Steam and Steel

By E.S. Dellinger

Steam & Steel
Friend against Foe and Rail against Rail! A personal squabble that mushroomed into a vengeance game, from the shell-torn tracks of France to the smooth main line of the S.F. & E., back in the U.S.A.

Derails
Haunted by the shadow of murder and pursuit, Dave Meade could not forget the roar of the rails. Then, from out of the night and the driving storm on the main line in the Ozarks, came a girl and fate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bold Venture Press
• Release date: Oct 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370025329

E.S. Dellinger

America’s foremost railroad fiction writer was born at Norwood, MO., June 1, 1886. At age of 4 he took his first train ride to attend the wedding of his future mother-in-law. After working as a gandy dancer on the “katy,” and teaching school, he got a job breaking freight on the MOP through the efforts of his brother, conductor Bill Dellinger. Later, he and Bill went into Frisco train service. Biggest thrill was riding atop a passenger coach on the Frisco “cannon ball” in 1908. Once in 1920, a train crew contained 4 Dellingers: Bill, E.S., and 2 of Bill’s sons.E.S. Dellinger quit the road, graduated from New Mexico Normal Univ. in 1923, and served as supt. of public schools at Springer, N.M. (1925-33), meanwhile writing for various magazines. Most of his stories are novelettes. 50 of them appeared in Railroad Man’s and Railroad Stories, beginning with “Redemption for Slim” (dec 1929). Dellinger married, had a daughter Rosemary and a son Dale, and lived in Albuquerque, N.M. His best known characters are: Brick Donley, King Lawson, Redhot Frost, and Rud Randall.For more of E.S. Dellinger’s works, or more Railroad Stories fiction, visit www.boldventurepress.com.

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Steam and Steel

I

IT was twilight of a mid-September evening in 1918. Thirty miles back of the line of combat, the little French village of Lievres huddled in protecting shadows. Black smoke crept up from the stacks in the railroad yards of the A. E. F. It climbed slowly skyward over the supply depots and the dingy sodden barracks which housed the railroad units, engaged now in moving supplies to the front for the long-talked-of offensive.

In the engine yard men in fatigue clothes groomed panting locomotives for their nightly trip to front or rear. On one track four U. S. A. monsters panted and simmered. They were heading west tonight toward Tours or Saint Nazaire, where men were massed and supplies poured in from the homeland.

Two tracks away were six dinky Frog teakettles. Puny, dilapidated, camouflaged with spots and stripes, they waited like pygmies in the gathering gloom.

On the ground by the rear one stood Bim Barton — Sergeant Barton once, Private Barton now. He was fussing about the drivers with wrench and oiler, preparing this 094 for its night trip to Lenz, a stone’s throw from the front line trenches. A firm step crunched on the cinders behind him. Bim did not turn. He fumbled for an oil hole.

Barton!

The command was like the ring of frozen steel. Bim looked around quickly, instinctively lifting a hand to the visor of his dingy cap.

Yes, sir, Captain Simms? he queried respectfully.

Barton, you will be the last man to leave Lievres tonight. Also the last to leave Lenz. The captain paused a moment. I want you to use every precaution getting in and out of that place. Keep your curtains down. Do not show a glimmer of light either coming or going, if it can be avoided. Time is short. Keep your schedule. Be back in Lievres by all means at 1.15. Do you understand?

Yes, sir, returned Bim.

For two minutes the big private and his officer faced each other. Simms was staring beyond Bim into the east, where a curtain of fog was moving the stars from the darkening heavens. He held out his hand.

I’m depending upon you tonight, Barton. The ring of steel was gone now. Do not fail me.

I’ll do my best, captain, Bim muttered, gripping the outstretched hand.

"Thank you, Barton. I may be with you on the last train out. I may not. But remember! Be on time!"

The captain, who acted as division superintendent on the supply roads out of Lievres, crossed the tracks to the rough-board office building and swung upon the first train bound for Lenz.

Bim recalled that he had not yet checked his locomotive’s equipment in the locker under the tank. He dropped down to the cinders and opened the locker doors. Running his hand carefully over the jumbled mass, he picked out and enumerated the articles it contained.

There were two chains, two jacks, wooden blocks, two brasses, steel bars. There should be two frogs, according to regulations, for use in emergency rerailing. Bim felt for the frogs again. Then, closing the door, he called up to his fireman, who had just climbed aboard the engine:

Hi, there, Shorty! Look on top of the tank and see if them frogs are up there!

