profits at the expense of the Crown, the public, and the other speculator over the hill. And speaking of hills, Mr. Swann, I’ll give you something better than a map. Don’t invest a penny in rail ways. Anything else you care to name but not railways. Why?
Be cause all the main trunk routes are laid, and in less than ten years ninety-five per cent of the smaller lines will be carrying freight and passengers at a loss. All that’s left for the gleaners is to build where no railway could possibly pay and that map will prove it. You ob viously know something about it, so you might also remember Stephenson’s Chat Moss? You watched Balaclava and I watched Chat Moss. It made my blood run cold. His reputation, and hun dreds of thousands of speculators’ cash, staked on the double track between Manchester and Liverpool, and there it was, disappearing into a bog overnight.”
“Stephenson mastered Chat Moss.”
“Men like Stephenson and Brunel are two in ten million, Mr. Swann. And in those days their backers were interested in something better than money. Do I make my point?”
GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 50
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The Black Dwarfs 5 1
Adam said, smiling, “You’re making so many points that I’m be ginning to wonder if I should re-enlist,” and then, with an eagerness that made him feel a boy in this man’s presence, “I’ve lain out there under the stars dreaming of people like you. Army life made a Crusoe out of me. I’m turned thirty but I’ve got ambition and a certain amount of capital to invest. If you were me, and wanted to start all over again, how would you begin, Mr. Walker?”
“That’s putting a damnable responsibility on someone who mis took you for a lawyer’s tout,” Walker said, but tilted his chair for ward and placed both elbows on the table, so that Adam, watching his expression, knew he would get an honest answer. Walker said, after a longish pause, “Forget steel, coal, cotton, wool, and every thing else that gave us a headstart over the Continentals. Forget land too. British agriculture is marked down for death. I don’t see you as a retailer, so what remains? Something where the years behind you aren’t entirely wasted. Something where the lessons you learned in the field can be added to your capital.”
“Go on.”
“You’re an ex-cavalryman and you must have specialist know ledge of horses.
There’s more future in horse-transport than the Cleverdicks would have you believe. The railways can solve all the big problems but none of the small ones.
They can’t in a group of islands threaded by rivers and broken up by stiff gradients and marshes like Chat Moss and the Fens. If I were you, Mr. Swann—and I wish to God I were and starting all over again—I would spend the next week studying the blank areas of that map there. Then travel about and take a look at the goods yards of the most successful com panies, and see merchandise piled in the rain on all their loading bays for want of a good dispersal system. Think about that, Mr. Swann. And here’s a final piece of advice, to prove I’m a disinterested party. When you go north to Cumberland, don’t use my railway, except for your luggage. You’ve been away from your potential workshop a long time, and you won’t learn anything new about it staring out of a carriage window at cows.
Get yourself a good horse—you can buy one at today’s market for a handful of guineas—and take advantage of this wonderful weather we’re having.” He looked at the map. “Plymouth to Derwentwater. Say three-fifty miles, at around twenty miles a day, and as good a cross-section of the country as you’d find between any two points of the compass. Think about that too, Mr. Swann, and here is your homework, with my compliments.”
He took the map from its clamps and folded it eight times, reduc ing it to a crackling package about eighteen inches long and half as broad. Somewhere a GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 51
3/27/09 5:13:16
Be cause all the main trunk routes are laid, and in less than ten years ninety-five per cent of the smaller lines will be carrying freight and passengers at a loss. All that’s left for the gleaners is to build where no railway could possibly pay and that map will prove it. You ob viously know something about it, so you might also remember Stephenson’s Chat Moss? You watched Balaclava and I watched Chat Moss. It made my blood run cold. His reputation, and hun dreds of thousands of speculators’ cash, staked on the double track between Manchester and Liverpool, and there it was, disappearing into a bog overnight.”
“Stephenson mastered Chat Moss.”
“Men like Stephenson and Brunel are two in ten million, Mr. Swann. And in those days their backers were interested in something better than money. Do I make my point?”
GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 50
3/27/09 5:13:16 PM
The Black Dwarfs 5 1
Adam said, smiling, “You’re making so many points that I’m be ginning to wonder if I should re-enlist,” and then, with an eagerness that made him feel a boy in this man’s presence, “I’ve lain out there under the stars dreaming of people like you. Army life made a Crusoe out of me. I’m turned thirty but I’ve got ambition and a certain amount of capital to invest. If you were me, and wanted to start all over again, how would you begin, Mr. Walker?”
“That’s putting a damnable responsibility on someone who mis took you for a lawyer’s tout,” Walker said, but tilted his chair for ward and placed both elbows on the table, so that Adam, watching his expression, knew he would get an honest answer. Walker said, after a longish pause, “Forget steel, coal, cotton, wool, and every thing else that gave us a headstart over the Continentals. Forget land too. British agriculture is marked down for death. I don’t see you as a retailer, so what remains? Something where the years behind you aren’t entirely wasted. Something where the lessons you learned in the field can be added to your capital.”
“Go on.”
“You’re an ex-cavalryman and you must have specialist know ledge of horses.
There’s more future in horse-transport than the Cleverdicks would have you believe. The railways can solve all the big problems but none of the small ones.
They can’t in a group of islands threaded by rivers and broken up by stiff gradients and marshes like Chat Moss and the Fens. If I were you, Mr. Swann—and I wish to God I were and starting all over again—I would spend the next week studying the blank areas of that map there. Then travel about and take a look at the goods yards of the most successful com panies, and see merchandise piled in the rain on all their loading bays for want of a good dispersal system. Think about that, Mr. Swann. And here’s a final piece of advice, to prove I’m a disinterested party. When you go north to Cumberland, don’t use my railway, except for your luggage. You’ve been away from your potential workshop a long time, and you won’t learn anything new about it staring out of a carriage window at cows.
Get yourself a good horse—you can buy one at today’s market for a handful of guineas—and take advantage of this wonderful weather we’re having.” He looked at the map. “Plymouth to Derwentwater. Say three-fifty miles, at around twenty miles a day, and as good a cross-section of the country as you’d find between any two points of the compass. Think about that too, Mr. Swann, and here is your homework, with my compliments.”
He took the map from its clamps and folded it eight times, reduc ing it to a crackling package about eighteen inches long and half as broad. Somewhere a GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 51
3/27/09 5:13:16
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