Chapter 8: Saved From Scrap
James had always found that moving at speed was an excellent strategy for distracting himself from anything troubling. Flying over the rails was exhilarating, of course, but it was the physical exertion and the sense of control over his own velocity which he found helpful, occupying his thoughts to such an extent that he had little capacity left for worrying. After a morning in which he'd felt totally adrift, the journey from Knapford to Tidmouth gave him a much needed respite from his fears and he felt considerably more positive by the time he began to slow down.
Clarence, on the other hand, didn't enjoy the experience quite so much and the guard proposed that the old brake van be given a chance to recover once they reached the sheds. The others were very much in agreement with this plan. Although, ideally, James would have preferred a washdown, resting in his berth for a time seemed like an acceptable alternative and his driver and fireman had pointed out rather plaintively that it was now well past lunchtime.
James also found that his rapid motion had shaken up his thoughts to some extent and they now began to fall into slightly different positions, allowing him to make connections that had not previously been apparent. "Gordon said Emily's predecessor on the Ffarquhar branch line had been running it for many years," he remarked as the sheds came into view on the line ahead.
"That's correct," Clarence affirmed, still sounding rather shaky.
"But he couldn't have meant Toby because he's still there. And Thomas said earlier that Annie and Clarabel had been Edward's coaches. Clarence," the engine hesitated, not sure he wanted to hear the answer to his question. "Did the Fat Controller bring Emily to Sodor to replace Edward?"
"He did." Clarence's tone was gentle and James had a horrible sense that he was about to impart bad news. "Work on the branch line was nearing completion at the time when you would have arrived. An engine had to be allocated to work there full time and who else would the Fat Controller choose but the most loyal and conscientious member of his fleet? Annie and Clarabel adored Edward, of course, and the passengers took to him immediately. All in all, it was one of the happier times on the railway."
"But…?" prompted James. "Something must have happened, Clarence. Tell me."
"Ah," the brake van said, sadly. "You'll see for yourself soon enough."
The sheds were ahead of them now and James could see Edward dozing peacefully at the back of the berth furthest to his left. That was one less thing for Gordon to complain about, he thought, dryly. It took him a few moments to realise that the building was smaller than he had become accustomed to – of course, he reflected, on this iteration of Sodor, there would have been no need to build an extension to accommodate Emily. He headed towards a siding to leave Clarence as agreed.
As he was uncoupled, Clarence spoke up again, his voice steady and calm once more. "James, you really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?"
James paused, pondering Clarence's choice of words. Was 'wonderful' the correct term? He had good friends, a job which frequently involved pulling passenger services and, of course, he had been safe on Sodor when the others of his class had been sent to face the scrapper's torch. As precious as those things were, it was hard to balance them against the fact that he seemed to constantly be in disgrace and had become a figure of fun for his vanity and tendency to make poor decisions. If that counted as wonderful, James thought, then some engines really must lead pretty miserable lives. "I'll pick you up again later," he told Clarence and headed wearily to the turntable.
Although from a distance the scene in the shed had appeared peaceful, as James drew closer he could see that he had been terribly mistaken. Deep lines were etched into Edward's face, unfamiliar creases which hinted at prolonged pain. His blue paint was flaking, with rust patches blooming abundantly across his boiler, cab and front buffer beam, and his tender was missing. As James reversed cautiously into the berth alongside him, the cause of his suffering was revealed. Above the driving wheels on his left hand side, Edward's frame and splashers were badly mangled, the metal twisted and rusting. James couldn't tear his eyes away from it, and in that moment he understood. He knew with every rivet of his being that Clarence had been telling the truth all along, for there could be no one, on Sodor or beyond, who would inflict such torture on poor, inoffensive Edward solely to play a trick on another engine. Hallucination due to bad coal could also be ruled out. James didn't want to believe that his own imagination might be capable of conjuring up such a nightmarish image.
His fireman inhaled sharply as he descended from James's cab and saw the extent of the damage, while his driver swore. "Poor old thing. Why the hell has he been abandoned here in this state?"
"Are you sure you want us to leave you here?" James's fireman asked, his tone low so as not to disturb the sleeper.
