AN ENCOUNTER WITH DEATH
One moment the even throbbing of the engine as the train slipped along
through the silence of the country-side--the next, and the silence was
split by a shattering roar and the shock of riven plates, the clash of
iron driven against iron, and of solid woodwork grinding and grating as
it splintered into wreckage.
Diana, suddenly--horribly--awake, found herself hurled from her seat.
Absolute darkness lapped her round; it was as though a thick black
curtain had descended, blotting out the whole world, while from behind
it, immeasurably hideous in that utter night, uprose an inferno of cries
and shrieks--the clamour of panic-stricken humanity.
Her hands, stretched stiffly out in front of her to ward off she knew not
what impending horror hidden by the dark, came in contact with the
framework of the window, and in an instant she was clinging to it,
pressing up against it with her body, her fingers gripping and clutching
at it as a rat, trapped in a well, claws madly at a projecting bit of
stonework. It was at least something solid out of that awful void.
"What's happened? What's happened? What's happened?"
She was whispering the question over and over again in a queer,
whimpering voice without the remotest idea of what she was saying. When
a stinging pain shot through her arm, as a jagged point of broken glass
bit into the flesh, and with a scream of utter, unreasoning terror she
let go her hold.
The next moment she felt herself grasped and held by a pair of arms, and
a voice spoke to her out of the darkness.
"Are you hurt? . . . My God, are you hurt?"
With a sob of relief she realised that it was the voice of her
fellow-traveller. He was here, close to her, something alive and human
in the midst of this nightmare of awful, unspeakable fear, and she clung
to him, shuddering.
"Speak, can't you?" His utterance sounded hoarse and distorted. "You're
hurt--?" And she felt his hands slide searchingly along her limbs,
feeling and groping.
"No--no."
"Thank God!" He spoke under his breath. Then, giving her a shake:
"Come, pull yourself together. We must get out of this."
He fumbled in his pocket and she heard the rattle of a matchbox, and an
instant later a flame spurted out in the gloom as he lit a bundle of
matches together. In the brief illumination she could see the floor of
the compartment steeply tilted up and at its further end what looked like
a huge, black cavity. The whole side of the carriage had been wrenched
away.
"Come on!" exclaimed the man, catching her by the hand and pulling her
forward towards that yawning space. "We must jump for it. It'll be a
big drop. I'll catch you."
At the edge of the gulf he paused. Below, with eyes grown accustomed to
the darkness, she could discern figures running to and fro, and lanterns
flashing, while shouts and cries rose piercingly above a continuous low
undertone of moaning.
"Stand here," he directed her. "I'll let myself down, and when I call to
you--jump."
She caught at him frantically.
"Don't go--don't leave me."
He disengaged himself roughly from her clinging hands.
"It only wants a moment's pluck," he said, "and then you'll be safe."
The next minute he was over the side, hanging by his hands from the edge
of the bent and twisted flooring of the carriage, and a second afterwards
she heard him drop. Peering out, she could see him standing on the
ground below, his arms held out towards her.
"Jump!" he called.
But she shrank from the drop into the darkness.
"I can't!" she sobbed helplessly. "I can't!"
He approached a step nearer, and the light from some torch close at hand
flashed onto his uplifted face. She could see it clearly, tense and set,
the blue eyes blazing.
"God in heaven!" he cried furiously. "Do what I tell you. _Jump_!"
The fierce, imperative command startled her into action, and she jumped
blindly, recklessly, out into the night. There was one endless moment of
uncertainty, and then she felt herself caught by arms like steel and set
gently upon the ground.
"You little fool!" he said thickly. He was breathing heavily as though
he had been running; she could feel his chest heave as, for an instant,
he held her pressed against him.
He released her almost immediately, and taking her by the arm, led her to
the embankment, where he stripped off his overcoat and wrapped it about
her. But she was hardly conscious of what he was doing, for suddenly
everything seemed to be spinning round her. The lights of the torches
bobbed up and down in a confused blur of twinkling stars, the sound of
voices and the trampling of feet came faintly to her ears as from a great
way off, while the grim, black bulk of the piled-up coaches of the train
seemed to lean nearer and nearer, until finally it swooped down on top of
her and she sank into a sea of impenetrable darkness.
The next thing she remembered was finding a flask held to her lips, while
a familiar voice commanded her to drink. She shook her head feebly.
"Drink it at once," the voice insisted. "Do you hear?"
And because her mind held some dim recollection of the futility of
gainsaying that peremptory voice, she opened her lips obediently and let
the strong spirit trickle down her throat.
"Better now?" queried the voice.
She nodded, and then, complete consciousness returning, she sat up.
"I'm all right now--really," she said.
The owner of the voice regarded her critically.
"Yes, I think you'll do now," he returned. "Stay where you are. I'm
going along to see if I can help, but I'll come back to you again."
The darkness swallowed him up, and Diana sat very still on the
embankment, vibrantly conscious in every nerve of her of the man's cool,
dominating personality. Gradually her thoughts returned to the
happenings of the moment, and then the full horror of what had occurred
came back to her. She began to cry weakly. But the tears did her good,
bringing with them relief from the awful shock which had strained her
nerves almost to breaking-point, and with return to a more normal state
of mind came the instinctive wish to help--to do something for those who
must be suffering so pitiably in the midst of that scarred heap of
wreckage on the line.
She scrambled to her feet and made her way nearer to the mass of crumpled
coaches that reared up black against the shimmer of the starlit sky. No
one took any notice of her; all who were unhurt were working to save and
help those who had been less fortunate, and every now and then some
broken wreck of humanity was carried past her, groaning horribly, or
still more horribly silent.
