The Beast Within (62 page)

‘Still no luck?’ asked Jacques mischievously. ‘I thought your missus was giving you a hand.’

Misard looked him in the eyes.

‘You know where the money is,’ he said. ‘So why don’t you tell me?’

This made Jacques angry.

‘I know nothing at all,’ he snapped. ‘Aunt Phasie didn’t give me anything. I hope you’re not accusing me of stealing it!’

‘I know she didn’t give you anything,’ Misard continued. ‘But it’s making me ill. If you know where it is, tell me.’

‘You can bugger off!’ retorted Jacques. ‘Just you be careful I don’t start talking ... Why don’t you try looking in the salt-box? It might be there!’

Misard went pale, continuing to look at Jacques with blood-shot eyes. He seemed to have a sudden flash of inspiration.

‘The salt-box!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re right, there’s a place under the drawer I haven’t looked in!’

He quickly paid for his glass of wine and ran off to the station to see if he still had time to catch the 7.10. When he got back to his cottage, the endless search would continue.

Later that evening, when they had eaten and while they were waiting for the train at ten to one, Philomène persuaded Jacques to go for a walk with her. She led him through dark alleyways out into the neighbouring countryside. It was a sultry July night, very hot and with no moon. She leaned on his arm, breathing heavily. Twice, thinking she heard footsteps behind them, she had turned to look, but it was so dark she could see no one. Jacques was finding the oppressive weather very tiresome. Since the murder he had been feeling calm, relaxed and in good health, but a little earlier, as he had been sitting at the dinner table, he had felt the return of a vague unease every time Philomène’s hands had come in contact with him. It must have been due to tiredness, or perhaps it was the heavy weather that was affecting him. But now, as he walked along, holding her against him, he felt the terrible stirrings of his old desire, gathering strength and filling him with a sense of unspeakable dread. He had thought he was cured. He had proved it. He had made love to Philomène in order to convince himself and he had felt nothing. He became so agitated that he would have removed himself from her arms, fearing some dreadful recurrence of his malady, had not the surrounding darkness reassured him. Never, not even in the darkest days of his terrible affliction, would he have killed if he could not actually see his victim. But suddenly, as they were walking beside a grassy bank in a quiet lane, she pulled him to the ground and lay on her back in front of him. The monstrous urge returned. A wild frenzy took hold of him. He felt around in the grass for a weapon, a stone to smash her head open. He shook himself, got to his feet and fled in panic. Behind him he heard a man shouting and swearing, and the sounds of a violent struggle.

‘You bitch! I waited to see what your game was, just to make sure!’

‘It’s not true. Let me go!’

‘So it’s not true, eh! He won’t get away, you mark my words. I know who he is. I’ll get even with him, you’ll see. If you tell me it’s not true again, I’ll ...’

Jacques vanished into the night, running not from Pecqueux, whom he had recognized, but from himself, wild with grief.

One murder had not been enough! He had killed Séverine, and it had not satisfied his thirst for blood! That morning he had thought he was cured. And now it was beginning again. First one, then another, and then another! He might gorge himself and gain a few weeks’ respite, but his terrible hunger would return and would never be satisfied. He would kill woman after woman, and there would be no end to it. And now, he didn’t even need to see his victim for his desire to be aroused; he only had to feel her, warm in his arms, and he would yield to his murderous lust, to the savage male instinct which demanded female blood. Life was at an end; all that lay before him was a night of darkness, an eternity of despair, from which there could be no escape.

A few days later Jacques was back at work. He avoided his comrades, keeping himself to himself, wrapped in his own thoughts. After several stormy sessions in the Chamber, war had been declared.
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There had already been a skirmish at one of the frontier towns,
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and it had apparently been successful. For a week, the mobilization of troops had been straining the resources of the railway companies to breaking point. Regular services were disrupted and there were long delays as a result of the great number of unscheduled trains. To make matters worse, the best drivers had been requisitioned in order to speed up the movement of troops. So it was that one evening at Le Havre, Jacques, instead of driving the express as usual, was put in charge of an enormous train of eighteen wagons packed full of soldiers.

