A young American girl staying in war-time Swansea has to get to London to be with her parents who work for the government, but has no means to reach the destination in an emergency. She meets a steam locomotive driver in very unusual circumstances.
Excerpt:
Two wars seemed to be taking place, one with the Hun up there intent on landscaping Swansea to their own specification, that is, flat, and also someone down at ground level, with similar views, who caused havoc with a rebellious disobedience that made life hell for anyone who wasn’t on the same wavelength as him.
In Swansea on the freezing cold winter’s evening, all transport had been terminated, due mainly to the heavy snow that had fallen throughout the day, and frozen solid.
Swansea looked like a ghost town, and everyone was wondering if Gerry was on night ****, sorry, night shift, duties that night. They had flattened the lower half of town, and it looked like it was our turn next.
The cat was pissed off with it, she’d been ******** all over the house; but mind you the Hun gave us a lovely firework display on the hills surrounding our town with their incendiary bombs. They could have waited till bonfire night, bloody impatient that lot!
Talking about bonfires, there were reports that dummy fires were lit the previous night to divert the Hun to drop his nasties harmlessly in the fields, at Strady Park. I thought that was a rugby ground.
South Wales red double decker buses that returned to Swansea, were unusually full.. Pissed off I was, Gerry must have been short on fuel. Llanelli was not that far away, only waste ground to the west of us.
The time was 7.30 pm, well at least it was when I wrote this, so don’t alter your clocks. Police Constable Williams had just arrived back at the police station after spending the better part of the day keeping out of the sergeant’s way. He had the dreaded task of filling in his report sheet, which wasn’t too difficult, because he had still been unable to solve the increasing crime rate occurring in town.
Could have been the reason why the sergeant was on his back, shouting “Williams, job for you!”
“What, tonight, I’m just knocking off serg!” said Williams.
“In that case go and knock at this address with this urgent correspondence, now clear off disappear!” replied the sergeant.
So Williams started on his epic journey to the upper half of town, like a snow plough.
Making heavy work through the deep snow up Carmarthen road, he eventually had to turn left up a very steep hill, murmuring to himself.
‘Just my luck, it has to be the very top row of terrace houses laying off this ski slope, but somehow I have to deliver this envelope, there’s no chance of getting up there.’
So, overweight Williams, that’s being a little kind, made a head start, slowly making progress. Starting again from the bottom, and again, he made his last attempt, and finally the reached the top. Well, not quite the top, there was still one more street to go up, but he had to have a rest, otherwise Williams would have been a past memory.
Picking himself up from where he’d been squatting, he put his leg forward to cross over to the last street, when unexpectedly an avalanche of snow hit him, sending him sprawling backwards onto his ***, well onto his behind, again.
Lying there in the snow, dazed, he began to realise there was something unnatural, something not quite normal, on top of him. Clearing the snow from his eyes he gasped, and let out a cry of horror.
“**** no!” he prayed.
“Christ tell me I’m dreaming,” for gazing directly in his face was Butch, a nine year old horror story, who was so feared, that when a bus conductress once spotted him on her bus, she shat herself. Even the driver abandoned the bus.
And now here was Butch, on top of Williams.
Williams needed no more proof, as an old woman he recognised as Butch’s gran, was catching up fast, clutching at the windowsills, coming towards them.
“Gran,” Butch belched out “It’s Porky!”
“Who?” she muttered.
“Porky Pig.”
Williams, choking, spluttered out “get off me you bandy legged creep,” splurting the rest of the snow in Butch’s face.
When they were back on their feet again, Williams snapped out “what the hell are you two up to on such a night like this hey?”
“Gonna get chips for supper Porky,” said Butch.
“Ho, are you? Well I might be able to save you the bloody trouble.”
“Wa ya mean Porky?” asked Butch.
“Watch your mouth boy!”
“Well wa yu mean Porky?”
“Its like this you see, I, that’s me, being Police Constable Mr. Williams, on Special Assignment as you may have noticed, happened to observe when proceeding past the Premises known as Chip Chip Shop, on close examination, I came to the conclusion that there’s now a bloody big hole there!”
Butch’s eyes were now spinning around in his head as his brain was working overtime. He finally bellowed “Gran the ******* fish shops gone.”
“Gone, gone where? asked Gran.
“Up in bloody smoke you stupid handbag.”
“Thought the chips were a bit burnt last week,” she said.
Butch was now looking at Williams with sadness in his eyes. He said “but we haven’t anything to eat in the house.”
“If that’s the case you had better get back on that bloody dustbin lid you have been using for private transport and bloody find some,” said Williams.
Butch turned and made his way back towards Gran, at the same time looking back at Williams, a bit bewildered.
“Us Policemen have hearts you know, not that the serg should be informed of course,” thought Williams.
“Well let’s call him back, against my better judgment,” he thought.
“Hey Butchie, just a minute, come back a sec.” he called to the boy.
“What is it now Porky?” A subdued voice now emerged.
“Now look here, you take handbag home, I mean gran, as it’s becoming very dark now, and meet me back here in about ten minutes, ok?”
“What for Porky?”
“Supper for the two of you.”
“Really?” Butch said running back.
“Not yet, I have to make a call first at the next street up,” said Williams.
“Why are you going up there, there’s no-one in?”
Silence, then nervously again in a quieter voice, “there’s no-one in Porky.”
“Well I will just have to find out won’t I, now take Gran home before she catches frostbite,” said Williams.
Still rather puzzled as to what Butch was trying to tell him, Williams made his way to No 9, one street up, now feeling a little bit sorry, repeat a little bit, for having called Butch ‘bandy legs,’ The other kids made fun of him with his steel reinforced boots that were made especially for his wonky feet.
