Penrith caught it, retreating, watching those cold eyes watching him and expecting to be shot in the back when he turned. When he was safely out of range, Quarles was still standing there in the carriage door, his face a mask of blood and determination. Penrith turned on his heel and began to walk the tracks back to the depot. He didn’t trust Quarles. On the other hand, he told himself, the man was right. If he didn’t share the money, Penrith could turn him in. And he thought, on the whole, the Army was more likely to believe him, a curate’s son, than Quarles, a less than exemplary soldier. Time would tell what would come of this day’s work.
He could still see those pound notes, thick wads of them.
It was all he could think of as he walked steadily toward the depot.
On the train, Quarles waited until Penrith was out of sight and no threat to him. Then he did three things. He went through the carriages again to be certain there were no more wounded, he scanned the veldt for miles to be certain the Boers had gone away, and then he searched every inch of the last carriage for other bags of money. As he did, he could feel Evering’s eyes on him, baleful and full of pain.
There was no more. He’d found it all.
Quarles took the two bags, ignoring the weak protests of the severely wounded man, and stacked the notes to one side. He remembered an oiled cloth he’d seen near the dead fireman and trotted forward to fetch it. It was thick with coal dust and torn, but it was still large enough for his purpose. Wrapping the money carefully in the cloth, he took it outside and searched for a place to dig. He found that some thirty yards from the tracks, and with his bare hands he worked furiously at creating a hole deep enough to conceal the bundle.
It took him over an hour. But when he was finished, there was nothing to show that he’d been there. A small branch, swept across where he’d worked, erased any signs of digging. He stepped back, considering his handiwork. The question was, how to mark the spot?
Looking around, he saw a flat rock, shaped like a turtle. It was heavy, but he carried it across to where the money was hidden and set it on top. It was the best he could do.
When he got back to the carriage, he was surprised to find Evering still alive. The man was holding on tenaciously, determination in the set of his jaw. His eyes watched Quarles, bright against the flushed skin of his face, as if recording everything he saw for the court-martial to come.
Quarles ignored him, going about his next task with cold efficiency. He placed the empty money bags at Evering’s feet, and then went searching for lanterns.
After pouring all their oil over the last carriage, he took the lanterns back to where he’d found them. Evering was still watching him, but with alarm in his eyes now.
“What are you doing, man?” he managed to say with sufficient force to be heard.
“You’re the only one who knew about the money. And when they come, they’ll want to know where it is. They’re not going to believe that the Boers took it, are they? So I don’t have any choice.”
He had found matches in the sergeant’s kit, and he struck them now and lit the spreading puddles of oil. The old carriages were tender dry. They’d burn in a hurry, they wouldn’t need the oil after a few minutes.
Evering cried, “You can’t do this! It’s inhuman—”
“Watch me,” Quarles said and jumped out of the carriage. He tried to walk far enough away to shut out the cries of the burning man, but he could hear them in his mind if not his ears. They would haunt him for a long time.
But it was so much money. It would set him up for life. Even if he shared it with Penrith. Or not. It would depend on how useful the man was.
He waited until the flames had nearly died down, then went back to the blackened carriages and thrust his hands into the remnants of the fire. He hadn’t known it would hurt that badly, but he forced himself to put his face close enough to singe his hair and his skin.
And then, fighting the pain as best he could, he crawled under what was left of the first carriage, out of the sun.
He hadn’t looked at what was left of Lieutenant Timothy Barton Evering.
When help arrived many hours later, Quarles was half out of his mind with pain and thirst. They dealt with him gently, and the doctor did what he could. He didn’t see Penrith and didn’t ask for him. He lay on the stretcher, calling Evering’s name until someone bent over him and said, “He’s dead. There was nothing you could do.”
After that he shut his eyes and was quiet.
The inquiry into the ambush was not lengthy. Penrith supported the account that a shot could have broken a lantern and set the last carriage on fire. “But I didn’t see it burning when I left. All I could think of was the wounded, and getting help for them as fast as possible.” His face was pale, and his voice tended to shake.
Penrith was the son of a curate. They believed him. Quarles, when interviewed, remembered only beating at the flames to reach the lieutenant. His burns were serious, and his bandages spoke to his courage.
He was sent to Cape Town, where doctors worked on his hands, and Penrith, whose feet had been badly blistered by his walk, was sent to a hospital in Port Elizabeth. They didn’t meet again until the end of the war, in 1902.
It was Penrith who came to find Quarles, and he asked him outright for his share of the money. “I’ve earned it now. And I’ll have it before we’re sent home.”
Quarles smiled. “Oh, yes, and you on a spending spree a private’s pay couldn’t explain? No, we split the money and take it home with us. We wait a year, and then decide how to hide it in plain sight. Do you think we’ve fooled them? Stupidity will get us hanged yet.”
“As long as we split it now,” Penrith said. “I want it in my hand, where you can’t trick me or hide from me. Once we’ve split it, we’re finished with each other.”
“Did you hear they found the Boers that attacked our train and hanged the leader? I wouldn’t press my luck if I were you. A misstep now, and we’ll be decorating the gibbet he kept warm for us.”
But Penrith was not to be put off.
Quarles took five days of leave and found a carriage and horse that he could borrow, though his hands were still stiff and almost useless.
He located the site of the attack after some difficulty, found the flat stone after walking in circles for three hours, and dug up the packet in the oiled cloth. Most of it he split into two black valises he’d brought with him. For the rest, he found a black woman in an isolated hut and asked her to sew the money into pockets in the lining of his tunic.
She thought him a mad Englishman, but he promised to pay her well.
When the tunic was ready, he drowned her in the stream where she washed her clothes, for fear she would gossip. If he’d been a superstitious man, he’d have believed she put a curse on him as she died. As it was, she fought hard, and he was glad he hadn’t put his tunic on before dealing with her.
Penrith was waiting for him at the livery stable when he brought the carriage back, and demanded that he take his pick of the two valises.
“To be sure the split was fair and square.”
“As God is my witness,” Quarles answered him, “you’ll find both hold the same sum. Look for yourself. It’s more than either of us can ever expect to earn. Don’t be greedy.”
Penrith said, his curiosity getting the better of him as he examined both valises, “Does it ever bother you, how we came by this?”
“Does it bother you?” Quarles retorted, picking up the nearest case. He walked off and didn’t look back.
As luck would have it, the two men arrived in London on the same troop ship and were mustered out of the army in the same week. Quarles took Penrith to the nearest pub and made a suggestion: “We’ve got to find work. Until the Army’s forgot us. It wouldn’t look right, would it, for either of us to be rich as a nob, when we joined up with no more than a shilling to our names.”