OCR Text |
Show STUOIES IN TH!RIL I INC I IVFS THE phantom foreman I 'kJ II V ,1 1 IB mlL.Bll -BiB W LkJ WHAT A OOLL fc I From Douglas .Tasperson Church, Dartmouth, -OS, to snndliog IS'o. 7i ia I ho Hudson river tunnel, is a far crv rrom smashing the Princeton lino ami helping o w the sensational (5 to 0-football 0-football victory of Dartmouth over tho i- Tiger in 100H to wearing a brass cheek ; and losing his identity in iho time slip system nnnd (he sand and slime of the deep .bore is to bridge a wide gulf. And vet because ho -was not afraid to work when ho asked tor work and it -was offered of-fered to him Doughis Jasporsou Church' transformed himself and is proud of it .Mr. Church for financial reasons was Obliged to leavo Dartmouth before hi wanted to do so and he is now iu a good position iu a dry goods house in New lork, but of his sandhog days he has written a remarkable story This story, which we present 'to our ; readers herewit.li, is absolutelv true in all particulars save and except, only as refers to the ghostly murder in the 'tunnel. 'tun-nel. In his story air. Church has taken what is declared to have boon the actual ac-tual experience of other workmen and placed it in his st pry. The Dartmouth student declares himself to be absolutely abso-lutely devoid of belief: in supernatural tilings and has not a touch of superstition, super-stition, but at thn same time he is obliged to admit that some of the noises that he has heard in the tunnel and nr-lributrd nr-lributrd by others to the ghost of the murdered ioreman are far bevond him to explain. !Not for a moment dona he think, the sounds were of. uncarthly ongin, but beyond this he .Iocs not care fo go. Ho merely says thev were mysterious. mys-terious. Mr. Church 's story of how he sought, work and passed from one grade to another, an-other, lower and lower in tiie ealc of labor, until at last he reached the tun- nel laborer s task and took it is an earnest earn-est account, of the great seriousness or the work problem. His observations on the tunnel work are full of human interest, in-terest, and his story. "The Phantom l-oreman,' which follows, is the result of his experience in doing wiih his hands wh:it his hands found to do. BY DOUGLAS JASPERSON CHURCH. .New York is a large town: in fact, Us immensity stariles even the casual Mghtseer whose only business is the pleasure, of inspecting its numerous points of interest. But to a man out of work and all out of funds its largeness large-ness becomes appalling and its streets a very labyrinth . from which there seems no escape. In a city of such size the inexperienced inexperi-enced smile at there being such a thing as no work for any one who will work. H is true that for'thc trained specialist with high references there is a chance to obtain employment, but for ihe ordinary or-dinary man. ihrown upon this great metropolis me-tropolis without friends or references, the chances are very slim of his obtaining obtain-ing any kind of work, and he is almost certain to join that great standing army whose captain is want and whose ranks no war or pestilence can deplete the I : army of the unemployed. . And so 1 found it". After weeks of If fruitless search for work 1 discovered jr that unless I could answer "Yes" to r two questions. "Are you fitted for some i ; particular work?' and "Have you proper references?" there was no open ; " door for me in all the busy enterprise ! ; of this thriving city, and I niust join that shifting, restless army of. idle men ! R whether would or no. ' I Put, in- my wande.rjjigs through the different, sections of the citv 1 had Knearo oi one piaeo wuere no anicnooiuu man was ever turned away, provided ho wanted to work and was not particular how or where. And so after all ot.her plans had failod 1 fumed my steps wosl-V wosl-V ward and was soon standing before the Iw employment office of the excavating company which was at that time .build-P .build-P ing the tube under the Hudson river, fit-' Dressing for the Job. flB; The preliminaries were soon gone 1 M through with and E received a brass U check with a number on it and a time I slip, to be punched every time 1 went vto work. After a rather superficial examination ex-amination by the surgeon iu charge, the' main features of which we're his feeling feel-ing an' pulse and asjting me a few leading lead-ing questions. 