Read Ebook: The Grell Mystery by Froest Frank

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RUNNING IN A FOG.

These men were provided with white and red signal lanterns, detonating torpedoes and colored flags, and the rules of the road required them to place a torpedo on the rail and show a red signal both on the bridge and at a "fog station," distant half a mile from the bridge, before they opened the draw. At all times when the draw was closed they were to show a white light or flag at this "fog station." This explanation will, I trust, be sufficient to enable every reader to understand the position in which I found myself in the "gray" of one September morning.

It was three weeks before I ran again, and I never after "made up time" in a fog.

A CLOSE SHAVE.

Several times during my life I have felt the emotions so often told of, so seldom felt by any man, when, with death apparently absolute and inevitable, immediate and inglorious, staring me full in the face, I forgot all fears for myself--dreamed not of shuddering at the thought that I soon must die--that the gates of death were swung wide open before me, and that, with a speed and force against which all human resistance was useless, I was rushing into them. I knew that I was fated with the rest; but I thought only of those behind me in my charge, under my supervision, then chatting gaily, watching the swift-receding scenery, thinking perhaps how quickly they would be at home with their dear ones, and not dreaming of the hideous panorama of death so soon to unroll, the tinkle of the bell for the starting of which I seemed to hear; the first sad scene, the opening crash of which was sickening my soul with terror and blinding me with despair. For I knew that those voices, now so gay, now so happy, would soon be shrieking in agony, or muttering the dying groan. I knew that those faces, now so smiling, would soon be distorted with pain, or crushed out of all semblance to humanity; and I was powerless to avert the catastrophe. All human force was powerless. Nothing but the hand of God, stretched forth in its Omnipotence, could avert it; and there was scarce time for a prayer for that; for such scenes last but a moment, though their memory endures for all time.

I remember well one instance of this kind. I was running on the R. & W. road, in the East. A great Sabbath-school excursion and picnic was gotten up, and I was detailed to run the train. The children of all the towns on the road were assembled; and, when we got to the grove in which the picnic was to be held, we had eighteen cars full as they could hold of the little ones, all dressed in their holiday attire, and brimful of mirth and gayety. I drew the train in upon the switch, out of the way of passing trains, let the engine cool down, and then went into the woods to participate in the innocent pleasures of the day. The children very soon found out that I was the engineer; and, as I liked children, and tried to amuse them, it was not long before I had a perfect troop at my heels, all laughing and chatting gaily to "Mr. Engineer," as they called me. They asked me a thousand questions about the engine; and one and all tried to extort a promise from me to let them ride with me, several declaring to me in the strictest confidence, their intention of becoming engineers, and their desire, above all things, that I should teach them how.

So the day passed most happily. The children swung in the swings, romped on the grass, picked the flowers, and wandered at their own sweet will all over the woods. A splendid collation was prepared for them, at which I, too, sat down, and liked to have made myself sick eating philopenas with the Billys, Freddys, Mollies, and Matties, whose acquaintance I had made that day, and whose pretty faces and sweet voices would urge me, in a style that I could not find heart to resist, to eat a philopena with them, or "just to taste their cake and see if it wasn't the goodest I ever saw."

But the day passed, as happy or unhappy days will, and time to start came round. We had some trouble getting so many little folks together, and it was only by dint of a great deal of whistling that all my load was collected. I was much amused to see some of the little fellows' contempt at others more timid than they, who shut their ears to the sound of the whistle, and ran to hide in the cars. Innumerable were the entreaties that I had from some of them, to let them ride on the engine, "only this once;" but I was inexorable. The superintendent of the road, who conducted the train, came to me as I was about ready to start, and told me that, as we had lost so much time collecting our load, I had better not stop at the first station, from whence we had taken but a few children, but push on to the next, where we would meet the down train, and send them back from there. Another reason for this was, that I had a heavy train, and it was a very bad stop to make, lying right in a valley, at the foot of two very heavy grades. So, off I started, the children in the cars swinging a dozen handkerchiefs from every window, all happy.

