Death of a Stranger - Anne Perry [158]
Monk waved at the coal wagon again and moved toward it.
“You can’t!” Baltimore screamed at him, shrinking back against the carriage wall.
“I damn well can!” Monk yelled. “And so can you! Come on!”
Baltimore was plainly terrified of the thought of struggling to climb up the wagon into the loose coal and trying to crawl on hands and knees over it in the teeth of the choking steam as the train careered over the rails, growing faster and faster, lurching from one side to the other. The long slope was steepening ahead of them, and Monk could see the sweep beyond and down to the viaduct as if it were in his mind’s eye.
He swiveled around to face Baltimore. “Is there anything else due on this line?” he shouted, driving his hand the other way to illustrate his meaning.
Baltimore put his hand up to his face, now ashen gray. He nodded very slightly. Like a man in a nightmare, he stepped forward, swayed, righted himself, and put his hands onto the coal wagon. It was a more powerful and terrible answer than any words could have been.
Monk followed after him, scrambling up onto the rough lumps of coal and feeling the wind batter him and the wagon’s bucket around like a ship at sea.
The stoker turned, shovel in his hand. His mouth fell open at the sight. Baltimore, his fair hair streaming back, his face fixed in a grimace of terror, was clambering over the coal toward the engine. A yard behind him, Monk followed, more agile.
The stoker threw down his shovel and lunged toward Baltimore.
Baltimore screamed something at him, but the sound was torn from his lips.
The stoker came forward, hands outstretched.
The train was going ever faster as the incline steepened.
Monk made a desperate effort to claw himself forward and catch up with Baltimore. The coal rolled underneath him. A large lump unsettled and fell sideways, and he slid after it, narrowly missing injuring his shoulder against the mound above.
He heaved himself up, disregarding his torn hands, and threw his weight forward.
Baltimore was almost on top of the stoker.
Monk yelled at him, but his voice was drowned in the roar and crash of steel on steel and the howl of the wind.
Baltimore fell forward and the stoker went down with him.
Monk hauled himself up and swung around to land on his feet.
The brakeman was staring at him, his face streaming sweat as he struggled with the lever and felt it yield. The driver was coming toward them, waving his arms.
Suddenly, Monk knew what to do. He had done it before, hurling his weight and his strength against the brakes, and feeling them rip out just as they were now. He knew exactly what it was, and the memory of it turned him sick with terror. Only then he had been in the rear wagon of the train, and the impact had thrown him off, to roll over and over, bruised and bleeding down the slope but alive—while the others died. That was the guilt that stabbed through his mind with pain—he had survived, and they had not—not one of them. They had all been crushed in that inferno of flame and steel.
“Stoke!” he yelled with all the power of his lungs. He swung his arms. He understood now what they must do, the only chance. “The brakes are gone! They’re no use! Go faster!”
Behind him, Baltimore and the stoker were struggling to their feet. He swiveled around. “Stoke!” he mouthed to Baltimore. “Faster!” He swung his arms.
Baltimore looked terrified. The stoker made to move forward and catch Monk and restrain him physically. Baltimore charged at him. The two of them rocked and swayed as the train roared through the gathering dusk, pitching like a ship in a storm.
Monk picked up the fallen shovel and started to heave more coal into the boiler. It was already yellow hot at the heart, and the blast from it scorched his face, but he threw in more, and then more. They had to pass over the viaduct before the other train came; it was the only chance. Nothing on earth could slow them now.
Baltimore was shouting behind him, waving his arms like a windmill.