1 was entered in a largo red book as No. 7J1 and allowed to go into tlx locker rooms and have a locker assigned to me. The commissary sold me at cost a pair of hob-nailed hip boots and a rubber rub-ber suit, and ha I. The foreman of my rang, who was a fatherly Irishman by ihe name of Mike never knew his last name told mo T had better bring some heavy underwear and a flannel shirt, as . if was cold down 'in the "bore.' although it was a hot July day above ground. I was also informed that my shift would be the one from midnight until S, and that I must be on time. So I. went back to my boarding house to get a few hours' sleep before returning fo work. At half-past 11 T arrived at tho office, of-fice, and after pushing my way through ihe crowd of 2 rear, muscular black men who were talking and laughing about the door and whom I later learned to call "Buddies." I. went info the locker room."" Mike was already dressed, and on a bench waiting for, his gang to get ready. They were all there and were quickly putting on their ' stift". mud-soaked clothes, all ihe while exchanging good-natured good-natured jests. 1 made the fifth white "HE TURNED HIS FACE BACK AT ME WITH A HIDEOUS GRIN." man in. fjio.gang a)ijW(e,'rotihcr-four : were si urdV Jrislfuieii. 'i'TTlii. ,rat- ;6f ;t lie gang. wor,anbiack,.'aiiUywOioh'wewGre-. ready Mike, called ditt, , to his j:ung.? which was dreSyinTj'dovli'sfaii's;''''' Conic; oil. .Buddies.' ' 'and we started. As J). looked'iiito Ihe black. melius locker room; T was astonished at them. There must, have been at least fifty men there, in all stages of dress and undress, ljut there j was not one among them who could not ; have given a good ' accounting of him-i him-i self in a contest with, any so-called ) "strong man,''" and most of them could i have broken a professional wrestler j over i heir knees wiih ease. After walking down interminable stairs we at last reached the boro level and walked through a sea of mud to the locks.. There wcrc'three air locks. I a large lock for the muck cars, about six feet in diameter, and next to that a smaller one for the gangs, into which a man could just enter by bending himself him-self double. The third 'was the emergency emer-gency jock, used only, in caie.fho tunnel tun-nel should be. flooded. This was at the top of the tube and only high enough to admit two men if fhey lay flat upon-each upon-each other, but long enough to hold the whole gang. - After wc had sat around the entrance to the boro for a minuto or so Ihe other gang commenced to come out. This was announced by the noise of compressed air being forced out of -the lock, and outside air being forced in. Imagine the noise of escaping steam from a hundred engines coming from one small valve and you have a very inadequate .idea of Ihe noise this compressed - air made. When -the air in. the lock was equalized with the air outside tho door opened and out came the gang, dripping drip-ping with mud ' and almost dropping from the exertions of remaining' in the compressed air for eight, hours. As the last man stepped out, from the lock ho gasned, standing up very' straight for a minute and then fell, fac.Cf forward, as rigid as .death ifsclf. rTw.o -'of- hiH-coiiip:i'uipns- pi)iked .him up. -and., .hurried him . away:" : There "wjj's'noi icommeut.in.ade niwl'nn'ouojf.ook n)y. par-; ticular notice, of 'hinf, except' me. ' "Ue's got; tho bends," said Mike, laconically, as we enieved the lock. After we' were all sandwiched in like so man v sardines, -one ou top of the other, .Mike turned on the air from the tube, and tho door which wc had entered en-tered slammed shut. The air came in with terrific force and the iron lock commenced com-menced to get hot. Mike suddenly turned off the air pressure and yelled at me, " flold vour nose and blow or you'll get blocked." 1 did as I was told immediately and lUike turned on the pressure again. .Suddenly one of the g:mg held up his hand and Mike shut off the pressure instantly. "I'm blocked," he shouted, and so it was necessary to reverse the pressure, letting let-ting in .'the outside, air until the door could be. opened and the man let. out. The feeling of being "blocked" is a most common and uncomfortable one. It is as if some one were forcing a sharp knife .between the eyes, and if one does not 1:0 out-of the air at once tho ear-drums are likciv to-burst. Wc closed' the door and Mike turned on the air from the tube, and this time we went through without mishap. As soon as ihe air in' the lock and the air in the boro were equalized, the other door opened and wc entered the tunnel. Working iu Gloom, 'The lock-keeper greeted us with a dusky ' smile as . we filed past -him and walked down the little single car tracks 'toward' the, heading. It was a dark, gloom j' place, and, although a string of electric lights illumined the blackness,' I often stumbled over'the un'aecu'st'omod road. , The .only' bright place .was the heading, where two or three .clusters, of lights on largo reflectors shone brightly on tho - work. The heading is the end of tho bore that is, where the shicTd,' the instrument instru-ment used to push through tho muck, is joined fo tho last .steel ring of the tube. ... The shield is shoved from the last ring-of the tube through the. muck by jacks operated by hydraulic water -pressure. After t he shield has been shoved a little, a ring comprised of plates is fitted info place and bolled'to tho preceding pre-ceding riug. and so the bore is made. When the ring has also been bolted together to-gether tho shield is allowed to come bade, until it rests e.lofje against -the ring, and then another shove is made. The. muck comes in through doors in the shield.