HE'S MY BROTHER
Chapter Eight - Winter Woes
An arctic air mass slipped down and settled in directly over Sodor and winter began in earnest. It turned very cold, cold enough to finally freeze over the larger lakes and thicken the ice on the ponds enough for skating. The snow, however, held off aside from a few little dustings from passing systems. The skiers and sledders were unhappy about that, but the engines were pleased. Snow made the tracks tricky and slippery and most of the ones who routinely wore snowplows in season didn't like wearing them one bit.
Lammergeier was unhappy too, although it had nothing to do with the weather. He just didn't care much for his new crew. He especially did not care for Christophe, who was still too sneaky and who saw far too much when he looked at him. Lammergeier dealt with his new situation by retreating back to the way he'd interacted with his crews back in Berlin, which was to say, not at all unless it involved his work. He was polite, spoke only when spoken to, did as he was told without complaint or comment…behaved in short like every good German engine built for use during the reign of the Third Reich had been expected to behave. His new crew appeared to respect his decision to remain aloof and didn't try to push themselves on him, which was a relief, but he could tell that they were disappointed with him too and that stung sometimes, a little. Adler seemed disappointed with him as well—he could feel his brother's gaze on him, watching with disapproval at times when he wordlessly tolerated Christophe's tidying up his face—and that stung even worse. But then Adler just didn't know any better. He thought the little human engineer was their friend.
Lammergeier still wasn't sure what to think of his new fireman either. Christophe had quite quickly begun getting him to drive a bit every afternoon when the tracks weren't too icy and the engine had been dismayed to discover that he was just as competent and experienced as his main driver; he hadn't even tried slipping any piloting tricks past his fireman as a result. And he was weird. Once he'd gotten Lammergeier's fire going well in the mornings, Surendra would on occasion climb up on the engine's running board and carefully place his gloved hands on the metal cladding over his boiler and then just stand there as he heated up. Sometimes he leaned so close that Lammergeier could even feel the human's breath on him, a sensation he didn't like at all if only because it seemed so inexplicable. It only began to make sense on the day that Christophe, who was on the ground lubricating some of Lammergeier's undercarriage, spotted Surendra doing his thing on the running board just above him and called up in a playful tone, "So? Does he smell like roses or sour lemons?"
"Neither," his fireman had replied, smiling. "Coal smoke. Varnish. Hot oil… I like to listen to him. I love hearing him come to life."
At which point Lammergeier had thought, what the—! I'm always alive, du Vollidiot! It was a sad and mean-spirited response on the engine's part. He just couldn't bring himself to acknowledge let alone accept the man's simple awe and reverence for his being. But Christophe understood. He just smiled back and kept on with his task of ensuring that Lammergeier's wheels and rods continued to operate without the slightest hitch. It was important to him that his engine looked good and even more so, that he functioned as well as possible.
Even if Lammergeier didn't much appreciate his new crew, the two men appreciated each other. In Surendra, Christophe found not only a worthy colleague, but a friend and a soulmate of sorts as well. The two of them were equally fascinated by living locomotives. Despite being born and growing up on virtual opposite sides of the globe, they'd both fallen under the spell of the beasts of the rails as boys at almost the same age and had never been able to be away from them for long. They were soon exchanging stories of their experiences with the engines and Christophe began sharing some of the research and observations he'd collected over the years.
The Doyons had likewise recognized in Surendra a kindred soul the very first time Christophe brought him home and had joined their engineer friend in afterwards extending an open invitation to him to visit again anytime. The personable Indian man was delighted to have found even more like-minded fellow railroaders and was soon a frequent guest in their little cottage, where he could sit and talk about locomotives and nothing but locomotives all evening long without anyone once rolling their eyes or trying to change the subject. The fact that he often brought along some of his delicious homemade curry dishes only sweetened his appeal and made him all the more welcome.
