This is a companion piece of sorts to the Thomasverse fanfic I published earlier and very much one of those 'if I were in charge' type stories. The hero this time is Henry, but not the RWS Henry or even his model or UK-voiced CGI self. No, the version I love is his US-dubbed CGI self, the one where he's got a vaguely New England accent which descends into neurotic New Yorker territory whenever Henry's majorly stressed out. Whichever version of him you personally like best, though, the poor guy needs a better crew, someone willing to help him through his nervous-nellie shenanigans better than the oblivious lot they've featured on the show so far. So…I gave him one.
Disclaimer: The following story is intended for non-profit entertainment purposes only and is not meant to infringe upon the rights of any Thomas The Tank Engine/Thomas And Friends copyright holders.
A CREW FOR EVERY ENGINE…
Part One
It was a bright, sunny day on the Island of Sodor when Henry's world as he knew it came crashing down. The day had begun so auspiciously too. He'd had a flawless run with The Flying Kipper, making all his stops on time or early. The track had been clear and fast, the sunrise had been gorgeous, the dawn air mild and sweet. By the time they'd pulled in at Knapford, Henry had made up so much time that his crew pulled him into the terminal track so they could go off for a bit of a break and a snack before checking in with dispatch for their next assignment. Or so Henry thought. Instead of coming back with new orders in hand, his driver and fireman came back with Sir Topham Hatt and several other people. The lot of them moved up to stand before the green engine's front, where he could easily see them.
"Good morning, Henry!" the Fat Controller exclaimed with effusive cheer. "Doing well, are we? You're looking good."
"Thank you, sir." Henry, always a bit nervous, wondered why he was being singled out, but was far too polite and appreciative of any positive attention thrown his way to voice any concerns. "I'm feeling good, sir."
"Excellent! That's excellent indeed. Henry, do you know who I've got with me?"
Henry looked at the group accompanying Sir Topham Hatt. He could see his driver and fireman, of course, and both of them were smiling, and there were two additional people, a man and a woman, wearing matching blue suits and also smiling. Henry wondered if they were railfans and a couple. They just had that look about them.
"I don't— No, sir," he said, growing more curious. It wasn't very often that Sir Topham Hatt actually introduced people to one of his engines.
"Ho ho! Well, this will be a surprise then. Henry, I want you to meet Mister and Missus Doyon. Pierre, here, is a fireman, and Denise drives, isn't that something? And they've just come all the way from Canada to work with you, imagine that! They'll be riding along with your regular crew for the rest of the day to get a feel for you and the way we do thing here on the Island. I'm sure I can count on you to be on your very best behavior." He turned his attention to the people he'd just introduced. "So, this is Henry," he continued, indicating the big green Stanier with a flourish of his hand, "one of our very hardest working engines. Henry and his crew were already up before dawn delivering fresh fish all up and down the east coast this morning. It's just one of their many typical jobs."
"Sounds lovely," said the woman. "Pierre and I have always enjoyed early morning runs. It's such a pretty, peaceful time of the day." She cast her gaze over Henry with open admiration. "And this is a lovely engine. Hello, Henry! I'm very pleased to meet you. We're pleased to meet you."
Henry gazed back at her. Sir Topham Hatt's words had registered well enough. He'd introduced him to two new people, and Henry understood that one was a fireman and that the other was a driver. But his eyes kept sliding past the woman as he looked for the driver. His brain just couldn't grasp that the woman was the driver because it didn't make any sense. Things that didn't make sense always made Henry anxious, and as the seconds ticked away while he tried over and over again to make the connection, he became ever more agitated. Sir Topham Hatt was getting upset too. Henry's dumbstruck response was not at all what he'd expected.
"Ahem, as I said, these are Mister and Missus Doyon, from Canada," he prompted. "Say hello to them, Henry."
"Excuse me?"
It came out as such a startled, frightened little yelp that Sir Topham Hatt's mouth actually fell open with surprise and Henry's old crew exchanged glances of real concern. Pierre Doyon looked up at the canopy, feigning a sudden fascination with how it was structured, trying not to laugh. The only person who kept their composure was the object of contention herself, Denise Doyon, who was from Canada. She just kept looking at Henry with interest and waited.
"Oh dear. He's normally a friendly engine…" the Fat Controller muttered.
"Oh, that's quite all right, Sir Topham Hatt, sir," Denise said. "I get this all the time, even back in Canada. Most locomotives just aren't used to the idea of a lady driver. It takes them a little time to settle down, and once this fellow does, I'm sure we'll get on just fine."
"Dat is ver' true," Pierre chimed in, his strong Quebecois accent instantly attesting to his ethnic roots. "All de engines, dey love 'er once she drive dem. She 'as ver' kind 'ands."
"That's what I like to hear," said Sir Topham Hatt, regaining some of his good cheer. "I do expect my engines to work hard, but I also insist that they be treated fairly and with kindness."
"Understood, sir. Pierre and I wouldn't have it any other way. And I'm certain that Henry here will calm down and that we'll all be chatting up a storm before you know it."
