One other difference about these evening duties was the fact that after eight o’clock we were supervised not by roadside officials but by means of radio transmissions. Occasionally a laconic voice would call up and enquire about a bus’s position or state of progress. This was usually at weekends when city centre traffic jams could occur even at midnight; in these cases the controller would issue appropriate instructions to any bus that may have been held up. Most of the time, however, the radio stayed quiet. Buses ran unhindered through the empty streets keeping roughly to schedule, and drivers didn’t need to worry about inspectors lurking in the shadows.
With these thoughts in mind I completed my final journey to the southern outpost, arriving five minutes early. There, to my surprise, I saw Mick Wilson standing by the side of the road.
“Evening, Mick,” I said, through the window. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Evening, driver,” he replied.
“I do have a name you know.”
Mick ignored my comment and stood examining his schedules book by the light of an electric torch.
“You’re five minutes early,” he said at length. “Why’s that?”
I had no hiding place. The evidence was plainly visible: namely, me and my bus, five minutes earlier than we should have been.
“There’s no excuse for being early,” I said in a resigned way. “I suppose you’re going to book me.”
Mick gazed at me for a long time before he spoke again.
“As a matter of fact I’m not going to book you,” he said. “Instead I’m going to offer a word of advice.”
“Oh yes?”
“Tell me something,” he continued. “Do you believe in the maintenance of headway?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Truly believe?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you’ve recently been associating with a known dissident.”
“You mean Edward?”
“I’m not saying who,” Mick rejoined. “Merely that you seem to have been led astray by this individual.”
“But he’s my friend.”
“Friend or no friend,” said Mick. “You should keep well away from him. Not only for your own sake, but for the sake of the entire bus service.”
“This is ridiculous,” I protested. “Edward is a busman through and through. He’s only seeking improvement by alternative methods.”
At these words Mick appeared to undergo some sort of electric shock. His face went completely blank and the pupils of his eyes dilated. Furthermore, he ceased breathing for several seconds. When at last he spoke again his voice was cold and flat. “There are no alternative methods,” he said. “The only true path is the maintenance of headway.”
A long silence followed, during which the bleak winds of night played around the idling bus. Sensing I may have pushed the argument too far I decided to attempt a compromise.
“Alright,” I offered. “I’ll try not to be early tomorrow night.”
Mick, meanwhile, was quickly recovering his composure.
“Give me your log card, will you?” he said.
I handed it over and he wrote something in the ‘remarks’ box. Then he passed it back and vanished into the darkness.
I peered at the card. Mick had written only one word: ADVISED.
§
By the next evening the weather had begun to deteriorate. Yesterday’s sunshine was rapidly forgotten as heavy rain moved in from the west. The prospects for rush-hour travellers was formally classified as ‘grim’. Not only did they have to endure the usual torments of jostling crowds and packed buses: now they had to contend with repeated downpours and the resulting puddles everywhere. As the drains reached capacity I watched the people’s struggles from my warm, dry vantage point. In these conditions the job of a bus driver suddenly came into its own. Waiting passengers were genuinely pleased to see us when we arrived. They regarded the bus as a safe haven from the rain and clambered thankfully aboard. Reality returned when they got off again (especially if they’d left their umbrella behind).
By late evening, however, the constant rain was beginning to cause problems for some drivers too. About half past eleven I was working my way towards the southern outpost when the cab radio crackled into life.
“We’ve had a bus gone missing from our radar screen,” announced the controller. “I’m looking for running number three: can I have a response please?”
(They didn’t really have a radar, of course: this was simply a figure of speech.)
After a short delay another voice could be heard.
“Running number three receiving,” it said. “Over.”
I didn’t recognise the voice, and therefore guessed it must belong to the new driver. It was most unusual to be able to hear both sides of a conversation and I presumed the radio was stuck on an open channel. (I wasn’t sure whether this was due to the weather.)
“What’s your location, number three?”
“About a mile from the southern outpost,” came the reply. “Heading north.”
“What’s happened?”
“My windscreen wipers have packed in. I can’t see to drive so I’ve had to stop.”
“What have you done with your people?” enquired the controller.
“They’re still here with me,” said the new driver. “I keep telling them there’ll be another bus along in a minute, but it’s almost half an hour now and there’s no sign of one.”
The poor bloke sounded quite desperate. It was an unenviable predicament for a driver to be marooned with a load of passengers. Why, I wondered, hadn’t the next bus arrived to take them off his hands? I got my answer a few minutes later when I came upon Cedric, parked at the side of the road with his hazard lights flashing. I pulled alongside him and asked what the trouble was.
“The back doors keep opening and closing of their own accord,” he answered. “This bus isn’t going anywhere.”
Behind him I could just discern the doors swishing open, then closed, then open again.
“There’s another driver stranded up the road as well,” I remarked.
“Yeah,” said Cedric. “I heard it on the radio.”
I bade him farewell and continued on my way. This was beginning to look very bad. A little further along I passed the stricken northbound bus. Inside was a group of about thirty passengers, along with a very sorry-looking driver. The rain now seemed even heavier than before.
What I couldn’t quite work out was how this new recruit came to have so many people on board in the first place. Normally on a wet night like this there would hardly be anybody bothering to travel. Even allowing for the long gap between buses it was an uncommonly large number. The only conclusion I could draw was that the new driver had been running late even before his windscreen wipers stopped working. He had plainly fallen victim to the Law of Cumulative Lateness: late buses always carried more passengers; therefore, once a bus was late it could only become later still. Now, it seemed, his lateness was compounded beyond redemption.
What was also becoming clear was that the next bus in the sequence was mine. The three other functioning buses were somewhere at the northern end of the route, their drivers probably unaware of the critical situation in the south. The stranded driver had assured his people that another bus was coming to save them from their plight, and in a sense he was correct. Yet prophesying buses was a perilous exercise. I still had to complete my southbound journey before I turned around and headed the other way again. The bus he had foretold would be a long time coming.
Eventually I arrived at the southern outpost and paused briefly. There were no ‘intending passengers’ at the bus stop; neither were any officials to be seen. The absence of Mick Wilson and his comrades on such a horrid night was quite noticeable: inspectors of buses, I’m afraid to say, were merely fairweather friends.