The Conqueror of Death, page 20
“So?”
“So, it’s on for tomorrow, if you have nothing better to do.”
“That’s good, my son—it’s on for tomorrow.”
With that, we went our separate ways.
The next day, in fact, I got my locomotive ready as if I had some special job to do. In the midst of the hubbub at the station, no one paid any heed to me.
Tom Tompson hadn’t gone back to Washington. He was due to have stopped in a small intermediary town that he’s designated to me. At ten o’clock, his engine would set off too.
The only real difficulty in the execution of our plan consisted of being able to get ourselves on the same track without exciting the suspicion of the company’s agents.
Fortunately, I knew a pointsman in a station situated about two-thirds of the way along my course. I told him that I was going to lend assistance on the track to Tom’s engine, which was heading toward me at top speed. He believed me, switched the points and I went by.
To tell you that my heart wasn’t beating a little faster when I found myself on that track, and when I thought about the imminent impact that awaited me, would be an infamous lie. So I set about accelerating my locomotive, in order that the intoxication of the speed wouldn’t leave me any time to devote to reflection.
I could have derailed; I almost wanted to. It was, in fact, a frightful idea that I had had. Twice in my life I had seen locomotives run into one another, and I knew what terrible chaos it produces. With regard to the men on board, there could be no doubt about it: only a miracle—one of those miracles that even the imagination can’t envisage, so improbable is it—could save them. Then again, it’s a frightful contest; one of the machines gives the impression of trying to climb on top of the other and crush it, while the other rears up in its turn, making a terrible noise. The two monsters mate, uttering shrill and sinister cries with their whistles; the disordered respiration of the steam mingles with that confusion; one would swear that they were about to wrestle and try to throw one another. Then, often, a boiler bursts, the sound of shattering iron rings out, and the two adversaries, vanquished, broken and dead, fall back heavily to the ground, torn apart by that gigantic mortal embrace.
That memory came back to me perpetually, without my being able to drive it away, and that really annoyed me.
“Well then, William Turkey,” I finally said to myself, “is it, by chance, that you’re afraid? You’ve invented a duel such as no one has ever seen, and at the moment when the combat is about to take place, when, in dying, you’ll frighten the universe with your glory, you start trembling and want to back out! More coal on the fire, William, and full speed ahead!”
That little speech rallied me somewhat. I put more coal on the fire, but as I raised my head, I felt a cold sweat invade my temples and my back. Tom Tompson was no more than a mile away from me, and we were heading toward one another at a hellish rate.
Do you want me to tell you everything? Well, I closed my eyes, with my back against my coal-bunker, and I waited.
A minute later, I perceived something like a gust of wind, I heard a rapid noise to me left…and my knees buckled.
Strangely, enough, though, I was still going, and the impact hadn’t happened. That surprised me more than you might think. I opened my eyes. There was nothing in front of me any longer—no more Tom Tompson at all. I nearly fell over with astonishment. Where the devil had he gone? I darted a glance behind my engine, and then I saw my adversary drawing away from me.
It was enough to make one believe in magic. How had he gone past without smashing me, without smashing himself? Had he followed the example of those gentleman riders and trained his locomotive to leap over obstacles and run steeplechases?
It was scarcely probable—and yet there had to be a reason for it, and I racked my brains in vain trying to find it.
Deep down, although I wasn’t sorry to have got out of that awkward spot, I ended up giving up in the face of such a puzzle, and slowed down in order to be able to retrace my steps placidly—which is what I did.
When I arrived at a little station on the edge of which I estimated that we should have collided, I saw Tom Tompson coming back too—but not on the same track as me, which surprised my somewhat.
We both stopped, and I realized then what I hadn’t been able to see because my eyes had been closed while I waited stoically for death.
A pointsman, full of naivety and presence of mind—it’s necessary to admit—having seen two locomotives advancing toward one another at fifty miles an hour, had initially uttered an exclamation of astonishment and then, as quick as thought, had thrown himself upon the lever and had pulled it in a desperate fashion, with the result that Tom Tompson, who had arrived level with the station in question first, had, involuntarily and for our common salvation, taken another track.
“Damn!” cried Tom Tompson, as soon as he could make himself heard. “That imbecile has spoiled our duel. We’ll have to start again, my son.”
Tom Tompson had the reputation of being extremely stubborn. I could see that he had not usurped that renown.
The next day, he presented himself at my home, very sprightly, offering a thousand excuses and compliments, calling the pointsman thanks to whom we were both still alive a double-dyed swine, an unregimented donkey, an obtuse ox and a hundred other appellations that ceded nothing in amenity to the first. If I were not sure of having a large number of female readers I would even transcribe the supreme insult that he addressed to him—an insult that has no equivalent in any language—but I know only too well what I owe to propriety, to my readers and to myself to take love of detail that far, even though I am fanatical regarding the scrupulous exactitude of the facts when I permit myself to write any narrative whatsoever.
After having stormed to his heart’s content, and consequently caused his wart to strike all the poses that it affected in such instances, Tom Tompson held out his hand to me and said: “So, my son, it’ll be the day after tomorrow.”