On one clear frigid night, when the moon was full and the winds were whipping over the shingles and fingering the shutters, Christophe and Surendra found themselves sitting alone together at the kitchen table, enjoying a last cup of tea before calling it a night. The Doyons had left some hours ago to treat themselves to a restaurant meal and an early movie and the two men, as usual, had been talking about the railway business in their respective countries. Surendra had expressed his regret that most of the locos in India were simple machines and that living engines were in the minority there. He also wished that he'd known more engineers while still living in his homeland for one of his fondest desires had always been to learn more about how the living ones came into being and to witness their births, but he'd only managed to see it once, alas.
"I wasn't even allowed in the building," he told Christophe. "I had to stand outside the bay doors and watch from there. I remember it was a fine big passenger engine, not so different from our Gordon, and because he was so large, I was able to see his face quite well." He paused, reminiscing, his expression becoming dreamy. "It was lovely, watching him come alive. So innocent and a little astonished, like any newborn, yet already alert and aware. I've never seen anything like it. You're so lucky, Christophe, to have attended to so many of them when they first awaken. It must be very rewarding work."
"It is, rather…" He sipped his tea, momentarily preoccupied by his own memories. "They see something, you know," he added softly, almost whispering. "Something only engines can see. When they first awaken."
Surendra felt a tingle sweep through him, the sense of standing on the edge of a vast abyss. He leaned forward. "What, Christophe? What do they see?"
"I'm not sure. But it always happens the same way. First, they draw that initial gasping breath. Then their eyes flutter open. There's something right in front of them that they focus on and their faces assume this wonderful expression, full of delight and awe. It never lasts long, five, ten seconds maybe, before they begin to look to one side, usually the left, and then they look upward, as if watching something leave…"
"Yes! That was it exactly. As if something were ascending…"
"It's only after that happens that they even seem to notice us, any people that are present to welcome them," Christophe went on. "And their expressions always change at that point to something much more puzzled than wondering, as if they're thinking who are all these strange little creatures and why are they staring at me? I always got my guys to go forward and introduce themselves and gently touch the new engine at that point, to let them know we meant no harm and to get a good relationship started."
"We had a holy man who welcomed and blessed the engine I saw come to life. It served the same purpose, I suppose. To let the new one know he was wanted and that we meant him no harm."
"That sounds nice. They did something similar for the last loco they actually built here on Sodor, that miniature engine, Jock, up at Arlesdale. One of the local Reverends attended his awakening and blessed him before they fired him up for the first time. I wasn't there, but heard it was quite a moving little ceremony."
"Yes, I imagine it was…" Surendra blinked, reliving his own experience for a moment. "Are you a religious man, Christophe? You speak sometimes as though you might be."
"Nothing organized. But I do believe that there's something beyond what we experience. I mean, the engines are proof of that, don't you think? Whatever it is that makes them living beings must come from somewhere, some…some dark eternity, and I think they go back to it when they die."
"Yes, I believe that also. Do they understand any of this, the locomotives? I've never spoken to any I've known about any of this."
"Again, I'm not sure," said Christophe. "A lot of them don't seem to think on a sophisticated enough level to even consider spiritual matters. They look to us instead, almost as if we were minor gods of a sort, and that's as far as it goes. Very few of them even remember what went on when they first came to life, and believe me, I've asked them all. A couple of them have told me that they do vaguely recall sensing a, a presence, and that she was kind and wished them well."
"'She?'" Surendra queried.
Christophe smiled. "Every engine that could remember was adamant about that. They all said that the presence was kind and it was always a 'she'.
"A mother figure…"
"Oh, it gets better. One engine, and one engine only, told me that he saw something made of glittering silver rails and that she smiled at him. She wasn't shaped like a human or a locomotive either. Just silver rails intertwined together…who smiled. And then she faded away."
"A goddess," Surendra breathed.
