Author's Note:

Thanks to CutCat, Houseboat_Island, and ZeroethDog for giving feedback on pieces of this installment (this chapter will be very familiar, but I hope to still surprise you in the rest of the fic!) I'm also very grateful to all readers who left comments on the first tale. Your enthusiasm for more Coppernob stories was hugely encouraging.(eliot reader—Yes, at some point I would like to do an installment featuring the bombing of Barrow Central, and maybe even more than one flashback to C.'s working days. Always good to hear from you.)

Cheers to leatherbootlace and yoharoobies for suggesting the use of "No-Where Railway" as the local contemporaries' way to talk about the Sodor North Western, as opposed to the neighboring London and North Western (which would already have dibs on being referred to as "the North Western").

Finally, an acknowledgement to joezworld, from whom I certainly got the notion of ungovernable ships taking active roles in rescuing and re-homing engines. I borrowed the notion but used it only lightly; if readers are interested in more, check out his "sentient vehicles worldbuilding" tumblr posts, which are daring, imaginative, and amazingly detailed.

2: Cooped In

The Twenties were to be relied upon completely. Of all the Furness engines, they had been dealt one of the unkindest hands: only a few years of fresh air and long runs before trading in their tenders for saddletanks and being sent inside Sir James's iron and steel complex, which they had worked faithfully for going on forty-five years. That they had been shocked and saddened for some while Coppernob could well remember, but rather than let it crush them they had, much like the molten metals they worked with, let their crucible refine them. They had become a very sober, serious, capable lot, and for all they were forgotten by many, Coppernob could think of no class they'd ever had, living or extinct, of whom he was prouder.

Nevertheless, even the unflappable Twenty sent word the following day. Poppet—formally on the books as 19—managed to convey the edge with which Twenty must have hissed it, even though she had heard it third-wheel. How long must that engine be stashed here?! The whole town is crawling with navy men and his fireman can't shut up for five minutes at a stretch. We'll not be able to keep them secret for very long!

In the twilight, the two engines gazed at each other sidelong through the glass. 19 was one of their newer six-wheeled sidetanks, plainly built but always smartly turned-out. Coppernob did not generally feel it proper to look to such young engines as her for comfort or reassurance, and yet he had not altogether succeeded in keeping her at a distance. Every year she learned a bit better how to manage her station, and Coppernob, stuck right in the middle of it, could hardly escape being a part of that.

The setting sun was casting shadows deep and fast when Coppernob spoke.

"Is he misbehaving?"

"Not sure I'd say misbehaving," said 19. "But he is a hasty thing."

"Yes; he seemed so."

"And even if he were steady as a Swiss bank, he probably couldn't help being clumsy, cooped in there. He's awful big and long, for a shunter. They say his brakes aren't all you'd hope them to be, neither!"

"Has that ship he was bound for called?"

"How should they know?"

"The Twenties have their ways of finding out," Coppernob insisted. "Ask about that, please. Tell the dock engines I want them to help in any way that is needed. And has he yet worked with any but the crew he brought with him?"

"I don't know, Nobby."

"Find out that, too. We need to know if he can work with strangers. If he's not broken in, it's going to be that much tougher to find him a place. And what about speaking to the Carlisle engine? She can take the request up to our friends there."

"Can she be trusted?"

"I don't believe we have a choice but to find out, dear. You'll ask her, when she comes in?"

"Thought I was to be station pilot," complained 19, "not a messenger. 'Central Station!' they all said. 'A jolly place for you, Poppet. A fine life you'll lead there. You'll be spic and span every day, and when you're station pilot, when you say jump, everyone jumps.' A bill of goods, I'd say!"

But she promised to see to all of it, nonetheless.

She found out some things overnight, but in the morning they were bowled over by the usual commotion, life carrying on despite distant death. Passengers jostled and nattered, porters wheeled and shouted, on every side factories clanged and clattered, in the distance boats honked their arrivals and departures… and at the station their own free-steaming red engines were making the usual fuss.