“Agreed for the day after tomorrow, Tom.”
“But this time, it’s necessary not to miss our stroke. You’d be ridiculous forever, and so would I.”
“God forbid, Tom, that that should happen.”
“Good, my son. See you soon, then! See you soon!”
“See you soon, Tom.”
Two days later, I set off as I had the previous time.
The weather was fine. I have no idea whether I ought to attribute my bravery to the atmospheric conditions, but it’s certain that I was mettlesome that morning, to an incalculable degree. It has been remarked that revolutions are more often made and battles more often fought when the sky is cloudless, or at least when it isn’t raining. Fog and rain cool human courage considerably, and no one likes to die in bad weather. Without discoursing any longer on the subject, I’ll add one final proof: many, very many splenetic or desperate individuals have put off their suicidal plans indefinitely because the river into the depths of which they were about to throw themselves looked gray and cold.
At any rate, I was firmly decided to die like a hero, although several times already, even while putting on my shoes that same morning, I had told myself that I was about to get myself killed like an imbecile, without any profit to anyone, including myself.
At the end of the day, though, I had a mole, and Tom Tompson had a wart; it was necessary for us to submit to the consequences of that malevolence of Dame Nature.
In brief, once I was in the open air, traveling at a considerable number of miles an hour, I was no longer thinking about anything but crushing Tom, who seemed to be putting a singular obstinacy into crashing into me with his locomotive. Apparently, I didn’t want to remember that it was me who had proposed the thing.
I had covered forty-eight miles—you won’t demand the fractions, I suppose—and I was still seething with courage and impatience, when I was obliged to obey a signal that ordered me imperiously to stop.
A serious accident had taken place on the track. I wanted to get myself crushed by Tom Tompson, and to crush him myself at the same time, but I had no reason to go and crash into a bunch of derailed carriages and flattened passengers, so I slowed down—and just in time, for I came to a halt twenty-five yards from the site of the accident in question.
There was a frightful confusion of wagons, locomotives and merchandise of every sort: sugar, molasses, bales of cotton, casks of wine, barrels of whisky, etc., etc.
The train that had derailed hadn’t been transporting passengers. By the first glance at the machine I knew which engineer had been driving it. That’s always our first thought in such circumstances, because we know full well that engineers rarely come back from such experiments in ballistics.
Fortunately—if the word isn’t too cruel—I acquired the certainty that the engineer and the stoker, who were probably lying dead a few yards away, were two of the most wretched, idle, drunken and intolerable scoundrels in America. I said a funeral prayer for them appropriate to their merit, and as short as my restricted esteem for their unfortunate carcasses. After having summarily accomplished that sacred duty, I got down in order to make a tour of the debris and lend my assistance to the clearance of the track, if necessary.
Imagine my shock, however, when I saw, running toward the train, the engineer that I had just mourned so briefly. People are right to say that death doesn’t want good-for-nothings. The blackguard in question, launched into the air by the sudden arrest of his machine, had been precipitated, as if by a miracle, into a large deep pond, into the depths of which he had executed an incomparable dive, backwards. Thanks to that fortunate circumstance, his deadened fall had become a mere bath in dirty but protective water.
One saved, I said to myself. So much the better; we don’t want the sinner dead. As for the other, it’s all right; the derailment will have saved him from that gallows.
As I concluded this reflection, the stoker appeared in his turn. He was spry and cheerful, and when he was a few yards away from me I perceived that he was exhaling an agreeable and penetrating odor, of which his somersault was an insufficient explanation. It was, moreover, a strange contrast with the odor given off by the engineer, for the latter, steeped in stinking mud, would have made a manufacturer of asafetida run away.
Interrogated, the stoker recounted that, having been hurled into the air by acquired velocity, he wasn’t thinking about anything but dying when he felt himself assailed in his parabola by little branches that were whipping his face. Then, as he was approaching the ground, a kind of hammock formed underneath him; he was half-supported by a very thick, very soft and highly perfumed clump of laurier-roses. He had slid for a few more seconds over that flower-bed, which deadened the momentum to which he was involuntarily obedient, and the scoundrel eventually found himself, covered in perfume, softly extended, without a scratch, on a thick and flowery lawn in the shade of the laurier-roses, two paces from a spring, like a demigod of antiquity at odds with Olympus.
Oh, if only those two fellows had been worth anything, like you or me!
As the stoker finished recounting his adventure, however, a voice was heard coming from the midst of the debris.
“Who’s that?” we all cried.
“You might well say who’s that, you frauds!” the voice replied.
I shivered and started running in the direction from which the calls were coming. They followed me. Imagine my astonishment when I ended up pulling out from underneath a veritable stew of merchandise…who? You’ve guessed it, but admit that it’s a bit unlikely: Tom Tompson! Tom Tompson in person. His wart was intact, and so was he.
He perceived or divined my presence. “It’s bad luck, my son—we’ll have to start again. You didn’t think my ideas were practical, but it seems to me that yours is giving a certain amount of trouble from the viewpoint of execution.”
