The Iron Horse

“I think mother is dead. Oh, take us out, dear father, take us out,—quick!”

Again John Marrot bowed himself to the task, and exerting his colossal strength to the utmost, continued to tear up and cast aside the broken planks and beams. The people around him, now thoroughly aroused to the importance of haste, worked with all their might, and, ere long, they reached the floor of the carriage, where they found mother and child jammed into a corner and arched over by a huge mass of broken timber.

It was this mass that saved them, for the rest of the carriage had been literally crushed into splinters.

Close beside them was discovered the headless trunk of a young man, and the dead body of a girl who had been his companion that day.

Gertie was the first taken out. Her tender little frame seemed to have yielded to the pressure and thus escaped, for, excepting a scratch or two, she was uninjured.

John Marrot did not pause to indulge in any expression of feeling. He sternly handed her to the bystanders, and went on powerfully but carefully removing the broken timbers and planks, until he succeeded in releasing his wife. Then he raised her in his arms, staggered with her to the neighbouring bank and laid her down.

Poor Mrs Marrot was crushed and bruised terribly. Her clothes were torn, and her face was so covered with blood and dust as to be quite unrecognisable at first. John said not a word, but went down on his knees and began carefully to wipe away the blood from her features, in which act he was assisted by the drenching rain. Sad though his case was, there was no one left to help him. The cries of the unfortunate sufferers still unextricated, drew every one else away the moment the poor woman had been released.

Ere long the whole scene of the catastrophe was brilliantly illuminated by the numerous fires which were kindled out of the débris, to serve as torches to those who laboured might and main for the deliverance of the injured. Troops of people from the surrounding district quickly made their appearance on the scene, and while some of these lent effective aid in the work of rescue, others brought blankets, water, and spirits, to cover and comfort those who stood so much in need of help. As the wounded were got out, and laid upon the banks of the line, several surgeons busied themselves in examining and binding their wounds, and the spot bore some resemblance to a battle-field after the tide of war had passed over it. Seventeen dead and one hundred and fifty injured already lay upon the wet ground, while many of the living, who went about with blanched, solemn faces, yet with earnest helpful energy, were bruised and cut badly enough to have warranted their retiring from the spot, and having their own cases considered. Meanwhile a telegram had been sent to Clatterby, and, in a short time, a special train arrived with several of the chief men of the line, and a gang of a hundred surface-men to clear away the wreck and remove the dead and injured.

Many of those unhurt had made singularly narrow escapes. One man was seated in a third-class carriage when the concussion took place. The side of the carriage fell out, and he slid down on the rails just as the other carriages and vans piled up on the place he had left, killing or wounding all his fellow-travellers. Beneath the rubbish next the tender, a mother and child were buried and several others. All were dead save the mother and child when the men began to dig them out and before they succeeded in their labours the mother had died also, but the child survived. In another carriage, or rather under it, a lad was seen lying with a woman’s head crushed down on his breast and an infant beside her. They had to saw the carriage asunder before these could be extricated. The woman died almost immediately on being released, but the lad and infant were uninjured. Elsewhere a young girl, who had attracted attention by the sweet expression of her face, had been strangled, and her face rendered perfectly black. In another case the surface-men attempted to extricate a woman, by sawing the broken carriage, under which she lay, but the more they sawed the more did the splinters appear to cling round her, and when at last they got her out she was dead, while another passenger in the same carnage escaped without a scratch.

We would not prolong a painful description which may, perhaps, be thought too long already—yet within certain limits it is right that men should know what their fellows suffer. After all the passengers had been removed to the special train—the dead into vans and horse-boxes and the living into carriages—the surface-men set to work to clear the line.

Poor Mrs Tipps was among the rescued, and, along with the others, was sent on to the Clatterby station by the special train.

While the people were being placed in this train, John Marrot observed Edwin Gurwood in the crowd. He chanced to be at Clatterby when the telegram of the accident arrived, and ran down in the special train to render assistance.

“I’m glad to see you, sir,” he said in a low, earnest voice. “My mate, Bill Garvie, must be badly hurt, for he’s nowhere to be found. He must be under the wreck somewheres. I wouldn’t leave the spot till I found him in or’nary circumstances; but my Mary—”

He stopped abruptly.

“I hope Mrs Marrot is not hurt?” said Edwin anxiously.

John could not reply at first. He shook his head and pointed to a carriage near at hand.

“She’s there, sir, with Gertie.”

“Gertie!” exclaimed Edwin.

“Ay, poor thing, Gertie is all right, thank the good Lord for that; but—”

Again he stopped, then with an effort continued—

“I couldn’t quit them, you know, till I’ve got ’em safe home. But my mind will be easy, Mr Gurwood, if you’ll look after Bill. We was both throw’d a good way from the ingine, but I couldn’t rightly say where. You’ll not refuse—”

“My dear Marrot,” said Edwin, interrupting him, and grasping his hand, “you may rely on me. I shall not leave the ground until he is found and cared for.”

“Thank ’ee, sir, thank ’ee,” said John, in something of his wonted hearty tone, as he returned Edwin’s squeeze of the hand, and hastened to the train, which was just ready to start.

