HATT'S ARMY
Volume 1: Thomas, the Runaway Train
Chapter 4: Shaped Up to Ship Out
Tuesday: July 2nd, 1940
~5:00 AM, Greenwich Time
The sky was too dark, the air was too cold and my rods were too sore. Tough ash.
At long last, the semaphore to the far left of the turntable turned green. "All clear!" affirmed the signalman on duty.
"One last time, Private Muckergee," Edward reminded me, as Boris worked to build up my fire as fast as he could manage. "First of all, where are you going?"
"Sir, there's Knapford Harbour," I recollected, "to pick up the train; then I'll be going through, uh... Crosby to the lumber mill. I'll shunt the supplies to the loading platform, I'll be coupled back up, and run, erm… ...don't rush me… Wellsworth! Then I go over the hill, ...I stop at Maron, and-"
'pip!' Edward's whistle interrupted.
"Oh, for cripes' sake," I sighed sharply, rolling my eyes. "Sir, what is it now, sir?"
"You don't roll straight over the hill," corrected Edward. "You come to a stop at the summit for-"
"Ohhhhhh," I remembered, in a sulking tone. "We stop for the brakes."
"Good," said Edward. "Again: you pass Wellsworth, and then..."
"Sir, I stop at the top of the Hill until the guard finishes, um… pinning down the brakes on all the trucks, Sir. Right, Sir?"
"Right."
"Okay," I hazarded. "So next, Sir, I start going down the other side, extra careful, till I come to the entrance of... Maron station. And the shunters there will uncouple me and, uh… help me run around to the back of the train. I hold fast 'till the shunters finish doing their jobs, have a rest, and, uh, a drink if I need one, and then I'll be back at my post by oh-eight-hundred hours, Sir!"
"Excellent," replied Edward. "And what of the Trucks themselves?"
"Oh yeah! Trucks! Sir! Well, erm, the thing... with... trucks… is… uh… eh…" My voice trailed off, but my mind was too busy racing to care.
"Go on."
"I said don't rush me! …So, well, they're silly," I fumbled mentally. "and, uh… noisy, yeah. I suppose that's the gist of it. Sir."
"And?" poked Edward.
"Well Sir," I hazarded, "they... they certainly talk a lot, and… erm…"
"And they don't attend to their surroundings," finished Maxwell.
"Yeah," I confirmed. "That too, Sir."
"What too?" Edward pressed on.
"Sir, they don't attend to the- um..."
The words had suddenly escaped me. I still remembered what Maxwell had been trying to say, though, and I threw an ending together from the words I could come up with at the time. It wasn't exact by any means, but it'd have to do.
"... to what they are doing, Sir."
"So?"
"Sir, I got to be, eh… not too rough with 'em. It makes sure they, erm, carrobterate or something, Sir!."
"It makes sure they go along for the ride easily," simplified Maxwell from my cab.
"Of course, Sir!" I replied. "'Cos, erm… ooh, yeah, they play tricks on an engine who's not used to 'em, Sir!"
"Good. Say… who told you that?"
"Sir, I think that was you, Edward, Sir. Just yesterday, Sir."
"Did I? Pardon me; my memory isn't th-"
"Right away, mate!" called Maxwell to the shunter on duty. He opened the regulator and I embraced the humid steam flowing into my boiler with a hiss.
"Ah. Sir, I'd love to stay and chat, but I've got a train to pull, Sir!"
"Anything else I forgot to mention, Private?"
"Sir, Nelson's Code, Sir?"
"I reckoned you were a bit old for that," chuckled Edward. "Diiiiiiis-missed!"
Nelson's Code, I'd heard it said, was first written by a British general as a rallying-cry in some ancient naval battle of which today's Britons are still apparently proud for some reason. To that day, it was forged into the whistle of every guard, the key of every automobile, and the wheel of every navigator. And though fairly complex and never officially taught in Orientation, this ensured it was embedded fully in the memory of every jinn in England after a year of their service- an everlasting reminder of both man's dominance over machine, and the British Empire's dominance over man.
I first noticed the queer scent on the air on my way to the Harbor, on a stretch of line through a grassy vale. At first I refused to believe my own senses, blaming them for smelling something that wasn't there, for I'd never smelled anything like it before. I thought I was still drowsy and about to fall asleep on the job, but even after I asked Maxwell to crack open my cutoff valve a bit further, it was still there.
