Loch sought for words, but couldn’t remember what he wanted to say for some time.
“Hatch, your face looks kind-of-lop-sided—”
“Thank you, sir.” Hatch’s voice was piercingly sarcastic. “Which it ain’t wonderful, sir, considering I fell on it. And my mouth full of sand and things. Probably beetles.”
Loch stretched out a hand, slowly, and gasped at the pain.
“What’s happened?”
“Wreck, sir.” The lightning glared in the south-west, and Hatch bent over him, very gently wiping his face with a lump of cotton-waste.
“Wreck?”
“Yes. Young tree across the line; probably lightning, as it was all afire. Number eight, sir,—” Hatch’s voice broke,—“there ain’t enough of her left to make a penny toy.”
Loch lay still, trying to steady himself. “Is the line clear?”
“As far as I can see—Darn it, I can’t stop your ’ead bleeding—-Number eight, she kicked the tree off, and then fell on top of it herself. We must have flew like birds.”