Raising Steam (Discworld 40)

Everywhere one looked there were committees nowadays, mostly because, by arrangement and with the blessing of Lord Vetinari, other principalities, large towns and city states saw no reason to wait for the completion of their slice of the magic of the train, and, seizing these opportunities, new companies were entering the railway business with rather more success than the Wesley brothers. Drumknott was in his element as the paperwork mounted and his files multiplied; he contrived to be everywhere and into everything, ably supported by Mr Thunderbolt.

There were committees discussing industry standards, public safety, passenger welfare, whether one company’s freight truck could be hitched to another company’s train to complete its journey without need to offloadfn51 – and all the knotty financial and legal arrangements that would entail.

The whole proposition of other businessmen launching their own railways had made Harry call for Thunderbolt.

After hearing Harry’s complaints, the lawyer said, ‘It’s a matter of patents, Sir Harry. You know, all that fiddly stuff that you said you paid other people to get their heads around? Well, Mister Simnel and I have filed applications for every one of his innovations. But I am sure there is more than one way of building a machine to run on rails. You cannot patent the idea of a railway as such, and if you take a walk down the Street of Cunning Artificers you will find someone quite bright enough to discover how to make a train that will run on rails without infringing any of the patents I have been able to obtain for you.

‘The idea of steam locomotion as such has been there for all to see and we all know that a boiling kettle will try to lift its own lid. Being clever, some young man watching the fire will work out that if he builds a bigger kettle he will be able to lift a bigger kettle lid. Although, as we saw at Effing Forest, he soon learns that it’s not as simple as that. They’re not all as bright and clever as Dick Simnel.’

Harry snorted. ‘Stupid hayseeds. Not a patch on our Dick and his lads. All they’ve done is leave their old mum bound for the poorhouse.’ And Sir Harry harrumphed. A full-blown harrumph.

Unaware that his client was temporarily distracted by the thought of a destitute lady living in the Effing Forest, bereft of her boys, her pride and joy, Thunderbolt continued. ‘Take Mister Simnel’s pressure gauge. Once the principle is proved and understood, the Cunning Artificers, extremely cunning as they are, might well find some way of achieving the same results without breaching patent. It’s what they do. Cunning by name and nature.’

Thunderbolt had got Harry’s attention now. ‘And before you explode, Sir Harry, it is all within the law.’

‘What? After all I’ve done and the money I’ve put in!’ Harry’s face was as red as a beacon. He looked as though he needed one of Dick’s pressure gauges himself.

Moist decided to intervene. ‘Harry, the whole point of trains is that they’re universal. Put them on the tracks and away they go.’

In his mellifluous tones, the lawyer continued. ‘If I were you, Sir Harry, I would simply leave it to me to keep an eye on such things as patents and licences and regulation whilst you and Mister Simnel fill the world with steam. And remember, Sir Harry, the important thing is that you were the first. Nobody can take that away. You, Sir Harry, are on what I believe is called the hog’s back, the top of the heap, the founder of the railway. The Ankh-Morpork and Sto Plains Hygienic Railway Company is as solid as the bank.’

The troll smiled and said, ‘Or, indeed, as me – and I am diamond.’

Business for the Hygienic Railway Company was indeed booming, and the workforce ever expanding. The goblins from the Quirmian maquis had passed news back

to their friends about the opportunities in the Big Wahoonie, which they seized with alacrity. And once Dick’s announcement of his Railway Academy had been splashed across the papers, in the wake of the Effing Forest incident, there were queues of people every day wanting to be taken on as apprentices. Simnel was heavy on the lads he accepted, telling them they had got to let the iron into their soul. And it was not unknown for him to kick someone straight out again if he felt they weren’t up to scratch.

Returning from another trip to review progress on the Quirm line, Moist paused to take in the latest changes to the compound. There were the apprentices … engrossed in their own little mechanical world with Wally and Dave tutoring them and making sure they had got their caps sufficiently flat. Moist watched them in their blissful mechanical dream and he could not help but notice that they were surrounded by goblins, most definitely paying attention, seriously so, as if their lives depended upon it, and gathering up any discarded greasy rags, which to goblins were like haute couture, and the mark of a real swell back in the burrows. And near by the train spotters were comparing numbers. And there was Mr Simnel, equally engrossed in his latest contraption.

As Moist crossed the compound towards him, Mr Simnel, with his greasy hat and his grubby shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to his elbows, wiped his grinning face with a rag, leaving a greasy smear on the grease.

‘Mister Lipwig! Grand to see you! I have something to show you! We brought this beauty down from Sto Lat yesterday and built it last night!’ He was shouting even louder than normal. ‘Essential equipment! It’s my design! I built it and I call it t’turning table!’

Moist almost had to put his hands over his ears as the engineer stepped closer. It’s because he works with the trains all day, he thought, he has to be heard among all the hissing and clanking, but I wonder how he talks to his Emily?

And as for the turning table, it was, well, it was a table and it turned: a huge metal table with a pair of rails running across the centre, which was turned around by means of a large handle attached to a ratchet mechanism being wound by a troll with a look of intense concentration. Moist watched while Dick gave his demonstration.

‘Great! That’s brilliant, Dick, but … for the sake of the hard of thinking, what in hell’s name is it for?’

Dick looked at Moist as if he was an infant and said, ‘Can’t you see it, Mister Lipwig? You drives your engine on to t’turning table and, here’s the clever bit, you turn the whole thing around and it’s now facing t’other way!’

And then Mr Simnel danced on the circular iron table in his clogs as it slowly revolved, and shouted, ‘Grand! Gradely! We’re nearly there!’

The triumph was emphasized with a hiss like Iron Girder at the end of a long run, which would have been a fitting end to the experiment, except that it took some time to get the troll to stop turning the handle so that Dick, who was starting to look a little green from the continued revolutions, could get off.

Happy that the tussle of wills between the other companies operating on the Sto Plains was being ably managed by Thunderbolt and Drumknott, no doubt with assistance from the dark clerks, Moist was looking forward to a period of domestic harmony, when he was summoned to the palace.

He was not surprised to see his lordship staring at the day’s crossword puzzle. Drumknott whispered from behind Moist, ‘There’s a new compiler, you know, and I’m sad to say that it looks like an improvement. However, his lordship is doing his best.’

Lord Vetinari looked up and said, ‘Mister Lipwig. Can it be that there is a word quaestuary?’

Actually, Moist knew exactly what it meant because of his misspent youth and so he girded his metaphorical loins and said, ‘I think you might find, sir, that it means someone doing business simply for profit. I remember coming across the word once upon a time and it puzzled me because I thought profit was what business is all about.’

His lordship’s face didn’t move a muscle until he said, ‘Quite so, Mister Lipwig.’ And he pushed the paper aside and stood up. ‘I hear that the line to Quirm is all but completed … If the Quirm Assembly is still dragging its feet I shall have to have a word with Monsieur Jean Némard … one of my special words. I have to say, Mister Lipwig, that your contribution to the development of the railway has been most gratifying to observe and I am sure we are all in your debt.’

‘Oh,’ said Moist. ‘Does that mean I can get back to my day job and see my wife more than once every week or so?’

‘Of course you may, Mister Lipwig! You have, after all, been acting in an entirely voluntary capacity. However, my business now concerns the railway to Uberwald. So I have to ask you, how soon can we have a locomotive run all the way there? Nonstop.’