The Beast Within - Emile Zola [132]
‘Right! Let’s finish clearing the snow!’ said the guard.
For nearly an hour the train had been at a standstill, and the passengers were becoming increasingly distressed. Carriage windows kept being opened and voices demanded why the train wasn’t moving. People were beginning to panic; there were shouts and tears and a feeling of mounting hysteria.
‘No, we’ve cleared enough,’ Jacques insisted. ‘Get back in and leave it to me.’
Jacques and Pecqueux had climbed back on to the footplate. As soon as the two guards had returned to their vans, Jacques opened the cylinder taps. The deafening jet of hot steam quickly melted the remaining blocks of snow that were still stuck between the rails. He put the engine into reverse and moved the train slowly backwards for about three hundred metres in order to get a good run. He built up a huge fire, raising pressure to beyond the permitted level, and launched La Lison with all her weight, and the full weight of the whole train behind her, into the wall of snow which blocked their way. She hit the snow with a sickening thud, like a woodcutter striking his axe against a tree. Her sturdy cast-iron frame shuddered. Still she could not get through. She came to a stop, with steam gushing from everywhere, shaking from the impact. Jacques had to repeat the operation twice, drawing the train back and then running it into the wall of snow to try to clear a passage. Each time, La Lison braced herself and valiantly charged forward, snorting like an angry giant. Eventually she seemed to recover her breath, flexed her steel muscles for one last effort and finally managed to force her way through. The train followed slowly behind her through the opening between the two walls of snow. She was free!
‘See,’ muttered Pecqueux. ‘She’s not so bad, after all!’
Jacques couldn’t see a thing. He took off his goggles to wipe them. His heart was beating fast, and he no longer felt the cold. Then he remembered that there was another deep cutting ahead, about three hundred metres from La Croix-de-Maufras. The wind would be blowing directly into it, and the snow would be very deep. He had a sudden premonition that this was the reef on which they were destined to founder. He leaned out. In the distance, round one last bend, appeared the cutting, a straight line like a long trench, completely blocked with snow. It was broad daylight. The snow continued to fall. Everything shone white as far as the eye could see.
La Lison proceeded steadily on her way, encountering no further obstacles. As a precaution, Jacques had left the lights burning at both the front and the rear of the train. The white headlamp at the base of the chimney outshone the light of day like the glaring eye of a Cyclops. La Lison was nearing the cutting, her eye wide open and staring ahead. Suddenly she seemed to be breathing in little short gasps, like an unwilling horse. She began to shake violently and lurch from side to side. It was only the firm hand of her driver that kept her moving forward. He kicked open the firebox door for the fireman to see to the fire, and now, in place of the comet’s tail that had blazed out into the night, a wreath of thick, black smoke darkened the pale, wintry sky.
Still La Lison advanced. She was about to enter the cutting. On either side the snow was piled high, and the line ahead had completely disappeared from view. It was like a pool of still water in a stream, with the snow filling it to the very top. In she went, running forward another fifty metres or so, puffing and panting for all she was worth, but getting gradually slower and slower. The snow that she was pushing in front of her formed a barrier that built up and towered