The human toll in the first carriage and even in the second would be substantial.
“We were lucky,” she murmured. So lucky. Only because the trip had been a last-minute decision had they been in the third of the three first-class carriages.
She glanced at her staff and saw that realization mirrored in their faces; it would be some time before any of them took the train to the Priory again.
“My lady, I think it’d be best if we move to the top of the embankment.” Morton pointed up the slope.
Therese looked and nodded. “Yes, you’re right.” She wanted the children away from the melee.
Their company gathered themselves and their luggage, then Therese handed Horry to Nanny Sprockett and took Spencer’s and Rupert’s hands. “Ready?” She smiled encouragingly, but wasn’t surprised that while the boys nodded, neither smiled back.
As a group, they started up the incline. Given they’d been traveling from one house to another, they were carrying with them only the things they habitually took from place to place. Parker had Therese’s trunk-like dressing case as well as her own smaller case. The nursemaids carried the children’s cases, while the footmen carted the staff’s bags.
The embankment was steep in sections, but not too high and reasonably grassed. They reached the top easily enough and found themselves on a narrow, beaten path that meandered along the embankment to both right and left. About one hundred yards to their right, the path met a lane, which crossed a stone bridge under which the railway ran.
Therese looked around. Fields stretched before them. On the other side of the railway cutting, more dark fields stretched away, although in the far distance, a few lights glimmered. “Where are we?” She glanced at Morton. “Do you know?”
“We’d passed through Potters Bar, ma’am, so I’d say we’re some ways south of Hatfield. I heard one of the conductors say that there’s a village up farther—Welham Green—but that Potters Bar is closer. Bigger, too. More likely to have carriages and doctors and such.”
“Have they sent someone to raise the alarm?”
“That they have, my lady,” Dennis replied. “Seems there’s a farm not too far back. They sent a man running for it.”
Therese nodded. “In that case, help should arrive soon.” She glanced toward the lane, along which it seemed likely that help would come. Others who, like them, had toiled up the embankment had started to head in that direction. “We may as well go to the lane and wait there until help arrives.”
The others agreed. They gathered the luggage and the children and were about to start walking when a pained cry rang out from the crowd around the first carriage. Along with everyone else, Therese paused and looked in that direction.
From the vantage point of the embankment, they could see a seething mass of humanity shifting and surging around the wrecked carriages, and from the yells and calls and loud arguments that were erupting, distant but carried on the breeze, it was plain that panic had started to take hold.
Therese was a born organizer—everyone said so—and the authority she instinctively wielded had always served her well in such situations.
She looked at her children. They were safe. Other families’ young ones might not be, but hers were and would remain so, and she could, she knew, make a difference. Briskly, she gave orders for Morton, Nanny Sprockett, and the nursemaids to take the children and all the luggage to the lane.
She crouched beside Spencer and Rupert and met their eyes. “I’m going to help the people down there. They’re frightened and hurt, and Parker, Dennis, and I know a thing or two about what needs to be done.” She rose and turned the boys toward Morton and the nursemaids. “I want you to go with Nanny and Gillian and Patty and wait by the lane. When help comes, Morton will come back and fetch me and the others.” She met the boys’ wide, questioning eyes. “Can you be brave boys and do that for me?”
They blinked, then quietly said, “Yes, Mama.”
“Good lads.” She eased them toward the nursemaids, then dropped a kiss on Horry’s curls. “Be good for Nanny, poppet.” Horry was struggling to keep her eyes open; she sleepily patted Therese’s cheek.
Therese waited while Parker and Dennis distributed the cases they’d been carrying among the others, the boys each took the hand of one of the nursemaids, and the little cavalcade moved off along the lane, joining the stream of other passengers slowly making their way in that direction, then she drew in a breath and turned to face the challenge down in the cutting. Lips setting, she started down the embankment. “Come along. Let’s see what we can do to help.”
On regaining the flat at the bottom of the embankment, Therese approached the chaos surrounding the two badly damaged passenger carriages.
It quickly became apparent that no one had taken charge, much less made any decisions, and the need for clear directions to calm people enough to get those most in need to where their injuries could be examined was blatantly evident.
Therese halted at the edge of the shifting throng. “Dennis, I need to speak to one of the conductors—as quickly as you can fetch one. Use my title and his lordship’s as well. ”
“Yes, my lady.” Dennis plunged into the melee and, in seconds, was lost to sight.
He re-emerged a minute later, dragging a conductor who looked to have reached his wits’ end.
The conductor executed a shaky bow. “Countess, I don’t know as I can help.” He gestured weakly at the milling throng. “It’s bedlam.”
“Indeed.” Therese’s voice carried the authority that derived from centuries of forebears who had all been accustomed to lead. “That is precisely why I am here. First, who is the head conductor?”
The man had responded to her high tone and, instinctively, had drawn himself up. “I am, my lady.”
“Excellent. You’re precisely the man we need to bring this situation under control. I will give the necessary orders, and you and your conductors will carry them out.” She paused to meet the man’s eyes, her own gaze challenging. “My husband, the earl, is a major shareholder”—she’d learned that through listening to Devlin’s business discussions over the past weeks—“and he would expect nothing less.” Whether of her or the conductors, she didn’t specify; in her mind, she meant both.
The man’s eyes widened, and he looked faintly panicked, but “Yes, my lady” was all he said.
Therese nodded approvingly. “Now, the first thing we need to do is to form all these men and women into lines to help the injured out of the second carriage. We’ll start there—the least grievously wounded will be there—and move forward.”
Under her direction, the head conductor summoned as many of his men as he could find. Therese repeated her orders, adding more detail, and at first rather hesitantly, then with greater confidence as the crowd responded to their clear directions and fell into line and the chaos subsided, the conductors marshaled the shifting throng into good order.
Walking along the rapidly forming lines, Therese said to the head conductor, who was trotting by her side, “We need to pick out teams of men able to go into the carriages and help the injured out.” She halted at the head of one line, close to the rear steps of the second passenger carriage. “Stand here.” She pointed to the bottom of the steps. “I’ll pick out the most suitable men and send them to you. Put them in teams of four, give one a lantern, and send them in to free and carry out the first injured person they see.” It seemed likely that those who were in any way mobile had already left the crumpled carriage.