CHAPTER XXVII

It was not long before the wreck-train arrived, a thing of flat cars, box-cars and cabooses of an old pattern, with hospital cots made ready en route, and a number of doctors and nurses who scrambled out with the air and authority of those used to scenes of this kind. Meanwhile I had been wondering how long it would be before the wreck-train would arrive and had set about getting my information before the doctors and authorities were on the scene, when it might not be so easy. I knew that names of the injured and their condition were most important, and I ran from one to another of the groups that had formed here and there over one dying or dead, asking them who it was, where he lived, what his occupation was (curiously, there were no women), and how he came to be at the scene of the wreck. Some, I found, were passengers, some residents of the nearby village of Wann or Alton who had hurried over to see the wreck. Most of the passengers had gone on a train provided for them.

I had a hard enough time getting information, even from those who were able to talk. Citizens from the nearby town and those who had not been injured were too much frightened by the catastrophe or were lending a hand to do what they could ... they were not interested in a reporter or his needs. A group carrying the injured to the platform resented my intrusion, and others searching the meadows for those who had run far away until they fell were too busy to bother with me. Still I pressed on. I went from one to another asking who they were, receiving in some cases mumbled replies, in others merely groans. With those laid out on the platform awaiting the arrival of the wreck-train I did not have so much trouble: they were helpless and there were none to attend them.

“Oh, can’t you let me alone!” exclaimed one man whose face was a black crust. “Can’t you see I’m dying?”

“Isn’t there some one who will want to know?” I asked softly. It struck me all at once that this was a duty these people owed to everybody, their families and friends included.

“You’re right,” said the man with cracked lips, after a long silence, and he gave his name and an account of his experiences.

I went to others and to each who was able to understand I put the same question. It won me the toleration of those who were watching me. All except the station agent seemed to see that I was entitled to do this, and he could have been soothed with a bribe if I had thought of it.

As I have said, however, once the wreck-train rolled in surgeons and nurses leaped down, and men brought litters to carry away the wounded. In a moment the scene changed; the authorities of the road turned a frowning face upon inquiry and I was only too glad that I had thought to make my inquiries early. However, I managed in the excitement to install myself in the train just as it was leaving so as to reach Alton with the injured and dead and witness the transfer. Some died en route, others moaned in a soul-racking way. I was beside myself with pity and excitement, and yet I could think only of the manner in which I would describe, describe, describe, once the time came. Just now I scarcely dared to make notes.

At Alton the scene transferred itself gradually to the Alton General Hospital, where in spite of the protests of railroad officials I demanded as my right that I be allowed to enter and was finally admitted. Once in the hospital I completed my canvass, being new assisted by doctors and nurses, who seemed to like my appearance and to respect my calling, possibly because they saw themselves mentioned in the morning paper. Having interviewed every injured man, obtaining his name and address where possible, I finally went out, and at the door encountered a great throng of people, men, women and children, who were weeping and clamoring for information. One glance, and I realized for all time what these tragedies of the world really mean to those dependent. The white drawn faces, the liquid appealing eyes, tragedy written in large human characters.

“Do you know whether my John is in there?” cried one woman.

“Your John?” I replied sympathetically. “Will you tell me who your John is?”

“John Taylor. He works on that road. He was over there.”

“Wait a moment,” I said, reaching down in my pocket for my pad and reading the names. “No, he isn’t here.”

The woman heaved a great sigh.

Others now crowded about me. In a moment I was the center of a clamoring throng. All wanted to know, each before the other.

“Wait a moment,” I said, as an inspiration seized me. I raised my hand, and a silence fell over the little group.

“You people want to know who is injured,” I called. “I have a list here which I made over at the wreck and here. It is almost complete. If you will be quiet I will read it.”

A hush fell over the crowd. I stepped to one side, where there was a broad balustrade, mounted it and held up my paper.

“Edward Reeves,” I began, “224 South Elm Street, Alton. Arms, legs and face seriously burned. He may die.”

“Oh!” came a cry from a woman in the crowd.

I decided to not say whether any one was seriously injured.

“Charles Wingate, 415 North Tenth Street, St. Louis.”

No voice answered this.

“Richard Shortwood, 193 Thomas Street, Alton.”

No answer.