-and is shoveled-by the'-black men, called " muckers, " 'put into cars, and taken up on the lift" outside the lock.' The men who' fit the plates together to-gether and boll: them to each other are called ''iron men," and they surely are made .of .iron. f saw one. screw an enormous bolt together with his bare hands as tightly as an ordinary man could wirli a wrench. An unfinished funnel is rather an uu-cauny uu-cauny . place until , one is used to if. Every sound echoes .and reverberates through its entire length, and there is a continual dropping of mnd' from the lop in. fact, it rains muck all the time. Then. too. there is at first the continual contin-ual thought that if (he compressed air should slop for a moment, the water would rush In lik a tidal wave; and if there should' be too much air. it would blow out the bottom of the river and le the water in. anyway But no water comes in and the air keeps on coming through the large pipe in the tube, and one soon forgets all about -it. About -l o -'clock a great boiler of black coJIcp, awcelcavtl ivitk molasses, and a M jr string of rusty tin cups were soiv,r doxvn.-i -a 1 1 d -e-v.e ry-o nV s t o p pet k- f v r- a- - f ew- i n i n ; utes to 'eat a sandwich nji dj'ijijca! Clip .'of" coffee. "The""' V-bVipfcssed ifTr.' seems t o ' ha ve " a disastrous effect on': one's appetite.' .fpr' a sandwich is as filling down there, as a course dinner above ground. T- of ten thought that if my landlady could only keep her boarders board-ers in compressed air'what a comparatively compara-tively easy lime. she would have of it. ZUiko called mo up about this time and fold me to go down to the lock and telephone to the office that if he did not get ihe iron for the next riug at once he would not' lie able to finish by S o'clock. T started out for tho lock, getting there without any trouble, and. after doing what had been fold to do, .1 turned back toward Iho heading. Tho distance from the lock to the heading at-that time must have been at least two or three hundred yards, bat as T plodded slowly back iii the uncertain light to tho heading it. "seemed to mo at least .two or three miles. Now. as 1. said before, the bore is rather an . uncanny placo until one is used to it; the light only partially illumines il-lumines things, the "bottom is strewn with boards and bolts and odds and ends of all sorts, and-every low-vards - an. immense beam is. shored. up. to'keep the wooden plugs in the holes in-the hot-' torn of t he tube,- which will- eventually bo filled with steel bars drilled down' into bedrock. .So. as T walked along, T was prepared, to. see something -that- T was not used to, and I-determined not to be. startled by it. Rut I was' not at all prepared' to. seo such a usual thing as a man walking down the tube-. with a-pick on his shoulder, and so 1 startled more than I want. fo. own. As he approached I-felt I-felt the. hair rise on the back of my neck and a cold chill go "down' m$- spine, for instead of walking around the beams in front of him, as any ordinary ordi-nary "mortal would., he walked' right through them and came on toward mc' at a good steady -pace. When he had come so-near to me that I could look-closely look-closely at his face and see the vacant eyes and set expression, he turned to' one side. "Jla!" f'said to myself."1 'ho won't get very far that wav. even if he. is a ghost." But. even as T said it he. turned his face, back at me with a hideous grin and calmly walked through the side of the tunnel and disappeared. When I got back to the heading my white face must have betrayed me. for Mike looked-at me hard for a monicnf , as. -if he -understood whatT-had soon, but ;niado ho'. vfo'idnfefit 'at all upon- my appearance.'. ap-pearance.'