"He'd better be," threatened his old driver, glaring at his recalcitrant engine with mock ferocity, and everybody laughed. Except for Henry. Henry felt as sick and dazed as he'd felt while lying in the snow immediately after the disastrous Flying Kipper crash which had sent him off to Crewe. The worst part was that even though Sir Topham Hatt had laughed and put on a happy face along with everyone else, Henry could still tell that he was disappointed with him. It cut him to the quick and made him feel faint.
The only good thing was that nobody tried to talk to him again. Henry couldn't have answered at that moment anyway. He'd literally been stricken dumb and didn't know why. The dizzy, whirling feeling that kept him silent and tense began to mercifully fade as the humans continued to ignore him and focused instead on the practicalities of how his controls were set up within his cab and the best ways of maintaining his fire and filling out his logbook. Before long, Sir Topham Hatt wished his people well and returned to his office. Henry braced himself, hypervigilant for what would come next.
When his old driver asked him to move out from the platform, he jerked forward, jostling everyone onboard.
"Sorry," his driver muttered. "He only gets like this when he's nervous. He overreacts."
"Can we take him out where he can burn off some of his nerves? Or does that make it worse?"
"No, he'll settle. He's normally very smooth around the platforms. The passengers always like him when he pulls coaches."
"How often does that happen?" asked Denise.
"Not often enough. He's usually on goods duty. It's a shame because he's ideal for mixed-traffic work."
"Powerful enough for freight. Fast an' good-looking enough for de' passengers, dat's what we always say for our mix-traffic ones," Pierre said.
"That's a good way to put it," Henry's old fireman remarked.
A small station came up and Henry's old driver pulled him to a nice easy stop at the platform, waited a moment, and then sent him on. The green Stanier moved out without any of the nasty lurching from before. He'd indeed gotten over whatever had caused his messing about earlier on and was ready to listen and behave himself. Henry's old driver sighed and patted the side of his cab, a little nostalgically. It wasn't the start to their turnover he'd been hoping for, but the two new crewmen—or should that be one crewman and one crewwoman?—seemed good-natured and willing to forgive Henry for his poor first impression.
"He seems okay again. Want to take him?" Henry's old driver offered with a smile.
"Absolutely!"
Henry felt the humans in his cab shift around and then new hands on his controls…hands that were unfamiliar, soft, and weirdly small. The strangeness of it almost made him jump ahead again, but why? He'd known crew changes before and umpteen different relief drivers. And it wasn't as if this new person were doing anything wrong; in fact, Henry could already tell that she was experienced and confident as drivers went. His apprehension began to subside as the seconds ticked away in an utterly uneventful fashion. It was just a new driver, and a new fireman too, and neither had been anything but pleasant to him since the instant they'd met. He shouldn't have been so foolish, acting the way he had and refusing to say hello to them, and in front of Sir Topham Hatt too! Instead of feeling anxious, Henry started to feel ashamed of himself. He almost groaned aloud with regret as he kept chuffing along, for there was no redoing their first meeting. He'd just have to be very careful and very attentive from now on to do exactly what was asked of him by any of the people riding in his cab and hope they'd overlook his temporary lapse in manners.
Another station came along and this time it was his new driver who eased him to a brief stop and then sent him on, and again absolutely nothing bad happened. If it hadn't been for the hands on his controls feeling so small, it could have been any of a number of relief drivers he'd known in the past directing him.
"Mm. Nice and light," the woman commented. "And he actually is quite light in weight, isn't he? Compared to the locos we have over in North America, I mean."
"Well, he's no Big Boy, that's for sure. Maybe seventy-three, seventy-four long tons, give or take."
"Oh, that is light. Easy on the fuel, I imagine? My husband's lazy."
"Hey!" Henry heard his new fireman exclaim, after which everyone aboard laughed a little. He didn't quite get why the possibility of his new fireman's being lazy was funny—Henry didn't think so—but supposed it was a human thing. They laughed about a lot of things for reasons he didn't quite understand.
They soon passed the junction with the branch line down to Brendam and his new driver asked if there were any stretches coming up on the mainline where it would be safe to let Henry speed up a little.
"Well, there's Gordon's Hill not far ahead. It's a fair grade. We could have a bit of a go up that."
"Oh, perfect," the woman said happily. She patted the side of her new engine's cab. "Sound good to you, Henry?"
Henry said nothing back. He wasn't at all sure whether his new driver actually wanted him to answer her. His old driver never did, even though he sometimes spoke to him too while he was on the move, but this was a new person with brand new expectations. Poor Henry started to fret. He thought some more about whether he should have replied to her question and by the time he decided that he probably should have, it was too late to do so without sounding like a nitwit, so he started worrying about not having replied instead. And all the while, they continued on towards Gordon's Hill, where he'd be asked to go faster, if what he'd overheard was correct. He waited anxiously for his cues, hoping he wouldn't mess that up either.
