The Hero of Panama Part 24

He gazed anxiously over his shoulder, in the direction in which he was flying, and was relieved to discover that the rails were clear. Then he took a careful look at the line of cars bounding after him. There was no doubt that the train was nearer. The leading car was within two hundred yards of him, and a minute's inspection told him clearly that the distance between them was lessening very rapidly; for the runaway now seemed to have taken the bit between her teeth with a vengeance. Despite the weight of earth and rock in the cars they were swaying and leaping horribly, causing their springs to oscillate as they had, perhaps, never done before. The wheels on the leading bogie seemed to be as much off the iron tracks as on them, and at every little curve the expanse of daylight on the inner side beneath the trucks increased in proportions, showing how centrifugal force was pulling the heavy ma.s.s and endeavouring to upset it. It was an uncanny sight, but yet, for all that, a fascinating one. Jim watched it helplessly, almost spellbound, conscious that the few moments now before him were critical ones. He unconsciously set to work to calculate how long it would take, at the present rate of comparative progression of his own car and the runaway train, for the inevitable collision to occur. Then, seeing the heaving bogies of the trucks, he leaned over the side of his own car and watched the metal wheels. They clattered and thundered on the rails, the spokes were indistinguishable, having the appearance of disks. But at the bends this was altered. The car tipped bodily, the inner wheels left the tracks, and at once their momentum lessened. Then, though he could not see the individual spokes, the disk-like appearance was broken, telling him plainly, even if his eyes had not been sufficiently keen to actually see the fact, that the wheels and the track had parted company.

"Ah!" It was almost a groan that escaped him. In the few minutes in which he had been engaged in examining his own wheels the runaway train had gained on him by leaps and bounds. He could now hear the roar of its wheels above the rumble and clatter of his own, that and the buzz of the motor so busy beneath the bonnet. He cast his eye on either side, as if to seek safety there, and watched the fleeting banks of the Chagres River, bushes and trees, and abandoned French trucks speeding past. A gang of workmen came into view, and he caught just a glimpse of them waving their shovels. Their shouts came to his ears as the merest echoes. Then something else forced itself upon his attention. It was the figure of a white man, standing prominent upon a little knoll beside the rails, and armed with a megaphone. He had the instrument to his mouth, and thundered his warning in Jim's ears.

"Jump!" he shouted. "Jump! She'll be up within a jiffy!"

Within a jiffy! In almost less time than that; there were but two yards now between the small inspection car and the line of loaded trucks. Jim could see the individual pieces of broken rock amongst the dirt, could watch the fantastic manner in which they were dancing. He looked about him, standing up and gripping the side of the car. Then away in front, along the clear tracks. He thought of the pa.s.senger train, and remembered that he alone stood between it and destruction.

"I'll stick to this ship whatever happens," he told himself stubbornly.

"If the train strikes me and breaks up the car, the wreck may throw it off the rails. Better that than allow it to run clear on into the pa.s.senger train. Ah! Here it is."

Crash! The buffers of the leading truck struck the motor inspection car on her leading spring dumb irons, and the buffet sent her hurtling along the track, while the shock of the blow caused Jim to double up over the splashboard. But the wheels did not leave the tracks. Nothing seemed to have been broken. The dumb irons were bent out of shape, that was all.

"Jump, yer fool!" came floating across the air to Jim's ear, while the figure of the man with the megaphone danced fantastically, arms waving violently in all directions.

But Jim would not jump; he had long since made up his mind to stick to his gun, to remain in this car whatever happened; for the safety of the pa.s.senger train depended on him. True, a telephone message might have reached the driver; but then it might not have done so. He recollected that at the switch where this mad chase had first begun there was no telephone station closely adjacent. It would be necessary for the man there to run to the nearest one. That would take time, while his own flight down the tracks had endured for only a few minutes, though, to speak the truth, those minutes felt like hours to our hero.

