"There he goes again," Chester moaned, but just the same he and Will took off after the younger boy, keeping to the lee of the train like Cal was doing.
They ran down the line of lower cars, passing the one in which they had spent the journey, then continued beside their higher-sided counterparts. Dust and debris sprayed over their heads, and they had to pause several times to wipe it from their eyes. It took the boys a full minute to travel the length of the train, enough time for the loading to be completed. A few remaining scatters of whatever the material was fell from the row of chutes, and the air was laced with a gritty dust.
Uncoupled from the train, the steam engine was farther along the track, but Cal had tucked down beside the last of the higher cars. As soon as Will and Chester caught up with him, Will lashed out, cuffing his brother around the head.
"Oi!" Cal yelped, raising his fists as if about to retaliate. "What was that for?"
"That was for running off again, you stupid little spud," Will chided him in a low, furious voice. "If you keep doing things like that, we're going to get caught."
"Well, they didn't catch us… and how else could we get through here?" his brother defended himself vehemently.
Will didn't answer.
Cal blinked slowly, as if to say his brother was being tedious, and simply turned his head away to look into the distance. "We need to go down th—"
"No way," Will said. "Chester and I are going to check first before any of us does anything. You just stay put!"
Cal obeyed reluctantly, flopping onto the ground with a bad-tempered groan.
"You all right?" Will asked Chester as he heard a loud snuffling noise behind him. He twisted around to look.
"This stuff gets everywhere," Chester complained, then proceeded to blow his nose by clamping each nostril in turn with his fingers to clear them of the dust.
"That's disgusting," Will said under his breath as Chester pinched a dangling skein of snot and flicked it to the ground. "Do you have to do that?"
Taking no heed of his friend's distaste, Chester squinted at Will's face, then examined his own hands and arms. "We're certainly well camouflaged," he observed. If their faces and clothes had been filthy before from the continuous stream of carbon-black smoke on the train, they were even filthier now after being showered during the loading of the freight cars.
"Yeah, well, if you're quite finished," Will said, "let's recce the station."
On their elbows, he and Chester edged around the front of the car until they had an uninterrupted view of the buildings. There was absolutely no sign of any activity.
Making not the slightest effort to keep his head down, Cal disobeyed Will's orders and joined them. He couldn't seem to stay still, positively vibrating with impatience. "Listen, the railwaymen are in the station, but they're going to come out soon. We have to get out of this place before they do," he insisted.
Will considered the station buildings again. "Well, OK, but we all stick together and only go as far as the engine. Got that, Cal?"
They moved swiftly from the cover of the car, running half crouched until they came alongside the massive engine. Every so often it vented hissing jets of steam, as if it were a dragon in deep slumber. They could feel the warmth that still emanated from its giant boiler. Chester foolishly placed his hand on one of the massive plates of pitted steel that formed its slab-sided base and retracted it quickly. "Ow!" he said. "It's still really hot."
"You don't say," Cal muttered sarcastically as they skirted around to the front of the massively proportioned machine.
"It's awesome! Looks exactly like a tank," Chester said in schoolboy wonder. With its huge interlocking armor plates and giant cowcatcher, it certainly did resemble a military vehicle of some kind, an old battle tank.
"Chester, we really don't have time to admire the choo-choo!" Will said.
"I wasn't," he mumbled in response, still ogling the engine.
They began to debate their next move.
"We should go down there," Cal said forcefully, indicating the direction with his thumb.
"Blah, blah, blah," Chester mocked under his breath, giving Cal a disdainful stare. "Here we go again."
Will studied the area of the cavern his brother had pointed to. Across a stretch of about fifty yards of open ground was what could have been an opening in the cavern wall, metal ramps descending on either side of it from some structure above. Will couldn't see enough in the murkiness to be sure if it was a way out.
"I can't tell what's there," he said to Cal. "Too dark."
"That's exactly why we should go there," his brother replied.
"But what if the Colonists come out before we reach it?" Will asked. "There's no way they can miss us."
"They're on a break," Cal replied, shaking his head at Will. "We'll be OK if we go right now."
Chester chimed in. "We could always back off… into the tunnel again and wait until the train's gone."
"That could be hours. We've got to go now," Cal said, his voice brimming with irritation. "While we've still got the chance."
"Hang back," Chester immediately countered, turning to Cal.
"Go now," Cal insisted tetchily.
"No, we—" Chester came back at him, but Cal raised his voice and didn't let him finish.
"You don't know anything," he sneered.
"Who died and made you boss?" Chester swiveled around to his friend, looking for support. "You're not going to listen to this, are you, Will? He' just a stupid brat."
"Shut up," Will hissed through gritted teeth, his eyes on the station.
"I saw we—" Cal declaimed loudly.
Will shot out his hand and clapped it roughly over his brother's mouth. "I said shut it, Cal. Two of them. Over there," he whispered urgently into Cal's ear, then slowly took his hand away.
Cal and Chester sought out the two railwaymen, who were standing under a portico that ran along the front of several of the station buildings. They had just emerged from one of the shacks, and strains of bizarre music filtered across to the boys through the open door.
They were wearing bulky blue uniforms and some type of breathing apparatus over their heads, and as the boys watched they lifted these up so they could drink from the large tankards each of them had in his hands. Even from where the boys were positioned, they could hear the men's grumbling tones as they stepped a few paces forward and stopped, idly perusing the train, and then turned to point out something in the gantry high above it.
After several minutes, they turned on their heels and went back inside the shack, slamming the door behind them.
"Right! Let's go!" Cal said. He chose to look only at Will, studiously avoiding Chester.
"Cut it out," Will growled. "We go when we all decide. We're in this together."
Cal started to reply, his upper lip lifted in an aggressive snarl.
"This isn't some children's game, you know," Will shot at him before he could speak.
The younger boy huffed loudly and, rather than continue to challenge Will, turned on Chester, glowering fiercely.
"You… you Topsoiler!" Cal spat.
Chester was completely unfazed by this and, raising an eyebrow, gave Will a small shrug.
So they remained there, Will and Chester carefully watching the frontage of the station while Cal drew pictures in the dirt that had a remarkable resemblance to Chester, with squarish bodies and blocky heads. Every so often he chuckled evilly to himself and wiped them over, only to begin drawing again.
After five minutes with no further sign of the railwaymen, Will spoke. "Right, I reckon they've settled in. I say we should go now. Happy, Chester?"
Chester gave a single nod, looking distinctly unhappy.
"At last," Cal said, leaping to his feet and rubbing his hands together to shake off the dust. In an instant he was in the full glare of the lights on the open ground, striding cockily away.