Andrew Martin: Death on a Branch line

He was, but only just — a small black shape on the far side of the field in the milky light. I looked down at the ABC — at the white dials glowing in the lamplight. It was all connected up, but those dials seemed to have sprouted a few more foreign-looking signs and symbols since the last time. Woodcock had got me so far, but he wasn’t the sort to do people favours — his heart just wasn’t in it. It struck me that, in pushing his luck in the way he had been, Woodcock had been asking me a sort of question. I took out my watch, and the hands seemed treacherous.

Six thirty-three.

I scrambled up the bank and sprinted over the tracks and across the field towards Woodcock. He turned about and watched as I gained on him. I came to a halt at two yards’ distance, with the rain making a curtain of water between us.

‘Fancy a scrap?’ I said.

I got a good one in the very moment he nodded his head. Another silent flash came just then, and it showed me Woodcock bringing his fists up in a way he’d no doubt wanted to be doing ever since he’d clapped eyes on me, but our set-to did not last long, and it was over before the thunder boom that belonged to that particular lightning bolt came rolling around. We both happened to be down on the corn stubble at that point, and Woodcock, standing up, said, ‘Have it your way,’

and began trailing back in the direction of the tracks and the ABC.

As he walked, he lit another cigarette, and began muttering to himself. When he got back to the ABC (which was soaked but, I trusted, well sealed) and its faintly glowing companion the storm lantern, he immediately crouched down and set about winding the handle on the front of the wooden case.

‘What’s this in aid of?’ I asked him.

‘I’ve put the switch to “Alarm”,’ said Woodcock, ‘and I’m turning ten times to give ten rings.’

‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘but they can.’

‘You sure?’

‘Nope.’

‘Why ten? It seems a bloody lot.’

‘That’s the code for Pilmoor — tenth stop on the branch, en’t it?’

‘They would count it from fucking Malton and not the other way. What’s our code?’

‘Six bells.’

I looked at the time. Six-forty. Lambert would be with the priest now. The High Sheriff of Durham would be taking coffee with the governor of the gaol, and being reminded of the correct form. When he stopped winding, Woodcock turned a switch and stepped back, saying: ‘Off you go, then.’

I looked at my watch, and for the first time I could do so without straining: ten to seven. I didn’t need the lantern to see the dials in the clearing light, but still the rain thundered down. I looked at the necklace of gold keys around the indicator dial. You pressed the key according to the letter or number you wanted to send; the pointer flew to it, and at that instant the circuit was broken, and you pressed the next letter, winding the handle to fire that one off, and so on.

I pressed the key for ‘F’, and began.

My message, of which I was not over-proud, was: F-O-R-W-A-RD-T-O-H-O-M-E-O-F-F-I–C-E-L-O-N-D-O-N-L-A-M-B-E-R-T-IN-N-O-C-E-N-T-M-U-S-T-N-O-T-H-A-N-G-A-C-K-N-O-W-L-E- D-G-E-S-T-R-I-N-G — E-R-Y-O-R-K-R-A-I–L-W-A-Y-P-O-L–I-C-E-A-D-E-N-W-O-L-D.

I had finished with a full stop. That was the icing on the cherry, so to say, but I had not bothered with spaces between the words.

‘Like to lay on the drama, don’t you?’ said Woodcock, who’d been looking on from behind. I made no reply to that, and Woodcock came forward and once more turned a switch on the machine. We would now await the acknowledgement.

Two minutes to seven by my watch.

A further three minutes went by, and no sound came from the ABC. It was just a lump of bloody wood; you might as well expect a tree to talk. My eye ran up the wires connecting the thing to the cables above, and it all looked about as scientific as washing on a line.

Woodcock said, ‘Exciting, en’t it?’ and just as he spoke, the machine gave a ring, and then another five, which seemed like a miracle, not least because I couldn’t immediately see any bell. A second later, the needle on the indicator dial began flying.

