Chapter 2: The Fall
Another year wore on, and then some.
Finally the shop began a flurry of movement again. Men crowded around the engine.
First a silent little vertical boiler puffed away with his tender. Though it was detached as often as not, the engine still felt profoundly strange seeing it go. You shouldn't like to watch anyone coolly walk off with your limb. "Where's that going?"
"It's another swap," said Reginald. He thought this time that Sir Nigel was flying rather close to the sun, but he showed none of his doubts on his face. "The new buyer wants a Robinson Atlantic of the L.N.E.R."
"That also means removing his trailing wheels," Sir Nigel said to Reginald, and to the foreman of the shop.
He was decidedly not speaking to the engine, and he was unimpressed when the engine whistled in horror. "Oh, no, sir! I've run so much better with them!" He saw Sir Nigel's face set like lifeless iron. "Oh, please, sir, can't we at least wait until the deal is done? All the other buyers have fallen through!"
"Doesn't matter; they'll have to be taken off," Sir Nigel said sternly. "Otherwise you're much too heavy for any serious buyer."
"Oh!" The engine really would have cried, except that he was rather afraid to, despite being right in the only home he had ever known, and among the only caretakers he had ever known. "Why didn't you think of that before putting them on, sir?"
Sir Nigel was most displeased.
"You've spoiled that engine," he told Reginald.
"Not I, sir!" Reginald scoffed at the idea.
"I've noticed how much coal I'm missing! Who else could it have been?"
"Begging your pardon. But I'm not a man to tell tales!"
"No, you're a man to ruin an engine. Even if I do find someone fool enough to take him, they'll be after me asking to send him back before I can even get out to sea. Let his firebox be, now!"
"Oh, it'll be all right! We're looking at all those northern railways for buyers. To them a quick mind and a bit of cheek in an engine is all bonus."
"Aye," said the engineer, his rounded elocution slipping badly, "everyone rightly knows that's the finest kind of loco—a loco with opinions!"
Some engines are not used to picking up human sarcasm (they sometimes learn to be very sarcastic with each other… but humans are believed to say what they mean, and mean what they say, and be rather too angelic and good for such low habits).
This big one who was about to lose his trailing wheels was very much not so innocent a kind. Not-Gresley and the not-Gresley men had given him a crash course on the matter.
Reginald scolded the engine soundly for his disrespect, after Sir Nigel left. The engine found this much too hard, as in his opinion being left cold, and being worked on again, and having his lovely new wheels taken off, was all quite punishment enough.
So were the particular craftsmen they gathered, this time, to do the job. These men were no gentler than any of the others, and from the start it seemed to him that they were much more confused about their business. They asked each other baffled questions that the engine was sure he had never heard trip up their predecessors. Indeed they took quite a long time just to set up, and Sir Nigel, checking in, was soon angry about the delay.
Finally they sorted the cranes and lifted him into the air.
"Stop squirming!" the de facto foreman barked at him.
"I can't squirm!" retorted the engine. "It's you who's made the cables too loose!"
"Less lip, now—"
The engine should indeed not have been able to squirm, being dead cold, with an empty and scrubbed firebox. And yet perhaps somehow he did, when they began using blowtorches. Certainly he wanted to.
Either way, it was a fact that, at some point in the endless process, he slipped from the cables.
Men and machine alike screamed. But the massive engine was held by the other loop just long enough for the men to scramble out of the way, right before over seventy tons of solid iron slipped and crashed to the rail-studded floor.
The clamor was indescribable.
So was the mess. It had never been a clean and orderly workshop. Dust, dirt, and grime swirled everywhere. Between that and the ringing in their ears they could hardly take it in. There had been plenty of tools and platforms and scaffolding beneath the engine, most of which were smashed or scattered.
The engine had gone mercifully unconscious. He never heard the reaction of his driver, who was on-site, acting as a combination of advisor, dogsbody, and slacker.