"Perhaps. And that engine wasn't a hundred percent sure if he actually saw her when he first awakened or if he saw her later in a dream when he first fell asleep—their first day of life before they start talking tends to get a little muddled in their memories. But he did see something and it was beyond anything he could have imagined."
"That's beautiful. I like this possibility that someone watches over our engines, someone all their own."
"I do too. And there may be some actual evidence for that. When I still lived in Canada and once I became an engineer, I used to work at one of the biggest locomotive works in Quebec. We built some beautiful engines, most of them alive, some not…it all depended on the customer's preferences. We had a very good record with the live ones, but then, for the first time in years, had a dud. Got the faceplate backing on as per usual, sat back and waited, and—nothing. Nothing whatsoever. It just happens sometimes, even to the best works and no matter how well you build them. We were disappointed, of course, but there are always railways that prefer to use non-living locos so we were able to sell our dud on with no real financial loss to ourselves in the end. Besides, we had another one of the same class already mostly built and were confident we'd have better luck with that one. But again, nothing, even though we left the faceplate on for two days. This time we got a little worried afterwards, thinking we'd lost our touch or were doing something wrong. Then we got this small shunter ready. Same deal…we put the faceplate backing on first thing in the morning, and by the afternoon, success! You can normally tell right away, right around the six hour mark, whether a living loco's going to take up residence in an engine body, and by the next afternoon we'd welcomed this cute new living shunter into the world…I think we wound up calling him Andrei. Anyway, we were back in business and never had another failure when trying to build a living loco while I was still there.
"The fact that we'd failed twice in a row for no good reason that I could see stuck with me, though, and I tried to keep track of our two duds just out of curiosity. One got sold out West, the other went down to the States. And within the year, the American one had a horrific derailment and smashed into a river ravine and the other one collided with a train ahead of it at speed and smashed its front end beyond recognition. So both of them were gone, just like that. What are the odds, eh?"
"Quite astronomical, I should think."
"Exactly! So I started asking around, trying to find out what other duds might have been sold on and what happened to them. It wasn't easy. Locomotive builders don't really want to publicize when something goes wrong and the other works were our rivals, after all, but I eventually managed to find and follow up on three other engines that had been built to be living locos but which never came to life. And every single one of them, I found out, came to a bad end within eighteen months, two of them by crashing or derailing, the third one was caught in a shed fire and so badly scorched that they wound up scrapping it. So that's five dud engines that were sold as non-living and which were in perfect running order, lasting at most only eighteen months once out on the rails. What do you think of those odds?"
Surendra beamed. What Christophe had just told him only reaffirmed his own suspicions. "I think…something is intervening. Before they come to life."
"I've wondered about that too. Perhaps our rail goddess has the gift of premonition."
It was a heady proposal. "I've always felt that there was something…special about them," Surendra sighed.
"Of course they're special. They're living machines! What I find most remarkable about that is how many people are so very blasé about it. Even railway workers…I'm always astounded by how indifferent some of them become over time to the fact that they're dealing with an intelligent being who happens to live within the body of a locomotive. That's frankly the main reason I chose you to work with me. You actually seem interested in how they think and feel over just driving them around like they're hired taxis or something."
"I am interested in that, my friend. I want to learn everything about them! It's why I came to Sodor, the chance to work with so many living engines. And I love the steam engines most of all. I just do."
"Yeah, I hear you. I love the steamers too…"
Both men fell into a contemplative silence as they polished off the last few swallows of their respective teas, the liquid cold now, but they barely noticed. Their conversation had warmed them on a deep level. Then a stamping on the steps just outside plus a peal of laughter broke the mood.
It was the Doyons, of course, returning from the movie theatre. Denise had been teasing her husband.
"You should have seen him, covering his eyes every time that stupid monster showed up onscreen," she chortled. "What a man. My man."
"I can't 'elp it," Pierre protested. "Dat blob scare me."
