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The Man from Moree
By Will Lawson

“Tell the driver of Number 35 that the signals will be against him, but to come in….”

The voice that gave this message to the night charge foreman at Bathurst steam shed was agitated, and it ceased abruptly, as though the speaker had been pulled away from the telephone. But the foreman recognised it as that of Marris, the young night officer at Mudville, a lonely station west of Bathurst. He could get no further word, however, from the lad, and the stations on either side bore out his observations—that the call came from Mudville.

Long Charlie would be the driver of No. 35—a cool, determined man, who could be trusted. But No. 35 was a fast goods, that scarcely spoke to Mudville as she swept through. And she wasn't due at Bathurst from east for half an hour. What might not be happening to Marris in the meantime? He might have fainted. Perhaps it was a hold-up and the message had been sent by Marris under compulsion, in order to assist the plans of some gang. Peter Mack, the charge foreman, thought rapidly. And an idea came to him. He would go out himself with Mick Moree on a light engine.

Only this afternoon this strange engine-man, whom the men in the barracks had christened Mick Moree, had blown in from the Great Northern Line with his big-wheeled, old-fashioned “D” engine, both being on transfer.

And when he was asked where he had come from, his reply had been “From Moree, where the emus pick the corks out of the side-rods.”

Peter Mack sent a callboy running to the barracks to get Mick Moree. It was a pity he had to do it, for there was a very happy party in the long room at the barracks. The simple humour of the north-western engineman was making them laugh in a whole-hearted happy way. He had a dry way of putting things, too.

“There's a 100-mile stretch out Mungindi Way,” he told them, “where you've got a straight look at the signals for forty miles.”

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“Fat lot of signals you'd see in forty miles,” Gentleman Jack observed. “How far do you reckon you could see lights?”

“I can see lights for thousands of miles,” Mick Moree retorted gently. “I can see the stars.”

Someone told the story of an engine crew that was held up by bushrangers; but the bushrangers stopped the wrong train; the one they met had not been “primed,” and Jacky Boyd, the driver, and his mate fell on the bushrangers with spanners and a bueket and captured them.

“What yould you do if that happened to you?” someone asked Mick.

“Me,” he said. “Look, boys, I'm a cocktail, true. If a hold-up man ever climbed up on my engine I'd say to him, “Sonny, take my tucker, take my money, my clothes, my missus, anything at all, but for God's sake don't touch the oil.”

There was a roar of laughter at that, for the strict tally kept on the lubricating oil was one of the sore points with the enginemen.

“Boss wants you ‘twonce,” a callboy interrupted, entering the room and waving his lantern at Mick Moree. “Quick and lively,” he said, “and get the hay out o' your whiskers.

“What's up, sonny?” Gentleman Jack asked, as Mick Moree started off on the run.

“Sumping balmy up at Mudville, they tell me,” the boy answered. “Goin' to send out a fast engine, light.”

And with this mystifying message he departed, leaving the barracks full of conjecture as to what the new driver had to do with sending out a fast, light engine. They got a slight idea, when a few minutes later the “D” romped past with her exhaust accelerating till it began to sound like one continuous noise, and she was scarcely clear of the yard at that. Listening to her breasting the Tumulah bank, the men looked at one another. That engine was travelling, if ever one did, and it opened their minds to what the oldtimers could do in the way of speed, if they weren't killed with a heavy load. Peter Mack knew. That was why he picked her and her driver for this job.

When Mick Moree reached the steam shed, he found they had steam on his old engine, with the big, lanky-looking wheels.

“Who's firing?” he asked.

“I'm firing,” Peter Mack replied, “and I want to get to Mudville as fast as you can rush her along. We've got the road.”

Mick leaped into the cab, and sent the “D” spinning backwards, with drivers slipping, till she faced the points of the main line. He whistled for the road, following Mack's directions, he being strange to the run, and when they got the “green” the man from Moree set his light, fast engine roaring out, away past the barracks and up the bank. She seemed to snort at the first steep grade, for she was used to the plains where the wild emus ran loose. But she had nothing to pull, and the steam that Peter Mack was making by the sweat of his brow just sang through her ports and valves, and roared up to the stars in a white cloud. She was travelling.

