A CREW FOR EVERY ENGINE...

Part Three

The good times for Henry continued. He quickly learned that he could count on his new crew to handle him kindly and well, and the Doyons in turn discovered that their big green engine could indeed uphold the reputation of the Stanier model he now resembled as to being hard-working and reliable. But they also knew that such had not always been the case. Thanks to several lengthy talks with people who'd known Henry for a long time, they understood that he'd had a poor start in life and that the flaws inherent in his early design had caused frequent problems which had left their mark. Henry was still lacking in confidence, forever afraid that he might succumb to one of his old woes after all, and his faith in his own strength and fitness was tenuous at best and vacillated constantly. It also made him uncommonly sensitive to criticism, but that was something the Doyons had determined even before they got his backstory. They'd been able to tell almost at once that Henry was one of those engines inclined to wilt under a single harsh word or glance and they were actually quite happy to work with his personality type. It made him a safe loco to spoil rotten and coax along rather than order about, and that suited both Doyons just fine for neither of them enjoyed having to get tough with the living machines they loved so dearly.

As for Henry, he mostly appreciated all the extra attention his intriguing new crew lavished on him, although it also sometimes puzzled him. Their habit of asking him so many questions, for instance… Both his driver and fireman thought nothing of seeking his opinion on which routes were best suited to get from one place to another or asking him about the locations of sidings and other amenities, especially when it came to the lesser, less travelled lines. Humans usually didn't ask him about such things, although he had to admit to himself that he really liked being able to answer their queries. It just made him feel more useful, a little more of a good partner in their daily endevours, and if there was one thing a loco needed to feel complete, it was to be useful. Still, the whole business struck him as odd enough that Henry spoke to his friend Emily about it and, as usual, she came through at once with an explanation which should have been glaringly obvious.

"Well of course they're asking you a lot of questions, Henry," she'd said. "I mean, who else can they ask if you're en route? It's not like they have much experience yet driving on Sodor."

"Ohhhh," Henry replied, sounding disappointed, although his disappointment was entirely with himself. "You're right, Emily. I just…I didn't think… I mean, they both drive really well."

The dark green Stirling giggled a little. "Sure. Back in Canada they did, maybe. It doesn't mean they know our railway." She smiled at Henry, who was looking rather sheepish at the moment. "I hope you're helping them out!" she added.

"I'm trying…"

In retrospect, it was still a very silly lapse on Henry's part, he'd thought, not to have considered that Sodor was still unfamiliar territory for his crew. It made clear too that in some ways he had yet to accept that he now carried a crew of a very different colour in his cab. He was still stuck on having always been assigned the older, more experienced local drivers and firemen available, people who'd worked their way up the ranks and who were long past needing to consult their locomotive about the layout of the tracks they were using.

His chat with Emily gave him something else to think about. She'd also pointed out that Henry should feel very lucky insofar as he was one of the few engines around whose crew had no need to rush off after work to get home to their families…his new fireman and driver were each other's family, which was likely why they felt free to linger around after bringing him back to the Tidmouth sheds every day and take their time getting him tidied up and settled. Henry could recall only one other human who used to spend a lot of similar extra time with him and it had happened long ago, back when Henry still had his original body. His dicey ability to build up any useful steam had gotten even worse once he'd been returned to service after being confined for a lengthy period within the railway tunnel which bore his name and a fireman new to him had begun coming over on occasion to help out. The fireman was very old and supposedly retired from driving, yet he still liked firing up an engine now and then. He was also very experienced and had a knack for working with finicky engines, and he liked working with Henry. Once Henry's workday was over, the old fireman would even stay to help put him up for the night and then laboriously climb up onto Henry's running board so he could wash the loco's face by himself. He'd always done it just like the Doyons did, using wrung-out cloths and sponges to gently wipe the alloy surfaces clean and being especially mindful of Henry's eyes. Sadly, Henry could not remember ever once thanking the man for his kindness and consideration. He'd still been in a sorry state and rather shy of people in general after his severe punishment back then and probably hadn't been up for saying much. All he could do now was hope that the fact that he'd always relaxed and trustingly closed his eyes for the old fireman's ministrations had somehow expressed his gratefulness without the need for words. Then, one day, the old fireman had simply stopped coming and Henry had never seen him again. His regular crew had luckily learned by then how to work around Henry's assorted ills, but they'd never stayed with him after work any longer than they had to, quite unlike the old fireman and more recently, the Doyons.

The old fireman probably hadn't had anyone waiting for him at home either, Henry now realized as he continued to think over the old memories his talk with Emily had dredged up. He'd been like Denise and Pierre, happy to spend some of his free time with an engine as though that engine were a friend instead of just a machine he used for work. Henry liked the idea of becoming his new crew's friend. His old crew, and indeed just about all his crews before them, had always been good to him, yet he'd always sensed that there was an unspoken divide between them, the divide that stood between master and servant. The Doyons, though…there was less of a barrier there. In fact, Henry got the distinct impression at times that they were going out of their way to demolish it.

The surprising development involving Gordon, for example... Like most of the full-time crews nowadays, the Doyons worked six days a week, whereas Henry typically still did his Kipper run with a driver and fireman off the spares list whenever his regular crew was unavailable. Once that task was done, he'd be brought back to Knapford to check whether any emergency situations requiring an alternate engine had arisen, and if not, he'd be allowed to have his own remainder of the day off and would be returned to his shed to rest and relax. Henry was one of the older engines on the Island, old enough to have begun appreciating such breaks. He also enjoyed the opportunity to doze away a few hours in safe, familiar surroundings by himself in relative peace and quiet.