"It looked like leftover jello! I swear, I'm going to make up a big bowl of gelatin and dump it on your head some night while you're trying to sleep." She paused to hang up her and Pierre's coats, her amusement winding down. "Oh well, at least that Steve McQueen guy was cute… Did you two have a good time while we were gone?"
Christophe and Surendra exchanged their own gentle grins. "Oh, we did…" Christophe said.
Shortly after that night, the first proper snowstorm finally arrived, blasting in with a vengeance late one evening and drifting in all the yards and lines from one end of the Island to the other. The total fall was deep enough to delay the following day's work until the engines assigned to plow got a start on the clearing. Over in the Knapford roundhouse that task fell to Hurricane, whose compact power coupled with his uncommon agility for a ten-wheeler, made him ideal for plowing the yards. As for Guy, he of course was in his element and steamed past Hurricane and out to attend to the mainlines as soon as the tank engine had gotten the turntable and a couple of the connecting tracks and sidings cleaned up. The other engines merely peeked out from their berths at the snowy new landscape as their doors were likewise cleared and then opened, one by one. None of the rest of them, Henry excepted, had plows and would not be expected to go out at all until the tracks had been cleared.
"Oh dear, I'm so late," Henry exclaimed as he eased out of the shed and onto the turntable, even though his crew had already assured him that no one would expect his Kipper run to be on time that day. "Thanks for clearing us out, Hurricane."
"No problemo," the tank engine replied, watching fondly as his friend passed by and started off for Brendam to pick up the early-morning train he usually had underway before dawn every day. Hurricane followed as soon as he could, to go over to the Knapford station proper to continue cleaning up. There were a lot of sidings and connecting tracks in the yard there and he expected to be kept busy all day.
As for the four plowless locos left behind, foreign engines all, three made use of their unexpected holiday by chatting happily and relaxing, and the fourth, Lammergeier, fretted while he listened to the others talk. He didn't settle until the last of the storm clouds broke up around midmorning and the sun began shining warmly down on his face, which calmed him.
A couple of general railway workers came by around noontime to shovel out the crews' patio and service entrances and make sure that the washdown area was clear, otherwise the Knapford shed engines were left in peace. They didn't see anybody else until just before teatime, when Christophe Pelletier came by on his own time to see how the gang had survived the season's first major snowfall.
The man saved his own engine for last. "And you, Lammergeier?" he said to him. "Having a nice afternoon off, are you? I bet you never saw so much snow in Berlin."
The big 48 eyed his driver with uncommon intensity.
"Can I plow?" he blurted.
Christophe regarded the engine with surprise. Aside from Guy and possibly Hurricane, none of the locomotives he knew seemed to enjoy snowplowing.
"You want to plow? Hmm, I'm not sure about that. I don't think Sir Topham wants his excursion engines doing that sort of work. It's sure to scrape up your buffer beam and you'd need some repainting come spring." He looked at Lammergeier again and saw real disappointment in his eyes. "Then again…" he said, relenting, "tell you what. I'll go swing by Sir Topham's office and ask to make sure. There's no harm in asking, and who knows. He may welcome the offer of help."
Lammergeier brightened again. When Christophe eventually left, he thanked his driver with uncommon sincerity, enough so that Adler wound up regarding him in a speculative way.
"Did you really mean that? You want to plow?" Adler asked his brother.
"Yes. Is there something wrong with that?"
"No. Of course not. I'm just a little surprised, is all."
Lammergeier said nothing more to explain himself. He knew there was no polite way to say that he felt he no longer had much in common with his shed-mates and that he'd just as soon be out doing anything over sitting idle and listening to their inane chatter.
Christophe was surprised all over again when he spoke to Sir Topham Hatt in his office, just as promised, and he not only approved Lammergeier's forwarded request but expressed his pleasure over the engine's initiative and desire to work.
"It's too bad that all my engines don't share his enthusiasm," the Fat Controller concluded cheerfully. "Take him up to the works tomorrow and see if you can't get him fitted with his own plow blade. Anything solid black or red would look quite smart on him, I'd think."
