Seven Out of Hell Read Online Free

whispered.
    “He’s chicken again, Captain,” Scott said scornfully.
    “So he ought to know not to count them before they hatch,” Hedges replied curtly, then raised his voice. “Forrest?”
    “Yeah?” came an answering call from the other side of the locomotive.
    “I figure just as many as they can get aboard a loco. Won’t want it slowed down by any cars.”
    “If the Rebs are that smart,” Forrest called back.
    “Move as soon as it hits.”
    “You bet.”
    “You want any prisoners, Cap?” Seward yelled.
    “Crazy lunkhead,” Forrest snarled, loud enough to carry across the railroad, avoiding the necessity for Hedges to respond.
    Silence settled upon the sunlit grove and was maintained for several minutes as the men crouched in their respective groups on each side of the deserted locomotive. But then their breathing quickened and became loud as straining ears picked up the distant rumble of an approaching locomotive.
    “Sounds like a Camelback,” the engineer whispered, airing his knowledge.
    “Any cars?” Hedges rasped, his hand flashing to the back of his neck and drawing the open razor.
    Fear leapt across the round face, then the man leaned forward, concentrating upon the expanding volume of sound, certain his life depended upon giving the correct estimate.
    “Come on, come on,” Hedges urged, his hooded eyes boring into those of the engineer as the track began to hum with the vibration of the approaching locomotive.
    The man shook his head. “Not a one,” he shouted above the thud of racing pistons.
    “Be here when we get back,” Hedges snapped and stood up.
    Scott and Rhett sprang to their feet behind him.
    The engineer had called it correctly. The ungainly looking Camelback roared around the curve unencumbered by cars. Two grey clad infantrymen clung to the front, two more above the tanks on each side and there were half a dozen crowded on the footplate with the two crewmen.
    The hillock had obscured the stationary locomotive until there was less than four hundred feet before impact. And this was not enough. The braking wheels locked and scalding steam gushed from outlets. The Union troopers could see every line of desperate horror inscribed upon the faces of the Rebels, but the full throated screams were swamped by the clamorous din of the slithering locomotive as it raced towards the inevitable collision.
    Two men hurled themselves from the footplate, to be smashed against the ends of the ties, their broken bodies tumbling like rag dolls along the sides of the track.
    Then the shattering impact came.
    As Scott raced from cover to snatch up the carbines dropped by the dead men, the Camelback crunched into the rear of the empty locomotive. The cabin of the stationary loco crumpled as if it were made of cardboard a moment before the force of the crash sent the engine forward, to topple sideways off the track.
    The Camelback started to rear like a crazed horse, its crushed front end glistening with the moist red pulp which was all that remained of the two Rebels who had been clinging there. Then it seemed to be trying to right itself, the leading wheels dipping for the tracks. But the rails had been buckled and the wheels sheered into the ties.
    Men were flung from the footplate, their screams of agony driven into silence by the harsh grinding of metal against metal. Hot cinders from the firebox and scalding steam from a broken valve spewed out after the men, exploding their clothes into flames and searing the skin from their faces.
    The Camelback teetered on the brink, then slammed over on to its side, squelching the gore from the two Rebels clinging to the tank: catapulting the two from the other side to a crushing death against inanimate tree trunks.
    All movement of both locomotives was finished in seconds but the angry death rattle of escaping steam continued to hiss from the Camelback as the Union troopers broke from cover to search for undamaged weapons and supplies of ammunition. The