Then came the wail of a very familiar whistle, not far behind. The Doyons, the only individuals present who weren't familiar with the whistle's origin, perked up at once.
"Uh oh. Are we okay?" Denise asked.
"We're fine," Henry's old driver assured her. "That's just Gordon doing his express run. He'll be on the fast track."
"Yeah, big blue Pacific engine," the old fireman added. "We ain't in his way, but he'll blast at us even so like we wuz, just wait an' see. Thinks he's really something."
"Why? Because he's got a hill named after him?" Denise could just see the aforementioned feature coming up and began playing with Henry's throttle, juggling his speed.
"Hardly!" the old fireman snorted, firing in a few shovelfuls of coal as he spoke. "It's his favourite place to stall! I know y' were joking about yer husband earlier, but that engine IS lazy. He works until he thinks he's done enough, and then…good luck gettin' any more out of him."
"Gotcha. A primadonna…"
The whistle wailed again, a good deal closer. Denise poked her head out of her cab window and looked back, calculating the oncoming engine's speed. "Whoa! He's fast."
"Flying Scotsman's brother. He ought to be," said Henry's old driver.
"Heh, competition," said Henry's new fireman. He leaned some over his wife, tall enough to peek out himself over her own head. "Ahh, look at dat. Ver' fast loco. We match dat, oui?"
"We will if Henry's willing," Denise murmured. She glanced over at Henry's old driver. "Is that okay?"
The other man nodded, a little bemused. The woman at once opened Henry's throttle some and was pleased with his immediate response, the quick surge forward, and started to grin. She asked for more speed and again Henry leapt forward and Pierre crossed the cab floor to peer out and began scanning the track ahead.
Henry, of course, was only doing what was being asked of him and trying to make the best impression possible. He didn't even register at first what was going on, that his new driver was running him up to try and match Gordon's speed. Then he heard someone shouting at him, the deep voice of his new fireman yelling as he hung out of his own cab window.
"Vite, Henri! Allez allez allez!"
The big green Stanier had no idea of what the man was saying to him. But his tone came through, loud and clear, and it excited and encouraged Henry. The tracks beneath his wheels began to rise. He shot up the incline, his throttle now wide open, his own grin broadening to match his driver's. He hadn't been asked to run full-out in…in…forever. And it felt wonderful!
The sound of someone else's loud chuffing briefly overrode his own. It was Gordon and the express all right. Coming on fast and hard to his left!
"Henry! What are you doing!"
Gordon sounded furious. Henry knew he was in trouble. But for once he didn't care because a weird exhilaration had taken hold of him, shielding him against the other engine's rage. He spun his wheels faster than ever, straining and huffing, trying his utmost to accelerate as ordered. Gordon's angry, scowling face came briefly into view. For a few seconds the two locomotives raced side by side, exactly even with one another, both of them working too hard to speak, then Gordon's long passenger train began to weigh on his momentum and he appeared to slow and fall behind. Henry, by comparison, seemed to shoot forward. For the moment, at least, he was the faster engine.
Henry roared over the crest of Gordon's Hill well in the lead and it felt even more wonderful. Even though he knew he'd pay for it later, he couldn't help laughing and shouting, "Hi, Gordon! Bye, Gordon!"
But the curve…the curve! Steeped in his intoxicated delight over his own speed though he was, Henry still recognized the appalling danger and knew that he couldn't possibly navigate the curve at the bottom of Gordon's Hill without slowing down. He considered braking on his own initiative, always a horrible, guilt-ridden thing for him to do, to override his human crew. Yet before he could act, he felt the hands of his new driver move on his controls with firm assurance, easing back his throttle, applying his brakes, and he acquiesced to the woman's directives with relief. She seemed to know just what she was doing, too, and slowed him just enough to take the curve safely, and then bumped his speed back up as soon as his track straightened again. Henry chuffed along obediently throughout, intrigued. His regular driver had never let him negotiate the curve at such a quick clip, yet he'd felt stable and grounded throughout.
"Nicely done," he heard his old driver say to the new one. "I confess my heart skipped a beat or two for a moment there, but you slowed him well. Bit faster than I'd go, though."
"Heh heh, yes, my apologies if I alarmed you. Your Henry does handle an awful lot like a loco I used to drive back in Canada, though, so he already feels somewhat familiar. Which is kind of weird since the one I'm thinking of is about triple Henry's weight and has another twenty feet on him at least. That one was named Francois. A type we call a Royal Hudson…mixed-traffic, too. There's just something similar in the way they respond despite the different specs."
"Why a 'royal' Hudson?" the old fireman asked. "I've heard of Hudsons—we've got one that runs in from the Mainland sometimes, fact is—but that's not the same thing, innit?"
"Not quite, and some of our Hudsons are just called exactly that, just Hudsons. The ones that got their royal status got it after your reigning monarchs visited Canada way back in the late thirties and your King was impressed by the Hudson engine pulling the royal train at the time. He gave the railway that owned him permission to change that particular class's name and for the engines to wear Royal Crowns on their running boards. Our Francois was one of the lucky ones awarded a Crown."
