Andrew Martin - The Somme Stations

We were in good nick, keeping the pressure nicely: little simmer of steam from the safety valve. I leant out to see… Yes, grey ghost in attendance at the chimney top. We’d finally found a good place for our billy-can full of tea (wedged behind the lubricator pipes), and we had the grenade in our locker for blowing the whole fucking lot up at short notice.

On the debit side of the equation, it was pissing down; and if a shell landed on us or within ten feet then we were goners, not to mention – in view of the volatile load we carried – any other poor bugger within quarter of a mile. I put the odds against that happening at no higher than twenty-to-one, and I kept asking myself whether this meant that, after twenty trips, we’d definitely cop it? Captain Muir, the Oxford or Cambridge man, would know.

Moving further under the cover of our mean cab roof, and closer to the fire, I took out my Woodbines, offering them about. No takers, and in fact Muir made another note. What was he writing? ‘Driver smokes Woodbines.’ Not for long, I wouldn’t be doing. This was my last packet; I’d have to start on the Virginians Select that the Chief had given me. Had the Virginians Select been selected by Virginians? It was a nicety that had occupied me ever since I’d clapped eyes on the packets.

A shell landed – first of the night.

It did not leave my ears singing, so it couldn’t have been very near, but I could not see where it was, since we were enclosed by the broken trees, which would appear to repeatedly walk forwards so as to commit suicide – being in such a terrible state to begin with – on the track before us, but always stopped short or over-stepped the rails at the last moment. Blowing smoke, I looked over the coal bunker. Both Oliver Butler and Dawson were staring back my way. I could not quite make out the expression on Butler’s face (being on the last wagon, he was too far off), but I didn’t doubt it was a sour one. He at any rate had apparently not discovered that I’d once nicked Harvey’s natural father, for if he had known, he’d have brought it up. Dawson put up his hand to acknowledge me. He also had a Woodbine on the go of course. Didn’t see him on Virginians Select. Bernie Dawson and his sort were just made for Woodbines. Why, the cigarette practically smoked him . There was something easy-going about the Woodbine man, and that was Dawson’s nature all right, except when he was on the John Smith’s bitter. He’d said nothing further to me about our close shave in Albert with Sergeant Major Thackeray, and this was just as I’d expected. It wasn’t shame that made him clam up; in fact, if you tried to bring the matter up, he’d just give you a polite smile and a faint look of puzzlement as if you’d been the one behaving badly, and so were being rather ‘off’ in recollecting the matter. Or perhaps he just didn’t remember. He had clean forgotten about the cut to my knuckle sustained in the Hope and Anchor, or so I assumed.

Tinsley was shovelling coal again, but as he swung the little shovel towards the firehole, the engine jolted and he did a missed shot.

‘Oh heck,’ he said, and he was down on his knees picking up the lumps and chucking them in by hand.

‘Keen,’ observed Muir, who’d stepped over to my side to get out of Tinsley’s way.

I nodded. ‘He lives to write himself down “passed fireman”.’

‘And what will he do then?’ enquired Muir, who obviously didn’t know much about footplate life.

‘Then he’ll fire engines,’ I said, ‘for a little while…’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Well, twenty years. After that, he’ll drive them.’

Tinsley had just regained his feet when the engine gave another lurch that nearly over-toppled us all, not to mention the engine itself. The twins had walked the track the day before, looking for faults, but both engine and wagons were shaking about like buggery. I moved the reverser back a notch to quieten things down a bit.

‘That good old whirring,’ Tinsley said, nodding to himself, ‘that beat .’

We emerged from the remains of Aveluy Wood and began to climb. The shell noise was fairly continuous now, but nothing had so far come near. The rain had found the right angle for soaking us, and the track was slimy into the bargain. I put down more sand as we came by the crater-pond where Captain Leo Tate had died. The water remained uncollected, looking black and evil; in fact the quantity was growing. The different rumble came as we went over the Ancre on the girder bridge, and Captain Muir leant out, doing his best to see the bridge and the water below. He made another note.

We passed what Tate had called the Old Station; next came Holgate Villa. Men were moving about beyond it. What lot were they?

A new feature came up now: a passing loop. I could just make it out in the dark. In time there’d be a control point there. The twins had been part of the gang that had put that in – made a decent job of it, too, since we didn’t jar on the points. We came into the next lot of trees, and were descending now, so the bloody things seemed to be coming up too fast. I turned and indicated to Oliver Butler that he might screw down his brake a little. Dawson saw my hand signal too, and he would do the same. We were now surrounded by the sound of German shells and our own gun batteries blazing away. There was a point with the noise of battle where you stopped trying to pretend there’d ever been any such thing as silence, and this was it. I wanted a cigarette but didn’t have any left. The second bridge came up, and the gate in the ditch: Naburn Lock. I turned again at this, and eyed Butler. He returned my stare for a short space of time, then swivelled away.

We rocked on, going over new track now. Presently, Tinsley indicated the manned control point coming up. I went over to his side, and saw a white lamp, and the outline of a man holding it. As we approached, the man became a nervous corporal of the Royal Engineers. I went back over to my side, and saw where the branch curved away into a region of shell holes, spike-like trees, ditches and, by the looks of it, exploding shells. But what did the white light mean? It ought to have been green or red. I knocked off the regulator, and we cruised up to the corporal with the lamp. Tinsley gave me a quick nod, since pre-judgement of a stopping point was one of the great skills of engine driving, and I’d hit the spot exactly.

I leant out, and the corporal came up to me, lamp in hand. I bent down, and he craned up; our heads were separated by not more than a yard’s distance, but still I had to roar, ‘What’s that mean?’ while pointing down at the lamp.

‘Oh,’ he said, looking down himself. ‘Filter’s fallen out.’

For an RE man, he was a gormless bugger.

‘What filter?’ I bawled, ‘Green or red?’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘green.’

‘Safe along there, is it?’

He sort of shrugged, saying, ‘Gunners are still at it,’ and that was just the trouble: the Germans evidently had a fix on the gun positions along the branch, but as long as our guns were being fired, shells were needed. By shouting directly into Tinsley’s ear, I got over that he was to jump down and check the setting of the points for the branch, since I did not trust this clot holding the light.

Three minutes later we were rolling along the branch at five miles an hour, with a barrage coming down around us. Three had come down within thirty yards, and I had started to shake. I tried to hide this by moving about, touching the controls of the engine, even if they did not need to be worked. Muir was stock still, gripping the engine brake and not taking notes. Tinsley was talking to himself, and he seemed to be repeating over and over the virtues of his hero, Tom Shaw, although I could only make out snatches, as he moved between the coal bunker and the firehole door: ‘An incandescent fire of medium thickness,’ I heard him say. ‘Dampers shut, firehole door open otherwise blow off.’ Ahead of us, frightened-looking men of the Royal Artillery were coming out of the trees, and some of those trees were on fire. At the sight of the blokes, I pulled up. The gormless corporal had obviously had enough about him to alert them, by field telephone, to our arrival. Oliver Butler was down, and talking to them. It was his job to liaise as regards unloading the shells. Dawson walked up to the foot-plate, and stood on the step.