And that night as the train was leaping out of the darkness toward the lights of the great city, racing toward its haven, rushing like a falling comet, some one blundered. The world called it a disaster; the official statement, an accident, an open switch; the press called it an outrage. Pessimism called it fate—stern mother of the unsavory. Optimism called it Providence. At all events, the train jammed shut like a closing telescope. Undiluted Hades was very prevalent for over an hour. There were groans, screams, prayers—all the jargon of those about to precipitately return from whence they came. It was not a pleasant scene. Ghouls were there. But mercy, charity, and great courage were also there. And Garrison was there.
Fate, the unsavory, had been with him. He had been thrown clear at the first crash; thrown through his sleeping-berth window. Physically he was not very presentable. But he fought a good fight against the flames and the general chaos.
One of the forward cars was a caldron of flame. A baby's cry swung out from among the roar and smart of the living hell. There was a frantic father and a demented mother. Both had to be thrown and pounded into submission; held by sheer weight and muscle.
There were brave men there that night, but there was no sense in giving two lives for one. Death was reaping more than enough. They would try to save the “kid,” but it looked hopeless. Was it a girl? Yes, and an only child? She must be pinned under a seat. The fire would be about opening up on her. Sure—sure they would see what could be done. Anyway, the roof was due to smash down. But they'd see. But there were lots of others who needed a hand; others who were not pinned under seats with the flames hungry for them.
But Garrison had swung on to a near-by horse-cart, jammed into rubber boots, coats, and helmet, tying a wet towel over nose and mouth. And as some stared, some cursed, and some cheered feebly, he smashed his way through the smother of flame to the choking screams of the child.
The roof fell in. A great crash and a spouting fire of flame. An eternity, and then he emerged like one of the three prophets from the fiery furnace. Only he was not a Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego. He was not fashioned from providential asbestos. He was vulnerable. They carried him to a near-by house. His head had been wonderfully smashed by the falling roof. His eyebrows and hair were left behind in the smother of flame. He was fire-licked from toe to heel. He was raving. But the child was safe. And that wreck and that rescue went down in history.
For weeks Garrison was in the hospital. It was very like the rehearsal of a past performance. He was completely out of his head. It was all very like the months he put in at Bellevue in the long ago, before he had experienced the hunger-cancer and compromised with honesty.
And again there came nights when doctors shook their heads and nurses looked grave; nights when it was understood that before another dawn had come creeping through the windows little Billy Garrison would have crossed the Big Divide; nights when the shibboleths of a dead-and-gone life were even fluttering on his lips; nights when names but not identities fought with one another for existence; fought for birth, for supremacy, and “Sue” always won; nights when he sat up in bed as he had sat up in Bellevue long ago, and with tense hands and blazing eyes fought out victory on the stretch. Horrible, horrible nights; surcharged with the frenzy and unreality of a nightmare.
And one of his audience who seldom left the narrow cot was a man who had come to look for a friend among the wreck victims; come and found him not. He had chanced to pass Garrison's cot. And he had remained.
Came a night at last when stamina and hope and grit won the long, long fight. The crisis was turned. The demons, defeated, who had been fighting among themselves for the possession of Garrison's mind, reluctantly gave it back to him. And, moreover, they gave it back—intact. The part they had stolen that night in the Hoffman House was replaced.