. '.. -. ' '-Tho' time passed, quite rapidly" from then on, and" soon--wo -loft the heading and were .relieved by the next shift. There were three' shifts of eight hours each, and the. tube was never left for a moment without some one there. When we cam'o out of the lock info tho opening and walked toward the lift .to go up, " L noticed as I wont along that this- part -of the tunnel was of masoui-y and evidently of much older construction than the tube, and 1 asked .Mike, why it was. , "This pari," he explained, "was built a long while ago, but never finished, fin-ished, and it .has stood hero untouched until the new bore .was begun." lie gave mo- a peculiar look as he spoke, but nothing more was said about H then, and the' subject was dropped for the time. ' ' - -- - Ten days passed without anything of moment happeuing, and- I' was becom-,ing. becom-,ing. accustoijied to the work and used' to-spending' to-spending' eight 'hours of every twenty-.fpur twenty-.fpur under the rivor. . . During that time T had a little ex-,pcne(ncc, ex-,pcne(ncc, which, although comniou enough ' down there, made an impression impres-sion on my mind at the time. I had occasion to tell one of the ''muckers" to do something, and when ho made some answer to mc 1 called him a fnir. er." Tf .1 had called him anything else under, the sun but that, he would have considered it a joke, and that would have' been an end of the matter;-, but that one word seemed to stick in his- crop, and, without even the for-' mality of answering back, ho threw the .bolt which ho had- in his hand directlv at 'my head. Tho bolts thev use down there to fasten tho plates together are' not plavthings. by any means, but are about six inches long and weigh four or "ve pounds so T was rather 'anxious to dodge it if I could., and -was so' successful suc-cessful t,haf; it flew, past mc and struck one of the "muckers" on tho foot, and mndo him howl with pain. Before T could recover mysolf he picked up a lar.ge.wr.onch about half as high as" him-sell1 him-sell1 and started for me. Ui.10'. t'v11? 1,aPP"d to conic -just, fhento'ok t he' sit nation in at a gJai.ee and, knocking- the wrench out of tho npgro s hand, ordered him above ground at once. That was ihe first lesson I .learned ot the disciplino maintained down there, stricter -than that of anv other body of ..men. . Xo black man is' allowed fo raise his hand against "a .wnii o.: man. :noi matter what the provocation provo-cation is, and if ho.dpes he is dismissed without even an 'explanation being asked. Owing -fo tho great. ma jorir.y.of blacks over whites and-the rough character, char-acter, of. tho -former -this rulois absolutely abso-lutely imperative and is never broken, mo matter how good a workman tho of-' fender marbe. During that' week' I, learned another nil Avhich is almost as ironbouud as the preceding. The superintendent, of the whole-work was down in the bore looking-. at our. work when the' shield beca mo .lammed against .a sunken pile and if was ii.oCessar.v to resort to drastic .mcajinrea fo :ighi i.f. Tie jumped into (lie muck and slime beside mc and i started to work like anv sandhog there, L did not know , who he was, in his muddy oilskins and top boots and was 1 soon on quite a familiar footing with , him. 1 "You can't do that." r said finally, i at tor wo had made anot.hnr iuetYoctual efrort to push tho log aside wil.li the i shield. . "We never use that word down 1 here," he replied, quietly, and that; was all 1. over heard him sav while ho was J 1 llicxcl&iUuns IWiWJi. one of the roa- sons why this gigantic undertaking lias been successful, for against nlmost in- , surmountable obstacles these few men have fought with indomitable persevcr-anco persevcr-anco and no such word-as "can't" has ever entered their minds as the white flag of defeat. Toward the end of my second week in the tunnel Mike came 'to mc and said that now as T was getting familiar with I the work he thought he would let mo Stay down and watch flie following Sunday Sun-day and he added that L might have one "mucker" go along with .mc. Every second Sunda3 the three shifts change" their hours and a holiday is given to them all, except two men from each gaug, wjio are selected to watch out their eight hours in the tube 1o sec that nothing goes wrong. X assented readily enough, glad of the extra money I would receive, and T selected a greai, good-natured negro called Hastns to go with me. Such superfluities as" proper names were never used down there, where even the most common amenities of life -above ground aro forgotten. He callod mc .Tack and I called him Ifastus and wc were oh the .best of terms from tho very start. Dismal Vigil. Sunday night, 'promptly at midnight wc went down to the lock to relievo the other two watchers and took up our station half-way between the lock, anv." the heading. Wc made a sort of seat; out of some beams and an old muck car and throwing our coats oyer it prepared pre-pared to watch during the. night. We agreed, to sleep and watch alternately in two hour shifts, and I ny down first to sleep my two hours, leaving TJastus to watch. It seemed to me that J. nan just c-Josea nvy eyes when, Eaatns woke mc with