The Trainmasters Read Online Free PDF Page B

turn.”
    Henneberry had a thorn in his brain about Egan: Egan was smart, educated, and sensitive. That annoyed Henneberry, who was
     none of those things. He enjoyed tormenting every man in his gang, but he enjoyed tormenting Egan most of all. He never passed
     up a chance to deride Egan.
    This afternoon, as the cage ground to a stop, Egan was daydreaming. He often did so to save his sanity.
    “You! O’Rahilly! Move your tender sweet ass,” Henneberry hollered at Egan. If they’d been close enough, Henneberry would have
     aimed a boot at Egan’s rear, as he had done a dozen times before. But Henneberry was on the other side of the group.
    “Sure, sure, hand-fucker,” Egan yelled back. Returning Henneberry’s insults also saved his sanity. “You ignorant son of a
     turd.” And with greatly exaggerated lethargy, he boarded the cage, which with a sickening lurch moved toward the patch of
     light hundreds of feet above.
    Henneberry fumed a moment before he answered.
    “O’Rahilly, you stupid fuck,” he yelled from across the cage, “you take those words back or I’ll have you working the jack
     in the pilot next shift.” Working the pilot—the small tunnel that was dug in advance of the main tunnel— was the most dangerous
     job in tunnel building. The most perilous part of the work in the pilot was the job of transferring the load on the tunnel
     roof from temporary to permanent shoring. And working the big jacks was the most dangerous part of
that
job. Henneberry’s crew was scheduled to work in the pilot on their next shift.
    “You’ll do that anyway,” Egan said, “rat face.”
    Henneberry kept muttering, but Egan paid him no more heed.
    Some day, Egan knew, he and Henneberry would fight it out. And one of them might not come out alive. Although Henneberry was
     as beefy and heavy-muscled as he was mean, and Egan was slight and slender, Egan knew that he had a better than even chance
     when the inevitable moment arrived. He was quick and clever and decisive. Others had tried to take him on, but after every
     fight, they had been the ones to leave with scars.
    After Egan and Teresa had arrived in Philadelphia, he thought he would be able to support what was left of his family, including
     Deirdre, and soon after that a child, with a clerical job. But he soon found that was impossible. He was more than well qualified,
     and there were plenty of such jobs to be had, but not one of them was open to a man from Ireland. He grew to know intimately
     and painfully the refrain that so many of his countrymen were to hear again and again and again: No Irish need apply.
    He of course would have done anything to join a theatrical company, but there was no position in even the Irish troupes that
     entertained around Philadelphia for a young immigrant with no parents or friends to back him.
    So Egan did what thousands of others did: He hired himself out to a contractor for the railroad.
    The cage disgorged Egan’s gang at the top of the shaft, and after a few additional snarls from Henneberry Egan slogged through
     the spring mud into the huts that were home to the workers on the eastern shaft. He made his way back to the tiny slat-board
     shack where he and eleven others slept.
    There he gathered a change of clothes, walked over to the creek that was the source of water for the camp, bathed and shaved,
     and then pulled off his work shirt and pants and slipped into clean clothes.
    Supper was beans, pork, and cabbage. Egan sat and ate quietly with three others from his gang: Ferdy O’Dowd, a boy of sixteen,
     Owen and Cornelius Blake, twins about Egan’s age, and Patrick Geraghty, a grandfather at thirty-seven. Geraghty was a practical
     joker when he wasn’t exhausted from a week of labor. Tonight he was as quiet as Egan. Not until later, with a few shots of
     rum inside him, would he become boisterous and outrageously funny.
    Except for Egan, all the men in the gang were from Cork. In fact each gang was composed