"Impressive. And that's a good idea, rewarding the engines like that," the old driver said. "Our Gordon got to pull Her Majesty's train once on Sodor."
"Yeah, ol' fastest and best, or so he thinks," the old fireman added, with a laugh. "Well, he got his today. Pompous sod… He'll give Henry a bit of what-for later in the sheds, for showing him up just now, just wait and see."
"Will he really?" Denise said. She chuckled as well, intrigued by the very notion. "Competitive, are they?"
"Gordon's competitive. Henry not so much. He's too kind to take it seriously…aren't you, Henry, old lad?"
Henry felt another reassuring pat on the side of his cab, but it wasn't quite enough to take away the gloom of knowing that his old fireman was dead right. Gordon was going to be mad at him, really mad. Not something to look forward to. On the other hand, the humans were speaking nicely about him and the new driver thought he was light and responsive…that was a good thing, right? And being described as 'kind', Henry could live with that. Better that than be considered a pompous sod!
After some further conferencing in his cab between the two crews, Henry found himself being eased back down and over across the fast track and into a siding. There, they waited. And sure enough, here came Gordon, catching up at last, no doubt still steaming mad as well as just steaming. Henry felt a sudden real regret for having inadvertently upset him and whistled a tentative greeting at the blue Pacific as he zoomed past. Gordon didn't whistle back. Ah well…
Henry was steered back onto the left-hand track once Gordon had passed and then switched back over onto the middle track of the mainline. And then something strange occurred… His new driver again ran him up, even faster than before, yet as soon as he'd built up some momentum, she eased him right back down to his starting speed, juggling his throttle and brakes together to decelerate him as quickly and smoothly as possible. They ran along for a while, then the request for speed was repeated, followed by the same equally swift slow-down. By the third repetition, Henry understood exactly what was being asked of him and had it down pat. His new driver was evidently trying out his paces and handling and he was glad to demonstrate just how sensitive to his cues and obedient he could be.
Once his apparent trial was over, Henry was asked to chuff on at a much steadier rate, all the way up to Vicarstown as it turned out. The green engine cruised along cheerfully, feeling much happier than before. He knew that he'd pleased his new driver for there'd been a pat and a soft murmured "good boy" for him every time he came back to hand, and he'd afterwards overheard both drivers speaking very kindly about what a nice responsive engine he was.
Once at Vicarstown, he was parked at one of the less used platforms and all four crewmen disembarked, his old driver going off to fetch a station guard to keep an eye on the engine while they left him. His new driver, though, came forward to speak to him before she went off with the others. What she wanted to talk about was what Henry thought of her driving so far.
Henry stared back at her, completely befuddled. He could not remember a single time in his entire long life that a driver had ever asked him about the quality of their driving. The humans rode in his cab and used his controls to signal what they wanted him to do and he either did it or not. Whether their commands were to his liking or even made sense wasn't part of the relationship. He had no idea of how to answer her.
"Um…"
The new driver was still gazing back at him, awaiting his reply. He started to flush. She smiled a little, with apparent encouragement, for which he was profoundly grateful. The last thing he wanted was to make his new driver angry or to disappoint her in any way. Although Henry would never know it, the woman was actually struggling to contain her delighted laughter at that moment, for she'd never met an engine so bashful that he got beet red and couldn't talk at all when questioned. And him being such a big strapping fellow and all!
"Would the word 'okay' sum it up?" she suggested. "Not good? Bad?" A hint of amusement had crept into her tone. Henry picked up on it and his panic began to subside. "Maybe…fine?" she added gently, her grin now big and obvious.
"It's fine," Henry breathed, his own voice just as soft.
"Well, thank goodness then. We wouldn't get on too well if you dreaded it every time I stepped in your cab."
"No…"
He averted his eyes, still too shy to speak and look at her for very long at the same time. But his new driver, Denise, could see curiosity tugging at his taut mouth and that his blush was fading and she knew that he was warming to her despite his difficulties. She briefed him on their plans for the afternoon, confident that he was paying attention even though he only glanced at her now and then.
"See you again after lunch, Henry," she concluded. "Enjoy your break."
"Yes. Thank you…ma'am."
Getting bolder, Denise thought happily. She patted the edge of his running board before leaving to rejoin the other waiting crewmen, which startled Henry a little and made him stare after her again until she'd passed from view. He hadn't expected her to touch him like that. The only patting he got was typically done to the sides of his cab while he was working and it meant that the humans approved of his behaviour…yes? Henry heaved a huge sigh, feeling a little anxious again. He wished he could get over the fact that his new driver was a woman, but it was just so unfamiliar, so odd. He wasn't sure how to relate to her or how he should interpret her actions. The only woman he ever even saw with any regularity at all was Sir Topham Hatt's mother, the Dowager Hatt, and Henry always felt a little afraid of her at best.
