The Beast Within - Emile Zola [186]
Flore continued to cry out for Jacques.
‘I tell you he looked at me,’ she shouted. ‘He was thrown over there, under the tender. Quick! Come and help me!’
Cabuche and Misard had been offering assistance to Henri, the guard, who had also jumped out at the last minute. He had dislocated his foot. They sat him down on the ground against the hedge, where he watched the rescue operations in stunned silence, apparently unhurt.
‘Cabuche! Come over here!’ yelled Flore. ‘Jacques is under here, I tell you!’
Cabuche didn’t hear. He had run off to see to some of the other injured passengers and came back carrying a young woman, both of her legs hanging limp, broken at the thigh.
Séverine had heard Flore calling to Cabuche and ran over to join her.
‘Jacques! Jacques!’ she cried. ‘Where is he? Let me help you!’
‘Come on then!’ yelled Flore. ‘He’s over here.’
The two women joined hands and started tugging at a broken wheel. Séverine’s dainty fingers were of little use, but Flore simply grabbed hold of things and pulled them aside.
‘Careful!’ shouted Pecqueux, who had come to join them.
He had put out his hand to prevent Séverine from treading on an arm, torn off at the shoulder and still wearing a blue sleeve. She recoiled in horror. She didn’t recognize the sleeve, and there was no knowing who the arm belonged to; it had just rolled there. No doubt the body would be found somewhere else. It made her feel so shaky that she could hardly move; she stood there weeping and watching the others struggling with the wreckage. She couldn’t even bring herself to pick up bits of broken glass lest she cut her hands.
The rescue work and the search for bodies became even more desperate and fraught with danger when the fire from the engine began to spread to other pieces of wood. In order to contain the blaze it was necessary to shovel earth on to the flames. Someone ran to Barentin to ask for help, and a telegraph message was sent to Rouen. Meanwhile, everyone bravely set about helping to clear the wreckage. Many of those who had run away had come back, apologizing for having been so scared. Work progressed slowly and cautiously. Every piece of wreckage had to be removed with great care; if it all collapsed, the unfortunate people trapped underneath would be killed. Some of the injured were buried up to their chest, unable to move as if held in a vice, screaming. The rescuers spent a quarter of an hour trying to free one of them. He was as white as a sheet but didn’t complain; he said he wasn’t in pain and that he was all right. When they got him out, he had lost both legs; he died immediately. He had been so frightened that he didn’t realize he had been so terribly mutilated and he hadn’t felt a thing. An entire family was rescued from a second-class carriage which had caught fire; the father and mother had both injured their knees, and the grandmother had broken her arm. They too felt no pain, but were weeping and calling out to their daughter, who had disappeared in the crash, a little girl hardly three years old with beautiful blonde hair. They found her underneath a shorn-off carriage roof, safe and sound, laughing, and apparently quite happy. They found another girl, however, covered in blood, and with both her hands crushed. They moved her to one side while someone went to look for her parents; and there she waited all alone. No one knew her name; she was so distraught that she couldn’t speak, and froze in sheer terror the moment anyone went near her. The carriage doors couldn’t be opened because the locks had been jammed by the shock of the collision; they had to get in through the broken windows. Within a very short time, four bodies had been placed in a row at the side of the track. Ten or so injured passengers lay on the ground beside them, waiting for help, but there