously.  The reason why I did not shake Mr Wheeler’s hand was because he
had chosen to observe events from his pigeon-hole window surrounded by
tickets.  In his case, therefore, I could do no more than smile and tap the
glass as if consulting a barometer.

Because Mr Hales was
anxious to return to his duties I spoke to him first and sought his formal
opinion of the new signalbox.  Until recently he had been required to swing the
level crossing gates by hand and change the points by way of cast-iron levers
located around the station.  Hostile moorland winters had made this no enviable
task.

“The comforts of my new
workplace are famed, Mr Jay,” he grinned smugly.  “I must turn away visitors
continually if I am to go about my work.”

I wondered if Mr Hales
was implying that my own visit had been a hindrance, and considered countering
his discourtesy by mentioning the evil smelling sack that he had hidden beneath
the signalbox steps.  Such an enquiry would not have made a good start to our
relationship so I maintained silence upon the matter.

Ivor was not a tall fellow
and tricked one’s attention away from the fact by way of crisp mannerisms and
dapper dress, in particular by wearing a brightly coloured woollen cravat.  His
style of apparel did not offend me because, truth to tell, I was captivated by
his moustache, which he kept trimmed to a thin zigzag.  I judged the fellow to
possess all the qualities required of a reliable signalman.

While shaking Mr Troke’s
hand I noticed his billiard ball eyes whiten as he wished me luck in my new
post.

“I just hope you do better
than Mr Mildenhew, and Mr Dux,” he said.

“Oh?  What became of Mr
Dux?” I enquired.

“He was here directly
before Mildenhew,” Mr Troke’s eyes bulged.  “The fool started drinking so they
sacked him.  Old Duxie was so ashamed, he went home to bed that night and never
woke up next day.”

“What an appalling tale,”
I replied.  “I suppose the poor fellow lost the will to live.”

“No, he didn’t die,” Mr
Troke frowned.  “He just couldn’t get off to sleep.”

Somewhat confounded I
moved on and exchanged notes with Diggory Smith, the Junior porter, of whose
singular sense of humour I was already acquainted sufficient to be wary. 
Apparently Master Smith was a willing lad, if a trifle gullible, with a
penchant for climbing.  I had been told that the duty he relished most was
scaling the tall signal posts to refill the lamps with oil.  Also I learned, by
way of a secretive nudge from Humphrey, that the towering and bony youth was a
‘dead shot’ with the catapult, although I failed to see what constructive
application this had for the railway.

The company uniform did
little to mitigate the boy’s scruffy nature.  He appeared this day, and ever
after, to have dirt around his mouth.  Assuming this to be a delicate personal
matter I did not question it.  Instead, attempting to put the boy at his ease,
I asked him an informal question or two.

“Do you live with your
parents, lad?”

“There’s French blood on
’is mother’s side,” Jack Wheeler interrupted rudely through the ticket window. 
His remark precipitated lewd gesticulations amongst his colleagues.

“Let the lad speak for
himself,” I cautioned them.

“I live with my mother
in Widdlecombe, sir,” he answered with a disturbingly squeaky voice.  “My
mother makes lace.”

“So I understand.  And
what of your father?”

“He was the master farrier
in the parish of Widdlecombe, sir.”

“Was he indeed,” I
marvelled.  “But since you use the past tense, lad, what prevents him from
practising his most laudable skills today?”

“He was undertaken,
sir,” said the boy.  “It happened five years ago, but I’m all right now. 
Mother explained that death becomes us all eventually.”

Such blunt satire
shocked me.  I paused to clear my throat.

“Well, I am sorry to
hear that,” I sympathised, delivering my words with sufficient stridency to
quell a growing ripple of bathos around the room.

“Nobody had time to
suffer,” the youth added with spurious compassion.

I was touched by the young
porter’s concern for my feelings and placed my hand upon his shoulder, for his
bravado was probably borne of bitterness.  To spare myself further
embarrassment I did not delve into the circumstances of his father’s demise,
instead preferring to change the subject.  This was a wise decision, as it
turned out, for I learned afterwards that the man had been struck by one of our
trains, albeit during an ill advised perambulation in a drunken stupor.

“And how do you deliver
yourself to work each day?” I enquired.  “Widdlecombe is nearly three miles
away.”

“I walk, sir,” the lad
replied sheepishly, then confessed to a breach of company by-laws.  “I walk
along the railway.”

I boggled briefly, then
reflected that Master Smith had no need to risk his life treading the ballast,
for in its wisdom as one of the line’s financiers the LSWR had insisted upon construction
of a spare track-bed as far as Upshott to allow separate ‘up’ and ‘down’ lines
to be laid one day.  I regretted that the young man could not be found duties
closer to his home, but Widdlecombe station had only a small complement of
staff with vacancies arising very infrequently.

Mr Turner, presumably
still in the grip of his sleepy spell, seemed unable to keep his eyes open.  In
deference to his handicap I taxed him only with trifles, but as our
interlocution progressed I became suspicious that we were not reciprocating on
the same topic.  Indeed, abrupt proof was to follow.

“I never really knew my
father,” he told me woozily.  “When I was a nipper he left home and went back
to Itinera.”

“It’s in Italy,” Jack
advised everyone.

Humphrey observed my
difficulty and set me straight with a confidential whisper.

“His father was an
itinerant,” he said.

I bothered Mr Turner no
more and broke up the meeting.  While everyone was dispersing I apprehended Mr
Maynard and ushered him to one side.  A pucker gentleman with a milky eye, Mr
Maynard satisfied me that not everyone at Upshott was idiosyncratic.  The Horse
Superintendent’s uniform was immaculate, and as we stepped outside I noticed
storm clouds reflecting in the peak of his cap.  I asked Mr Maynard if he would
conduct me around his stables at some mutually convenient time, and waited
while he stroked his waxed moustache proudly.  However, there was no suggestion
as to when this tour might take place.