A Book of Railway Journeys

by Ludovic Kennedy

  And what did they matter, the victims crushed on the road by the locomotive? Was it not going into the future, careless of spilt blood? Without a master, through the blackness, a blind, deaf beast, unleashed with death, it sped on, and on, loaded with cannon-fodder, with soldiers stupid with exhaustion, drunk, singing.

  ÉMILE ZOLA,

  The Hungry Beast

  (trans. Louis Colman)

  THE LITTLE BLACK TRAIN

  (Suggested by a folk song)

  Who hears that whistle blowing?

  Who hears that hellish din?

  Not the living—but they will.

  Ah, where is it going?

  And where has it been?

  Ask the darkness that falls on the hill.

  Behind—a ghost smoke flowing;

  Ahead—that quiet inn

  Which all may enter—but none come back.

  Ah, where are they going?

  And where have they been?

  Ask the thistles that bloom on the track.

  The cabman is all-knowing

  (They say), and at peace within;

  But it must be lonely at night.

  Ah, where is he going?

  And where has he been?

  Ask the millions who wait without light.

  Black roses need no sowing,

  And the soul is born in sin

  (We’re told)—fouled by that ancient pair.

  Ah, where is it going?

  And where has it been?

  Ask the star that touches your loved one’s hair.

  And now the train is slowing,

  And the passengers they grin,

  As well they might—a little sly.

  Ah, where are they going?

  And where have they been?

  Ask the lanterns that swing in the sky.

  KENNETH PATCHEN

  Holmes and Moriarty: The Final Problem

  I had often admired my friend’s courage, but never more than now, as he sat quietly checking off a series of incidents which must have combined to make up a day of horror.

  “You will spend the night here?” I said.

  “No, my friend, you might find me a dangerous guest. I have my plans laid, and all will be well. Matters have gone so far now that they can move without my help as far as the arrest goes, though my presence is necessary for a conviction. It is obvious, therefore, that I cannot do better than get away for the few days which remain before the police are at liberty to act. It would be a great pleasure to me, therefore, if you could come on to the Continent with me.”

  “The practice is quiet,” said I, “and I have an accommodating neighbour. I should be glad to come.”

  “And to start to-morrow morning?”

  “If necessary.”

  “Oh yes, it is most necessary. Then these are your instructions, and I beg, my dear Watson, that you will obey them to the letter, for you are now playing a double-handed game with me against the cleverest rogue and the most powerful syndicate of criminals in Europe. Now listen! You will despatch whatever luggage you intend to take by a trusty messenger unaddressed to Victoria to-night. In the morning you will send for a hansom, desiring your man to take neither the first nor the second which may present itself. Into this hansom you will jump, and you will drive to the Strand end of the Lowther Arcade, handing the address to the cabman upon a slip of paper, with a request that he will not throw it away. Have your fare ready, and the instant that your cab stops, dash through the Arcade, timing yourself to reach the other side at a quarter-past nine. You will find a small brougham waiting close to the curb, driven by a fellow with a heavy black cloak tipped at the collar with red. Into this you will step, and you will reach Victoria in time for the Continental express.”

  “Where shall I meet you?”

  “At the station. The second first-class carriage from the front will be reserved for us.”

  The most famous detective in the world, with his almost equally famous companion (Sidney Paget, 1892)

  “The carriage is our rendezvous, then?”

  “Yes.”

  It was in vain that I asked Holmes to remain for the evening. It was evident to me that he thought he might bring trouble to the roof he was under, and that that was the motive which impelled him to go. With a few hurried words as to our plans for the morrow he rose and came out with me into the garden, clambering over the wall which leads into Mortimer Street, and immediately whistling for a hansom, in which I heard him drive away.

  In the morning I obeyed Holmes’s injunctions to the letter. A hansom was procured with such precautions as would prevent its being one which was placed ready for us, and I drove immediately after breakfast to the Lowther Arcade, through which I hurried at the top of my speed. A brougham was waiting with a very massive driver wrapped in a dark cloak, who, the instant that I had stepped in, whipped up the horse and rattled off to Victoria Station. On my alighting there he turned the carriage, and dashed away again without so much as a look in my direction.

  So far all had gone admirably. My luggage was waiting for me, and I had no difficulty in finding the carriage which Holmes had indicated, the less so as it was the only one in the train which was marked “Engaged.” My only source of anxiety now was the non-appearance of Holmes. The station clock marked only seven minutes from the time when we were due to start. In vain I searched among the groups of travellers and leave-takers for the lithe figure of my friend. There was no sign of him. I spent a few minutes in assisting a venerable Italian priest, who was endeavouring to make a porter understand, in his broken English, that his luggage was to be booked through to Paris. Then, having taken another look round, I returned to my carriage, where I found that the porter, in spite of the ticket, had given me my decrepit Italian friend as a travelling companion. It was useless for me to explain to him that his presence was an intrusion, for my Italian was even more limited than his English, so I shrugged my shoulders resignedly, and continued to look out anxiously for my friend. A chill of fear had come over me, as I thought that his absence might mean that some blow had fallen during the night. Already the doors had all been shut and the whistle blown, when—

  “My dear Watson,” said a voice, “you have not even condescended to say good-morning.”