As for the humans, they went over to the station's service area for railway workers where Henry's old crew took some time to show the newbies the amenities and to introduce them to some of their new colleagues, the stationmaster and dispatcher among others. They also offered their all-important ratings of the various food vendors present at the station, the end result being that Henry's new crew wound up purchasing a packet of hot chips from one recommended stall to enjoy along with the lunches they'd packed in their kits. The four of them then made use of the station's spacious crew lounge to take their noon break and chow down. Henry's old driver in particular was still grateful that the two Canadians had been willing to engage in a bit of subterfuge concerning their new engine.
"Thanks again for playing along with us leaving just to crew Edward," he said to the pair. "The last thing we want is for Henry to find out that we requested a transfer to another engine. He's such a kind fellow and it would hurt his feelings if he knew, but…well, better a half-truth than none at all."
"No problem," said Denise. "I can understand your wanting to spare him."
"Yeah… To be honest, we hate to give him up at all—he's a terrific worker. But I've got two little kids and a third on the way…"
"And I've got four," Henry's old fireman pitched in.
"…and neither of us can afford to be taking unnecessary risks anymore. Even this last incident…bad enough we got a bloodied nose and sprained wrist out of it between us, but if our injuries had been reversed…"
The old fireman was already nodding solemnly. "Don't think I coulda shoveled too well with a bum arm. Just as well I just smashed me face when he stopped."
The newbies winced. Going face-first into the front wall of an engine cab was no laughing matter.
"The worst of it was that I didn't have the slightest warning this time," Henry's old driver continued on. "I used to be able to anticipate him, even when he stopped dead. And his balking and the bolting…manageable if annoying. We'd even laugh about it afterwards sometimes. But now… Driving him's just no fun anymore. I feel on edge the whole time, nervous, and I think he can sense it which makes him more nervous too." He paused and regarded his new colleagues sadly. "I'm sorry. It must sound like we're dumping a real problem engine on you."
"Aww, don't say that," replied Denise. "He seems really sweet. And he can't be any worse than some of the characters we've worked with in the past."
Pierre, who'd mostly been munching his sandwich until then as he listened, immediately grinned. "Like Twitchy."
"Twitchy?" the old fireman repeated, starting to grin himself.
Denise laughed. "Well, that wasn't his real name, obviously. Just the one we used for him between ourselves. A big freighter we crewed back in the day in New Brunswick. He wasn't quite like Henry, not at all sensitive and really not that nervous, but he did have one insane, silly fear; he was petrified of running into a moose when we did our runs through the woods. Why exactly, we could never get out of him. He was big and heavy enough that he would have just smashed any animal aside. Anyway, he was bad enough that he'd screech to a halt if he spotted anything even vaguely resembling a moose near the tracks. Even a downed tree trunk with a couple of branches hanging down could set him off."
Both of Henry's old crewmen were intrigued by now. "Did y' get him fixed?" the old fireman asked.
"Actually, yes! We got a fitter to come and replace Twitchy's whistle with a new, super-duper one with an ultrasonic tone to it that only animals could hear. Of course, all the fitter really did was take off his whistle and then put the same one right back on, but Twitchy didn't know that. We had him convinced that his new whistle could repulse even the biggest bull moose. So we do our next run and gave him free rein to use his whistle as much as he wanted and I swear he blew that thing before crossing every forestry road and every teeny curve, no matter how gradual. He also wanted to race along like a nut, a lot faster than he used to, because he was now sure that no moose would ever trouble him again. Then came his day of reckoning when we careened around a curve and there actually was a moose on the tracks! Twitchy fired off his whistle at it and the poor thing must've gone three feet straight up in the air, then took off like a missile, smashing through the undergrowth. That was the end of Twitchy's being afraid. After that, he'd fly through his runs, blasting his whistle throughout, and always pull up early at our end station in a great whoosh of steam, proud as could be that he'd vanquished all the evil moose in the woods again. Of course you'd never get away with that sort of thing here—it's way too populated—but where we drove him, the worst Twitchy could do was deafen a bunch of squirrels and porcupines. Ah, he was a good engine at heart… Crazy-noisy and you always had to hang on tight when he did any runs through the forest, but it was still better than him screeching to a halt every couple of miles."
The woman's story drew its fair share of laughs before the end and a good bit of admiration. "I guess Henry seems pretty tame next to that after all," Henry's old driver admitted. "But he is the same in one respect. Anytime he misbehaves, I can guarantee that it's nerves or fear-related. He really does get scared. It wouldn't even occur to him to disobey you in any sort of defiant way."
"I understand," said Denise, "and I promise we'll treat him as well as possible…"
The subject of their discussion, meanwhile, had been enjoying his break for the most part, just as suggested, and had decided that he would try and start viewing his new driver as strictly that, a driver, and to ignore the fact that she wasn't male. Once the humans finally did come back, though, he quickly discovered that it wasn't as easy as he'd hoped for. Henry listened in on the conversations within his cab as much as he could throughout the afternoon, yet never did get used to the two new voices interspersed with the two familiar ones he'd grown to like and depend on. The woman's voice was just too jarringly high-pitched, too…female. And his new fireman…his voice might have been reassuringly deep, but Henry couldn't get past his strong accent at times. Great… One of his crewmen he couldn't understand and the sight of the other one made him feel faint. Henry just knew he was going to make a fool of himself again.
