Magnus Mills - All Quiet on the Orient Express

“Can’t you turn that bloody thing off!” he yelled, as the hapless milkman approached us along the jetty.

“Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about,” replied Deakin, with a look of determination on his face.

“We’re a bit busy just now,” I said, attempting to defuse the situation. “Why don’t you come back later?”

In order to get away from Deakin I quickly cast off from the jetty, using the oar to propel the raft. Once again the van trumpeted its presence nearby. Suddenly the raft rocked sharply and I realized that Deakin had stepped on board as well.

“What are you doing now?” snapped Mr Parker.

“I’ll come with you and give you a hand,” replied Deakin. “Cos I could do with having a word with you really.”

Mr Parker and Deakin were now holding each other steady. Around their feet lay many yards of mooring chain, and this suddenly caught Deakin’s attention.

“Looks like you’ve got a bit of a tangle there,” he said. “Let’s see if we can get it sorted out.”

He crouched down amongst the chain and began rearranging lengths of it across the raft’s deck. I soon realized that there was hardly room for the three of us on board, as well as the mooring weight, the buoy and all that chain. Worse, as we moved away from the shore the lake became noticeably rougher, so that the raft pitched and rolled quite a lot. By the time we’d got far enough out to drop the mooring, Mr Parker had begun to look very unhappy. He was gripping onto the weight with both hands, and staring down at the black water below. Meanwhile, Deakin continued to fiddle about with the chain, coiling it into loops and so forth, and making some sort of adjustment to the mooring buoy.

“Right,” I said. “Stand back, Deakin. We’re going to let it go now.”

With Mr Parker’s help I shoved the mooring weight over the edge. It plummeted into the depths followed by the long, rattling chain, and a moment later it was gone.

So was Deakin.

As he shot beneath the surface a surge of water rose up and swirled around our feet. “No!” cried Mr Parker, arms flailing as he tried to keep his balance. He looked in danger of toppling after Deakin, so I caught him by the hand and the two of us remained swaying there for several seconds, during which time I noticed the mooring buoy floating nearby. There was nothing attached to it.

“He’s gone down with the chain!” I said, raising my voice against the breeze. “Can he swim?”

“Can he hell!” groaned Mr Parker. “Can you?”

“No, sorry.”

“Well, I bloody can’t either!”

A gust of wind battered us and moved away across the lake. The raft was now drifting rapidly, which meant we were already some distance from the spot where Deakin had disappeared. Nevertheless, I kept expecting him to pop up next to us at any moment so we could pull him to safety. It was only after half a minute had gone by that this began to seem increasingly unlikely. Then, on the receding shore, we heard the ice-cream van give a forlorn hoot.

“Do you think there’s anything we can do?” asked Mr Parker.

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I think we’ve lost him.”

“Well, get me off here, could you, please?”

I took the opportunity to let go of his hand, which was starting to feel rather warm, and retrieved the floating buoy. After that I began paddling back, while Mr Parker strove to maintain his footing. I helped him from the raft onto the jetty, at which point he murmured ‘Thank you’ and quickly headed for dry land. Then he turned and stood for a long time regarding the lake.

“Dear oh dear oh dear,” he said when I joined him. “This would have to happen now, wouldn’t it? Just when Deakin had found a job he liked.”

I gave no reply but simply shrugged and looked in the same direction, aware that the water now appeared to be much darker than it had before. In the distance a group of seabirds wheeled and turned.

Behind us waited the ice-cream van, with engine running and refrigerator unit whirring loudly. It was a very unnatural noise compared to the wild rushing of the elements, and eventually it succeeded in drawing Mr Parker’s attention away from the lake.

I saw him glance round at the vehicle once or twice, then finally he asked, “Now, what’s supposed to be wrong with these chimes?”

“They keep jamming,” I replied. “That was one of the things Deakin wanted to talk to you about.”

“Well, all he had to do was push the reset button. Let’s have a look.”

He climbed into the back of the van, which was now free of milk crates, and reached up to a panel. Then I heard a faint ‘click’.

“Try it now, can you?” he said through the serving window.

I leaned into the cab and pressed the control switch. Instantly, the horns on the roof played ‘Half a pound of tuppeny rice’. Then there was silence. I pressed it again and got a repeat of the same tune.

“That’ll do,” said Mr Parker.

“What about the other bit?” I asked.

“What other bit?”

“‘Half a pound of treacle’. Shouldn’t it play that as well?”

“Oh no,” he said. “You can only have one or the other. Not both.”

He emerged from the van carrying a bottle of red-topped homogenized milk.

“This was in the fridge,” he announced. “It must be for Bryan Webb’s Uncle Rupert.”

“Oh, right.”

“Could you run it round there quickly?”

“Er…if you like, yeah.”

“That’s good,” he said. “It’s the least we can do under the circumstances.”

“Yeah, suppose.”

“Ever driven an ice-cream van before?”

“No,” I said. “Why, are they different from other vehicles?”

“Not too bad, but you’ve got to watch them on the curves. They can be top-heavy in some conditions.”

“OK, I’ll remember that.”

“Maybe you’d like to familiarize yourself with the controls.”

He said this in the form of an order, so obediently I climbed into the cab, from where I watched him wander back towards the water’s edge. He went to the end of the jetty and once again stood gazing out over the lake, a motionless figure surrounded by grey, churning waves.

I allowed a suitable length of time to pass, then called through the window, “Right, I’ll get going then!”

Still with his back to me, Mr Parker raised a hand in acknowledgement.

Putting the van into gear I headed off between the trees. The pale afternoon light was beginning to fade already, so when I got to the road I switched on the headlamps. Craning my neck and leaning out of the window I saw that the roof-lights had come on as well. There seemed to be nothing I could do about this, and I had no choice but to drive round to Bryan’s place fully illuminated. Despite Mr Parker’s warning about top-heaviness the vehicle seemed to handle OK. As a matter of fact it pootled along very nicely, although the steering wheel struck me as being unnecessarily large. On the approach into Millfold it was tempting to set the chimes going, but I had second thoughts when I realized that people might come rushing out to buy ice-creams. Instead I passed through the place in a sedate manner so as not to attract attention.

As I neared Hodge’s shop I noticed a large, new sign in the window. I slowed down to have a look.

“SPECIAL OFFER,” the sign said, “BAKED BEANS REDUCED TO HALF PRICE.”

Continuing on towards Bryan’s it occurred to me that I hadn’t actually seen or spoken to him since my ban from the Packhorse, and that he might not appreciate me arriving out of the blue like this. After all, he was captain of the darts team I was considered to have let down so badly. What if he’d taken against me like the rest of them, then what would I do? For all I knew he might have been harbouring a serious grudge. Suddenly it didn’t seem such a good idea to go turning up on his doorstep, especially as he had all those sheepdogs he could set on me.