Complete Works of Bram Stoker (697 page)

We crossed Bayou Pierre at last in safety, and kept on our way. Ours by the way was the last train that crossed the bayou till the flood was over. We heard next day that one section of the bridge close to the bank had gone down ten minutes after we had crossed. It had been an anxious time for the officials of the line. We could see them from both banks perpetually signalling to our driver, who was signalling in reply. It made the wide waste of water seem wider and more dangerous still. The only really bad result to us was that we arrived in Memphis too late to get anything to eat. In those days the rules governing hours in the SouthWestern Hotels were very fixed, especially on Sundays. Up to nine o’clock you could get what you wanted. But after nine the kitchen was closed and money would not induce them to open it. Irving and Ellen Terry had of course ordered each their own dinner, and these, cold, waited them in their rooms; but the rest of us were hungry and wanted food of some kind. So I tried strategy with the “ boy “ who attended me, a huge, burly nigger with a good-humoured face and a twelve-inch smile. I said:

“What is your name? “ “ George, sah! George Washington.” “ George! “ I said, as I handed him half a dollar  —  ” George, you are an uncommonly good-looking fellow!”

“Yah! Yah! Yah! “ pealed George’s homeric laughter. Then he said:

“What can I do for you, sah! “ “ George, your cook is a very stout lady, is she not?”

“Yes, sah, almighty stout, wide as a barrel. Yah! Yah! Yah!”

“Exactly, George. Now I want you to go right up to her, put your arms round her  —  tight, and give her a kiss  —  a big one!”

“‘Fore Gad, sah, if I did, she’d open my head wid de cleaver!”

“Not so, George! Not with a good-looking fellow like you.”

“An’ what then, sah?”

“Then, George, you tell her that there is a stranger here who is perishing for some food. He is sorry to disturb so pretty a woman, who he is told is the belle of Memphis; but necessitas non habet leges. Explain that to her, won’t you, like a good fellow? Make me out tall and thin and aristocratic-looking, with a white thin face and a hectic spot on each cheek bone, a black, melting and yearning eye, and a large black moustache  —  don’t forget the moustache. Ask her if she will of her gracious kindness break the iron rule of discipline that governs the house, and send me some food, anything that is least troublesome. A slice of cold meat, some bread and a pitcher of milk, and if she has any cold vegetables of any sort, and the cruet, I can make a salad!”

George laughed wildly and hurried out. I could hear his cachinnation dying away down the long passage. Presently I heard it swelling up again as he drew near. The heavy footfall drew closer, and the door was kicked in after the manner of negro waiters  —  in hotels there is an iron or brass plate at the base of the dining-room door for the purpose. George Washington bore an enormous tray, resting on an open palm spread back over his shoulder. When he laid it down its weight made the table shake.

On it was food of all sorts enough for a dozen people  —  beef, ham, tongue, turkey, bread and butter, pies of several kinds, milk, a salad bowl, and a lot of different cold vegetables, and the cruet. Such of my companions who were staying at our hotel came to my room and shared the banquet.

That episode was worth a whole silver dollar to George. It was divided, I presume, with the adipose cook; for there was no external appearance of his head having been “ opened wid de cleaver.” For the remaining days of our stay he followed me when opportunity served like a shadow. A very substantial shadow; quite a Demogorgon of a shadow! b We had had a somewhat similar experience of a flood some years before, though of nothing like so dangerous a nature. This was on 3rd February 1884, on our journey from Cincinnati to Columbus. The thaw had come on suddenly on the southern watershed of the northern hills when the ground through a long rigorous winter was frozen to a depth of several feet. Of course, the water, unable to sink into the ground, ran into the streams, and the Ohio River was flooded. As we left we could see that it was up to the top of the levee. Later on it rose some forty feet higher. It was a record flood. We went by the Pan Handle route of the Pennsylvanian Railway. As we went, whole tracks of country were flooded; in places we ran where the roads were under water, and a mighty splash our engine sent ahead of her. We went very fast, “ rushing “ all the bridges, especially the small ones of which there were many. In a stopping time I had a chat with the driver  —  one whom the depot-master of Cincinnati had told me he had put on specially because he was a bold driver who did not mind taking a risk. I asked him why he went so fast over the bridges, as I had heard it was much safer to go slow.

