The Blackpool Highflyer

We came out of the tunnel and the mystery was all up: a carpet bag was crammed into the locker, taking up all the space. Clive was looking across at me from the regulator. 'Not the common run of stores,' he said, 'I know.' He took a pace towards me and heaved at the bag so that it went further inside the locker. He then fished out a book that was in there alongside the bag. He handed it to me, saying: 'Reuben gave me this. It was left behind on the Hind's excursion.'

It was Pearson's Book of Fun.

'I've seen it before,' I said; 'it belonged to the kid whose mother died. We'd better get it back to him.'

Clive nodded, in an odd, dreamy kind of way, and I guessed he must be thinking I was nuts: the kid had lost his mother, so he would not be in want of Pearson's Book of Fun. I had not told Clive how I had botched things in the compartment after our smash, so he could not see what was driving me on: guilt.

'What's become of the lad?' I asked him, though I had a fair idea.

Clive shrugged and said, 'I reckon Reuben can tell you.'

I could have guessed he would say something of the sort. Clive coasted and glided; he put away all serious stuff.

The pill was waiting for us at York all right. Full name: Arthur Billington.

'Now then' he said, climbing up.

Then, before we could say anything back, the starter signal came off and he bellowed: 'Right then, you've got the road, so frameV

He had a very loud voice.

He was leaning over the side straightway, barging Clive out of the way and eyeing up the big signal gantry we were rolling up to. I happened to give a glance over in the direction of York Minster, which, I always fancied, was sitting on an island, and which seemed to rotate as we went past.

Billington was shouting about signals. 'One, two, three, third from the right – that's the bugger you want. And he's come off! He's come off! You're right as rain for Haxby now.'

Clive gave one of his gentle pulls on the regulator.

'Open her up, lad,' said Billington.

'Would you like a turn yourself?' said Clive.

'Aye' he said. 'Shift over, shift over,' and Clive came across to my side.

Billington gave a great tug on the regulator, and straightway I knew his kind: all hell and no notion. Two weeks before I would have laughed at him. Now, I wanted Clive back at that regulator. He'd been going too fast over the Fylde, but he'd stopped the Highflyer in time, after all. Well, nearly.

'There'll be a nice big hole in your fire now,' Clive told me, in low tones.

I saw that he was right, so I took up my shovel. We ran crashing through the little station at Haxby, and as we did so that tranquil spot was filled with the voice of Billington, roaring: 'What have we got on?'

'Excursion,' I said.

'You two blokes work spare, do you?'

We were rushing through the village of Strensall now, at such a rate that I caught sight of a porter on the platform pushing half a dozen people back from the edge.

'We work excursions,' said Clive, as we shot out once more into countryside. 'We're the Sowerby Bridge excursion gang,' he added.

I thought how much I used to like the sound of that.

'At York,' said Billington, 'you'd be called the spare gang. Do you have a spare gang at Sowerby Bridge?'

'No,' said Clive.

'That's because you're it,' said Billington.

Clive was giving me the eye, smiling but frowning at the same time.

'What do you do when there's no excursion on?' Billington was shouting.

'Relief,' I shouted.

'Relief, spare… Comes to the same thing!' yelled Billington.

Clive showed me by hand signs that he wanted the footplate given a spray with the slasher pipe. I was glad of any distraction, and as I set to he hung out of the side with his blue jacket fluttering, looking along the line ahead. Very noble, he looked, with his grey hair lashed back. Was this the thing between him and Knowles the stationmaster? Clive was a handsome sort but just a little bald; Knowles was a well set up fellow, but not so fetching to the fillies (I guessed). They both dressed up to the knocker, so there it was: deadlock.

I hosed down the footplate with the boiling water, calling out to Billington to mind himself, but he was too busy squinting through the spectacle glass and talking thirteen to the dozen about how we had Kirkham Abbey coming up, and how the signals all about there were a mare's nest.

'The only blokes who might be called "spare" at Sowerby Bridge', Clive was saying when he swung himself back onto the footplate, 'would be the pilots.'

Well that hit home, shut Billington up for at least two minutes.

But then he bellowed out: 'Now you've got distant, outer home, and home signals to look out for!'

'How far short of Malton are we?' I asked him.

No answer.

'It was shortly before Malton that a smash nearly happened,' I went on. 'I read of it in the paper.'

'Kirkham Abbey's five mile short of Malton,' Billington yelled back, presently. 'But don't bother thissen about that, you've the fucking signal to look out for.'

So we were in the danger zone. And I wasn't over-keen on the name Kirkham Abbey either – too like Kirkham in the rival county of Lancashire where Margaret Dyson had come to grief at my hands. I would not give it up yet.

'But where was the tree on the line?' I shouted.

However, Clive was at Billington's shoulder now. 'You can shut her off for a bit now, can't you?' Clive asked him; 'let her cruise through.'

'What do you think this is?' said Billington. 'A bloody yacht?'

Clive shook his head and sat down on the sandbox to read Pearson's Book of Fun. I carried on with the shovel, trying to fix the fire. With the sun right overhead it was very hot work.

'Natty dresser, your mate!' roared Billington.

I was trying not to look along the line, for I had no control over what might be placed there.

'Shabbiness', I shouted back at Billington, 'is a false economy.'

'Is it buggery,' said Billington. He had views on everything.

We were now running up to Kirkham Abbey station, and we would have been touching seventy when I spied the distant signal through the scratchy spectacle glass. It was off.

'Did you spot that?' shouted Billington.

'Aye,' I said, and he seemed put out. I wished he would slow down. A distant signal, even when off, meant proceed with caution.

'Now the "home" is the hardest spot on the whole bloody line,' Billington was saying. 'Half hidden in the bloody woods… It controls the level crossing that's just around the bend here.'

'All the more reason to slow down, then,' I muttered, shovelling coal. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, if the distant was off then the home would be off too, and there'd be no trouble, but a cart stuck at that level crossing would put the kibosh on all right.

We were really galloping now, and the damned wood seemed more of a forest, unwinding endlessly around the bend on the 'down' side, with no sign of the home signal. You could see very well how a branch might have fallen. There were so many of the buggers, after all.

I was glad to see Clive put down the book and stand up.

'I'll take her back now if it's quite all right,' he said to Billington.

'What for?'

'Well it's just that we've only got three ton of coal and the way you're going -'

'It wants some knowing, this signal does,' Billington was saying, and the words seemed to be shaken out of him by the motion of the engine. He was refusing to give up the regulator.

On the 'up' side was the ruined abbey. I caught a glimpse of white stone and white dresses against the bright green fields, a parked motorcar and some toffs standing within the broken walls, as if they were downhearted at having got there before it all collapsed.