Through The Wall Read Free

hour later he got up and went out into the corridor again. It was in his mind to walk slowly past her window to the end of the carriage, wait for a few moments, and then walk back again, but before he had taken more than three or four steps the train swayed, jerked horribly, and left the rails. The whole thing happened with the most appalling suddenness. Everything broke up in a violent cataclysm. A noise like all imaginable noises stunned the ear. The sudden impact of disaster paralysed the senses. The train reared upon itself, buckled, and crashed. A terrible screaming went up. The sliding doors of several of the compartments swung open as the train tilted. Marian Brand was flung from her seat into the corridor. She fell, and was caught in a desperate clutch. And then everything fell together and they went down into blackness.
    When she came to, the blackness was still there. It hadn’t been dark before the crash, but it was dark now. She shut her eyes. After a minute she opened them again. Thought was beginning. There had been an accident. How long ago? It oughtn’t to be so dark. Darkness—burial—the words came to her with the drenching flood. She steadied herself against them, drew on her courage, and got enough to move the other hand. It went out a little way and touched a man’s arm. She felt the rough stuff, the hard muscle, and movement. The blessedness of that relief was not to be measured. Movement means life—not to be quite alone in the darkness with the dead. A man’s voice said, “I’m here. Don’t be afraid.”
    It was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. It was, in plain fact, a voice naturally pleasant, but a good deal handicapped by choking dust. She said,
    “Where are we?”
    “Under what’s left of the train. They’ll get us out presently. Are you all right?”
    She hadn’t got as far as thinking about that. She began to think about it now, clutching at his arm, experimenting to see what she could move. After a moment she said,
    “I’m all right, I think. Everything moves a little, but I can’t lift up or turn—there’s something over us.”
    “Yes—lucky for us. There was a ditch—we went down into it. Fortunately we got there first. A door opened and shot us out before the train came down on us. I was in the corridor just outside your compartment. I grabbed you, and we came down together. We’re in the bottom of the ditch. There’s a good deal of stuff over us, and it may take some time to get us out, but we shall be all right.”
    As his voice ceased, she began to be aware of sounds which had not come to her before. They must have been there, but they had not reached her—movement, voices, the scrape of metal on metal, a heavy thudding, a sound of groaning, a sound of someone crying, and once, high-pitched and terrible, a scream. It all seemed to be a long way off, not in distance but—removed. The sensation of being withdrawn from her surroundings had not been broken by the accident but intensified. What she thought and felt seemed to come to her from the other side of a misty barrier which made everything unreal.
    She drew a long breath. Whether it was heard or felt she did not know. She was still holding to the stuff of his coat. His left hand came over now and took her wrist, feeling for the pulse. Then, releasing that, he took her hand.
    “You’re all right. We’ve just got to pass the time. Take your hand away if you want to—but you’re a bit cold—I thought perhaps something to hold on to—”
    She said, “Yes,” and, after a long pause, “Thank you.”
    It didn’t do to think what it would have been like to be there alone. She was glad when he spoke again.
    “Well, we’ve got the time to put in. By the bye, they know we’re here, so you needn’t worry about that. I was calling out, and a man came and spoke to me just before you woke up. They can’t get this stuff off till the breakdown gang rolls up. Fortunately there’s lots of air. What