Rebel Train: A Civil War Novel

Chapter 19

"They're getting away!" Greer shouted. Frustrated, he threw down the empty revolver and struggled to reload the shotgun. A flurry of gunfire still came from the train ahead, but he was as oblivious to the bullets as he might be of a few raindrops. "Come on, you two, pour it on!"

"She won't go any faster," Schmidt yelled in reply.

Where the climb had favored Greer's low-geared Grasshopper locomotive, gravity was now on the Chesapeake's side. A minute before it had appeared the pursuers were going to overtake the train, but now the gap widened. Greer cursed. Not a damn thing he could do about it, either, considering the Chesapeake was much larger and more powerful than the pursuing grasshopper locomotive.

A bullet pinged off a metal bar near his head, but Greer ignored it. Then the fire slackened as the raiders noticed they were pulling ahead. In frustration, Greer raised the shotgun and fired a parting blast. Already, the range was too great and the buckshot fell short. The man on the last car snapped off two shots in return, but the bullets punched at the air well above their heads.

"Was soll ich tun?" Schmidt asked. He looked clearly relieved that the shooting had stopped. Big as he was, the oddly constructed Grasshopper offered little shelter from bullets. Schmidt realized he had lapsed into German in his excitement and repeated, "What should I do?"

"Keep up our speed," Greer answered. "We need to stay with them."

"We can't keep up with the Chesapeake," Schmidt complained. "Not in this old locomotive. You know that."

"Just do as I say," Greer growled, still clutching the shotgun. He was in no mood to argue.

The Chesapeake had won the race. She was already far ahead, the powerful drive wheels churning, smoke pouring from her funnel in a thick plume bent nearly horizontal by the wind of her own passage. The land was leveling out as the dueling locomotives left Parr's Ridge behind and entered the plain that led to the Monocacy River. Just a few miles beyond lay the mighty Potomac and the crossing at Harpers Ferry.

If the raiders ever got that far. Greer was convinced the soldiers garrisoned at the Monocacy River bridge would stop the stolen train, especially if a telegraph message had reached them. And if the Monocacy garrison failed there were always the guards at Harpers Ferry. If the Chesapeake made it across those two bridges, however, there wasn't much that could keep them from running the train clear to Ohio if they wanted.

Damn the payroll money, Greer thought. It had to be what the train thieves were after. Then again, it didn't make sense that the raiders were still running with the train, not if they had done any planning at all. A stolen train attracted a great deal of attention. Greer thought the raiders would have been better off dividing the money between themselves, abandoning the train, and then slipping quietly away into the countryside. One thing for certain, it would mean a lot less trouble for Greer if the raiders abandoned the train.

Meanwhile, he watched helplessly as the Chesapeake pulled even farther ahead.

"Pile on the wood, Frost," Greer said. "Cram that firebox full. We ain't beat yet."

Aboard the Chesapeake, everything was in confusion. Colonel Percy heard the shooting begin, but couldn't see what was happening from the locomotive cab.

"Hold your fire!" he shouted, hoping someone would hear. No sense wasting ammunition, he thought. They might need every round before the day was through.

The gunfire slackened as they crested Parr's Ridge, and the raiders jeered at their pursuers as they fell further behind in the older engine. One or two men took parting shots at the pursuers, but the range had become too great for the revolvers to have any effect. The passengers sat through it all, looking terrified as their captors leaned out the windows and blazed away.

At the end of the train, aboard the President's car, Private Cook knelt on the floor of the small platform, trying to make Lieutenant Cater comfortable by putting his own coat under Cater's head as a pillow. As he looked down at the unconscious lieutenant, the gold wedding band on Cater's left hand caught his attention. Unable to resist the temptation, Cook twisted the ring off the lieutenant’s finger and slipped it into his own pocket.