But the work itself…pure pleasure. A sightseeing trip, really. Down to the steamworks, up to the Blue Mountain Quarry, over to Ulfstead Castle and other favoured tourist destinations…they visited them all as the hours passed. His new driver would always take the controls when they came up on a station and practise easing Henry to a stop in just the right place and then taking him out again, otherwise the two drivers traded off handling him. Henry was surprised by how easily he could differentiate between their styles now that the woman was driving him halfway normally and not pushing him to extremes or trying out his paces. Her touch was much lighter, almost imperceptible at times, as long as they were cruising along on an open track, and she let him go a lot faster than did his old driver. She only took a firm hold when around the stations or if other traffic approached whereas his old driver, Henry now realized, kept a strong grip on his controls at all times.
Despite the momentous nature of his day, Henry found himself back at the Tidmouth sheds later that afternoon at close to his usual time, and also as usual, he was the first engine finished for the day. Both crews lingered for a while—he could hear them discussing the particulars of his daily paperwork in his cab—then they left without any more ado. Henry gazed after the departing humans thoughtfully. His new and old crews were going to take him out together on his Kipper run in the morning, he'd overheard, and he found himself rather looking forward to that.
Other engines began to return to the sheds, first Percy, who also began his days early with his mail run, and then James and Thomas. One by one they arrived, were done up by their respective crews or not, as the case might be, and the berths gradually filled up. Gordon came in last. Henry could see him already glaring at him as his own humans polished up the controls in his cab a bit and knew that the big blue Pacific was just itching for them to finish up and leave so he could verbally light into him. Engines usually waited until their crews were gone before getting immersed in conversation with their fellow engines. All the other locos were already yakking up a storm, comparing notes on their day's experiences, but Gordon, what he wanted to say most was definitely not for human ears.
Sure enough, Gordon's crew had barely made it out of the yard before Gordon felt free to turn on his shed-mate and unleash his wrath.
"Henry!" he roared. "WHAT do you think you were doing racing me up MY hill this morning!"
The other engines quit chatting at once, shocked into silence. Henry? Racing? The accused offered a sickly grin of appeasement.
"I wasn't racing," he tried to explain. "It was just my new driver, wanting to see how well I could accelerate up a slope."
"How well you could accelerate? Your driver had to bellow at you to make you accelerate?"
"That was my new fireman, actually. He was just, um, encouraging me."
"You have a new crew?" Edward interjected before Gordon could snap back another retort. The other engines were likewise thawing out of their self-imposed conversation freeze. Thomas was the quickest to add the next query, about a subject of far more interest to him than anything to do with the humans who rode around in their cabs.
"You were racing Gordon?" he asked excitedly. "Who won?"
"We weren't racing," Henry reiterated. "I was just doing what my driver wanted. Gordon just happened to come along while she was trying out my paces."
"Wait. You said…she?" Edward all but yelped.
Now everyone was staring at Henry.
"She? You have a woman driver?" Emily cried. A huge smile blossomed on her cute face. James, on the other hand, started to hyperventilate.
"A woman…" he breathed, sounding completely befuddled. "A woman…drove you?"
"But who won the race?" Thomas insisted.
Gordon started laughing. "A woman driver! Why am I not surprised that you're the one to be stuck with a woman driver!" He took a deep breath to let fly with another disparaging remark, but it withered as he realized that the other engines were glaring at him with nearly uniform expressions of disapproval and outright hostility. Even Percy seemed annoyed.
"What's wrong with a lady driver?" he said. "I think it'd be…nice."
"Exactly!" Emily chimed in. "Oh, this is so cool! Is she nice, Henry? Did you get a chance to talk to her yet?"
"Not very much," Henry admitted, flushing a bit as he recalled how silly and tongue-tied he'd been whenever the human had gone out of her way to speak with him. "I think it'll be all right, though. I overheard her saying that I handled a lot like another engine she used to drive, something called a Royal Hudson."
The others mulled over that particular factoid for a bit, even Gordon.
"Connor's a Hudson," mused James. "Isn't he?"
"He is, but he's not a Royal Hudson. It must be some other, maybe similar class," said Edward.
"I think it's something Canadian," Henry added. "That's where my new driver's from—Canada—and my new fireman too. I think they're married."
"My goodness, Henry!"
Edward's exclamation of surprise spoke for all of them. All of the engines present moaned and groaned about their crews at times and had stories to tell about them, but in some ways the humans who drove them and tended their fires and groomed and maintained them were somewhat interchangeable in their machine minds. The expectation was that they'd always be male and always originate from somewhere within the British Isles. That Henry was about to acquire a new crew who was proving to be such an exotic exception to the rule was a matter of considerable excitement for them.
