The Last Geomancer

Scene 5: Jack Learns to Smoke

Inside turned out to be a relative term, given the open ends of the wooden railway shed. Thirty feet above, the exposed wooden trusses supporting the roof had blackened heavily from coal smoke in the three years since the West Cornwall Railway began operations with a brand new station. Two lines ran through, one down from Truro and the other up toward it, although they connected at a turntable and railyard a short distance past, Penzance being the terminus of of the railway. A narrow gauge engine, scarcely bigger than a hay wagon, sat at the up platform, steaming quietly, three wagonlits and three goods wagons strung behind it. A few people, mostly older women, stood by the passenger cars, the women all at the one up front, men further back. A few men and boys worked by the goods wagons, hauling things off one and loading other things aboard another.

Something twinged at the edge of Jack’s consciousness, a wrongness about to happen, something offensive, a thing that should not occur. It drew his attention like a mosquito homing in on his ear. He glanced about in time to see an older, stout man with bushy red side whiskers, resplendent in the suit and tie uniform of a senior railway official, scoop a cat down from a high shelf.

“No, you don’t, you great rascal!” The man, the station master by the uniform and the great brass pocket watch hanging from his weskit, chided the cat, cradling him in one arm and ruffling his ears with his other hand. The great longhaired tabby, a stone if he was an ounce, purred, responding to the attention being paid to his ears rather than the scolding.

“That the station’s cat?” Jack asked, with a chuckle.

“Oh, aye,” the station master said, taking a step away from the offended location and toward Jack. “He’s a brilliant mouser, but a terrible scoundrel.” The cat looked up at him indignantly, but more like at the halt of the ear scritches than at the man’s words. “I’ve had that shelf moved up twice and he still figures a way to get up there and go after the cream.”

“Well, cats, cream…” Jack waved a hand to indicate the obvious connection.

“That dish isn’t for him. No, it’s not for you,” he told the cat, lapsing into the sweet tones used for babies and cats. “That’s for the Wee Folk, so we don’t have accidents.”

“Not a bad idea, that,” Jack agreed. “I see you keep your charms fresh painted as well.” He pointed to a small, colourful symbol on the lintel of the ticket office.

“Well, we’re not fools.” The station master obliged the cat’s request to depart, letting him down onto the floor and watching him scurry off about his catly business. “Magic is the hard way to do things, but can cause a lot of problems if you don’t take precautions against it. As complicated as a locomotive is, and as big a bang they make when one lets go, yes, the station staff and train crew all know enough of the small charms for protection. And no mucking about with the Wee Folks’ offering, away with you, you rascal!” he called after the cat, who had briefly considered making a turn for the shelf.

“Not so many folk even go that far these days,” Jack said, pensively. Peran had made such a row about it from time to time. It always led to him telling Jack a new tale of the Wee Folk or the Giants or other strange happenings, though, and those had been fun. Even if Kenver had made faces all the way through them. The boy’d gone so far as to roll his eyes and try to debunk a couple of the items Peran pulled out for evidence. and then Peran had stopped being nice about it and had taken one of Kenver’s arguments apart claim by bloody, shredded claim. He’d never raised his voice, nor spoken a harsh word against Kenver personally, nor even been abusive in his language to the argument being addressed. But it had ended with Kenver going off to his room, and being quiet for a couple of days. It had been an uncomfortable silence.

“Well, sure, back in the dark ages,” the station master finally went on, having watched the cat out of sight. Whether that was bad luck or not, like a ship would be, Jack couldn’t say. “Back then, they did things by magic, it was all they had. Anything you couldn’t do by muscle, yours or that of a beast, you had to have someone who’s spent years in study to learn how to do it. But now, look at yon fireman there.” He pointed to the man checking the greasing on the locomotive’s drive arms. “With just a year’s apprenticeship, a shovel, and an oil can, he gets a hundred tons of metal moving under its own power every morning. It’s a bloody miracle.”

Jack shrugged. “But then there is, as you say, the cream.” He gave a sideways nod to the shelf.

The station master considered for a moment, then agreed. “There is, as I said, the cream. And the clipboard.” This last to the clerk who had trotted up with the aforementioned item. He took it from the girl, sent her on her way with a nod of affirmation, and looked over the papers. A glance back up at Jack, almost forgotten. “Safe journey, sir, and God speed you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jack replied, best manners please, “and a safe and quiet day to you also.”

Leaving him to turn, alone, toward the train, and go present his ticket to the conductor. With it punched and safely tucked away in his shirt pocket, Jack went most of the way toward the back of the second wagonlit, the men’s seated passage, and found an empty wooden bench facing forward, the one counterfacing toward the rear occupied by two elderly men deep in an argument over an obscure point of law, or politics, or something governmental anyway, Jack couldn’t tell. They ignored him as he stowed his basket under the bench, behind his legs, one of the back straps around his ankle so he’d feel if anyone interfered with it. He made himself as comfortable as he could on the bench - why was it everyplace he went had to be so uncomfortable? Hard wooden benches were all pretty much the same, whether a bench in a jail cell, a pew in a church, or the seat on a train. He watched Mrs. Hosking stroll by on the platform, the elderly widow of Forcette’s last wealthy man, Lord Hosking, who had been the Crown’s landholder for the town. Her son collected the rents these days, but those were mostly in arrears. Bet her coach had a cushion on the seat.