a touch on the arm. but when T looked at my watch I s'nw it was just 2 o'clock, so I' sat up and tolcl Vastus he could go to sleep. But he did not seem to have any inclination to go to sleep, for bis tyes were wide open and his face was a kind of mottled gra.y as he whis-pored whis-pored to mc in an awed voice: "T'sc a goner. .Tack; T.'sc a goner. I done seen- him he mad the. sign, en I knows T'sc gotter die right off." ITo rolled his eyes up till only the whites were visible" and chanted over and over again, "T'so a goiter, I 'so a goner." When ho had composed himself a little I asked him what ho had seen, and after two or three gulps he said: "I seen him a. setting right over thai on them boards and ho was thar an hour, a. grinning at mc all the time; then I throwed a bolt, at him and it went clean through him and then he done evaporated right before my eyes." T assured' him hc must have been dreaming and told him he would better go to sleep. The mention of sleep-seemed sleep-seemed to bring him back' to his senses, and he was soon peacefully snoring away as T sat down beside him to watch out my two hours. The stillness was the stillness of death; not a sound could be heard except ex-cept the soft whirring the air as it came out of the pipe at the heading, as evenly as the beating of one's heart and as needful to us there as that organ or-gan of life itself. You strain your ears to catch the lightest sound and w'Ken you lmve about despaired' of hearing, .even a. -.phi '.full, a low booming noise--is heard echoing through the boro and' 'then everything is as still as before. AlKwho have ever IH .watched alone in these tubes are agreed IH that they can distinctly hear noises and -footfalls and dropping beams, and al though it is perfectly unreasonable that a sound could penetrate into this tomb-like tomb-like quietness they' all stand firm on this point and I can corroborate their statements. I must have been dozing a little, tor I awoke with a start at the loud sound IH of a sledge hammer on iron, and when T looked toward the- heading from whence the sound seemed to come I was surprised to see a gang busily at work, and T thought at first that I must have overslept until the first gang had IH come down on Monday morning. But as T looked at the men more closely I saw that they were all white men and dressed in blue shirts and overalls. quite contrary to the uniform of oil-skins oil-skins and boots worn by every one in tho tube. Ghostly Tragedy. The foreman of the gang was a tall, bony Irishman, with a short iron rod in Jiis hand, which he used unsparing-ly unsparing-ly on all the men-who did not seem to be exertiug themselves to tho utmost. Suddenly he turned his face iu my direc-lion, direc-lion, and to my horror 1 recognized tho IH man with Iho pick T had seen before. He seemed unconscious of any one's presence and continued to urge on. his lH men with Ihe iron bar in his hand. One . mau ho seemed to single out as the butt of. all his malice., and finally he flew into a rage over some blunder on his ; part and' struck him to the ground. i For a. moment 'no one stirred, and then with one accord they all rushed 1 e i i i i ji with whatever tool they happened to have in. their hands. He tried incfFec fnally to defend himself, and at last sank uucouscious at their feet. One of them laid Ins ear to the fallen man's breast and listened for a moment. Then he rose and they all gathered around hiuu to confer as to what was best to do. Solemnly he raised his fwo fingers above his head and silently made'the jH sign of the cross, and each in turn fol- lowed his example. Then ono after the other they raised their right hands as though swearing eternal secrecy to one another. Finally they picked up the lifeless form and staried to carry it toward tho lock. T pressed myself back against the side of the tubo as thej" passed, but none seemed to sec mc as they carried their grewsoine burden along. ' The ex-prcssions ex-prcssions of their faces were awful to look at as they filed by me. and, wnlk-ing wnlk-ing straight for the; lock, passed throng)) it and out of iny sight. Jsothing further happened. during the remainder of the night, and we met the incoming gang at S o'clock, and left the bore. I met. Mike in the locker room as T was chauging my clothes, and drawing him aside, told him of my experience and asked bim for any explanation. "It seems-, " he said, "that when they were building the old part of the tun-nel tun-nel some .yenrs ago, one of tho foremen was murdered by his gang. They all sworo that a beam fell on him, hut it finally came out that he was murdered. They, called that fellow y()u saw the phauto.m foreman, and you" and I aren't the only ones that, have seen him, either. v' jfl |