The Scribe would willingly omit this chapter. Dying men, hurrying
doctors, improvised stretchers made of wrenched fence rails; silent,
slow-moving throngs following limp, bruised bodies,--are not pleasant
objects to write about and should be disposed of as quickly as possible.
Exactly whose fault it was nobody knew; if any one did, no one ever
told. Every precaution had been taken each charge had been properly
placed and tamped; all the fulminates inspected and the connections made
with the greatest care. As to the battery--that was known to be half a
mile away in the pay shanty, lying on Jack Breen's table.
Nor was the weather unfavorable. True, there had been rain the day
before, starting a general thaw, but none of the downpour had soaked
through the outer crust of the tunnel to the working force inside and
no extra labor had devolved on the pumps. This, of course, upset
all theories as to there having been a readjustment of surface rock,
dangerous sometimes, to magnetic connections.
Then again, no man understood tunnel construction better than Henry
MacFarlane, C.E., Member of the American Society of Engineers, Fellow
of the Institute of Sciences, etc., etc. Nor was there ever an engineer
more careful of his men. Indeed, it was his boast that he had never lost
a life by a premature discharge in the twenty years of his experience.
Nor did the men, those who worked under him--those who escaped
alive--come to any definite conclusion as to the cause of the
catastrophe: the night and day gang, I mean,--those who breathed the
foul air, who had felt the chill of the clammy interior and who were
therefore familiar with the handling of explosives and the proper
tamping of the charges--a slip of the steel meaning instantaneous
annihilation.
The Beast knew and could tell if he chose.
I say “The Beast,” for that is what MacFarlane's tunnel was to me. To
the passer-by and to the expert, it was, of course, merely a short cut
through the steep hills flanking one end of the huge “earth fill” which
MacFarlane was constructing across the Corklesville brook, and which,
when completed would form a road-bed for future trains; but to me it was
always The Beast.
This illusion was helped by its low-browed, rocky head, crouching close
to the end of the “fill,” its length concealed in the clefts of the
rocks--as if lying in wait for whatever crossed its path--as well as its
ragged, half-round, catfish gash of a mouth from out of which poured at
regular intervals a sickening breath--yellow, blue, greenish often--and
from which, too, often came dulled explosions, followed by belchings of
debris which centipedes of cars dragged clear of its slimy lips.
So I reiterate, The Beast knew.
Every day the gang had bored and pounded and wrenched, piercing his
body with nervous, nagging drills; propping up his backbone, cutting
out tender bits of flesh, carving--bracing--only to carve again. He had
tried to wriggle and twist, but the mountain had held him fast. Once he
had straightened out, smashing the tiny cars and the tugging locomotive;
breaking a leg and an arm, and once a head, but the devils had begun
again, boring and digging and the cruel wound was opened afresh. Another
time, after a big rain, with the help of some friendly rocks who had
rushed down to his help, he had snapped his jaws tight shut, penning the
devils up inside, but a hundred others had wrenched them open, breaking
his teeth, shoring up his lips with iron beams, tearing out what was
left of his tongue. He could only sulk now, breathing hard and grunting
when the pain was unbearable. One thought comforted him, and one only:
Far back in his bulk he knew of a thin place in his hide,--so thin,
owing to a dip in the contour of the hill,--that but a few yards of
overlying rock and earth lay between it and the free air.
Here his tormentors had stopped; why, he could not tell until he began
to keep tally of what had passed his mouth: The long trains of cars
had ceased; so had the snorting locomotives; so had the steam drills.
Curious-looking boxes and kegs were being passed in, none of which
ever came back; men with rolls of paper on which were zigzag markings
stumbled inside, stayed an hour and stumbled out again; these men wore
no lamps in their hats and were better dressed than the others. Then a
huge wooden drum wrapped with wire was left overnight outside his lips
and unrolled the next morning, every yard of it being stretched so far
down his throat that he lost all track of it.
On the following morning work of every kind ceased; not a man with a
lamp anywhere--and these The Beast hated most; that is, none that he
could see or feel. After an hour or more the head man arrived and with
two others went inside. The head man was tall and fair, had gray side
whiskers and wore a slouch hat; the second man was straight and well
built, with a boyish face tanned by the weather. The third man was short
and fat: this one carried a plan. Behind the three walked five other
men.
All were talking.
“The dip is to the eastward,” the head man said. “The uplift ought to
clear things so we won't have to handle the stuff twice. Hard to rig
derricks on that slope. Let's have powder enough, anyhow, Bolton.”
The fat man nodded and consulted his plan with the help of his
eye-glasses. Then the three men and the five men passed in out of
hearing.