Bang! The cars struck him again, causing the one on which he rode to wobble and swerve horribly; the wheels roared and flashed sparks as the f.l.a.n.g.es bit at the rails. The bonnet that covered the engine, crinkled up like a concertina; but the car held the track. Jim was still secure, while the second buffet had sent him well ahead. Better than all, he realized that he was now beyond the steeper part of the incline, while his engine was still pulling, urging the car backward. If only he could increase the pace, if only he could add to the distance which separated him from that long line of trucks bounding after him so ruthlessly. Then a groan escaped him; for along the Chagres valley, where, perhaps, in the year 1915 a huge lake will have blotted out the site of the railway along which he flew, and where fleets of huge ships may well be lying, there came the distinct, shrill screech of a whistle. Jim swung round in an agony of terror. He looked along the winding track and his eyes lit upon an object. It was the pa.s.senger train, loaded with human freight, standing in the way of destruction.

CHAPTER XIV

The Runaway Spoil Train

Barely a mile of the double track of the Panama railway stretched between the inspection car, on which Jim was racing for his life, and the oncoming pa.s.senger train. Glancing over his shoulder he could see the smoke billowing from the locomotive and the escape steam blowing out between her leading wheels. Behind him there was the scrunch, the grinding roar, of the long line of steel wheels carrying the runaway spoil train. He kneeled on his driving seat and looked first one way and then the other, hesitating what to do. The rush of air, as he tore along, sent his broad-brimmed hat flying, and set his hair streaking out behind him. His eyes were prominent, there was desperation written on his face; but never once did he think of taking the advice which the megaphone man flung at him.

"Jump for it! No! I won't!" he declared stubbornly to himself. "I'll stick here till there's no chance left; then I'll bring this machine up sharp, and leave her as a buffer between the spoil train and the one bearing pa.s.sengers. Not that she'll be of much use. That heavy line of cars will punch her out of the way as if she were as light as a bag; but something might happen. The frame of this car might lift the leading wheels of the spoil train from the tracks and wreck her."

There was an exhaust whistle attached to his car, and he set it sounding at once, though all the time his eyes drifted from pa.s.senger train to spoil train, from one side of the track to the other. Suddenly there came into view round a gentle bend a ma.s.s of discarded machinery. He remembered calling Phineas's attention to it some weeks before. Broken trucks, which had once conveyed dirt from the cut at Culebra for the French workers, had been run from the main track on to a siding and abandoned there to the weather, and to the advance of tropical vegetation, that, in a sinister, creeping manner all its own, stole upon all neglected things and places in this ca.n.a.l zone, and wrapped them in its clinging embrace, covering and hiding them from sight, as if ashamed of the work which man had once accomplished. Jim remembered the spot, and that it was one of the unattended switching stations rarely used--for here the tracks of the railway were less enc.u.mbered with spoil trains--yet a post for all that where the driver of an inspection car might halt, might descend and pull over the lever, and so direct his car into the siding.

"I'll do it," he told himself. "If only I can get there soon enough to allow me to reach the lever."

He measured the distance between himself and the pursuing spoil train, and noted that it had increased. His l.u.s.ty little engine, rattling away beneath its crumpled bonnet, was pulling the car along at a fine pace.

True, the velocity was not so great as it had been when descending the first part of the incline, that leading out of the Culebra cut; but then the swift rush of the spoil train was also lessened. The want of fall in the rails was telling on her progress, though, to be sure, she was hurtling along at a speed approximating to fifty miles an hour; but the b.u.mp she had given to Jim's car had had a wonderful effect. It had shot the light framework forward, and, with luck, Jim determined to increase the start thus obtained.

"But it'll be touch and go," he told himself, his eye now directed to the switching station, just beyond which the ma.s.s of derelict French cars lay. "There's one thing in my favour: the points open from this direction. If it had been otherwise I could have done nothing, for, even if I had attempted to throw the point against the spoil train, the pace she is making would carry her across the gap. Why don't that fellow on the pa.s.senger engine shut off steam and reverse? Ain't he seen what's happening?"

He scowled in the direction of the approaching pa.s.senger train, and knelt still higher, shaking his fists in that direction. It seemed that the man must be blind, that his attention must be in another direction; for already the line of coaches was within five hundred yards of the points which had attracted Jim's attention, and he realized that she would reach the spot almost as soon as the spoil train would.

"'Cos she's closer," he growled. "If he don't shut off steam, anything I may be able to do will be useless. He'll cross the switch and come head on to the collision."

