Death is here, I said to myself. I am witnessing a real tragedy, a horror. The part of the great mysterious force which makes and unmakes our visible scene is here and now magnificently operative. But, first of all, I was a newspaper man; I must report this, run to it, not away.
I saw dashing toward me a man whose face I could not make out clearly, for at times it was partially covered by his hands, which seemed aflame, at other times the hands waved in the air like flails, and were burning. His body was being consumed by a rosy flame which partially enveloped him. His face, whenever it became visible as he moved his hands to and fro, was screwed into a horrible grimace. Unconscious of me as he ran, he dashed like a fiery force to the low ditch which paralleled the railroad, where he rolled and twisted like a worm.
I could scarcely believe my eyes or my senses. My hair rose on end. My hands twitched convulsively. I ran forward, pulling off my coat, and threw it over him to smother the spots of flame—but it was of no use—my coat began to burn. With my bare hands I tore grass and earth from the ditch and piled them upon the sufferer. For the moment I was beside myself with terror and misery and grief. Tears came to my eyes and I choked with the sense of helpless misery. When I saw my own coat burning I snatched it away and stamped the fire out.
The man was burned beyond recovery. The oil had evidently fallen in a mass upon the back of his head and shoulders and back and legs. It had burnt his clothes and hair and cooked the skin. His hands were scorched black, as well as his neck and ears and face. Finally he ceased to struggle and lay still, groaning heavily but unconscious. He was alive, but that was all.
Oppressed by the horror of it I looked about for help, but seeing many others in the same plight I realized the futility of further labor here. I could do nothing more. I had stopped the flames in part, the man’s rolling in the ditch had done the rest, but to what end! Hope of life was ridiculous, I could see that plainly. I turned, like a soldier in battle, and looked after the rest of the people.
To this hour I can see it all—some running over the fields in the distance away from the now entirely exploded tanks, others approaching the fallen victims. A house a little beyond the wreck was burning. A small village, not a thousand feet away, was blazing in spots, bits of oil having fallen upon the roofs. People were running hither and thither like ants, bending over and examining prostrate forms.
My first idea of course when I recovered my senses was that I must get in touch with my newspaper and get it to send an artist—Wood, if possible—and then get the news. These people here would do as much for the injured as I could. Why waste my newspaper’s time on them? I ran to a little road-crossing telegraph station a few hundred feet farther on where I asked the agent what was being done.
“I’ve sent for a wreck-train,” he replied excitedly. “I’ve telegraphed the Alton General Hospital. There ought to be a train and doctor here pretty soon, any minute now.” He looked at his watch. “What more can I do?”
“Have you any idea how many are killed?”
“I don’t know. You can see for yourself, can’t you?”
“Will you take a message to the Globe-Democrat? I want to send for an artist.”
“I can’t be bothered with anything like that now,” he replied roughly. I felt that an instant antagonism and caution enveloped him. He hurried away.
“How am I to do this?” I thought, and then I ran, studying and aiding with the victims where aid seemed of the slightest use, wondering how I should ever be able to report all this, and awaiting the arrival of the hospital and wrecking train.
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.
