Chapter Eight
IT he Irish Mail rushed through the night. Or, more correctly, through the darkness of the early morning hours.
At intervals¹ the diesel² engine gave its weird³ banshee warning cry. It was travelling at well over eighty miles anhour. It was on time.
Then, with some suddenness, the pace slackened as the brakes came on. The wheels screamed as they gripped themetals. Slower…slower…The guard put his head out of the window noting the red signal ahead as the train came to afinal halt. Some of the passengers woke up. Most did not.
One elderly lady, alarmed by the suddenness of the deceleration, opened the door and looked out along thecorridor. A little way along one of the doors to the line was open. An elderly cleric with a thatch⁴ of thick white hairwas climbing up from the permanent way. She presumed he had previously⁵ climbed down to the line to investigate.
The morning air was distinctly chilly⁶. Someone at the end of the corridor said: “Only a signal.” The elderly ladywithdrew into her compartment⁷ and tried to go to sleep again.
Farther up the line, a man waving a lantern was running towards the train from a signal box. The fireman climbeddown from the engine. The guard who had descended⁸ from the train came along to join him. The man with the lanternarrived, rather short of breath and spoke⁹ in a series of gasps¹⁰.
“Bad crash ahead…Goods train derailed….”
The engine driver looked out of his cab, then climbed down also to join the others.
At the rear of the train, six men who had just climbed up the embankment boarded the train through a door leftopen for them in the last coach. Six passengers from different coaches met them. With well-rehearsed speed, theyproceeded to take charge of the

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