A minute later he saw a man's figure swing out from the cab of the locomotive on which his eyes were glued, while a hand was waved in his direction. Then a jet of steam and smoke burst from the funnel, while white clouds billowed from the neighbourhood of the cylinders. Even though it was broad daylight, Jim saw sparks and flashes as the wheels of the locomotive were locked and skated along the rails.

"He's seen it; he knows!" he shouted. "But he ain't got time to stop her and reverse away from this spoil train. If that switch don't work there's bound to be a bad collision."

There was no doubt as to that point. The driver and fireman aboard the locomotive recognized their danger promptly, and, like the bold fellows they were, stuck to their posts.

"Brakes hard!" shouted the former, jerking his steam lever over, and bringing the other hand down on that which commanded the reverse. "Hard, man! As hard as you can fix 'em! Be ready to put 'em off the moment she's come to a standstill. This is going to be a case with us, I reckon. That spoil train's doing fifty miles an hour if she's doing one.

We can't get clear away from her, onless----"

He blew his whistle frantically, and once more leaned out far from his cab, waving to the solitary figure aboard the flying inspection car.

"Onless what?" demanded the fireman brusquely, his eyes showing prominently in his blackened face, his breath coming fast after his efforts; for both hand and vacuum brakes had been applied.

"Onless that 'ere fellow aboard the inspection car manages to reach the points in time and switch 'em over. Guess he's tryin' for it; but there ain't much s.p.a.ce between him and the spoil train. There's goin' ter be an almighty smash."

Thus it appeared to all; for by now men, invisible before, had appeared at different points, and were surveying the scene, holding their breath at the thought of what was about to happen.

"Best get along to the telephone and send 'way up to Gorgona for the ambulance staff," said one of these onlookers. "That 'ere pa.s.senger train ain't got a chance of gettin' clear away. She ain't got the room nor the time. Fust the spoil train'll run clear over the inspection car, and grind it and the chap aboard to powder. Then she'll barge into the pa.s.senger, and, shucks! there'll be an unholy upset. Get to the telephone, do yer hear!"

He shouted angrily at his comrade, overwrought by excitement, and then set off to run towards the points for which Jim was making. As for the latter, by strenuous efforts, by jagging at his levers, he had contrived to get his engine to run a little faster, and had undoubtedly increased his lead over the spoil train. He was now, perhaps, a long hundred yards in advance.

"Not enough," he told himself. "Going at this pace it'll take time to stop, though the brakes aboard this car are splendid. I know what I'll do. Keep her running till I'm within fifty yards, then throw her out of gear, jam on the brakes, and jump for it just opposite the switch. I'll perhaps be able to roll up to it in time to pull that train over."

It was the only method to employ, without doubt, though the risk would not be light. For, while a motor car on good hard ground can be brought to a standstill within fifty yards when going at a great pace, when shod with steel wheels and running on a metal track the results are different. Jim's steed lacked weight for the work. Though he might lock his wheels, they would skate along the tracks, and reduce his pace slowly. The leap he contemplated must be made from a rapidly moving car.

That might result in disaster.

"Better a smash like that than have people aboard the train killed by the dozen," he told himself. "Those points are two hundred yards off; in a hundred I set to at it."

He cast a swift glance towards the pa.s.senger train, which was now retreating, and then one at the spoil train. He measured the distance between himself and the latter nicely. Then he dropped his toe on the clutch pedal, and his hand on the speed lever. Click! Out shot the gears, while the engine raced and roared away as if it were possessed.

But Jim paid no attention to it. He let it continue racing, and at once jammed on his brakes. It made his heart rise into his mouth when he noticed with what suddenness the spoil train had recovered the interval between them. She was advancing upon him with leaps and bounds. It seemed as if he were not moving. With an effort he took his eyes from the rushing trucks, and fixed them upon the points he hoped to be able to operate. They were close at hand. His glance was caught by the operating lever. The moment for action had arrived, while still his car progressed at a pace which would have made the boldest hesitate to leap from it. But Jim made no pause, more honour to him. He left his seat, placed one hand on the side of the car, and vaulted into s.p.a.ce. The ground at the side of the track struck the soles of his feet as if with a hammer, doubling his knees up and jerking his frame forward. The impetus which the moving car had imparted to his body sent him rolling forward. He curled up like a rabbit struck by the sportsman at full pace, and rolled over and over. Then with a violent effort he arrested his forward movement. With hands torn, and every portion of his body jarred and shaken, he brought his mad onward rush to a standstill, and, recovering from the giddiness which had a.s.sailed him, found that he was close to the all-important lever governing the points. With a shout Jim threw himself upon it, tugged with all his might, and jerked the points over.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "JIM TUGGED WITH ALL HIS MIGHT"]

