Chapter 1: What event triggers the signalman's haunting premonitions?
It's Friday, the 9th of June, 1865, somewhere in the rolling fields of Kent. The 230 from Folkestone is speeding northwest at over 50 miles per hour. In a first-class carriage near the front of the train sits a 53-year-old man, the nation's favourite author, Charles Dickens. He's dressed in a long, dark frock coat and cravat. His top hat rests on the seat beside him.
Sitting opposite Dickens is his mistress, Ellen Turnan. They've just returned from a trip to France together. Within a couple of hours, they should be back home in London. But what Dickens doesn't know right now, as he looks out at the Garden of England speeding by, is that he and Ellen are moments from disaster.
There's a jolt as the locomotive skips off the track, a stomach-churning second as it seems to fly free of its guide rails. Then the carriage begins to jerk violently. They're grinding along the ground, like the basket of a half-inflated hot air balloon scraping along the earth, as Dickens will later describe it. Ellen grips Charles' hands in terror. Her face is white.
Neither of them is sure whether they're going to survive the next few moments. The Staplehurst rail crash proved a seminal moment for Charles Dickens. He and Ellen were lucky to survive it. Sitting at the front of the train, their carriage remained upright throughout the disaster. Others, meanwhile, broke off from the locomotive, tumbling down a bank to one side.
Ten people were killed in the crush, and many more seriously injured. It brought back memories of another recent train disaster, the Clayton Tunnel Crash of 1861, when an exhausted, overworked signalman had made a fatal error at the end of a 24-hour shift, leading to a devastating collision.
Dickens walked away from Staplehurst with little more than scrapes and bruises, but it wasn't a day he would soon forget. The normally garrulous author spent the next two weeks barely able to speak. Letters written to his friends show his hands must have been shaking continuously. For the rest of his life, he never set foot on a train without being overcome by a feeling of dread.
And yet, within a space of just over a year, Dickens was parlaying those two train disasters, Staplehurst and Clayton Tunnel, into perhaps the most chilling ghost story he ever wrote. A story that I'm going to read to you now. It's called The Signalman. I'm David Suchet, and from the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Charles Dickens' Ghost Stories.
Hello? Below there?
When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came.
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Chapter 2: How does the signalman react to the ghostly warnings?
"'All that I have here condensed,' he said in a quiet manner, with his grave, dark regards divided between me and the fire.' He threw in the word sir from time to time, and especially when he referred to his youth, as though to request me to understand that he claimed to be nothing but what I found him.
He was several times interrupted by the little bell and had to read off messages and send replies. Once he had to stand without the door and display a flag as a train passed and made some verbal communication to the driver. In the discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and vigilant.
breaking off his discourse at a syllable and remaining silent until what he had to do was done. In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest men to be employed in that capacity.
but for the circumstance that while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen collar, turned his face toward the little bell when it did not ring, opened the door of the hut which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp, and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel.
On both of those occasions he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked without being able to define when we were so far asunder. Said I when I rose to leave him, You almost make me think that I have met with a contented man. I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.
I believe I used to be so, he rejoined in the low voice in which he had first spoken. But I am troubled, sir. I'm troubled. He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them, however, and I took them up quickly. With what? What is your trouble?
very difficult to impart sir it's very very difficult to speak of if ever you make me another visit I will try to tell you but I expressly intend to make you another visit say when shall it be I go off early in the morning and I should be on again at 10 tomorrow night sir I will come at 11 he thanked and went out of the door with me.
I'll show my white light, sir, he said in his peculiar low voice, till you have found the way up. When you have found it, don't call out. And when you're at the top, don't call out. His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said no more than, very well. And when you come down tomorrow night, don't call out. Let me ask you a parting question.
What made you cry, hello below there, tonight? Heaven knows, said I. I cried something to that effect. Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I know them well. Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt, because I saw you below. For no other reason.
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Chapter 3: What role does the railway accident play in the story?
