I have never heard of any poet writing an ode to a London omnibus
driver, but he always strikes me as worthy subject of praise. He may
not possess the social charm of the old horse-omnibus driver, who,
according to legend, wore a top hat and used his whip butt on London
as a lecturer uses a wand. He is a more solemn character. Machines
always leave their mark on men. The big petrol engine has created a
grim, silent, crouching character who, fortunately for London and
Londoner's wives and families, has no time for social pleasantries as
he urges his great, red, double-decked steed through the thousand
perils of a crowded street.
He has, I think, developed a sixth sense. His whole being seems
acutely conscious of inches. Watch the way a press of omnibuses in
High Holborn or Tottenham Court Road, or any other famous hold-up,
will edge and nudge a way with a mere inch between their mudguards,
all so skilfully and calmly done as though the scarlet sides of the
vehicles had nerves--invisible feelers--that carried warning of
danger to the rough, deft hands at the wheel.
As we crawled through the fog I watched his taut concentration,
admired his judgment as he executed a circling movement round a
candidate for suicide, as he jammed on the brakes within a yard of a
halted motor-car, as he put on speed over a thin patch of fog, and as
he shot ahead past a less speedy driver.
Now and then he had to crawl through a whiteness as dense as that
terrible billowing mist that rolls down a Scottish mountain. Here
and there pin-points of fire shone out, changed swiftly on approach
into objects like long hair aflame in the wind, and, nearer still,
stood revealed as tall fog flares shooting up in fire from metal
standards.
At the terminus I watched the drivers dismount, stiff and cold, pull
off their big gloves, and hit their cold hands across their chests.
Wet particles of fog shone on their moustaches.
Pretty bad at Camden Town, and Baker Street was like a tunnel!
Couldn't see a yard at Brixton. Fine and clear at the Crystal
Palace.... So these adventurers of the London fog compared notes
before, groping in remote recesses, they found money to buy coffee
from a stall. Then a whistle, the roar of a chilled engine, and off
again on their perilous pilgrimages across London.
Surely every man who has driven through fog with eyes that ache and
imagine phantoms at each cross-road will be glad to raise his hat to
the bulky figure behind the wheel of a London omnibus as he steers
his living cargo to safety with no thought of praise because--it's
all in the day's work?