Art, Trains And Other Things

He had known something was terribly, terribly wrong when he caught sight of Gordon’s face, flushed red as he ran beside him. But Gordon. His proud, stubborn, dearest brother had pulled ahead in stark defiance of Scotsman’s concern, unconcerned with the strip of metal that tore itself free, spiraling through the air and cutting into Scotsman’s face just above his right eye. 

If only it had ended there. 

“Gordon!”

Scotsman’s cry ripped itself raggedly from his tubes as he watched, frustratingly, infuriatingly, heart-crushingly powerless as his brother exploded. His boiler ballooned outwards, straining against the casing. A muted, bwoom slammed against the air like thunder, so close that Scotsman could feel it rattle his teeth and tubes and pistons. Superheated air slammed into him with enough force to nearly send him toppling onto his side, hot enough to scorch even his metallic skin and evaporate the tears in his eyes. Through sheer willpower he managed to set himself right on the rails, although the impact reverberated painfully throughout his entire body.  He rushed to the steaming wreck that was his brother, damages be damned. “GORDON!!”

“Jesus,” His Fireman breathed out in a hoarse whisper. “Do you think his crew managed to get out alive?” 

“We don't even know if the engine is still alive.” His Driver returned grimly, slowing Scotsman to a much more controlled stop, something Scotsman would have to thank him for later..  He didn't want to continue this… this farce of a race anymore, and he would have fought if man and machine weren't of the same mind.   It would have gone against everything that had been -literally and metaphorically- hammered into him since the day he was built. Obey his crew. Follow the orders of the humans who gave him life. Represent the Gresley Legacy the way He expected. Open defiance -especially fighting over controls- was indignity of the highest caliber. But maybe such a barbaric disregard for The Law would have woken Gordon up, the sheer audacity dragging him back to consciousness explicitly to scold Scotsman like he was still that bright-eyed young engine, newly steamed up boundlessly excited. It would have been preferable to this. 

Dread clogged up his tubes and coated the inside of his boilers like sludge as he looked over his brother. Steam billowed up almost lazily from between the cracks in his streamlined casing, warped and bent out of shape from the heat and pressure. More plates had since been blown off, but there weren’t any visible tubes. That fact  offered very little comfort as Scotsman’s eyes lingered on a bulge right above his running board.  His previous Driver had let him watch movies once or twice, and he had seen films where humans desperately held their innards in with their arms. If Gordon’s streamlined casing came off, would everything come spilling out the way they did in those movies?  It was a ridiculous thought (if he was going to burst, he was going to burst. Such flimsy, pathetic streamlining wouldn't have stopped it), but it stuck in his smokebox like someone had jammed a rock in there. 

On the track on his other side, Spencer chugged forward, grinding to a near halt as his eyes scanned over Gordon. A cavalcade of emotions flashed across the Silver Jubilee’s face -horror  and shock and something that could have been sorrow, but it passed too quickly. The A4 gave Scotsman a look before tearing his gaze away from the brothers, focusing on the rails as he bolted down the line. 

Driver and Fireman climbed out of his cab, Fireman deftly walking across his running board and coming to a stop by Scotsman's smokebox.  He rested a comforting hand against the metal and gave a weak smile. 

“Michael, go down the track and see if you can't find the crew,” Driver called. “I’m going to try and get a closer look.” Under his breath, although Scotsman could hear as clearly as a bell, he added: “God willing I don't find a pair of flash-fried corpses.” Fireman -Michael- gave Scotsman another firm pat against his smokebox before climbing down and jogging in the opposite direction. 

“....How bad is it?” Scotsman hedged after what felt like an eternity. Driver scratched his beard with a sigh. 

“He’s still too hot to get a good look, but from where I’m standing? His cab is fucked, and God only knows what his boiler looks like under that casing.” He took off his cap to rake his fingers through his thick, curly black hair. “We won't know how bad it is until some engineers take a look at him. It could be just as bad as it looks, it could not be as bad as it looks.” Driver sighed and kicked a chunk of ballast.  “I just don’t know, Old Boy. As a small mercy I didn't see anything that looked like a body, so his crew must have managed to jump out.” 

