The Trainmasters Read online

  “I won’t pursue it,” John said, “until after I’ve looked over the site of the accident. And I want to spend some time studying this”—he held up the volume containing the report on the cave system—”before we reach Tyrone.”

  Thomson was more intrigued by this hunch of John’s than he let on, but he decided then to leave it to John to follow up on it.

  They reached Tyrone shortly before eight. Since they had telegraphed ahead, horses were waiting to carry them the fifteen miles from Tyrone and Gallitzin.

  Though they passed through lovely, wild, and rugged country, it was a cold, wet, and dismal ride, for the rains that had started the night before had continued. And they showed no sign of letting up. The two men hardly spoke to one another from the time they mounted their horses until the moment they reached the camp.

  As they climbed higher up the ridge, they found themselves first in mist and then in dense fog. But they pressed on as hard as they could safely drive their horses in such weather. They arrived at the camp before late afternoon.

  They left the horses at the camp’s stable and walked immediately the final three hundred yards to the tunnel shaft.

  Thomson, however, did not want to descend instantly into the tunnel. He wanted beforehand the verbal reports of the various engineers and foremen involved with the rescue attempt. He also wanted John Carlysle to start getting himself acquainted with some of the men whom he would be supervising shortly.

  The engineers and foremen were called together in a large, tin-roofed open space adjoining the shaft—it was actually the place where the men lined up before descending in the cage—and Thomson called out the roll, introducing each man to John as he read out the names.

  Not all the men Thomson wanted to see made it to this meeting. A couple of them were working down in the tunnel. And a couple of others were not at the site for one reason or another. But Francis Stockton, the one man Edgar Thomson wanted to talk to most of all, was neither in the tunnel nor off the site on business. He simply did not respond to the call that had brought all the other engineers and supervisors together.

  Stockton’s name was the last that Thomson called out. When he did not respond, no one seemed surprised.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Thomson asked with a deep sigh.

  “I haven’t seen him today,” said a voice.

  “I haven’t seen him since Sunday,” said another.

  Then one of the foremen who was at the rear of the group —his name was Harold Harrison—raised his hand and called out, “I know where to find Francis Stockton. There’s a woman… a farmer’s wife… she’s young and pretty. When the farmer’s out of the way…” He didn’t need to finish that thought.

  And besides, snickers had already broken out among the other men.

  “Can you bring him here?” Thomson asked, shaking his head.

  “Right now?” Harrison said.

  Thomson thought on that for a moment, then shook his head. “No,” he sighed. “Go find him and if you need to, sober him up. I’ll talk to him after John and I finish inspecting the cave-in. Bring him to the supervising engineer’s office in the administration building.”

  “Yes, sir,” Harrison said. And he started to leave.

  “Oh, Harrison,” Thomson called out to him.

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t leave yet, Harrison. I’m sure if Mr. Stockton is in the condition I expect he’s in, then he’ll remain that way after I’ve finished talking with the others. I want to have the benefit of the experience and wisdom of all of the men who are here—including you.”

  “Sir,” Harrison said and returned to his place.

  After listening to the men and questioning them for close to an hour, Edgar Thomson and John Carlysle were both more convinced that their theory about the cause of the cave-in was correct.

  Once the discussion had ended, Thomson, Carlysle, and a number of the supervisors entered the cage. The great steam hoist began to groan, and the cage slowly dropped into the bowels of the mountain.

  When it was well underway, Edgar Thomson caught John’s attention. “You doubtless have a number of questions about Mr. Francis Stockton,” he said with a sigh.

  “Yes, I do, as a matter of fact,” John said, with the hint of a smile.

  “Save them until later. I’ll try to fill you in before we meet him. It will be a fascinating meeting, I think.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” John said.

  “Egan!” Ferdy O’Dowd shouted. He had to yell because the noise of the underground stream below them was too loud for normal conversation. Then Ferdy tried to make himself understood, but the rush and the crash of the stream overwhelmed his voice.

