CHAPTER III
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.