That evening, Pecqueux had turned up for work very drunk. The day after he had followed Philomène and Jacques in Rouen, he had rejoined his driver on locomotive 608. He didn’t speak about what had happened the night before, but he was in a very dark mood and hardly dared look him in the face. Jacques sensed that he had turned against him. He would do nothing he was asked; every time he gave him an order he simply responded with a grunt. In the end they had stopped talking to each other altogether. The locomotive footplate, the little, moving platform on which they had previously worked together as one, had now become the dangerous, confined stage of their disaffection. Their hatred had increased by the day, and they had reached the point where they could easily have come to blows within the few square feet of the cab, as the train sped on its way, lurching from side to side and threatening to throw them overboard. That evening, seeing Pecqueux so drunk, Jacques was wary. He knew that when his fireman was sober he had enough sense not to lose his temper; when he’d had too much to drink, however, he could go completely wild.

The train was due to leave at about six, but it was delayed, and it was already dark when the soldiers were herded like sheep into the cattle trucks. A few planks had been nailed together inside for them to sit on. They were piled in by the dozen, until the trucks could hold no more; they ended up sitting on each other’s laps or standing so tightly squashed together that they couldn’t move an arm. Another train awaited them in Paris to take them on to the Rhine the minute they arrived. They looked completely bewildered by the arrangements for their departure and half-dead with fatigue. However, they had all been issued with brandy and most of them had spent the day visiting the local bars. Warmed by the drink, the men laughed and made crude jokes as they waited, red-faced and uncomprehending, for the train to leave. As soon as the train began to move out of the station, they burst into song.

Jacques looked up at the sky; the stars were hidden by storm clouds. It was going to be a very dark night; there wasn’t a breath of wind, and the air felt intensely hot. The breeze caused by the speed of the train, normally so cool and fresh, tonight felt warm and sticky. The only lights to be seen in the darkness ahead were the signal lamps, shining brightly in the night. Jacques increased the pressure as the train approached the steep gradient between Harfleur and Saint-Romain. Although he had been studying her for weeks, he still didn’t feel confident driving locomotive number 608; she was still very new and she had a mind of her own. That night she seemed to be in a particularly awkward, capricious mood, producing sudden bursts of speed the minute she was given a few lumps of coal too many. Jacques kept his hand on the reversing wheel, watching the fire carefully and growing increasingly anxious at the behaviour of his fireman. The little lamp above the water-gauge cast a dim light over the footplate, tinged purple by the red glow from the firebox door. He couldn’t see Pecqueux very well, but he had twice felt something brush against his legs as if a pair of hands were trying to grab hold of them. No doubt it was the drink making him clumsy. He could hear him above the noise of the train, snarling as he broke up the coal with great swings of his hammer and flailed around with his shovel. Every minute, he kept opening the firebox door and flinging excessive amounts of coal on to the grate.

‘That’s enough!’ yelled Jacques.

Pecqueux pretended not to hear him and continued to throw on one shovelful after another. Jacques took hold of his arm. Pecqueux turned towards him threateningly. This was the quarrel he had been looking for as his drunken rage increased.

‘Lay your hands off me, or I’ll hit you! I like it when we go fast!’

The train was now travelling at full speed along the level section between Bolbec and Motteville. Apart from pausing to take on water, it was scheduled to run non-stop to Paris. The huge train, eighteen wagons crammed with their cargo of human livestock, raced through the darkened landscape, its wheels pounding continually on the track. As the train carried the men towards their grim fate, they sang at the top of their voices, so loud that their singing drowned the clatter of the wheels.

Jacques shut the firebox door with his foot and put the injector on. He was still managing to restrain himself.

‘The fire’s too big,’ he shouted. ‘You’re drunk. Get some sleep.’

Pecqueux immediately reopened the firebox door and frantically shovelled on more coal, as if he were determined to make the engine explode. This was open defiance; he was deliberately disobeying him, and in his blind fury completely disregarding the lives of the men in the train behind them. Jacques leaned forward to close the damper in order to lessen the draught to the fire. Suddenly Pecqueux grabbed hold of him, pushing him backwards, trying to topple him and throw him out on to the line.