Scotsman let out a relieved sigh. Small mercies indeed. There had been enough tragedy for the day.   After a few months the two of them heard another engine. Spencer was carefully reversing  towards them, a single carriage coupled up to him. He still couldn't look Scotsman in the eye as he came to a stop beside him. One of the windows opened, and a severe-looking woman with mousy brown hair stuck her head out. 

“Where are NWR No.4’s crew?” She asked. 

“Not in the cab, thank Christ. I sent my Fireman down the line to find them. They should be easy enough to spot, provided they’re still in their uniforms,” Driver replied.   

The Fat controller stepped out of the coach and walked over to Gordon, hat clutched in a white-knuckled grip. Spencer puffed away shortly after. When Scotsman had first met The Fat Controller, he was reminded of Alan Pegler. Alan didn't have the same head for business, and had dreams much larger than what his wallet could accommodate, but both were charismatic gentlemen who deeply loved railways and their engines.  The favorable comparison turned to ash as Scotsman watched The Fat Controller trundle towards his brother. Someone ordered Gordon to be streamlined (and not even properly into an A4. Mallard had grown insufferable in her age, and Spencer had the most biffable face ever molded, but neither of them had nearly exploded going top speed, now had they?), or at least convinced Gordon that it was what he wanted. There was only one man on all of Sodor who had that kind of power, and it was the man who had the audacity to look mournful.  

“Why did you do it?” Scotsman asked, the venom in his voice potent enough to make both human men jump. “Make him get such … piss poor streamlining work done?” Smoke and embers hissed through his teeth as he glared down at the guilty party. 

“He asked to be-” The Fat Controller began in a voice smaller than a child’s. 

“Bullshit.” Scotsman fired back, spitting cinders onto the ballast. If Driver reprimanded him for his crassness, it fell on deaf ears. “I haven't seen my brother in decades, and even I know he would have never agreed to this. If you wanted him to be faster, you could have rebuilt him into an A3, like the rest of our A1 siblings. At least then he would have retained some dignity.”  The Fat Controller looked up at him, mouth flopping open and closed pathetically. He heaved a sigh and all but shriveled up under the intensity of the engine’s glare. 

“... You're right. I have no excuse.” He admitted. He struggled to look towards Gordon's slack, unmoving face, recoiling further into himself at the express engine’s corpse-like stillness. “My pride very well might have-” 

“Do not finish that thought.” Scotsman growled. Saying it out loud would make it real. It would make Gordon's face crumble to ashes and rust and he’d be well and truly gone.  

“Alright, Alright,” Driver interjected, standing between the engine and the Controller, hands held up. “Being angry and wallowing in self pity won't fix this. Scotsman, let's go back to the showgrounds, turn around, and come back so we can pull him to a workshop. You, er- um-” 

“Stephen Hatt.” 

“Right. Stephen. You probably need to make a few calls, aye? Come along with us.” 

The Fat Controller kept looking at Gordon. “If it’s all the same, I’d rather not leave him alone.” 

“...Okay.” Driver walked back to Scotsman and climbed into the cab. “Cool your fire,” He commented, re-raking the coals before coaxing the engine forward.  He thundered down the line as fast as Driver would allow, forcing every thought that twisted its way into his smokebox and roiled through his boiler that wasn’t “Get Gordon somewhere safe.”   He roared into the showgrounds and came to a screeching stop on the nearest turntable,  staring coldly at the operator as Driver explained the situation. “Flying Scotsman, whit in th' world happened?” The Northwestern Railway’s Sterling Single called out to him as she puffed towards the turntable. “We heard an explosion oan th' racetrack, whaur is?-” With a sharp click Scotsman’s smoke deflectors came forward, blocking the silly little engine from view as the turntable finally got him facing the right way.  He sped off, heedless of the Sterling whistling after him. “Easy, easy.” Driver coaxed, rubbing small circles into the outside of Scotsman’s cab. “We’ll get him somewhere safe.” When Scotsman returned to Gordon, he hadn’t woken up. His face was just as slack as he had last seen, his brows still twisted in agony. Now that they were both on the same track, however, Scotsman could hear low, shallow breaths puffing from his smokebox. Still breathing, thank God, or The Lady, or whichever deity had been overlooking this tragedy. The Fat Controller was sitting on the sides, head buried in his hands. He could stay there forever as far as Scotsman was concerned. Unfortunately, Driver insisted that he ride in his cab once Gordon was securely coupled. The drive back to the showgrounds was considerably slower than the rush to get there. Every so often something metallic would clatter onto the rails that Scotsman hoped and prayed and pleaded was just more of that horrible casing, and not his brother falling apart. The tubes directly behind his smokebox felt like they had been twisted into a tight knot. Breathing made it worse, like he was inhaling shards of glass and dirt rather than clean air, but he had to keep going. He had to keep breathing. Keep breathing, keep breathing, keep breathing. When the sun rose tomorrow morning, he might be the only Gresley who still was.

