Andrew Martin - The Last Train to Scarborough

Tommy nodded and half smiled.

'Didn't hurt too much, I hope?'

'I didn't know a deal about it,' said Tommy. 'I went unconscious, you see. Funny thing is, when I came around, I was chattering away like billy-o.'

'Really?' I said. 'About what?'

'About all sorts.'

And while Tommy Nugent talked about what he'd been talking about when he was accidentally shot, I tried my best to balance fire and water, periodically breaking off to look out of the side of the J Class.

It felt fine to be swinging the shovel again, and just after the village of Flaxton, Tommy, who'd been going on about what a white bloke my governor was, interrupted himself (so to speak) to come over to my side, clap me on the back, and say, 'I wish I had you firing every Sunday'.

I was quite choked by this, almost felt the tears springing to my eyes, and I said, 'You think I'm up to the mark then?' which of course I shouldn't have done but I wanted to hear it again.

'She's steaming like a fucking witch,' Tommy said, making his way with difficulty back to his sand box, and that was even better. No praise that might come my way as an articled clerk could ever mean so much, of that I was sure.

The ruins of Kirkham Abbey came up on the right – a standing shadow in the gloom – and I said, 'Tell me about Blackburn.'

'Hasn't your governor put you in the picture?' said Tommy. ' Well then…'

Between Kirkham Abbey and Malton – which was our only booked stop – Tommy told me all he knew about the fellow.

Leeds and York were both in District One of the company's Rifleman's League, which was where Tommy did his shooting after having been invalided out of the Territorial Army. He and Ray Blackburn had first met two years ago at a shooting match in the York range at Queen Street, behind the station, and since there were only three other clubs in District One, they'd shot against each other a few times since. Nugent said that Blackburn was 'quiet – a slow and steady sort of bloke'. Being slow and steady, he was 'better at the deliberate targets… not a great hand at the quick-firing'. But a good shot all the same. 'He had a good eye,' as Tommy said.

After that first meeting, the Leeds and York teams had gone for a drink in the York Railway Institute.

'They'd bested us,' said Tommy, 'and the losers generally buy the winners the first drinks. But Ray came straight up to me, put out his hand, and said, "Good shooting. Now what will you have?'"

That had impressed Tommy no end, especially since his firing had been 'all over the shop' that evening. What had impressed him still more though was that Ray Blackburn had turned out to be a tee-totaller, so Tommy hadn't had to buy him a drink back. 'Refused outright – wouldn't even have a lemonade.'

'He never drank?'

'Never,' said Tommy. 'He would smoke the odd small cigar, and that was it.'

When the two had met for a second time, after a shooting match in Hartlepool, it had been the same story over again. Blackburn had shot well, Tommy not so well, but still Blackburn had bought the round, expecting nothing in return. This combination of superb shooting and not requiring a drink had quite floored Tommy – 'I mean, talk about gentlemanly' – and I had a suspicion that it was on this account,

rather than because of any deep acquaintance, that he'd come to Scarborough.

'If Ray Blackburn's been done in,' said Tommy, 'then I want to know who's done him, and I want to be up and at 'em.'

'Did the Chief ask you to come on this job, or did you ask the Chief?'

'I wanted to know if I could help at all,' said Tommy, drawing back the regulator.

'It does you credit to risk your neck for a stranger,' I said, and Tommy coloured up at that.

'I en't risking me neck,' he said, but whether because he doubted his own words or because he was embarrassed at being praised we went on in near silence for the next little while, with Tommy just occasionally adjusting his position on the sandbox, as though his bad leg was giving him jip.

'Of course, he was religious,' I put in, as we flew through the little station of Huttons Ambo. (It was too dark to see, but I knew the long platform signs there from memory: 'Huttons Ambo: serves also High and Low Hutton'.)

'That's right is that,' said Tommy. 'Catholic. I can't remember how I know that but he was the sort of bloke… you just couldn't help but know. Not that he was pi. It just came off him.'

'Radiated,' I said.

Tommy nodded.

'… Sort of thing. 'Course, with that particular lot, there's no bar on drinking, quite the opposite in fact. So there again he was just that bit different. Mind you, that lass of his…'

'His fiancée?'

'I only saw her once – easy on the eye but a bit of a tart, if you ask me. Led him a right bloody dance.'

'What did he look like?'

'Nice looking fellow. Dark, biggish – very dark eyes.'

As we closed on the market town of Malton, Tommy gave up on Ray Blackburn for a while, yawned and limped over a couple of paces to glance at my fire. 'Dead spot back centre,' he said. 'Big coal makes a dead spot,' he added, going back to his perch. 'You want it about the size of your fist.'

It wasn't a criticism, I told myself, so much as just a passing remark. He hadn't meant to take back his earlier praise. As I put on coal, I was half aware of Tommy opening the locker door. A little later, as I continued shovelling, he was pulling a night-shirt and under-drawers from one of his kit bags, and when I looked over at him again, he was pointing a fucking rifle at me.

It was a short rifle – barely three feet long – and Tommy stood there grinning with it in his hand, and rocking slightly on the footplate.

'I'll be taking this in, if it's all right with you,' he said.

He reached again into his kit bag, and took out a smaller bag made of cloth. From this he took a cartridge, which he put between his front teeth.

'Hold on a minute,' I said.

'I've another in the kit bag, and you can have that one,' said Tommy, still with the cartridge between his teeth. He pulled a lever behind the trigger; the gun broke, and he put in the cartridge. He snapped the gun shut once again.

'See how it's done?' he said.

He then pulled the lever again and the cartridge flew spinning upwards before landing on the footplate. Tommy caught it up, and frowned. 'Dented, that is,' he said, and he pitched it through the fire-hole door into the rolling white flames.

'Shut the door, man,' I said. 'There's liable to be a bloody explosion.'

But as I spoke there came only a soft, single pop from within the fire. I stared at Tommy, as we rattled into Malton.

'You're a bit of a dark horse, en't you?' I said.

'It's only little,' he said, running his hand along the stock. 'Carbine, point two-two calibre. Handy if you're on horseback or if you're a lad – or both. Yours'll be just the same, but you can have a feel of both, and take whichever one suits.'

'Stow it, Tommy,' I said. 'Police don't go armed in this country… Does the Chief know you've brought all this ironmongery?'

'Why else would he send me?'

That might be right.

And as we rattled on through the night, I saw that in Tommy's eyes this gun – or these guns – made up for his crocked leg; gave him a value in this world that he didn't seem to get from driving an engine. The guns were the reason he'd come, and it was just like the Chief to have packed me off with someone like Tommy; part of his game of keeping me always on the jump. I was his favourite all right, but I paid the bloody price for it.

'Look, this is a fishing trip, Tommy,' I said. 'Do you know what that means? We go in and keep our eyes skinned. I come back and write a report saying whether further questioning is required. There ought to be no bother. We ought to be perfectly all right.'