  I turned in uncontrollable astonishment. The aged ecclesiastic had turned his face towards me. For an instant the wrinkles were smoothed away, the nose drew away from the chin, the lower lip ceased to protrude and the mouth to mumble, the dull eyes regained their fire, the drooping figure expanded. The next the whole frame collapsed again, and Holmes had gone as quickly as he had come.

  “Good heavens!” I cried; “how you startled me!”

  “Every precaution is still necessary,” he whispered. “I have reason to think that they are hot upon our trail. Ah, there is Moriarty himself.”

  The train had already begun to move as Holmes spoke. Glancing back, I saw a tall man pushing his way furiously through the crowd, and waving his hand as if he desired to have the train stopped. It was too late, however, for we were rapidly gathering momentum, and an instant later had shot clear of the station.

  “With all our precautions, you see that we have cut it rather fine,” said Holmes, laughing. He rose, and throwing off the black cassock and hat which had formed his disguise, he packed them away in a hand-bag.

  “Have you seen the morning paper, Watson?”

  “No.”

  “You haven’t seen about Baker Street, then?”

  “Baker Street?”

  “They set fire to our rooms last night. No great harm was done.”

  “Good heavens, Holmes! this is intolerable.”

  “They must have lost my track completely after their bludgeon-man was arrested. Otherwise they could not have imagined that I had returned to my rooms. They have evidently taken the precaution of watching you, however, and that is what has brought Moriarty to Victoria. You could not have made any slip in coming?”

  “I did exactly what you ad
vised.”

  “Did you find your brougham?”

  “Yes, it was waiting.”

  “Did you recognise your coachman?”

  “No.”

  “It was my brother Mycroft. It is an advantage to get about in such a case without taking a mercenary into your confidence. But we must plan what we are to do about Moriarty now.”

  “As this is an express, and as the boat runs in connection with it, I should think we have shaken him off very effectively.”

  “My dear Watson, you evidently did not realise my meaning when I said that this man may be taken as being quite on the same intellectual plane as myself. You do not imagine that if I were the pursuer I should allow myself to be baffled by so slight an obstacle. Why, then, should you think so meanly of him?”

  “What will he do?”

  “What I should do.”

  “What would you do, then?”

  “Engage a special.”

  “But it must be late.”

  “By no means. This train stops at Canterbury; and there is always at least a quarter of an hour’s delay at the boat. He will catch us there.”

  “One would think that we were the criminals. Let us have him arrested on his arrival.”

  “It would be to ruin the work of three months. We should get the big fish, but the smaller would dart right and left out of the net. On Monday we should have them all. No, an arrest is inadmissible.”

  “What then?”

  “We shall get out at Canterbury.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, then we must make a cross-country journey to Newhaven, and so over to Dieppe. Moriarty will again do what I should do. He will get on to Paris, mark down our luggage, and wait for two days at the depot. In the meantime we shall treat ourselves to a couple of carpet-bags, encourage the manufactures of the countries through which we travel, and make our way at our leisure into Switzerland, via Luxembourg and Basle.”

  At Canterbury, therefore, we alighted, only to find that we should have to wait an hour before we could get a train to Newhaven.

  I was still looking rather ruefully after the rapidly disappearing luggage-van which contained my wardrobe, when Holmes pulled my sleeve and pointed up the line.

  “Already, you see,” said he.

  Far away, from among the Kentish woods there rose a thin spray of smoke. A minute later a carriage and engine could be seen flying along the open curve which leads to the station. We had hardly time to take our place behind a pile of luggage when it passed with a rattle and a roar, beating a blast of hot air into our faces.

  “There he goes,” said Holmes, as we watched the carriage swing and rock over the points. “There are limits, you see, to our friend’s intelligence. It would have been a coup-de-maître had he deduced what I would deduce and acted accordingly.”

  “And what would he have done had he overtaken us?”

  “There cannot be the least doubt that he would have made a murderous attack upon me. It is, however, a game at which two may play. The question now is whether we should take a premature lunch here, or run our chance of starving before we reach the buffet at Newhaven.”

  ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE,

  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  The very silent traveller

  The squat funnel of the engine gave a choking, gurgling sound. It spat myriads of fiery sparks into the pitch-coloured night. The comet’s tail of the sparks was like a woman’s mane, spreading along the length of the clattering train—a wavering, fading and recurrent magic carpet, broken and reunited as the rush of the coaches created an irregular slipstream, now narrowing at the curves, now spreading out again on the straight stretches. Behind the train the sparks settled on the black soil, blinked briefly and then died one by one as they touched the cool earth.

  A row of lights appeared in the night. The train began to slow down, brakes bit on wheels, the roaring and panting became less strident. The three-toned whistle gave a long shriek as the glimmer of the second set of signals streaked by.

