"
And was that the only way--a desperate way--of stopping the train
before it reached the viaduct?
Kinko scattered the coal on to the fire bars. He turned on the greatest
possible draught, the air roared across the furnace, the pressure goes
up, up, amid the heaving of the motion, the bellowings of the boiler,
the beating of the pistons. We are going a hundred kilometres an hour.
"Get back!" shouts Kinko above the roar. "Get back into the van."
"And you, Kinko?"
"Get back, I tell you."
I see him hang on to the valves, and put his whole weight on the levers.
"Go!" he shouts.
I am off over the tender. I am through the van. I awake Popof, shouting
with all my strength:
"Get back! Get back!"
A few passengers suddenly waking from sleep begin to run from the front
car.
Suddenly there is an explosion and a shock. The train at first jumps
back. Then it continues to move for about half a kilometre.
It stops.
Popof, the major, Caterna, most of the passengers are out on the line
in an instant.
A network of scaffolding appears confusedly in the darkness, above the
piers which were to carry the viaduct across the Tjon valley.
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