  Egan shook his head and shrugged to indicate he hadn’t been able to understand Ferdy. Then he pointed back toward the cave gallery from which they had just emerged and gave a hand motion: “Follow me.”

  They’d been trying to negotiate a narrow ledge above the stream; but the ledge had just petered out. They crawled back along the ledge until they reached the gallery opening. Then they retreated into it until they were far enough from the stream to converse.

  They had a serious problem: The gallery they had just emerged from had proven to be a blind alley. And worse, every other gallery they’d tried so far had also proven to be a dead end. And that meant that they had only one other choice: They had to go into the stream itself.

  “What do you think, Egan?” Ferdy asked.

  “I think we have to try the stream, as much as I hate that.” He held the lantern up so that he could have a clearer look at Ferdy’s face. “How are you holding up, old man?” He was concerned about Ferdy’s injuries. So far, Ferdy had not complained; but now and again, when Ferdy had thought Egan had not been paying attention to him, his face had betrayed the torture that he must have been feeling.

  “It’s a cold and swift river,” Egan went on. “I won’t be able to survive in it for long. And I was not injured when the tunnel fell in.”

  “I’m fine. I’ll make it if you can, Egan,” Ferdy said, with more passion than conviction. “You can have no doubts about that.” He looked at his friend. “And besides, Egan, what choice have we got?”

  “No choice,” Egan acknowledged. “We have no choice at all. Not unless we go back to where we left the other men. We could try the way we decided not to go then.”

  Hours later, when they first ventured into the cave system, they had been faced with their initial choice: One gallery angled up, the other down. They had chosen the one that led up. And so they were now in the fix they were in.

  “I don’t want to do that, Egan. It means retracing our steps and starting over, and my courage can’t take that. And there’s no guarantee that we’d be any better off going that way anyhow.”

  Egan nodded agreement. He didn’t want to go back the way they had come either. But he wanted to be absolutely certain that Ferdy was prepared to accept the danger that the stream represented. “So then it’s into the river,” he said.

  “That it is,” Ferdy said with a brave smile.

  They attached one of the stout lines they had brought with them to their waists and returned to the ledge. And then with a sharp stone, Egan, as he had been doing all along, scratched marks into the cave wall to indicate where they had come from and where they were going. After that, he lifted the lantern high above his head and slipped into the water.

  It was bitter cold … He knew that neither of them would be able to last long in it. But before his fear could freeze him, he moved downstream.

  The river was about waist deep where they entered it which meant that, though the current was swift, the two men were able to keep their footing as they walked.

  But soon they had moved around a bend, and the channel grew deeper and narrower, and the current grew swifter. In the distance Egan could make out another bend, and beyond that came the roar of rapids.

  Egan moved over to the side of the river and held on for a time to a rock
y outcrop until Ferdy could work his way up to him. “Can you keep going that way?” he shouted, pointing.

  Ferdy couldn’t hear Egan well enough to understand him, but he still caught his meaning. They could be easily swept away and lost forever in the underground river.

  “We have to!” Ferdy shouted. And then he let go of the rock he was holding on to and waded back into the stream.

  Seconds later, the current caught them, knocked them off their feet, and drove them headlong down the cave.

  Somehow, Egan kept his head above water. And somehow he managed to hold a firm grip onto the lantern, though of course there was no way he could have kept it lit.

  And then they were around the second bend and hurtling helplessly through what in the world above would have been white water. Here everything was as dark as death.

  On and on and on the river carried them, swiftly, relentlessly. They were tossed about as casually as dice in a gamesman’s hand. And yet, though they tumbled and bounced and were driven under any number of times, still, every time they were able to battle their way to the surface, lift their heads, and find air.

