Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/108

90 The train bowled through a cutting. Heads leaned from every window. Nothing more unusual was visible. The racket continued, and out of it slipped words that could be grasped.

"Stop the train! Stop the train!"

The plausible explanation sprang at cveryone. Someone had fallen out. Back on the line must lie a still form. But a calmer mind reasoned. In time of war, its logic ran, troop trains, squeezed into schedules with difficulty, don't stop and block things for the carelessness of a single man. Such a catastrophe would be treated by sending back word from the next station. No, the calm reasoning went on, it must be something far more serious than that. We believed it when word came along that The Great wanted the train stopped. We could hit on only one explanation. The train must have broken in two. An express thundered behind us. We were, we learned later, to get out of its way at the next stop, a few miles ahead. The fate of that motionless string of cars, packed with, perhaps, half our companions, was terrible to contemplate. So an officer and several men, crawled forward over a string of goods vans to the locomotive. The execution to their clothing was appalling. But they persuaded the driver to stop the train, although he seemed in danger of a fit before he yielded, shouting things about the express that our amateur interpreters had difficulty with. They gestured rather more than he did and got their way. The train stopped. The engine driver animated himself volubly. He saw that the train had not broken in two. He sprang to the throttle, threw it open, dashed us into the station on a side track, and pointed to the express which roared in a little after his.

Colonel Doyle, Majors Johnson and Wanviy, and the train interpreter hurried to the engine, while we waited to learn the truth. But there came the answer himself across