James managed a brittle smile. "You're supposed to have a break. I'll be fine."
The fireman patted his buffer. "We'll be back soon, I promise. Try not to worry, James. I don't know what's going on but there must be some way to get things back to normal. We'll work it out."
Once they had departed, James had nothing to distract him from Edward's terrible injuries and he found that his gaze kept returning to the misshapen metal below his boiler. He felt cold to his firebox as he realised that he had seen the old engine with such damage before, a long time ago. "The enthusiasts' train…" he murmured.
Edward's eyes snapped open and James froze as he scrutinised him with a searching look that the younger engine found deeply uncomfortable.
"Marvellous." His voice was barely audible, weak from lack of steam and hoarse from under use. "A new engine, come to gawp at the old iron rusting away in the back of the sheds."
"I-I'm sorry," James stammered. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"Hmm." Edward didn't seem to be in a particularly talkative mood. He closed his eyes and after a few minutes of silence, James concluded that he must have fallen asleep again and sighed deeply. He wished he had tried to persuade his crew to take him to the washdown instead.
Edward was not asleep and his eyes blinked open once more. "What's the matter with you?"
James looked back at him with an anxious expression, unsure how much he ought to admit to. He could hardly unburden himself to Edward as he had intended when the blue engine's suffering was clearly so much greater than his own. "I've just heard that a good friend of mine has been scrapped," he said quietly.
"Oh. I see." Edward closed his eyes yet again and James wondered if it was too much effort to keep them open. "Well, if it's any consolation, there are worse fates."
Aghast, James stared at him, hoping he had misheard. "That's a bit insensitive," he muttered.
"Insensitive?" The word has barely more than a hiss, the sibilance echoing around the shed. "You're a fine one to talk, bringing up the subject of the scrapyard to an engine in my position!"
Words failed James and he gazed miserably at Edward, fervently hoping that his crew would return soon. Admittedly he hadn't stopped to consider the possibility that the subject would upset the old engine, but all the same, he couldn't recall him snapping at anyone like that before and being on the receiving end was disturbing. He wanted to get as far away from this distorted version of his friend as was physically possible.
After a few moments, Edward sighed heavily and reopened his eyes, his face suddenly sorrowful. "I'm sorry. That was unfair. You are well within your rights to grieve for your friend. I'm afraid I find it difficult not to feel slightly bitter at times."
The apology went some way towards easing the tension and James felt able to relax slightly. "Bitter? If I were in your position, I'd be raging."
"What would that achieve? The atmosphere in the sheds is unpleasant enough as it is. I don't see any benefit in making it even worse." Edward hesitated. "That may have seemed a little indiscreet. Honestly, if you haven't already noticed that the working relationships between some of the engines on this railway are strained to say the least, it will become obvious before too long."
"Never mind the others." This was ground James had already covered and there were more pressing matters concerning him right now. "What happened to you?"
"My siderod swung into me when a crank pin broke," said Edward, matter-of-factly. "A group of rail enthusiasts were visiting from the Mainland and I was responsible for returning them to Knapford so they could get home on time. I was in poor condition; so many parts in need of maintenance that I clanked dreadfully when I moved. I hadn't been properly overhauled in decades. A storm broke when I was on the way back, my wheels slipped on the wet rails and the next thing I knew, I was in the most horrendous pain. I tried to move the train but I simply couldn't manage it. A bus collected the passengers, Henry shunted me back to the sheds and I've been here ever since."
James gaped at him in horror. Although it wasn't a topic which was discussed very often, all of the long-standing members of the Fat Controller's fleet were aware that Edward's confinement in the sheds in the early years of the North Western had made a deep and lasting impression on the old engine. Upon his release, he had returned to service with a quiet determination to make himself indispensable that had never diminished, embracing the opportunity to train newer engines in order to cement his position. The Fat Controller respected him greatly for his drive and loyalty but had probably never realised how much these qualities had been shaped by fear. James knew that being left in the sheds once more was probably the worst fate that Edward could have imagined and he struggled to understand how this had been allowed to happen. "Why didn't the Fat Controller have you repaired?"