May I speak now? By all means, sir. Good night, then, and here's my hand. Good night, sir, and here's mine. With that, we walked side by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down by the fire.
I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as soon as we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper, that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took you for someone else yesterday evening. That troubles me. That mistake. Someone else. Who is it? I don't know. Like me? I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the face.
And the right arm is waved. Violently waved. This way. I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm gesticulating with the utmost passion and vehemence. For God's sake, clear the way! One moonlit night, said the man. The voice seems hoarse with shouting, and it cried, Look out! Look out! I was sitting here when I heard a voice cry. Hello, below there.
I started up, looked from that door and saw this. Someone else. Standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. And then, again. Hello, below there. Look out! I caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, What's wrong? What's happened? Where? It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel.
I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up at it and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away when it was... Into the tunnel, said I. No. I ran on into the tunnel five hundred yards.
I stopped and held my lamp above my head and saw the figures of the measured distance and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and trickling through the arch. I ran out again faster than I had run in.
for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me, and I looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways. An alarm has been given. Is anything wrong? The answer came back both ways. All well. Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine,
I showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of sight, and how that figures originating in disease of the delicate nerves that minister to the functions of the eye were known to have often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the nature of their affliction and had even proved it by experiments upon themselves.
As to an imaginary cry, said I, do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires. Well, that was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for a while. And he ought to know something of the wind and the wiles, he who so often passed long winter's nights there, alone and watching.
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Chapter 4: What are the signalman's feelings about his duties?
within six hours after the appearance. The memorable accident on this line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had stood. A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it. It was not to be denied, I rejoined. that this was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind.
But it was unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur, and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject. Though to be sure I must admit, I added, for I thought I saw that he was going to bring the objection to bear upon me, Men of common sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary calculations of life.
He again begged to remark that he had not finished. I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions. This, he said again, laying his hand upon my arm and glancing over his shoulder with hollow eyes, was just a year ago.
Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and shock when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the door, looked towards the red light and saw the spectre again. He stopped with a fixed look at me. Did it cry out? No. It was silent. Did it wave its arm? No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands before the face. Like this.
Once more, I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of mourning. I've seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs. Did you go up to it? I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly because it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again, daylight was above me and the ghost was gone. But nothing followed? Nothing came of this?
He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice, giving a ghastly nod each time. That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed at the carriage window on my side what looked like a confusion of hands and heads. And something waved. I saw it just in time to signal the driver, stop.
He shut off and put his brake on, but the train drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after it and as I went along heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the compartments and was brought in here. and laid down on this floor between us.
Involuntarily, I pushed my chair back as I looked from the boards at which he pointed to himself. True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you. I could think of nothing to say to any purpose, and my mouth was very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long, lamenting wail. He resumed. Now, sir, mark this and judge how my mind is troubled.
The spectre came back a week ago. Ever since, it has been there now and again. by fits and starts. But at the light, at the danger light, what does it seem to do? He repeated, if possible, with increased passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation of, for God's sake, clear the way. Then he went on. I have no peace or rest for it.
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Chapter 5: What does the signalman reveal about his past?
I said, Below there, look out, look out, for God's sake, clear the way. I started. Oh, it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left off calling to him. I put this arm before my eyes, not to see, and I waved this arm to the last. But it was no use. without prolonging the narrative, to dwell on any one of its curious circumstances more than on any other.
I may, in closing it, point out the coincidence that the warning of the engine driver included not only the words which the unfortunate signalman had repeated to me as haunting him, but also the words which I myself, not he, had attached, and that only in my own mind. to the gesticulation he had imitated.
In the next episode, we're summoned to court, where the foreman of the jury in a murder trial is plagued by strange visitations from the ghost of the man who has been killed. Will the vengeful spirit ensure that justice is done? And what will the accused have to say about it? That's next time on Charles Dickens' Ghost Stories. Can't wait a week until the next episode?
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