"... Half lying on the table, face downward, dead by his own hand"
About 10:35, I asked Borroughs to allow me to go over to the hotel to get a cigar. I would be gone only a few minutes. He assented, and I slipped on my overcoat and went out. I wasn't gone over ten minutes, and as I stepped into the doorway to come upstairs on my return, I heard what sounded like a shot in the office. I flew upstairs two steps at a time, and never to my dying day will I forget the sight that met my gaze. Borroughs, whom I had left but a few moments before full of life and energy, was half lying on the table, face downwards, dead by his own hand. The blood was oozing from a jagged wound in his temple, and on the floor was the smoking pistol he had used. Fred Bennett, the chief despatcher, as pale as a ghost, was bending over him, while the two call boys were standing near paralyzed with fright. It was an intensely dramatic setting for a powerful stage picture, and my heart stood still for a minute as I contemplated the awful scene. Mr. Hebron, the division superintendent, came in from the outer office, and was transfixed with horror and amazement when he saw the terrible picture.
Bennett turned to me and said, "Bates, come here and help me lift poor Borroughs out of this chair."
Gently and carefully we laid him down on the floor and sent one of the badly frightened boys for a surgeon. Medical skill was powerless, however, and the spirit of honest Pat Borroughs had crossed the dark river to its final reckoning.
Work in the office was at a standstill on account of the tragic occurrence, but all of a sudden I heard Monte Carlo calling "DS" and using the signal "WK," which means "wreck." Bennett told me to sit down and take the trick until the second trick man could be called. I went over and sat down in the chair, still warm from the body of my late friend, and wiping his blood off the train sheet with my handkerchief, I answered.
It would be impossible to describe the state of my feelings as I first touched the key; I had completely lost track of trains, orders and everything else. However, I gradually pulled myself together, and got the hang of the road again, and then I learned how the wreck had occurred. About a minute after I went out, Borroughs had given a right-of-track order to an express freight from Monte Carlo to Johnsonville, and had told them to hurry up. Johnsonville is on the outskirts of Chaminade, and Borroughs had completely forgotten that the general superintendent's special had left there just five minutes before with a clean sweep order. That he had known of it was evident from the fact that it was recorded on the train sheet. Two minutes after the freight had left Monte Carlo, poor Pat realized he had at last made his mistake. He said not a word to any person, but quietly ordered out the wrecking outfit, and then reaching in the drawer he took out a revolver and—snuffed out his candle. He fell forward on the train sheet, as if to cover up with his lifeless body, the terrible blunder he had just made. Many other despatchers had made serious errors, and in a measure outlived them; but here was a man who had grown gray in the service of railroads, with never a bad mark against him. Day and night, in season and out, he had given the best of his brain and life to the service, and finally by one slip of the memory he had, as he thought, ruined himself; and, too proud to bear the disgrace, he killed himself. He was absolutely alone in the world and left none to mourn his loss save a large number of operators he had helped over the rough places of the profession.
The wreck was an awful one. The superintendent's son was riding on the engine, and he and the engineer and the fireman were mashed and crushed almost beyond recognition. The superintendent, his wife and daughter, and a friend, were badly bruised, but none of them seriously injured. The second trick man was not to be found immediately, so I worked until four o'clock, and the impression of that awful day will never leave me. Pat's personality was constantly before me in the shape of the blood stain on the train sheet. It was a long time before I recovered my equanimity.
The next afternoon we buried poor Pat under the snow, and the earth closed over him forever; and thus passed from life a man whose character was the purest, whose nature was the gentlest: honest and upright, I have never seen his equal in the profession or out. I often think if I had not gone over to the hotel that morning, the accident might have been averted, because, perhaps, I would have noticed the mistake in time to have prevented the collision. But, on the other hand, it is probable I would not have noticed it, because operators, not having the responsibility of the despatchers, rarely concentrate their minds intensely on what they are taking. A man will sit and copy by the hour with the greatest accuracy, and at the same time be utterly oblivious of the purport of what he has been taking. There can be no explanation as to why Pat forgot the special. It is one of those things that happen; that's all.
The rule of seniority was followed in the office, and in the natural sequence of events the night man got my job, I was promoted to the third trick—from twelve midnight until eight A. M.—and a new copy operator was brought in from Vining.
If any trick is easier than another it is the third, but none of them are by any means sinecures. When I was a copy operator I used to imagine it was an easy thing to sit over on the other side of the table and give orders, "jack up" operators, conductors and engineers, and incidentally haul some men over the coals every time I had to call them a few minutes; but when I reached the summit of an operator's ambition, and was assigned to a trick I found things very different. Copying with no responsibility was dead easy; but despatching trains I found about the stiffest job I had ever undertaken. I had to be on the alert with every faculty and every minute during the eight hours I was on duty. While the first and second trick men, have perhaps more train order work attached to them, the third is about on a par with them as far as actual labor is concerned, because, in addition to the regular train order work, a new train sheet has to be opened every night at twelve o'clock, which necessitates keeping two sheets until all the trains on the old one have completed their runs. There is also a consolidated train report to be made at this time, which is a re-capitulation of the movements of all trains for the preceding twenty-four hours, giving delays, causes thereof, accidents, cars hauled, etc. This is submitted to the division superintendent in the morning, and after he has perused and digested its contents he sends a condensed copy to the general superintendent. Many a man loses his job by a report against him on that train sheet.