I read on down the list of forty or more, and at each name there was a stir and in some instances cries. As I stepped down two or three people drew near and thanked me. A flush of gratification swept over me. For once I felt that I had done something of which I could honestly be proud.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in gathering outside details. I hunted up the local paper, which was getting out an extra, and got permission to read its earlier account. I went to the depot to see how the trains ran, and by accident ran into Wood. In spite of my inability to send a telegram the city editor had seen fit to take my advice and send him. He was intensely wrought up over how to illustrate it all, and I am satisfied that my description of what had occurred did not ease him much. I accompanied him back to the hospital to see if there was anything there he wished to illustrate, and then described to him the horror as I saw it. Together we visited the morgue of the hospital, where already fourteen naked bodies had been laid out in a row, bodies from which the flames had eaten great patches of skin, and I saw that there was nothing now by which they could be identified. Who were they? I asked myself. What had they been, done? The nothingness of man! They looked so commonplace, so unimportant, so like dead flies or beetles. Curiously enough, the burns which had killed them seemed in some cases pitifully small, little patches cut out of the skin as if by a pair of shears, revealing the raw muscles beneath. All those dead were stark naked, men who had been alive and curiously gaping only two or three hours before. For once Dick was hushed; he did not theorize or pretend; he was silent, pale. “It’s hell, I tell you,” was all he said.

On the way back on the train I wrote. In my eagerness to give a full account I impressed the services of Dick, who wrote for me such phases of the thing as he had seen. At the office I reported briefly to Mitchell, giving that solemn salamander a short account of what had occurred. He told me to write it at full length, as much as I pleased. It was about seven in the evening when we reached the office, and at eleven I was still writing and not nearly through. I asked Hartung to look out for some food for me about midnight, and then went on with my work. By that time the whole paper had become aware of the importance of the thing I was doing; I was surrounded and observed at times by gossips and representatives of out-of-town newspapers, who had come here to get transcripts of the tale. The telegraph editor came in from time to time to get additional pages of what I was writing in order to answer inquiries, and told me he thought it was fine. The night editor called to ask questions, and the reporters present sat about and eyed me curiously. I was a lion for once. The realization of my importance set me up. I wrote with vim, vanity, a fine frenzy.

By one o’clock I was through. Then after it was all over the other reporters and newspaper men gathered about me—Hazard, Bellairs, Benson, Hartung, David the railroad man, and several others.

“This is going to be a great beat for you,” said Hazard generously. “We’ve got the Post licked, all right. They didn’t hear of it until three o’clock this afternoon, but they sent five men out there and two artists. But the best they can have is a cold account. You saw it.”

“That’s right,” echoed Bellairs. “You’ve got ’em licked. That’ll tickle Mac, all right. He loves to beat the other Sunday papers.” It was Saturday night.

“Tobe’s tickled sick,” confided Hartung cautiously. “You’ve saved his bacon. He hates a big story because he’s always afraid he won’t cover it right and it always worries him, but he knows you’ve got ’em beat. McCullagh’ll give him credit for it, all right.”

“Oh, that big stiff!” I said scornfully, referring to Tobias.

“Something always saves that big stiff,” said Hazard bitterly. “He plays in luck, by George! He hasn’t any brains.”

I went in to report to my superior after a time, and told him very humbly that I thought I had written all I could down here but that there was considerable more up there which I was sure should be personally covered by me and that I ought to go back.

“Very well,” he replied gruffly. “But don’t overdo it.”

“The big stiff!” I thought as I went out.

That night I stayed at a downtown hotel, since I was now charging everything to the paper and wanted to be called early, and after a feverish sleep arose at six and started out again. I was as excited and cheerful as though I had suddenly become a millionaire. I stopped at the nearest corner and bought a Globe, a Republic, and a Post-Dispatch, and proceeded to contrast the various accounts, scanning the columns to see how much my stuff made and theirs, and measuring the atmosphere and quality. To me, of course, mine seemed infinitely the best. There it was, occupying the whole front page, with cuts, and nearly all of the second page, with cuts! I could hardly believe my eyes. Dick’s illustrations were atrocious, a mess, no spirit or meaning to them, just great blotches of weird machinery and queer figures. He had lost himself in an effort to make a picture of the original crumpling wreck, and he had done it very badly. At once, and for the first time, he began to diminish as an artist in my estimation. “Why, this doesn’t look anything like it at all! He hasn’t drawn what I would have drawn,” and I began to see or suspect that art might mean something besides clothes and manner. “Why didn’t he show those dead men, that crowd clamoring about the main entrance of the hospital?” The illustrations in the other papers seemed much better.