Edwin went at once to the spot where the surface-men were toiling at the wreck in the fitful light of the fires, which flared wildly in the storm and, as they had by that time gathered intense heat, bid defiance to the rain. There were several passengers, who had just been extricated, lying on the ground, some motionless, as if dead, others talking incoherently. These he looked at in passing, but Garvie was not among them. Leaving them under the care of the surgeons, who did all that was possible in the circumstances for their relief, he ran and joined the surface-men in removing the broken timbers of a carriage, from beneath which groans were heard. With some difficulty a woman was extricated and laid tenderly on the bank. Just then Edwin observed a guard, with whom he was acquainted, and asked him if the fireman had yet been found.

“Not yet sir, I believe,” said the man. “They say that he and the driver were flung to one side of the line.”

Edwin went towards the engine, and, judging the probable direction and distance to which a man might be thrown in such an accident, went to a certain spot and sought carefully around it in all directions. For some time he sought in vain, and was on the point of giving up in despair, when he observed a cap lying on the ground. Going up to it, he saw the form of a man half-concealed by a mass of rubbish. He stooped, and, raising the head a little, tried to make out the features, but the light of the fires did not penetrate to the spot. He laid him gently down again, and was about to hasten away for assistance when the man groaned and said faintly, “Is that you, Jack?”

“No, my poor fellow,” said Edwin, stooping down. “Are you badly hurt? I am just going to fetch help to—”

“Mr Gurwood,” said the man, interrupting, “you don’t seem to know me! I’m Garvie, the fireman. Where am I? Surely there is something wrong with my left arm. Oh! I remember now. Is Jack safe? And the Missis and Gertie? Are they—”

“Don’t exert yourself,” interrupted Edwin, as Will attempted to rise. “You must keep quiet until I fetch a doctor. Perhaps you’re not much hurt, but it is well to be careful. Will you promise me to be still?”

“All right sir,” said Will, promptly.

Edwin hastened for assistance, and in a short time the fireman was carried to a place of comparative shelter and his wounds examined.

Almost immediately after the examination Edwin knelt at his side, and signed to those around him to retire.

“Garvie,” he said, in a low kind voice, “I’m sorry to tell you that the doctors say you must lose your left arm.”

Will looked intently in Edwin’s face.

“Is there no chance of savin’ it?” he asked earnestly; “it might never be much to speak of, sir, but I’d rather run some risk than lose it.”

Edwin shook his head. “No,” he said sadly, “they tell me amputation must be immediate, else your life may be sacrificed. I said I would like to break it to you, but it is necessary, my poor fellow, that you should make up your mind at once.”

“God’s will be done,” said Will in a low voice; “I’m ready, sir.”

The circumstances did not admit of delay. In a few minutes the fireman’s left arm was amputated above the elbow, the stump dressed, and himself laid in as sheltered a position as possible to await the return of the train that was to convey the dead and wounded, more recently extricated, to Clatterby.

When that train arrived at the station it was touching to witness the pale anxious faces that crowded the platform as the doors were opened and the dead and sufferers carried out; and to hear the cries of agony when the dead were recognised, and the cries of grief, strangely, almost unnaturally, mingled with joy, when some who were supposed to have been killed were carried out alive. Some were seen almost fondling the dead with a mixture of tender love and abject despair. Others bent over them with a strange stare of apparent insensibility, or looked round on the pitying bystanders inquiringly, as if they would say, “Surely, surely, this cannot be true.” The sensibilities of some were stunned, so that they moved calmly about and gave directions in a quiet solemn voice, as if the great agony of grief were long past, though it was painfully evident that it had not yet begun, because the truth had not yet been realised.

Among those who were calm and collected, though heart-stricken and deadly pale, was Loo Marrot. She had been sent to the station by her father to await the arrival of the train, with orders to bring Will Garvie home. When Will was carried out and laid on the platform alive, an irresistible gush of feeling overpowered her. She did not give way to noisy demonstration, as too many did, but knelt hastily down, raised his head on her knee, and kissed his face passionately.

“Bless you, my darling,” said Will, in a low thrilling voice, in which intense feeling struggled with the desire to make light of his misfortune; “God has sent a cordial that the doctors haven’t got to give.”

“O William!” exclaimed Loo, removing the hair from his forehead—but Loo could say no more.

“Tell me, darling,” said Garvie, in an anxious tone, “is father safe, and mother, and Gertie?”

“Father is safe, thank God,” replied Loo, with a choking voice, “and Gertie also, but mother—”

“She is not dead?” exclaimed the fireman.

“No, not dead, but very very much hurt. The doctors fear she may not survive it, Will.”

No more was said, for at that moment four porters came up with a stretcher and placed Garvie gently upon it. Loo covered him with her shawl, a piece of tarpaulin was thrown over all, and thus he was slowly borne away to John Marrot’s home.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Results of the Accident

Years passed away—as years inevitably must—and many important changes took place in the circumstances and the management of the Grand National Trunk Railway, but the results of that terrible accident did not quickly pass away. As we have said, it cost Will Garvie an arm, and nearly cost Mrs Marrot her life. We have much pleasure, however, in recording, that it did not make the full charge in this matter. A small, a very small modicum of life was left in that estimable woman, and on the strength of that, with her wonted vigour of character and invincibility of purpose, she set to work to draw out, as it were, a new lease of life. She succeeded to admiration, so much so, in fact, that but for one or two scars on her countenance, no one could have known that she had come by an accident at all. Bob Marrot was wont to say of her, in after years, that, “if it had bin his mother who had lost an arm instead of Will Garvie, he was convinced that her firmness, amountin’ a’most to obstinacy, of purpose, would have enabled her to grow on a noo arm as good as the old ’un, if not better.” We need scarcely add that Bob was an irreverent scamp!