"I say, Nobby!" whistled 'Sharpie' number 6 with the 9.05 stopper from Whitehaven, calling from over the far platform. "That bridge has really come along over the weekend, ain't it?"

Coppernob shamelessly pretended not to hear, as he was busy watching Poppet bustle about in the usual rush-hour scrum, trying to discern from her face whether she already had news, and which kind.

"Excited to go over 'No-Where,' are you?" asked 'Seagull' 127.

"'S'not nowhere," retorted 6, "it's a whole new line, and you're just jealous! You know very well, they shan't be sending you . Your wheels are too big and clumsy to do anything but fast trains!"

"But fast trains are what they're wanting!" retorted 34, another Seagull, from out the other end of the roof at platform two. The insult didn't apply to him, but if one of them were in a fight, they all were. "The big 'Gulls would be just right."

"But they need supplies and ballast and things brought over too," scoffed 6. "Inn't that the latest word, Nobby?"

"How can anyone hear any word, with all you lot nattering away!" Coppernob snapped. "A little station decorum, if you please!"

Stationmaster frowned too, in clear agreement. But this only cut short the engines' bickering for a moment or two, and when Poppet chuffed by backwards, pulling hard at 6's rake, she only hissed "Later! " out the edge of her smokebox.

Coppernob resigned himself to having only the company of the Sharps and the 'Gulls, and nipped a new argument that was starting to bud by pointedly asking for more details on the bridge. They had been building since the snows melted, and it should have been a welcome pastime for Coppernob, watching it take shape… if only he were facing the other way. "Is it railed-up yet, then?"

"It is," giggled 127. "Looks quite ready. But—122 says that now they can't raise it!"

There was a raucous clatter of locomotive laughter, until the drivers, guards, and a few of the most important passengers glared them into better order.

"Sod off," said 6. "What do a bunch of preening passenger engines know about construction? These things don't just spring up out of the ground. They must take pains, to test everything and get it ju—"

His driver pulled the lever, and what was surely a very lengthy and promising lecture was cut off as 6 lurched forward. On a normal day even Coppernob might have joined in the general merriment with a thin smile.

But he was lost in his own thoughts that morning. Unable to get a rise out of him after 6 departed for Millom, the other engines that passed through that morning were somewhat subdued. This rare token of respect went completely unnoticed, however, by the old engine in the birdcage, who instead focused on pumping the new electric tram engines coming out from the docks every half-hour or so on details of the ships due in that day. The trams, however, only ever moved passengers and workmen, and they were a singularly disappointing source of information.

Besides, calling to the tram engines attracted the attention of Stationmaster. That was always a point lost.

Coppernob pursed his lips when he came striding over. A dutiful, capable, disapproving man, Stationmaster was. He was so thin that his shoulders did not seem to extend much past his moustache… a walking matchstick. Yet he seemed to have the notion that he ruled not only Barrow Central but also all of Cumbria. Possibly the entirety of the western hemisphere.

Certainly he believed that he ruled over Coppernob.

"All this shouting is unseemly."

Who is shouting?! B'Lady, man, if you mean me—!

But the engine spoke lightly. "It is a great clamor, Stationmaster. But then, passengers these days are an unruly lot, and keeping them safe seems to be the limit of what we can do."

"I meant engines, number Three."

Coppernob chuckled, indulgent. "Those little electric fellows can scarcely make themselves heard! Surely there's no harm in it."

Stationmaster gave a hard stare from across the tracks. Coppernob had to admit that this deliberate ignorance sounded irritating even to himself. But what other choice did they have? They were stuck with each other, and had to rub along somehow. Therefore Coppernob could never give Stationmaster the piece of his mind that he so richly wanted to… and in the end Stationmaster would always have to back off. "You know very well I mean the commotion from our engines chattering all morning! I should have thought you would keep them in line—not encourage them!"

Coppernob drew in breath with a sharp hiss—and stopped playing games. "You offend me. I always make an effort to mitigate their commotion but I haven't the power to stop it. Nor is it my duty!"