“Not in a flood like this! “ he answered. “ You see, the water has been out some time and the brick work is all sapped and sodden with wet. Mayhap we may shake a bridge down now and then, but I like them to fall behind me, and not whilst we’re crossing. The depot-master told me I was to get you folks in; and, by the Almighty, I mean to do it if I shake down all the bridges in the Pan Handle. Anyhow, this is the last train that will run over the section till the floods are over.”

IV

TRAIN ACCIDENTS

At a rough computation the railroad journeys of Irving’s tours ran over fifty thousand miles  —  more than twice round the Equator. The journeys were nearly always taken in special trains running at all sorts of hours, and almost invariably in the bad seasons of the year. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that we had a certain percentage of accidents. That some of these accidents did not entail loss of life is the source of wonder. Several times we have had the train on fire; once so badly that the danger was very great. It was only by the chance of it being discovered just as we were coming into a station that the whole train was not lost. As it was, the Insurance Company had to liquidate damages to our goods to the extent of L5oo.

Three times the bolt head of the engine has been blown out, once entailing a delay of six hours, until not only another engine but another driver who knew the road as well as the engine, could be found.

Once in February 1900 when on our way from Indianapolis to Louisville some accident or explosion took place which seemed to shatter the whole engine into scrap iron. But no one was hurt.

On 17th January 1904 we went from Pittsburg to Buffalo. The cold was intense. There were ten feet of snow lying on the hills, and down the serpentine valley our driving wheel got “ frosted “ and flew to pieces. Fortunately we were on a stretch of level ground. Down the valley are here and there the remains of train wrecks on the bank of the river. Oui engine was a very powerful one, a great Pennsylvanian fast hauler; the great wheel was so thick that I could not lift a seemingly small fragment of it from the ground.

The very next week, Sunday, 24th January, when going from Albany to Montreal, we met with another accident. I had been most careful about a good engine, and the agent of the New York Central had given us the spare engine used in case of need for the New York and Chicago “ Flyer.” The cold was again intense and the snow thicker than ever. Up high amongst the Andirondack Mountains, where the wind roared over hill and through valley, the snowdrifts piled up in places to great heights. That was an exceptionally severe winter and railroading was hard. We climbed all right to the top of a pass amongst the hills and were going along steadily when there was a sharp explosion. Then in a few seconds the train drew up with a jerk. Our saloon was at the end of the train, so it took me some little time to reach the engine, as I had gone outside instead of passing through the train. The road just there was running on an embankment, and the snow-plough had swept the track, only leaving the snow piled at the sides so that to pass the carriages was difficult leg-deep in the snow. On the sloping embankment the snow lay many feet deep; and as the whole place was intersected with storm rivulets there were great holes like caverns in the snowdrift. The other men had also tumbled out of their carriages in much concern. We came across the train crew working in frantic haste. They told us that both the driver and the fireman were missing, and they feared that they had been blown off into one of the watercourse cavities. In such case either or both might die before we could find them, for these cavities were secret  —  they were honeycombed out beneath the blanket of snow. Very shortly we found the fireman. He had been on the outside of the engine when the explosion had occurred and was blown into the snowdrift head down. He was nearly choked when he was taken out.

But there was no sign of the driver, and the search went on. Immediately after the accident the brakesman had run back on the track to flag “ Danger “ lest any other train should come down upon us. This is the imperative rule in such cases. When he had done this duty he was to run along the track to the last station we had passed about a mile back, and bring help.

I was back on the line about a quarter of a mile when an engine piled with men came up at a furious pace. As it drew near the men began to call.

“Has he been found? “ I shook my head.

Close to our train they stopped and the men leaping from the engine spread themselves along the slopes of the embankment beginning a systematic search. Presently one of the crew of our train came along leaping through the deep snow calling out that the driver was found and was on the engine. We rushed back and found him there smearing his burns, which were pretty bad, with oil. The explosion had set his clothes on fire, but he had not lost his head. He had waited to turn the steam off, and then had taken a header into the deep snow wherein he had rolled himself till he had put the fire out. When he had managed to crawl out of his burrow the others of the crew, seeing the engine empty, had gone back to make search for him. He, not knowing that he was missed, had climbed quietly back into his cab.