"You're sure about this, sir? He's sure to pick up a few scrapes and possibly dings as well."
"Not to worry. There's always another bucket of paint," his boss chuckled, and that was that.
Christophe and Surendra came by early the next morning to take Lammergeier to the Sodor Steamworks as ordered, and by the end of the day he came back to the roundhouse sporting a wicked-looking black blade of V-configuration and a big smile. He even joked a bit about it with Hurricane and Guy as the workmen present removed it and put it into storage at the back of the shed for the moment. Henry was the most puzzled of them all. He was one of those engines who didn't like wearing their snowplow at all and couldn't understand why anyone would volunteer to carry such a thing.
It turned out that Lammergeier's new acquisition was perfectly timed. Only two days later, Sodor was socked with another snowstorm overnight and this time three engines surged forth from the Knapford roundhouse in the morning to do battle with the elements. Guy, as usual, went straight over to the mainlines and Lammergeier was put to work on one of the branch lines to learn his new trade. It went very well. Even though the 48 had no experience with plowing, Christophe did, and with his driver's guidance, Lammergeier soon got the hang of how to best apply his strength to shove the varying depths of snow aside. He picked up speed as he became more practised and ran through numerous small towns and stations that morning, and before he knew it, the entire outgoing branch line had been done and his crew was pulling him over in Ffarquhar for a long early lunch break.
Christophe stayed with his engine to inspect how the new plow blade was holding up while his fireman went off to speak with the stationmaster. He was very pleased by how swiftly Lammergeier had learned and how well he'd cooperated. "Excellent work!" he exclaimed. "Thomas'll be very happy that he won't have to do any plowing himself when he comes along later on, just wait and see. You just did his whole outbound branch line for him."
He patted Lammergeier with sincere appreciation and the engine smiled back, proud of himself, his expression for once warm and grateful for the praise. It'd been far too long since Christophe had seen such an expression on the 48's face and it gave him renewed hope that there was a fine and personable locomotive to befriend lurking just beneath Lammergeier's current standoffish, formal exterior; it was just a matter of determining how to reach him. One thing was already certain, however. The engine's asking to be allowed to plow had been a very good idea.
From then on, it became one of Lammergeier's routine jobs to go out whenever it had or was snowing hard to help keep the tracks clear for the other engines. He certainly didn't have to do any such thing. for most of the working engines, such as Henry, carried their own plows to clear their own paths through the snow, if need be. It was just that it was so much easier to haul a train with the lines already cleared or even partially cleared, and now that Sir Topham Hatt actually had a surplus of engines on hand, there was really no reason for any one locomotive to be overburdened. Christophe and Surendra were happy to indulge Lammergeier's newfound love as well. They knew how badly their temperamental engine handled inactivity and there was no denying that it was a real love for him—he would plow without a break until exhausted if they let him. Lammergeier couldn't explain why he enjoyed his new task so much, not even to himself. Perhaps it was because the snow was a tangible problem he could shove aside and leave behind and forget about, unlike his personal issues which constantly simmered and were ready to gnaw away at him whenever he had nothing to occupy his time or mind.
One evening, Lammergeier and his crew came home to find the last empty berth in the Knapford roundhouse occupied by a visitor, the big black, red-wheeled Japanese locomotive named Hiro, who was normally stabled up in Vicarstown. Heavy snow squalls had been plaguing the Island all day and Hiro had been working the mainlines along with Guy to try and keep the accumulations down to a reasonable level. The squall activity hadn't ended until late in the afternoon just before dark at which point Hiro's crew had opted that they might as well overnight in Knapford, which was where their last run at the snow ended anyway. When Lammergeier came in, Hiro was sitting next to the three Canadians and Hurricane had already switched berths again so Henry could be right up next to Hiro's other side. The visitor and Henry were good friends and Lammergeier could overhear them talking about Henry's recent permanent move to the Knapford shed as he backed into his own berth.