Shorty Hall climbed hurriedly over the top of the tender and felt about.

No frogs here, he reported. Ain’t they down where they belong?

Nope. Somebody stole ’em!

Bim swung up into the cab, glanced quickly at the luminous dial of his wrist watch.

Let’s go on without ’em, Bim, urged Shorty. We’ll catch hell if we lay this outfit out tonight. More’n likely have no use for ’em anyhow.

Not me, buddy. You don’t catch me leaving without ’em. I’d be just lucky enough to run off the rails if I tried it. I’m going to have a pair of frogs when I leave this burg, and they won’t be the dumb kind we used to have riding the engines with us, either.

I’ll go over to the shack an’ get a pair while you go around the wye, volunteered the fireman. I’ll meet yuh at —

"Yeah! You’ll play heck toting a pair," growled Bim. Little shrimp like you couldn’t carry one, much less two —

Watch me, Big Un. I’ll —

Shorty had started down the steps.

Wait a minute, kid! called Bim, slipping off onto the gangway. You and the shack take this teakettle around the wye. I’ll go get ’em myself.

But — but supposin’ Gordon’s down there nosin’ around an’ catches us, Big Un? You know what he told us Friday!

Aw, to hell with Gordon! snapped Bim. That brass-headed shavetail!

Shorty offered no further protest. He knew that although it was against regulations for a fireman to take the throttle, he could run the engine around the wye fully as well as Bim could, while the big engineer could carry both the heavy frogs better than Shorty could lug either of them.

Bim hurried over to the supply room and signed a requisition for the two frogs. They weighed seventy-five pounds apiece. Hoisting one of them up on his right shoulder, the other under his left arm, he strode across the tracks and down to the train yard.

The place was in almost total darkness. No lights had been permitted in Lievres since a German bombing expedition two weeks before. Signals were mere flashes from small hooded electric flash lights which the men carried about their work.

As Bim strode along between the tracks he heard the dull whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the 994 as Shorty brought her carefully around the wye and slipped down the dark lead toward his train.

Through the thickening fog the engineer saw a single knife-like ray of light at the head end of his train. It snapped off, and an answering flash came from the rear of the moving tender where the brakeman was guiding Shorty back down the lead.

Bim heard the bump of the engine coupling softly into the string of cars hauling mixed troops and supplies. When he was a hundred feet from it, he saw a flash light blink for an instant in the cab. Then his heart gave a bound. The voice of Lieutenant Gordon suddenly drowned all other sounds.

Where the hell’s that hoghead, Hall? roared the officer. And what the hell are you doing runnin’ this engine around these yards? Don’t you fellows know the regulations?

Bim could not hear Shorty’s reply; but a few seconds later Gordon ripped out another oath and commenced raving.

You’re a liar, Hall! he bellowed. "I know you two. I’ve got your number. That great big slob’s off shooting craps or drinking vin rouge, an’ letting you — I’ll fix you two! I’ll tend to you in the morning. I’ll — "

Gordon, still roaring threats up at the cowering fireman in the cab window, had dropped down to the ground. Bim had covered the distance to the tender and was ready to throw his load upon the cinders. He was less than six feet from the lieutenant.

What’s that you’re going to do in the morning?

Gordon whirled, took a step toward him. Already Bim had let loose the frog from his right shoulder. It was in mid-air. Gordon’s movement put him within its path.

Look out! warned Bim in quick voice. Look out!

But his warning was too late. The heavy piece of metal struck the ground. Gordon, moving forward, caught a toe under it. With a howl of pain he went face down into the cinders, but soon scrambled to his feet and, roaring like a mad bull, made a lunge for Big Bim Barton’s face.

Try to kill me, will yuh? he bellowed. Try to injure an officer on duty? I’ll show you—

Bim did not dodge nor cringe. Forgetting that less than two months ago his white-haired colonel had torn away his stripes and warned him never again to strike an officer, he stood in the darkness and fog, swapping the burly lieutenant blow for blow.

Minutes passed while the two men battled. Down in the cinders, up on their feet, reeling in the darkness, stumbling over the two rerailing frogs, they surged back and forth between the tracks. Doughboys, who in the dawn would be blown to atoms, now craned necks from open doors of cars and hissed them on.

Shorty Hall came down from the gangway. The conductor rushed forward with his brakeman. But no one man, nor two, nor three, could throttle these two men, the giants of their company, who were struggling in the darkness. The sergeant yardmaster came with two switch crews. Men surrounded the combatants, pinned arms to sides, and led them snarling apart.

