Chapter XVI

THROUGH FIRE AND SMOKE

A train was always kept in readiness at Centralia on the Northern Pacific Railway, which could get up full steam at a moment's notice in case of necessity. Two Japanese, the engineer and the fireman, were squatting on the floor of the tender in front of the glistening black heaps of coal, over which played the red reflections from the furnace. They had just made their tea with hot water from the boiler and eaten their modest supper. Then the engineer pulled out his pipe and stuffing its little metal bowl with a few crumbs of tobacco, took one or two puffs at it and said, "Akoki, it is time," whereupon the stoker seized his shovel, dug into the heap of coals and threw the black lumps with a sure aim into the open door of the furnace. With a hissing sound the draft rushed into the glowing fire, and the engine sent out masses of black smoke which, mixed with hundreds of tiny sparks, was driven like a pillar of fire over the dark row of cars. The engineer climbed down the little iron steps and examined the steel rods of his engine with clinking knocks from his hammer.

Up and down in front of the dark station walked a Japanese sentinel and each time that he passed beyond the ring of light thrown by the two dimly burning lamps he seemed to be swallowed up in the darkness. Only two little windows at one end of the station were lighted up; they belonged to the Japanese guard-room and had been walled up so that they were no wider than loop-holes. The train which inspected this district regularly between eight and nine o'clock each evening had passed by at 8.30 and proceeded in the direction of Portland. With the exception of the non-commissioned officer and the man in charge of the three arc-lamps on the roof that were to light up the surrounding country in case of a night-attack most of the soldiers had gone to sleep, although a few were engaged in a whispered conversation.

Suddenly the sergeant sprang up as a muffled cry was heard from the outside. "The lamps!" he yelled to the man at the electric instrument. The latter pushed the lever, but everything remained pitch dark outside.

The soldiers were up in a second. The sergeant took a few steps towards the door, but before he could reach it, it was torn open from the outside.

A determined looking man with a rifle slung over his shoulder appeared in the doorway, and the next moment a dark object flew through the air and was dashed against the wall. A deafening report followed, and then the guard-room was filled with yellow light caused by the blinding explosion, while thick black smoke forced its way out through the loop-holes. Armed men were running up and down in front of the station, and when the man who had thrown the bomb and who was only slightly injured but bleeding at the nose and ears from the force of the concussion, was picked up by them, they were able to assure him triumphantly that his work had been successful and that the guard-room had become a coffin for the small Japanese detachment.

Stumbling over the dead body of the sentinel lying on the platform, the leader of the attacking party rushed towards the engine, out of the discharge-valves of which clouds of boiling steam poured forth. With one bound he was up in the cab, where he found the Japanese fireman killed by a blow from an ax. Other dark figures climbed up from the opposite side bumping into their comrades.

"Halloo, Dick, I call that a good job!" And then it began to liven up along the row of cars. Wild looking men with rifles over their shoulders and revolvers in their right hands tore open the carriage doors and rushed quickly through the whole train.

"Dick, where's Forster?"

"Here," answered a rough voice.

"Off to the engine! Into the cars, quick! Are you ready? Is anyone missing? Arthur! Where's Arthur?"

"Here, Dick!"

"Good work, Arthur, that's what I call good work," said the leader; "well done, my boys! We're all right so far! Now for the rest of it."

Fighting Dick distributed his men among the different cars and then he and Forster, formerly an engineer on the Northern Pacific, climbed into the cab.

"They've made it easy for us," said Forster, "they've only just put fresh coal on! We can start at once! And if it isn't my old engine at that! I only hope we won't have to give her up! The Japs shan't have her again, anyhow, even if she has to swallow some dynamite and cough a little to prevent it."

"We're off," shouted Fighting Dick, whose fame as a desperado had spread far beyond the borders of the State of Washington. With such men as these we were destined to win back our native land. They were a wild lot, but each of them was a hero: farmers, hunters, workmen from shop and factory, numerous tramps and half-blooded Indian horse-thieves made up the company. Only a few days ago Fighting Dick's band had had a regular battle in the mountains with a troop of Japanese cavalry, and in the woods of Tacoma more than one Japanese patrol had never found its way back to the city. These little encounters were no doubt also responsible for the strengthening of the Japanese garrison at Tacoma.

The thing to do now was to get the five thousand guns and ammunition cases out of Tacoma by surprising the enemy.

Thus far, nothing but the explosion of the bomb at the Centralia station could have betrayed the plot. It is true that the distant mountains had sent the echoes of the detonation far and wide, but a single shot didn't have much significance at a time like this when our country resounded with the thunder of cannon day in day out!

The train rushed through the darkness at full speed. A misplaced switch, a loose rail, might at any moment turn the whole train into a heap of ruins and stop the beating of a hundred brave American hearts. The headlight of Forster's engine lighted up the long rows of shining rails, and in the silent woods on both sides of the track, beneath the branches of the huge trees, lights could be seen here and there in the windows of the houses, where the dwellers were anxiously awaiting the return of the train from Tacoma! And now a hollow roll of thunder came up from below.