Usually Reginald was hardly anything more substantial than charm and gesture, but all that gave way at once. He was the first to come to his senses—which he then used to bawl out the men in a terrifying rage.
"You klutzy fools!" he roared. Everyone else was stunned, so he took command of the scene. "Get him up, get him up!" He climbed up some wreckage and rubbish to untangle the cables himself. He had them straight, taut, and tightened properly by the time the others roared to life, and directed them as they lifted the engine once more, for as long as it took to clear the tracks beneath, as well as to pick bits of stray metal from his undercarriage, the way one might pick one's teeth.
The engine was still out cold at the end of it. So Reginald allowed them to finish the job.
The stunning din and brush with death seemed to have cleared everyone's heads in a remarkable fashion, and work proceeded quickly and intelligently… albeit all hands were shaky.
Less than a day later, they had something that at least looked like a Robinson Atlantic. Though God help them all, when it was time for him to run.
They not only removed two wheels. For a time, they removed all of them, and examined them carefully. Due to the fall, some had to be replaced. Some that should have been weren't.
The foreman went to phone the boss. Reginald oversaw the rest lower the engine gently—competently, if they pleased!—to the rails.
The next step was to examine for inner damage. But, returned to solid ground, the engine had woken up. He could not speak, but Reginald saw him stunned in pain that clearly had not lessened for the delay in feeling it—saw him horrified at how shocking the world could be.
Then Reginald ordered everyone out.
Despite their awe at yesterday's smoking, snorting roar to life, the other men did not now obey him all at once. There was much work to be done, and they were still further behind than they'd been before the fall.
So Reginald, quite wroth, made reference to a certain financial entanglement that bound many of the lives and fortunes in that shop to his own discretion, and that made the place clear like magic. Only about two remained, stony-faced. "Is this to light him up, then?" asked one, arms folded.
"You think, do you!" Reginald was already busying himself about the task.
"Boss said not to. And he ain't done nothing special to deserve a favor!"
"Yeah, well, he hasn't had a chance to do anything wrong yet, either," retorted Reginald. "Out my way, now."
He indeed made the fire, and after a couple of hours the engine did start to feel more himself. The fire made him feel stronger and, although it indeed rendered the pain more acute, it also made it real, and somehow more easily borne, and, eventually, absorbed. The hurt was still there—the damage was still there—but, after a day in steam, he had mastered the pain, rather than the reverse.
Physically.
Mentally was another story. The engine found it hard to trust.
Trust what?
Anything.
Men, machinery. Rails, reality. The world, and especially words. The massive engine retreated deeply into his smokebox and his silence.
Sometimes, this retreat can be so deep that no sign of life ever again emerges.
And the risk is higher still, if the engine chances it while still quite new, with no particular strong ties to bind them to the world.
The greatest engineers, of course, know very well that there is always a spark of life, however well-hidden, in any machine.
But the average engineers differ on this subject with just as much confusion as laypeople.
Reginald was a below-average engineer. He knew next to nothing. It was only the blind instinct of a desperate friend or relative of a coma victim that drove him to keep steaming and talking to the engine, day in, and day out.
He talked just to try to reach his iron orphan. He talked against the fear that the engine should lose all words forever. He talked long past the point where he had anything to say, just to fill the silence.
He read from newspapers. He narrated his own confusing life. And, when all of this failed, he told the engine fairy tales.
The engine later remembered none of this, but, slowly, he re-emerged. Gradually, his hearing turned more and more into listening.
There was a day that the engine smiled.
Even not-Nigel was pleased. He didn't think their buyer would much care for a lifeless engine. He went so far as to say that, after all, Reginald was a useful sort to have about.
After a great deal of fuss over his cylinders and motion, the engine did run. Surprisingly well did he run; it was possible that the great fall had actually shaken some poorly-fitted bits into place. Anyway, the deal was finalized.
They brought in the painters, then, for they had agreed to take care of the livery on their end, in answer to explicit specifications, one of which was that they were to use the highest-quality professionals.