"Huh!" Gordon snorted. "I didn't know all that. They must do things quite differently in Canada then. I couldn't understand a word that new fireman of yours yelled at you. I suppose he was speaking Canadian."
"It was probably French," Edward corrected gently. "Some people in Canada speak French." He turned his attention back to the green Black Five at the end of the shed. "Well, Henry, it seems as though you're involved in establishing something historic. I don't believe there's ever been a female driver—or fireman—on the Island, and probably not on the Mainland either. I also don't think we've ever had a foreign driver working on our railway, although I'm not sure if Canada really counts as foreign. It's a country that has ties to England still."
"Where is Canada, Edward?" asked Percy. "Not in—Europe?"
"No, much further away than that. Way over the ocean and just north of the United States."
"Oh! Where Connor is from. He said he was from the United States."
"That's right. Canada is their neighbour."
Percy smiled, satisfied. Edward was always so kind when answering his questions, unlike some of the others, who'd make him feel stupid if they realized he didn't know something. Emily began smiling too, fixated on something Henry had said which had nothing to do with nationality.
"Are they really married, Henry? That's so romantic!"
"What's romantic about it? A lot of humans are married," said Gordon.
"But they don't usually work together on a railway," Emily pointed out. "Oh, they must just love it, if they want to be together all day in an engine cab. I bet they'll be the best crew ever! You're so lucky, Henry."
"Or they'll be arguing constantly and won't pay attention to what they're supposed to be doing," the big blue Pacific countered. "I don't know how you can make such an assumption, Emily. You haven't even seen them."
"But I have," Henry snapped, "and they'll be fine."
The uncommon vehemence in his tone brought another temporary halt to the conversation. Henry rarely contradicted anybody, let alone Gordon. For him, it was the equivalent of an angry shout. What they didn't know was that Henry was the most surprised of them all. He had no idea why he'd suddenly felt the need to defend a crew he'd known for less than a day.
"Well, I suppose," Gordon conceded, after raising his brows and regarding his shed-mate in a speculative way for a moment. "You're the one they were driving, after all. I still don't know why you had to rush up my hill like that at the exact same time I came by with the express. Are you certain it wasn't planned?"
"I don't see how. My new driver was the one who wanted a safe place to run me at full speed and asked to go out on the mainline. I'm sure she didn't know your schedule. When we first heard your whistle, I remember she asked if it'd be safe to continue and my old driver said yes, it was you with the express train and you'd be on the fast track, so…" He ground to a halt, suddenly remembering something else. "Oh," he added, looking a little stricken.
"Oh what, Henry?" asked Thomas.
"My—my new fireman. He said something about…competition."
Gordon snorted. "The same gentleman who saw fit to scream out of your cab window, I presume. I knew it."
"So you were racing!" Thomas exclaimed.
"I didn't mean to! Maybe… I couldn't refuse my driver's commands!"
"Of course you could! You've done it already often enough. Remember that business with the chicken pox? You almost ran backwards into James, and while pulling coaches at that! And of course there was your infamous tunnel stunt."
"That was different," Henry protested, flushing with mingled embarrassment and hurt. Why oh why did Gordon always have to bring up his past transgressions? "It's not as though I meant to disobey," he added, getting angrier.
"You still never said who won the race," Thomas said, butting in again, although this time it was for a rather more calculated reason. He could see that Henry was struggling with Gordon's accusations and wanted to give him a possible out. "Now that we've established that it was an actual real race and all, I mean."
Gordon shifted his attention onto the eager little tank engine, thoroughly annoyed and a tad dismayed. "Nobody cares about that," he snapped. "And it wasn't a proper race. After all, I was pulling coaches and—"
"I want to know!" Percy piped up, interrupting in turn.
"And me!" said Emily. She eyed Henry, who was looking about as miffed as ever she'd seen him. He'd also begun positively glaring at Gordon—also great to see. "Did you win, Henry?"
Gordon's dismay morphed into instant alarm.
"Now see here—"
"I did win!" Henry exploded. "I flew past him up to the top of the hill like he was standing still. And then, further on, we had to pull into a siding and wait until he caught up and went by us."
"Ha ha! I knew it!" Thomas crowed.
"Oh wow! Way to go, Henry."
"Yes, well done," said Edward. In truth, he didn't care much about racing or competition in general, but Gordon's occasional predilection to carry things too far when teasing or harassing the other engines always put Edward off; he despised cruelty and trying to ridicule someone for their fears was very cruel in his logbook. It wouldn't hurt for Gordon to be on the receiving end for a change.
Henry was still breathing hard after his uncharacteristic outburst. He looked shocked, but also relieved and pleased with himself. Gordon, by contrast, appeared almost apoplectic. Gathering his thoughts for a vicious retort, no doubt…
"Of course, there's no knowing how fast Henry really is," Edward went on, trying to sound as casual as possible. "He's never been fully trialed. And no one's ever asked him for any real speed, until, it seems, today. It's possible that Henry's always been faster than you, Gordon. We've just never had a chance to see it."