"The bridges?" asked Fighting Dick.

"Yes, the bridges," said Forster, nodding.

Then a faint light appeared in the distance. The train was nearing Tacoma.

Houses began to spring up more frequently out of the darkness, now to the right and now to the left; dancing lights popped up and disappeared. Tall, black buildings near the tracks gave out a thundering noise like the crash of hammers and accompanied the roar of the passing train. A beam of light is suddenly thrown across the rails, green and red lanterns slip by with the speed of lightning, and then the brakes squeak and the train runs noisily into the dark station.

A few figures hurry across the platform. Shots ring out from all sides. A mortally-wounded Jap is leaning against a post, breathing heavily.

The wheels groan beneath the pressure of the brakes and then, with a mighty jerk that shakes everybody up, the train comes to a stand-still. Down from the cars! Fighting Dick in the lead, revolver in hand, and the others right on his heels. They entered the station only to find every Jap dead—the men of Tacoma had done their duty.

Now the clatter of hoofs was heard out in the street. The heavy wagons with their heaps of rifles and long tin boxes full of cartridges were driven up at a mad pace. A wild tumult ensued as the boxes were rushed to the train—two men to a box—and the doors slammed to. Then the empty wagons rattled back through the silent streets. Meanwhile Forster ran his engine on the turntable, where it was quickly reversed, and in a few moments it stood, puffing and snorting, at the other end of the train.

All this consumed less than half an hour. Suddenly shots rang out in the neighboring streets, but as no detachment of hostile troops appeared, the Americans concluded that they had been fired by a patrol which was coming from the electric-works to see what the noise at the station was about. Several rockets with their blinding magnesium light appeared in the dark sky and illumined the roofs of the houses. Was it a warning signal?

All at once the electric gongs near the station which were connected with Brown & Co.'s cellar began to ring, a sign that something suspicious had been noticed at the waterworks. Forster was waiting impatiently in his engine for the signal of departure and could not imagine why Fighting Dick was postponing it so long. He was standing in the doorway of the station and now called out: "Where is Arthur Engelmann?"

"Not here," came the answer from the train.

"Where can he be?"

The name was called out several times, but no one answered. The train was ready to start and the men were distributing the boxes carefully inside the cars, so as to be able to unload them without loss of time at their respective destinations. And now, at last, Arthur Engelmann came running into the station.

"Hurry up!" called Fighting Dick.

"No, wait a minute! We'll have to take this fellow along," cried Engelmann, pointing to a wounded man, who was being carried by two comrades.

"Put him down! We'll have to be off! We've got plenty of men, but not enough guns."

"You must take him!"

"No, we're off!"

"You'll wait," said Arthur Engelmann, seizing Dick's arm; "it's my brother."

"I can't help it, you'll have to leave him behind."

"Then I'll stay too!"

"Go ahead, if you want to."

At this moment shrill bugle-calls resounded from one of the nearby streets.

"The Japanese!" roared Fighting Dick; "come on, Arthur!"

But Arthur snatched his wounded brother from the two men who were carrying him and lifted him across his own shoulder, while the others, led by Fighting Dick, rushed past him and jumped on the train.

Bullets were whizzing past and several had entered the walls of the station when Fighting Dick's voice gave the command: "Let her go, Forster! Let her go!"

Puffing and snorting, and with the pistons turning the high wheels, which could not get a hold on the slippery rails, at lightning speed, the engine started just as the Japanese soldiers ran into the station, from the windows of which they commenced to fire blindly at the departing train. The bullets poured into the rear cars like hail-stones, smashing the wooden walls and window-panes.

Fighting Dick, standing beside Forster, looked back and saw the station full of soldiers. The two Germans must have fallen into their hands, he thought.

But they must hustle with the train now, for although the telegraph wires had been cut all along the line, they still had light-signals to fear! And even as this thought occurred to him, a glare appeared in the sky in the direction of the waterworks, then went out and appeared again at regular intervals. Those silent signs certainly had some meaning. Perhaps it was a signal to the nearest watch to pull up the rails in front of the approaching train? With his teeth set and his hand on the throttle, Forster stood in his engine while the fireman kept shoveling coals into the furnace.

"Forster," said Dick suddenly, "what's that in front of us? Heavens, it's burning!"

"The bridges are burning, Fighting Dick!"

"That's just what I thought, the damned yellow monkeys! Never mind, we'll have to go on. Do you think you can get the engine across?"

"The bridges will hold us all right. It would take half a day to burn the wood through and we'll be there in ten minutes."

Now fluttering little flames could be seen running along the rails and licking the blood-red beams of the long wooden bridges, giant monuments of American extravagance in the use of wood. Clouds of smoke crept towards the train, hiding the rails from view, and soon the engine rolled into a veritable sea of flames and smoke. Forster screamed to his companion: "They've poured petroleum over the wood."