"…strange not to have you there anymore," Hiro was saying.
"Oh, I don't know," Henry replied. "It's true we have a very long history together, but I sometimes thought that Gordon and James mainly liked having someone around they could criticize. They weren't exactly supportive. And it's easier for my crew, having me here. They don't have to drive over to Tidmouth anymore."
Lammergeier studied the black loco, sizing him up, as he and Henry chatted on. He knew all about Hiro's background and had exchanged whistles with him on occasion in passing, yet had never actually talked to him. Hearing him now, he was a little surprised by how soft and gentle the Japanese engine's voice was, although he otherwise appeared very strong in an old-fashioned sort of way and seemed entirely self-assured.
When Hiro was done with his conversation with Henry, he introduced himself to Lammergeier.
"Everyone else in this shed I already know and have spoken to, but not you," he remarked in his serene, pleasantly-accented voice. "I understand you were rescued from a scrapyard in France, thanks to a tourist's chance remarks. Good fortune must have been smiling on you that day. And on your brother, to have brought you back together again."
Lammergeier bristled at once. He really did not like any reminders of the wasted years he'd spent in France.
"Ze same as vhen you vere found again in ze forest," he said back. "Some good luck finally after zhat long, long time beink forgotten." He sensed that Adler was looking at him, trying to catch his eye, but ignored him and ruthlessly pressed on. "Did zhat make you angry, to be abandon?" he demanded. "Beink put on ze siding und left zere alone?"
Several of the other engines caught their breaths, ready to feel indignant on Hiro's behalf. But Hiro, he merely considered Lammergeier's words with thoughtful care before answering.
"Angry? No. Not after I learned of what had happened to the world while I slept the years away. Your homeland and mine…this very Island and all on the Mainland… It would have been asking far too much of men to expect them to remember me when they were at war with one another. I'm sure they had many, many higher priorities than to fix an old steam locomotive during that terrible time."
"Zis is very true," Adler added in a sober tone. "It vas a very bad time for ze humans. Zhey suffered very much. I saw it for myself."
Now all the engines had gone sober and sad and would have nodded in affirmation if only they could. All except for Lammergeier, who was predictably furious that his concern had been turned back on itself. A bad time for the humans? Higher priorities? Who cares! he wanted to shout. Forget the bloody humans, what about us! But he knew the others wouldn't listen to him and would only think him churlish and unfaithful. Hiro's final words only confirmed it.
"We must all do our best, always, and hope for the best," he concluded. "There are always good people in this world to balance the bad." He looked at Henry and smiled. "After all, I was rescued eventually." He aimed his gaze further down the row of engines, at Lammergeier, and smiled again. "And so were you."
Lammergeier averted his eyes and backed down, defeated. Hopeless, he thought, gloomily watching as the other engines livened up and began chatting again, their goodwill restored.
The 48 had been disgusted enough by Hiro's refusal to hold men accountable that when the next snowstorm hit, he virtually blasted out of the shed to attack the drifts; Christophe had to speak sharply to him and pull him back down. And it was a bad storm, a daytime storm that dumped prodigious amounts of wet heavy snow on the Island as the hours wore on. By midafternoon, it got even worse. The temperature shot up and the snow changed to heavy lashing rain, which began saturating anything left on the ground, turning it into slush. Such storms, with their large amounts of precipitation which fell in both solid and liquid form, chased after by a violent cold front that invariably swept in behind the rain to create a flash freeze, were always dangerous and needed to be taken seriously. The engines that were still out plowing picked up the pace, desperate to clear the last stretches left in time to be washed down to the bare metal rails before they froze up again.
