The Face and the Mask by Robert Barr (100 books to read in a lifetime TXT) 📕

lips I again entered Sir John's room, this time without feeling any ill effects. My poor master was long beyond human help. There was evidently no one alive in the building except myself. Out in the street all was silent and dark. The gas was extinguished, but here and there in shops the incandescent lights were still weirdly burning, depending, as they did, on accumulators, and not on direct engine power. I turned automatically towards Cannon Street Station, knowing my way to it even if blindfolded, stumbling over bodies prone on the pavement, and in crossing the street I ran against a motionless 'bus, spectral in the fog, with dead horses lying in front, and their reins dangling from the nerveless hand of a dead driver. The ghostlike passengers, equally silent, sat bolt upright, or hung over the edge boards in attitudes horribly grotesque.


VII.--THE TRAIN WITH ITS TRAIL OF THE DEAD.

If a man's reasoning faculties were alert at such a time (I confess mine were dormant), he would have known there could be no trains at Cannon Street Station, for if there was not enough oxygen in the air to keep a man alive, or a gas-jet alight, there would certainly not be enough to enable an engine fire to burn, even if the engineer retained sufficient energy to attend to his task. At times instinct is better than reason, and it proved so in this case. The railway from Ealing in those days came under the City in a deep tunnel. It would appear that in this underground passage the carbonic acid gas would first find a resting-place on account of its weight; but such was not the fact. I imagine that a current through the tunnel brought from the outlying districts a supply of comparatively pure air that, for some minutes after the general disaster, maintained human life. Be this as it may, the long platforms of Cannon Street Underground Station presented a fearful spectacle. A train stood at the down platform. The electric lights burned fitfully. This platform was crowded with men, who fought each other like demons, apparently for no reason, because the train was already packed as full as it could hold. Hundreds were dead under foot, and every now and then a blast of foul air came along the tunnel, whereupon hundreds more would relax their grips, and succumb. Over their bodies the survivors fought, with continually thinning ranks. It seemed to me that most of those in the standing train were dead. Sometimes a desperate body of fighters climbed over those lying in heaps and, throwing open a carriage door, hauled out passengers already in, and took their places, gasping. Those in the train offered no resistance, and lay motionless where they were flung, or rolled helplessly under the wheels of the train. I made my way along the wall as well as I could to the engine, wondering why the train did not go. The engineer lay on the floor of his cab, and the fires were out.

Custom is a curious thing. The struggling mob, fighting wildly for places in the carriages, were so accustomed to trains arriving and departing that it apparently occurred to none of them that the engineer was human and subject to the same atmospheric conditions as themselves. I placed the mouthpiece between his purple lips, and, holding my own breath like a submerged man, succeeded in reviving him. He said that if I gave him the machine he would take out the train as far as the steam already in the boiler would carry it. I refused to do this, but stepped on the engine with him, saying it would keep life in both of us until we got out into better air. In a surly manner he agreed to this and started the train, but he did not play fair. Each time he refused to give up the machine until I was in a fainting condition with holding in my breath, and, finally, he felled me to the floor of the cab. I imagine that the machine rolled off the train as I fell and that he jumped after it. The remarkable thing is that neither of us needed the machine, for I remember that just after we started I noticed through the open iron door that the engine fire suddenly became aglow again, although at the time I was in too great a state of bewilderment and horror to understand what it meant. A western gale had sprung up--an hour too late. Even before we left Cannon Street those who still survived were comparatively safe, for one hundred and sixty-seven persons were rescued from that fearful heap of dead on the platforms, although many died within a day or two after, and others never recovered their reason. When I regained my senses after the blow dealt by the engineer, I found myself alone, and the train speeding across the Thames near Kew. I tried to stop the engine, but did not succeed. However, in experimenting, I managed to turn on the air brake, which in some degree checked the train, and lessened the impact when the crash came at Richmond terminus. I sprang off on the platform before the engine reached the terminal buffers, and saw passing me like a nightmare the ghastly trainload of the dead. Most of the doors were swinging open, and every compartment was jammed full, although, as I afterwards learned, at each curve of the permanent way, or extra lurch of the train, bodies had fallen out all along the line. The smash at Richmond made no difference to the passengers. Besides myself, only two persons were taken alive from the train, and one of these, his clothes torn from his back in the struggle was sent to an asylum, where he was never able to tell who he was; neither, as far as I know, did anyone ever claim him.



