The Raven Post

At the depot station, in an old postal car taken out of service long ago, several off-duty railwaymen were gathered for their usual chat: three train conductors, the old ticket collector, Trzpien, and the assistant stationmaster, Haszczyc.

Because the October night was rather chilly, they had lit a fire in a little iron stove whose pipe exited out of an opening in the roof. The group was indebted for this happy idea to the inventiveness of the conductor, Swita, who had personally brought over the rust-corroded heater, discarded from some waiting room, to adapt it so splendidly to the changed circumstances. Four wooden benches, their oilcloth covering torn, and a three-legged garden table, wide like a record turntable, completed the interior furnishings. A lantern, hanging on a hook above the heads of those who sat below, spread out along their faces a hazy, semi-obscure light.

So looked the ‘train casino’ of the Przelecz station officials, an improvised refuge for homeless bachelors, a quiet, secluded stop for off-duty conductors. Here, in their spare moments, zapped of energy by their riding patrons, the old, grey ‘train wolves’ converged to relax after the executed tour, and chat with professional comrades. Here, in the fumes of conductors’ pipes, the tobacco smoke, the cigarettes, and cuds of chewing tobacco, wandered the echoes of tales, thousands of adventures and anecdotes: here spun out the yarn of a railwayman’s fate.

And today the noisy meeting was also animated, the group exceptionally well-suited, just the cream of the station. A moment ago Trzpien had related an interesting episode from his own life and had managed to rivet the attention of his audience to such a degree that they forgot to feed their dying-out pipes, and they now held them in their teeth already cold and extinguished like cooled-down volcano craters.

Silence filled the car. Through the window, damp from the drizzle outside, one could see the wet roofs of train cars, shiny like steel armour under the light of reflectors. From time to time the lantern of a trackwalker flashed by, or the blue signal of a switching engine; from time to time the green reflection of the switch signal ploughed through the darkness, or the penetrating call of a trolley was heard. From afar, beyond the black entrenchment of slumbering cars, came the muffled buzz of the main station.

Through the gap between the cars, a portion of track was visible: several parallel strips of rail. On one of them an empty train slowly pulled in; its pistons, tired by a full day’s race, operated sluggishly, transforming their motion to the rotations of the wheels.

At a certain moment the locomotive stopped. Under the chest of the machine whirls of vapours emerged, enfolding the rotund framework. The lantern lights at the front of the colossus began to bend in rainbow-coloured aureoles and golden rings, and became enveloped with a cloud of steam. Then came an optical illusion: the locomotive and, with it, the cars, rose above the layers of steam and remained suspended in the air. After several seconds the train returned to the rails, emitting from its organism the last puffs, to plunge itself into the reverie of a nightly repose.

‘A beautiful illusion,’ remarked Swita, who had been looking for a long time through the window pane. ‘Did all of you see that apparent levitation?’

‘Certainly,’ confirmed several voices.

‘It reminded me of a rail legend I heard years ago.’

“Tell us about it, Swita!’ exhorted Haszczyc.

“Yes, go on!’

‘Of course—the story isn’t long; one can sum it up in a couple of words. There circulates among railwaymen a tale of a train that disappeared.’

“What do you mean “disappeared”? Did it evaporate or what?’

“Well, no. It disappeared—that doesn’t mean that it stopped existing! It disappeared—that means its outward appearance is not to be seen by the human eye. In reality, it exists somewhere. Somewhere it dwells, though it’s not known where. This phenomenon was supposed to have been created by a certain stationmaster, some real character and maybe even a sorcerer. This trick was performed by a series of specially arranged signals that followed each other. The occurrence caught him off guard, as he later maintained. He had been playing around with the signals, which he had arranged in the most varied ways, changing their progression and quality; until one time, after letting out seven of such signs, the train driving up to his station suddenly, at full speed, rose parallel to the track, wavered a few times in the air, and then, tipping at an angle, vanished. Since that time no one has seen either the train or the people who were riding in it. They say that the train will appear again when someone gives the same signals but in the reverse order. Unfortunately the stationmaster went insane shortly thereafter, and all attempts to extract the truth from him proved abortive. The madman took the key to the secret with him when he died. Most probably someone will hit upon the right signs by accident and draw out the train from the fourth dimension to the earth.’

‘A real fuss,’ remarked Zdanski, a train conductor. ‘And when did this wonderful event occur? Does the legend fix a date for it?’

‘Some hundred years ago.’

“Well, well. A pretty long time! In that case the passengers inside the train would be, at the present moment, older by an entire century. Please try and imagine what a spectacle it would be if today or tomorrow some lucky person were able to uncover the apocalyptic signals and remove the seven magical charms. From neither here nor there the missing train suddenly falls from the sky, suitably rested after a hundred-year hoisting, and throngs pour out stooping under the burden of a century of existence!’

“You forget that in the fourth dimension people apparently do not need to eat or drink, and they don’t age.’