One thing I hadn’t thought about was the cause of the accident. Now I had it before my eyes. Tom Tompson and his locomotive, coming toward me at top speed, had collided, after a bend in the track, with the train of which nothing remained but wreckage.
“How were you thrown under there, Tom?”
“In truth, my son, I have absolutely no idea. It knocked me unconscious. I only came round at the moment when you heard me shout.
“You were lucky!”
“You think so? William, my son, don’t mock me. That’s two days I’ve wasted, not to mention the locomotive, and that’s a bad business. Next time, I’ll wait for you at a location where it will be more certain, near the Black River Bridge.”
“You’re very determined to kill me.”
“Me! Not at all—but since it’s agreed. Do you, by chance, think me capable of backing out?”
“I didn’t say that, Tom, I didn’t say that.”
“Well, my son, we’ll do it Tuesday, if it’s all right with you.”
“No, not Tuesday. I have an invitation to Mrs. Tapeton’s. Wednesday, Tom, Wednesday.”
“Wednesday, my son, I shall be at your disposal. Come and have a drop of brandy—that’ll get us back on our feet.”
It was fated that we were never going to meet, and Tom Tompson was right: my idea wasn’t practical at all.
To begin with, the company’s supervisors were beginning to get suspicious, seeing both of us set off so often under futile pretexts—for it was, after all necessary to find pretexts. Secondly, we had observed that it was extremely difficult for us both to get on to the same track. There was always a pointsman there to put us back on the right track or an inspector to enquire about the reasons for our journey in such abnormal conditions.
At any rate, the following Wednesday, we were both faithful to our promise. Naturally, Tom Tompson was manning another locomotive, since his own had previously served to crash a train, give an engineer a bath and perfume a stoker, by means of previously-unknown methods that were impracticable in everyday life.
For myself, I still had the same machine. It seemed, though, that I had had a complete change of heart; the hesitations of the first day did not present themselves to my mind and I hastened the moment of impact as much as I could.
Did I have an intuition of the fecund outcome that the terrible new combat was to have? Who can tell? Perhaps, too, the spectacle of three enginemen saved in an encounter that should, according to all ordinary expectations, have cost them their lives ten times over, had made me think, unwittingly, that a man caught between two iron monsters might get away with it.
When I set off, I was not only serene and tranquil, but I had a hint of cheerfulness about me, whose veritable cause I would not have been able to identify. Tom Tompson, he told me later, was declaring incessantly to himself while letting off his steam in order to come and kill me, that my idea was utterly stupid, and that his duel in the river would have had much more class.
I still regret not having seen his wart at that moment, for it must have been, as you can have no doubt, particularly phenomenal; but happiness in this world is never complete.
You might think, readers, that I’m keeping you in suspense and not getting straight to the point. I’d like to see you do it, to see how much of a hurry you’d be in, in my place. As for the goal, the supreme goal, I can assure you that I was heading toward it with a rapidity that I judged entirely appropriate. Except that, at such moments, the mind has an excessively prompt faculty of reflection, and I’m only telling you the hundredth part of what I said to myself.
I was approaching Black River.
There are immense wooden bridges across which railways pass over many American rivers, but they’re not fixed. The necessities of river navigation have obliged engineers to find systems that allow ships to pass. Thus, the bridges have to open; each half folds back toward the bank to allow the larger ships free passage. When the vessels have traversed that section of the river, the two halves of the bridge join up again, juxtaposing exactly, in order to let the fastest trains in the world cross the river and the gap.
There is a bridge of that kind on Black River. There further I went, the more certain I became that we would meet on the bridge, and that the impact would be frightful in its consequences.
By virtue of a rather sharp bend, neither Tom Tompson nor I could see the bridge, but as the iron track shorted the two opposed banks of Black River for several miles I perceived the fumes of his engine, and he must have been able to see my steam.
It was all set this time; there was no pointsman who could thwart our plan, no train with which we might collide before running into one another. The thermometer of my gaiety went down a few degrees, I must admit, but I didn’t weaken. I stuffed my engine with coal, and planted myself upright on the tender.
It was certain that we would crash in the middle of the river.
Just as we were both about to move on to the bridge of doom, however, I heard a terrible crack on Tom Tompson’s bank, and before I could form any idea of what was happening, another crack, even ore frightful, rang in my ears, and I perceived a void in front of me, to either side of me—everywhere...
“The bridge was open!” I cried, mechanically—and Tom Tompson must have said the same. Neither of us had thought, although it was quite natural, since we had chosen a moment when no train could get in our way and, in consequence, could not oblige the attendants to reunite the two fragments of the apron.
I had a vague idea that I had broken the barriers. I seemed to see something enormous on the other side of Black River take a mighty plunge, while a man spun in mid-air; then everything disappeared beneath my feet. I put out my arms, perceived the muffled sound of the fall of an enormous weight and the particular hiss of a fire being put out, and then felt myself going into the water, head first.
I ought to add that I must have penetrated the water with such impetuosity that not a drop of water splashed up around me. I disappeared to the bottom of the river like a bullet. If some unlucky shad had been passing the place where I fell at that moment, it’s certain that I would have had the same effect as a cannonball on the unfortunate creature.
