A Conflict of Angels by David Wiltshire

Author:David Wiltshire
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: First Portland
Published: 2013-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

They had a last farewell get-together back in one of Perth’s hotels. This time Bill didn’t drink as much as he had done, after soloing.

They were all through the ab initio – himself, Tom and Tim, and they were going home to await their postings to a Royal Air Force station, to be taken into service.

After the basic training they would commence intermediate flight training.

Next day, armed with his travel warrants he turned up at Perth station well in time for his train.

When he reached the platform, while he waited, he observed the comings and goings of the trains on the other platforms.

A huge green-liveried locomotive with the nameplate on its smoke deflector that announced Cock-o’ the North clanked in with a train for Aberdeen.

He marvelled at its appearance, and knew from his ‘spotting’ days that it was the first eight-coupled locomotive to be built in Britain, designed by the LNER Chief Mechanical Engineer Sir Nigel Gresley for the difficult terrain north of Edinburgh.

So absorbed was he that he never heard his train until the hissing locomotive lumbered past and his view of the Cock-o’ the North was obscured by the passing carriages.

He found a compartment, hoisted his case up onto the luggage rack and sat down.

As much as he still retained some of the boyhood passion for the railways, he didn’t relish the fact that he was in for a very long day on them.

He changed at Edinburgh; his case banging against his leg as he ran along the platform at Waverley Station to board his London bound train.

Fortunately he had bought another book, second-hand, on a WVS stall, and he settled down to read Dorothy L Sayers’ ‘Sunday Night’ which he had heard so much about, looking up as they drew out from beneath the station canopy, but on his side it was only the high stone wall of an embankment and the rolling clouds of steam and smoke from the locomotive.

Soon the train was fairly rocking along for mile after mile through beautiful scenery, the telegraph wires rising and falling as the posts flashed steadily past. He reckoned that they were going at over seventy miles an hour.

They crossed the border and into Northumberland at Berwick-Upon-Tweed.

It didn’t seem too long afterwards that the speed fell slowly away, and sometime later they reached the outskirts of the great city of Newcastle.

Tired of his book, he took the opportunity to jump quickly out onto the platform, and make for a smaller Wymans newspaper kiosk.

The headlines on the billboards were black with -

POLISH GUARANTEE GIVEN.

Back in his seat he read the main article, dated March 31st.

NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN GIVES GUARANTEE OF POLISH INDEPENDENCE.

Several whistles blew, accompanied by the hurried slamming of doors, and with a lurch they resumed their journey south. They began to cross the famous arched railway bridge that spanned the Tyne. He looked down the river towards Jarrow and knew that there had been a very famous march from there to London seeking Government help for the unemployment and extreme poverty the townsfolk were experiencing since the Great Depression.

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