Author's Note/Update

Alright, fellow readers, I'm gonna come out and say it. I'm gonna move on to another thing for now.

It would be just splendid of you if you could follow my Tumblr. My blog username is justsomehobo .

Have a blast, fellow readers. Yours truly,

Just Some Hobo

HATT'S ARMY

Volume 1: Thomas, the Runaway Train

Chapter 5: Sovay

As I swept downhill in an overwhelming freefall, there was nothing I could do. There was almost nothing I could even feel.

There was an unfocused blur of blues and greens and greys in my lenses that slowly darkened; and the seething of air past my face and over my funnel, mingling with the awful, rusty chortling of the trucks and vans behind me…

There was a sudden, rugged tremor undertyre, a distant alarm bell…

And then there was only a dull ache from my front axle and a festering pang of failure. Soon, even these faded away, and I was alone.

The shrill pip! pip! of a steam whistle was the first thing I sensed in a long while.

Instinctually, my apertures fluttered open, and directly ahead of them were this great big red insectoid beast-of-a-machine, lying on two flatbed trucks on the track just to the left of mine. A colossal skeletal horn extended from the bottom of its lipless maw, reaching farther than the rest of its body before suddenly curving downwards, almost at a right angle. Its white tip barely reached the end of the second flatbed, where, thankfully, two cables pinned it. Atop the horn was a larger assembly: two thin metal beams connected by sprockets to a web of wire ropes wrapped around its roller-mill jaws. This maw, which encompassed the entire face of the creature, seemed to be powered by two pistons mounted to its jowls. Behind this head, covered by tanklike armor, was a boxy abdomen with a chimney sticking out of the roof near its farther end.

I was too shocked by the sight of this creature to look away. In fact, I didn't realize how loud my auraphone was blaring until-

"Say, is that an air raid siren, or are you just happy to see me?"

Spotting the parchment face looking out from behind the beast, I found myself wishing it was.

"No it's not! It's the big… bloody…" I scrambled to find the right words, trying to pin the offending noise on the metal monster in front of him.

"…mess in your cab?" Henry slurred.

Quickly, I turned to my fisheye to see what he was talking about. The pale body of Maxwell, its leg bent awkwardly in two places, had been thrown up against the firebox door. His blood, though most of it had dripped out onto the ballast, had left the floor still damp.

Wracked with shock, I frantically shut my eyes and mouth and tried to pretend I was still asleep, like a turtle retreating into its shell.

"What are you up to now, Private?" another voice cut in like a rapier. "Still playing Toy Soldier with Grampa Edward, eh? While people are trying to work? Well I can't believe I've got to say this to your face, Nosey Parker, but this is strictly our territory! Yours is back in the yard! That's what you were built to do, and that's what you should've stuck to! But no. No; that wasn't barmy enough for you,nowwasit?"

To all appearances, I was unaffected.

"Anybody home?" the Big Engine persisted, annoyed. "Has the shell shock gotten to your smokebox already?"

"Figured as much," spat the other voice. "See, this is the part where he taps his heels together three times and says, 'There's no place like home! There's no place like home! There's no place like home!'"

Home. Knapford. I'd rather be home. Not here. I don't want to be here. I can't do this. I can't be here. I should be home. Then why did I go here? Why can't I be home instead? I must go home! I must go home!

Unavoidably, I began to whimper as a trickle of lubricant escaped the lid of my right-hand lens.

"For the love of God, is he rotting already?... Alright, enough mucking around! First order of business: secure the area! Then decontaminate and prepare our Target for examination!"

I heard several indistinguishable shouts from somewhere behind the beast-machine, followed by the crackling of boots on ballast approaching me. In another moment I felt a pair of those boots step onto my footplate. More shouting, still in code. Then came the irritating grating feeling of a threaded hose coupling being tightly screwed, little by little, into a nozzle near the floor of my cab.

(Oh, come on now, don't hide it. I can see you blushing. You tossers can't think about anything else, can you?)

Then the valve just behind my end of the piping was wrenched open, and in the next moment I was sliding backwards out of the world into static.

When I finally came to, I found myself still too weak and disoriented to see. The aching of my valve gear was gone, but there was nothing in its place- that is, there was a visible absence of sensation occupying all the nerves thereabouts. How else can I describe it?... I couldn't feel those parts just like a mime can't walk through an invisible wall.

"There you are, old boy…"

"Go away," I mustered just enough strength to whisper.

"It's just me! Boris! There's nothing to be scared of."

"Really? ...Is Henry gone? A-and the ugly red… things?"

"Yes, old boy. They're gone. They've done their share. You're back on the rails. It's all right."

I finally opened my eyes. When the glare died down, there was Boris, sitting on my front buffer bar. The sky was overcast, and a howling wind buffeted against my right tank.

"Can we go back home?" I asked him.

"Well, erm... Thomas…"

"We can't, can we?"

"Look," put in a nearby shunter, looking exhausted, "when yeh slid down the hill, yer valve gears got all bent. If ya tried ta move 'em now they'd break. Leas' that's wha' ah heard from tha TREPAK blokes."

"The what-pack blokes?"

"Tha, erm, tha brehkdahn trehn," he clarified. "The blokes on the brehkdahn trehn. So wha's gonna 'appen is, they've sent anotha' engine ta pick ya up, and teke ya ta Plantagenet Motors."

