Brown of Moukden: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War

by Herbert Strang

The men sprang from their seats and were aligned in a twinkling.

"Sergeant, signal the Cossacks that a train is in the hands of the enemy, and going eastward. Men, follow me."

He led the way at a breakneck pace down the hill towards the spot where they had left the empty troop train. Three minutes brought them within sight of the train; at that moment the engine whistled and began to puff along. The officer shouted, waving his hand; the engine-driver saw his urgent gesture, and shut off steam. In another ten minutes sixty breathless men, heated with their headlong scamper, were on board the train; the lieutenant was beside the driver; and the engine was steaming as rapidly as the crazy irregular track permitted towards the main line.

Arrived at the junction, Lieutenant Potugin himself leapt down and switched the points close. The pointsman had apparently been startled by the crash and run off to inform the guardsmen at the nearest block-house. The troop in was just moving forward to cross the points when a tremendous rumbling was heard from the direction of Imien-po, moment by moment increasing. The engine of the troop train was already on the main line. But the lieutenant, standing with his hand on the switch and looking down the track, was horrified at what he saw rapidly approaching.

"Reverse the engine!" he shouted; "for God's sake reverse the engine!"

The driver with frenzied haste threw over his reversing lever and put on more steam; the engine stopped, moved slowly backward; it had reached safety by only a few inches when a goods train came thundering past at furious speed, and disappeared in the direction of the bridge. As it flashed by, Lieutenant Potugin was almost sure that the engine had neither driver nor fireman. Startled though he was by the hair's-breadth escape from destruction, he immediately recovered his presence of mind. Setting the points, he ran to his retreating train, clambered into the cab, and before the driver had pulled himself together the lieutenant seized the lever, reversed the engine, and drove the train on to the main line, then sprang down, unlocked the points, and in two minutes was running the train backward towards Imien-po.

The engine was a powerful Baldwin; the train though long was nearly empty; it gathered way, and with the regulator fully open had soon attained a high speed. But the engine was at the wrong end; it was difficult to see ahead. The lieutenant was now outside the engine, hanging on to the rail, and bending outwards in order to get a clear view down the line. Half-way to Imien-po he caught sight of a trolley approaching. He called to the driver to shut off steam and apply the brakes. The man working the trolley stopped the moment he caught sight of the train, and seemed in doubt whether to go back or to remain. The train had almost come to rest; the officer bellowed a few words to the trolley-man; he sprang to the ground, promptly tipped the trolley off the track and over the embankment, and, running to the engine, climbed up beside Potugin, the train still moving. Again the brakes were released and the regulator opened, and as the train forged ahead the trolley-man explained in a few words to the lieutenant what had occurred.

At Imien-po a few minutes' stop was made while appliances for repairing the line were hastily brought on board and a number of skilled platelayers taken up. The opportunity was taken to shunt several of the carriages on to a siding. The engine could not be transferred to the front of the train without a serious waste of time, and every second was precious. A fresh start was made; greatly lightened, the train made fine running for some miles. Then the lieutenant, using his glass, saw the smoke of a train about five miles down the line. As he watched it, the smoke ceased; the train must have stopped, for the gradient was rising. A few minutes more and the runaway came in sight. But the fireman, stooping from his side of the engine, observed with his trained eyes that a portion of the track had been torn up, and steam was shut off and the brakes applied only just in time to avert a disaster. Jumping from the train, half a dozen platelayers hurried with their tools behind the engine, and, spurred by the voice of the officer and helped by his men, in an incredibly short space of time they had wrenched up some rails from the track already covered, and bridged the gap at the other end.

Slowly and carefully the train was run over the shaky metals only half-secured to the sleepers. When the danger point was passed, the driver opened the valve and the engine pushed along at full speed. It was to be a trial, not only of speed between the two magnificent engines, but of wits between the two leaders: between the ingenuity of the pursued in obstructing the progress of the pursuer, and of the pursuer in overcoming the obstacles raised by the pursued. It was more; it was a competition in daring and the readiness to take risks. The track was hilly, winding, roughly laid; not intended for, wholly unsuited to, great speed; with steep gradients and sharp curves never rounded by the regular drivers of the line but with caution. Over this track the two trains were leaping at a pace unknown on the Siberian railway—a pace that would have turned the chief engineer's hair white with dismay. On the one train Jack Brown, on the other Lieutenant Potugin, had to think out their decisions, or rather to flash them unthought, clinging to the outer rail of a rattling, swaying, jolting, throbbing engine threatening at any moment to jump the rails, with the noise of escaping steam, the roaring of the furnace heaped to the mouth with fuel, the whistle constantly sounding to warn off any obstruction ahead, small though the chances were that the signal, if needed, could be heard and acted on in time. Accident apart, the race would be to the coolest head and the quickest wit. On the one side the stake was life or death. Into whose hand would fortune give it?

CHAPTER XXV