I’ll cut out your heart! raved Gordon.

I’ll wring your neck! Bim hurled back into his face.

The sergeant called Lieutenant Warder, who had not yet left with his train for Beaucaire. Warder stood for a moment, flashing a tiny beam from one man to the other. Gordon had a broken nose. Bim’s right eye was swelling shut.

This looks bad, Barton, warned the first lieutenant.

He’ll face a firing squad, Gordon stormed. He’ll —

Warder sent Gordon back to the terminal offices. Then he looked at his watch. It was six minutes past leaving time. Trains for Beaucaire were being tied up in the yard.

Are you able to run this engine on through, Barton? queried the officer coldly.

Yes, sir, growled Bim. I can run an engine anywhere any time.

You should be arrested immediately, but for lack of time I shall be compelled to let you go. Tomorrow —

I’ll be there, sir, Bim broke in.

Very well. Get a move on and rush this junk pile out of town.

Bim climbed to his cab. The crew put the frogs on top of the tank. Bim settled into his seat on the right side of the little French teakettle, and, slipping sand under its drivers, went puffing away toward Lenz.

II

IT WAS dark. Not a ray of light shone from earth or sky. The fog had thickened. It closed down like a pall, wrapping the earth in its mantle of darkness, black as the blackest dungeon.

The dinky engine rocked and swayed along over the uneven track. Beneath its wheels, mud and water were forced from shallow pools between rotten ties by the weight of the locomotive.

Bim craned his neck out the window, peering into the night. Not a yard could he see. He did not know at what point one of the trains ahead might have been forced to stop because of accident to track or equipment.

Away to the right and left, old shell craters, each a sinister threat, lay concealed in the veiling darkness. As Bim crossed the river and turned left along the bank, he realized too well that another shell might come screaming out of the night, to land squarely in his track, bringing death and destruction.

When Bim had enlisted he had actually thought he was going across to fight. But instead of getting into a fighting unit so that he might go up to the front, sleep with the rats in a mud puddle, and scratch trench cooties under a mud-bespattered flannel shirt, he had sobered up to find himself in the engineering branch.

At first he had objected bitterly. Then he had made contact with Captain Simms, who, a railroad man first, a soldier afterward, was a man in his early forties. His eyes were cold gray, his voice like cutting steel. From the day they met he held Bim as if under some hypnotic spell.

Bim soon became a corporal. From corporal he became a sergeant, the kind of sergeant who shot craps and played poker and drank vin rouge with his men, yet whose men followed him with unquestioning loyalty.

During-those first months in France while the Nth Engineers were building up the lines from Brest and Saint Nazaire, Simms, watching the ease with which Bim handled both men and locomotives, had advanced him until he was road foreman of engines out of Lievres.

Then had come Lieutenant Gordon. Before the war, Gordon, as trainmaster’s clerk for the P. & C. in San Francisco, may not have been a bad sort. Overbearing, perhaps, but not vicious. However, a few brass buttons, a little gold braid, and a cap with a sawed-off bill, had gone to the fellow’s head. The biggest man in Company B except Bim Barton, he soon grew into the most despicable, bullying shavetail who ever wore putts, the kind of officer who, had he been in a combat unit instead of the engineers, would have gone down in his first engagement, with a bullet in his back, while he faced the enemy.

Gordon’s arrival had been the starting gun of trouble in Company B. As trainmaster out of Lievres, he had abused and bullied everybody from the sergeant down. Sixty days before, he and Bim had come to blows for their first time. Gordon had gone to the hospital and then to the dentist. Bim had gone to the guardhouse and doubtless would have served a term in Leavenworth had not Captain Simms intervened in his behalf.

Since then Gordon had ridden him unmercifully. Only Bim’s respect for Captain Simms had prevented an open break long ago. Again and again he had vowed that he would even the score with Gordon if it took the rest of his life. In this vow for vengeance, Bim had the full sympathy of his company, for they all hated Gordon.

Since the struggle tonight, it looked as if, instead of evening the score, the road foreman of engines had only put himself in a position from which he would be lucky to escape with his life. The best he could hope for, if called before court-martial a second time, would be several years in Leavenworth.

At the ruined village of Dounay, he headed in, in obedience to orders given at Lievres, to meet the first two trains of equipment returning from Lenz. The second one was by at 10.30. He proceeded immediately toward Lenz with his troops and equipment.

