ADDITIONAL PRIZE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 65, 20 September 1940, Page 11

ADDITIONAL PRIZE

(E. Miles Samuel) T was dark. ... Mr. Potts was feeling very, very tired, and very dispirited. His thoughts turned back to his small car, standing, unlighted, somewhere in the distance behind him, and a danger to traffic. He recalled a tremendous ticking off only a few days ago from a traffic cop over a very minor offence. His irritation increased. Slightly ahead of him he could hear, but not see, his adversary, who appeared to be not only as weary as Mr. Potts himself, but, from the sound of his irregular footfalls, limping as well. The road turned left in a curve and mounted. Suddenly ahead and above him Mr. Potts stared at a steady red light. He stopped abruptly. He remembered now having gone over this railway crossing earlier in the afternoon.

A slight rumble and vibration indicated the approach of a train. Mr. Potts, still firmly grasping his stick, cautiously approached to within a few yards of the crossing, looking about in every direction for his enemy. At last he saw him; but a strangely immobile figure this time, lying at an odd angle across the line, He had evidently tripped and, in falling, had struck his head and lost consciousness. The thunder of the approaching train had increased now and the very air seemed to be vibrating as Mr. Potts, his thought soaring high among the angels, dashed forward to the prone figure and tried partly to lift and partly to push it clear of the rails. His heart was pounding like a hammer, or was it those thundering wheels, as with one last heave, which taxed Mr. Potts to the last remaining ounce of his strength, he pushed the heavy figure off and clear, just in time. The air was one rushing sound of screeching brakes, then noise graduaily ceased save for that of hissing steam. In the nearby hedge some frightened birds rose in a flurry of beating wings. Shouts were heard and running feet, and far off, faint but staccato clear, the sharp barking of a dog. But Mr. Potts heard none of these things. He would never hear any of these things again. On angels’ wings, and as heroes ride, he had entered Valhalla.