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By Root 1442 0

Saint-Romain, the steepest gradient on the line. Jacques needed to concentrate on his driving again, knowing that it would need a real effort to get up this incline, which was difficult enough even in fine weather. With his hand on the reversing wheel, he watched the telegraph poles go by, trying to calculate how quickly the train was moving. They were rapidly losing speed; La Lison was beginning to struggle, and he could feel the increasing resistance of the snow against the snowplough. He stretched out his foot and opened the firebox door again. Pecqueux, still half asleep, knew what he had to do and immediately started heaping extra coal on the fire in order to increase the pressure. The firebox door was by now red hot, sending a purplish glow about their legs, although neither of them felt its heat, as the surrounding air was so bitterly cold. At a nod from his driver, Pecqueux opened the damper3 in the ash-pan, which increased the draught to the fire. The needle on the pressure gauge had quickly risen to ten atmospheres,4 and La Lison was working flat out. At one point, Jacques noticed that the water level was falling and, although he knew it would reduce the pressure, he had to turn the injector on. Pressure was soon restored; the engine snorted and spat, like a horse being driven too hard, lunging and rearing so alarmingly that you might have imagined you could hear her bones cracking. Jacques was calling her all sorts of names, as if she were an old and ailing wife whom he no longer loved as he had done before.

‘She’ll never make it, the lazy thing!’ he muttered through clenched teeth. Normally when he was driving, he didn’t speak.

Pecqueux, who was still barely awake, looked at him in amazement. What had he suddenly got against La Lison? Wasn’t this the good old engine they had both worked with for so long? She had always done everything that was asked of her, pulling away from stations so easily that it was a pleasure to drive her, and such a good steamer that she saved them a tenth of their coal between Paris and Le Havre! When a locomotive had a valve gear as good as hers, with perfect timing that reduced the expenditure of steam as if by magic, you could forgive her all sorts of other failings, as you would a crotchety wife, provided she was a good housekeeper and didn’t spend too much money. Admittedly, La Lison consumed too much oil. So what? You simply oiled her. That was all there was to it!

In fact it was oil that Jacques was complaining about at that very moment.

‘She’ll never make it unless we give her some oil,’ he was saying.

Whereupon, he did something he had not done more than three times in his whole career; he took his oilcan and went to oil La Lison as she continued on her way. He climbed over the side of the cab on to the running plate and walked the length of the boiler. It was a very dangerous thing to do; his feet kept slipping on the narrow metal plate, which was wet from the snow. He couldn’t see what he was doing, and the force of the wind threatened to blow him away like a wisp of straw. La Lison steamed forward into the night with Jacques clinging to her side, being jolted and jarred as she ploughed her way through the immense covering of snow. He reached the buffer beam at the front of the locomotive and crouched over the lubricator of the right-hand cylinder, desperately trying to fill it, while clinging to the handrail with his other hand. Then, like an insect, he had to crawl round to the other side to oil the left-hand cylinder. When he got back to the footplate he was exhausted and as white as a sheet; he had come within a whisker of getting himself killed.

‘The lousy bitch!’ he muttered.

Pecqueux was amazed at the way Jacques had suddenly become so annoyed with La Lison. He couldn’t help laughing and ventured his old joke: ‘You should’ve let me do it. That’s my speciality, oiling the ladies!’

By now he had woken up a little and was standing in his customary position, keeping a lookout on the left-hand side of the line. Normally his eyesight was very good, better in fact