But Sir Nigel knew a bloke who knew a bloke, and they brought in… semi-professionals.
As a matter of fact, the job was not done badly, despite that everyone laughed when the custom paint arrived.
"Now there's an outstanding color for a loco!" one of the men laughed.
"Sure and there's a mistake?" growled another.
"Sure and there isn't," said Sir Nigel, sardonic. "They like bright colors on their railway, it seems. Trying to make it as easy as possible for the mainland to take them seriously, you know."
"Very well," said the head painter, letting it drip before his eyes dubiously. "If his money is just as colorful…"
The many gently applied coats were very soothing to the conscious but still silent engine, after those weeks of being worked upon. Such work is not supposed to cause the engine pain—but it must be done with skill, if that's to be avoided. The last batch of craftsmen had not been particularly crafty. And that had been even before the shock of the aerial crash left him specially raw.
But this final job was different, and pure relief.
At long last, the engine let himself believe that, this time, he would actually go out into the world.
Reginald's fairy tales segued into cheering, encouraging talk about the future. "A fine place you're going, boy," he hissed. "Oh, the more I learn about it, the more chuffed I am. It's just the sort of railway for you. To have snagged just this partic'lar buyer—it'll all be worth it. You'll soon see."
"Are you sure?"
The engine had put the question softly and shyly. It was the first time he had spoken in over three weeks, since he had bickered with the foreman while hoisted in the air.
Reginald made a heroic effort to conceal his shock and delight, rather than startle the engine. "Oh, sure as anything," he said, sounding quite easy. "Quiet little island railway up north. They're a peculiar race up there themselves, and rather like their steam engines to be peculiar, too. Not that you're—well, you are a bit peculiar, you know."
The engine was not offended. For one thing, he did not know what the word meant.
"I want to go somewhere," he murmured. "But… it's strange… I'm scared to go there."
"Oh! Why? You don't even know the place."
"Well, I don't mean there." The engine frowned in confusion. "I suppose I mean I'd be scared to go any particular place. And yet—and yet I absolutely must get out of here."
"That you must," agreed Reginald. "Three years of this… that would be enough to drive anyone round the twist."
"What twist?" asked the engine, and the driver grinned.
"Never mind. You know how old Reginald likes to talk his nonsense."
"Oh, what shall I do," the engine suddenly cried, "when I'm not here, and I don't have you to ask things?"
Reginald blinked a moment, then chose his course. "Silly! You'll be surrounded by other engines—"
"—but I've never spoken to other engines." Now he looked quite panicked.
"—and think how much fun you have left ahead of you! Anyway, until you get the hang of it—" (Reginald was secretly a little worried. Engines are famously blunt and direct… and this one was rather sensitive.) "—you'll be surrounded, too, by a cool hundred other railwaymen, easy. They'll all help you any way they can."
"What if they're not the helpful kind?"
"Hardly matters what kind they are. It's their job—to look after you, and make sure you have all you need to do yours."
"My what?"
"Oh!" Reginald laughed a little. "Your job."
"What's that?"
Reginald made a bit of a face, mostly at himself. He was a novice in the care and education of engines, and wondered if he'd really made quite as much a hash of it as he was starting to suspect. This was rather the place to start, than to end.
He couldn't be upset with the engine. How could the engine possibly have picked this up? He'd been designed for no purpose… except to make money.
Money, of course, makes all the world go round, and the creation and care of engines no less. But normally an engine is built to some purpose—not haphazardly worked and reworked like a drunkard playing darts. Once they understand their purpose, everything else about life slots into place for them, and, as long as they are of use, then it all has meaning.
So Reginald tried to his best to explain to him, about how the little railway, with ambitions to become a much bigger railway, wanted him as an express engine.
"… and you're a lucky fellow there, too," Reginald concluded, with a laugh. "Most engines long to know how fast they can go, and never get to find out. Not you!"
