Sample from The Tack Chest

It was two in the morning when a loud roar began to wake the Morcroft family, but the piece of boiler casing that crashed through the roof completed the job, along with the screeching of tortured metal. They dressed hurriedly and went outside, just as the last of the derailed wagons rolled on to its side and shed twelve tons of coal down the embankment to join the seventy tons already there. The train couldn't have been moving quickly, since quite a number remained on the tracks, their silhouettes only just visible.

There was an area of flickering flames around the locomotive that provided enough light for them to see what had happened. Clearly, help would be needed and Albert began to hurry down the drive, calling for Charlie to join him. They would need to get to the main road and over the canal before they could climb the railway embankment.

Lights had appeared in the windows of the workshop, and they had a telephone, so the authorities would soon learn of it, but the Morcrofts were first on the scene, where they came across the guard who had walked up from the rear and was standing beside the locomotive, looking bewildered. The devastation was shocking and one look at the cab convinced Albert that the crew had been killed, but many more would be if they didn’t clear the lines. Pieces of steel and pipework were everywhere and many of them were quite capable of derailing a train; one that might be carrying passengers rather than coal. Even at that time of night, the rails glistened like silver ribbons, so any debris that posed a threat could be seen.

They set to work, pulling and heaving metalwork that was still hot, off the rails. Most of the pieces were too heavy to move any further but soon other figures appeared. Both families from the cottages by the iron bridge had the presence of mind to bring Tilley lamps which helped enormously, not least of all in locating one of the crew who lay beside the tender and appeared to be regaining consciousness. His face was covered in blood and he’d been burned, they could tell that much from the smell. One man hurried back to his house to get a tarpaulin that would serve as a stretcher while the others continued to clear the tracks. By the time they heard the first Police bells, the permanent way had been made safe, save for the track beneath the wreckage and that would need steam cranes to clear.

They began to search the embankment for the other crew member and soon found him, suspended in a hawthorn bush. He screamed when they tried to lift him out and a closer inspection determined that he had a broken leg. His dislocated shoulder would be discovered later, after many more screams, which finally persuaded the attending doctor to use chloroform on the poor man. By the time he came round, the dislocation had been remedied and he was on the way to hospital.

Also by then, dawn had delivered enough light to reveal the full extent of the calamity. A necklace of coal wagons lay either on their sides or upended, though it looked as though the front ones had remained coupled long enough for the ones behind to overtake them, As a result, the loads had been dumped within a remarkably confined area, leaving a black tide of coal that had rolled down the embankment, across the towpath and into the canal like a lava flow. Even one of the wagons had made it as far as the canal, where it tipped over the edge, leaving the rear end sticking up in the air.

Railwaymen of all grades began to arrive and so did the sightseers. Police kept them off the embankment and there was little enough room on the towpath so most had a limited view from the road, until two or three decided to trespass onto Albert’s pastures, from where they would have a wonderful view. He shouted for Charlie to follow him and managed to reach the field entrance in time to stop all but a dozen or so from going on to his land. After a few moments he turned to Charlie, “Stay here and stop any more from going in. I’m off to sort that lot out.”

‘That lot’ showed no sign of moving, even when he explained that they were on private property. Worse, he didn’t even know them. They had been on the bus from Tamworth and had alighted for a spot of rubbernecking. Albert wasn’t to be ignored, “Fair enough, but I wouldn’t stay there much longer, if I were you.”

One or two showed interest as he marched up the field and opened a five-barred gate. They heard him call and clap his hands, but turned away when they saw him approaching again. ‘Best to ignore’ seemed to be the trespasser’s policy.

Albert strode past them, on his way back to the road. He pointed back up the field with a thumb and said, “Meet Oscar.”

Oscar entered the stage as if on cue. He wasn’t much taller than the members of his harem but at over a ton in weight, he was much, much larger. He was also gentle, but that morning he’d been as curious about the goings on as anyone else and broke into a gentle trot, towards the canal, which was nothing compared to the full scale sprint his approach prompted. One man attempted to leap across the small gap, onto the coal and slithered back to waist depth before scrambling out, blackened and embarrassed by the merriment he’d caused in the crowd. He ran up to the nearest policeman and shouted, “Look what that madman has just done. Set a bloody great bull free that nearly killed us, that’s what and look at my clothes! We weren’t harming anyone officer, now please do something about it.”

As luck would have it, he was addressing Constable Bernard Ellis, Hartshill’s one-man judicial system and an extremely effective one. He nodded towards the field as he withdrew a pencil and notebook from his pocket, “That’s Oscar that is; wouldn’t hurt a fly. Now then sir, your name and address please.”

The man frowned, “What do you want that for?” He pointed at Albert, “He’s the one you should be asking that question. It’s his name you should be writing down.”

“In good time sir, we shall take the names and addresses of all the witnesses.”

“Yes, Yes, I know that, but he’s the bloody criminal!”

“Language, if you don’t mind sir and if I might correct you on one detail. He is a witness, not a criminal. Now sir, your name, if you please.”

A small inflection in the officer’s tone made the man nervous, “Are you saying that what he did wasn’t wrong?”

“I’m not paid to have an opinion sir, I deal with only the facts; to wit, the bull belongs to that gentleman and so does the field. Whatever he chooses to do with both is perfectly legal. On the other hand, you do not own that land or farm it and therefore had no right of way on it. In short, you were trespassing and that is against the law. Name and address please sir.”

It was a standoff, at least as far as the visitor was concerned, for Ellis looked quite unperturbed. Eventually, discretion overruled valour and the accuser shrank back, as though someone had partially deflated him, “How about we forget all this happened.”

“Are you asking me to ignore a crime sir?”

“No, no, of course not, but you have enough on your plate today and who’s to say the farmer will want to press charges anyway.”

Ellis glanced towards Albert, who was conversing with someone else and unaware of this conversation, “That may well be true sir, in fact I believe it will be the case but then that is an opinion and something I should not have had. In the meantime, your name and address please sir.”

Both men knew that the details subsequently provided were fictitious but it was enough that the man should flee to the nearest bus stop and wait anxiously for the next transport away from there.