The Technologists (65 page)

The others fell silent and considered. Hammie rummaged through the contents of Hall’s chemical case.

“Hurry!” Edwin cried.

“There’s an empty cylinder I can use as the container,” Hammie said. “It’s not ideal, but … yes … I can improvise something, Hoyt!”

“If we can dislodge just one set of the wheels, the whole train should tip over,” said Edwin.

“Do you think it will work?” George asked.

“George, you’re addressing Edwin Hoyt—the smartest fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology!” Hammie answered.

As Hammie worked feverishly, a mechanical roar pierced the air. Edwin and George glanced at each other. The train was so close they could even smell it burning. Edwin stood on higher ground with his spyglass raised.

“I can see it coming!” he cried. Then, bringing down the spyglass, he saw it was close enough that he could see it now with his naked eye, and said, “Oh, no!”

“Almost through here,” Hammie promised, directing Albert to hand him the various materials. “Another second and … done!”

“Put it on the tracks, Hammie!” Edwin cried.

“I can’t!”

“What? Why in the land not?”

“I’d say there is a twenty-two to twenty-five percent chance the damage already done to the bridge could cause the train to be raised off the tracks and land on our side of the river without touching the portion of tracks on our end—it would fly over this cylinder and plow right into the heart of Harvard Square before there’s time to do anything else. The cylinder needs to be near the front of the bridge.
Your
end.”

“How the deuce could he know the chances so perfectly?” George sniffed.

“Because,” said Edwin, “
he’s
the Top Scholar at the Institute of Technology.”

“I’m going to throw the cylinder to your side,” Hammie called out.

“Won’t that thing blow up?” George asked with a gasp.

“I haven’t sealed the cylinder. The pressure should remain stable if you catch it,” said Hammie. “Still, I wouldn’t let it drop, if I were you.”

“Thanks for the advice,” George muttered.

“George, are you ready?”

“You ought to catch it,” the giant machinist said meekly to Edwin.

“I?” Edwin laughed morbidly.

“The vision in my left eye is clouded,” George explained, then dropped to an embarrassed whisper. “That’s why I am slower at the machine shop than the others, why some of them think me a slouch. I’ve never told anyone.”

The snorting of the runaway train came closer and closer and the ground underneath their feet shook hard.

“Very well,” Edwin said, wrapping his coat tighter around the wound in his flank, which he had covered during their carriage ride over. “Hammie, on my count, then! Three … two … one … go!”

Hammie drew his arm back and launched the cylinder in the air. Edwin steadied himself, reached up, and plucked it from the sky, the deep concentration and sudden pain from his wounds almost knocking him backward. He quickly sealed the top of the cylinder tight, then turned around to put it in place.

Before he could, there was a sound like an animal’s howling, only it was a man. A portly man, military uniform covered in hardened mud and filth, his eyes red as fire, sprang onto the embankment and grabbed Edwin.

“The devil’s come for us! The devil’s come!” the man shrieked, his strong hands clutching the first thing they could, which happened to be Edwin’s arms.

“Get away from me!” shouted Edwin, while struggling to hold on to the cylinder.

“The train’s coming!” Albert screamed from the other side of the bridge.

“You fool! You’ll kill us all!” George screamed, trying to loosen the lunatic’s powerful hold.

“I don’t care what you say!” the stranger said in garbled tongue. “I’ll punch the devil right in the face!” He seemed to address this to either Edwin or the cylinder.

“Hoyt, give me the cylinder!” George said as the three wrestled.

Edwin pushed against the man’s viselike grip on his wrists as George pulled on the stranger’s arms.

“Hurry!” was repeatedly shouted from across the water.

Finally, George screamed and kicked the man hard in the belly. As he was propelled away from Edwin, and tumbled into the trees behind them, the cylinder went flying into the air. The heat of the train was now bearing down on them.

Edwin and George tumbled down the embankment as fast as they could, and Hammie and Albert did the same on the other end. Just at that moment, the lead carriage of the train slammed across the tracks, remaining in a steady forward charge. The cylinder landed near the threshold and ignited with a brilliant flame across the first carriage’s wheels. The bridge shimmied and shook as the train continued to the halfway mark and across before a single wheel flew off, and the nose of the train turned off the tracks, its flaming freight now lifted in the air, its shadow laid out on the surface of the water and growing fast.

H
E ROLLED
from his toes to the balls of his feet and back as he waited. After a few minutes, the door creaked slightly open and a woman’s slender fingers beckoned him.

