And this remark of his bothered me.
Chapter Eight
I saw that we were down for a Scarborough excursion when I read the weekly notices the following Monday. It was booked for the Wednesday – 21 June.
As we were rolling away from the shed mouth on that day, and heading for the coaling stage with a tank engine clanking under us, I saw that John Ellerton, shed superintendent, was walking alongside. It had been misty when I'd booked on at seven but that had cleared, leaving the smoke to battle it out with sunshine. The mills and the houses of Sowerby Bridge climbed the hills in zigzags, and there were golden flashes of sunlight coming off certain windows like messages being sent over the rooftops, across the patches of rocks and grass, over the horses' heads. There was nothing much to Sowerby Bridge – it was mostly Town Hall Street – but it looked fine in the sun, just like its mightier neighbour, Halifax.
It was the tenth day after the stopping of the Highflyer, and this was our first excursion since then. The trip was booked by a show called White's, another Halifax mill.
Of all my particular worries, I'd been thinking of that report in the Courier speaking easily of the 'lately fallen tree' that had lain on the line ahead of the North Eastern Railway excursion to Scarborough. We were about to run over those very metals.
After leaving Halifax, we would make first for York, where the Lanky territories gave out. The rest of the trip being over foreign territory – that of the North Eastern Railway – we'd have to pick up somebody who knew the road.
'I have the name here of your pilot,' John Ellerton yelled up; 'fellow called Billington!'
We had the board for the Halifax line now, and Clive was opening up the regulator.
Ellerton stopped trying to keep up, but looked at his watch, then yelled out: They've given us him before!' he called. 'And he's a right pill!'
'What's he on about?' said Clive as we began rumbling towards the Joint station.
'He said the bloke we're to take on is a pill.'
As we crawled along, I looked down at a patch of coal, cinders and bright weeds – green and black nothing. But there was a paraffin blow-lamp and grinding wheel there, with a spare grindstone about the size of the famous one from ten days ago. I had never noticed either of these items before, but I somehow knew they had always been there. The question was: had there been a second spare? I would ask John Ellerton, who was standing watching us go, with his bowler right back on his head, pleased at the sight of another engine going off to be at large in the world. Everybody liked John Ellerton: he had very honest blue eyes: Irish eyes, as I thought of them for some reason.
'I believe I know him,' said Clive.
'Who?'
'The pill. They always give you the same bloke at York – he's like a sort of warning not to come back.'
I was more than a little anxious over the run. Paul, the socialist missionary, and his governor, Alan Cowan, were down on excursions. Paul had denied having anything to do with the wrecking of 1418, but would be hardly likely to say so if he had been behind it. But no. If you were wrecking trains to make a point, you would own up to it, providing you knew you couldn't be found.
If the wreckers were after mills then here was another: White's. Then again, if they were after Hind's Mill only, we'd be all right.
The wife had settled in there quite nicely, working for her Mr Robinson and not either of the Hinds. She'd told me they were trying to discover for themselves who'd placed the stone. I'd asked her if they knew she was married to me, the fireman of the engine, and she'd said, 'I don't know. I keep mum over that.'
Could it be that the wreckers owed a grudge to Highflyers, or big engines in general?
That was something that had come to me in the Evening Star, and if it was the case, we were in for a trouble-free day, for we had under us one of the standard radial tanks of Mr Aspinall. They were a little longer than your common run of tank, but were to be counted a close cousin of a kettle put up against a Highflyer.
Clive, doing his checks, had found dust on the regulator, on the engine brake – all over the shop, really – but he'd smiled at it. I fancied that after a few long days on the Rishworth branch he was feeling light-hearted at the thought of Scarborough. It was a pretty spot, and something new in that we'd not worked an engine there before. Also, we were not booked to do a double trip, so the two of us would be able to try some of the pubs before 'coming back passenger'.
Our carriages were waiting at platform six at the Joint beside the blackboard on which Knowles, the stationmaster, had written 'special train, white's mill', and so on, with all the fancy underlining, even for this little tank engine. He was just finishing off as we came in. He could have farmed out this job, but he had a better hand than anyone in the Joint, and he knew it. As we floated up alongside – Clive had got the cut-off just right, as usual – Knowles looked up fast, then away. I looked at Clive, but he was miles away, holding his leather book and staring at the pressure gauge, even though it was at the right sort of mark. It struck me there and then that I'd never seen Clive pass a single word with Stationmaster Knowles.
Old Reuben Booth was our train guard once again, and he was now waiting below for the coupling up and the vacuum- brake test. Knowles was walking away along the platform. You'd think he'd stay to look over a vacuum test once in a while. It was more important than getting the blackboard right. There again, he would have to talk to us in the process. Maybe he was a shy sort really. Maybe he knew we were up to the job, and could be left to ourselves.
Reuben told us the train weight, then said: 'A hundred and fifty souls,' and as he did so his colour fell and he gave a sigh. He looked all-in.
'What exactly is this trip in aid of, Reuben?' I said.
'Holiday,' he said, and then, breathing hard through just standing still, he looked along the line towards the Beacon Hill Tunnel, which we would be entering presently. After a while of doing that he took out a paper from his coat pocket, saying: 'I have it all set down here… Founder's birthday, White's Mill… Trip's out to Skegness… No, sorry, to Scarborough.'
'Much obliged, Reuben,' said Clive, who turned and rolled his eyes at me. Then he looked back at Reuben, asking: 'Is the founder coming with us, sitting up in first class all on his tod, like that slave-driver Hind?'
'Hind was with his old man,' I reminded Clive.
'From what I've heard,' said Clive, 'that tots up to the same thing as being on his own.'
'No, there's no First on,' said Reuben, 'and, no… founder's not coming along today.'
'Why not?' I said.
'On account of… fellow's been dead this fifty year.'
So he was one of those kind of founders.
The mill hands were coming up to the carriages, trooping along in gangs of half a dozen at a time from the Lamb Inn on platform five, which always opened early for excursions.
'What do they make at this place?' I called down to Reuben.
'Blankets,' he said. 'White's blankets… Red they are, generally speaking.'
The excursionists all gave a cheer when Reuben waved his green flag, which he did in a way all his own: like a man very carefully drawing a diagram in the air. They were all still leaning out when we got the starter from Halifax, but they dodged back in sharpish when we reached Beacon Hill Tunnel, into which fifty years' worth of engine smoke had rolled, and mostly stayed. It was cool inside, but you got the shaking, shrieking darkness into the bargain. For the first time I felt a little of my new nervousness in the tunnel dark. It was the stone on the line that had done it.
In the tunnel, I took off my coat. Turning about, I felt for the locker. Although stone blind I worked the catch without difficulty, but when I tried to shove my coat in there it wouldn't go. I threw open the fire door, but the red shine came only up to my knees, and did not help me with the locker, so I leant out of the engine, watching the dot of light grow and resolving to be patient.