Meanwhile the thunder of the spoil train had grown louder. The scrunch of steel tyres on the rails, and the grinding of the f.l.a.n.g.es of the wheels against the edges of the track drowned every other sound, even the singing which Jim's tumble had brought to his ears. The runaway, with all its impetus and weight rushing forward to destroy all that happened to be in its path, was within a yard of the points when our hero threw his weight on the lever. The leading wheels struck the points with violence, and Jim, watching eagerly, saw the rims mount up over the crossway. Then the bogie frame jerked and swung to the right, while the four wheels obeyed the direction of the points and ran towards the side track. But it was when the first half of the leading car had pa.s.sed the points that the commotion came. The dead weight of the contents--projected a moment earlier directly forward--were of a sudden wrenched to one side. The strain was tremendous. Something was bound to give way under it, or the car would capsize.

As it happened, the wreck was brought about by a combination of movements. The front bogie of the truck collapsed, the wheels being torn from their axles. At the same moment the huge ma.s.s capsized, flinging its load of rock and dirt broadcast across the track. The noise was simply deafening, while a huge dust cloud obscured the actual scene of the upset from those who were looking on. But Jim could see. As he clung to the lever he watched the first truck come to grief in an instant.

After that he himself was overwhelmed in the catastrophe; for the remaining trucks piled themselves up on the stricken leader. The second broke its coupling and mounted on the first; while the third, deflected to one side, shot past Jim as if it were some gigantic dart, and swept him and the lever away into s.p.a.ce. The remainder smashed themselves into matchwood, all save five in rear, which, with r.e.t.a.r.ded impetus, found only a bank of fallen dirt and rock that broke the collision and left them shaking on the track. When the onlookers raced to the spot, and the people aboard the pa.s.senger train joined them, there was not a sight of the young fellow who had controlled the inspection car and had saved a disastrous collision.

"Guess he's buried ten feet deep beneath all that dirt and stuff," said one of the men, gazing at the ruin. "I seed him run to the lever. Run, did I say? He jest rolled, that's what he did. He war just in time, though, and then, gee! there war a ruction. I've seen a bust-up on a railway afore, but bless me if this wasn't the wildest I ever seed. Did yer get to the telephone?"

His comrade rea.s.sured him promptly.

"I rung 'em up at Gorgona," he answered. "There's a dirt train coming along with the ambulance and Commission doctor aboard, besides a wrecking derrick. That young chap saved a heap of lives you'd reckon?"

It was in the nature of a question, and the answer came from the first speaker speedily.

"Lives! a full trainload, man. I seed his game from the beginning, and guess it war the only manoeuvre that was worth trying. It was a race for the points, and the man aboard the inspection car won by a short head. He hadn't more'n a second or two to spare once he got a grip of the lever; but I reckon he's paid his own life for the work. He war a plucked 'un--a right down real plucked 'un!"

He stared fiercely into the eyes of the other man, as if he challenged him to deny the statement; but there were none who had seen this fine display of courage who had aught but enthusiasm for it. There was no dissentient voice; the thing was too plain and palpable.

"Some of you men get searching round to see if you can find a trace of that young fellow," cried one of the Commission officials who happened to come running up at this moment. "If he's under this dirt he'll be smothered while we're talking."

Every second brought more helpers for the task, and very soon there were a hundred men round the wreck of the spoil train; for the driver of the pa.s.senger train had stopped his reverse movement as soon as he saw that all danger for his own charge had gone. Then he had steamed forward till within a foot of the inspection car which Jim had driven.

The latter, thanks to the fact that the brake was jammed hard on, came to a halt some thirty yards beyond the points, and stood there with its engine roaring. But the fireman quickly shut off the ignition.

Pa.s.sengers poured from the coaches--for it happened that a number of officials were making a trip to the far end of the Culebra cut to inspect progress--and at once hastened to the side of the wreck. But search as they might there was no trace of the lad who had saved so many lives by his gallantry and resourcefulness.