Andrew Martin: The Somme Stations

He was drunker than I thought, and had become meaningless. How had he managed it in that short interval of time since leaving the station?

‘This gentleman’, I said, ‘is second only to the Chief Officer, Fairclough, up at Newcastle, and you would be very well advised -’

I broke off, for I’d noticed that the Chief had put his cigar out even though it was only halfway through. The Chief never put a cigar out when it was only halfway through.

‘Fairclough?’ Dawson was saying. ‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’

‘I’ve just told you who he is.’

The Chief had not only put his cigar out, he was also hitching up the sleeves of his tunic.

‘And who are you ,’ Dawson was asking me, as the Chief rose from his chair, ‘that you go round sticking up for him?’

‘Would you stop asking everybody who they are?’ said the Chief, in a voice that didn’t sound like him. It sounded like the Chief very far away. ‘You’re a disgrace to your uniform,’ he said, facing Dawson.

The pub was quite silent once again.

‘You can talk,’ said Dawson, for as well as gold braid there was a quantity of fish paste and cigarette ash on the Chief’s tunic. The Chief pushed closer towards him.

‘Eh?’ said the Chief. ‘What do you mean?’

He wanted Dawson to lay a finger on him. Mere abuse did not justify blows. The Railway Police Manual said as much.

Dawson raised his hands, and pointed at the smudge on the Chief’s chest: ‘You’re clarted in bloody…’

He touched the Chief, who frowned at him – not angry but puzzled rather. I was eyeing Dawson’s nose, which was of a good size, and wondering how it would look smashed. Was there a word that might spare it? I barked out ‘Apologise’, but that was too long a word, and the blow, and the cracking sound, came before I could get it fully out. The Chief was getting on in years, but his punch had some special bonus feature. I’d felt it myself on one occasion, and seen its effect on several station loungers. It was spring-loaded somehow; told by its speed rather than its force. Dawson went down.

‘I’ve a mind to charge you,’ the Chief said, at which I made out a voice from the saloon bar throng:

‘… Only you can’t, because this is not company premises.’

It was Oliver, and he was dead right. The Bootham Hotel was not company premises, and that was precisely why it was full of railwaymen, who were not to be seen drinking on railway territory. Dawson could not be charged with assaulting a police officer, because the Chief and I did not count as police officers in that place. We had the ordinary citizen’s power of arrest, and nothing more. The Chief peered into the crowd, and just then seemed a very old man indeed. A commotion at the back of the throng signified the departure of Oliver.

The Chief said to Dawson (who had now risen to his feet, and whose nose was still more or less as was, but a good deal bloodied), ‘You’ll come and see me tomorrow morning in the police office.’

Dawson looked over the Chief’s shoulder, over the heads of the pub blokes, and… he seemed to be gazing through the clear glass of the public bar window. He then fixed his gaze on the Chief, saying, ‘I’m joining the fucking army tomorrow morning.’

That knocked the Chief, at least for a moment.

‘You’d better not be spinning me a line,’ he said. ‘When you sign up, you’ll be given the King’s Shilling. You’ll bring me yours at midday. As proof.’

Dawson, sobered by the punch, quit the Bootham Hotel. The Chief and I took another pint with Don Wolstenholmes, who said he’d had trouble from Dawson before, and would be glad to see the back of him.

At about half past three, I was standing by the high doorstep of the Bootham Hotel, while the Chief took his leave of Wolstenholmes. The heat of the day had hardly abated, and all the pedestrians pushing on down Micklegate looked worn out. Over the road from the Bootham Hotel stood The Lion, a mysterious territory – a pub ignored for some reason by all railwaymen. From above the pub sign – which was a painting of a lion with one paw resting on the York city crest – two Union flags drooped. I looked from them to the window of the Bootham Hotel public bar, tracing the line of Dawson’s gaze of a short while earlier. I didn’t believe he’d meant to enlist until catching sight of that flag. It had struck him as something to say that might shame the Chief. Well, he was in a fix now, for he would have to go through with it.

The Chief had now finished his talk with Wolstenholmes, and we set off back. I said, ‘That was Oliver who spoke out in the pub.’

Silence from the Chief.

‘He was right wasn’t he? About the Bootham being out of our jurisdiction?’

Still the Chief kept silence.

‘I suppose Dawson will bring you his shilling…’

The Chief stopped and turned to me.

‘You’ll bring me yours as well. Then I’ll have shot of the bloody pair of you.’

I ought not to have reminded him about the jurisdiction.

Below us on the right hand side, the old station was packed with army again, and all the sidings were taken up with the special low loaders. It was a relief to regain the cool of the booking hall, where the Chief and I parted. My eye then fell on Constable Scholes.

‘You haven’t seen a bloke with an owl, have you?’ he said, coming up to me. ‘Funny looking sort of bloke with… Well, he’s carrying this owl, so you can’t really mistake him.’

‘The one from before, you mean?’

I watched him realise that I’d overheard his talk with Flower on the subject.

‘Aye,’ he said.

‘I thought he’d cleared off,’ I said.

‘I know but Flower saw him not ten minutes since. I know he means to bring the bloody thing back onto a train. If he did, it would be in express contradiction of my instructions.’

‘It would,’ I said, nodding. ‘Have you signed up for the battalion?’

‘Oh aye,’ he said, ‘… did that at dinner time. Went over with Flower.’

‘Went over where?’

The recruitment office was evidently in the Railway Institute gymnasium. The office had closed at three, so I’d missed my chance for that day, and would have to go tomorrow. Just then Constable Flower marched into the booking hall, signalling at Scholes.

‘The bugger’s out here,’ he was saying, indicating the taxi rank, and meaning the owl man. ‘And I reckon he’s stolen that bloody bird.’

‘Have you got any evidence?’ said Scholes.

‘Course not,’ said Flower, ‘but I’ve seen him before, in the bloody police court. Come on!’

And they went off together. Flower was leading Scholes towards the confrontation with the Owl Man, and I didn’t doubt that he’d dragged him towards the recruiting office as well. Scholes was always led by Flower, but I was impressed by the coolness of the pair of them just then. They might just have signed their very lives away, but here they were, fretting about a bloody owl, while I was thinking about German machine guns, and whether I might come up against the troublesome porter, Dawson, in the railway battalion.

The sun was low and ragged as I opened the garden gate, and walked towards the wife, my work valise under my arm. She was on the ‘spare’ part of the lawn, where it ran under the three apple trees. Black boots; old blue dress; brown face; hair neither up nor down; trowel in hand. She’d only have been home from her own work at the Women’s Co-Operative Guild half an hour since, but was already hard at it. She was no great hand at housework – well, she had no taste for it – but made an effort with the garden. I walked up and kissed her, saying ‘Hello kidder’ which made her look at me suspiciously.