"That is splendid." The engine's eyes were shining… for a while. Then he came back down to earth, as he carefully thought it through. "It likely won't be so fun, though, if I have to do it, and all the time."
"Oh, good God." Reginald buried his face in his hands. (He had assembled quite a cozy little set-up of wooden-backed chair and legstool and cushions, with brandy and reading material to hand, for some of these long recent sessions trying to talk the engine back to the world.)
"Why, what's the matter?" The engine sounded so honestly concerned about him that Reginald had to chuckle.
"Nothing. You overthink things, that's all. Getting put to work will be good for you."
"I'll miss you," said the engine—and this with, indeed, quite a natural engine's frankness.
Reginald held back, again. "Not for long," he assured the engine. "You've been stuck here longer than usual, so it will be a little harder on you, than it generally is. But your kind adapts nice and quickly. You're not much troubled, you know, by distant things—it's good sense, and I wish us fallen humanity could do the same. You'll have all sorts of new affections soon, and you'll forget this shop sooner than you think possible."
The engine found this idea more frightening than anything.
Reginald had forgotten that engines also like consistency. The prospect of his world falling away did nothing to comfort him.
"You'll meet your manager," Reginald promised, "or controller, rather, for on this railway it seems it's all the same. He'll tell you all about what you're to do, and show you your new home. You won't miss the shop at all. He'll be rather like a new Sir Nigel, and I'll be honest—for you're too little a fool for it to be worth keeping up a nice stupid social lie—he'll be a much better one. As you deserve."
The engine tried to puzzle out what a new but better Sir Nigel will be like. "I always disappointed him," he observed at last.
Reginald rolled his eyes. "That was his own fault. But it's all over now, boy. It's been a rough time, especially lately. But they made you over again to please this new railway, and you'll soon agree that it was worth it. You have no idea how much better life is about to get." He saw the engine's doubts, and gave in. "In fact, I'm not about to let you have all the fun. So I'm going to go with you."
The engine blinked—and then came fully, completely alive once more. Never again to quite go back to that deathlike stillness. "O-O-Ohhhhh! You mean—you do mean all the way up to the island?"
"Yeah, I'll stay on with you. I s'pose it's time to try my hand at being a railwayman again." Reginald tried to sound as resigned and weary about the prospect as he felt he ought to be. But it was difficult when he saw the engine's delight. "It'll be a right drag."
"Oh," said the engine, having quite forgot about the ways of sarcasm in this moment of joy, "but you said it would be fun! Didn't you?"
"For you!" scowled Reginald. Well, tried to scowl. "For you, being made so much of, and doing the work your kind is made for, and feeling sunlight! I get sunlight already, and I'll rather miss getting it just when I want and only then, and being on my own schedule, instead of being quite a slave to timecards, and to regulations, and to you…"
"I won't cause you trouble," the engine assured him, the words coming all in a rush. He had no other way to show his love, and love was undoubtedly the emotion he felt then. He felt he should have gone cold and silent forever, if altogether torn away from everything he knew. But now he would have the best part with him. For the first time, the island railway did sound like a good adventure. "Oh, I'll behave perfectly, I promise, and do everything to make your life quite easy."
Reginald had to smile. "There's a pretty thought. I've mucked up this life of mine far past it ever being easy, all my own self!"
"Oh, but I mean it!"
"You're already the easiest thing about my life," said Reginald, who had said it intending to be kind, and realized with chagrin when he heard his own words that they were strictly true. "Don't quite keep that promise, all right? 'Tisn't natural for an engine to never cause trouble. And that's what I aim to see, my boy—you leading quite a normal and natural sort of life."
"You always say 'natural'!" the engine objected, but with laughter, still fairly glowing. "What's natural, then?"
"Troubling yourself over fewer questions," Reginald laughed back. "And working hard, and making friends, and getting into a scrape or two… per month. You'll understand it all better, when you meet your controller. It's always that way."