As I had good running-ground, and unless I hurried, was going to be quite late in reaching my journey's end, I pulled out, and let the engine do her best. So we were running very fast--about forty-eight miles an hour. Before arriving at the station at which I was not to stop, I passed through a piece of heavy wood, in the midst of which was a long curve. On emerging from the woods, we left the curve, and struck a straight track, which extended toward the station some forty rods from the woods. I sounded my whistle a half mile from the station, giving a long blow to signify my intention of passing without a stop, and never shut off; for I had a grade of fifty feet to the mile to surmount just as I passed the station, and I wanted pretty good headway to do it with eighteen cars. I turned the curve, shot out into sight of the station, and there saw what almost curdled the blood in my veins, and made me tremble with terror: a dozen cars, heavily laden with stone, stood on the side track, and the switch at this end was wide open! I knew it was useless, but I whistled for brakes, and reversed my engine. I might as well have thrown out a fish-hook and line, and tried to stop by catching the hook in a tree; for, running as I was, and so near the switch, a feather laid on the wheels would have stopped us just as soon as the brakes. I gave up all. I did not think for a moment of the painful death so close to me; I thought only of the load behind me. I thought of their sweet faces, which had so lately smiled on me, now to be distorted with agony, or pale in death. I thought of their lithe limbs, so full of animation, now to be crushed, and mangled, and dabbled in gore. I thought of the anxious parents watching to welcome their smiling, romping darlings home again; doomed, though, to caress only a mangled, crushed, and stiffened corpse, or else to see the fair promises of their young lives blasted forever, and to watch their darlings through a crippled life. 'Twas too horrible. I stood with stiffened limbs and eyeballs almost bursting from their sockets, frozen with terror, and stared stonily and fixedly, as we rushed on--when a man, gifted, it seemed, with superhuman strength and activity, darted across the track right in front of the train, turned the switch, and we were saved. I could take those little ones home in safety! I never run an engine over that road afterwards. The whole thing transpired in a moment; but a dozen such moments were worse than death, and would furnish terror and agony enough for a lifetime.

A COLLISION.

Of the various kinds of accidents that may befall a railroad-man, a collision is the most dreaded, because, generally, the most fatal. The man who is in the wreck, of matter that follows the terrible shock of two trains colliding, stands indeed but a poor chance to escape with either life or limb. No combination of metal or wood can be formed strong enough to resist the tremendous momentum of a locomotive at full or even half speed, suddenly brought to a stand-still; and when two trains meet the result is even more frightful, for the momentum is not only doubled, but the scene of the wreck is lengthened, and the amount of matter is twice as great. The two locomotives are jammed and twisted together, and the wrecked cars stretch behind, bringing up the rear of the procession of destruction. I, myself, never had a collision with another engine, but I did collide with the hind end of another train of forty cars, which was standing still, at the foot of a heavy grade, and into which I ran at about thirty-five miles an hour, and from the ninth car of which I made my way, for the engine had run right into it. The roof of the car was extended over the engine, and the sides had bulged out, and were on either side of me. The cars were all loaded with flour. The shock of the collision broke the barrels open and diffused the "Double Extra Genesee" all over; it mingled with the smoke and steam and floated all round, so that when, during the several minutes I was confined there, I essayed to breathe, I inhaled a compound of flour, dust, hot steam and choking smoke. Take it altogether, that car from which, as soon as I could, I crawled, was a little the hottest, most dusty, and cramped position into which I was ever thrown. To add to the terror-producing elements of the scene, my fireman lay at my feet, caught between the tender and the head of the boiler, and so crushed that he never breathed from the instant he was caught. He was crushed the whole length of his body, from the left hip to the right shoulder, and compressed to the thinness of my hand. In fact, an indentation was made in the boiler where the tender struck it, and his body was between boiler and tender! The way this accident happened was simple, and easily explained. The freight train which I was to pass with the express at the next station, broke down while on this grade. The breakage was trifling and could easily be repaired, so the conductor dispatched a man to the rear with orders, as the night was very dark and rainy, to go clear to the top of the grade, a full mile off, and swing his red light from the time he saw my head light, which he could see for a mile, as the track was straight, until I saw it and stopped, and then he was to tell me what was the matter, and I, of course, would proceed with caution until I passed the train. The conductor was thus particular, for he knew he was a green hand, and sent him back only because he could be spared, in case the train proceeded, better than the other man; and he was allowed only two brakemen. Well, with these apparently clear instructions, the brakeman went back to the top of the grade. I was then in sight; he gave, according to his own statement, one swing of the lamp, and it went out. He had no matches, and what to do he didn't know. He had in his pocket, to be sure, a half a dozen torpedoes, given to him expressly for such emergencies, but if he ever knew their use, he was too big a fool to use the knowledge when it was needed. He might, to be sure, have stood right in the track, and, by swinging his arms, have attracted my attention, for on dark nights and on roads where they hire cheap men, I generally kept a close lookout; and if I saw a man swinging his arms, and, apparently trying to see how like a madman he could act, I stopped quick, for there was no telling what was the matter. But this fellow was too big a fool for that even. He turned from me and made towards his own train, bellowing lustily, no doubt, for them to go ahead, but they were at the engine, and its hissing steam made too much noise for them to hear, even had he been within ten rods of them. But a mile away, that chance was pretty slim, and yet on it hung a good many lives. I came on, running about forty-five miles an hour, for the next station was a wood and water station, and I wanted time there.

