Chapter Two: An Unexpected Station Stop
Hastings sat up in his seat, heart pounding, wondering what was going on. Around him, the others were doing the same.
The engine let out a series of rattling banging noises that were definitely not part of a steam engine's usual repertoire.
At the refreshment counter, Huxleigh threw down the sheaf of War Office documents he'd been reading and jumped to his feet. The other officers were waking up and exclaiming loudly at the noise.
"What in God's name is going on?"
The train rattled and shook for a few moments more before finally coming to an ungraceful stop.
There was silence, except for the hiss of escaping steam and the sounds of shouting from the direction of the engine.
Huxleigh ran to a window, cranked it open with his good hand, and leaned out. He spoke at length to someone outside. "I see…bad luck there…do what you must, and keep us informed." He pulled his head back in, looking moderately frustrated.
"Has something happened, Major Huxleigh?" Hastings asked.
"Engine trouble, Lieutenant," Huxleigh said, shaking his head. "We're stopped while the crew determines what's what. Best case scenario, we'll be underway again in an hour. Worst case scenario, we'll have to wait for a replacement locomotive. And that could take quite a while." Huxleigh glanced out the window. "The only bright spot is that the engine conveniently decided to break down as we were entering a station, so it's not as if we're in the middle of nowhere."
"Where are we?" Hastings asked.
"Little hamlet called Woodley Heath. Somewhere within shouting distance of Haslemere, if memory serves," Huxleigh said. He turned his attention to the other officers. "Gentlemen, we will be stopped for some time, but we are thankfully at a station. Those who wish to walk about on the platform, if physically able, may do so at their leisure." Huxleigh disappeared into the next carriage, repeating his announcement.
Most of the officers got up and exited the carriage, with one muttering that he was in dire need of a cigar. Hastings settled back in his seat and tried to close his eyes again. But without the rattle and chuffing of the train, the carriage was uncomfortably quiet and still.
Oh, well, he could probably do with a little light stretching and exercise. "Even if it's just a few steps around the room. If you don't use your legs, they'll start to forget how to walk properly," Dr. Cavanaugh was always telling him at the battlefield hospital.
Picking up his cane, Hastings slowly pushed himself to his feet and headed for the carriage door. It took some doing to descend the steps, but he made it down to the platform without tripping or stumbling.
Woodley Heath station was one of those quaint, pretty countryside stations with a timber-and-stucco station house, a wrought-iron fence and gate, and a long platform laid with slate flagstones.
Huxleigh was speaking to the train crew, now huddled around the engine like doctors around a patient in surgery, and the stationmaster: a fiftyish, red-faced man in a tweed suit.
Quite a few of the soldiers had alighted and were now strolling about, stretching their limbs, enjoying a cigar or cigarette, or chatting about this and that. But quite a few had elected to stay aboard the train - or were incapable of exiting the train without assistance. Some of them were gazing out the train windows with weary, unseeing eyes.
Hastings wondered if that was what he looked like to a lot of his fellow soldiers. He'd seen weary, unseeing eyes gazing back at him almost every time he looked in a mirror nowadays.
And then he became aware of a lot of noise coming from somewhere. Loud, cheerful noise. Some of the soldiers were standing at the fence, looking eagerly at something beyond the platform. "Would you look at that, then? All the fun of the fair!" one exclaimed.
Hastings turned to look as well.
The green next to the station had been given over to some sort of fair, with tents and stalls everywhere. A big banner stretched between two tall trees said, in massive circus-poster letters, that this was the Woodley Heath Spring Fete. And beneath it, in smaller letters: "Being for the benefit of the Soldiers' Aid Fund."
"Haven't been to a fete in ages," said one soldier who had his left arm in a sling. "Last one down is a rotten egg!"
He and his friends immediately took off down the platform steps.
"You lot! Don't stray too far!" a sergeant on crutches bellowed after them. "Corporal, go after them and make sure they don't go too far afield. If that's not a pub on the far side of the green, then I'm the Queen Mother."
The corporal to whom he'd been speaking nodded mutely and headed after the soldiers.
Huxleigh looked out over the fete. "I have a feeling our presence is going to become known fairly soon." He turned to the stationmaster. "Stationmaster, I hate to impose, but I request that you keep civilians from ascending to the platform while we are here. There are wounded men aboard this train, and some of them can't take too much excitement."
The stationmaster nodded briskly. "Yes, sir."
And right at that moment, several people, mostly women, were running to the station steps carrying what looked like baskets of assorted treats.
"I'm very sorry, ladies, but the platform is closed," the stationmaster told them.
"But surely, these brave men would appreciate…"
"Again, I apologize, but no one is to be admitted except under military escort," the stationmaster said.
The women sighed and headed back down the steps, taking their baskets with them.
"It's cruel, I know. But it's for the best," Huxleigh said to Hastings. "To tell you the truth, Lieutenant Hastings, I've never been able to abide some of the old harpies who organize these affairs. I'd feel safer going twenty rounds with the kaiser himself." Huxleigh turned and went to have another discussion with the increasingly pessimistic train crew, and Hastings heard the words "completely blown to bits" and "wait for the relief engine from Guildford" go by.
They were definitely in for a very long wait. And the prospect of walking around in circles on the platform didn't appeal to Hastings, nor did going back to sit inside the too-quiet train.
Well, maybe he'd see what this fete was all about.
He took one careful step down the platform stairs, and then another.
And then a painful twinge from his leg caused him to gasp. He grabbed at the stair railing, catching his breath.
No prolonged walking, then. Oh, well, there was a bench not far away, under that oak tree with the low-hanging branches: a good place for a soldier with a bad leg to sit and rest with some privacy.
xHPx
A gray cart horse was placidly munching on grass behind a tent near the station entrance. It lifted its head as Hastings approached, and flicked its ears and swished its tail. Hastings reached out and gave the beast a scratch on its forelock, and the pony closed its eyes and rumbled and whickered in thanks.
Making his way over to the wood-and-wrought iron bench, Hastings slowly sat down. The painful twinge slowly subsided, but he knew trying to move again too soon would only make it flare up.
Leaning back against the bench, he began to look around at the sights in front of him. It was strange, being in a place like this after so much time on the battlefield.
The pastel colors of the strings of bunting - robin's egg blue, mint green, pale pink, and buttercup yellow - almost came as a shock to his eyes. He'd almost forgotten such colors existed in the world. In the trenches and at the barracks, the color palette was drab: olive green, khaki, gray, several different shades of brown, black, and of course, the maroon of spilled blood. And how strange it was, seeing a crowd of people in cheerful spirits, simply having a good time. There were women in gauzy spring dresses and flowered hats, men in straw boater hats and linen suits, and children decked out in their best clothes - probably under duress for some of them.
In his dress uniform, with his cane in his hands, Hastings had the uncomfortable feeling of being the proverbial skeleton at the feast. This fete was a little bubble of carefree joy and felicity…and he was a physical reminder that just across the English Channel, a horrible war was devouring the European continent.
If he got up off this bench and walked into the crowd, where everyone could see him, he imagined that they would see bloodstains on his uniform - laundered and pressed though it was - or the metaphorical raincloud that had been following him around since Arras.
You don't belong here. Stay away from these people, or you'll infect them with the taint of the battlefield.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hastings saw a little girl with flyaway red hair in a blue dress emerge from one of the tents and give something to the gray horse: an apple or a carrot, most likely. But he paid her and the horse no heed.
If he had, he would have noticed that the girl was looking at him intently, a look of curiosity mixed with concern on her face.
xHPx