"Section E, Line 4. 'Engines at station should comport themselves with decorum and speak only when spoken to.'"

Coppernob raised his eyebrows.

"That rule is a new one to me, Stationmaster. Anyway it sounds as if Manager had better speak to their drivers, and tell them to keep better order."

Stationmaster stared a moment longer, eyebrows knitted. They were as thin as the rest of him, though, and much less impressive than his beloved moustache. Coppernob just waited.

In the end Stationmaster turned on his heel and walked away, with the air of a man with many more important things to attend to.

Coppernob closed his eyes and spent the hours until Poppet's break pretending to sleep, too irritated to trust himself. He knew that Stationmaster had not only been speaking about the young main line engines, but him.

He didn't care. When you were kept intact for fifteen years against your will, yet rendered immobile and imprisoned under glass, then, well. He reckoned you were excused from fleet discipline.

Maddeningly, a special was routed through line one during the time when Poppet usually took her break and chatted in relative privacy with Coppernob, so she instead was parked over near the big sheds. He gave up on doing anything but going out of his mind and was soon asleep… but was just as soon woken up again, by the whistle of the passing Great Western engine with the special through train.

There were a lot of strange trains routed through their line, during the war. The War Office was giving all sorts of orders nowadays, and the boundary between one railway and the next meant rather less than it once had. The main line engines all complained that lately you lost your 'path' if you appeared to be running even the slightest bit behind at any particular signalbox, regardless of whether it was on the tricky southern parts of the line where it was normal to lose time. But the War Office's "through supplies," re-routed from the now very congested Midland or Shap lines, must get through, whatever it might mean to the local timetables.

For his part, Coppernob thought it rather interesting, to have strange engines on their rails. But that day he was entirely caught up with impatience as each hour dragged on. If this situation had occurred when he still worked the docks himself, he felt sure he could have already found a way to get the southern tank out. But instead here he sat, stuck and enclosed, relying on everyone else to play 'telegram' without being able to move one wheel himself. He put in the time silently willing the stationmaster and porters to clear out before 19 went off-shift.

Thankfully, they did.

"News?"

"Good evening to you too."

"Poppet. My dear girl. I've heard smart remarks enough today. Please tell me you have news?"

"I've all sorts," said 19 brightly. "I've been all a-bustle, here and there and everywhere; a regular spymaster, I am. Good news, bad news; timely, untimely; from the docks and from the sheds. Which is your pleasure, Captain Coppernob, sir?"

He gave her a pained look. It seemed to be all the answer she deserved, or required.

"The good news, captain: The ship had called, it's nearly loaded, and they've been looking all over the docks for this One-Oh-Six, but no one talked, nor they did. They're in an awful hurry and they should leave without 'im, tonight."

"Is this the best news you have?" The ship hadn't yet left. And although Barrow mightn't talk to the naval men, he supposed Brighton would likely be more cooperative.

"Well—I'm afraid so, Nobby. I've already put out all sorts of feelers to figure out the lad's next stop. The dock engines say the ships all refuse: the navy is inspecting every ship before it departs, and even if they weren't, the waters are so infested with U-boats, they can't guarantee safe passage anywhere."

This was a blow. In happier times, they had sent several condemned engines to start new lives oversees. Their managers were none the wiser, and, according to the kindly great ships who helped them in these endeavors, people in the southern Americas seemed appreciative of these useful gifts from the clear blue sky.

"We're waiting on word from Penrith, but Twenty isn't hopeful. Less so than usual, I mean. Says a stowaway engine is bound to be noticed on the rails between here and there. Wants us to send him further north. And so then I spoke to Mary—"

"Mary?"

"The Carlisle engine. Like you wanted!"

"That surely isn't her name back home." And the Furness men weren't ones to give engines little names, either. Poppet herself was one of the very rare exceptions.

"I think she chose it."

"That's not the point of a name," fussed the old engine. "Certainly not for our kind."

"Nobby, did you want me to ask her a favor or did you want me to give her a lecture?"

"Very well. So, from an abundance of diplomacy, you call her Mary… and, well-disposed towards you, she agreed to take the sidetank."