Theft was one thing, but Cook wasn't so heartless that he wanted the lieutenant to die. He wanted to get help, but there was nothing he could do while the train was moving. The only way to reach the rest of the train was to climb the short ladder nearby and hustle across the top of Lincoln's car and down the other side, then cross through the baggage car. He had no desire to make that dangerous trip, and he didn't want to leave the lieutenant alone. Besides, Lincoln still needed guarding, and Colonel Percy would give him hell if he left his post.

With the pursuers still in sight, Cook wasn't about to signal a stop. The wounded lieutenant would have to wait for help. It was bad luck that he had been wounded, but it was a chance any soldier took.

The lieutenant was still unconscious, and Cook wondered if the bullet had done more damage than he had thought. At least the worst of the bleeding had stopped. If the lieutenant was that bad off, Cook thought, maybe the colonel could put him off with the passengers at the next stop. There might at least be a country doctor somewhere along the route who could help him. If that happened, they would leave Cater behind. Cook wouldn't have to worry about the stolen ring in his pocket being discovered.

Not that the Chesapeake would be stopping anytime soon. The engine rolled west, going faster every minute, racing toward the Monocacy River.

Captain Thaddeus Lowell, who commanded the battery guarding the Monocacy River bridge, spotted the column of smoke racing toward the crossing. He was too far from Parr's Ridge to hear any of the shooting, and so wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary.

"She's a comin' on boys," Captain Lowell said. "In a hurry, too, from the looks of it."

Guarding the river crossing was dull duty, and the passing of a train broke the monotony of staring at the Monocacy's muddy waters. Rebels were always causing trouble along the railroad's western reaches, but in central Maryland, all had been quiet since Robert E. Lee's summertime invasion months ago.

"Looks like she ain't alone, Captain," a gunner remarked.

The captain looked more closely. The soldier was right. There were two trails of smoke in sight, which was unusual, because engines almost always traveled alone. He squinted, trying to see what was going on. The trains were just visible in the distance. Out front was a bigger engine, probably the Chesapeake—she was due that day. The second engine was smaller and appeared to be losing ground to the first. Still, if he hadn't known better, he would have sworn the smaller engine was trying to catch the bigger one. The two trains were not traveling the safe, regulation distance apart.

"Captain?" one of the gunners asked.

"I see them," he snapped. The gun crew also had sensed something wasn't right.

He hesitated a moment before issuing orders. The captain wasn't about to have his battery open fire on any B&O Railroad locomotives, even if they did look suspicious. But there was something less drastic he could do.

"Throw the switch!" he shouted to a group of soldiers standing near the track. One of the men cupped a hand to his ear to show they hadn't heard the command. It was more likely, he thought, that they didn't understand it.

The captain mimicked a man throwing the big switch located just behind the soldiers. They stared back, obviously puzzled by his strange movements. "The switch!" he yelled.

"Lazy bastards are always playing dumb," the gunner muttered. He spat. Since Gettysburg, the ranks had been swelled with draftees and hired substitutes who were less than exemplary soldiers.

"Go tell them to throw the goddamn switch," the captain said to the gunner. He took a quick look toward the locomotives racing closer and closer. "You'd best hurry."

"No!" Greer shouted into the wind.

Disaster lay ahead. He saw at once what was going to happen. He had been expecting at any moment to hear the battery open fire on the raiders' train. But no guns fired. Roaring closer to the river, he could see the gunners standing around. To his horror, the only activity he saw was at the switch that sent trains off the main track and onto a siding.

The soldiers weren't railroad men. What they were about to do was just as deadly as unleashing the battery's guns. They didn't realize that a train traveling at full throttle would derail if it struck a turned switch. Even if it didn't jump the track, there was no way a speeding train could stop in time on the short siding before it ran out of rails. Either way, it meant disaster.

"No!" Greer shouted again, vainly trying to be heard over the engine's roar. He waved his arms wildly. The soldiers, bent at their work, didn't see him.

