The night was cold, wind rushing past the stationmaster's face. He held the wind-up flashlight high, scanning the forest and its surrounding area, but to no avail; he saw nothing out of the ordinary, let alone a Mikado. He had been given an old gun and sent to find the engine, the gun for self defence because you never know what you find at night.
The tracks weren't a safe place to walk, surely, but it was the best way to keep to the path. His footsteps were light and fast and the rain poured against his wooly raincoat. Each drop hit him like a falling penny and his nose was icy cold.
He sat on the track bed, stumped. He made it all the way to the other side of the line but the engine wasn't there. He only had a few places left to look. The first was the sheds at the other station, but that wasn't where it was, because why should life be easy?
Then he tried some little-used branch lines but all he found was a rusting 2-6-6 tank engine, not the 2-8-2 he wanted to find but a nice find nonetheless and one he'd have to report. Any extra power is good, and there were enough tracks and trains to warrant the extra engine. 25 wasn't there though, so he had to keep looking.
He looked for a signalman but nobody was out at the time, just him.
The last place he looked was a badly rusted diversion just outside of Grantham. It was nigh–impossible for this to be the place the engine would end up, but there were few oher options. He followed the tracks.
They lead him through a heavy forest, the little amount of moonlight there was blocked out by the roof, meaning he'd need his flashlight even more than ever. The trees were very tall, and he wondered when they were planted. He waved the flashlight around—nothing.
"Help!"
It sounded like a child, but it was so loud!
The stationmaster froze, before turning around slowly, gun at the ready. He slowly walked deeper into the forest, where the noise came from. He followed the shouts to find No 25, bent up and on its side, cab especially damaged.
It looked at him and said "Help me."
Percy whistled when he saw the stationmaster, who gave a half-hearted smile and waved a little before returning to work. That's odd, Percy thought, he's normally a talkative sort. Oh well, I'll bother him tomorrow.
His driver looked at him and shrugged, before heading off with 28 for the first train of the day. He kept his mind clean of that strange occurrence, and they arrived at Davies. The passengers thanked Percy for the ride as usual and left. He uncoupled from 28 and went onto the turntable first, backing onto the end of the train. 28 followed suit and they were ready to go. The passengers got on, and they left for Grantham and Kirkby.
At five, when Percy uncoupled from the train and went back to Petersburgh, he could see something was up; the President's car was there and the stationmaster was nowhere to be seen. He collected each train's coaches and save for one or two trains pushed them into the coach shed. The last two trains departed at 5:30 and 6, so Percy's crew left the coaches there and gave him an early rest.
His wheels were aching, he couldn't keep it up. A few more days of this and he'd burst! And that's when the President came for a meeting with the staff.
"I'm glad to announce that Petersburg's station master has not only found our missing engine but also another engine entirely. He'll be given a raise and I want you all to know we'll have the extra engine in about a month. Also, our fifth track has been completed, too, so we're on our way to becoming a 'real railway' as the newspapers so kindly put it."
Percy was delighted. Taking a train once in a while might have been fun, but it was lonely work. He wamted just to shunt once more, where there were people. Contrary to the beliefs of some, people were better friends than machines.