"We'll have to get across," answered Fighting Dick, "even if we all burn to death."

Biting smoke and the burning breath of the fiery sea almost suffocated the two men. The air was quivering with heat, and all clearly defined lines disappeared as the angry flames now arose on both sides.

"Press hard against the front," screamed Forster; "that's the only way to get a little air, otherwise we'll suffocate."

The high-pressure steam of the speeding locomotive hissed out of all the valves, shaking the mighty steel frame with all its force; the heat of the flames cracked the windows, and wherever the hand sought support, pieces of skin were left on the red-hot spots. A few shots were fired from the outside.

"One minute more," yelled Forster, "and we'll be over."

Fighting Dick collapsed under the influence of the poisonous gases and fainted away on the floor of the cab. And now the flames grew smaller and smaller and gradually became hidden in clouds of smoke.

"Hurrah!" cried Forster; "there's a clear stretch ahead of us!" Then he leaned out of the cab-window to look at the train behind him and saw that the last two cars were in flames. He blew the whistle as a signal that the last car was to be uncoupled and left where it was, for he had just noticed a man standing near the track, swinging his bicycle lamp high above his head.

"Perhaps they'll be able to unload the car after all," he said to Fighting Dick, who was slowly coming to. But the sound of the explosion of some of the boxes of cartridges in the uncoupled car made it fairly certain that there wouldn't be much left to unload.

Five minutes later, after they had passed a dark station, the same signal was noticed, and another car was uncoupled, and similarly one car after another was left on the track. The guns and ammunition-boxes were unloaded as expeditiously as possible and transferred to the wagons that were waiting to receive them. The moment they were ready, the horses galloped off as fast as they could go and disappeared in the darkness, leaving the burning cars behind as a shining beacon.

When, on the morning of June ninth, a Japanese military train from Portland traveled slowly along the line, it came first upon the ruins of an engine which had been blown up by dynamite, and after that it was as much as the Japanese could do to clear away the remnants of the various ruined cars by the end of the day. The bridge, which had been set on fire by a Japanese detachment with the help of several barrels of petroleum, was completely burned down.

But the plot had been successful and Fighting Dick's fame resounded from one ocean to the other, and proved to the nations across the sea that the old energy of the American people had been revived and that the war of extermination against the yellow race had begun, though as yet only on a small scale. And the Japanese troops, too, began to appreciate that the same irresistible force—a patriotic self-sacrifice that swept everything before it—which had in one generation raised Japan to the heights of political power, was now being directed against the foreign invader.

Half the town had known of the plan for removing the rifles and ammunition from Tacoma, but a strong self-control had taken the place of the thoughtless garrulousness of former times. Not a sign, not a word had betrayed the plot to the enemy; every man controlled his feverish emotion and wore an air of stolid indifference. We had learned a lesson from the enemy.

Fourteen Americans were captured with weapons in hand, and in addition about twenty-eight badly wounded. The Japanese commander of Tacoma issued a proclamation the following evening that all the prisoners, without exception, would be tried by court-martial in the course of the next day and condemned to death—the penalty that had been threatened in case of insurrection. The Japanese court-martial arrived in the city on June ninth with a regiment from Seattle. The Tacoma board of aldermen were invited to send two of their number to be present at the trial, but the offer being promptly refused, the Japanese pronounced judgment on the prisoners alone. As had been expected, they were all condemned to death by hanging, but at the earnest pleading of the mayor of Tacoma, the sentence was afterwards mitigated to death by shooting.

Old Martin Engelmann tried in vain to secure permission to see his sons once more; his request was brusquely refused.

In the light of early dawn on June eleventh the condemned men were led out to the waterworks to be executed, the wounded being conveyed in wagons. Thousands of the inhabitants took part in this funeral procession—in dead silence.

Old Engelmann was standing, drawn up to his full height, at the window of his home, and mutely he caught the farewell glances of his two sons as they passed by, the one marching in the midst of his comrades, the other lying in the first wagon among the wounded. Frau Martha had summoned sufficient courage to stand beside her husband, but the moment the procession had passed, she burst into bitter tears. Her life was bereft of all hope and the future stretched out dark and melancholy before her.

Suddenly a gentle hand was laid on her white head. "Mother," said one of her daughters, "do you hear it? I heard it yesterday. They're singing the song of Fighting Dick and of our dear boys. No one knows who composed it, it seems to have sprung up of itself. They were singing it on the street last night, the song of Arthur Engelmann, who sacrificed his life for his brother."

"Yes," said the father, "it's true, mother, they are singing of our lads; be brave, mother, and remember that those who are taken from us to-day will live forever in the hearts of the American people."

And louder and louder rang out the notes of that proud song of the citizens of Tacoma—the first pæan of victory in those sad days.