Thomas and the Great War

A Friendship in the Making

Back in London the next morning, Margaret woke up to a silent vigil. It had been almost five days since the men of the house, specifically Christopher and Wilbert had left from her life. Last night she had been working in the factory for almost an hour and a half and spent the next two hours changing the tires on several Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes for the Eagle and No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadrons at RAF Northolt. She took the night train home and went to bed, thinking about her recently absent son and husband.

By that morning, Margaret was grateful that the blinding sunlight was partially blocked by a barrage balloon that had been seen by many pedestrians floating over the London Bridge for quite some time. Margaret had already switched into a cool blue dress embroidered with white flowers and longed for everyone she knew at Piccadilly Circus to see it. Her dark brown hair contrasted with the colour and she thought otherwise that not one of her neighbours would give her new outfit a fair comment, especially since she was still at the right age of 31 to give birth to at least two more children, maybe even a sister or two for Christopher.

Today, Margaret was sitting down to a lovely breakfast of cream cakes and shortbread, then for lunch on her schedule she would have a nice little plate of fish and chips at Wilsons. Just then the telephone rang and she went over to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Is this the Awdry residence?" came the voice on the other line.

Margaret recognized it as belonging to the superintendent of Christopher's evacuation group. "Yes, this is his mother," she replied quickly.

The superintendent's voice sounded grave. "I am sorry to say, Mrs. Awdry that your son had unfortunately not shown up at the station."

Margaret was shocked and confused. "He didn't show up? But he left on the train four days ago!"

"He did," said the superintendent. "But not when we arrived in Liverpool. For all I care, Mrs. Awdry, your son might have gotten off while we weren't looking or left at one of the other stops. I cannot imagine why he would leave us."

"I can as well," Margaret nodded. "Goodbye, Mrs. Chambers."

"Goodbye, Mrs. Awdry. Hope young Christopher turns up soon."

Margaret hung up the phone and sat down at the kitchen table, her hands pressed against her forehead. If anything happened to her husband and her son, as far as being reported as to have been killed in action, she would be unable to live with herself. And so, switching into a black mourning dress, Margaret spent the entire day walking around the city, hoping to find someone to console her hurt feelings.

Far away on Sodor, the engines were finding life difficult. Diesel was doing less and less jobs and the Fat Director was unable to convince him to do the harder ones so Percy had to do them for Diesel. First he shunted a goods train of fifteen trucks, and a little later he collected Gordon's coaches for his express train the Wild Nor' Wester, which pulls out of Tidmouth Station at 8:00 AM en route to Barrow-in-Furness via Vicarstown Bridge - a 3 hour, 80 mile trip.

After sorting the coaches out, Percy approached Diesel. "I'm glad you're keeping me company, Diesel," the little Trojan said sweetly. "The other engines have gone off to work and I'm getting Edward's goods train ready."

"The sooner you get your work done, the sooner your railway will be for your type and mine," smiled Diesel.

"You want to know something?" Percy asked to Diesel. "Earlier this morning, the Fat Director said that his health was going downhill or something. He also said that because of it, he's thinking of taking a short holiday in the southern region of the mainland."