CHAPTER XXVII IT was not long before the wreck-train arrived, a thing of flat cars, box-cars and cabooses of an old pattern, with hospital cots made ready en route, and a number of doctors and nurses who scrambled out with the air and authority of those used to scenes of this kind. Meanwhile I had been wondering how long it would be before the wreck-train would arrive and had set about getting my information before the doctors and authorities were on the scene, when it might not be so easy. I knew that names of the injured and their condition were most important, and I ran from one to another of the groups that had formed here and there over one dying or dead, asking them who it was, where he lived, what his occupation was (curiously, there were no women), and how he came to be at the scene of the wreck. Some, I found, were passengers, some residents of the nearby village of Wann or Alton who had hurried over to see the wreck. Most of the passengers had gone on a train provided for them. I had a hard enough time getting information, even from those who were able to talk. Citizens from the nearby town and those who had not been injured were too much frightened by the catastrophe or were lending a hand to do what they could ... they were not interested in a reporter or his needs. A group carrying the injured to the platform resented my intrusion, and others searching the meadows for those who had run far away until they fell were too busy to bother with me. Still I pressed on. I went from one to another asking who they were, receiving in some cases mumbled replies, in others merely groans. With those laid out on the platform awaiting the arrival of the wreck-train I did not have so much trouble: they were helpless and there were none to attend them. “Oh, can’t you let me alone!” exclaimed one man whose face was a black crust. “Can’t you see I’m dying?” “Isn’t there some one who will want to know?” I asked softly. It struck me all at once that this was a duty these people owed to everybody, their families and friends included. “You’re right,” said the man with cracked lips, after a long silence, and he gave his name and an account of his experiences. I went to others and to each who was able to understand I put the same question. It won me the toleration of those who were watching me. All except the station agent seemed to see that I was entitled to do this, and he could have been soothed with a bribe if I had thought of it.