A Matter of Time

by Graham Debenham

part 2

As the retreating tail lights winked out of sight, he was left sitting in almost total darkness, the only light coming from the dull red glow of the warning lantern. He looked around at his surroundings. The siding was just a blank section of tunnel some five hundred yards long that sat between the main northbound and southbound lines just south of the station.

The tunnel continued on past the sand bank for several hundred yards before ending in a brick wall. He looked back towards the platforms. In the feeble glow from the lantern, he couldn’t see more than a few feet, and he couldn’t even remember which side of the track contained the live rail.

His best course of action would be to wait until Winston noticed that he was gone, and sent a station crew back to pick him up. It would be embarrassing, but better than the alternative.

He stood up on the sand bank and dusted himself off with his hands. Moving around behind the pole, he stepped off the sand and onto the track. There was no power rail past the red light. He stood there and stamped his feet on the ground to dislodge the sand from his almost new Doc Marten’s, the sound rebounding from the walls of the tunnel.

He stopped. There was another sound. It was a scuffling, scratching sound.

Rats!

There was no way he was staying down here with rats. It could be anything up to half an hour before the station crew came back for him. He’d rather walk back up to the platform. If only he could see which side the live rail was on.

He had an idea. Standing in front of the lantern, he unclipped the lens holder. As he swung it back, the immediate area was bathed in white light. The light from the open lantern reflected from the polished surface of the two running rails. He squinted, and he could just make out the white ceramic insulators that supported the live power rail, sitting just outside the left-hand running rail.

He stepped off the sand bank and onto the track. Another train was due, but it wouldn’t be coming down the siding. The only risk would be when he reached the point where the siding came back out on the main northbound line where the risk of receiving a jolt of electricity was greater.

He began to walk slowly back towards the platform. Moving away from the feeble glow of the lantern, he was swallowed up by the darkness. He walked about fifty yards and looked back. The lantern looked like a red dot in the distance. He wanted to walk faster but he was afraid of missing his footing and stumbling over onto the live rail.

He kept walking, counting the steps to help him gauge the distance. The downhill speed gradient told him that he was still in the siding. A hundred yards farther on, he got the impression that the gradient was levelling out and the tunnel was starting to widen. This would be the point where the northbound and southbound lines joined the siding. He stopped. There was a cool breeze against his face. In the distance he could make out a low rumble. He cocked his head to one side. The rumble was getting louder.

A train!

In the darkness he was completely disoriented. He couldn’t make out from which direction the train was approaching. The rumble was getting louder. His clothes started to flutter in the increasing wind. He didn’t even know how far he had gone into the tunnel or whether he was clear of the siding or not.

The rumble had reached an almost deafening crescendo, when suddenly, only yards ahead of him the train burst into view from his left. One minute he was in total darkness, the next he was watching the illuminated windows flash across his line of sight from left to right, and the occasional blue white flash of light as the pick up shoes arced across the points.

The last car passed in front of him, and he could hear the train begin to slow down. A few seconds later there was the distant hiss of air as it stopped. Eddie moved forward a little more quickly. Within seconds he had rounded the bend in the tunnel and was looking up a shallow gradient towards the station, where he could see the tail lights of the train as it sat in the platform. With a precautionary look to his left down the northbound tunnel, he moved forward

As he walked up the speed reduction gradient, it occurred to him that they must have let Winston run their train empty as far as Camden Town in order to let the last City train through. Once that was gone they could switch off the current and send out a rescue party.

When he was still some distance away, there was another hiss of air which signalled the train’s doors closing. Seconds later, it moved off down the platform. As the rumble and whine receded into the distance, Eddie could hear other sounds. He walked on until he reached the platform.

From where he stood in the entrance to the tunnel, bathed in the yellow light from the platform, he saw dozens of people lying stretched out on the floor. Some were wrapped in blankets; others were lying on top of mattresses and hastily fabricated bunk beds. All along the platform, against the wall, small groups, large family groups and individuals were huddled together.

He climbed up onto the platform. It should have been deserted by now. The tunnel lights should have been on and the cleaners and maintenance crews should have been preparing for their night shift. Instead, the platform was a hive of activity. What could have happened?

Just then, an elderly man dressed in the uniform of a station master walked out of one of the platform entrances and addressed the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?”

