The hermit, the devil and the beast
THE air in the locomen’s mess room at two in the morning was fetid. Cigarette smoke hung in a cloud over Formica tables stained with spilt tea. Folded newspapers with half-completed crosswords lay unattended in front of drivers feigning sleep to avoid conversation. A card school using a sticky, dog-eared pack was in full swing, and bacon sizzled in an encrusted frying pan on a greasy hob.
Drivers from foreign depots awaiting their back working huddled in one corner and spare drivers sprawled across torn couches that oozed horsehair stuffing, counting off the minutes until they could refuse a job on the basis of making