The Beast was sure now. The men were going to blow out the side of the
hill where his hide was thinnest so as to make room for an air-shaft.
An hour later a gang in charge of a red-shirted foreman who were
shifting a section of toy track on the “fill” felt the earth shake under
them. Then came a dull roar followed by a cloud of yellow smoke mounting
skyward from an opening high up on the hillside. Flashing through this
cloud leaped tongues of flame intermingled with rocks and splintered
trees. From the tunnel's mouth streamed a thin, steel-colored gas that
licked its way along the upper edges of the opening and was lost in the
underbrush fringing its upper lip.
“What's that?” muttered the red-shirted foreman--“that ain't no
blast--My God!--they're blowed up!”
He sprang on a car and waved his arms with all his might: “Drop them
shovels! Git to the tunnel, every man of ye: here,--this way!” and he
plunged on, the men scrambling after him.
The Beast was a magnet now, drawing everything to its mouth. Gangs
of men swarmed up the side of the hill; stumbling, falling; picking
themselves up only to stumble and fall again. Down the railroad tracks
swept a repair squad who had been straightening a switch, their foreman
in the lead. From out of the cabins bareheaded women and children ran
screaming.
The end of the “fill” nearest the tunnel was now black with people;
those nearest to the opening were shielding their faces from the
deadly gas. The roar of voices was incessant; some shouted from sheer
excitement; others broke into curses, shaking their fists at The Beast;
blaming the management. All about stood shivering women with white
faces, some chewing the corners of their shawls in their agony.
Then a cry clearer than the others soared above the heads of the
terror-stricken mob as a rescue gang made ready to enter the tunnel:
“Water! Water! Get a bucket, some of ye! Ye can't live in that smoke
yet! Tie your mouth up if you're going in! Wet it, damn ye!--do ye want
to be choked stiff!”
A shrill voice now cut the air.
“It's the boss and the clerk and Mr. Bolton that's catched!”
“Yes--and a gang from the big shanty; I seen 'em goin' in,” shouted back
the red-shirted foreman.
The volunteers--big, brawny men, who, warned by the foreman, had been
binding wet cloths over their mouths, now sprang forward, peering
into the gloom. Then the sound of footsteps was heard--nearer--nearer.
Groping through the blue haze stumbled a man, his shirt sleeve shielding
his mouth. On he came, staggering from side to side, reached the edge of
the mouth and pitched head-foremost as the fresh air filled his lungs. A
dozen hands dragged him clear. It was Bolton.
His clothes were torn and scorched; his face blackened; his left hand
dripping blood. Two of the shanty gang were next hauled out and laid on
the back of an overturned dirt car. They had been near the mouth when
the explosion came, and throwing themselves flat had crawled toward the
opening.
Bolton was still unconscious, but the two shanty men gasped out the
terrible facts: “The boss and the clerk, was jes' starting out when
everything let go”; they choked; “ther' ain't nothing left of the other
men. We passed the boss and the clerk; they was blowed agin a car; the
boss was stove up, the clerk was crawlin' toward him. They'll never git
out alive: none on 'em. We fellers was jes' givin' up when we see the
daylight and heared you a-yellin'.”
A hush now fell on the mass of people, broken by the piercing shriek
of a woman,--the wife of a shanty man. She would have rushed in had not
some one held her.
Bolton sat up, gazing stupidly about him. Part of the story of the
escaped men had reached his ears. He struggled to his feet and staggerd
toward the opening of the tunnel. The red-shirted foreman caught him
under the armpits and whirled him back.
“That ain't no place for you!” he cried--“I'll go!”
A muffled cry was heard. It came from a bystander lying flat on his
belly inside the mouth: he had crawled in as far as he could.
“Here they come!”
New footfalls grew distinct, whether one or more the listeners could not
make out. Under the shouts of the red-shirted foreman to give them air,
the throng fell back.
Out of the grimy smoke two figures slowly loomed up; one carried the
other on his back; whether shanty men or not, no one could tell.
The crowd, no longer controlled by the foreman, surged about the
opening. Ready hands were held out, but the man carrying his comrade
waved them aside and staggered on, one hand steadying his load, the
other hanging loose. The big foreman started to rush in, but stopped.
Something in the burdened man's eye had checked him, it was as if a team
were straining up a steep hill, making any halt fatal.
“It's the boss and the clerk!” shouted the foreman. “Fall back,
men,--fall back, damn ye!”
The man came straight on, reached the lips of the opening, lunged
heavily to the right, tried to steady his burden and fell headlong.