'There's the acetylene,' said the young bloke, 'and there's your oxygen.'
The second cylinder was a little bigger than the first – both were taller than a man. The first was the white one that we'd nicked from the goods yard. The second – the oxygen cylinder – was the colour of rust.
'Now, will it act?' said Sampson, and he fished in the sack for a tool with which he unloosened the top nut on the cylinder. The oxygen came out, with the sound of a man with his finger to his lips saying 'Shhh!' for a long time.
'… Tell you what'd be a bit of a lark,' Sampson said, over the noise of the leaking gas,'… send a bloke in here at night, give him a box of matches… put him to search out the cause of this noise. He'd find it all right… but it'd be the last thing he did.'
He turned towards the young bloke, saying, 'What do you reckon to that, Tim?' Silence for a moment, before the young bloke answered: 'You'd need a fair amount of oxygen to cause a bang. It's the acetylene that's the dangerous stuff.' Sampson thought about this for a minute, before asking: 'Can I smoke when I'm on the job?' 'That's right out,' said the young bloke. Sampson and Tim were now heaving the oxygen cylinder on to their shoulders. Sampson then directed his lamp towards the second cylinder and the sack, before flicking the light towards Miles Hopkins. 'You and Allan take the tank, mate,' he said. 'And you…' he added, flicking the beam at the little clerk,'… you fetch the sack.' He and the young bloke led off, with the red beam of light showing the way between the black objects inside the shed. The two of us had all on to carry the cylinder -1 was beginning to see why I was needed. Behind us, the little clerk was saying: '… Only moved under special certificate, those things are.' We all walked on, as the clerk continued: 'A carbon of every document touching the movement of inflammable gases is forwarded to a special office at the clearing house.' He was at my heels now, saying: 'You seem a little out of your element here, pal.' 'Stow it,' I said. There was just the length of the cylinder between myself and Miles Hopkins, and I didn't want the clerk planting suspicions in his head. 'You're just the quiet sort, I suppose.' 'Aye,' said Hopkins from up ahead, 'and we could do with a few more like him.'
Chapter Twenty
We came out of the old loco erecting shop, and turned right, heading still further into the railway lands, and away from the city proper. We were in a place not meant for boots, but for wheels, and it was stumbling progress that we made towards wherever we were going. We'd left the Rhubarb Sidings behind now, and come to the railway and carriage sidings that lay alongside the dozen lines coming from the south into the station.
After a couple of minutes, we stopped for a breather, setting the cylinders down on the black track ballast before a row of sleeping carriages – Great Northern and North Eastern Joint Stock – and that's just what they were doing: sleeping. They screened us from the running lines leading to the station, so I could not see the train that went rocking past just at that moment with a tired, Sunday-night rhythm. Only it was probably Monday by now.
We trooped on, crossing the running lines. Why were there no watchmen about? The betting was that Sampson had fixed them, too. We crossed the 'up' tracks, and were about to step on to the 'down' lines when the young bloke pointed right. A train was at a stand within the station, down side. It would be heading out shortly. We set down the cylinders, and watched as it fumed under the great station roof. We could see the guard's green lamp moving on the platform alongside the locomotive, and what a fuss-box the bloody man was: to and fro, back and forth beside the boiler of the engine. The cylinder cocks were opened presently, however, and the engine began to move through its cloud of steam.
It rocked along in our direction, and every one of us turned to face away, yet the driver, a friendly sort, gave two screams on his whistle, and not only that (I couldn't help but turn about, so catching a glimpse of this), he also stuck his head out of his side window, and waved at us. He had to stand at a crouch as he did it, for all North Eastern Company engines had the cab windows placed too low. So the fellow had put himself out to be amiable, and got nowt in return. It would be nothing to him, though: he would have his mate to talk to, the tea bottle waiting on the ledge above the fire doors, the prospect of some good running on clear Sunday night lines. I admired the man – already gone from sight, Doncaster bound – and I hated him at the same time.
We picked up the cylinders once again, and I thought of Edwin Lund, searching the Gospels in the Lost Luggage Office, trying to seek out God's way. Was it God who'd set me down on the tracks and not up on the footplate? I had no answer to that, so I thought again of Lund: he was the winder; he turned the rope and I skipped. He had kept back the detail of the Lost Luggage Office burglary. Why?
Valentine Sampson and the young bloke were far ahead by now. Sampson was not over bright; he was not as clever as Lund or Miles Hopkins. But he was the striking arm, the man whose actions dictated the fate of his fellows. He walked steadily on, and I could see now that he was making for the south-side roundhouses: the first was the engine shed that stabled those North Eastern locomotives kept south of the station. It was in the cinder triangle between the lines leading into the station mouth, and those swerving away directly north towards the marshalling yards, goods yards and goods station.
Beside it lay the Midland roundhouse. The Midland was the main foreign company holding running rights into York, and such a company was entitled to its own shed, just as a government has its embassies overseas, but Sampson was paying that one no attention, for of course the blokes who booked on there had not been on strike. Their wages had not been brought to the shed week upon week to remain uncollected. We moved forwards, toward the pillars of a water tower, and Sampson motioned us to remain as he walked on with the young fellow yoked to him by the cylinder.
The two disappeared into the North Eastern roundhouse.
'Isn't there a watchman in there?' I said out loud, to nobody in particular.
It was the clerk who answered:
'Reason it out,' he said.
'Eh?' I said.
'Paid off, en't he?' he said. 'Like all of us.'
I nodded, looked away.
'How come you don't know that, mate?'
I made no answer. He was too curious by half, that bloke, and now he was looking at me sidelong. Had he seen me about the station? Might very well have. And if so would the glasses do their work? I heard a church bell floating across the darkness. It was the strike of one. The wife would be worried sick, or had she already become accustomed to my late hours? Sampson was now at the shed mouth, beckoning us on. Hopkins and I entered with our cylinder a minute later, the clerk coming along behind clutching the sackful of extra kit. And now he took over from the young bloke the task of escorting Sampson to the important spot.
As they went off to the eastern side of the shed, I looked about me. It was the first time I'd been in an engine shed since the accident at Sowerby Bridge, and it was quite fitting, for I was returning to steal off the profession that had disowned me. The shed was a roundhouse, as I've said: tracks like the spokes of a wheel, the engines sitting upon them like a gathering of witches in the darkness, with the turntable in place of the boiling pot. Their high smokeboxes gave them a haughty look. There were sixteen stalls in all, only a dozen occupied. Sampson, or the young chap, had hung a dark lantern on the turntable crank handle. Another small allowance of light spilled in from the shed mouth, showing a shining pool of black water in the packed cinders. If the engines in this shed were to be used in the morning there'd be fire-raisers in here from four a.m. at the latest.