As for myself, I saw no least flaw in my work. It was all all right, especially the amount of space given me. Splendid! “My!” I said to myself vainly, “to think I should have written all this, and single-handed, between the hours of five and midnight!” It seemed astonishing, a fine performance. I picked out the most striking passages first and read them, my throat swelling and contracting uncomfortably, my heart beating proudly, and then I went over the whole of the article word by word. To me in my vain mood it read amazingly well. I felt that it was full of fire and pathos and done in the right way, with facts and color. And, to cap it all and fill my cup of satisfaction to the brim, this same paper contained an editorial calling attention to the facts that the Globe had triumphed in the matter of reporting this story and that the skill of the Globe-Democrat could always be counted upon in a crisis like this to handle such things correctly, and commiserating the other poor journals on their helplessness when faced by such trying circumstances. The Globe was always best and first, according to this statement. I felt that at last I had justified the opinion of the editor-in-chief in sending for me.

Bursting with vanity, I returned to Alton. Despite the woes of others I could not help glorying in the fact that nearly the whole city, a good part of it anyhow, must be reading my account of the wreck. It was anonymous, of course, and they could not know who had done it, but just the same I had done it whether they knew it or not and I exulted. This was the chance, apparently, that I had been longing for, and I had not failed.

This second day at Alton was not so important as I had fancied it might be, but it had its phases. On my arrival I took one more look at the morgue, where by then thirty-one dead bodies were laid out in a row, and then began to look after those who were likely to recover. I visited some of the families of the afflicted, who talked of damage suits. At my leisure I wrote a full account of just how the case stood, and wired it. I felt that to finish the thing properly I should stay until another day, which really was not necessary, and decided to do so without consulting my editor.

But by nightfall, after my copy had been filed, I realized my mistake, for I received a telegram to return. The local correspondent could attend to the remaining details. On the way back I began to feel a qualm of conscience in regard to my conduct. I had been taking a great deal for granted, as I knew, in thus attempting to act without orders. My city editor might think I was getting a “swelled head,” as no doubt I was, and so complain to McCullagh. I knew he did not like me, and this gave him a good excuse to complain. Besides, my second day’s story, now that it was gone, did not seem to be so important; I might as well have carried it in and saved the expense of telegraphing it. I felt that I had failed in this; also that mature consideration might decide that I had failed on the first story also. I began to think that by my own attitude I had worked up all the excitement in the office that Saturday night and that my editor-in-chief would realize it now and so be disappointed in me. Suppose, I thought, when I reached the office McCullagh were dissatisfied and should fire me—then what? Where would I go, where get another job as good as this? I thought of my various follies and my past work here. Perhaps with this last error my sins were now to find me out. “Pride goeth before destruction,” I quoted, “and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

By eight o’clock, when I reached the office, I was thoroughly depressed and hurried in, expecting the worst. Of course the train had been late—had to be on this occasion!—and I did not reach the office in time to take an evening assignment. Mitchell was out, which left me nothing to do but worry. Only Hartung was there, and he seemed rather glum. According to him, Tobe had seemed dissatisfied with my wishing to stay up there. Why had I been so bold, I asked myself, so silly, so self-hypnotized? I took up an evening paper and retired gloomily to a corner to wait. When Mitchell arrived at nine he looked at me but said nothing. As I was about to go out to get something to eat Hartung came in and said: “Mr. Mitchell wants to speak to you.”

My heart sank. I went in and stood before him.

“You called for me?”

“Yes. Mr. McCullagh wants to see you.”

“It’s all over,” I thought. “I can tell by his manner. What a fool I was to build such high hopes on that story!”

I went out to the hall and walked nervously to the office of the chief, which was at the front end of the hall. I was so depressed I could have cried. To think that all my fine dreams were to have such an end!

That Napoleon-like creature was sitting in his little office, his chin on his chest, a sea of papers about him. He did not turn when I entered, and my heart grew heavier. He was angry with me! I could see it! He kept his back to me, which was to show me that I was not wanted, done for! At last he wheeled.

“You called for me, Mr. McCullagh?” I murmured.

“Mmm, yuss, yuss!” he mumbled in his thick, gummy, pursy way. His voice always sounded as though it were being obstructed by something leathery or woolly. “I wanted to say,” he added, covering me with a single glance, “that I liked that story you wrote, very much indeed. A fine piece of work, a fine piece of work! I like to recognize a good piece of work when I see it. I have raised your salary five dollars, and I would like to give you this.” He reached in his pocket, drew out a roll and handed over a yellow twenty-dollar bill.

I could have dropped where I stood. The reaction was tremendous after my great depression. I felt as though I should burst with joy, but instead I stood there, awed by this generosity.

“I’m very much obliged to you, Mr. McCullagh,” I finally managed to say. “I thank you very much. I’ll do the best I can.”

“It was a good piece of work,” he repeated mumblingly, “a good piece of work,” and then slowly wheeled back to his desk.

I turned and walked briskly out.