Ian Sansom - Westmorland Alone

‘Lucy!’ wailed the woman.

‘Let me check if it’s safe!’ I said. ‘And we’ll find Lucy and we’ll get out!’

The shuddering and moaning of the carriage suddenly stopped and the baby paused in its crying and the woman looked at me as though having just woken.

‘You must stay here,’ I said, more calmly. ‘Just for a moment. I have to check if it’s safe. Do you understand? And then we’ll get out together.’

She looked at me, terrified.

‘Don’t leave us here!’ she said.

‘I’m not leaving you here. I’m just going to check that there’s a way out through the window and underneath the carriage and then—’

‘Take my baby!’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Take my baby with you and make sure he’s safe. I’ll wait here for Lucy.’

‘Look, if you just wait here for a moment—’ I began.

‘You’re not leaving us here!’ said the woman. ‘You take my baby and you look for Lucy and I’ll wait for her.’

‘But—’

‘You! Take the baby!’ she cried. ‘And you make sure he’s safe. And then you come back for me and Lucy.’

She was confused. She thrust the sobbing child towards me. I had no choice but to tuck him under one arm and crawl down with him through the window into the darkness underneath the train. If I got the baby out I could get the mother out. And then I could find Lucy.

Everything was wrong. It was dark, chthonic. There was a smell – a horrible sort of combination of hot metal and coal and oil and damp earth. I was breathing fast. It was as though we were being born. I made my way carefully with the baby underneath the carriage and across the tracks – I remember the rails somehow being greasy, with oil? – and then up into the light.

It was the most incredible sight: coaches were slewed across the tracks, rails were bent and twisted into terrible shapes, giant sleepers uprooted, the ballast ploughed through and scattered, and thick black smoke was everywhere. Passengers were emerging from their carriages and there were men running down the line towards us from up ahead. But what do I remember the most and the most clearly? It was the sound: the sound of birds singing. It seemed impossible, impossible that they could be heard above the din of breaking glass, and of grinding mechanical noises, and the rushing of flames, and the terrible cries of injured people, but there they were: birds, singing. It was like Spain, again. I deliberately took deep, deep breaths, trying to steady my nerves – and was struck suddenly by another smell, some sickening, thick, horrible smell that somehow I didn’t recognise.

I ran a few yards with the baby heavy in my arms. Now I could see the full length of the train: it looked like a buckled toy, as though having been tossed up and destroyed by some malevolent child. Up ahead was Appleby Station, with its proud sign and its fine passenger footbridge and over to my left were the station’s stables and cattle pens, the sound of the innocent animals joining the cacophony. And fire – fire was quickly spreading through the carriages, some of which had shattered entirely, stripped back to their thin pale wooden frames. It was a graveyard scene. It was pandaemonium.

One of the train guards was wandering up and down politely calling out, ‘Are there any doctors on the train? Any doctors on the train at all? Any nurses? Nurses? Any nurses?’ He might almost have been asking for passengers to present their tickets. A dining car steward was sitting down at the side of the tracks, stiff, stunned, blood on his starched white jacket, and – the most extraordinary thing – a refreshment trolley perfectly upright beside him, the Nestlé chocolate bars scattered around his feet, still glistening in their bright wrappers, broken cups and saucers like fragments of some vast whole. I ran over towards him and placed the crying baby in his arms.

‘Sir!’ I said. ‘I need your help. Sir?’

He looked at me blankly.

‘You must go up to the station and look after the baby,’ I said. ‘Yes? Until the mother comes.’

He continued to look at me blankly.

I repeated myself: ‘You must take this baby and go up to the station. Do you understand? I need you to get up and take the baby with you up to the station, yes?’

He looked at me for what seemed like a long time but then nodded and I helped him up and he began walking slowly along the line towards the safety of the station.

‘Go to the station with the baby!’ I yelled at him again – he glanced back and nodded – and then I ran and plunged back down under the carriage to help the mother. Soon the flames from the other carriages would reach us.

She remained exactly where I had told her, in the corner of the carriage, entirely still now, and white, panic-stricken.

‘Your baby is OK,’ I said. ‘A steward has the baby up at the station. We’re going to get you up to the station.’

‘Where’s Lucy?’ she said.

‘I didn’t—’

‘I’m going to wait here for Lucy,’ she said.

‘You can’t wait here,’ I said. ‘We have to go.’

‘But Lucy will come and try to find me here!’ She pressed herself into the corner of the carriage.

‘No. Lucy’s a sensible girl, she’ll know what to do. She’ll know where to find you. Come with me. Come on.’

She shook her head.

‘Now!’ I shouted, and I grabbed first one arm and then the other. ‘Now!’ I repeated, and she hit out at me and screamed but I wrestled with her and dragged her down and down through the window and under the train and up into the infernal daylight. As we emerged, a guard came staggering towards us, a terrible cut across his skull, his face sheeted with blood.

‘Where’s my daughter?’ the woman yelled at him, as if he were personally responsible. ‘Where’s Lucy? And my baby? Where’s my baby?’ She grabbed at the poor man, but he was in no state to respond and he simply pushed her away and staggered on past, entirely lost and silent.

I held the woman’s arms firmly. ‘Look at me!’ I said. ‘Look at me!’ And I looked deeply into her eyes, willing her to be calm and to understand and I explained that her baby was with the dining car steward up at the station and I told her to go on ahead, and that I would find Lucy and bring her to her.

‘You promise that you’ll bring her to me?’ she said, heaving with tears.

I promised. I promised I would find Lucy.

I can remember to this day the look she gave me – trusting, fierce, her eyes wide – and I can remember that she then gave a little jolt of resignation or offence, I don’t know which, as if she had been pierced or branded. Then she turned and walked on, joining what was now a long stream of men, women and children passing alongside the burning train, many of them dragging their suitcases and belongings with them, some of them silent, others calling out for loved ones, or weeping and wailing, dishevelled and distraught. This is the end of the world, I thought: this is what it looks like.

A man somewhere close by was frantically yelling for help. I turned towards the sound and ran over to the noise. Our carriage was now in flames and the fire was encroaching on the next carriage: the man was yelling from inside. I clambered and pulled myself up and onto the carriage, using all my strength, and made my way across to the window, which was filthy – and shut. I could see terrified faces inside: the man with his wife and children were trapped beneath me. The maroon skin of the carriage was warped and already beginning to warm with flames. It was like looking down into a nightmare from a nightmare. I tried to open the window, pulling and tugging, but it was jammed where the walls of the carriage had buckled.