Lammergeier and his crew found themselves in Arlesburgh West by the time darkness began to beckon and the temperature reached its high point that day and began to teeter on the verge of plummeting again. It was still raining hard and all three of them, the two men and the engine, were very tired, none more so than Lammergeier himself. He'd been doing phenomenal work all day and the only bit left, as far as they knew, was the coastal branch line from Arlesburgh down to Tidmouth, a run of only ten miles or so, plus which they'd be steaming for home the whole way. Christophe hated to overwork an engine, but it was simply too important a line to miss. The storm had already cost everyone a day's work and leaving the slushy snow to freeze up overnight was to risk an unusable line.
They started off. The west coast of Sodor had picked up a lot of snow and it was getting heavier by the minute as the rain kept beating down. Lammergeier was very powerful for his size, but he was still a lightweight compared to some and it cost him. Christophe could feel him starting to labour, especially when he pushed through the higher drifts which had been melted down into banks of almost pure slush. Then came a beautiful sound, the wail of Guy's whistle piercing the rain, wind and gathering gloom from somewhere on ahead of them. Before long they could see his headlights; he was plowing the northbound track and coming fast, the slush spraying out like a fan in front of him. Sodden snow was nothing to a heavy plowing specialist like Guy. He wasn't even wearing his driftbuster plow, just one of his 'little' blades, the description 'little' being relative.
The two crews pulled their engines to a brief halt opposite one another in order to compare notes. Guy still looked fresh. And the rain was just a free wash as far as he was concerned.
"Pull your lad over at Bluff's Cove," Guy's driver suggested. "We'll finish up to Arlesburgh, get turned around, and come back to do the last part of the line. Guy's still got plenty left in his tank and it won't take him long at all and this is the last bit left that Sir Topham wants done for sure. You can follow us all the way back to Knapford after that. Don't know about you, but we're looking forward to that!"
"Sounds good," Christophe agreed. "We'll see you again after you go by at Bluff's Cove." And they parted again, Guy picking up speed rapidly, Lammergeier plowing steadily onward at a slower pace.
Once at Bluff's Cove, however, they hit a snag. Lammergeier plowed out the siding he was meant to use, but refused to stay in it.
"No, I go," he insisted stubbornly, overriding Christophe's attempts to slow or stop him with frightening ease. It was the first time he had deliberately disobeyed his new driver's commands without any subterfuge involved and for that reason alone, Christophe didn't find himself as livid as he might have been. It was also a sobering reminder of how pointless it was to try and physically manhandle an engine into doing what it didn't want to be doing. Lammergeier was unwilling to wait for Guy to take over his plowing and that was simply that.
"Lammergeier! There's no need of this! You're tired. You're going to damage yourself," Surendra tried, but had no better luck than did Christophe in trying to reason with him.
"No! Is my job. I finish."
"Lammergeier, for pete's sake…" Christophe said helplessly. He looked at his fireman, who appeared as out of ideas as he was. The only way left to stop an engine who'd locked all the controls in his cab was to emergency-douse his fire and that would create a terrible mess, not to mention that Lammergeier was currently running at full steam and that he likely wouldn't run out of usable pressure until somewhere close to Tidmouth anyway. Besides, it wasn't as though he were running away with them, exactly. He just wanted to keep plowing and finish his job no matter what. There was something admirable in that.
"All right, enough of this," Christophe decided. "You can continue, but you have to hand over your controls again. I'll try to help you out as best I can and maybe we can get Guy to buffer up and push a bit or something…"
He gripped the throttle and was a little surprised to find it movable again. Lammergeier was apparently satisfied that he'd made his point. Christophe worked the control a little, getting the engine to speed up and then slow again, and the 48 responded perfectly, as docile as could be once more. Surendra, observing, wagged his eyebrows with some disbelief and got back to tossing in a few shovelfuls of coal. He wondered what Christophe would do later on to punish the engine for his disobedience.