  The engine pulled up, pulsating and burbling steam, at a small station on the edge of the vast Argentine plains. The station was marked by half-a-dozen apple-trees; the name of it, on a faded and battered piece of corrugated iron, was scarcely visible. The sheet of iron had been fastened with wire between two of the trees to secure it against the violent winter storms. There was no platform, no hut, no telegraphist’s shack. Apart from the sign wired to the trees and a few forlorn oil-lamps there was nothing to signify a stop. The nearest station on the line with a permanent staff was at least thirty miles away.

  The halt was brief; little more than three minutes. The engine spewed forth another column of fiery sparks, emitting a cloud of steam. Then the wheels began to turn again; the choking, gurgling, panting sounds were repeated and the shrill whistle pierced the night.

  In this brief interval one passenger boarded the train. Or rather, he was helped up the steep iron steps by three others who were evidently seeing him off. They supported him along the corridor and placed him in an empty compartment. Then, without any goodbyes or last-minute talk, they jumped from the train. The wheels were already moving and they barely had time to regain the ground before the train pulled out. It would seem a case of bad manners—yet the three men had a good excuse for not lingering.

  Transporting dead bodies in the Argentine used to be an extremely costly and difficult business. Red tape indeed made it almost impossible; it needed six different kinds of permits, a dozen declarations, a pile of documents. All this became even more difficult in districts where the simple ranches, the scattered estancias, were fifty or a hundred miles from the nearest town. Not even the fastest horse could carry the messengers to collect the necessary permits within the two or three days during which a corpse could be preserved. And if, by some lucky chance, the permits were forthcoming, the railway company charged ten times as much for a dead traveller as for a living one—not to mention the expense of the coffin and the ticket of the attendant who, under the company rules, had to accompany such a consignment. Many of the ranchers lived well without having more than a small fund of cash; more than one would have been ruined by such a heavy expenditure. Yet they were loath to bury their relatives on their own farms, especially if there was a family mausoleum in Buenos Aires.

  First Class—the Meeting (Abraham Solomon, 1854)

  But luckily there was still some ingenuity and enterprise left in these parts, and the traveller who boarded the train at the wayside halt was making his trip because of such ingenuity. He was very dead indeed; but his pious and grief-stricken relatives simply smuggled him on to the express. They wrapped him up well and pushed his sombrero over his forehead; by supporting him closely, they made any possible observer believe that he was an invalid or maybe a little drunk. One of them then settled the price of the ticket with the conductor, tipping him well so that the “poor invalid” should be left undisturbed and in sole possession of the compartment.

  As soon as the train had pulled out, another of the three men jumped on a horse and rode off post-haste to the nearest telegraph office, twenty miles away. There he sent a telegram to the dead man’s uncle in Buenos Aires, giving him the number of the coach and compartment in which the corpse was travelling. Uncle Felipe was to meet the train at the terminus and take care of the rest.

  The other two men remained standing near the track, staring after the rapidly-disappearing red tail-lights. They felt very solemn—but also considerably relieved.

  At the next stop—a much bigger one—Captain Grodeck boarded the train.

  The Captain had started life in the Imperial German Army but owing to some slight misunderstanding over cards (a fifth ace had unaccountably got into the pack) he was obliged to resign his commission. He had had some hard times after that, but later found his perfect niche in promoting revolutions. They needed little promoting in South and Central America—except that the captain was organizing them strictly for the benefit of his employers, a la
rge and prosperous armaments group.

  Just now he was on his way back from Paraguay, after a very profitable stay. He had a lot of baggage which he had to lug down the corridor himself. By the time he had finished the chore he was bathed in sweat, his scarred face glistening with it; and he was in a vile temper. Cursing, panting and shouting, he expressed most unflattering opinions about the Argentinian railway system in general and the lack of porters in particular. He dwelt with venomous intensity on the high steps of the carriages and the time-table of the only southbound express train that made a night journey inevitable.

  He continued his loud outburst outside each crowded compartment. He was forced to drag his suitcase, boxes and rugs along the swaying narrow corridors—there was nowhere an empty seat.

  Finally he reached the compartment in which the silent traveller was ensconced in solitary splendour. He was sitting in the darkest corner, huddled up, limp. The broadbrimmed black sombrero had slipped down on the tip of his nose. The blue-shaded reading lamp threw a pale circle of light upon him. He seemed to be sleeping soundly, lost in a happier world of dreams.

  “Do you mind, señor?” asked Captain Grodeck.

  There was no answer. He pushed his way into the compartment, distributing his luggage with considerable noise; then switched on the central light and, sitting down, inspected his fellow-traveller.

  The huddled passenger sat modestly and quietly in his corner. There was little to be seen of his face—except that he had not shaved for some time. His cloak reached to the ground, enveloping his body: both hands were buried in the large patch pockets. The rhythmic shaking of the train made the body tremble and sway gently.