I'd breathed smooth dry air before, and stuffy humid air, and my share of dusty smoky air, but the breeze here was neither smooth nor dusty. Instead, the air itself seemed to have have essence of dust in it- except this was a strange sort of dust. Its grains brought a miniscule sting with it everywhere it touched, but it would be a stretch to say that it hurt. In fact, it barely tickled me- at least at first. But soon, the strange breeze grew stronger, until these pinpricks could be felt constantly battering my very chassis, like driving rain.
I began to notice a horrifying sensation from wherever the pricks were eroding away at me: a sickening scraping of joints against rods, gears against axles, where they had once slid against each other without much bother. This friction was slight, but it threatened to someday bring me to a crawl, until I would never be able to run again.
I knew no name for the stinging essence on the breeze, but I did know the sensation of decay it brought was called rust. It was taught to all of us engines in Orientation, just after we had been conceived, as one of many reasons we would be repaired in the course of our future duties. I didn't remember many of the events surrounding my Orientation, but I'd been told that back then, much like today, there was a Great War between our alliance and that of the Germans. It had taken millions of British lives with its machine-guns and airships and dive-bombers and tanks, but they resented one German weapon most of all: a poisonous haze that burned the skin, tightened the throats and melted the lungs of any soldier who breathed it in.
It's got to be the Germans! I thought. But why would they be here, of all places? My mind raced. I vaguely recalled Boris, while Edward was instructing me the night before, mentioning how he would be hoping to get a good view of the beach.
The beaches. Oh, bugger!
'Pip-pip-pip-peeeeeeeeeep!' '"Maxwell! Boris! Stop! Turn back!"
"What are you on about?" yelled Max, moving his hands from his ears to reopen my regulator.
"We're in a blitzkrieg! I can smell the ruster gas! It's pecking me apart! Turn back! Call the Army!"
"Jakers!" growled Boris, turning behind him to fetch their standard-issue gas masks. Even now, in the moment when we needed them most desperately, it made me chuckle the way they made my Driver and Fireman look like wild boars. But I was still filled with a sobering thought: even with the emergency brake, we wouldn't be able to stop for a mile or more. Our best option was to keep moving, at full speed, through the field of battle, hoping to God that we wouldn't be spotted.
"Engine log... july... two... niiiiiiiineteeeeeenfffffforrrrrty," Maxwell wrote out loud. "Update: five...thirty-one... AM. En... route... to Knapford... Harbour. Unit... reports scent... of... mustard... gas. Can...not… conffffirrrm...orrr...deeeeeenyyyyyy. Tseeeee… leeeeeevvvvelllls… un...uuuuuusssuuuuuaaaallly high, ...but… staaaaaaaaaabiiiiiiliiiiizzzzinnnng. Ten... perrrrcent... cutoff, ...full throooottllllle. Boiiiiiiiiilerrrrrrr preeeeeeessssssurrre... ~200 p-s-i."
"Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...thy kingdom come…"
"Fire...man... un...avvvaiiiiiiilablllllle... foooor... cooooooooommeeeeent. Addeeeennnnn...duuuum?"
"Sssh!" I demanded him, wondering if he wanted to get us killed.
I could hear, now and again in the distance, the high roar of an aircraft engine just west of us. The roar started as a soft, staticky hush, but soon sounded closer until it culminated in a tremendous smash that drowned out the engines completely. By the time the air cleared of the bomb-blast, the jet engine was all but gone, reduced to that distant hiss before it disappeared altogether. In less than a minute the fighter-bomber- or bombers- would be making its (their?) way back around for another dive.
"...and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation…"
Up ahead, I saw the rails run into a narrow tunnel through the side of the valley. As we entered, we found that the only light came from the dim sunlight behind us. The noise of the air raid ahead echoed off its walls, and I imagined that at any moment, a German bomb could fall squarely on the land above us, bringing the tunnel down on our heads.
If I knew this could happen to me, I thought, I would never have set out in the first place. Then I remembered what Edward had told me the week before. But then I would've had to take the Big Engines' teasing for ever.
Surely that isn't worth dying to a German bomb? Is it?
The dim end of the tunnel drew near.