When Irving heard of the man’s gallantry in stopping whilst all on fire to turn off steam before thinking of himself he said it was a thing that should be rewarded in a marked way. He was quite willing to give the reward himself, but he thought that the company would like to, and ought to, join in it. So we got up a subscription which he headed. We handed to the injured men a little purse of sixty-one dollars. They declared that they would like to take their injuries over again any time for half the money or a quarter of the kindness.

The occasions when we were delayed by minor accidents to the train  —  hot-boxes, breaking steam-pipes, freezing steam brakes, snows-up, washes-out, broken bridges  —  were never ending. Many of them were not matters for much concern, but they were all causes of delay; and in touring, delay is often disastrous.

STORMS AT SEA a Irving was across the Atlantic eighteen times, of which one, in 1886, was for a summer holiday trip. Of course there were many times when there was bad weather; but on one crossing in 1899 we encountered a terrific storm. The waves were greater by far than any I had ever seen when I crossed in the Germanic in the February of the same year during the week of the worst weather ever recorded. On the occasion we were on the Atlantic transport S.S. Marquette. The weather had been nice for three days from our leaving London. But in the afternoon of the fourth day, 18th October, we ran into the track of a hurricane. As we went on the seas got bigger and bigger till at last they were mountainous. When we were down in the trough the waves seemed to stand up higher than our masts. The wind was blowing furiously something like a hundred miles an hour, but there was no rain. The moon came out early, a splendid bright moon still in its second quarter, so that when night fell the scene was sublimely grand. We forged on as long as we could, but the screw raced so furiously as the waves swept past us that we had perforce to lie by for six hours; it was not safe to go on as we might lose our screw-head. The tossing in that frightful sea was awful. Most of those on board were dreadfully frightened. Irving came out for a while and stood on the bridge holding on like grim death, for the shaking was like an earthquake. He seemed to really enjoy it. He stayed as long as he could and only went in when he began to feel the chill. Ellen Terry came out with me and was so enraptured with the scene that she stayed there for hours. I had to hold her against the rail for at times we rolled so that our feet shot off the deck. I showed her how to look into the wind without feeling it; to hold the eyes just above the bulwark  —  or the “ dodger “ if you are on the bridge  —  and a few inches away from it. The wind strikes below you and makes a clear section of a circle right over and round your head, you remaining in the calm. To test the force of the wind I asked her to put out her hand, palm out so as to make a fair resistance; but she could not hold it for an instant. Neither could I; my hand was driven back as though struck with a hammer.

In the companion-way of the Marquette several trunks too large for the adjacent cabin had been placed. They had been carefully lashed to the hand-rail, but in that wild sea they strained at their lashings rising right off the ground the way a chained dog does when he raises himself on his hind legs. One of the trunks, belonging to Irving, a great leather one, full of books and papers, was lashed by its own straps. In the companion-way had gathered nearly all the passengers, huddled together for comfort  —  especially the women, who were mostly in a panic. In such cases the only real comfort a poor woman can have is to hold on to a man. I happen to be a big one, and therefore of extra desirability in such cases of stress. I was sitting on a trunk on the other side of the companion- way from Irving’s trunk, surrounded by as many of the womenkind as could catch hold of me, when in a roll of extra magnitude the leather straps gave way and the trunk seemed to hurl itself at us. I shoved the women away right and left, but missed the clearing its course myself by the fraction of a second. The corner of it caught me on the calf sideways, fortunately just clearing the bone. Another half-inch and I should certainly have lost my leg. I was lifted into the music saloon which was close at hand and my trouser leg cut open. We had three American footballers on board and these at once began to rub and knead the injured muscle, quite the best thing to do. Then it seemed as if every soul on board, man, woman, and child, had each a separate bottle of embrocation or liniment. These were all produced at once  —  and used.