"We-ell," said 19, "the bit about her taking the sidetank, not so much."

Coppernob sighed. "Will she do anything to help?"

"I'm afraid she pretty much ruled that out, captain. Says that for once her little railway has engines enough, and that if she started making inquiries their new lot would never keep it a secret. Better not to get 'em talking about it."

Coppernob was trying to remember his last question, when a sudden enormous row of hissing, whistles, and everyone talking at once burst out from the engine yard, rudely interrupting their tete-a-tete.

On the far side of the engine sheds the road vehicles and the cranes rattled on, and took little notice, but Central Station was a quieter place at this hour, and everyone stared at the familiar yet unwelcome racket.

"Goodness!" Coppernob's voice quavered; he was feeling quite on edge. "Whatever are they on about now?"

The stationmaster had come out too, covering his ears, and glaring in the direction of the sheds. "Never mind, number Three. I expect that fool of a shedmaster went ahead and asked them who would be willing to go over the island."

"Why on earth would he do that?!"

The static engine and the severe stationmaster sometimes locked buffers, but on this occasion they seemed to be in agreement. Stationmaster was dour. "Seems to have the notion that the engines will comport themselves better if they volunteer than if they are told. I warned him!"

Coppernob groaned. "Yes, indeed. They all know how to follow an order. But this wishy-washy sort of thing just stirs them up. It'll be the superheater trials all over again!"

"All I can do is speak to the Superintendent." And the stationmaster went back inside, presumably to get on the telephone and do just that.

"It was bad enough when they were only speculating," Coppernob grumbled. "Now it's a competition. There will be no peace for the rest of the season; we'll be lucky if those idiots refrain from actively sabotaging each other. And all while we're trying to slip out an engine, too!"

Now the remark about sabotage was a little unfair to them, and normally 19 would have said as much. But not tonight. Her eyes had been shining ever since the stationmaster had appeared with his explanation.

"Nobby," she hissed, "that's the answer."

He blinked at her, and she grinned, well-pleased with herself.

"Send that sidetank over the bridge, of course!"

She had every right to be proud. It was a good idea, and it should have worked a treat.

The nearby islanders were supposed to be finishing the construction that would link them and Barrow by rail any day now. By the end of the month, most assuredly. And a big, brand-new sidetank ought to be welcome there.

They needed engines quite badly. They had been begging the Furness to help run their services—and in happier times the Furness would have done so very gladly. A "boom" on Sodor would benefit everyone… especially whichever company managed to wrest control of the island's harbors away from the locals. Even the great Midland Railway, their old rivals, had proposed that they and the Furness should go it in halves to rail up the island decades ago, but Parliament had already granted the bill to a Sodor company. Unfortunately, said company had only proceeded to use its powers to dawdle its way to insolvency long before getting around to their bridge.

Now, with the war, the link was finally about to be made. But, in bitter irony, it was thanks to the war that there were really no engines who could be spared!

The Admiralty was threatening to get involved, should the Furness and the new railway not come to terms. They insisted that Sodor rail service was critical for the national defense. Meanwhile the Furness was holding out as long as possible, trying to delay the necessity to spread their already war-worked fleet more thinly. Sodor was no small island.

Altogether, Coppernob agreed with 19. The hard-pressed Sudrians should hardly mind much, if they found an extra engine attached to one of their first night-time deliveries. So, as soon as the bridge was complete and the two railways came to terms, they could send over the sidetank by rail, with no need for a bothersome naval inspection. And the delay was rather welcome, for there were a few matters to sort out. Nothing too serious. 19 would use her connections to try and get some of their old allies to work as guard and signalman in the new box on the same night. Coppernob would try to nudge the selection of the engine towards a Sharpie, as they were the more discreet option; some even had a little experience helping out friends in this way before. The two engines hissed to each other over the course of the weekend, updating each other on their progress a few words at a time.

However, just as the new week began, Twenty sent another message, this one even more urgent than his last:

War Office to inspect the steelworks this Thursday.