"I'm the last of my class. No K2s have been built for a very long time. Repairing me would have been such a big job and he found a newer engine who was being sold at an unusually low price. He replaced me instead. It was a purely financial decision based on the need to keep my branch line running smoothly."
"But that's just... cruel!" No wonder Gordon hated Emily so ardently. James could imagine what it must have looked like to the big engine, watching as a newcomer took ownership of the branch line while a colleague he had known for years was cast aside to gradually disintegrate.
"It's misplaced sentimentality," Edward said in a resigned tone. "The Fat Controller can't quite bring himself to scrap the oldest engine in his workforce. Initially it was a temporary situation and I was to be repaired when the funds became available. Now, I believe, he finds it easier to forget about me."
"He wouldn't do that," argued James, but even as the words left his lips he remembered Glynn, the old coffee pot engine. At least Edward had the luxury of a shed to keep him from the worst of the Sudrian winters. "Well, you need to speak to him," he told the old engine forcefully. "You can't just accept this, it's brutal!"
Edward glanced at him. "Don't you think I've tried? Sir Topham doesn't visit the sheds any more so I can't speak to him myself. Another engine agreed to raise the matter with him on my behalf but it caused a great deal of upset and he ended up being sent away so-"
"Duck?" James cut across him. "I heard that he had a disagreement with Gordon."
"He did." Edward lowered his eyes and James silently observed that he had never seen his friend look so utterly bereft – heartbroken, if the word could be applied to a being without an actual heart. "Gordon objected to what Duck had to say. It was all my fault. A thoroughly decent engine was sent away because of me."
Dread permeated James's boiler. He could almost feel it coursing through his tubes.
"He told the Fat Controller that I should be scrapped," Edward continued, his voice now so faint that James almost had to resort to lip-reading. "And he did so because I asked him to."
For a second James wondered if the rails had dropped away beneath him. Everything suddenly seemed horribly unreal and he felt weirdly detached from it all. "You asked to be scrapped?" he whispered.
"The severity of the damage will only worsen if I'm left here," Edward pointed out. "My scrap value diminishes as the cost of my repairs rises. The Fat Controller might as well scrap me now and salvage something from this sorry mess. It's my time, I accepted that long ago. I don't want the situation to be drawn out any longer than it already has been. I've realised that there's no point wishing for a different outcome, it's going to happen sooner or later, and I'd rather it be on my own terms. Duck understood that."
Of course he did, James thought bitterly. It made perfect sense that Duck, always more committed to duty than emotion, would be prepared to take on that challenge when Edward requested it of him.
"Gordon went after Duck because he was terrified," Edward went on. "He still is, although he does a remarkable job of hiding it. He is unwilling to give up hope that the Fat Controller will have me repaired because he's so frightened that the same thing could happen to him one day. If I'm disposed of, it will set a precedent that could put all of the older engines at risk. Gordon will fight against it any way he can and more recent arrivals are of little consequence to him. He didn't care what happened to poor Duck and he doesn't care what might happen to the engine who replaced me."
Hearing Edward speak so calmly about his own death was the most horrible thing James had experienced all day, despite it already having been the worst of his entire existence. "You're not going to ask me to do the same, are you?" he asked, his tone low as he tried to keep his distress in check, "because I won't. I won't do it and you can't ask it of me."
Edward looked up at him. "No. I've only just met you and anyway, I feel guilty enough over Duck. I haven't asked the others either, although that's partly because I know none of them would consider it. Henry is worried that he is only a few wheel turns away from the scrapyard himself and doesn't want to draw attention to the fact. Toby prefers to keep himself to himself and won't get involved. And Thomas…" Edward's voice trailed off and his gaze drifted out to the turntable. "Thomas can't bear the thought of having that on his conscience and I don't want to cause him further distress. He's already so unhappy. He used to be such a cheerful, mischievous tank engine, but decades of dull, unfulfilling work have knocked all of that out of him." He looked back at James. "I'm sorry, you're new here and this isn't the welcome you must have been hoping for. It's rare that I get an opportunity to speak so openly to another engine-"
James wasn't really listening. A single thought was glowing like a beacon in his mind, burning brighter and brighter, obscuring all others, and he cut Edward off abruptly with an anguished wail. "It's all my fault!"
