Part 5 (1/2)
The next thing she remembered was finding a flask held to her lips, while a familiar voice commanded her to drink. She shook her head feebly.
”Drink it at once,” the voice insisted. ”Do you hear?”
And because her mind held some dim recollection of the futility of gainsaying that peremptory voice, she opened her lips obediently and let the strong spirit trickle down her throat.
”Better now?” queried the voice.
She nodded, and then, complete consciousness returning, she sat up.
”I'm all right now--really,” she said.
The owner of the voice regarded her critically.
”Yes, I think you'll do now,” he returned. ”Stay where you are. I'm going along to see if I can help, but I'll come back to you again.”
The darkness swallowed him up, and Diana sat very still on the embankment, vibrantly conscious in every nerve of her of the man's cool, dominating personality. Gradually her thoughts returned to the happenings of the moment, and then the full horror of what had occurred came back to her. She began to cry weakly. But the tears did her good, bringing with them relief from the awful shock which had strained her nerves almost to breaking-point, and with return to a more normal state of mind came the instinctive wish to help--to do something for those who must be suffering so pitiably in the midst of that scarred heap of wreckage on the line.
She scrambled to her feet and made her way nearer to the ma.s.s of crumpled coaches that reared up black against the s.h.i.+mmer of the starlit sky. No one took any notice of her; all who were unhurt were working to save and help those who had been less fortunate, and every now and then some broken wreck of humanity was carried past her, groaning horribly, or still more horribly silent.
Suddenly a woman brushed against her--a young woman of the working cla.s.ses, her plump face sagging and mottled with terror, her eyes staring, her clothes torn and dishevelled.
”My chiel, my li'l chiel!” she kept on muttering. ”Wur be 'ee? Wur be 'ee?”
Reaching her through the dreadful strangeness of disaster, the soft Devon dialect smote on Diana's ears with a sense of dear familiarity that was almost painful. She laid her hand on the woman's arm.
”What is it?” she asked. ”Have you lost your child?”
The woman looked at her vaguely, bewildered by the surrounding horror.
”Iss. Us dunnaw wur er's tu; er's dade, I reckon. Aw, my li'l, li'l chiel!” And she rocked to and fro, clutching her shawl more closely round her.
Diana put a few brief questions and elicited that the woman and her child had both been taken unhurt out of a third-cla.s.s carriage--of the ten souls who had occupied the compartment the only ones to escape injury.
”I'll go and look for him,” she told her. ”I expect he has only strayed away and lost sight of you amongst all these people. Four years old and wearing a little red coat, did you say? I'll find him for you; you sit down here.” And she pushed the poor distraught creature down on a pile of shattered woodwork. ”Don't be frightened,” she added rea.s.suringly.
”I feel certain he's quite safe.”
She disappeared into the throng, and after searching for a while came face to face with her fellow traveller, carrying a chubby, red-coated little boy in his arms. He stopped abruptly.
”What in the world are you doing?” he demanded angrily. ”You've no business here. Go back--you'll only see some ghastly sights if you come, and you can't help. Why didn't you stay where I told you to?”
But Diana paid no heed.
”I want that child,” she said eagerly, holding out her arms. ”The mother's nearly out of her mind--she thinks he's killed, and I told her I'd go and look for him.”
”Is this the child? . . . All right, then, I'll carry him along for you.
Where did you leave his mother?”
Diana led the way to where the woman was sitting, still rocking herself to and fro in dumb misery. At the sight of the child she leapt up and clutched him in her arms, half crazy with joy and grat.i.tude, and a few sympathetic tears stole down Diana's cheeks as she and her fellow-helper moved away, leaving the mother and child together.