Down Station Read Free Page A

Park,’ said Nicholls from the platform, tapping at his clipboard. ‘Come on, we haven’t got all night. Back to work.’

2

    The sparks from the angle grinder were intense and alive, as captivating as a firework. The noise was incredible, though; a singing wail that cut through skin and bone as much as it did the ear defenders that Dalip was wearing. He held on to them, in case they fell off and he became deaf. Outside in the marshalling yards, it was just about bearable. Inside the tunnels, conversation was reduced to simple signs and anticipation.
    The bullet-headed man lifted the grinder from the broken rail and inspected his cut with a practised eye. He nodded with satisfaction and put the machine aside, holding it easily in one hand where Dalip struggled to use two.
    He pulled his own ear defenders off and shoved them down around his neck. He mimed for Dalip to do the same.
    See? The man who’d been introduced as Stanislav gestured to the rail, expecting Dalip to bend down and appreciate the skill involved. Dalip dutifully did so, admiring the thin bright slice taken out of the rail. When he straightened up, Stanislav mimed, Now we lift the failed section and take it away.
    He bent down and scooped up two long metal bars, each with a hook at one end. He passed one to Dalip, and started to twist free the metal keys that held the rail to the sleepers. The top half of his boilersuit was tied around his waist, and his bare arms, slick with grease and sweat, bulged with muscle as he leant into each action. He made it look easy when it was anything but.
    The track was replaced when it was necessary – and the keys had been forced into place by big men with big hammers. Releasing the rail again was a matter of leverage and technique, and Dalip had neither, relying instead on brute force that was too often beyond his meagre strength.
    They were supposed to work as a team, each side of the rail, and match the other’s movements. Stanislav watched the young man struggle and clench his teeth, swinging on his iron bar like it was a piece of gym equipment, before shaking his head and resting a gauntleted hand on the lever. He leaned close and shouted over the din.
    ‘No. Use whole body. Lean out, arms straight, turn from shoulders.’ He demonstrated and the key turned smoothly. ‘You see. We are tool users, yes? Not brutes. Now you try.’
    Dalip did his best to emulate Stanislav’s technique, but he jerked at it. The older man frowned, and started to step in.
    ‘No. No, I’ll try again.’ Dalip could feel the effort, the strain in his forehead where it was tight against his turban. This time, smoothly and cleanly, the bar an extension of his arms.
    The key turned, and he felt the rail rise. He grew giddy with delight.
    ‘Very good. Now the other fifteen.’
    His smile slipped. This was what it was always like. An achievement made, a skill acquired, an exam passed: always a stepping stone to the next goal, and never a moment to bask in the joy of simply succeeding. And Stanislav was just another man in the role of teacher, to be respected and learned from.
    Dalip nodded, and applied himself to the next key. It came out more easily. Perhaps it was easier, perhaps it was the looser rail. Perhaps he was doing it right, but that didn’t matter, because there would be another thing along soon enough that he couldn’t do, and would have to be taught, there in the dark and the dirt and the noise.
    The rail was finally free. Eight men, stripped to the waist, carried it away with pairs of giant pincers, and brought a new one, whole and gleaming under the yellow lights. They lowered it into place with brief, shouted commands and started to knock it in, fixing it back to the sleepers with rhythmic blows of their lump hammers.
    Dalip watched them and envied their nonchalant expertise. Oh, it wasn’t like he was going to spend his life fixing broken rails – he was going on to make trains that floated above, rather than ran on,