“Don't hunt her off the track,” Peter said, as he straightened his back. But Mick never answered. He was looking for the lights at Perthville, and his hand moved the throttle wider and wider, little by little. On the rising grades the engine was steadier than she would have been on the level or a down grade. And there was trouble at Mudville. They had to travel.

George's Plains whipped past, then Wimbleton, and the “D” was flying faster.

“Reckon she's touching 70,” Mick leaned over to Peter and shouted.

“Keep her steady, we're nearly there,” Peter shouted back. And they slammed along. A quarter of an hour later, the signals of Mudville glowed ahead. They were at “danger.” “Don't whistle,” Peter yelled. “Want to surprise them.”

Swooping down on the lonely little platform, Mick shut off steam and used the page 11 air as much as he dared, bringing the racing engine to a reasonable speed as she reached the platform.

A dim light shone in the office, but the door was shut. Swinging lightly from his footplate, Mick Moree left Peter Mack to pull her up, and in two bounds reached the door. He didn't pause to try the handle. With the impetus of the engine still in his stride, he landed a terrific kick at the door. Though it had been locked, it flew open with a crash, and Mick was inside the room. Peter had pulled the engine up, and was close on his heels. Together they gazed in amazement at the scene there being enacted, which they had interrupted.

The young night officer, horror in his eyes, was squeezed into a small space at one end of the chimney, just out of reach of the telephone, the receiver of which hung on its cord, where he had dropped it. And leaning over him, in a threatening attitude, was a stark-naked giant, a man with long red hair and a carving knife in his hand.

“I'll let your lights out if you move,” he had said, when he crowded the boy into the corner, and he looked as though he meant it.

The close warmth of the room was what struck Mick Moree. That was the only emotion he registered at first. Then the big man turned his head and regarded them.

“I'll put your lights out,” he said again, in a growling horrible voice.

“Will you?” Mick said. “Well, come over here and talk about it; over here where it's warm. You'll be shivering without your overcoat, I'm thinking.”

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The man left the boy and moved over towards them. He scarcely glanced at Peter Mack, who went to speak to young Marris, and put the telephone receiver back.

“I want to go to Sydney,” the giant told Mick; “and that brat won't give me a ticket.”

“Sure, sit down and talk it over,” Mick said, sitting down himself on a stool near the stove. The man came close to him, and, folding his arms, with the knife still looking ugly, he sat—on the stove!

The yell that followed nearly made the station signals jump from red to green, it was so like the howl of a locomotive. The big man made a streak in the darkness as he bounded through the door and was lost to sight. Mick went after him.

“He'll be getting the ‘D’ and going off to Sydney by himself,” he cried as he ran.

That was just the idea the madman had. When he had crept stealthily into the station office and startled the night officer, as he sat at his instruments chatting to his comrades on the wire, the naked sleeper-cutter's aim was to secure transit to Sydney. Baulked by the sudden advent of Peter and Mick, his impulse revived at the sight of the “D” standing on the main line, though had he carried it out, the madman would have gone west instead of east.

He was trying to work the levers and link motion when Mick leaped on to the footplate. Luckily the man had dropped his knife, and though he fought like a tiger cat, Mick was too clever for him. And Peter and the lad came up as reinforcements. They soon had him tied hand and foot, and laid out on the coal in the tender, with some bags over him to keep him warm. Then they ran the “D” on to the siding to give passage to No. 35.

Soon they could hear the fast goods glogging up the gullies, and blowing for signals, as she picked up speed on the flat before the station. The light winked from red to green. The big “T” engine with 300 tons behind her drawbar thundered through. They had a glimpse of Long Charlie, as he waved his hand to them as to an incident in his progress, little realising what might have been in store for him and his crew if Peter Mack had been content to carry out the night officer's request.