Craning forward, I watched the letters as they were signified. The first was ‘I’, and the whole message ran as follows:

‘I-N-N-O-C-E-N-T-O-F-W-H-A-T-?’

He’d even put the fucking question mark in.

‘I told you he was a cunt,’ said Woodcock, and he was up the telegraph pole directly, adding, ‘Reckon the signal’s come and gone, and come again. He’s only had the first part of it. Even that clot would know it was murder if he’d got the bit about the hanging. I’ll take down the wires, and we’ll set up further along.’

‘You’re saying it’s the verdigris?’ I called up the pole.

‘Eh?’ said Woodcock.

‘The green shit!’ I said.

‘That’s it, mate!’ called Woodcock.

It was five after seven.

‘I can’t afford to shift,’ I said. ‘There’s no time. Can you not just scrape a bit more off?’

‘Makes no odds to me,’ he called down, and I wondered if that was really true. He was leaning and scraping once again, anyhow.

‘Green shit,’ he was saying as he came down, ‘that’s what it’s called in the manual, I believe.’

Two minutes later, I re-sent, as Woodcock lit another cigarette. (He was a great hand at smoking in the rain.) The lightning had stopped, and the rain was slowing now. Woodcock set the machine to let us hear back from Pilmoor; then I blew out the lamp and paced up and down by the railway line. Hugh Lambert would be making ready to leave the condemned cell. A handshake from the warder who’d stopped up half the night with him. That warder would be a hard-arsed character, but dignified with it.

The six bells came after five minutes, and the pointer jumped first to ‘R’, and then: E-C–I-E-V-E-D.

‘Can’t spell,’ said Woodcock from behind.

The pointer kept on moving, as Woodcock ran on: ‘Christ, you’d think he’d be able to spell “received” in his job.’

‘Shut up, will you?’ I said.

‘You watch the needle, you bonehead,’ said Woodcock, ‘you don’t listen to it.’

The remainder of the message ran:

… W-I–L-L F-W-D-H-O-M-E O-F-F-I–C-E.

‘He’s wasted another minute telling us that,’ said Woodcock, as the pointer fell back to zero for the final time. ‘I’m off, anyhow,’ he added, and he turned a switch on the ABC, and began sauntering away towards the trees.

‘ Where are you off?’ I called after him.

He half-turned and said, ‘We have an agreement, mind,’ at which he entered the woods, and was gone from sight. He was on his way — I would discover later — to steal thirty pounds from the safe in the booking office at Adenwold station, and then to disappear.

I sat by the tracks contemplating the ABC.

Was my business with it concluded? I didn’t fancy lingering beside it in case it rang again, followed by some further query or contradiction from Pilmoor. Come to that, I didn’t even know if Woodcock had left the switch open to receive. But I felt duty bound to sit by the thing, and I did so until the rain had quite stopped, the sun was raying down and the Adenwold chimes of eight had floated faintly across the drying field towards me.

In the silence that followed, I lay back and closed my eyes. When I opened them, the sky had washed itself light blue. A bumble bee bounced into view, and I heard the call of a wood pigeon, a steady, urging-on sound. It seemed to keep time with a regular noise from the woods, a tramping of feet. I looked up, and thought for a moment I saw Hugh Lambert all in white, breaking free of the woods, but it was not Hugh. It was of course John, changed from his evening suit into the clothes in which I’d first met him. The sunlight flashed upon his spectacles. He put his hand up to them, and stood at the border of the woods, watching. I rose to my feet, and saw, from the corner of my eye, another man advancing to my left. He too wore white, and he limped. It was Cooper in his dust-coat. He held a shotgun, but somehow I dismissed that from my mind. He would hold a shotgun. John Lambert — who carried no weapon — was the one to pay attention to. I called out his name. He was looking at the ABC, head tilting in wonder as his eyes roved up and down the wire joining it to the telegraph lines.