Up ahead, the speeding Chesapeake flashed past the soldiers. They had intended to stop the first engine as well, but hadn't been able to operate the switch in time. The locomotive raced toward the bridge. Even if they had wanted to, there was no way the soldiers could slew the guns around and fire in time to keep the train from reaching the bridge. Nothing in the world could stop the Rebel train now.

Greer's train wouldn't be so lucky. Heart racing, he saw the switch being pulled down. Rails twisted out of place. He shouted at Schmidt, "Reverse! Reverse!"

Both men grabbed the Johnson bar and wrestled it backwards. But the locomotive was traveling too fast. Iron wheels slid down polished iron rails with an unearthly shriek. The engine was unstoppable as doom itself.

"Mein Gott!" Schmidt swore, seeing what was about to happen.

The engine reached the switch. It went neither straight ahead nor down the siding, but instead launched itself clear out into the long autumn grass. Frost wailed in terror.

"Hang on!" Greer shouted.

The engine plowed across the ground, sending up clods of earth. Soldiers jumped out of the way. The tender jerked, twisted, and overturned, scattering its load of wood like a burst of shrapnel. Frost went flying.

The engine continued its sleigh ride, with Schmidt and Greer hanging on for dear life. It bounced over the rails at the end of the siding and headed for the muddy river.

"Jump!" Greer shouted. "Oscar, jump!"

Schmidt was already leaping. Greer jumped, too, and in one awful moment before he hit the ground and tumbled, he saw the engine rush on.

The locomotive careened toward the river, knocking aside telegraph poles as if they were toothpicks. Men scrambled out of the way like so many blue-coated ants. The train reached the banks of the Monocacy and plunged into the brown current, landing sideways with a tremendous splash that sent up a geyser of river water. Steam hissed and spat from the flooded engine as the river quenched the firebox. The wheels spun on, trying to grip rails that were no longer there, like a deer's legs might twitch even after the hunter's fatal shot.

Cutting through all the noise was the distant sound of the Chesapeake's whistle. Most times a train whistle stirred something in Greer's soul. Now, he only tasted the dirt in his mouth and thought the whistle sounded triumphant, like a war cry — or even scornful. The raiders were laughing at him.

Damn them. He tried to shout, but the fall had knocked the breath from his lungs. Damn those bastards.

He swore he was going to see them hanged, every last one of them.

"You all right, mister?" a voice asked, and Greer looked up into the face of a young soldier who stood nearby, poking a musket at him.

He coughed. Tried to speak and couldn't. The wind was still knocked out of him. He rolled over, gasping for air. He recognized the conductor from his frequent stops at the junction.

"Hell, it's Greer," the Union captain said, hurrying over. "Point that musket somewhere else, Private, before you hurt somebody."

Hands reached for Greer and helped him up. Captain Lowell shoved a silver flask into his hands. The whiskey restored his voice. Schmidt and Frost received similar medicinal doses and were soon back on their feet. Greer thought it was a miracle that no one had been injured or killed by the runaway locomotive.

Schmidt stared at the steaming hulk of iron in the river. "Gott-damn thieves," the German said. "Thieving schweinen."

"What thieves?" the captain asked, turning to Greer, who was soon answering a flurry of questions.

When the captain had heard enough, he shouted his orders. They would form a detail of twenty men and march west along the tracks. It would have been better to wire a warning ahead, but the train wreck had reduced the telegraph to a jumble of broken poles and snapped wires.

On foot, of course, the captain knew they would never catch the train, but there was always the chance the raiders would abandon it somewhere along the tracks. Besides, the captain welcomed anything that broke the dull routine of guarding the junction.

A downy faced lieutenant spoke up. "Sir, we're going to chase a train — on foot?"

"Lieutenant, the property of a United States business has been seized by lawless thieves," the captain said, his tone indicating he did not like to be questioned by lieutenants. He nodded at Greer. "That train was under the command of Mr. Greer here. He's a veteran wounded in the service of his country. Besides, we're going to commandeer the first train we come across and chase those raiders to hell and back if we have to. Now, let's move out!"