The place seemed mysteriously quiet. Even the exhaust of the two engines heading back toward Lievres had a muffled sound. Soon the dull whoosh-whoosh-whoosh died away in the fog, and the only remaining sounds were the tramp of many feet and the smothered curses as men stumbled or bumped into each other.

There was no shouting — no talking louder than a softly muttered syllable. Though it was more than two kilometers yet to the trenches, whither they were bound, it seemed as if the troops whom they had hauled from Lievres were fearful lest they might, by a loudly spoken word, betray their presence to the enemy.

While they were unloading, the brakeman yanked out the pin behind the engine and told Bim to pull ahead. Bim moved the engine forward until he heard the clack of the switch frog beneath his wheels. He was careful with his exhaust. It was a scarcely audible cough.

At the switch the brakeman climbed down and threw it for the wye. Then he called softly to Bim. Bim moved the engine slowly, steadily back around the stretch of curving track, crossed the wye switch, and moved forward to the main track. Here he eased gently back into the train, coupling now into what had been his rear.

Soon the unloading was completed. The troops melted silently away into the night, heading toward the front, there to wait in trench and dugout until the time should come for them to go over the top.

Captain Simms was at the engine. He told the conductor he was going to ride the head end over to Lievres. The conductor stumbled away toward the rear. At 11.22 he passed forward the word that all was ready. The nineteen empty cars, with the trainmen stationed along the top, moved away toward Lievres, every man anxious to get out of range before the armies commenced swapping hardware.

The road was rough. The engine rocked and swayed dangerously, though Bim was running less than twenty miles an hour. Captain Simms sat on the fireman’s seat for a few miles. Then he crossed the deck and stood behind Bim, holding to the cab frame. Bim wondered if the captain knew about the trouble between himself and Gordon at Lievres. He hoped not. He was sorry trouble had come. He was relieved when Simms said:

Everything’s running like it was greased so far.

Never saw it run better on a Frog railroad, agreed Bim with a laugh.

If our luck holds, we should be back in Lievres before the fireworks begin, ventured the captain.

Easily. We should make it with five minutes to spare.

Bim looked at his watch and shoved up the throttle. He was approaching a danger point.

From Lenz to Dounay, the railway took a southerly direction, almost paralleling the line of the trenches a mile or two away. A mile out of Dounay it curved sharply to the right, crossed a trestle and curved back to follow the river.

This trestle, which the American engineers had built on pilings driven into the mud of the stream bed, was but a makeshift at best. Instructions were to all trains to proceed over it at a speed not exceeding four miles an hour.

Having noticed as he came over that the bridge seemed to be more wabbly than usual tonight, Bim was running even slower. Shortly before he left the row of piles and emerged once more upon the earthen dump at the end of it, he felt a jostle and jar. There was a pounding and beating as of an automobile on four flats running over cobblestones. The engine commenced jumping.

Bim flipped the valve on his engine air, grabbed the reverse, and without waiting to cut off steam, horsed her over into the back corner. The engine stopped quickly. Bim cut loose, cursing volubly.

What’s wrong, Barton? asked the captain uneasily.

We got ’em all over the ground, returned the hogger.

What’s that?

We’re off the track — derailed — took to the country!

Bim was hunting through his tool box. He found a torch, lit it, and swung down to the timbers. Holding to the engine to keep from falling off into the slough, he crept along the ties and inspected his wheels.

Both sets of drivers were still on the rails; but the trailer truck had left the track and was plowing along the ties, the right wheel between the rails, the left on the outside. Only the extreme caution with which Bim had been running had prevented their leaving the track and rolling, end over end, into the sluggish river!

Captain Simms swung down to the ties beside him. What do you make of it, Barton?

We got to put ’em back on the iron, replied the engineer. Then he straightened up and called to the fire man: Hi, there, Shorty! Get them frogs down off the back of the tank. And shove me down a hammer and some spikes.

Bim crawled out from beneath the engine and climbed back onto the gangway, leaving the light underneath with Simms. Soon Shorty sent one of the heavy iron frogs slithering down onto the deck. Bim slid it across the steel scooping apron and crawled down the steps with it. At the bottom step he passed it under the engine to Captain Simms and climbed back for its mate.

Presently the train crew came over from the rear end to see what was wrong. The conductor eyed the derailed engine and shrugged his shoulders.

"Looks like there might be a teakettle and a string of empties left out on the main stem for