The Signal-Man (Charles Dickens) — graded reader B1–B2

The Signal-Man

A graded reader · Charles Dickens · B1–B2

Warm-up

• Do you like ghost stories? Do you know a good one?

• How do you feel about travelling by train? Do you have a favourite journey?

• Have you ever worked alone, or at night? What was it like?

• Is there a place you know that feels strange or spooky? Why?

The author and the book

Charles Dickens (1812–1870)

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1812. When he was twelve, his father was sent to a debtors' prison in London because he could not pay what he owed. Young Charles had to leave school and work ten-hour days in a blacking factory, sticking labels on pots of black shoe polish. He never forgot it.

He grew up to become the most famous writer of his time, the author of Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol. Later in life he went on tour, reading his stories aloud to audiences.

On 9 June 1865, Dickens was on a train that came off the line at Staplehurst in Kent. Ten people died. Dickens climbed out, helped the injured, and even went back for the pages of the novel he was writing. For the rest of his life, he was nervous of trains.

"The Signal-Man" appeared in December 1866, in the Christmas issue of All the Year Round, the weekly magazine Dickens owned and edited. He died in 1870, five years to the day after the crash.

Key words

cutting

signal-man

telegraph

a deep, narrow channel dug through a hill so that a railway can pass through it

a railway worker who controls the signals (lights and flags) that tell trains to stop or go

an old machine that sent messages along wires, using electricity

spectre

coincidence

a ghost

when two things happen at the same time by chance, and seem connected

Let's talk

• Dickens survived a terrible train crash. How might an experience like that change a writer?

• Today we trust trains and planes with our lives. Do you ever feel nervous travelling?

• Some people say they "had a bad feeling" just before something terrible happened. Do you believe them?

• The story is called "The Signal-Man". What does a signal-man do, and what could go wrong?

PART 1 OF 4

A voice from above

PART 1 · A VOICE FROM ABOVE

"Halloa! Below there!"

When he heard me, the man was standing at the door of his signal box, holding a rolled-up flag. I was high above him, at the top of a deep railway cutting. But he didn't look up. Instead, he turned and looked down the line. There was something strange about the way he did it.

"Halloa! Below! Can I come down and speak to you?"

He looked up at me and said nothing. Then a train rushed past below with a roar. When it had gone, I asked again. After a long pause, he pointed with his flag further along the top, where I found a rough zig-zag path cut into the rock.

At the bottom, he was standing between the rails, as if waiting for me.

He was a pale, dark man, with a black beard and heavy eyebrows. His post was the loneliest place I had ever seen. On each side was a dripping wall of rock, with only a strip of sky above. At one end were a red light and the black mouth of a tunnel. It smelled of earth and death. I felt I had left the natural world.

He looked strangely at the red light, as if something was missing from it. Then he looked at me.

"That light is part of your job, isn't it?" I asked.

"Don't you know it is?" he answered quietly.

A terrible thought came to me: this was a ghost, not a man. Then I saw fear in his eyes. He was afraid of me.

"I was wondering," he said, "if I had seen you before."

PART 1 · A VOICE FROM ABOVE

"Where?"

He pointed to the red light.

"There? I've never been there in my life."

"No," he said slowly. "I'm sure you haven't."

Then he took me into his box. There was a fire, a telegraph machine with a dial and needles, and a little bell. He did his work quickly and carefully, and I thought he was one of the safest men the railway could have.

But twice, while he was talking, he stopped. His face went pale, and he turned to the little bell, though it did NOT ring. Then he opened the door and looked out at the red light.

As I left, he said quietly, "I am troubled, sir. I am troubled. If you come again, I will try to tell you why."

I promised to come at eleven the next night.

"I'll show my white light until you find the path, sir," he said. "But don't call out! And when you come tomorrow, don't call out! One last question. What made you cry 'Halloa! Below there!' tonight?"

"I don't know. I called out something like that—"

"Not like that, sir. Those were the exact words. I know them well."

"Well, I said them because I saw you below."

"For no other reason?"

"What other reason could I have?"

"You didn't feel that the words came to you in some ... supernatural way?"

"No."

Book club

PART 1 · A VOICE FROM ABOVE

1. What was strange about the signal-man's reaction when he first heard the narrator?

2. Describe the signal-man's post. How did it make the narrator feel?

3. What did the signal-man do twice while they were talking?

4. Could you do a lonely job like this? What would you find hardest?

5. Why do you think the exact words "Halloa! Below there!" matter so much to him?

6. What do you think is troubling the signal-man?

PART 2 OF 4

Someone else

PART 2 · SOMEONE ELSE

The next night, as the distant clocks struck eleven, I started down the zig-zag path. He was waiting at the bottom with his white light.

"I haven't called out," I said. "May I speak now?"

"Of course, sir."