As Scotsman puffed onto the showgrounds, a sharp gasp assaulted his senses. “Holy shit, Gordon!” It sounded like that little red tender engine that had been one of Sodor’s two entries in the Best Decorated Engine Parade. His horrified cry alerted his fellow North Westerners, who followed after Scotsman, assaulting him with questions. “What happened?!” “Wis he th' explosion we heard?!” “He’s… he’s not dead, is he…?” 

   Scotsman ground his teeth so hard he tasted metal shavings. It took every ounce of dignity and self restraint learned over decades of service for him to not snap at the school of piranhas following after him. To not blow smoke and belch fire in an animalistic show of fury so grand, no engine or human would ever want to come within a hundred yards of him or his brother for the next decade. But that would be counterproductive, first of all. Second of all, such an explosive show of the infamous Gresley Engine Temper could further damage Gordon.  He swallowed down the rancor burning just as hotly as the coal in his firebox and pressed on.   The organizers of The Great Railway Show had the wherewithal to host the event not terribly far away from Crewe. Scotsman puffed inside carefully, his attention immediately drawn to the tank engine suspended above the workshop floor with some cranes. He recognized him as the little tank engine he had spoken with at Sodor’s Big Station, the alleged E2 with the proportions of a Jinty; Thomas, was it? Whatever his name, the poor lad had definitely seen better days, paintwork scratched to high heaven, boiler dented and buffers bent. His wheels had been removed, and Scotsman sucked in a breath at the sight of the deep cracks across his frame and chassis. When Thomas’s gaze shifted from Flying Scotsman to Gordon, his eyes flooded over with tears. “I was too late…” He choked out. “V-Victor told me about his safety valve, and I- and I- and I tried to get here as fast as I could to warn him. My Driver told me not to, but I tried to jump the bridge because I didn’t get there before it started raising, but  then I- but then- I damaged myself so badly I couldn’t move and now- now Gordon’s…!” He gulped in a mouthful of air and wailed. “I’m so sorry!”  Scotsman wasn’t sure which of the two Thomas was apologizing to, but his howling shot through his boiler like a bullet from a rifle. “Hey, hey. It’s okay.” Scotsman attempted in what he hoped was a soothing tone (if Great Northern were here, she would know exactly what to say. But she was gone. All that was left was Flying Scotsman the Showboat).  “Even if you did get here in time, what would you have done?” “I… I don’t know…” Thomas sniffed. “Driven onto Gordon’s track so he couldn’t go?” “Do you honestly think that would have stopped him?” Scotsman slowly eased Gordon into an open spot on the workshop floor. “Didn’t he once pull you halfway across your island while you were coupled to his train?” “How did…? You’ve read the books about our railway?” “The daughter of my first private owner, Penny, loves the books written about you all.” The barest hint of a smile crossed Scotsman’s face. “When I was resting for the winter in Texas, all the way in America, she’d come into my shed each and every night to read me those stories.” He hummed fondly, although the joy was quickly snuffed out as the workman shooed him away from Gordon so they could assess the damage. He looked up at the little tank engine. “I also know my brother.  Unfortunately parking yourself in his way wouldn’t have been enough to stop him.” Thomas sniffed again, blinking away a fresh wave of tears from his eyes.  “...Do you think he’ll be okay?” Yes.

No.

Maybe?

If he does wake up, there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to run again. Being forced into preservation as a static display would kill him just as surely as any boiler explosion.

Lady, Anyone,  please. If you’re listening, please don’t take my big brother. Save him like you saved me, please!!