“The guard’s break was knocked all to shivers, of course, but he had jumped out and escaped with a bruise or two; but not so poor Joe, as I soon saw; for when I asked about him, they showed me something lying under a tarpaulin which a doctor was just putting straight again. But of all things that struck me on the day of that accident there was nothing like the face of the poor young fellow as had the management of the signal. I never saw a face so pale and ghastly and frightened before. But there let it rest. I suppose he was frightened and confused at seeing the two trains coming in together; and as better men have done afore now, he lost his nerve.
“Ever kill anyone? What! run him down? Yes, one. Shocking thing, too, and one I don’t much like talking about; but then, it was not my fault, and I did my best to save him: but then, what can you do when you’re going nearly a mile a minute?
“That was a shunting case, that was, with a goods train, at a little station, past which we on the express down used to go at the rate I said just now. This goods up used to stop there, and be picking up and setting down nearly every day when we passed. I used to give a whistle, and then it was touch and go, and we were thundering along and past them. But one day as we were running along the straight I could see the guard signalling his engine-driver to back a bit to run into a siding, as it came out at the inquest, for some empties, and to do this, what does he do but step on to the down line, and right in front of my train.
“Now all he had to do was to step off again, for he had plenty of time, and keep in the six-foot till we were gone by. I set the whistle going, and I saw his driver waving his hand to him, and a man at the station seemed to me to be shouting; and all this I noticed as we tore along; and then he did not move, while I felt my blood creep like, as I leaned round the screen, holding on to the handle; and just as if he could hear me I shouted to him to take care as I wrenched the handle and signed my stoker to grind down the break.
“But there, bless you, it was impossible to stop, and though I felt no shock, it seems to me that my heart did, and when we pulled up in a wonderful short time, my stoker and I were looking at one another in a queer scared way, for the buffer had caught the poor fellow and driven him along; then the wheels had him, and he was tossed at last into the six-foot to lie with his life-blood soaking into the gravel.
“I’m a big, stout fellow, but as I ran back towards the station I felt sick, and my head was in a whirl; while I seemed to be hearing the thundering-by of the train, the shriek of the whistle, the grinding and screeching of the braked wheels, and seeing that poor fellow torn to pieces. And then I got close up to the spot where there was something lying, and others were coming up to it, all feeling the same creeping, horrified sensation as they trembled and gathered up the pieces of what had a minute before been one of themselves.
“What ought I to have done? Gone back to my engine, helped the men from the station, thrown sand and ballast over the horrible stains? What ought I to have done? I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what I did do. I went and sat down on the bank beside the line, and cried like a great girl.
“But no one saw it, for I had my hands over my face, and them down on my knees, while a gentleman from my train, thinking I was faint, gave me some brandy from his flask, and then I went back to my engine and finished my journey.
“No fault of mine, you know, and though in the heat of a fight a man may perhaps strike down another without feeling any sorrow, yet to cause the death of a fellow servant, when in the ordinary daily work of one’s life, had something very awful in it, and it was a long time before I could run down past that station without feeling my heart beat faster, and a strange shuddering sensation come over me.
“I could tell you some strange stories of our life, sir, not one of the easiest, but I think we’ll stop here for to-day.”