Free Riptide (aka Bluffing Mr. Churchill) by John Lawton

far and away the most common material in this technology. The single-line tracks stretched away to meet at infinity. A line of washing hung between the signals, a lazy Jersey cow munched grass
between the tracks, a painted brown and white sign read ‘God’s Wonderful Railway’ and was everywhere abbreviated GWR – it was even woven as a crest into his uniform, stamped
in gold leaf on his pencil, wrought in iron into the legs of the platform benches, passengers for the use of. And high above it all a lone figure, gesticulating wildly, descended on a parachute. He
landed with a bump on the wooden platform, his chute wrapped around the down signal, his backside flat on the planks and his legs splayed in front of him. He looked around him – the cow
approached and proceeded to eat his hat. Then he noticed Reggie. Reggie couldn’t help the feeling that they’d met somewhere before. Little moustache, bit like Charlie Chaplin, piggy
little eyes and a great cowlick of hair across the forehead.
    ‘ Eigentlich wollte ich nach Birmingham, aber Sie haben mich nach Crewe geschickt. ’
    Reggie struggled with this. His dream-German was so rusty.
    ‘Sorry old chap. Could you say that again a bit slower? Y’know, langsamer .’
    The little man sloughed off the parachute, came across the platform and banged on the glass. For a foreigner he certainly knew a thing or two about complaining.
    ‘ Dumkopf! ’ Well, that needed no translation. ‘ Eigentlich wollte ich nach Birmingham, aber Sie haben mich nach Crewe geschickt! ’ he said painfully slowly,
and just as painfully and slowly Reggie worked it out.
    ‘I wanted to go to Birmingham and they sent me on to Crewe.’ Crewe? Where did the fool think he was?
    ‘GWR, old chap. Exeter and all stations west. You know, Cornish Riviera Express. Torbay, Plymouth, the Saltash bridge – all the way to Penzance. Can’t get to Crewe from here.
You want the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway to Evercreech Junction or Shepton Mallet. You’d have to change at –’
    A fist crashed down on the counter.
    ‘ Trottel! ’ – which Reggie vaguely thought might mean ‘idiot’.
    Then the gun came out and the irate visitor banged off shots in all directions. Reggie ducked.
The wall behind him splintered. The little man plugged a fat bloke capering across a beach on a railway poster bearing the cheery slogan ‘Skegness Can Be So Bracing’. Reggie silently
wished he was in Skegness right now, bracing or not. He felt no pain but wondered if he’d been hit when a ringing started in his ears. A persistent ringing that just would not stop.
    Reggie woke. A creamy white telephone on the bedside table jumped about as though it had swallowed a Mexican bean. Reggie picked it up, ready to slam it down if it was Hitler calling.
    ‘Reggie?’
    This bloke certainly didn’t sound German.
    ‘Yes,’ said Reggie.
    ‘It’s me. Charlie.’
    Charlie? Charlie Leigh-Hunt – Reggie’s right-hand man and a captain in the Irish Guards.
    ‘Reggie? Are you all right?’
    ‘Of course. I . . . I was just . . . sleeping.’
    ‘Look. There’s a flap on. I’m in the foyer downstairs. I’m coming up right away.’
    ‘A flap?’
    Reggie looked around. The room regained its old familiarity. There were his trousers hanging off the back of a chair by his braces. He knew where he was again. Imagine the disturbing effect if
you woke up and spotted another bloke’s braces. Didn’t bear thinking about.
    ‘A flap? Coming up? What’s the matter? Hitler not landed in person, has he?’
    ‘Oh God, you’ve already heard.’ Charlie hung up. Reggie sat clutching the phone no longer quite able to say what was dream and what reality.
    Reggie flung on his dressing gown and paced the floor. The minutes could not pass quickly enough before Charlie knocked upon his door. He flung the door wide, the question bursting from his
lips.
    ‘Hitler’s here? Where?’
    Charlie kicked the door to.
    ‘Not so loud. Do you