NEW YORK CITY, 1918
Ned Duffy cursed to himself as he pedaled frantically toward Astor’s private station. Sweat poured from him. Each ragged gasp for breath felt like his last. His lungs were on fire, his heart pounding hard enough to explode from his chest. His mouth was so dry he couldn’t spit, his tongue so parched he couldn’t wet his lips.
“You’re turning into an old man,” he wheezed.
He’d been too long in precinct houses and city rooms, he told himself, smoked too many cigars and drunk too much whiskey to cover a real story.
He was on the verge of collapse when a cop the size of a Greek wrestler stopped him at the entrance.
“No vehicles allowed,” the cop bellowed, his face as red as a hard-core drinker’s.
Duffy lurched off his bicycle, abandoning it where it fell, and staggered toward the stairs leading down to the station.
“No, you don’t,” the cop said, collaring him with a ham-like arm, “no civilians allowed. Especially civilians the likes of you.”
“Press,” Duffy managed to say.
“I’ve heard that one before.”
Duffy reached for his press card, though many a detective had warned him against making any such move when confronting a harness bull.
“Now, there,” the cop said, tightening his grip around Duffy’s neck. “Let me do that for you, lad.”
“O’Malley at headquarters will vouch for me,” Duffy gasped. “Sure, everyone knows O’Malley,” the cop answered but picked Duffy’s pocket anyway, coming up with Duffy’s card and the dollar bill he kept nestled beside it.
“Ned Duffy of the New York World, it says. Now, would that be you?”
“That’s me,” Duffy replied, silently counting the minutes and forcing himself to appear calm.
“Maybe I recognize the name, at that,” the policeman replied, returning the press card. He then palmed the dollar before releasing his grip on Duffy’s neck.
Duffy flung himself down the ornate staircase to the subway landing. Under any other circumstances he would have paused to admire the ornate tile work and elaborate furnishings of the private station. The light from the crystal chandeliers was more than sufficient to see the men milling about the track.
“Duffy, from the World,” he called out.
“And not a moment too soon,” one of the men yelled back and pushed him forward. “Here you go,” he said and thrust Duffy up to what looked like the handle of a gigantic pump perched on a platform covering the tracks.
“What is this?” Duffy asked, as the man swung along beside him and grasped one end of the handle.
“It’s a handcar, Mister Reporter from the World, and you’d best be pumping along with me if you want to get to your story.”
Duffy looked around him and saw two more men grab the long handle at the other end.
“We’re away,” the man next to him shouted. “Push lads, push as if your lives depended on it, because there’re other lives that do.”
The handcar started to move and Duffy grabbed hold of the handle more to prevent himself from falling off the vehicle than for any other reason, but soon found himself straining to depress the pump.
“Where’s the relief train?” he managed to gasp.
“This is it,” the rail man answered. “The power’s out down the line and this is the only thing that can get us there. The old tracks are still wooden on that stretch, as long as the BRT is operating under the dual standard. The cars being wooden too, there’s nothing ahead of us but kindling. It’s a bad business, my lad, and you’d best pump like mad to make it worth the effort to bring you. I had to leave a good man behind to make room for you. If your paper hadn’t taken management’s part in the strike I’ve no doubt you’d still be trying to figure out how to get there.” Duffy heaved and wondered how the man could find any breath to speak. He pumped until he thought he would pass out from the effort. Sweat poured down his forehead and into his eyes, but there was no opportunity to wipe them. Suddenly they rounded a turn in the tunnel and were plunged into darkness. Duffy thought he could fall off the platform and no one would notice.
“Steady, lads, we’ve got about a mile to go, but we’d best be slowing down a bit. Don’t want to come a cropper ourselves.”
Duffy was grateful that the pace had slackened and he managed to say, “How do you know that the wreck’s a mile away?”
“From my previous trips,” the man replied. “We’ve been ferrying lights and equipment as fast as we can.”
It was unbelievable to Duffy that any human being could make this trip more than once in a lifetime. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets with each upswing of the pump. “Do you know what happened?” he asked.
“They put a kid on the line, us being so shorthanded. The curve at the tunnel is a tricky one and I heard that they dispatched him wrong to boot. He was at the end of a double shift and trying to make up for lost time. He’ll not have to worry now, I suppose. Hold up lads, we’re nearly there.”
Duffy saw a dim glow ahead that seemed to consist of fitful shadows. As the handcar glided to a stop he could hear men shouting and he realized there was something worse, a thin wordless keening from people who could only be too injured to scream.
His companion thrust a lantern in his hand and said, “You’re on your own, now. Me and the lads have work to do.”