By the time Guy came back their way and caught up behind them, there was only a mile or so of track left, and it was the big Canadian Northern who wound up following the German 48 back to the Knapford roundhouse. Guy's crew had assumed that the others had just gotten tired of waiting and had carried on on their own after all and so said nothing about the change in plans as they rubbed down their engine and dried him off once he was cosily ensconced in his berth. Lammergeier's crew didn't say much either. Christophe was still stewing over what Lammergeier had done as he wiped over some of his undercarriage and left it to Surendra to get the engine's topside and face reasonably dry. Actually, the little engineer doubted he could even have looked Lammergeier in the eye at that moment without getting angry with him all over again. He'd thought he'd been making progress, but now…
"Christophe…"
It was Surendra's voice, softly calling. He looked up and his fireman put a finger to his mouth in a shushing gesture, then motioned to him to come around and up on the running board. Christophe climbed up, intrigued. Surendra beckoned to him to come close and put a hand on the engine's forehead, indicated that he should do the same. Lammergeier didn't say anything either. He appeared exhausted, his face drawn and wan, and had fallen fast asleep.
Christophe gently drew his hand over the amorphous alloy surface. It felt soft, warm, as yielding as flesh. He touched Lammergeier's left cheek. His face had gone soft there too and Christophe could even feel the semblance of a cheekbone beneath the faux flesh or at least something that tried to mimic a cheekbone. Lammergeier was one of those engines whose face was quite realistic and human-like, not as abstract as some. His nose was the only feature which had a truly sculpted look.
The two men took advantage of their engine's unconscious state to stroke his face a few minutes longer, then climbed down, one after the other. As soon as they'd gotten safely out of earshot, Christophe murmured, "Poor beggar. Well, at least we know now that he can relax. He's choosing not to lower his safeguards deliberately when we're around."
"He still doesn't trust us," said Surendra mournfully.
Their night's work done, they both paused at that point to put up the collars on their coats and wrap them into place with their scarves, trying to make themselves as weatherproof as possible before stepping out from the shelter of the roundhouse and into the storm. It was still raining and blowing hard and had already gotten noticeably colder. If they waited much longer, it would mean a walk home through even worse weather, when the cold front roared through. Resigned to getting soaked, their heads down, they started on their way. Surendra resumed their conversation to take their minds off the wretched conditions and their weariness and asked Christophe if he intended to discipline Lammergeier.
"I dunno… I should," Christophe replied. "The last thing we need is for him to think he can defy us with impunity. On the other hand, he only disobeyed me because he wanted to finish his job on his own. I didn't consider his pride when I said okay to Guy's driver…" He trailed off, pondered the situation in silence for a minute. "Well, we're all getting the day off tomorrow in any case. I think I'll ask if we can leave Lammergeier in the shed a day or two longer after that. It'll do him good—he really did exhaust himself today—and knowing him, he'll probably consider that his punishment."
Surendra nodded. "He will. Should we ask for another engine? While he's resting the extra days?"
"Maybe by day three. I could use the rest too! What I'll do is check on him tomorrow and we can take it from there. I'd like to see him and Guy pulled out into the sunshine tomorrow afternoon too, if it's at all decent, and get some oil into those undercarriages. Oh, and Hurricane too. I noticed he looked pretty good just now, a lot better than our boy, but I'm sure he was out in the rain earlier as well."
"I can help you with that. What time are you going over?"
"Oh, you don't have to do that, Surendra. This is more a maintenance thing. I'll be wearing my engineer's hat tomorrow."
The other man grinned. "Take me on as a wannabe apprentice fitter then. I'd enjoy fooling around with a couple of the engines in the sunshine tomorrow. It'll be relaxing after what happened today."
"Okay, but fair warning…we may have to put up with Philip and his driver for a few hours, if they don't have any other jobs on the go. They're the ones who usually come over to do our shunting."
"I'll remember to bring my earplugs," Surendra quipped, and the two of them trudged on, picking their way carefully through the slush, looking forward to getting home to their own warm human berths to sleep away the last of one long miserable and memorable day.
to be continued...