The Enginemen, Chapter 11/1

Chapter 11: January 1962

James read the sports page with mixed feelings. The second test in Dacca had ended in a draw, despite Tony Lock’s 4 wickets in Pakistan’s first innings and Barrington’s 84 runs in England’s. He was glad that Dexter had not figured largely in the most recent match. He was still smarting from the injustice of May’s replacement as captain by Dexter after the final Oval Ashes test in September. He’d gone on the first day and had seen Peter May hit an elegant 71, but after that the newspapers had criticised his captaincy when the Australians amassed nearly 500 and England had been rescued by the rain. A Sussex man replacing his local hero was too much, then Dexter had rubbed salt in the wound by seeing England home in the first test in Lahore and getting fulsome praise in the tabloids. Anyway, this time he’d not been prominent in England’s innings and the two Surrey men had taken the limelight with Geoff Pullar from Lancashire.

He shaved, dressed and made his sandwiches and ventured out into the bitter January morning, the frost had hardly cleared. The sparkling sky of the previous night was now a dull bad-tempered grey as he pulled his donkey jacket over his overalls and strode out to the Oval tube station to change at Waterloo onto the Bakerloo line. He was on the 12/45 Worcester turn and was expecting a new mate. Pete Ashcroft had teamed up with Percy Steele when his fireman had been promoted to Link 2. He would normally have stayed with himself until promotion came his way, but James had been hurt that he’d jumped at the change of mate. Since the strike, Pete had been very quiet but he’d done his job efficiently enough and that was all James required. If the man wanted to shun him verbally, that was alright with him. He didn’t need to talk. He shrugged his shoulders when the foreman told him about Pete’s request to move and said it didn’t matter, but his pride was hurt, although he didn’t let anyone – most of all Pete himself – see it.

When he booked on, he asked at the desk who his new mate was, but the counter clerk ignored him, pretended he hadn’t heard. So he walked into the lobby and looked at the daily roster and saw Jim Plunkett’s name had been written into the space by his. It looked from the amount of rubbing out that Jim’s name was not the first to be entered in that column. He remembered the lad – he’d been the one who’d gone down to Plymouth with him when 5008 had run hot. He was the junior man in the Link, he’d probably been given no choice and found himself foist on James Peplow as mate. James guessed this but didn’t dwell on it. He found him already on 5008 breaking up lumps of coal in the tender and stared at him. He seemed too young for this job, he didn’t look as though he had the muscles although he’d had no cause to complain on that earlier trip. He remembered seeing his hairless body after the shower in the tiny Laira lodging room and felt a tinge of embarrassment at the memory.

Jim did not look pleased to see him. He just nodded at James and carried on trimming the tender. He’d had words with the roster clerk when he saw where he’d been shifted but the supervisor had heard and said he could go back to Link 4 if he wanted or make the best of it, so he’d acquiesced. I’ll get to Oxford before we pass the Up Hereford, James mouthed to himself, then cursed when he remembered that they’d two p-way slacks one at Hayes and the other at Scours Lane. If he took things normally he’d be five minutes late at Oxford, but he’d get it back by Evesham. So he pushed his steed hard immediately on leaving Paddington and Jim Plunkett was having to work continuously to keep the pressure up. After the Hayes slack, James opened her right up, full regulator at 25% cut off, and he saw Jim looking anxiously at the pressure gauge and redouble his firing rate. By Maidenhead they were cracking along at nearly 80 mph and sweat was pouring from Jim Plunkett’s brow despite the wicked draught that was freezing James’s right shoulder and leg. Pressure was beginning to droop a bit but when he shut off steam in Sonning Cutting he saw the red needle creep up and by the time they left Reading the safety valves were sizzling.

He kept speed over the Scours Lane slack a couple of miles per hour over the allowed 20 and opened the regulator wide as soon as the rear coach cleared the ‘T’ board. He was already doing 68 by Pangbourne and 78 by Goring and Plunkett was looking daggers at him as the draught on the fire was virtually lifting coal from the shovel even as it approached the firehole door. He swept round the Didcot avoiding line as fast as he dared and thought to himself that there was no way the Hereford would beat him into Oxford station. Then he got ‘distants’ on passing Hinksey and he was forced to stop opposite the cemetery outside the station. He could see the platform ahead of him was occupied and cursed to himself. He saw a column of white smoke and steam rise in the air ahead and breathed a sigh of relief for the train ahead was on the move.

But it was not soon enough. Before the Home Signal cleared he saw the Hereford running in from the north, and as he entered the station with resounding crashing exhaust beats, 7005 was already at rest in the opposite platform and the fireman was lifting the hose from the water column into the tender tank. I’ll do an extra circuit of Battersea Park tonight, he promised himself, an extra penance for his dilatoriness. Jim Plunkett just looked at him as they drew to a stand and said, “A fat lot of good all that rushing did you.” He raked through the fire and took his first rest since Hayes – he’d been on the go ever since then and his pale complexion was flushed bright red and sweat glistened on his brow. James said nothing.