‘That’s right,’ declared Haszczyc, ‘that’s absolutely right. A beautiful legend, my friend, very beautiful.’

Remembering something, he became silent. After a moment, referring to what Swita had related, he said thoughtfully:

‘Signals, signals…. I’ve something to say about them—only it’s not a legend, but a true story.’

‘We’re listening! Please, go ahead!’ echoed back a chorus of railwaymen.

Haszczyc rested an elbow against the table top, filled his pipe, and, expelling a couple of milky spirals, began his story:

One evening, around seven o’clock, an alarm went out to the Dabrowa station with the signal ‘cars unattached’: the hammer of the bell gave off four strokes by four strokes spaced apart by three seconds. Before Stationmaster Pomian could figure out from where the signal originated, a new signal flowed from the region; three strikes alternating with two, repeated four times, could be heard. The official understood; they meant ‘stop all trains’. Apparently the danger had increased.

Moving along the track slope and in the direction of a strong westerly wind, the detached cars were running towards the passenger train leaving the station at that moment.

It was necessary to stop the passenger train and back it up several kilometres and somehow cover the suspected part of the region.

The energetic young official gave the suitable orders. The passenger train was successfully turned back from its course and at the same time an engine was sent out with people whose job was to stop the racing separated cars. The locomotive moved carefully in the direction of danger, lighting up the way with three huge reflectors. Before it, at a distance of 700 metres, went two trackwalkers with lighted torches, examining the line attentively.

But to the amazement of the entire group, the runaway cars were not met with along the way, and, after a two-hour inspection to the end of the ride, the engine turned back to the nearest station at Glaszow. There, the Stationmaster received the expedition with great surprise. Nobody knew anything about any signals, the region was absolutely clear, and no danger threatened from this side. The officials, worn-out by tracking, got on the engine and returned to Dabrowa near eleven at night.

Here, meanwhile, the unease had increased. Ten minutes before the engine’s return, the bell sounded again, this time demanding the sending of a rescue locomotive with workers. The stationmaster was in despair. Agitated by the signals continually flowing from the direction of Glaszow, he was pacing restlessly about the platform, going out to the line to return again to the station office baffled, terrified, frightened.

In reality, it was a sorry situation. His comrade from Glaszow, alarmed by him every dozen or so minutes, answered at first with calm that everything was in order; later, losing his patience, he started to scold fools and lunatics. To Dabrowa, meanwhile, came signal after signal, entreating ever more urgently the dispatching of workers’ cars.

Clinging on to the last plank like a drowning man, Pomian phoned the Zbaszyn station, in the opposite direction, supposing, he didn’t know why, that the alarm was coming from there. Naturally he was answered in the negative; everything was in perfect order in that area.

‘Have I gone crazy or is everyone not in their right minds?’ he finally asked a passing blockman. ‘Mr Sroka, have you heard these damned bell signals?’

‘Yes, stationmaster, I heard them. There they go again! What the hell?’ Indeed, the relentless hammer struck the iron bell anew; it called for help from workers and doctors.

The clock already read past one.

Pomian flew into a rage.

‘What business is this of mine? In this direction, everything’s fine, in that direction, everything’s in order—then what the hell do they want? Some joker is playing games with us, throwing the whole station upside-down! I’ll make a report—and that’s that!’

‘I don’t think so, stationmaster,’ his assistant calmly put in; ‘the affair is too serious to be grasped from this point of view. One rather has to accept a mistake.’

‘Some mistake! Haven’t you heard, my friend, the answer from both of the stations nearest to us? It’s not possible that these stations would not have heard any accidentally stray signals from stops beyond them. If these signals reached us, they would have to go through their regions first! Well?’

‘So the simple conclusion is that these signals are coming from some trackwalker’s booth between Dabrowa and Glaszow.’

Pomian glanced at his subordinate attentively.

‘From one of those booths, you say? Hmm… maybe. But why? For what purpose? Our people examined the entire line, step by step, and they didn’t find anything suspicious.’

The official spread out his arms.

‘That I don’t know. We can investigate this later in conjunction with Glaszow. In any case, I believe we can sleep peacefully tonight and ignore the signals. Everything that we had to do, we did—the region has been searched rigorously, on the line there isn’t any trace of the danger we were warned about. I consider these signals as simply a so-called “false alarm”.’

The assistant’s calmness transferred itself soothingly to the stationmaster. He bid him leave and shut himself in his office for the rest of the night.

But the station personnel did not ignore this so easily. They gathered on the block around the switchman, whispering secretively among themselves. From time to time, when the quiet of the night was interrupted by a new ringing of the bell, the heads of the railwaymen, bent towards each other, turned in the direction of the signal post, and several pairs of eyes, wide with superstitious fear, observed the movements of the forged hammer.

‘A bad sign,’ murmured Grzela, the watchman; ‘a bad sign!’