Suddenly a woman brushed against her--a young woman of the working
classes, her plump face sagging and mottled with terror, her eyes
staring, her clothes torn and dishevelled.
"My chiel, my li'l chiel!" she kept on muttering. "Wur be 'ee? Wur be
'ee?"
Reaching her through the dreadful strangeness of disaster, the soft Devon
dialect smote on Diana's ears with a sense of dear familiarity that was
almost painful. She laid her hand on the woman's arm.
"What is it?" she asked. "Have you lost your child?"
The woman looked at her vaguely, bewildered by the surrounding horror.
"Iss. Us dunnaw wur er's tu; er's dade, I reckon. Aw, my li'l, li'l
chiel!" And she rocked to and fro, clutching her shawl more closely
round her.
Diana put a few brief questions and elicited that the woman and her child
had both been taken unhurt out of a third-class carriage--of the ten
souls who had occupied the compartment the only ones to escape injury.
"I'll go and look for him," she told her. "I expect he has only strayed
away and lost sight of you amongst all these people. Four years old and
wearing a little red coat, did you say? I'll find him for you; you sit
down here." And she pushed the poor distraught creature down on a pile
of shattered woodwork. "Don't be frightened," she added reassuringly.
"I feel certain he's quite safe."
She disappeared into the throng, and after searching for a while came
face to face with her fellow traveller, carrying a chubby, red-coated
little boy in his arms. He stopped abruptly.
"What in the world are you doing?" he demanded angrily. "You've no
business here. Go back--you'll only see some ghastly sights if you come,
and you can't help. Why didn't you stay where I told you to?"
But Diana paid no heed.
"I want that child," she said eagerly, holding out her arms. "The
mother's nearly out of her mind--she thinks he's killed, and I told her
I'd go and look for him."
"Is this the child? . . . All right, then, I'll carry him along for you.
Where did you leave his mother?"
Diana led the way to where the woman was sitting, still rocking herself
to and fro in dumb misery. At the sight of the child she leapt up and
clutched him in her arms, half crazy with joy and gratitude, and a few
sympathetic tears stole down Diana's cheeks as she and her fellow-helper
moved away, leaving the mother and child together.
The man beside her drew her arm brusquely within his.
"You're not going near that--that hell again. Do you hear?" he said
harshly.
His face looked white and drawn; it was smeared with dirt, and his
clothes were torn and dishevelled. Here and there his coat was stained
with dark, wet patches. Diana shuddered a little, guessing what those
patches were.
"_You've_ been helping!" she burst out passionately. "Did you want me to
sit still and do nothing while--while that is going on just below?" And
she pointed to where the injured were being borne along on roughly
improvised stretchers. A sob climbed to her throat and her voice shook
as she continued: "I was safe, you see, thanks to you. And--and I felt
I must go and help a little, if I could."
"Yes--I suppose you would feel that," he acknowledged, a sort of grudging
approval in his tones. "But there's nothing more one can do now. An
emergency train is coming soon and then we shall get away--those that are
left of us. But what's this?"--he felt her sleeve--"Your arm is all
wet." He pushed up the loose coat-sleeve and swung the light of his
lantern upon the thin silk of her blouse beneath it. It was caked with
blood, while a trickle of red still oozed slowly from under the wristband
and ran down over her hand.
"You're hurt! Why didn't you tell me?"
"It's nothing," she answered. "I cut it against the glass of the
carriage window. It doesn't hurt much."
"Let me look at it. Here, take the lantern."
Diana obeyed, laughing a little nervously, and he turned back her sleeve,
exposing a nasty red gash on the slender arm. It was only a surface
wound however, and hastily procuring some water he bathed it and tied it
up with his handkerchief.
"There, I think that'll be all right now," he said, pulling down her
sleeve once more and fastening the wristband with deft fingers. "The
emergency train will be here directly, so I'm going back to our
compartment to pick up your belongings. I can climb in, I fancy. What
did you leave behind?"
Diana laughed.
"What a practical man you are! Fancy thinking of such things as a
forgotten coat and a dressing-bag when we've just escaped with our lives!"
"Well, you may as well have them," he returned gruffly. "Wait here."
And he disappeared into the darkness, returning presently with the
various odds and ends which she had left in the carriage.
Soon afterwards the emergency train came up, and those who could took
their places, whilst the injured were lifted by kindly, careful hands
into the ambulance compartment. The train drew slowly away from the
scene of the accident, gradually gathering speed, and Diana, worn out
with strain and excitement, dozed fitfully to the rhythmic rumbling of
the wheels.
She woke with a start to find that the train was slowing down and her
companion gathering his belongings together preparatory to departure.
She sprang up and slipping off the overcoat she was still wearing, handed
it back to him. He seemed reluctant to take it from her.
"Shall you be warm enough?" he asked doubtfully.
"Oh, yes. It's only half-an-hour's run from here to Craiford Junction,
and there they'll meet me with plenty of wraps." She hesitated a moment,
then went on shyly: "I can't thank you properly for all you've done."
"Don't," he said curtly. "It was little enough. But I'm glad I was
there."
The train came to a standstill, and she held out her hand.
"Good-bye," she said, very low.
He wrung her hand, and, releasing it abruptly, lifted his hat and
disappeared amid the throng of people on the platform. And it was not
until the train had steamed out of the station again that she remembered
that she did not even know his name.
Very slowly she unknotted the handkerchief from about her arm, and laying
the blood-stained square of linen on her knee, proceeded to examine each
corner carefully. In one of them she found the initials M.E., very
finely worked.