“Board!” the conductor called from the end of the next, and last, wagonlit, the penny standing-room car the company put on in response to the government’s demand for fares a miner could readily afford. The driver echoed the call, and a moment later, the engine blew a great cloud of wet steam from the primary cylinders on each side, with smaller clouds from the second and puffs from the third expansion. The cylinders all cleared, the driver gave dry steam from the boiler to them, and with a great chuff, and a little slip of the drive wheels, the locomotive surged forward. Clanks down the line sounded as the connections between the cars went taut, loosened as the engine took its next cycle, its next chuff meshing with more clanks and bangs as the wagons got into motion. A third great chuff, and then the fourth and fifth came nearly atop it, and the locomotive settled into its effort, a steady stream of smoke wet with steam from the blast pipe trailing out the short, cylindrical stack at the front end of the boiler.

The station went by, Jack turning his attention to the view, looking back a little, not too much, don’t want to watch the town out of sight. The change from shade to morning sun as the train passed out from under the tin roof, the back edge of its wooden trusses right up against the sea wall with an iron railing to separate them, made him blink and nearly sneeze. Jack grinned at the memory of climbing over the railing and getting to the front edge of the roof, then getting away with it by being long-legged and faster than the railway guard, and keeping his face in shadow the whole time. Docco had been too slow and loud, and hadn’t forgiven Jack for nearly a year, called him Spider but it never caught on with the other boys and Docco finally gave it up.

The train rolled past the tall, narrow switching house, the booth on the first level having almost as much glass as a church, albeit clear and not stained, home to the controls that routed trains to the passenger station or to the goods station across the way, up against the opposing curve of the seawall as it went up the hill from the passenger station and came back down, following the sides of the inlet. Down at the bottom of the hill lay another railing, but that was between the pavement and the rocks at the edge of the harbour. Any child of the sea knew better than to play down there. One slip could send you head first into the rocks below, or under a passing boat. If you were lucky, the barnacles took half your skin off, leaving you half peeled and half drowned. If you were unlucky, it was a steamer and there was a propellor.

Jack shook himself out of his brooding, and turned his attention forward as the wagonlit clacked over the switch between the passenger and cargo loops, and continued on the main track up toward Marazion. He had about two hours until Truro, what with all the stops the local train would be making. There wasn’t enough through traffic to justify the railway putting on an express all the way from Penzance up to Truro. Any further, like on down to Plymouth where the SS Sir John Lawrence awaited, the gauge break made you change trains to the Cornwall Railway proper, being a Brunel line and running on the broad gauge.

Jack let his thoughts wander over the trivia of his travel as a distraction from where they really wanted to go, and he just couldn’t let them. This was it, then. Everything he had left of his home was on his back or in the basket. He watched the hills slip by, Penzance giving way quickly to farmland and countryside, and took in the sight as best he could.

“Find those that speak the language, Jack,” his mother had told him. “That’s your home carried with you right there.”

“Deep thoughts, young man, by the crease of your brow.” Jack came back to himself with a start, realized one of the old men on the facing bench had addressed him, in Kernewek oddly enough. No such thing as coincidence, Jack, he told himself, repeating something uncle Peran had said many a time.

“Thinking of home,” he replied, best to be honest in such a situation.

The other old man cackled, while the first replied with a wheezing laugh of his own, “Bit soon for that isn’t it? We’ve only just rolled out of Penzance, and not even to the platform at Marazion yet. That’s only Jelbert’s farm out there now.” He waved the heavily-chewed stem of a clay pipe at the window.

Jack managed a small, sad smile. “It’s last of it I’ll see, most like.”

“Off to Her Majesty’s Army, are you?” the old man asked.

The other man elbowed him in the ribs, and over his cry of protest, told him, “You’re a fool, you are, always have been. Army lad’s going to go marching off with the sergeant and walk the whole way, no train ride for them what’s taken the shilling, you know that!”

“It’s true that,” Jack agreed. “No, I couldn’t walk the whole way anyway. I’m off for Australia.”

“So follow me down, Cousin Jack!” the two men sang in passable harmony.

“Funny enough, me name’s Jack, and it’s my uncle that’s called me over,” Jack said when they let the last note die away.

“No such thing as coincidence, is there, boy?” the second asked, and this time his companion threw an elbow into his ribs.

“Look again, ya tup!” he said crossly. “He’s bein’ a bloody man i’nt he? Going off to a foreign land to support his family as men have done for aye how many thousands of years. It’s a man’s work he takes on today, call him what he’s earned.”

“Aye, then, young man,” the second replied tartly, leaning into his pronunciation of the title and looking at his compatriot rather than Jack. “So you’re not halting at Truro then?”

“No,” Jack said, looking back out the window and a wistful tone creeping into his voice. “All the way to Plymouth, in England, and then aboard a ship, and three months’ sail to Adelaide.” He pronounced the name with some care and a little reluctance. Naming it made it so.