The hum of conversation died down, the echoes receding down the empty tunnels. He faced the multitude of men, women and children, like a conductor addressing his orchestra.“The last train has just departed for the night. You may now bring your bedding and possessions forward to the two-foot line to give yourselves a little more room.” He pointed down at the floor of the platform.

For the first time, Eddie noticed that there were two parallel white lines painted on the floor from one end of the platform to the other. Slowly, they began moving their belongings forward to the two-foot line. As they were doing so, more groups of people were entering the platform, filling the vacant spaces on the floor.

He didn’t know what had happened, but whatever it was, it had to have happened pretty bloody quickly. Like in the last ten minutes. He walked over to the station master.

“Excuse me guv,” he said politely,” What’s happening up top?”

The station master looked at him strangely. “Where did you come from? You’re not one of my lads. Who are you?”

“My name’s Eddie Hall. I’m a guard from Golders Green. I missed my train and...”

“Never mind that now. I’m a couple of lads short, so you can help out here till the first train in the morning.”

“But I...”

“Go along both platforms and make sure that everybody’s behind the two-foot line. Then you can go upstairs and help out on the gates. Understand?”

Eddie nodded dumbly. Something was happening, and he didn’t have a clue what it was. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to know. Not just yet, anyway. He made his way along the platform, ensuring that nothing infringed the sacred two-foot no-go area.

It was at this point that he realised that something didn’t feel quite right. Everything looked different, and it wasn’t just the emergency lighting creating that illusion. For a start, there was no blaring music from walkmen and iPods that you would expect to hear in any assembly that contained young people. Instead, everybody was sitting or lying quietly, either reading or talking. Some were even singing.

Then there were the walls. Like every tube station, the walls of the platforms at Tooting Broadway were lined with advertising posters. He saw them every day. They were much the same wherever he went; except these. The one in front of him was extolling the virtues of Senior Service cigarettes. There hadn’t been cigarette advertising for years. The one next to it claimed that Brylcreem would make the girls want to run their fingers through your hair.

It was the third poster however, that really shocked him. It showed a young woman in a khaki uniform leaning out of the driver’s cab of an army lorry. She was gazing up at the sky with a proud smile. The poster was calling for volunteers to join the ATS.

The Auxiliary Territorial Service!

Eddie was stunned. Too many things were starting to add up. The crowds on the platform, the double white lines, the out of date posters and the advertisement for a wartime volunteer organisation.

Everything pointed to the impossibility that somehow he had stepped back in time to wartime London. It was totally ridiculous. And yet, the train that he had seen leaving the platform shortly before he had arrived had been red. All the trains on the Northern Line were either silver 1960 or 1983 stock. The red trains prior to that had all been 1938 stock.

1938 stock!

It was true. Somehow he had gone back in time. He took another look around; everything seemed perfectly normal. By 1940s standards that is.

I’m back in the Blitz.

He walked through the connecting passage between the northbound and southbound platforms, fascinated by the assortment of posters on the walls; posters advertising products that only his parents would remember. Fry’s Chocolate Spread, Oxydol, Carter’s Little Liver Pills and Wellington Knife Polish. And here and there, public information posters telling Londoners that Loose Lips Sink Ships, Walls Have Ears and to Lend a Hand on the Land.

The southbound platform was just as crowded. All along the floor, families were bedding down for the night. Some were swapping jokes, others were commenting on how inconsiderate Goering was, sending his bombers over night after night.

Nobody was actually complaining. They were just accepting it as a fact of life. He looked up and down the platform. Everybody was behind the two-foot line. They were obviously used to all this. He decided to have a look up top. The station master had told him to give a hand on the gates, so he made his way around to the escalators.

He took the fixed centre staircase and began the long climb to ground level. All the way up, on both sides, were smaller versions of the posters he had seen on the platforms. The old polished timber escalator well was illuminated by electric lights in three foot tall, art deco lamp holders which ran the length of the handrails about six feet apart. There were more posters, some of which he could vaguely remember from when he was very young; Camp Coffee and Chicory Essence; Fynnon Salt and Bournville Cocoa.

Every second poster was an encouragement to Londoners to do something or other, For Victory. Thrift was encouraged, as was recycling. He stopped halfway up, and a thought struck him. He really was back in World War Two. He could not only see the past, he could reach out and touch it. The strange thing was how calmly he was taking it all. Now that he knew the truth, it all seemed quite natural.

* * *

Proceed to part 3...