Blood on the Tracks

by Martin Edwards

  Why did this voice persist in waking her up? She didn’t want to wake up, she only wanted to stay in this dark world where she felt numb and sleepy. She tried hard not to listen to the voice, but it went on and on. Wake up, wake up, wake up…the words beat over and over upon her brain, would let her have no rest. Reluctantly at last she allowed her mind to pay attention. The voice sounded more clearly now, Wake up, wake up, you must wake up. The darkness of the world began to be shot with flashes and gleams of light even before she opened her eyes. Wake up, wake up…

  She opened her eyes and slowly realised where she was and what had happened.

  ‘You’re all right,’ the voice went on, ‘but you must get out.’ The voice seemed to come from above her head, and rather surprised to find she could move, Solange looked up. She saw the head of a young man, dark against the blinding square of light made by the window of the carriage which was right up above her head. The young man looked down at her as though she were at the bottom of a well, and he were peering in over the rim. She stirred and felt herself cautiously. Yes…she was intact, she could waggle all her fingers and toes, her back was not broken, she could feel pain where a sharp angle of splintered coachwork stuck into one thigh. She looked about her, still dazed by the shock and her senses confused by the shouts and wails of terrified human beings that came to her ears. The elderly woman was either unconscious or dead, she was lying crumpled up, her eyes shut, and a thin skein of blood, where a splinter of glass had caught her, lying across her face like a ravelling of red worsted. The commonplace little man was doubled up, his head sunk sideways on his shoulder, his eyes closed and his face very pale. His hat had been knocked off, and Solange saw with a shock of irrational surprise, that, save where it was grey at the sides, his hair was a bright red. It was one of those stupid and irrelevant details that strike the mind at such moments of stress.

  Solange looked up. There was the face of the young man still peering in from the top of that strange well into which the railway carriage had become changed as though by magic.

  ‘Can’t you help us out?’ she called.

  He shook his head. She saw the dark weaving motion of it against the clear square blue of sky.

  ‘You must wake him up,’ he called down to her. ‘Shake him, wake him up.’

  Solange managed to stagger to her feet, pushing aside bits of broken wood that hemmed her in. She looked doubtfully at the little man crumpled up at her feet. She hardly liked to shake him, and yet she couldn’t climb up the tower that was the up-ended railway carriage without his help. She put her hand on to his shoulder and spoke urgently.

  ‘Are you hurt? Oh, do try and do something. We’ve got to get out. We’ve got to get the old woman out. Wake up. Wake up,’ and she did actually begin to shake him, as one shakes someone who is having a bad dream. Slowly, the commonplace little light eyes opened and looked at her unintelligently. Then the man moaned a little, and put up one hand to his head.

  ‘You’re all right, you really are,’ said Solange, urgently. ‘Do see if you can climb up. There’s someone up there who will help you if you only can.’ She glanced up and the young man above her met her gaze.

  ‘Make him hurry up,’ he said, ‘there’s a fire. Listen.’ And Solange, with a pang of pure fear that she never forgot, realised that the crackling sound which she had thought came entirely from breaking woodwork, was really made by the burning of the next coach, perhaps even by the burning of one end of the coach she was in.

  ‘There was petrol in the van,’ said the young man, ‘and the guard was smoking.’

  The little red-haired man now began to feel himself all over, as Solange herself had done.

  ‘I’m a’reet, Miss,’ he said, a little unsteadily, ‘I’ll climb oop and hold down my hand to you.’

  He looked round him and saw the woman still lying crumpled up, unconscious, and a worried look came across his face. However, he wasted no words, and began laboriously by the aid of the splintered luggage rack to try and pull himself up to the gaping window above his head. Solange saw, to her disgust, that the young man had gone. She managed to climb on the wreck of the seat, and exerting all her force, gave the little man a leg-up. With a mighty effort he pulled himself through the jagged frame of glass above his head and levered himself out into the air. For one awful moment Solange thought that perhaps he, too, was going to desert her, but he wriggled himself round on the up-ended side of the carriage, and looking down at her, held a hand that was cut and bleeding down towards her.

  ‘Get a grip o’ that,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Solange. ‘I can’t leave the old woman. We must get her out somehow.’

  The head of the young man came back now, and she saw it behind red-head’s shoulder.

  ‘You want a rope,’ said the young man, ‘make a rope fast round her. Oh, hurry up.’

  Solange looked frantically round the shattered compartment. There was not so much as a luggage strap round the little man’s black bag, and none round her suitcase. ‘Can’t you get a rope?’ she called up to the little man, ‘ask someone for a rope.’

  Then the red-headed man spoke, slightly hesitating, in spite of that dreadful crackling that was coming nearer and nearer.

  ‘Ma bag, Miss,’ he said, ‘ma bag. Tha’ll find a rope there.’

  Solange seized the little black bag, and struggled with the lock.

  ‘Don’t pull it,’ called the little man, ‘slide it. That’s reet.’

  The bag gaped open, and Solange saw a rather crumpled nightshirt and a shabby sponge bag.