‘So that’s your game, you swine!’ Jacques shouted. ‘You’d have said I’d fallen off, wouldn’t you, you cunning bastard!’

Jacques had managed to catch hold of the side of the tender. The two men fell to the floor, and the struggle continued on the metal footplate as it lurched violently from side to side. They clenched their teeth and fought in silence, each trying to fling the other through the narrow opening in the side of the cab, which was protected by nothing more than a handrail. There was scarcely room to move, and the train rushed ahead at full speed. It ran through Barentin and plunged into the Malaunay tunnel, with the two men still locked together, on their backs in the coal, banging their heads against the water tank and trying to avoid the red-hot firebox door, which burned their legs every time they touched it.

At one point, Jacques thought that if he could get to his feet he would close the regulator and sound the whistle to call for help, so that someone could rescue him from this madman, driven crazy with drink and jealousy. But he was getting weaker and, being the smaller of the two, he knew he didn’t have the strength to throw Pecqueux off him. He was beaten and could already feel the wind tugging at his hair as Pecqueux pushed him towards the edge of the footplate. With one last desperate effort he stretched out his hand, feeling for something to cling to. Pecqueux realized what he was trying to do, raised himself on to his knees and lifted Jacques up like a child.

‘So you’ve had enough, have you! You stole my woman and you’re going to get what you deserve!’

The train rushed on, thundering out of the tunnel and continuing its headlong progress through the dreary, deserted countryside. It swept through Malaunay like a whirlwind, so fast that the deputy stationmaster, who was standing on the platform, did not see the two men grappling with each other as it went hurtling past.

With a final lunge, Pecqueux pushed Jacques from the footplate. Jacques, feeling nothing behind him, clung desperately to Pecqueux’s neck, holding on to him so tightly that he dragged him out with him. There were two terrible screams, uttered simultaneously and quickly silenced. As they fell from the train, they were dragged beneath its wheels by the speed at which it was travelling. The two men, who had for so long lived together as brothers, were cut to pieces, locked together in their terrible embrace. The mangled bodies were later discovered, their heads and feet severed, still clasped together as if trying to strangle each other.

The locomotive, now completely out of control, continued on its precipitous course. At last she could have her own way and give reign to her youthful high spirits, like an untamed horse that has escaped from its trainer and gallops off across the open country. The boiler had plenty of water in it, and the coal that had been put on the fire was burning fiercely; for the next half hour the pressure continued to rise alarmingly, and the speed became frightening. The guard must have been overcome with tiredness and fallen asleep. The soldiers, piled together in the wagons, were becoming increasingly drunk; the crazy speed of the train seemed suddenly to lift their spirits, and they sang louder than ever. They shot through Maromme like a streak of lightning. The train no longer whistled as it approached signals or stations; it simply forged ahead like a dumb animal charging head down at some obstacle that barred its way. On and on it went, unstoppable, as if gradually driven to a frenzy by the harsh sound of its own breathing.

They were due to take on water at Rouen. Everyone watched with horror as the mad train rushed through the station, belching out smoke and sparks, with no driver or fireman, and its string of cattle trucks filled with soldiers, all singing patriotic songs at the top of their voices. The soldiers were off to war, and at that speed they would be out there on the Rhine sooner than they thought. People on the platform stood open-mouthed, waving their arms. Then suddenly everyone realized that if the train was out of control and had no driver, it would never get through the station at Sotteville. As at all stations with large goods depots, there were always shunting operations going on there, with wagons and engines blocking the lines. They rushed to the telegraph room to send a warning, just in time for a goods train to be backed off the main line and on to a siding. The runaway train could already be heard in the distance, roaring through the two tunnels outside Rouen and rushing madly towards them, like some powerful, irresistible force that could no longer be stopped. It swept through the station, avoiding obstacles to either side of it, and plunged into the night. Gradually its roar faded into the distance.