Semaphore

EVERY night, at exactly eight minutes past nine, the limited roars through the village. I can see it coming several miles away, its powerful headlight fingering rails and telegraph wires with a shimmer of light. Silently and slowly it seems to draw nearer; then suddenly, it is almost above me. A wild roar of steam and driving wheels, the wail of its hoarse whistle at the crossing, and then, looming black against the night sky, it smashes past, and in the swing of drivers and connecting rods I think of a greyhound, or a racehorse thundering the final stretch. High in the cab window a motionless figure peers ahead into the night; suddenly he is blackly silhouetted by the glare of the opened fire-door, and in the orange light I can see the fireman swing back and forth as he feeds his fire. The light burns against the flying steam and smoke above; then blackness— and now the white windows of the Pullmans flicker past, and through the swirl of dust and smoke I watch the two red lights sink down the track.

Every time I see that black figure in the cab I wonder how far he can peer ahead into the night, and I wonder at the perfect faith that is his: faith in silent men who keep the semaphores lighted and true, and in those humble servants whose constant watchfulness guards him from broken rail and loosened fish-plate. Last night I sat beside him.

It was not my limited that I boarded, but a faster, greater engine that helps to rush half across the continent — a train before which all others wait and all tracks are cleared. I stood with the Division Superintendent on the platform of the little station where it must pause for water. Beyond the yardlights its song rose clear and vibrant. With a flare of lofty headlight and the grind of brakes it was beside us, steel lungs panting heavily, a reek of oil sweating from heated sides.

The engineer, a torch in his hand, swung down, and we shook hands before I climbed the iron rungs to the cab. From the high windows I watched him oil and stroke the sinews of his monster. Behind, on the top of the tender, the fireman was filling the tanks with a torrent of water. Then they joined me, and in the torchlight I saw the black studded end of the boiler, like a giant cask-head, a tangle of pipes across its face; water-gauge and steam dial dimly illumined by shaded bulls-eyes. The engineer blew out the torch and climbed into his seat. Opposite him, I settled into mine, the fireman behind me.

There was the thin piping of a whistle in the cab and the engineer slowly opened the throttle. We were off. Rumbling and swaying we passed the upper windows of the station. Telegraphers in shirtsleeves were fingering their instruments beneath shaded lights. The chill of the frosty night air penetrated the cab, and I buttoned my coat about me and looked ahead into the darkness. We were gathering headway. A string of freight cars on a siding swept behind us; already the lights of the village were far behind. Ahead of the long body of the locomotive, extending incredibly beyond the small front windows of the cab, the track, hardly visible in the ray of the headlight, terminated suddenly in the darkness. The roar of drivers and machinery was deafening. From side to side the engine rocked like a plunging derelict. The crashing roar grew louder, loud beyond belief, and the rocking and trembling almost threw me from the seat.

The fireman slid open the jaws of the fire-box, flooding the cab with light and heat. Within, the flame, white to pale daffodil in its intensity, twisted like streams of fluid in the draught. Behind the cab the black end of the tender rose high above my line of vision, rocking and swaying in contrary motion to the engine, like a bulldog twisting on a stick. Balancing on the smooth steel floor, the fireman stoked his grate-bars, his shovel feeding spots where the coal was thinnest. Then darkness as he closed the doors with his foot. Only the two dim lights on gauge and indicator; and on each side, and above, the stars racing evenly beside us. I looked down at the road bed: it was flooding past us like a torrent.

‘Green.' I caught the word above the tumult.

‘Green,’ echoed the fireman.

Far ahead, four colored lights gleamed like gems against the sky. Two rubies below; above, another ruby and beside it the pale green of an emerald. The green light was in the upper right-hand corner of the square.

‘Seventy-five to eighty.’ The fireman shouted in my ear.

‘Block’s clear. That green light gives us a clear track.’

Already the block semaphores were behind us. Blinded by the rush of air I tried to see the track ahead. Like a dark avalanche the world seemed pouring under our pilot, and beneath I felt the road-bed, at last in motion, shivering and swirling like a mill-race. From under the engine puffs of steam shredded into fog-rift, white in the light from the round holes beneath the grate bars. And through the two great circles of light projected by them, as from a stereopticon, flickered embankments, telegraph-poles, hills and houses, like a reeling cinematograph.

‘Green.’

‘Green,’ came the confirmation.

The fixed green star shone for a minute and flashed past.

Faintly I heard the fireman at my ear.

‘Almost ninety.’

Long ago the headlight had become useless except as a warning of our approach; we were past the farthest range of its illumination before the eye could discern what lay before us. Blind and helpless we tore on. Broken rail, a train on the crossing, or open switch, — we would never see it. But ‘green’ shone the light, and wholly trusting in the silent men who flashed to us their word of safety we never faltered. I thought of a stalled train that might lie sleeping on our rails. But ‘green’ was the light, — their thin cry through the long night watches.

The engineer, silent, his hand fingering throttle and air-brake, sat huddled high on his seat. Through his goggles he watched the blackness ahead. A brief second’s time to set his brakes was all he asked. Far off in the great city the chief dispatcher was following our flight mile by mile, block to block. Over the wires his voice and the voices of his helpers told the rapid story of our progress. In the lonely tower at the next curve some one would flash the green beacon to our straining eyes, and report us on our way. To him others were now reporting, giving him the certain knowledge that our way was safe. Keepers of the safety of our path; how perfectly we trusted them; how great and unrewarded is their perfect service.

I looked back. Behind, the Pullmans cast steady squares of light on the racing cut. Here was our freight. Sons of Mary; even more blindly they trusted, ‘peacefully sleeping and unaware.’

Sons of Martha; they were beside me.

‘Green,’ they chorused.

Out of the night came the instant crash of the westbound express. With a blast of air and a slamming roar it seemed to brush us. It was gone.

Through a sleeping village we tore on with a wild hoarse cry. Darkened windows flashed reflected light. A station platform whipped past our heels; huddled groups of people pressed back against the building.

‘ Green! ’

Like brilliant stars from a rocket gleamed a constellation at a double crossing. Ruby drops of fire; but the pale green light shone steadily above. The wheels hammered on the crossing.

Thicker and thicker, like colored fire-flies, the switch-lights tangled in a maze. We were entering the city. There was the constant rattle of switch points, and I felt the growing murmur of the streets. On either side buildings piled up in shapeless walls like a canyon; there were sudden glimpses of interrupted streets, waiting street cars, and the glare of arc lights. We were slowing down.

Cleveland. The station echoed with the iron coughing of engines. Men and women surged between waiting trains; their voices mingled in the uproar. The departing, the returning; men staggering with bags and suitcases, women with little children in their arms. In the green star they trusted.