In the Permanent Way

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

Nothing could be done, save to telegraph back quick as kind nature could carry it: "Line blocked--up-mail also." Fateful words! The line blocked both ways, and not a signal for twenty miles! Half an hour of warning at the least, and nothing to be done; nothing save to accept the disaster!

"Bring up the relief-engine sharp, Smith," said the Traffic Superintendent at the terminus when, ere a minute was past, the hopeless news reached him. "Graham, run over for Dr. Westlake, for Harrison, too, if he's there; splints, bandages, dressers, and all that. Davies, wire back to the other end to send what they can from their reserve."

And so, swiftly as hands and brains could compass it, two more engines fled shrieking into the growing dusk of evening behind those two, the down-mail and the up-mail, coming nearer and nearer to each other on the single line.

"Twenty minutes since they started, about," said one man, who was standing with a watch in his hand, in curiously quiet tones. "It must be soon now; and there is a curve about the middle. I hope to God there is no friend of mine in either!"

"Royston's in the down," replied another studiously even voice. "He was going to see his wife. But the firsts are well back; it's the thirds, poor devils----" He paused, and the others nodded.

The thirds, doubtless! And in one of them, far forward, crouched Raheem, staring out into the calm dusk, absorbed in the horror of going back, going back to die before he had saved his own soul!

So, suddenly, through and above the rush and the roar and the rattle that he scarcely heard, came a new sound forcing him to listen. It was a quivering, clamorous, insistent whistle. It brought no recognition to his ignorance, or to the ignorance of those around him, but far back in the first-class carriages white faces peered out into the gloom, and foreign voices called to each other: "Danger whistle--what's up?" Still, it was a strange, disturbing sound with a strange echo. And was that an echo of the rush, and the roar, and the rattle? Raheem sat up quickly. Was it the end of all things? Why had they struck him--Who--Hoshyar! Then thought ended in a scream of pain.

"There is a man caught by the feet under that wheel," said Dr. Westlake not many minutes after, as he came out of the hideous pile of wreckage all grimed and smirched. "He is breathing yet, so have him out sharp. We may save him, but these others----" He passed on to seek work significantly.

And so Raheem, stunned and with both feet crushed to a jelly, was dug out; the only man left alive in the forward third-class carriage of the up-mail. He was still unconscious when it came to be his turn for the doctors in the crowded hospital. "Badly nourished," said Dr. Westlake, "but it is his only chance. Harrison, the eucalyptus sawdust, please; it is a good case for it, and we shall be short of dressings."

So two days afterwards Raheem, recovering from a slight concussion of the brain, found himself in a strangely comfortable bed with a curious hump of a thing over his feet under the coverlet. He did not know that there were no feet there; that they had both been amputated at the ankle, and that he was a cripple for life. And there was no reason why he should find it out, since the sawdust did its work without more ado, much to the doctor's delight, who, as he took Raheem's temperature, talked of first intents and septic dressings to his assistant. In fact, they were both so pleased that it came upon them by surprise one day, when Raheem, with clasped hands, asked when he was to die.