We went into his box and sat down by the fire.

"Yesterday evening," he began, almost in a whisper, "I thought you were someone else. That troubles me."

"That mistake?"

"No. That someone else."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the face, and the right arm is waving. Waving wildly. Like this."

To me, the movement seemed to shout: For God's sake, clear the way!

"One night, in the moonlight," he said, "I was sitting here when I heard a voice cry, 'Halloa! Below there!' I looked out and saw this someone standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving like that. The voice cried, 'Look out! Look out!' I took my lamp and ran towards it. It kept its sleeve across its eyes. I reached out to pull the sleeve away, and it was gone."

"Into the tunnel," I said.

"No. I ran five hundred yards into the tunnel. Nothing. Then I telegraphed both ways along the line: 'An alarm has been given. Is anything wrong?' The answer came back from both sides: 'All well.'"

I felt as if a frozen finger was moving slowly down my back.

PART 2 · SOMEONE ELSE

But I told him that tired eyes can make people see things that are not there. "And the cry? Listen to the wind in this valley, and the wild music it makes in the telegraph wires!"

He knew the wind and the wires, he said, after so many winter nights alone here. But he had not finished. He touched my arm.

"Less than six hours after the figure appeared, there was the famous accident on this line. And within ten hours, the dead and injured were carried out through the tunnel, past the spot where the figure had stood."

A cold shiver went through me. It was a remarkable coincidence, I said. But coincidences happen all the time.

"I haven't finished, sir. That was a year ago.

Six or seven months later, at sunrise, I looked out at the red light, and I saw the spectre again. It was silent. It stood against the post of the light, with both hands over its face. Like this."

It was the way people stand when they mourn the dead. I had seen it in stone figures on graves.

"That same day, a train came out of the tunnel. At one window, I saw hands and heads, and something waving. I signalled the driver to stop. I ran after it and heard terrible screams. A beautiful young lady had died suddenly in one of the carriages. They brought her in here, and laid her on this floor, between us."

I pushed my chair back, and looked down at the boards where he was pointing.

Book club

PART 2 · SOMEONE ELSE

1. What did the figure do and say the first time it appeared?

2. What did the signal-man do to check that everything was safe?

3. What happened after the figure's first and second appearances?

4. The narrator blames tired eyes, the wind and coincidence. Is he convincing? Why or why not?

5. Have you ever had a feeling that something bad would happen, and it did?

6. The spectre has warned him twice. What do you think the signal-man will tell the narrator next?

PART 3 OF 4

The bell that makes no sound

PART 3 · THE BELL THAT MAKES NO SOUND

"It's true, sir," he said. "That is exactly how it happened."

My mouth was very dry. Outside, the wind and the wires gave a long, sad cry.

"Now, sir, listen, and you'll understand my trouble. The spectre came back a week ago. Since then, it has been there again and again, at the Danger-light."

"What does it do?"

He repeated that wild waving, even more desperately: the gesture that, in my mind, cried For God's sake, clear the way!

"I have no peace," he said. "It calls to me, again and again, 'Below there! Look out! Look out!' It stands there waving. It rings my little bell."

"Did it ring your bell yesterday evening, when I was here and you went to the door?"

"Twice."

"Then your imagination is fooling you," I said. "My eyes were on that bell, and my ears were open, and it did NOT ring."

He shook his head. "I have never made a mistake about that, sir. The spectre's ring is a strange movement in the bell that comes from nothing else. I'm not surprised that you didn't hear it. But I heard it."

"And was the spectre there, when you looked out?"

"It was there."

"Both times?"

"Both times."

PART 3 · THE BELL THAT MAKES NO SOUND

"Will you come to the door with me now, and look for it?"

He bit his lip, but he stood up. I opened the door. There was the Danger-light. There was the dark mouth of the tunnel. There were the high, wet stone walls, and the stars above them.

"Do you see it?" I asked, watching his face.

"No," he answered. "It is not there."

We went back in and sat down. I wondered how to use this small victory. But he began to speak as if there was no question at all about what was real.

"By now you understand, sir, what troubles me so terribly. What does the spectre mean? What is it warning me about?

There is danger somewhere on the line. Something terrible is going to happen. After the first two times, I can't doubt it. But what can I do?"

He wiped the sweat from his face.

"If I telegraph 'Danger!', they'll ask, 'What danger? Where?' And I'll say, 'I don't know. But for God's sake, take care!' They'll think I'm mad. They'll take my job away.

"When it first came, why didn't it tell me where the accident would happen, and how to stop it? When it hid its face, why didn't it say, 'She is going to die. Keep her at home'? And why me? A poor signal-man in this lonely place! Why not go to someone who would be believed, someone with the power to act?"

