Part 24 (1/2)
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 s.h.i.+p 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.”
Cras.h.!.+ 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 s.h.i.+ps 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.