大象传媒

Continuing

The other signallers were having a high old time of it; Bill, Lea, Arthur and Mick had a pack of cards and were deeply engrossed in a game of brag. Sid and Charlie were crooning love songs to one another. Ben, Ashy and Vic. were each bawling out that somebody loved him, that some day his prince would come, and that it wasn't gonna rain no mo' respectively, with Tom adding his contribution that if we wanted this, he'd got it.
Bob and I suffered in silence as we puffed at our pipes. We didn't mind them having a good old singsong if they all sang the same song at the same time, but four different tunes bawled simultaneously were difficult to tolerate. We were trying to devise some means of stopping the awful cacophony when Tom solved the problem for us.
"Hey, Doug, got your mouth organ handy?" he yelled, above the din. I possessed two mouth organs, but could play neither; Dragging my haversack from its place on the rack I felt inside and produced the instruments. I threw the double reed one to Tom/and the chromonica to Ashy. My action was immediately efficacious, for both Tom and Ashy were pretty good harmonica players, and no sooner had they commenced to play than everyone stopped their bawling and joined in lustily and more or less harmoniously with the singing.
We went through the who1e gamut of songs. Old. Fashioned favourites, jazz, cowboy, love ballads, songs from the films 鈥攁nything and everything, as the mood took us; but singing almost non-stop for a couple of hours made us hungry and thirsty and we eventually reached for our haversacks~ pulled out our mess tins and tucked into our un-expired portion of the day's rations -that well-known but much-maligned standby, corned beef sandwiches, washed down with the contents of our water bottles. In some cases it was pretty strong water.
Not long afterwards one or two heads began to nod; then another, and another, until I was the only one left awake. It was amusing to see their drooping heads nodding helplessly and their limp bodies swaying gently with the motion of the speeding train, and most unusual for them to be so quiet on a lovely spring afternoon. As I was not very tired I filled my pipe and settled back to watch the scenery again. We were out of the industrial area now and a lovely vista of unspoiled countryside was unfolding before my appreciative eyes. There were large patches of leafy woods and a vast expanse of undulating pastureland on which cattle browsed peacefully in the warm sunshine, and, beyond that, in the far distance, a range of soft-blue hills. For one long, lingering moment the panorama was spread before me like a map, in which a river flashed and scintillated like a reflection of the sun in a mirror and the blue hills raised their heads to heaven as though reaching for the golden haloes of sunlight, and over all the scene one could almost feel the breath of Mother Natures bountiful life.
Then came a dull rumble, which quickly increased in volume, and the train was suddenly plunged into the abysmal blackness of a tunnel... Soon afterwards I too began to feel sleepy, so, folding my arms on the table. I rested my head on them and was soon fast asleep.

I don鈥檛 know what awakened me (It wasn鈥檛 my pals, for they were still fast asleep, and it was not the cold, for although the window near me was still fully open and allowed the gentle breeze to eddy in unimpeded, the evening air still retained some degree of warmth from the setting sun. The train had stopped, but it was not the spasmodic jolting of stopping that had awakened me. I leant out of the window, and saw what had disturbed my slumbers. In the distance in front of me was the unmistakable outline of the lovely Malvern Hills. Their distant green slopes, terminating in their distinctive bulbous heights softly shadowed with the westering sun behind them, contrasted sharply with the pale clue of the cloudless evening sky. Patches of dark green gorse dotted the lighter green of the hills still in sunlight and elongated shadows showed where the hollows were. I was in familiar country. I was only a few miles from Birmingham, in the area that I had been exploring on my bike with my friends of the cycling club only one short year ago. I was in my adopted part of the country, and the fact that I was in familiar territory must have registered on my subconscious mind and brought me to sudden wakefulness.
I glanced up and down the line and saw another engine being shunted on to us. There must be a steep gradient ahead of us, I thought. I was not familiar with the geography of the railways, all my exploring of the region having been done on my bike. A sudden movement behind me, and there was Arthur, straining to 1ook out beyond me. He uttered an exclamation of surprise. "Stab me is that the Malverns?" "It is, " I affirmed. He emitted another exclamation. "Cor, so near and yet so far."
"Oh, yes. You live not far from here, don't you?" I asked.
"Yes. Droitwich. Where exactly are we?" He leaned further out, pressing me sharply against the lower edge of the window. "Blimey, Bromsgrove Incline."
"That's what the other engine's for, is it?"
"Yes, and we鈥檒l need it, with this lot. Fourteen full carriages must be a hell of a weight to pull."
It was; The combined effort of the two engines could produce only a moderate speed when our journey was resumed.
The jolting and the clanking of the train restarting had awakened the rest of the platoon end there was an atmosphere of subdued excitement when they learned where we were. Most of them were from the Birmingham area and they were as eager as children to take a good look at the city when we passed 'through it, for they knew it might be their last chance for some considerable time. We expected to go through the city by way of Snow Hill Station, but we were disappointed. Instead we were taken via Camp Hill Station, and as we passed through it Lee called out excitedly: 鈥淚s this Camp Hill or King Street?" He wasn鈥檛 near enough to a window to see clearly. I told him it was Camp Hill.
"Blimey, I live here," he shouted. "Lets have a look . . ."
We made room for him at the window and he scanned the congestion of houses with eager anticipation. By careful observation he picked out the street and by counting the bedroom windows, he was able to point out to us the house where he lived. We were just as interested as he was, and the sight of his home made me visualize all the more clearly the house where my wife and I lived with friends in Stockland Green, not many miles from Camp Hill. The train "rumbled slowly on towards Washwood Heath where" one bitterly cold morning last winter, when stationed in Dudley, we had been sent to unfreeze the railway points at Washwood Heath Junction, and it is near here that the railway runs parallel with Tyburn Road, Erdington. I saw the tram shelter at Salford Bridge, where I had waited many times for a No.78 tram to take me home from work when the weather was too bad for cycling. A No.5 tram headed up Gravelly Hill towards Erdington High Street and two No.19s bowled merrily along in tandem along Tyburn Road towards Pype Hayes. A No-78 turned up Slade Road, heading in the direction of StockIand Green, where my wife and I lived with friends until we were able to get a house of our own.
The offices and works of the firm I worked for came into view. That square 'block of red brick offices and the long, single row of black corrugated iron and 'brick workshops with the row of ventilation cowls on top were anything but an architectural masterpiece, but to me, seeing them for the last time before going overseas, they looked strangely attractive and I thought how nice it would be if I cou1d get off the train and walk across the intervening ground and, have a chat with my workmates.
My gaze returned slowly along the busy Tyburn Road to Salford Bridge again, and to the end of Slade Road. Half a mile up there, in a street just off Slade Road, was my wife, and I wondered what she might be doing just then. Was she preparing her supper? Was she reading the latest edition to the little library we were collecting? Was she listening to Sandy鈥檚 Half Hour as she did her ironing or was she getting ready to go on duty with the A.F.S? Or was she busy writing a letter to me, not knowing I was almost within shouting distance? A slow-moving goods train obliterated my view and I sat down and glanced around at the others. They were conversing in low tones and there was a light of subdued excitement in their eyes. Even the London lads were affected, for when we had first been posted to the 12th Battalion at Dudley, only a few miles from Birmingham, we were often detailed to go into the city to help clear away the rubble after an air raid" and they had developed a liking for the city and its people.

To be continued . . .

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