  They were in the water perhaps ten minutes, though it seemed hours, when suddenly and without warning the raging stream spilled out into a broad, shallow, placid lake, and Egan was able to staggeringly lead Ferdy, who crawled on his hands and knees, to a wide beach. When they reached the edge of the shore, Egan collapsed but found the strength to crawl up out of the water. He thought about Ferdy, but he was too weak to call out to him. He also thought about the lantern, which was still in his hand. But the glass was, of course, shattered. He would see later if it could be made to work.

  After that his head sagged onto the gravel and, though he did not lose consciousness, he felt nothing.

  John Carlysle and Edgar Thomson were standing in the tunnel, observing the efforts of the work crew to clear away the stone and dirt and mud and muck that had spilled down into the tunnel from the cave-in. There were perhaps twenty-five men in the crew all told—as many as could usefully fit in the confined space of the tunnel. They were putting a frantic, desperate effort into their labor, swinging their picks and plying their shovels at a body-draining pace. And yet, though their lungs heaved and their backs and arms dripped sweat, their greatest, most strenuous efforts only removed a pitifully small portion of the debris.

  As Carlysle and Thomson watched, some of the workers were in the process of uncovering the body of yet another man who was crushed during the disaster. First the man’s fingers emerged—they seemed to reach out, grasping for life. Then, after some careful shovel work, came his forearm and his knees and lower legs (the man had died in a fetal position, like an infant). And then followed his body and head.

  This corpse made thirty-seven dead so far. But over fifty were still missing. It was assumed that no one had survived. Even if some portion of the tunnel remained intact beyond the cave-in, none of the survivors there could be reached in time to save them. More than fifty feet of tunnel had fallen in, and so far, the workers had only cleared away fifteen feet of that.

  Two men pulled the newly uncovered dead man away from the workings and laid him out on the floor of the tunnel.

  “Do you recognize him?” one of the men asked.

  “Yeah,” the other said. “It’s Tim McGowan, God rest his soul.”

  Edgar Thomson looked at John. His face was grim and ashen. And then he shook his head. “I’ve seen enough,” he said with a voice as cold as a north wind in February. “Let’s get out of this place. There’s nothing you or I can do here for now.”

  John simply nodded his head in agreement. The two of them had poked around, examined the site, and questioned still more men. They had seen down in the tunnel all that mattered. The chief engineer was right; there was nothing more to do down there. John had nothing he could add to Thomson’s grim, cold words.

  And so the two men returned to the shaft in silence.

  And they shared the hoist cage with corpses wrapped in canvas.

  As the cage slowly rose up the shaft, John’s mind turned once again to the cave system within the mountain. He was now certain that the tunnel collapsed because it crossed one of the caves. He wondered if the caves could also become the means of salvation for any men who still might be trapped in the tunnel beyond the cave-in. John wanted very much to find that out. When they were once more on the surface, he decided it was time to break the silence.

  “I’ve been thinking about the hunch we were talking about earlier. It’s very possible that some of the men survived on the other side of the collapse.”

  Thomson looked up at him from the deep brown study he’d been lost in. “Yes?” he replied. “Go on.”

  “And, if there are survivors, I think it may just be possible to save them.”

  “I think you may be onto something that’s worth trying … I also think there’s a much better than even chance that you will have no success.”

  “I know,” John said, with a shrug. Then he explained his plan: He wanted to take a few good men into the caves and see if they could find a way to the tunnel.

  When John finished, Thomson gave a vigorous nod. “All right, do it…just on the chance your idea might work,” he said. “Although God knows how extensive the caves really are, and God knows how you’ll ever find your way through them to the tunnel. Still, let’s see if we can do it.”

  “I’ll need a guide.”

  “Absolutely,” Thomson said. “Let’s see about that.” He thought a second. “But first, let’s see about Mr. Francis Stockton. He has an appointment with us.”

  They started walking the hundred and fifty yards to the cabin that was the supervising engineer’s office and quarters. On the way there, Thomson at last broke his silence about who Stockton was and why he was employed by the Pennsylvania.