He got home at 8 o’clock that evening and told himself that he’d vowed to run an extra mile on his Battersea Park work-out. It was dark and blowing a north easterly gale and he was tired and hungry. There had been tension between himself and Jim Plunkett for the rest of the turn, and James had been very careful after Oxford to push his engine no more than was necessary to keep time. He’d felt guilty and when they’d been relieved back at Paddington, the lad looked all in. So he’d just had a quick wash, cooked himself a simple omelette and put on some records and relaxed and set his alarm for 6.30 and promised that he’d run his usual circuit twice the next morning instead.

The following morning was no more inviting. He pulled the curtains back and saw water droplets on the glass and heard an occasional gust send flurries of rain against the window pane. He was strongly tempted to give up his resolve but he’d made a vow to himself yesterday and the thought was nagging at the back of his mind that if he failed to follow through, some unnamed disaster might befall him. So he changed into his singlet and shorts and jogged out into the darkness. He made his way to the river embankment and set off in the direction of the park, the rain and cold battering his body urging him to turn back, it was madness. But his obstinacy won out and he set a punishing pace for himself so that when he arrived at the park gates, his breath was already coming in rasping gasps. He stopped for a moment and bent double. He could see no-one else in the pale pool of light that marked each Victorian lamp-post. He ran round the park along the familiar paths as an automaton until he was back where he’d begun and he would normally head homewards with relief, especially on a morning like this. But he steeled himself to go round again. He had to stop twice as he felt a searing stitch coming on and was tempted to give up, then he was past the point of no return and had no option but to persevere.

By the time he got home he was soaked and frozen, so he ran the bath and immersed himself and lay there cursing that he’d been such a fool, how could he be so inane to think that bowing to common sense would bring on some catastrophe. It was just superstitious nonsense. He determined that day he’d try to treat his mate fairly, that he’d go easy on him. They were only working the Plymouth Parcels anyway as far as Bristol, there was no need for urgency. When they left Swindon, he’d actually offered to swap places with Jim and wielded the shovel himself, something many other drivers did with their mates though James had never made a practice of this.

The following day they were on the 1/40 to Gloucester and the urge to set himself a target with penalties if he failed played on his mind again. He managed to resist on the down run, but on the return he told himself that he’d pay some forfeit for every single minute of lateness he might incur. At first the run was easy and he’d passed Reading without any concerns, then he began to find distant signals on and it was clear that their train was on the heels of something that was not doing well. When they passed Old Oak Common, James realised that they’d only just scrape in on time if they had a clear road all the way to the platform and it was not to be. They were stopped twice, at Subway Junction and again immediately outside the terminus opposite Royal Oak tube station and drew up to the bufferstops on platform 8 six minutes late.

They trailed the empty stock back to Old Oak, cut off the engine at the throat to the carriage shed and berthed 5008 at the back of a queue of locomotives waiting for a shed labourer to drop their fires and empty their ashpans, before backing under the coal loading stage for the tender to be replenished with Markham top grade coal ready for the next day’s duty. The pair walked to the shed office and booked off, going immediately their separate ways with scarcely another word, James Peplow deep in thought. Those six minutes were lodged in his consciousness. How would he atone for that loss? What penance would he enact? What forfeit should he undergo to obtain remission from this ridiculous obsession?

When he got home he stripped and waited for the bath to fill. He stared at his naked torso and he remembered those shameful horrors when he was a boy, when the bullies had taken him to the barn and dragged his short trousers down and had whipped his bare bum with switches they’d cut from the bushes. He remembered the humiliation as he stood there, his shorts crumpled round his ankles while he blubbed and they laughed at him. He remembered looking in the mirror when eventually they let him go home and examining the purple angry stripes where the rough twigs had torn his flesh and how his mother had found him there and had pleaded with him to let her tell his teacher as she smoothed antiseptic balm on the scratches and how he had shouted at her not to tell as his tormentors would only redouble their tortures. And he remembered with shame when he was older and he’d been with a gang who’d bullied a young boy in similar fashion and he’d watched and found it exciting and had not tried to stop it and that he himself had wanted to lash out at the lad.

The bath filled while he mused, he stepped in, lay back and tried consciously to ease the tension in his body. He got the coal dust from his pores and got out and rubbed himself vigorously with the towel but he was still angry with himself and he couldn’t explain it. He threw his clothes on the bed, he slung his underclothes in the linen basket and fished out some clean pants and vest. As he pulled a pair of trousers off their hanger, the belt slipped from the waist and unfurled on the floor. He picked it up and curled it loosely round his fist and lashed out at the bed. Then he flicked it experimentally at himself and the tip caught him a glancing blow on his left buttock.

He paused in thought for a moment, unwound the belt from his hand and rewound it more tightly in his fist, placed his feet firmly on the floor a foot or so apart and swung the belt with some momentum so that it smacked across both buttocks with a feeble thwack. He unwound the belt again and refurled it so that the loose part of the belt was longer and struck himself with more power. He groaned involuntarily as the improvised whip bit home and muttered ‘one’ under his breath, and then proceeded to whip himself with increasing speed until he’d delivered six blows to his naked cheeks.

When he finished he threw the belt upon the floor and went back, naked, to the bathroom and stared at the reddening marks across his bottom, already flushed from the vigorous towelling after the bath. He ran his fingers over the marks to see if he could discern any ridges or weals but his skin was smooth, his blows had been insufficient to really hurt. He just felt a warm glow. He went back and dressed and helped himself to a couple of bottles of beer from his larder, drank them quickly and tried to forget the disgust he felt with himself.