Several weeks after his crew change, towards the end of one of his partial days off when the other engines began returning to the sheds, he was a little shocked to see not only Gordon's usual driver and fireman disembarking once they'd backed him into his berth, but both Doyons as well, and they were clad in their working uniforms. None of the four humans offered up a word of explanation as they passed right in front of Henry on their way out of the yard, but then Denise turned her head, caught her engine's eye, and offered up an enormous brief grin and a wink. Henry smiled back a little, instantly intrigued. He knew what a wink signified and wondered what secret it was which he and his new driver now shared.

The humans had no sooner gotten into their cars and out of earshot than Gordon himself provided the first clue. "Ha!" he crowed to Henry. "Even your own driver says I'm the fastest engine on Sodor!"

"Oh-h?" Henry responded. He wasn't sure what to think of the other engine's claim. Gordon expanded gleefully on why Henry's crew had just ridden along for most of the day with his own driver and fireman. According to him, the newbies had wanted to know what it was like to handle a proper big passenger engine and to get checked out on his type.

"I may have underestimated your new crew somewhat," Gordon concluded in grand fashion. "It appears that they can recognize and appreciate superior engineering more so than I first thought, even if they are foreigners. And that driver of yours…she's not half bad. She was quite impressed by my performance."

"I'm sure she was," Henry said, and looked over at Edward, who'd come in earlier and who'd been listening in. The smaller blue tender engine was still straight-faced, yet Henry could tell that he was struggling to maintain his current expression and not laugh aloud. Henry wondered if Denise had winked at him too, when she'd passed him.

It took until partway through the next day before Henry finally got the full story. Denise stayed behind to talk to him when they pulled up in Vicarstown for a while after delivering the Kipper train and the first thing she asked about was whether Gordon had claimed that she'd said he was the fastest engine on the Island.

"Yes he did!" Henry replied, impressed himself by her ability to predict Gordon's actions. "Did you…really say that to him, ma'am?"

Denise ducked her head to rub her chin and indulge in a happy chuckle.

"What I actually said, Henry, was that he was the fastest Pacific engine on Sodor."

Her big green loco mulled over her statement for a few seconds before the obvious struck him. "Oh! I get it. He's the only Pacific, so… Ha ha! He thought you meant fastest engine of all, heh."

The woman reached up to pat the edge of Henry's running board. It was good to see him relaxed enough in her presence to laugh.

"Yup," she confirmed. "Gordon's a good fellow. I like him. And I enjoyed the opportunity to drive him. But I do believe he has rather selective hearing when it comes to his wanting to…praise himself, shall we say. Would you agree?"

Henry laughed again. Praise himself! That was Gordon all right. He understood now why his driver had winked at him.

"He does, ma'am," he agreed happily. "Gordon praises himself a lot. He likes being appreciated."

"Don't we all… Well, you rest up a bit now, Henry. I think they've got something here they want us to take back to Brendam, but I have to check in with dispatch to make sure. Pierre and I'll be back soon either way."

And then she was gone, going off to the platforms. Henry looked after her fondly. He knew without asking that he wasn't meant to correct Gordon's erroneous conclusion and he knew that Denise and Pierre wouldn't correct him either, and their small shared subterfuge made Henry feel warm and unusually connected to his new humans. And it had already had positive results. Gordon had dropped his sour attitude towards Henry and Edward as soon as he'd told them about his day out with his augmented crew and had gone on afterwards to be quite pleasant with all his shed-mates that evening as they'd chatted together about their day's adventures. It was a return of the Gordon they all found quite bearable, even likeable. If allowing him to indulge in a bit of self-delusion was what it took to keep him in a good mood, then so be it.

It didn't stop there either. Now that the Doyons had gotten settled and seen to the necessities of relocating to another Commonwealth country, they had a lot more free time and chose to spend even more of it at the Tidmouth sheds. They soon met and befriended all the other regular crews and their engines too. Denise even came up with her own pet names for all the locomotives; Gordon's was 'handsome'. It bemused Henry to no end to witness Gordon's change in attitude towards the two new humans once they began conversing with him routinely after their check ride on him. Denise liked to greet him with some variant of "Hey there, handsome. How are you today?", and Gordon would first briefly close his eyes with pleasure and then reply with an affected formality that was all his: "Oh, I am very well, thank you, Missus Doyon. I hope you are well also." Denise, of course, would at that point reply back that she was likewise just fine, and if it was safe, would give Henry another little secret wink. Gordon never caught on… He became even more smug and happy when Pierre started calling him bleu grand, which the engine learned meant 'big blue'. He bragged afterwards that he now had a special Canadian name, never mind that it was actually French.

Henry learned his own pet name on the day that Denise was up on his running board, using an actual scrub brush loaded with hot suds to try and clean up a smear of stubborn tar that had somehow gotten stuck to the engine's left cheek. She'd knocked him by mistake with one of the ends of the brush's wooden backing and exclaimed, "Oh, sorry, sweetheart. Didn't mean to hit you." Henry's own heart, which was made of iron and decidedly not sweet, jogged and skipped a beat in his surprise. He knew exactly what the term meant. It was an endearment which he'd often overheard the humans use amongst themselves, most typically when it was a parent speaking to their offspring or two spouses or lovers exchanging affections. Henry was already accustomed to hearing many of his handlers address him as 'boy' or 'lad', but 'sweetheart'…that seemed a definite step up and must mean that his new driver liked him a lot. He hoped so, anyway. Henry was always anxious about wanting to please the humans and he very much wanted to be on the best terms possible with the couple in his cab who'd taken him on as their own.

In one sense, Henry was dead right. The Doyons were indeed pulling out all the stops when it came to ingratiating themselves with their new engine. They were trying to get Henry to trust them and develop at least some liking for them before their novelty value wore off and he reverted back to his more usual behaviours.

to be continued...