"What is?" Edward shot him a questioning look, his raised eyebrow smoothing some of the lines on his face and making him appear more like the engine James knew.
"Everything! I was meant to be here, I should have arrived before Per-… before Toby. Do you see the number on my tender? I should have been the number five engine! It turns out I've got a knack for accidentally being in the right place at the right time and without me, things haven't happened the way they were supposed to…" James could feel himself becoming increasingly agitated but the valve was open now and the flow of words couldn't be stopped. "I might have expected you to be happier without me on Sodor, Edward. I've treated you quite badly over the years. But if I'd been here, you'd have had that overhaul you needed. There was an incident where I ended up running down the main line without my crew. You chased after me and caught me and saved me from a terrible crash, maybe even saved my life! The Fat Controller was so impressed that he sent you to be repaired as a reward. The look on his face when he spoke to you… he's never looked at me like that in all the years I've worked on his railway." He gulped and looked down at his buffers for a moment; he had thrown away any chance of making his owner proud now. "Anyway, the overhaul did the trick and a few years later, when your crank pin broke, you managed to pull the coaches all the way back to Knapford without help. You were magnificent, Edward! You don't deserve to be stuck in the sheds and neglected like this. It isn't right!"
If the old engine was surprised that a stranger knew his name, he didn't show it. He continued to stare at James in shocked bemusement.
The red engine took this as an invitation to continue. "I'm an idiot. I wished myself out of existence and I've ruined things for everyone. I don't know how to get things back to the way they were. I don't even know if I can. What if this is permanent and the Sodor I know doesn't exist any more? Percy and the others will stay dead forever and it will all be because of me, because I only ever think about myself!"
The words dried up as a wave of exhaustion hit him, and he fell quiet again, wholly fed up of the confusion and the guilt. The only sounds in the sheds were the hissing of his own steam and the smouldering of his fire. Alongside him, Edward was uncannily silent. Even when asleep, engines usually made some sound and James found the absence of noise rather creepy.
The silence was eventually broken by the Furness engine. "How did you wish yourself out of existence?" he asked softly.
James didn't quite know what to make of this. "You believe me?"
"I don't think that matters, really," replied Edward, sincerely. "You clearly believe that it's true."
James studied his expression, trying to gauge whether the older engine was mocking him. He seemed to have accepted the tale rather too readily, but then, any form of entertainment would probably be welcome to a locomotive whose horizons were so restricted that he could barely see as far as the turntable. "There was a brake van. He said he was my guardian angel, of all things. I said I wished I had never been built and suddenly I hadn't. It's ridiculous. I wouldn't believe it if it hadn't happened to me."
"Well, then," said Edward thoughtfully. "Have you asked this brake van if he can get you back to your Sodor?"
James frowned as he tried to recall the events of that morning and groaned when he realised his error. "I...I didn't believe him. I never asked if he could get me home because I was so sure it had to be a trick. Why didn't I think of it before? How could I be so stupid?"
The sound of approaching footsteps crunching across the ballast caught his attention and both engines looked across to see James's crew returning, bearing bags of chips swaddled in newspaper. James, suddenly impatient, called out to them. "We need to go and find Clarence, now!"
His driver grumbled under his breath about lunch breaks and working conditions and overtime pay but the urgency in his engine's voice was unmistakable and both men returned to the cab, readying him for departure. As they busied themselves, James spoke soberly to Edward. "I take back what I said earlier. If I see the Fat Controller, I'll tell him what you've told me."
Edward looked worried. "Please don't put yourself at risk on my account. The last thing I want is for another engine to throw away their future."
James flashed him the most confident smile he could summon up. "I shouldn't be here anyway. What do I have to lose?" And with that, he was gone, leaving the blue engine alone in the shed once more: battered, weary and beaten.
Feeling reinvigorated, James raced to the siding with renewed hope. Clarence had all the answers and, now he thought about it, it made perfect sense that he would also know how to undo whatever action he had taken to remove the red engine from reality. A cautious smile spread across his face. The end was in sight.
And seconds later, his optimism came crashing down once more and he stared at the rails ahead of him in consternation.
The siding was empty. Clarence had vanished.
