A Matter of Timeby Graham Debenham |
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| part 3 |
He continued climbing and was soon at the surface. He walked out through the silent foyer, and made his way out to the gates. The station was on the corner of Mitcham Road and Tooting High Street, and there were three sets of folding trellis-style gates in front. The centre set was right on the corner and there was one set leading out on to each of the adjacent streets.
Two of them were closed, the third was partly open.
Standing at the centre opening, hands thrust into his pockets, was a porter. He looked around as Eddie approached. “Hallo then. Come to give me a hand, have you?”
“Yeah, that’s right. What can I do?”
“Well, you can watch the gates for a few minutes if you like, while I help the old girl downstairs.” He nodded across at an elderly lady who was sitting on a polished wood bench outside the ladies’ toilet. “She’s been sittin’ there for nearly an hour. If anyone comes in, just check that they’ve got shelterer’s tickets. If they haven’t, just get ’em to wait, and I’ll get Mr Rossiter to come up and issue some.”
Eddie nodded. “Go on, then.”
“Righto. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” The porter trotted briskly across to the old lady, took her by the arm, stood her up and walked her across to the stairs.
Eddie walked outside and looked around. The Tooting Broadway that he knew was gone. In its place was a large, dark, deserted intersection, its surrounding shops silent in the gloom, their windows criss-crossed with tape to prevent shattering. The street lamps were all unlit, the only light coming from the full moon.
The few motor vehicles that were still on the road had headlights that resembled illuminated letter boxes. He had seen Tooting Broadway by night many times before, and it always looked deserted. This, however, wasn’t just deserted. It was totally desolate.
He walked up to the corner and looked north along Tooting High Street. Over on his left was Garratt Lane. A couple of miles down there stood Wandsworth, and home. A couple of miles, and nearly seventy years.
He looked back at the station. The Portland stone facade looked almost as he remembered it from his own time. Even the leadlight London Transport logo on the huge panes of glass above the entrance looked the same. The only difference was in the information posters on the wall.
In his own time, they promoted such things as Cheap Day Tube Returns and Evening Entertrainment Travel. Here in 1941 the posters were more austere: Shelter in Underground Stations and The London Transport Spitfire Fund. On one wall was a poster of a young RAF pilot looking back over his shoulder smiling and giving a thumbs-up sign. At the top of the poster in red were the words Let’s Go!. Along the bottom, in yellow, Wings for Victory.
He heard footsteps approaching from behind, and turned around sharply.
“It’s all right son, don’t be alarmed,” the policeman said. It was the tone of his voice that identified him as a policeman. He was wearing a black steel helmet, and his jacket was buttoned to the neck with a stand-up collar. Over his shoulder was a khaki bag, and in his hand, he was carrying an electric lantern.
“Having a bit of a break, eh?” he asked.
“Yeah, the rush seems to have died down.”
“Well, most people are staying at ’ome these days while the raids are on,” the policeman said. “When they first started, you couldn’t move down there at night.”
Eddie looked up into the night sky. “It seems pretty quiet tonight,” he said.
“Yes, it makes a change. They haven’t been over for a couple of nights now. I think they’re concentrating on the north of England at the moment. You know, Coventry, Sheffield, all those places.”
“Well, why are all those people down there?”
“Force of habit, I suppose,” the policeman said with a shrug. “They come down here every night, raid or no raid. It’s probably easier for ’em to come down here to go to bed than to have to get up in the middle of the night once the sirens start.”
Eddie looked around at the sound of tuneless whistling coming from inside the station. A few seconds later the young porter reappeared at the gates.
“Thanks for that mate,” he said. “Oh hello, Les. How’s everything tonight?
“Nice and quiet, Ron, just the way I like it,” Les replied. “I was just telling your mate here, I think Jerry’s taking a few nights off from London.”
“Good thing too,” the young man said, turning to Eddie. “Give somebody else a turn eh? Oh, by the way, my name’s Ron....Ron Lumley.”
“Eddie Hall. I’m a guard from Golders Green.”
“I thought I hadn’t seen you before,” Ron said. “How come you’re down this end of the line?”
“There was a bit of a mix-up and I missed my last train back. The station master asked me to help out, so here I am.”
“Yeah, we’re a couple short tonight. Had a few people volunteer for fire-watch duties.”
“Well,” Les said, “they won’t be too busy tonight, will they?”
Ron laughed and looked around. The Broadway was still deserted. “Well, I reckon it’s time for a cuppa. Do you want one, Les?”
The policeman looked at his watch. “I’d love one, Ron, but I’ve got to keep going. I haven’t been down and checked on The Mitre yet. I passed by on the way down from the nick, and their lights were on out the back. I’ve had to speak to them twice this week about after-hours drinking, especially during the blackout.”
“All right then,” Ron said cheerily. “Pop in and have one a bit later on.”
“I will,” Les replied and strolled off down Mitcham Road.
Eddie and Ron walked back inside the station. “I won’t bother to lock the gates, just in case we get a few stragglers,” Ron said. “They can find their own way down.”
They walked through to the escalators, their footsteps echoing around the white- and blue-tiled foyer. They stopped at the stairs when they heard the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside. Looking around, they saw the front bumper and single shielded headlight of a lorry parked just out of their view in Mitcham road. There were voices for a few seconds and the sound of a tailgate being lowered and then raised again. Then, the lorry pulled away from the kerb and turned left into the High Street.
As it passed the darkened entrance they could see that it was an army lorry with people in the back obscured by the darkness. A few seconds later they saw the silhouette of a figure enter the station and close the gate.
In the darkness, they couldn’t see who had entered so they stood at the top of the stairs and waited. The figure walked across the foyer and through the empty ticket barrier, into the pool of light at the top of the escalator; it was a young girl.
Copyright © 2011 by Graham Debenham