Book club

PART 3 · THE BELL THAT MAKES NO SOUND

1. What did the spectre do to the bell, according to the signal-man?

2. What happened when the two men looked out of the door together?

3. Why didn't the signal-man telegraph a warning along the line?

4. Is the signal-man ill, haunted, or simply exhausted? What do you think?

5. If you had a warning you couldn't explain, would you act on it, or stay quiet?

6. What should the narrator do now? What do you think will happen?

PART 4 OF 4

The third warning

PART 4 · THE THIRD WARNING

For his sake, and for the safety of the public, I had to calm him. So I told him that a man who did his duty well was doing all he could. He grew calm, and I left him at two in the morning.

As I climbed the path, I looked back more than once at the red light. I did not like it.

What should I do? He was clever, careful and exact. But how long would he stay that way? Should I tell the railway company? That felt like a betrayal. In the end, I decided to offer to take him to the best doctor in the area. His hours were changing, and he would be back on duty soon after sunset. I would return then.

The next evening was lovely, and I went out early to enjoy it. Before my walk, I looked down from the edge, at the place where I had first seen him.

I cannot describe the horror I felt. Close to the mouth of the tunnel, I saw a man with his left sleeve across his eyes, wildly waving his right arm.

But in a moment I saw that it was a real man. A small group of men stood near him, and he seemed to be showing them the gesture. The Danger-light was not yet lit. Against its post was a little low shelter of wood and canvas, no bigger than a bed.

I ran down the path as fast as I could.

"What's the matter?" I asked the men.

"Signal-man killed this morning, sir."

"Not the man from that box?"

PART 4 · THE THIRD WARNING

"Yes, sir."

"Not the man I know?"

"You'll recognise him, sir, if you knew him," said one of the men. He took off his hat and lifted the end of the canvas. "His face is quite calm."

"Oh, how did this happen?"

"He was hit by an engine, sir. No man in England knew his work better. But he wasn't clear of the outer rail. As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards her. That man was driving her. Show the gentleman, Tom."

The driver stepped back to the mouth of the tunnel.

"Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir, I saw him at the end. He didn't seem to hear the whistle, so I called to him as loud as I could."

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'Below there! Look out! Look out! For God's sake, clear the way!'"

I froze.

"Oh, it was a terrible time, sir. I never stopped calling. I put this arm across my eyes, so I wouldn't see, and I waved this arm to the last. But it was no use."

I will end my story here. But I must point out one coincidence. The driver's warning included the words the signal-man had heard from the spectre. And it also included the words that I myself, and not he, had put to that gesture, only in my own mind.

Book club

PART 4 · THE THIRD WARNING

1. What did the narrator decide to do to help the signal-man?

2. What did he see when he looked down into the cutting that evening?

3. How did the signal-man die?

4. Why do the driver's words shock the narrator so much?

5. Could the narrator have saved him? Should he have told the railway company?

6. Was the spectre warning the signal-man about his own death? Why him?

Big questions

1

A ghost, an illness, or a chain of coincidences? What do you think was really happening?

2

If the spectre was a warning, why couldn't it save anyone? Was his death fate?

3

The signal-man felt responsible for lives he couldn't protect. Have you ever felt like that?

4

Dickens survived a real crash a year before writing this. Where can you feel it in the story?

5

Do you believe in premonitions? Has anyone you know ever had one?

6

Dickens never explains everything. Does that make the story better or worse?

TEACHER'S REFERENCE · SKIP OR DELETE BEFORE CLASS

Answer key

Part 1 · 1 He didn't look up at the narrator. He turned and looked down the line instead.

Part 1 · 2 A deep, dark cutting with dripping rock walls, a strip of sky, a red light and a black tunnel. It smelled of earth and death, and the narrator felt he had left the natural world.

Part 1 · 3 He went pale, turned to the bell although it did not ring, and opened the door to look out at the red light.

Part 2 · 1 It stood by the red light with its left arm across its face, waving its right arm, and cried "Halloa! Below there! Look out! Look out!"

Part 2 · 2 He ran into the tunnel with his lamp, then telegraphed both ways along the line. The answer was "All well."

Part 2 · 3 First, a terrible accident on the line within six hours. Second, the same day, a young lady died suddenly on a train.

Part 3 · 1 He said it rang the bell with a strange movement that only he could hear.

Part 3 · 2 They saw the Danger-light, the tunnel, the walls and the stars. The spectre was not there.

Part 3 · 3 He couldn't say what the danger was or where. They would think he was mad and take his job away.

Part 4 · 1 He decided to offer to take him to the best doctor in the area.

Part 4 · 2 A man by the tunnel with his left sleeve across his eyes, waving his right arm: the driver, showing other men what had happened.

Part 4 · 3 An engine hit him as it came out of the tunnel. His back was towards it, and he wasn't clear of the outer rail.