  ‘Look underneath,’ called down the little man.

  She plunged in her hand and to her intense thankfulness her fingers met a good, strong rope, that filled up with its coils the whole of the bottom of the bag, as a serpent might have done. She pulled it out. It was amazingly strong, smooth, and flexible. The next moment she saw that it had a running noose at one end that passed through a brass ring. Her mind became very clear and cold. She handled the thing without any distaste. She even thought how convenient the running noose would be.

  ‘Be quick,’ urged the young man, who was still peering in behind the flaming red head of that apparently commonplace little man. ‘Get her out before she sees what it is.’

  Solange worked the noose down over the limp form of the elderly woman, pulled her arms through it so that they hung out helplessly each side, and then flung the free end of the rope upwards. The little man with the red head caught hold of it, and began to pull. Solange heaved with all her strength upon the dead weight of the old lady. She was a very frail old lady, it appeared, now that Solange had her hands upon her, but she was heavy, nevertheless, with the weight of her unconsciousness.

  ‘Be careful. Try not to cut her face any worse,’ Solange called up.

  The little man seemed amazingly strong as well as deft with his hands. He groaned and sweated, but he pulled the woman up till her head and shoulders were through the window untouched by the jagged frame of glass. Then he clutched her under the arms and pulled her right through the opening.

  ‘Wait a moment, lass,’ he called down to Solange. ‘I’ll have thee out in a jiffy.’

  He disappeared, and Solange felt terrifyingly alone. The heat seemed suffocating, the crackling was nearer, and through the roar of escaping steam and the roar of the flames she could still hear faint thin cries from further down the train. She was never so thankful to see anyone in her life as she was to see the red head of the public executioner appear once more above her. He lowered the rope down to her, and she fitted it round her waist and, taking a good purchase with her hands, kicked her way up the carriage and was in her turn pulled out into safety. The air was fresh and sweet, for the smoke was being blown away in the opposite direction, and for a moment Solange felt, as she stood swaying a little upon the grass at the side of the track, that it was good merely to be alive. Then she look
ed about her. The train was piled on itself in the most fantastic fashion. The engine lay upon its side. The accident had happened at a level crossing, and already there were motor-cars going backwards and forwards, and people busy at work.

  ‘I reckon they’re all out now,’ said the little red-headed man, wiping his wet brow with the back of his hand. ‘Eh, that was a near thing, lass!’

  It dawned on Solange that he was still holding one end of the rope, which was round her waist, as if she were a heifer being led to market, and she suddenly realised, emotionally, as well as with her mind, what it was that had saved her. She began to tear at it with her fingers, feeling as near to hysteria as she had ever felt in her calm, well-ordered life.

  ‘I’ll tak’ it off, lass,’ said the little man, apologetically. ‘I was sorry about it. I didn’t want you to see it, but there weren’t no other way.’

  While he was talking, he began to ease the rope from about her waist.

  ‘That’s why I didn’t get in at Merchester. You see, with my red hair, I’m what you might call noticeable like. They drove me from t’jail t’next station.’

  He had got the rope off her by now, and was coiling it round his own waist, under his coat. ‘Government property nowadays,’ he explained as he did so. ‘I mun use this again next week.’

  ‘Did the young man help you?’ asked Solange. ‘Was he helping you with us? It must have been dreadfully heavy work otherwise.’

  The little red-headed man stared at her.

  ‘What young man?’ he asked.

  ‘The young man who looked in at the carriage window and woke me up. He told me to wake you up. The young man who told us we must have a rope.’

  ‘I’ll get one o’ they cars to take ’e home, lass,’ said the red-headed little man, with a rather worried expression on his face. ‘Tha’ll be wanting a lay down.’

  ‘But did he?’ persisted Solange.

  ‘There weren’t no young man that I ever saw or heard of, nowt but you waking me and telling me to get out and get rope. You saved my life, lass. I’d ha burned…’ and he pointed to the railway carriage which was now a roaring furnace, the flames were pale almost to invisibility in the bright sunlight, but their heat reached Solange where she stood.

  ‘Well, there was a young man,’ said Solange, wondering whether red-head had been too confused to notice him, ‘and, what’s more, it was the young man who woke me up. It was he saved the lot of us.’

  She looked about her and saw the elderly woman lying in the grass some twenty yards away where the little man had dragged her. The young man was kneeling beside her, his head bent down to hers. The woman’s eyes were open, and she was looking up into his face with a smile upon her own. She opened her mouth as though to speak but the young man very gently laid his fingers, long, delicate, over-white fingers, against her lips. A little crowd of people, among them two men bearing a stretcher, were approaching the woman. The young man bent a little lower over her, then raised his head and looked across at Solange. She could see his face clearly now in the bright sunlight, it was no longer shadowed as it had been when he was peering down into the railway carriage, and with a pang, half of incredulity, half of pure terror, she saw that he had a port-wine stain, shaped like a bat’s wing, lying over one cheek beneath the eye. The stretcher-bearers and their assistants closed in about the woman and began to lift her. Solange ran towards them. She seemed to have lost the young man in the little crowd of people, but she motioned the stretcher-bearers to stay still for a moment, and thinking she might be some relation or friend, they did so.