His offhand comments had exactly the effect he'd hoped for. Gordon gaped at him for a moment, then detonated in a verbal explosion all his own.
"That is absolutely preposterous! I am a Pacific! Henry is a Stanier." He couldn't prevent his lip from curling up in an affected, sneering manner when he said 'Stanier'. "He's incapable of outperforming me, most especially not when it comes to matters of speed. It's technically impossible."
"Ah, but Henry's not a pure Stanier, is he now? He started out as something quite different, a blend of two very creditable, but unrelated types. Something of both of them no doubt still remains within Henry's design, which makes him a very unique hybrid." Edward paused to aim a smile at the engine under discussion, who was listening in with wide-eyed surprise and keen interest. "I've heard humans speak about a thing called hybrid vigour. It happens when they mate different breeds of cattle or hogs or chickens together. The offspring are often a big improvement over either parent and it's all because they're a mix of two breeds…hybrids. Maybe it's the same with engines. Maybe the fact that Henry's a blend of three different types now gives him an extra special dose of hybrid vigour that lets him perform way past his originating specs. Right now we just…don't…know. Like I said, Henry's never been trialed to establish his maximum limits…have you, Henry?"
"Nooo, not really," Henry said slowly. "I was tested, of course, when they first fired me up, and again after I was rebuilt at Crewe. But they only ran me up so far, like they wanted me to meet certain requirements and no more." He looked at Gordon, then added, rather defiantly, "I could have gone a lot faster. Especially after Crewe."
"Well, there you go. Better watch yourself, Gordon. Should you two ever be allowed to race for real, you might wind up having to amend your favourite catchphrase from 'fastest and best' to 'one of the fastest and still pretty good'."
The other engines laughed uproariously, aside from Gordon, of course, who looked about ready to kill. "What utter nonsense!" he managed to sputter out at last, but there was a solid streak of doubt undermining his murderous glare and words, which was apparent to all. The levity and support from his friends brought out Henry's snarky side.
"Don't worry, Gordon," he said. "I won't try and beat you again. Not unless my driver wants me to, that is. And if she does, then I can't very well disobey, now can I?"
Thomas was still giggling. "Oh dear," he added. "What if Henry's new crew actually enjoys racing, like mine does? That'd certainly liven up the rails."
"No it won't," Gordon countered, sounding very huffy indeed. "Sir Topham Hatt doesn't approve of racing. It's not going to happen."
"Maybe not on the mainline, when we're working. But hasn't the Earl, Sir Robert Norramby, been talking with Sir Topham about having races…?"
"Oh. Oh! That's right!" James said eagerly. "I was right there when he first said it too—you remember, Gordon? He wants to have a classic engine race every year once he opens his railway museum."
"He was talking about Stephen and Glynn!"
"But there could be more races. He could invite Flying Scotsman, and others."
Gordon now looked appalled. The others looked delighted, their eyes sparkling with shared excitement. Henry even laughed aloud, completely caught up by the exhilaration of it all.
"I'd race Flying Scotsman! Even if I couldn't win, it'd be an honour, just to try."
"That's the spirit, Henry!" Emily cried. "I'd have a go too, if I were faster. It'd be so much fun."
"Yes, it would be," agreed Edward. "And even coming in second, what an accomplishment!"
"Second!? What—! Who are you talking about? Henry? Henry can't compete against Flying Scotsman!"
"Why not? He just beat you. You're Scotsman's brother."
"He didn't beat me! It wasn't— You can't-can't—" And at that point Gordon became so upset that he literally stuttered to a stop. He couldn't believe how the conversation had gone and how his intention to chew Henry out for his disrespect had backfired so miserably. Worst of all, the seed of doubt which Edward had planted was growing by leaps and bounds. Gordon expressed his disgust with it all by retreating into the back of his berth and sulking there for the remainder of the evening, grumbling and groaning to himself until fatigue overcame him and he drifted off to sleep. The last thing he remembered thinking was that no way, no how, would he ever allow Henry to get the drop on him again. Just in case.
Henry, by contrast, slept very happily and well. The other engines' ready acceptance of his unusual new crew and the way they'd rallied with him against Gordon had been surprising and welcome. He'd been certain that he'd be badly teased, yet all they'd expressed was genuine interest and curiosity. And then there'd been Edward with his intriguing speculations about Henry's true limits…well! it had certainly put Gordon in his place and on notice. The last thing Henry thought about before he fell asleep was whether Edward's theory could possibly be true—could he match Gordon's speed if he really tried? Henry had always accepted that he was a mixed-traffic sort of engine, good at doing almost any job asked of him, but not excelling at anything in particular compared to the more specialized types, such as Gordon and his kin. If hybrid vigour were a real thing applicable to engines as well as animals, however…
The Stanier Black Five, who was neither black nor a hundred percent true Stanier if recent rumours were to be believed, nodded off at that point and peace descended upon the shed. Temporary peace.
to be continued…