If a man's reasoning faculties were alert at such a time (I confess
mine were dormant), he would have known there could be no trains at
Cannon Street Station, for if there was not enough oxygen in the air to
keep a man alive, or a gas-jet alight, there would certainly not be
enough to enable an engine fire to burn, even if the engineer retained
sufficient energy to attend to his task. At times instinct is better
than reason, and it proved so in this case. The railway from Ealing in
those days came under the City in a deep tunnel. It would appear that
in this underground passage the carbonic acid gas would first find a
resting-place on account of its weight; but such was not the fact. I
imagine that a current through the tunnel brought from the outlying
districts a supply of comparatively pure air that, for some minutes
after the general disaster, maintained human life. Be this as it may,
the long platforms of Cannon Street Underground Station presented a
fearful spectacle. A train stood at the down platform. The electric
lights burned fitfully. This platform was crowded with men, who fought
each other like demons, apparently for no reason, because the train was
already packed as full as it could hold. Hundreds were dead under foot,
and every now and then a blast of foul air came along the tunnel,
whereupon hundreds more would relax their grips, and succumb. Over
their bodies the survivors fought, with continually thinning ranks. It
seemed to me that most of those in the standing train were dead.
Sometimes a desperate body of fighters climbed over those lying in
heaps and, throwing open a carriage door, hauled out passengers already
in, and took their places, gasping. Those in the train offered no
resistance, and lay motionless where they were flung, or rolled
helplessly under the wheels of the train. I made my way along the wall
as well as I could to the engine, wondering why the train did not go.
The engineer lay on the floor of his cab, and the fires were out.
Custom is a curious thing. The struggling mob, fighting wildly for
places in the carriages, were so accustomed to trains arriving and
departing that it apparently occurred to none of them that the engineer
was human and subject to the same atmospheric conditions as themselves.
I placed the mouthpiece between his purple lips, and, holding my own
breath like a submerged man, succeeded in reviving him. He said that if
I gave him the machine he would take out the train as far as the steam
already in the boiler would carry it. I refused to do this, but stepped
on the engine with him, saying it would keep life in both of us until
we got out into better air. In a surly manner he agreed to this and
started the train, but he did not play fair. Each time he refused to
give up the machine until I was in a fainting condition with holding in
my breath, and, finally, he felled me to the floor of the cab. I
imagine that the machine rolled off the train as I fell and that he
jumped after it. The remarkable thing is that neither of us needed the
machine, for I remember that just after we started I noticed through
the open iron door that the engine fire suddenly became aglow again,
although at the time I was in too great a state of bewilderment and
horror to understand what it meant. A western gale had sprung up--an
hour too late. Even before we left Cannon Street those who still
survived were comparatively safe, for one hundred and sixty-seven
persons were rescued from that fearful heap of dead on the platforms,
although many died within a day or two after, and others never
recovered their reason. When I regained my senses after the blow dealt
by the engineer, I found myself alone, and the train speeding across
the Thames near Kew. I tried to stop the engine, but did not succeed.
However, in experimenting, I managed to turn on the air brake, which in
some degree checked the train, and lessened the impact when the crash
came at Richmond terminus. I sprang off on the platform before the
engine reached the terminal buffers, and saw passing me like a
nightmare the ghastly trainload of the dead. Most of the doors were
swinging open, and every compartment was jammed full, although, as I
afterwards learned, at each curve of the permanent way, or extra lurch
of the train, bodies had fallen out all along the line. The smash at
Richmond made no difference to the passengers. Besides myself, only two
persons were taken alive from the train, and one of these, his clothes
torn from his back in the struggle was sent to an asylum, where he was
never able to tell who he was; neither, as far as I know, did anyone
ever claim him.