  ‘Did you see him?’ asked Solange, bending over the woman. ‘Did you see him?’

  The woman smiled at her: ‘I saw him,’ she said; ‘he must have escaped after all. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Solange, ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘He said it was all right,’ said the woman, feebly. ‘He said I should meet him this evening. He was always a good boy, was my Tim, though I knew he was marked for misfortune from the moment I first set eyes on that bat’s wing on his poor face, but he was always good to his mother. “Don’t worry, mother,” he’s just told me, “it’s all right. I’ll see you this evening!”’

  She closed her eyes and seemed to drift into uncon-

  sciousness.

  ‘Where are you taking her?’ asked Solange.

  ‘Cottage Hospital, Miss,’ said one of the stretcher-bearers. ‘It isn’t far. Just down the road,’ and they set off, carrying their burden carefully over the uneven ground.

  The little red-headed man, who had stayed behind to fasten his coat completely over the rope, now came up to Solange.

  ‘I wish I could get a hat,’ he complained. He was evidently worried about his conspicuous hair.

  ‘I don’t think anybody will notice,’ said Solange; ‘they’ve got other things to think about now, you see.’

  He jerked his red head towards the disappearing stretcher. ‘Who was t’owd lady?’ he asked. ‘Did tha know her?’

  ‘She was the mother of the young man who saved us,’ said Solange.

  It was most unreasonable, she concluded later, that she had refused to share the offer of a car up to town with the little red-headed man. After all, he had, under instruction, saved her life, and there were souls evidently capable of resentment and crime but capable also of forgiveness. There was no reason why she shouldn’t like to stay with the red-headed man whom Tim Jackson had saved from a death by fire. Nevertheless, Solange was glad to have seen the last of him, and glad also that Mrs Jackson died that evening in the local hospital, without knowing what it was that had been passed over her head and fastened about her body.

  Mystery of the Slip-Coach

  Sapper

  Herman Cyril McNeile (1888–1937) was a soldier before becoming a best-selling thriller writer. He adopted the pen-name Sapper as a hat-tip to the Royal Engineers, in which he had served with distinction during the First World War, being awarded the Military Cross. In 1920, he created Captain Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond, ‘a demobilised officer who found peace dull’ whose principal adversary is the master-criminal Carl Peterson. The Drummond stories became bestsellers, and in 1929, Ronald Coleman, who played the lead in the film Bulldog Drummond, was nominated for an Academy Award. The New York Times called it ‘the happiest and most enjoyable entertainment of its kind that has so far reached the screen’, but after Sapper’s death from cancer, his reputation faded.

  Sapper was not a sophisticated writer, but he knew how to tell a story, and this knack is on display in several of his tales featuring Ronald Standish, who appeared in short story collections and also in three of the Bulldog Drummond books. This story comes from Ronald Standish (1933), in which he is presented as a charismatic Great Detective of the type so popular at that time: ‘A born player of games, wealthy, and distinctly good-looking…With the official police he was on excellent terms, which was not to be wondered at in view of the fact that on many occasions he had put them on the right track.’ In this tale, Standish makes one of those pleasingly enigmatic remarks beloved of Great Detectives, urging the hapless Inspector Grantham to ‘consider in all its aspects the extraordinary phenomenon of the raw egg’. Sure enough, therein lies the clue to the solution of the mystery.

  ‘Well, I’ll be danged. She’s signalled through, and yet she’s stopping, though she’s late already. Be there summat up?’

  The stationmaster of Marley Junction scratched his head, and stared at the oncoming express which was now slowing down rapidly.

  ‘Isn’t she supposed to stop?’ Ronald Standish asked.

  ‘No, sir; she ain’t. There be a slip coach for here, but main part goes through.’

  Rows of heads were already protruding from carriage windows as the train came to a standstill, and the guard got out.

  ‘What’s the matter, Joe?’ dema
nded the stationmaster.

  ‘Murder’s the matter,’ was the unexpected answer; and with a lift of his eyebrows Ronald turned to the other member of our little party.

  ‘You seem to be having a busy time of it, Inspector,’ he said, and with an expression of relief the two railway officials turned round.

  ‘Are you the police, sir?’ cried the guard.

  ‘I’m Inspector Grantham of Scotland Yard,’ answered the other. ‘What’s that you say? Murder!’

  ‘Yes, sir. And I’ll be pleased if you can come this way, for we’re a lot behind time. He’s in the slip coach.’

  We followed him to the rear of the train, paying no attention to the excited comments of the passengers, several of whom had got out on the platform. And as we got to the back carriage an irascible-looking, elderly man, who might have been a retired colonel, an old clergyman and his wife, and a young man of perhaps thirty, with a worried expression on his face, descended.

  The Inspector paused for a moment.