Chapter 17 Sheridan Is Missing

George sat in his office, drinking hot tea and refusing to lie down. He was refusing to admit that the blow on the head which had knocked him out was having any effect on him now. As soon as he was free of the ropes and had been told about the hot box, he insisted on a meeting between himself, the conductor of the
Canadian, myself and other staff members from both trains. Together with the radioman in Kamloops, they agreed that the Race Train would set off as soon as possible, with the Canadian about ten minutes behind. In Kamloops the order would be reversed, with the Canadian going first, while the Race Train remained in Kamloops for a few hours for all the axle boxes to be checked. There would be no official investigation in Kamloops, since it was the middle of the night: the investigation could wait until Vancouver. Everyone nodded in agreement with this plan: George looked white, as if he wished he hadn't moved his head. The crew soon had the axle cool enough and they refilled the box with oil. The Canadian's crew returned to their train, and the Race Train set off once again. I was sitting with George in his office. He demanded to know everything that had happened,
from start to finish.

'First, you tell me how you came to be knocked out,' I said.

'I can't remember. I was walking up to see the engineers.' He looked puzzled. 'Then I was lying there all tied up. I was there for ages. It was Johnson's room, they tell me, so I suppose it was Johnson who did it. Where is he now?'

I told George about Johnson's attacking me and how I'd left him, but hadn't seen him on the way back.

'There are two possibilities,' George said, 'or three, I suppose. Either he's left, or he's getting a ride on the Canadian right at this moment.'

I stared; I hadn't thought of that. 'What's the third possibility?'

'The wild animals out on the mountain,' George said, not unhappily.

Before long we ran into Kamloops, where all the axles were checked, the radio replaced, and everything else went according to plan. Once we were moving again, George finally agreed to lie down and try to sleep, and I was only too glad to do the same.

Things always start hurting when one has time to think about them. The dull pain in my left shoulder where Johnson had hit me was worse and sharper when I lay down. I won't make a very good waiter in the morning, I thought, with a stiff shoulder.

I smiled to myself finally. In spite of Filmer's and Johnson's best efforts, the Transcontinental Race Train might yet limp into Vancouver without disaster.

I should have remembered the saying about not counting chickens.

The pain in my shoulder forced me out of bed after only a few hours, and I was in time to help the others prepare for breakfast, While we were doing so, the train stopped for quarter of an hour in a place called North Bend, which was our last stop before Vancouver. From here on, the train ran down the Fraser Canyon
into Vancouver.

As we travelled through the Fraser Canyon, from the left side of the train I could look almost straight down to the huge river far below, rushing white between walls of stone. The railway track seemed to be hanging over the edge.

I was taking a basket of bread down to the end of the dining-car when Mercer Lorrimore came in. He asked if I could bring hot tea through to his own car.

'Certainly, sir,' I said. 'Anything else?'

'No,just tea for the three of us.'

When I took it along there, I found Sheridan almost lying in an easy chair, with the same blank look on his face that he'd worn the night before. All I could think of was cats. His father asked me politely to put the tray down on the table and to come back in half an hour for it.

Nell and Xanthe had arrived in the dining-car during my absence. Nell frowned at my appearance: I suppose some of the pain was showing on my face.

'Have you heard that we are running an hour and a half late, madam?' I said, in proper waiter fashion, as I offered her the menu.

'No,' she said, and looked up at me with a question in her eyes.

'We had to stop in Kamloops to get the radio fixed,' I said by way of explanation. She would be telling the passengers the reason for the delay, and that was all they needed to know.

Others had noticed the train stopping in the night, but everyone was content to accept my story. I was tempted to say to Filmer, 'Actually, the real reason is that your man Johnson nearly succeeded in wrecking the train — and probably killing you along with everyone else.'

After half an hour, I went along to the Lorrimores' car to collect the tray of tea things. I knocked, but as there was no answer I entered anyway.

Mercer was standing there in shock.

'Sir?'I said.

'My son,' he said.

Sheridan wasn't in the room. Mercer was alone.

'Stop the train,' he said. 'We must go back.'

Oh God, I thought.

'He went to the back ... to look at the river from the balcony . . .' Mercer could hardly speak. 'When I looked up, he wasn't there.'

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 534