  Francis Stockton was the son of Commodore Robert Stockton, formerly of the U.S. Navy, former senator from New Jersey, and currently a major partner in both the Cam-den and Raritan Railroad and the Delaware and Raritan Canal in New Jersey. More importantly, as far as Thomson was concerned, the elder Stockton was a large shareholder in the Pennsylvania and a member of the board of directors.

  Robert Stockton, Thomson went on to explain, was something of a hero and a great man. He had served with distinction in the War of 1812. A few years later he negotiated with the Barbary pirates for the strip of land in West Africa that was later to become the nation of Liberia. After that he became an American agent in the Texas Republic, charged with protecting the Texans from the machinations of the British who were trying to prevent the union of Texas and the United States. In 1846 he was instrumental in severing California from Mexico, after which he served in the Senate. And recently, there was talk of nominating him for the presidency.

  Stockton was a friend and ally of Edgar Thomson’s, and Thomson needed him to stay that way. But Stockton had a problem: his son Francis. And Thomson could help his friend Stockton with that problem by employing Francis. So he did. Robert Stockton and Edgar Thomson remained friends and allies. And Edgar Thomson retained the younger Stockton on his engineering staff.

  In fact, Francis Stockton was actually more than qualified to handle the job. He had learned his profession at the United States Military Academy, the best engineering school in the United States. And he was smart; he graduated third in the class of 1845. And he was courageous; he’d won medals for bravery in the war with Mexico. But he was also trouble. He drank considerably more than he should, he seduced the wives of superior officers, and worst of all, he was insubordinate and disobedient. And so he was discharged from the army in 1849, honorably so, on account of his father. After that, he spent some time in California, where he failed to make himself rich. And when he returned East, his father approached his friend Edgar Thomson.

  Once Francis was on his staff, Thomson quickly learned what young Stockton’s military superiors had already discovered: that Francis Stockton was brilliant, brave, dashing, reckless,
insubordinate, disobedient, and totally undependable.

  He performed brilliantly those tasks he himself chose to do but did not take orders well; he was impervious to the directives issued by anyone but himself.

  And there was something else that Thomson had against Stockton. He left it unspoken, but John sensed it was something personal.

  After hearing Thomson’s opinion of Francis Stockton, John Cariysle had every expectation that he would despise this young man. In Stockton, John expected to meet an American version of the type he had met—and hated—numerous times in Britain: the dissolute scion of aristocratic parents. But, though there were clearly elements of that in Francis Stockton, he did not otherwise fit the type.

  In fact, John almost, but not quite, found himself liking him.

  Stockton was waiting, along with Harold Harrison, in the administration building in the supervising engineer’s office. When John entered the room, he found a tall and erect young man who was quite good-looking. He retained some of his West Point breeding. His hair was glossy black and brushed straight back from a high forehead. His eyes were dark. And he was clean-shaven, which made him look younger than his thirty years. In spite of his youthful appearance, he did not look innocent. He had clearly been drinking. His face was flushed, and there was a thin film of sweat on his cheeks and forehead. He wore no jacket and no tie: his shirt was open at the collar, its sleeves were rolled up to his elbow, it stails were tucked in differently into his trousers, and it was filthy. He had obviously been wearing it for several days.

  And yet, for all the obvious signs of dissipation, his dark eyes were clear and alert. And he had an interested, expectant look on his face. He was clearly not bored with himself or the life he was leading. And there was an intriguing verve and graceful, fluid motion in his face and body as he talked. If his mouth had not been set in a sarcastic, hostile smile, John would have been moved to form an instant good impression of him.

  When Thomson introduced Stockton to John Carlysle, the smile did not leave his face, but his grip was nevertheless firm when they shook hands, and he looked John in the eye, though the look was a little askance and off-center. It was a curious, testing, “show me” look. After he finished his assessment of John, he backed away and leaned indolently against the wall.