A future train with cargo from the past

Short Story for https://substack.com/@jvhalbrooks

Cruising for the West with the setting sun catching the engine smoking steam and soot went the train. The sky was orange and red for it was the end of the rays in Dovershire. The air was mixed with seaside brine and carried with it the marks of home. The windows were lit with tiny electric lights but there was only enough to see and not to read. In a cabin, there were enough seats for four but at the moment only one was seated. The door opened and another face showed itself. Both men were alike dressed in a private uniform of the great BEF - the British expeditionary force. It was barely 1915, and the troops were getting 30 days away from the blood and horror of the front. They could both see and had both of their hands so both of them counted themselves lucky because they knew men personally who screamed through the night with the agony of one particular night.

The man seated looked at the man who was standing and recognized one who did not want to speak of the things that he heard in his ear. He nodded with that air of attention that men who were drilled from the get-go until they were dying.

The standing man tipped his hat. “Private Vaughn Williams.”

The seating man nodded. “I see you have survived the gathering storm.”

“Quite, but I can tell you it was not my finest hour.”

“Well, ‘a grand alliance’ is the name they give in retrospect to the collection of afraid men who just happened to be in the way. So what did you do at the hinge of fate?”

“I volunteered and they decided that I should drive ambulance trucks here to the front.  That was my part in closing the ring.”

“I’m sure you have seen your share of triumph and tragedy. So, I won’t go into details because we all have the same facts.”

The standing man nodded and then gathered up his things down. He could see the man’s name embossed on a small brass square.

And then he was shaken by a memory that was too strong to control of a stormy night when the ambulance truck he drove lost the rear tire and he thought he was going to die because the entire apparatus slid backward over the cliff. It was only pure luck that the truck slid into a boulder rather than down the hill to the bottom. He heard the ring in the ears. The coldness of his jaw when the ambulance went spinning. Crash! Boom! Sis, Boom. Baah….

He did not believe that the ambulance would survive bouncing its way around to the bottom of the valley. This was up here at the end of the River Somme. But then Vaughn Williams returned to the present, though he knew from the glint of the high of his seat companion that he must have gone into that million-yard stare for just a moment.

The seated man said: “You’re a great deal more famous than that implies.”

“I suppose my pieces have earned a trifle of notice. Have you heard any of them?” Vaughn Williams sat down across from the other.

“I went to Gloucestershire, at the Cathedral, and heard your piece on a Fantasy of Thomas Tallis.”

“Did it meet with some small sense of approval for you?”

“It was quiet and intensely serene.”

“I can see you are at University man.”

“How so? Is there an aura that embraces my golden hair?”

“Every man who speaks tells everyone where he came from. Speaking in a certain way and you do not answer the question which is asked. This is the hallmark of the University man.”

This a laugh from the seated man. “I would say then guilty as charged.”

“So, what are you going to do when this annoying spat comes to an end?”

“I should suppose I shall finish my degree and translate one or two things such as Beowulf.”

“That is an undertaking! So, you speak the very oldest versions are tongue?”

“Language is the heart of all we communicate and inside we speak even though there is no one else to listen. And spent my life reading the on trails of the written sithe.”

“That means that you think that all that we are is composed of the words that we create?”

“I know that is somewhat at odds with what you believe.”

“Music is a form without substance, and it is inexorably part of the warp. I feel a String Quartet that will say it better than I can in words.”

“I will have to think about that, I do not know if I agree but I don’t know if I disagree either.”

“Music tells a man who he is. That is why we fight on one side and not the other. Our opponents strive for conquering the world as Beethoven’s Fifth, conquered the ears.  Eventually, the Englishness of our souls will set things right.”

“They say you are working on a London Symphony?”

“It has been performed though I think I shall make alterations for the next performance.”

“If you don’t get shot in the meantime.”

“There are always disadvantages in being alive. What do you believe?”

“I believe that words stiffen a person’s resistance so that he can go on even after death. I think I can translate Beowulf in such a way and perhaps even add a few words of my own.”

“For a man who has such diffidence, you have a tremendous pride in what you think you can do.”

“Forgive me, I must have gone too far because I have little hope in the world noticing my presence. It has lost so many others who are much greater than I.”

There was quiet then Vaughn Williams looked out the side of the and saw that his stop was coming shortly. “I must go but I hope that this will teach men that there is a great progressive future if they simply take hold of it.”

The other man tipped his cap and said “I believe that all that is true was true from the beginning. And I hope we can to that place we were before. It is the oldest of these which truly matter.”

Vaughn Williams gathered his things and left. On the platform, he greeted two people who were supposed to come pick him up.

One of them asked: “Did you have a company on the way back?”

“Yes a university man, probably of the top league, was telling me about his plans to translate Beowulf.”

“Is he famous?”

“Not get but I think we shall hear from the name Tolkien before he dies.”