THE PREDICAMENT OF DE PLONVILLE.

This story differs from others in having an assortment of morals. Most stories have one moral; here are several. The moral usually appears at the end--in this case a few are mentioned at the beginning, so that they may be looked out for as the reading progresses. First: it is well for a man--especially a young man--to attend to his own business. Second: in planning a person's life for some little distance ahead, it will be a mistake if an allowance of ten per cent. at least, is not made for that unknown quantity--woman. Third: it is beneficial to remember that one man rarely knows everything. Other morals will doubtless present themselves, and at the end the cynically-inclined person may reflect upon the adage about the frying-pan and the fire.

Young M. de Plonville of Paris enjoyed a most enviable position. He had all the money he needed, which is quite a different thing from saying he had all the money he wanted. He was well educated, and spoke three languages, that is, he spoke his own well and the other two badly, but as a man always prides himself on what he is least able to do, De Plonville fancied himself a linguist. His courage in speaking English to Englishmen and German to Germans showed that he was, at least, a brave man. There was a great deal of good and even of talent in De Plonville. This statement is made at the beginning, because everyone who knows De Plonville will at once unhesitatingly contradict it. His acquaintances thought him one of the most objectionable young men in Paris, and naval officers, when his name was mentioned, usually gave themselves over to strong and unjustifiable language. This was all on account of De Plonville's position, which, although enviable had its drawbacks.

His rank in the navy was such that it entitled him to no consideration whatever, but, unfortunately for his own popularity, De Plonville had a method of giving force to his suggestions. His father was a very big man in the French Government. He was so big a man that he could send a censure to the commander of a squadron in the navy, and the commander dare not talk back. It takes a very big man indeed to do this, and that was the elder De Plonville's size. But then it was well known that the elder De Plonville was an easy-going man who loved comfort, and did not care to trouble himself too much about the navy in his charge, and so when there was trouble, young De Plonville got the credit of it; consequently, the love of the officers did not flow out to him.

Often young De Plonville's idiotic impetuosity gave color to these suspicions. For instance, there is the well-known Toulon incident. In a heated controversy young De Plonville had claimed that the firing of the French ironclads was something execrable, and that the whole fleet could not hold their own at the cannon with any ten of the British navy. Some time after, the naval officers learned that the Government at Paris was very much displeased with the inaccurate gun practice of the fleet, and the hope was expressed that the commander would see his way to improving it. Of course, the officers could do nothing but gnash their teeth, try to shoot better, and hope for a time to come when the Government then in power would be out, and they could find some tangible pretence for hanging young De Plonville from the yard-arm.

All this has only a remote bearing upon this story, but we now come to a matter on which the story sinks or swims. De Plonville had a secret-- not such a secret as is common in Parisian life, but one entirely creditable to him. It related to an invention intended to increase the efficiency of the French army. The army being a branch of the defences of his country with which De Plonville had nothing whatever to do, his attention naturally turned towards it. He spoke of this invention, once, to a friend, a lieutenant in the army. He expected to get some practical suggestions. He never mentioned it again to anyone.

"It is based on the principle of the umbrella," he said to his friend; "in fact, it was the umbrella that suggested it to me. If it could be made very light so as not to add seriously to the impedimenta at present carried by the soldier, it seems to me it would be exceedingly useful. Instead of being circular as an umbrella is, it must be oblong with sharp ends. It would have to be arranged so as to be opened and closed quickly, with the cloth thin, but impervious to water. When the army reached a river each soldier could open this, place it in the water, enter it with some care, and then paddle himself across with the butt-end of his gun, or even with a light paddle, if the carrying of it added but little to the weight, thus saving the building of temporary bridges. It seems to me such an invention ought to be of vast use in a forced march. Then at night it might be used as a sort of tent, or in a heavy rain it would form a temporary shelter. What do you think of the idea?" His friend had listened with half-closed eyes. He blew a whiff of cigarette smoke from his nostrils and answered:

"It is wonderful, De Plonville," he said drawlingly. "Its possibilities are vast--more so than even you appear to think. It would be very useful in our Alpine corps as well."

"I am glad you think so. But why there?"

"Well, you see, if the army reached a high peak looking into a deep valley, only to be reached over an inaccessible precipice, all