The Beast Within - Emile Zola [225]
That evening, Pecqueux had turned up for work very drunk. The day after he had followed Philomène and Jacques in Rouen, he had rejoined his driver on locomotive 608. He didn’t speak about what had happened the night before, but he was in a very dark mood and hardly dared look him in the face. Jacques sensed that he had turned against him. He would do nothing he was asked; every time he gave him an order he simply responded with a grunt. In the end they had stopped talking to each other altogether. The locomotive footplate, the little, moving platform on which they had previously worked together as one, had now become the dangerous, confined stage of their disaffection. Their hatred had increased by the day, and they had reached the point where they could easily have come to blows within the few square feet of the cab, as the train sped on its way, lurching from side to side and threatening to throw them overboard. That evening, seeing Pecqueux so drunk, Jacques was wary. He knew that when his fireman was sober he had enough sense not to lose his temper; when he’d had too much to drink, however, he could go completely wild.
The train was due to leave at about six, but it was delayed, and it was already dark when the soldiers were herded like sheep into the cattle trucks. A few planks had been nailed together inside for them to sit on. They were piled in by the dozen, until the trucks could hold no more; they ended up sitting on each other’s laps or standing so tightly squashed together that they couldn’t move an arm. Another train awaited them in Paris to take them on to the Rhine the minute they arrived. They looked completely bewildered by the arrangements for their departure and half-dead with fatigue. However, they had all been issued with brandy and most of them had spent the day visiting the local bars. Warmed by the drink, the men laughed and made crude jokes as they waited, red-faced and uncomprehending, for the train to leave. As soon as the train began to move out of the station, they burst into song.
Jacques looked up at the sky; the stars were hidden by storm clouds. It was going to be a very dark night; there wasn’t a breath of wind, and the air felt intensely hot. The breeze caused by the speed of the train, normally so cool and fresh, tonight felt warm and sticky. The only lights to be seen in the darkness ahead were the signal lamps, shining brightly in the night. Jacques increased the pressure as the train approached the steep gradient between Harfleur and Saint-Romain. Although he had been studying her for weeks, he still didn’t feel confident driving locomotive number 608; she was still very new and she had a mind of her own. That night she seemed to be in a particularly awkward, capricious mood, producing sudden bursts of speed the minute she was given a few lumps of coal too many. Jacques kept his hand on the reversing wheel, watching the fire carefully and growing increasingly anxious at the behaviour of his fireman. The little lamp above the water-gauge cast a dim light over the footplate, tinged purple by the red glow from the firebox door. He couldn’t see Pecqueux very well, but he had twice felt something brush against his legs as if a pair of hands were trying to grab hold of them. No doubt it was the drink making him clumsy. He could hear him above the noise of the train, snarling as he broke up the coal with great swings of his hammer and flailed around with his shovel. Every minute, he kept opening the firebox door and flinging excessive amounts of coal on to the grate.
‘That’s enough!’ yelled Jacques.
Pecqueux pretended not to hear him and continued to throw on one shovelful after another. Jacques took hold of his arm. Pecqueux turned towards him threateningly.