“Be quiet and be quick. Upstairs, the second room on your right.”

He hurried up the stairs, his friend close behind him. As they entered the room indicated, he froze at the sight of the motionless girl in her bed. She was more beautiful than he had ever appreciated, and his heart raced.

There was a stool next to the bed where the nuns would sit when feeding Agnes or reading to her from the small Bible that sat on a nearby table. He had waited so long to speak to her, but Marcus suddenly didn’t know what to say.

Quiet and quick
, Sister Louise had instructed, but he didn’t know if he could be either, now that he saw her.

“Aggie,” he whispered, “I can’t stay very long. I promised. You always wanted to meet Ellen Swallow, our female scholar. Miss Turner, may I present Miss Swallow.”

Ellen bowed a little.

“Madame Louise said I could not come to your room without a woman accompanying me, so here we are. Even then, the madame is very bold allowing a visit without informing the other sisters. It is against the rules here.”

“Miss Turner, as soon as you have recovered your health, I will coach you in science if you wish,” said Ellen softly. “In fact, I intend to speak to our president about admitting students of chemistry without any regard to sex, and would think you might be a candidate.”

“Miss Swallow, may I …”

“Of course,” she said, turning her back to give Marcus some privacy.

“I’ve been wanting to see you, Aggie.” He paused, as if Agnes would reply. Of course, she couldn’t, and as that realization stung him, and she seemed so delicate-looking, the momentary joy at reunion vanished. “I wish more than anything we could talk. I miss you more than I know how to say. When I close my eyes you are there, and when I open them you are not. More than anybody else, I wanted you to know that we’ve done it. The other boys of ’68 and myself are to be graduated next week at the Institute. I think of you all the time, and I think of Frank, but when I dream of the past, I am no longer in it. I wanted to tell you that.” What could he say, really? How he wished he had never left her side that day. How he would spend every waking hour with her in this infirmary if he were permitted by the strict Catholic sisters. “And it was because of Miss Swallow that many lives were saved when she was the first to realize that Frank had poisoned the wheat at the three major bakeries and the brewery company that were supplying the city on Decoration Day, and she knew what the victims had to do to begin to recover.”

“Mr. Mansfield!” Sister Louise whispered from the corridor, where she was watching the strong young man fighting back tears. “The others are returning from chapel. You must go.”

“Aggie, I will be back for you.” He took her hand and pressed his lips against it as a tear escaped his eye against his will. He knew the madame would not approve, but he couldn’t help himself. She gave him a kind frown and shook her finger at the stairs. He rushed out. Ellen followed, but stopped midstride as two of the other nuns appeared from around the corner before she could reach the entrance to the stairwell.

“Sister,” they both greeted Ellen. She blushed, realizing her usual drab outfit served as the perfect costume, and followed Marcus’s path down the stairs.

Sister Louise returned to the room, filled with relief that her weakness for the college student’s ardor had not been found out by the Sister Superior. The Sister Superior would have compared her action to something in a fiction novel by some Protestant author, and would remind Louise once more that the fatal consequences of fiction reading had been proven time and again.

She picked up the Bible and began to read once more to her patient. Agnes’s lovely eyes fluttered. It was only for a moment, and it was so fleeting Louise might have imagined it, but if it really did just happen, it had been the first movement since her accident. Louise sprang to her feet and ran. She ran through the corridor and into the stairwell, chasing after the young man, faster surely than any nun at the convent had ever run before.

T
HE FOURTEEN MEMBERS
of the Class of 1868 sat on the wooden benches in front of the president’s office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, brimming over with excitement. One at a time, they were called in by President William Barton Rogers, and one at a time each young man exited, proudly flourishing a plain but instantly cherished diploma, lettered with great care by fellow graduate Albert Hall. And each time three cheers were raised.

With all their fellowship toward one another, today of all days, there was a special emotion of gratitude and anticipation attending the next name that would be called on the alphabetical roster. After all, he had found a way to stop the catastrophes that had shaken Boston and almost swallowed up the Institute and all of their futures. So it was no surprise, after Edwin returned to the hall, his face bright red, hugging his diploma
close to his chest, and limping only a little despite the heavy bandaging in which he was still wrapped under his suit two weeks after his injury, that when “Marcus Mansfield” was pronounced by Rogers, all the fellows stood up and slapped him on the back and shook his hand heartily. Bob threw his arms around Marcus’s neck and gave him a long embrace, then Hammie—First Scholar of the class—did the same.