Finding my way on my own down to street level from the raised tracks was not easy. I found it impossible on the left side so, using a passing train as a distraction, I crossed to the right side where I had better luck and slid down the sloping wall supporting the embankment at an underbridge. No-one saw me, but there were people about. I took a chance on them not knowing about our exercise and walked as nonchalantly as possible along the streets by the station, sticking as close to the railway as possible and all the while keeping in the shadows. Had I been seen with blackened face and filthy denims I am sure the very sight of me would have aroused suspicion even in the most unsuspecting of minds.
I decided to make use of a road bridge under the tracks so that I would be on the proper side to meet Ginger and the others further on.
Just ahead of me, not 30 yards away, a helmeted policeman appeared from a turning I hadn't seen in the dim street lights. Before he turned to face in my direction something caught his attention and distracted him long enough for me squeeze into a vertical channel which had once held drain pipes in the blue brick retaining wall. I could hear his booted footsteps getting nearer. I squeezed myself back as far as possible into that filthy damp groove and held my breath. He was within a yard of me when a heavy lorry passed and he never noticed me. The lorry turned off and I stayed put, listening for Mr Plod's footsteps seemingly taking an age to fade into the distance. Only then did I emerge and regain as casual a gait as possible whilst finding my way towards our rendezvous. Little did I know it, but one of our number saw what had happened to me while he himself was skulking in the recess of a dark doorway. We exchanged whistles and made our way forward, a distance apart, to a place where we could clamber up on to the railway.
We waited long enough in the shadows to convince us that we had lost the others, and decided on our own plan of action. Not too far ahead of us there lay a fairly major junction. Near it was an overbridge which looked as though it might be guarded. Worse, there were a lot of lights both on the road and the railway in that locality. Logic told us that people in lit areas are not going to be able to see well into the darker gloom. Uncomfortable as it was, drizzle started to fall again, but that was advantageous. The junction itself bothered us, as we didn't want to make the mistake of following the wrong line. That problem solved itself when a passenger train passed and we saw on the carriage destination boards the name 'Rugby', and watched which way it went. We now had to 'follow that train'.
As we approached the bridge we came to a platelayers' hut and paused for a while by it. We heard voices inside. It was Ginger and the other of our foursome. Having got together again we held a brief council of war as we sheltered from the drizzle. Our plan was for the four of us each to shoulder either a pick or a shovel from those within the hut and to walk, quite openly, in single file as we had seen gangers doing, under the bridge to the next hut which we could see dimly in the gloom beyond. We saw people looking at us but disregarded them, as they did us, and reached our destination, left the tools there, and ran on for quite a distance before we reckoned we had got away with it.
We were back to the routine of coming to a bridge, assessing it, and if necessary by-passing it through the adjacent fields or houses, then regaining the railway until we came to the next obstacle, always avoiding the bright beam of light from the modern colour-light signals, and from the light from trains which, in the early hours, were now fewer in number. Fairly good progress was made for several miles, although we had trouble crossing a bridge with gaps in its deck, over a fairly large watercourse.
We came to an overbridge with houses along the road on each side. They were big detached houses with long gardens, and extended as far as we could see. We 244