"Plant a what in the motors?"

"Oh, please excuse my engine," apologised Boris. "he's only ever been to the Tidmouth Depot."

"What the cinder is going on!?" I demanded desperately, my auraphone's pitch jittering up and down the fifth octave.

The shunter gave a deep sigh. "Ya' goin' ta be ahkay," he spat with an air of finality. "Jus' don' move, an' ya' be fine. If ya need somethin' ta fill op ya time, jost… go contempleht Nehlson's Code ah some robbish." And with that he was already storming away.

Fine, I thought.

England Expects That Every Man Will Do Hi England Expects That Every Man Will Do Hi England Expects That Every Man Will Do Hi England Expects That Every Man Will Do Hi England Expects That Every Man Will Do Hi England Expects That Every Man Will Do His D U T

wait.

Was it my duty to Shunt Coaches back and forth through the Knapford Yard? Was that what England expects of me? Everyone else certainly expects their coaches lined up at the platform each morning. It's what I was built to do. Like the monster machine said. It was what I should have stuck to.

No. Then I don't want to do my duty! Not anymore! But then what else can I do? I can't pull a train, I can't make it anywhere on time without something going wrong. Well that's just it! That's what she WANTS me to think! She's stopped me at every turn! Is that why I could never do these things right? Yes. That must be it! I've been dutiful to her for so long and this is how she repays me! Oh, she's in for it. Wait- she?-he?-they?-it? ...What is England?

"Boris?"

"...Piss off," my fireman groaned.

No. When he's like that it's never the right time. I'll ask him when… when…? I don't know what happens now. Nothing HAS happened for a long time. Is nothing going to happen to me anymore?

I looked around the yard. There were many workers, sure, all hard at work, but none of them looked me back in the eye. If anything, they seemed to be avoiding me on purpose.

I can't make anything happen, I figured. I'm tired and sore and I can't even move. And nobody will listen to me but Boris, and he's tired and sore too. Everyone else- they've left me here. I've been abandoned.

I let out an audible whimper.

No! Why? It's just not fair! After all I've done, how close I've gotten-

Not fair? Don't be daft, Thomas! Edward said I'd be taking risks.

Well I never could have imagined there'd be a risk of… this!

And who else do I have to blame for that!? It's my loss.

I really am an arrogant dodgy little prat, aren't I?

Too barmy to realize I can't pull a train.

Should I just go?

Solvation was always thought of as unthinkable in public, and tragic even in private. But we'd all heard the ghost stories of how so many jinn, forsaken by their masters, had given in to the juxtaposing forces of chaos and order that danced within and without them. As weeks went by, they let themselves melt throughout their forms, 'til they were a solution of pure tsie that boiled away like an ice cube in a puddle on a hot summer day. In the end nothing was left but their old forms, now coated with rust, and unavoidable migraines for half a mile around. Sometimes jinn were 'reawakened' in the middle of the process, but they always seemed emotionally drained after the fact and would take any chance they could to follow through with what they'd started.

Is there anywhere else left for me here?

Wait! Oh yeah there is! The workman said-

… he was about to say something. But I wasn't sitting still, and I think I scared him off. No- he didn't look scared. Maybe he just gave up, like Edward said people do. He certainly tried to say something. He tried to say I couldn't move. And then he said an engine would take me to… to put something in a motor? I don't know. At least now I know I'm going somewhere.

Until then, I sat on the siding and simmered with all due caution as the numbness in my chassis gave way to soreness, and my fireman sat on me and cradled his own bandaged-up leg in his arms.

All of a sudden, he cleared his throat- "Ah-eh-eh-eh-hem!"- and sang a song to himself, probably not caring who heard; soon I found myself humming along with him. From his tone of voice, it was clear he felt as abandoned as I, but for the moment we still we felt assured that in this, we were not alone.

The song was one I'd heard him sing countless times, but never really listened to before.

And it went like this:

Sovay, Sovay, once upon a day,

she dressed herself in ma-an's array,

with a sword and pistols all at her side,

to meet her true love,
to meet her true love away she'd ride.

As she was galloping across the land,

she met her true love and bi-id him stand.

"Your gold and silver I demand," she said,

"or else this mo-ment,
or else this mo-ment your life I'll end!"

And when he'd brought her a-all his store,

she said "Kind Sir, there is one thing more.

That diamond ring that I see you wear,

oh hand it o-ver!
Hand it ov'r and your life I'll spare!"

"From my diamond ring I would not part,

for it's a token from my sweetheart!

Shoot and be damned, yo-ou rogue," said he,

"and you'll be ha-anged,
and you'll be hanged, then, for murd'ring me!"

Next morning in the ga-arden green,

young Sophie and her true love were seen.

He spied his watch hanging from her clothes,

which made him blush, lads,
which made him blush, lads, like any rose!

"Oh why do you blush, you silly young thing?

I thought to have at your diamond ring.

It was I who robbed you all on the plain,

So here's your wa-atch,
here's your watch and your gold again!

I did indeed, and it was to know

if you would be my true love or no.

Oh, if you had giv'n me that ring," she said,

"I'd have pulled th-

We would get no further, for at that moment two long, shrill whistle blasts pierced the air.