COLLISION EXTRAORDINARY.

One morning, in the year 185-, I was running the Morning Express, or the Shanghae run, as it was called, on the H. road in New York state. The morning was foggy, damp and uncomfortable, and by its influence I was depressed so that I had the "blues" very badly; I felt weary and tired of the life I was leading, dull and monotonous always, save when varied by horror. I got to thinking of the poor estimate in which the class to which I belonged was held by the people generally, who, seated in the easy-cushioned seats of the train, read of battles far away--of deeds of heroism, performed amid the smoke and din of bloody wars,--and their hearts swell with pride,--they glow with gladness to think that their own species are capable of such daring acts, and all the while these very readers are skirting the edges of precipices, to look down which would appall the stoutest heart and make the strongest nerved man thrill with terror;--they are crossing deep, narrow gorges on gossamer-like bridges;--they are passing switches at terrific speed, where there is but an inch of space between smooth-rolling prosperity and quick destruction;--they are darting through dark, gloomy tunnels, which would be turned into graves for them, were a single stone to be detached from the roof in front of the thundering train;--they are dragged by a fiery-lunged, smoke-belching monster, in whose form are imprisoned death-dealing forces the most terrific. And mounted upon this fire-fiend sits the engineer, controlling its every motion, holding in his hand the thread of every life on the train, which a single act--a false move--a deceived eye, an instant's relaxation of thought or care on his part, would cut, to be united nevermore; and the train thunders on, crossing bridges, gullies and roads, passing through tunnels and cuts, and over embankments. The engineer, firm to his post, still regulates the breath of his steam-demon and keeps his eye upon the track ahead, with a thousand things upon his mind, the neglect or a wrong thought of either of which would run the risk of a thousand lives;--and these readers in the cars are still absorbed with the daring deeds of the Zouaves under the warm sun of Italy, but pay not a thought to the Zouave upon the engine, who every day rides down into the "valley of death" and charges a bridge of Magenta.

But to return to this dismal, foggy morning that I began to tell you of. It was with some such thoughts as these that I sat that morning upon my engine, and plunged into the fog-banks that hung over the river and the river-side. I sat so

"Absorbed in guessing, but no syllable expressing"

BURNING OF THE HENRY CLAY.

There is one reminiscence of my life as a "railroad man" that dwells in my memory with most terrible vividness, one that I often think of in daytime with shuddering horror; and in the night, in dreams of appalling terror, each scene is renewed in all the ghastliness of the reality, so that the nights when I dream of it become epochs of miserable, terrible helplessness.

It was on a clear, bright day in August. The fields were covered with the maturity of verdure, the trees wore their coronal of leaves perfected, the birds sang gaily, and the river sparkled in the sun; and I sat upon my engine, looking ahead mostly, but occasionally casting my eyes at the vessels on the river, that spread their white sails to the breeze and danced over the rippling waters, looking too graceful to be of earth. Among the craft upon the river I noticed the steamboat "Henry Clay;" another and a rival boat was some distance from it, and from the appearance of things I inferred that they were racing. I watched the two as closely as I could for sometime, and while looking intently at the "Clay," I saw a dark column of thick black smoke ascending from her, "amidships," just back of the smoke-pipe. At first I paid little heed to it, but soon it turned to fire, and the leaping flames, like serpents, entwined the whole of the middle portion of the boat in their terrible embrace. She was at once headed for the shore, and came rushing on, trailing the thick cloud of flame and smoke. She struck the shore near where I had stopped my train, for, of course, seeing such a thing about to happen, I stopped to enable the hands and passengers to render what assistance they could. The burning boat struck the shore by the side of a little wharf, right where the station of "Riverdale" now stands, and those who were upon the forward part of her decks escaped at once by leaping to the shore; but the majority of the passengers, including all of the women and children, were on the after-part of the boat, and owing to the centre of the boat being entirely enwrapped by the hissing flames, they were utterly unable to get to the shore. So they were cooped up on the extreme after-end of the boat, with the roaring fire forming an impassabl

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