The Red Petticoats

The cottage had three rooms and a kitchen, and it sat so close to the railway embankment that the cups rattled on the shelf whenever a train went by. Mother said it was cheap. Roberta said it was interesting. Phyllis said it was loud. Peter said it was the best house they had ever lived in, and he meant it.

On the first free afternoon, the three of them climbed the stile at the end of the garden and scrambled up the embankment. The grass was dry and slippery. At the top, the rails ran away in both directions, bright as knives.

“Look at the wires,” said Roberta. She pointed at the telegraph poles. One wire sagged low between two poles, and another had snapped clean and hung down the side of the embankment like a long black weed.

Peter whistled. “Something’s been at them.”

“Perhaps the wind,” said Phyllis. “There was a wind last night. I heard it talking to the window.”

They walked along the top of the embankment, keeping off the rails the way Mother had told them. The cutting curved ahead of them, deep and shadowy. Far off, a signal post stood with its arm down.

“If the wires are broken, the signal man can’t ring the next station,” said Peter. “That’s how they know where the trains are.”

“How do you know that?” asked Phyllis.

“I read it on a poster,” said Peter, who had not.

Roberta looked back the way they had come. The wires drooped and dangled all along the line, as if the sky had let them go. She did not like it. She did not say so.

The afternoon was quiet. No train came. The rails hummed to themselves, and the three of them stood on the embankment and listened.

***

They were almost at the bend when Phyllis stopped and said, “What’s that heap?”

Ahead of them, where the cutting narrowed, the line was blocked. Earth and rock had slid down from the bank above and lay across both rails in a long grey ridge. Loose stones still trickled from the top now and then, and one of them bounced off a rail with a ringing sound.

Peter ran forward first. He put both hands on the biggest rock and pushed, but it did not move.

“It’s the whole side of the hill,” he said. “It’s come down in the night, I bet. With the rain.”

Roberta was already counting. She did not know she was counting, but she was. “Peter. When is the express due?”

“Half past three,” said Peter. “The man at the station told me. It doesn’t stop here. It goes through.”

“What time is it now?”

Peter looked at the sun, and then at his own shadow, and then he gave up. “I don’t know. Late.”

Phyllis began to talk, fast, the way she did when she was frightened. “We could push it. If all three of us pushed. Or we could shout. If we shouted loud enough, someone would hear. Or we could—“

“Phyllis,” said Roberta. “Stop a minute.”

Phyllis stopped.

Roberta looked at the heap of rock. She looked along the line towards the station, and then back towards the long empty curve of the cutting. Somewhere beyond that curve, out of sight, a train was coming. She could not hear it yet. That was the worst part.

“We can’t move it,” she said. “We have to stop the train.”

They ran. Down the embankment, over the stile, along the lane that ran beside the fence, past the white cottage where nobody lived, past the field of sheep who did not care. Roberta went first because she was the eldest and her legs were longest. Peter went second because he could not bear to be last. Phyllis went last, and talked the whole way.

“What if he doesn’t see us,” she said. “What if he sees us and thinks we’re just waving. What if he—“

“Run, Phyllis,” said Roberta, without turning her head.

The station was small. Two platforms, a wooden waiting room, a ticket window with a brass grille, and a signal box at the end of the up platform where a man in a waistcoat sat with his back to them. His name was Mr. Ainsley. He had given Peter a penny once for holding a horse.

Peter got to the signal box first and hammered on the door with his fist.

“Mr. Ainsley! Mr. Ainsley! There’s rock on the line!”

The door opened. Mr. Ainsley looked down at three children, red-faced and breathing hard.

“What’s that?” he said. “What’s all this?”

“Rock,” said Peter. “A whole heap of it. Across the line, past the cutting. It must have come down in the night.”

Mr. Ainsley’s face changed. He turned and looked at the telegraph machine on its shelf. It sat there with its little brass wheels and its paper tape. The tape was blank.

“Wires are down,” he said. “I’ve been trying this half hour. Something’s wrong along the line and I can’t raise the next box.”

“Then send someone,” said Roberta. “Send someone up the line on a bicycle.”