This is it, then. This is my finest hour.
And with that, I recited Nelson's Code under my breath.
"Two-five-three. Two-six-nine. Eight-six-three. Two-six-one. Four-seven-one. Nine-five-eight."
One by one, the three-digit numbers lodged themselves in the forefront of my mind, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
Two-two-zero. Three-seven-zero. Four. Two-one. One-nine. Two-four. Stop."
On.
england expects that every man will do his D_U_T_Y STOP
As the world faded back into focus around me, the comprehensive imprint of the command lingered in my mind like a strong aftertaste. Now that my vision was clear, I looked around. Above me, the sky was beginning to brighten, but the sun was obscured by a solid, bare cliff face to my left.
So I looked to my right instead, and I gasped in awe, for there was what looked like the deep-blue bedcloth of a giant, extending flatly as far as I could see in every direction but my own. Large rumples in the bedsheet were constantly appearing and vanishing, as if they were being pinched and smoothed by invisible hands. The largest rumples were pinched into creases, and their edges were creased tighter and pulled taut until the creases were fifty, maybe a hundred meters long. Soon the folds would rip apart, from the center towards both ends, baring the down inside at the fold and unleashing a colossal roar from under the cover- the strafing noises I had heard earlier. Perhaps it was the giant snoring? I imagined. Whatever it was, the gash probably couldn't stand it either, for it rushed our way in order to cover itself up. Dragging the edge of the bedsheet under its feet, it slipped on it and fell, spilling itself all over the ground below. The torn edge of its robe, revealing itself to be paper-thin and trimmed with the whitest of lace, rolled to a stop and was pulled back down under the feet of another torn crease in turn, which would slip, fall and be trampled by the crease behind it. One after the other, four or five at a time, the creases would chase each other to the edge of the vast bedsheet in the most mesmerising motion.
-pip!-
"AH!"
"Addendum, Thomas?" Maxwell repeated, ensuring he had my attention. With my fisheye, I noticed he had taken off his gas mask.
"Where are we?" I asked Maxwell. "What is this place?"
"This is the seaside!" answered Boris, who had taken off his mask as well. "Ah, the memories! I reckon I spent the best days of my life here! See those bathing machines?"
I followed his finger to a line of rotting wooden huts on wheels, fastened to the ground not far from the track ahead.
"Yes," uttered Max with an air of frustration. "We must be passing the beach, which means the Harbour is now less than two miles away. Look sharp, boys, we'll-
"But if this is the beach," I interrupted Max, "then where are the Germans?"
"Thomas, I'm losing my patience with you," my driver almost shouted. "I need your full attention on getting us to yard speed by the time we enter the Harbor!"
Grudgingly, I followed his instructions, closing my reverser and regulator and trying to focus my eyes on the rails ahead.
"The Germans aren't here yet, old boy."
"SHUT UP!"
Author's Note:
Doomfist may not be coming out for half a week, but it's still time for a MAJOR update on my part!
Earlier, I was expecting the rest of my chapters to shape up to be as long as my first, which had a word count of around 4000. But things have changed over the last five weeks, and in the time I thought I'd be writing five chapters, I've managed to crank out only two and a half. Of course, this story has been among the least of my problems this summer break.
I pledged to myself to make this summer a summer on instead of a summer off, only this time I'd do work I wanted to do- specifically, Hatt's Army-, not the work I had to do.
But then there came two summer camps, both of which I had to spend four hours a day at over the course of two work weeks; I had my wisdom teeth out and could only eat soup for a week, I had to study the driver's manual since I have my test coming up, AND I took the SAT this June.
So now, I think it's apparent that some changes are in order. From now on, you can expect these chapters to have a ~2000-word count, as opposed to ~3-4000 words. This, I think, is actually a good thing, since even I'm starting to get bored reading my own writing. Basically I'm breaking chapters up into smaller chunks, which is a better deal for you (more juicy content) AND for moi (sharing my own creativity with the world without the guilt of selling myself short).
Even if I've let myself slip, I've spent some time fine-tuning my calendar (specifically putting the start of Overwatch Hour at 5:30 instead of 12:30), and I promise anyone it may concern more exciting and enchanting updates soon enough... at least until the end of August.
Catch ya in a few,
JustSomeHobo