Thus the signals played on until the start of daybreak. But the closer morning came, the weaker and less distinct the sounds; then long gaps between each signal ensued, until the signals died down, leaving no trace at dawn. People sighed out, as if a nightmarish weight had been lifted from their chests.

That day Pomian turned to the authorities at Ostoi, giving a precise report of the occurrences of the preceding night. A telegraphed reply ordered him to await the arrival of a special commission that would examine the affair thoroughly.

During the day, the rail traffic proceeded normally and without a hitch. But when the clock struck seven in the evening, the alarm signals arrived once again, in the same succession as the night before. So, first came the ‘cars unattached’ signal; then the order ‘stop all trains’; finally the command ‘send a locomotive with workers’ and the distress call for help, ‘send an engine with workers and a doctor’. The progressive excellence of the signals was characteristic; each new one presented an increase in the fictitious danger. The signals clearly complemented each other, forming, in distinctive punctuations, a chain that spun out an ominous story of some presumed accident.

And yet the affair seemed like a joke or a silly prank.

The stationmaster raged on, while the personnel behaved variously; some took the affair from a humorous point of view, laughing at the frantic signals, others crossed themselves superstitiously. Zdun, the blockman, maintained half-aloud that the devil was sitting inside the signal post and striking the bell out of contrariness.

In any event, no one took the signals seriously, and no suitable orders were given at the station. The alarm lasted, with breaks, until the morning, and only when a pale-yellow line cut through in the East did the bell quieten down.

Finally, after a sleepless night, the stationmaster saw the arrival of the commission around ten in the morning. From Ostoi came the most noble chief inspector, Turner—a tall, lean gentleman with maliciously blinking eyes—along with his entire staff of officials. The investigation began.

These gentlemen ‘from above’ already had a preconceived view of the affair. In the opinion of the chief inspector the signals were originating from one of the trackwalker’s booths along the Dabrowa—Glaszow line. It only needed to be ascertained which one. According to the official records, there were ten booths in this region; from this number, eight could be eliminated, as they did not possess the apparatus to give signals of this type. Consequently, the suspicion fell on the remaining two. The chief inspector decided to investigate both.

After a lavish dinner at the stationmaster’s residence, the inquiry committee set out in a special train at noon. After a half-hour ride, the gentlemen got off before the booth of trackwalker Dziwota; he was one of the suspects.

The poor little fellow, terrified by the invasion of the unexpected visitors, forgot his tongue and answered questions as if awakened from a deep sleep. After an examination that lasted over an hour, the commission decided that Dziwota was as innocent as a lamb and ignorant about everything.

In order not to waste time, the chief inspector left him in peace, recommending to his people a further drive to the eighth trackwalker on the line, on whom his investigation was now focused.

Forty minutes later they stopped at the place. No one ran out to meet them. This made them wonder. The post looked deserted; no trace of life in the homestead, no sign of a living being about. No voice of the man of the house responded, no rooster crowed, no chicken grumbled.

Along steep, little stairs, framed by handrails, they went up the hill on which stood the house of trackwalker Jazwa. At the entrance they were met by countless swarms of flies—nasty, vicious, buzzing. As if angered at the intruders, the insects threw themselves on their hands, eyes, and faces.

The door was knocked on. No one answered from within. One of the railwaymen pressed down on the handle—the door was closed. . . .

‘Mr Tuziak,’ beckoned Pomian to the station locksmith, ‘pick it.’ “With pleasure, stationmaster.’ Iron creaked, the lock crunched and yielded.

The inspector pried the door open with his leg and entered. But then he retreated to the open air, applying a handkerchief to his nose. A horrible foulness from inside hit those present. One of the officials ventured to cross the threshold and glanced into the interior.

By a table near the window sat the trackwalker with his head sunk on his chest, the fingers of his right hand resting on the knob of the signal apparatus.

The official advanced towards the table and, paling, turned back to the exit. A quick glance thrown at the trackwalker’s hand had ascertained that is was not fingers that were enclosing the knob, but three naked bones, cleansed of meat.

At that moment the sitter by the table wavered and tumbled down like a log onto the ground. Jazwa’s body was recognized in a state of complete decomposition. The doctor present ascertained that death came at least ten days earlier.

An official record was written down, and the corpse was buried on the spot, an autopsy being abandoned because of the greatly-advanced deterioration of the body.

The cause of death was not discovered. Peasants from the neighbouring village were queried, but could not shed any light on the matter other than that Jazwa had not been seen for a long time. Two hours later the commission returned to Ostoi.

Stationmaster Dabrowa slept calmly that night and the next, undisturbed by signals. But a week later a terrible collision occurred on the Dabrowa-—Glaszow line. Cars that had come apart by an unfortunate accident ran into an express train bound for the opposite direction, shattering it completely. The entire train personnel perished, as well as eighty or so travellers.

 

Originally published 1919