“There’s no bicycle,” said Mr. Ainsley. “And the express is due in twenty minutes, and it doesn’t stop here, and if I put the signal to danger he’ll come through anyway unless he’s watching. Which he won’t be, on a straight run.”

He put his hand over his mouth.

Phyllis said, “What’s a straight run?”

Nobody answered her.

***

They stood on the platform, all four of them, and nobody said anything for a moment. The rails ran away from them, shining and empty, and somewhere beyond the curve a train was coming.

Then Roberta said, “We can wave him down.”

Mr. Ainsley shook his head. “You’d need something big. Something red. He’ll not see a handkerchief at that distance.”

Roberta looked down at herself. She was wearing a brown dress, a grey jacket, and under it all, a red flannel petticoat. Phyllis was wearing one too. It was the sort of thing you wore in those days, and you did not talk about it, and you certainly did not take it off in front of a station master.

Roberta looked at Phyllis.

Phyllis looked at Roberta.

“No,” said Phyllis.

“Phyllis.”

“No. I’m not. It’s cold.”

“The train, Phyllis.”

Phyllis bit her lip. Then she undid her coat, and fumbled at her waist, and stepped out of her petticoat, and handed it over without looking at Mr. Ainsley at all.

Roberta did the same. The two red petticoats lay in a heap on the platform, and they were the brightest things there.

Peter was already pulling the lid off the crate of kindling by the waiting room. He took two long sticks, and he tied one petticoat to each stick with his own bootlace and Roberta’s hair ribbon. He pulled the knots tight.

“There,” he said. “Two flags.”

Mr. Ainsley stared at them.

“Go on,” he said. “Run.”

So they ran back up the lane, with the red flags flying over their heads, and the wind took them and pulled them out straight, and they were brighter than anything in that whole grey afternoon.

The lane ran downhill to the cutting, and the cutting was a steep green wall with the railway at the bottom. Roberta went first. She put one hand on the grass and slid, and the red flag flapped above her head. Phyllis came next, talking all the way down. “What if the train is already there? What if it comes while we are still on the slope? Peter, what if we are too late?” Peter did not answer. He was watching the far end of the cutting, where the line curved away, and his face was white under the freckles. “I can hear it,” he said. “Hear what?” “The train.” Then Roberta heard it too, a soft drumming far off, the way a fly buzzes against a window before you see it. The three of them stood on the ballast beside the rails. The heap of rock and earth was just ahead, a dark spill across both lines, and the wires hung down over it like broken spider threads. “Wave,” said Peter. “Wave now.” Roberta lifted her stick and shook the red petticoat, and the wind caught it and pulled it out flat. Phyllis waved hers in both hands, up and down, up and down, like a girl at a fair. Peter jumped and shouted, though the train was still too far to hear him. The drumming grew to a rumble, and then the rumble grew to a roar, and a black shape came round the curve with a white cloud above it and a long line of carriages behind. It was coming fast. It was coming very fast.

***

The engine was close enough now to see the men in the cab. One of them leaned out, and Roberta saw him smile and lift a hand, the way a man waves back at children playing by the line. He thought they were playing. He thought the red flags were a game. Roberta waved harder. She waved so hard her arm ached, and she shouted, and Phyllis shouted, and Peter ran a few steps along the ballast with his flag held high. Then the driver’s face changed. He had seen the rockfall beyond them, the dark heap lying across the rails, and his hand went up and pulled the brake. The train screamed. The wheels locked and slid, and sparks flew out from under them, and the whole long line of carriages shuddered. It came on and on, slower and slower, and the children stood still, because there was nowhere to run and nothing else to do. Then it stopped. The engine stopped with its front wheels almost touching the heap of rock. A little gravel rolled down and tapped the iron. Everything was quiet except the steam, which sighed and sighed. The driver climbed down and stood looking at the rock, and then at the three children, and he took off his cap. “Well,” he said. “Well.” Later, when the men came up the lane looking for them, they found the children sitting on the bank, cold and tired and very pleased with themselves. The station master gave them buns. The driver shook Peter’s hand and said the railway would not forget it. That night, by the fire, their mother asked where their petticoats had gone, and Roberta told her. She did not scold. She only looked at the three of them for a long time, and then she said, “There’s a new red one for each of you by Saturday.”