“Well, then, it’s a good thing someone as whisht as you has stumbled into company!” the second man said, and pulled out a bag from under his coat. From it, he produced a tobacco pouch, a tinderbox, and a spare pipe, which he offered to Jack.

Jack waved it off. “Never picked up the habit.”

“You ought to,” the first man said, lighting his own, and blowing a careful puff at the window. The smoke resisted the slipstream for just a half a second, just long enough to attract Jack’s attention, before it was caught and pulled out the window, which had been already open when Jack boarded. As warm a day as it was turning out to be in mid August, he’d been glad of it.

“How so?” Jack asked, getting a funny feeling about the conversation. He put out a hand and politely accepted the small clay pipe, the kind you could get on the street out in front of Penzance Station two for a penny from one of the strolling vendors. They’d left Jack and his family alone, knew folk who hadn’t a coin to spare when they saw them. He laid the pipe on his leg and accepted the tobacco pouch, careful as it had been left open.

“If nothing else,” croaked the second man, exhaling a stream of smoke with his words and speaking through it with a little difficulty, “it’s a great source of amusement and distraction when you’ve need for keeping your thoughts away from certain subjects.” The smoke curled and eddied, forming quick shapes, a dragon, a ship under sail, a big animal like some kind of jumping mouse the size of a sheepdog.

“Also keeps your hands busy,” said the first man. “Here, let me show you.” He guided Jack through checking the pipe stem and bowl to ensure they were clear and ready, loading the tobacco, tamping it ever so gently, trimming off any loose ends and folding them back in. “There’s a whole ritual to it, isn’t there, and ritual is important. Keeps us tied to who we are. Lets you take a bit of your home with you.”

Jack nodded agreement, cautiously striking a spark to the pipe with the old man’s flint and steel. He caught the smoke in his mouth, hesitant about pulling it into his lungs, not wanting to cough and wheeze and embarrass himself on his first pull. He rolled it about for a moment, felt of it, pursed his lips and blew a tight stream that was almost immediately caught in the wind and whisked out the window and away.

The first old man nodded approval as the second waved a hand through his smoke cloud and dispersed it. “You keep that,” he said, nodding and pointing his own pipe stem at the pipe Jack held. “Take a bit more home on your journey.”

“Thank you much,” Jack said. “Let me offer you something in return.” He reached under the bench, pulled his foot out of the strap, and brought the basket up onto the bench beside him. He fished out the bag of rolls the bakery had sent along with Jennifer for his trip, there’d been a second larger bag for her and Mum. Undoing the string, he pulled it open, glanced inside. “Hello?”

“Not what you expected?” the second man asked. He blew a smoke ring. The first man put a stream through the center that sprouted fletching and a broad head, turned into an arrow for a second before it all blew away.

Jack pulled out an apple turnover and a bit of folded paper. “A bit extra it seems.” He unfolded the note. “Eat this first off, it won’t keep,” he read aloud. “Best of luck on your journey and safe in at Australia.” He regarded the turnover with wonder, a tear forming at the corner of his eye. The two old men exchanged knowing glances.

“Well,” the one said, “I won’t ask you to share that, goodness no.”

Jack blinked, apologized quickly and held out the bag. “Yesterday’s rolls, and far too many for me to eat before they have to be soaked to chew them.”

Each man looked in, and selected a round wheaten roll the size of an apple with some care. “Thank you, much appreciated,” the second one said with a nod, as the first bit into his.

And then Mazarion came and went, a single platform on the south side of the track, just two men to board in the third wagonlit, and a few cans of milk put on, and they rolled away. St. Ives Road came and went, and one of the old men pulled out a small flask and sent it round for a medicinal nip, and they sang a few songs, old mining and sea chanties that were the only Kernewek most folks knew any more. Jack learned how to keep a pipe tended and smoke it properly, and by the time the old men debarked at Pool, arguing as to whether or not it should still be called Carn Brea, he’d gotten his smoke to hold against the wind for just a half a second, just long enough if you blinked you’d miss it, but there it was. Then they’d shaken his hand and wished him well, and the train pulled out for Redruth as Jack watched out the window a bit less pensive.

Redruth came and went, the station at the east end of a West Cornwall Railway-built viaduct three stories and a roof above street level, and the departure through a short tunnel at the far end. Scorrier Gate and Chacewater went by with Jack scarcely noticing them, getting the pipe cleaned out and put away. He’d have to pick up a pouch of tobacco, and a tinderbox, ought to be easy enough in Plymouth, he’d be getting out of the station mid morning right down by the docks. As many travellers as there’d be at that hour, there should be plenty of peddlers between the train and the ship where he could get a penn’orth, maybe a couple, he had no idea if there’d be a shop aboard the ship. The agent had talked about it as if it was a bloody great city on the waves, but Jack had seen the big ships out to sea off the point with a few of the Forcette fishers alongside for reference, so he knew they weren’t that big. But he’d find out soon enough.

And then the train pulled into Truro, and it was time to leave this part and move on through a change of railway lines and gauge and trains, and on for the next.