text: The train departed at Piccadilly Station, rattling the teacups of chattering ladies awaiting their sons or lovers or death itself inside the Piccadilly Station Municipal Tearoom. &nbsp; Philip Philbrick, undergraduate, stood by a train window and watched the city fall further away. The black plumes of smoke from red-brick factories ever smaller. The long-familiar desolate moorland of the Peak District ever changing as his train rattled on, towards Oxford. He thought about his father, of the last words spoken to him. &nbsp; "Go on lad, make something of y'self, just as I had to do, though I never had no fancy education. We're just trying to do right by you, and me and your ma know you'll do right by us." &nbsp; His mother had said nothing, but sat with eyes clenched, her face pale and ghostly in the evening light, reflected by streetlamps through thin windowpanes. He couldn't listen to the words his father spoke, he heard the voice from the radio singing "underneath the lantern by the barrack gates, darling I remember the way you used to wait" and he stared strangely at his father, seeing nothing, understanding nothing. The next morning he took his train. &nbsp; He found a seat in an empty carriage. He was travelling second class. In time, the carriage filled. First came the old and infirm, then the soldiers, bawdy and gay in their khaki uniforms, then came the other students. &nbsp; He watched them, in their packs. Laughing amidst themselves, dressed in suits of grey, green and burgundy. Paisley cravates and hair immaculately styled. He felt a tinge of embarrassment at his own ragged black greatcoat, which he had inherited from his father, a respected and upwardly mobile factory owner. &nbsp; The old woman who had taken residence next to Philbrick, with her husband opposite, grumbled to him. The fleshy lines stretching out her face like waves. &nbsp; "It's all bloody students, in't it Arthur? Like rats, bloody everywhere. Weren't like that back in our day, weren't it, Arthur?" she said, chomping on a large sandwich which shot white mayonnaise out with each hearty bite, over her husband's trousers. &nbsp; The husband, jolted awake mumbled something to the effect of "aye there's lots of rats in Sudan" and fell back to sleep. &nbsp; Just at this moment, the pack of students split off into individual smaller groups, evidently searching for space amidst the reasonably crowded train carriage, and one in particular, who had caught Philbrick's eyes; partly because of his deep blue eyes, and partly because he was holding a three-quarters empty bottle of Château Margaux, halted in front of the old woman, reached out towards an empty seat, and fell over. The young man's head landed in Philbrick's crotch, and Philbrick reacted with considerable distaste, attempting to push the unwanted head away. However, the old woman too, was unsettled by this most distasteful of events and spanked the student on his rear a few times, shrieking like a banshee. &nbsp; The student slid off the two passengers and took a seat opposite Philbrick. Shamefacedly, he spoke. "Sorry, I get a little squiffy on trains. It must be travel sickness. However, I must say I liked your shoes very much when I saw them. You must tell me your tailor. See, every mishap has its silver lining. Anyway, my apologies dear fellow, it was assuredly the travel sickness" he said, taking a swig from the bottle of wine. &nbsp; "And my sincerest apologies to you too, good sir", he said to the old woman. She would have responded if at that moment, a second student had not taken the window seat next to Philbrick. &nbsp; "How do you do?" said Philbrick. &nbsp; "Ten cents a dance, fella", the beast of a man responded. &nbsp; "Excuse me?" &nbsp; "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing." he insisted. &nbsp; "What?" Philbrick said, exasperated. &nbsp; "Oh don't mind Clutch" the student opposite said, taking a wine glass from his satchel and pouring himself a glass. "He fancies himself American, though he was actually born in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, wherever that is." The student said, lighting a Vogue with a flick of a match. &nbsp; "My name is Luciani James Temperance, you might know of my father, His Sir Honorable Lordship Oswald Temperance, got himself into a bit of a pickle with the evening post over a dog and a pair of slippers. No matter, a dreadful bore anyway. I expect you're heading for Oxford? Care for a glass of wine?" he said, producing a second bottle of out apparently thin air. "Indeed, it is a grand cosmic irony that my surname is the one thing I cannot adhere to. But well, somebody terribly dull once said we must all have an occupation of some kind. Care for a second glass?" &nbsp; Green farmland swept by in a hazy succession, before the drab Betjeman country; sheep, cows, all the delights of rural England. Past distant towns lit faint orange on the horizon, like a postcard, past towering chimneys of smoke and filth. Philbrick imbibed the wine, observed the student and smiled to himself, thinking on the words of Blake's pastoral poetry, or the lads of Housman. &nbsp; In time, it got darker and the students got drunker. The soldiers sat in their uniforms, fingering their satchels and smoking cheap cigarettes. The old couple slept. The carriage took on the appearance of a hospital waiting room. Nobody stood up. Nobody spoke. Light dimmed and faded until a dull haze was all that illuminated the surrounding fields, and the dull dots of light from faraway towns, scattered like a constellation. &nbsp; A portly sergeant, evidently bored, looked at Luciani, took a swig from a concealed hip flask and directed a comment at a soldier next to him. "These fuckin' nancies, wouldn't have lasted a minute in the trenches." &nbsp; The student retorted. "Ah my good man, I've spent a great deal of time in France many years ago. The Parisians are wonderful. All the women look like art sculptures and all the men look like women. I wouldn't have it any other way. Plus their wine is delectable." He lit another cigarette. &nbsp; The drunk sergeant stood up and shouted "you poncey bastard, I'll give you a good fisting, come 'ere!", a sentence which enacted a succession of sniggers amongst the students, enraging the soldier further. &nbsp; Chaos broke out in the once quiet carriage. The students fought the soldiers, the soldiers fought the students. The old couple fought everyone, armed with handbag and walking stick. Wine bottles were shattered and soon, the train was forced to halt amidst the outbreak of warfare. &nbsp; Philip Philbrick, undergraduate, drunk, stepped out of the train. The trees now black silhouettes against an even blacker horizon. He did not notice the noise, did not register the chaos nor the blows he took. He stepped out into the field, looking at the face of Luciani the Student, lit up by halogen lamp inside the train, his hair erratic and wild. He thought of Oxford, of grand, twisting spires, dusty books of Hardy and Housman, of the new poets; Eliot and Pound, so subversive to the old swing of things. He imagined musty bookshops and the taking of tea at ten, and nights spent drinking in the local public house, discussing philosophy and "the European influence". &nbsp; He started to hum and laugh, and threw his bottle of wine against the window of the train, smashing it, causing the glass to fracture like a cobweb. Droplets of rain landed on his head and he looked up, in doing so, falling back, back against the belly of a sheep. &nbsp; From his view, he saw the train conductor kick the occupants of the carriage out into the darkness, but this could not revive him from his reverie. He laughed and hummed, singing out loud, screaming, shrieking the lines to Al Bowlly's "Couldn't Be Cuter", he looked at the foppish students and he saw Luciani stare at him, his eyes tinged with something he could not comprehend. He laughed further until he passed out. &nbsp; It was against the belly of a sheep that Philip Philbrick, undergraduate, spent the first morning of his first term at Oxford, and in time, it would become nothing more than an amusing anecdote to the other students in his college, but then, as he awoke, bleary eyed in the dew-specked wetness of morning, he felt he had undergone a profound change, of which he could not yet decipher.