Read Online The Steam Mole by Dave Freer - Free Book Online Page B

comin’. North end gets plenty…but all at once.”
    â€œGuess we won’t tell them the culvert is blocked and the bridge is going to wash away,” said Jack with grim satisfaction.
    Naturally, Quint did, as soon as they got near the engine, singing out and pulling them closer, the others angry and reluctant.Jack had to smile to himself. You couldn’t fake this kind of stuff. And Quint had already made himself known to the troopers on guard duty. They weren’t the elites training at the camp. They were just sappers, and sour with the job, too.
    â€œAh, hell’s teeth,” a soldier swore as he got down from the cab. He turned to his fellow. “Come on. I’m not getting wet while you sit here like Lord Muck.”
    â€œI’ll get my rifle wet,” complained the other.
    â€œLeave it in the bloody cab. Mine’s wet already.” He pointed at the prisoners. “Go on, you lot, get back to it.”
    They turned and began their chained shuffle while the guards jogged toward the water. When they were a good distance off, Jack fell over, pulling Quint down, and at the same time hitting him with the fist-sized rock he’d picked up in the stream. “Pick him up with me and walk closer to the engine,” he said quietly. “Sorr? Mr. Driver, sorr,” he called out, “this feller’s fallen and hit his head.”
    The driver put his head out and Jack pitched the rock as hard as he’d ever thrown a cricket ball—but from a lot closer. And he’d been a first class player, once. It hit the driver on the side of the head, and then they were running forward. The fireman, who had come to see why his driver had pitched out of the cab with a groan, took a swing at them with a shovel and found himself grabbed by six desperate men hauling a groaning seventh. They sat on the fireman and held a sharp shovel to his throat.
    Jack knew how to get a steam engine going. “More coal, boys,” he said, opening the fire door and the dampers. “And any of you who can shoot, deal with the armed guard if he comes back. He’ll be out to kill us, so I suppose we may as well play by their rules.”
    â€œThey don’t seem to have noticed. They’re down at the water,” said Deloraine. “Man, have you gone crazy? Taking the locomotive? They’ll shoot us all for this.”
    â€œThey’ll kill us or work us to death anyway, Rainey,” said Donner.
    â€œIt’s too late now, anyway,” said Jack. “Here we go.” He turned thelever and the engine began to roll slowly but steadily away up the hill, with the squealing of metal on metal. “More coal. Come on! More coal.”
    Behind them in the rain, someone shouted. Jack opened the throttle as far as it would go. Looking back on the slow curve away from the creek he could see two uniformed men running toward them. And one knelt down.
    â€œHow’s your shooting?” asked Jack, as something ricocheted off metal farther back on the train.
    The adult aboriginal, Marni, had taken the rifle with the calm assurance of someone who’d used one often. “Better n’ his,” he said, and shot. “Blast. Winged him.”
    Jack could shoot, too, but from the cab of the rattling train, he doubted he could do anything like as well as Marni. The other man still ran after the train, the driver now up and running behind him, with blood on his face.
    â€œGive them the fireman.”
    They flung the man off into the bushes. Jack managed, in all the fear and tension, to feel a little sorry for the fellow, but he might be better off of the train.
    It was not a very fast little steam locomotive, and there was a slight upgrade from the creek before a flattening, and then they were on a long upgrade away. The runner might almost catch the train, if he was fit enough, on the second grade. Jack had noticed it was the old three-link coupling joining the carriages.