TRANS-SIBERIAN EXPRESS

have broken both my legs. I had a vague sense of
injustice.

My little world was tilted drunkenly. The \\indow
showed me nothing except a few square yards of goodish
grazing, of which it offered an oblique bird's-eye view.
Larks were singing somewhere. It was six o'clock. I
began to dress. I now felt very much annoyed.

But I climbed out of the carriage into a refreshingly
spectacular world, and the annoyance passed. The
Trans-Siberian Express sprawled foolishly down the
embankment. The mail van and the dining-car, which
had been in front, lay on their sides at the bottom.
Behind them the five sleeping-cars, headed by my own,
were disposed in attitudes which became less and less
grotesque until you got to the last, which had remained,
primly, on the rails. Fifty yards down the line the
engine, which had parted company with the train, was
dug in, snorting, on top of the embankment. It had a
truculent and naughty look; it was defiantly conscious
of indiscretion.

It would be difficult to imagine a nicer sort of rail-
way accident. The weather was ideal. No one was
badly hurt. And the whole thing was done in just the
right Drury Lane manner, with lots of twisted steel
and splintered woodwork and turf scarred deeply with
demoniac force. For once the Russians had carried
something off.

The air was full of agonising groans and the sound of
breaking glass, the first supplied by two attendants who
had been winded, the second by passengers escaping
from a coach in which both the doors had jammed.
The sun shone brightly. I began to take photographs
as fast as I could. This is strictly forbidden on Soviet
territory, but the officials had their hands full and were
too upset to notice.

The staff of the train were scattered about the wreck-
age, writing contradictory reports with trembling hands.

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