Into the Light.

I looked across at Ben Glasgow, the man at the controls of this great express, and the man with 350 lives in his hands.

He was leaning over the edge of the cab window gazing ahead. His left hand was holding the handle of the regulator. His grim face was set in relief by the firelight, and I could see his bushy eyebrows lowered as he peered into the darkness ahead.

Albert reached over and shut off the cylinder cocks. He reached up and opened two valves, listening carefully like a man tuning in a radio set. I looked at him inquiringly.

“The injector,” he bellowed, cupping his hands over his mouth close to my ear. “Takes water into the boiler.”

The massive driving rods were moving faster now, and the exhaust from the engine had deepened into a low, throaty roar.

We rattled over the points at New Barnet, with the long trail of nut-brown coaches running smoothly behind, and climbed on. Ben Glasgow still leaned, motionless, like an inflexible image, from his window, gazing ahead.

Albert shut off the injector, examined his gauges, and took up his shovel again.

“Five tons must go in that door before we get to Edinburgh,” he yelled at me.

I inhaled deeply, shifted myself into a fixed, firm position, grabbed the steel window-sill, and waited.

The thunder of the driving-wheels grew louder. The sway of the giant engine increased. Ben Glasgow stood up now and pulled the whistle cord as we raced through a blurred row of buildings which I knew must be Hatfield.