‘Lampros?’ the Colonel asked anxiously.
‘Moran said everyone on the crew, James,’ the Professor said. ‘Further elucidation is neither necessary nor, in the circumstances, desirable.’
That put Moriarty medius in his place.
‘There’s a swing bridge ahead,’ the Stationmaster said. ‘At this time of night, it’ll be open. Boats come up the Ross for the china clay.’
‘Thank you for that touch of local colour,’ I said. ‘Open — that doesn’t mean open for railway traffic, does it? It means we’re hurtling towards a bridge that won’t be there?’
Young James nodded.
‘Tell me something useful,’ I said. ‘How soon will we reach this open bridge?’
‘How fast are we going?’
‘No bloody idea. Fast.’
‘Impossible to tell, then. Soon.’
Jumping off the Kallinikos was not an option. It would mean, at best, getting smeared along the side of the track like breakfast marmalade.
‘Our present enemy does not strike me as bent on self-destruction,’ the Professor said calmly. ‘He will have a safe way out.’
‘At this speed, he can’t grab a low branch without breaking his fool neck,’ I said.
‘The Kallinikos has two engines,’ the Professor responded. ‘Two complete sets of controls. He will be making for the other set. Does he know how to drive the train?’
‘He was making a fair fist of it before I barged in on him.’
‘Then, he will reverse our direction.’
‘That can’t be done unless the other engine is disengaged,’ the Colonel said. ‘If its controls are smashed, then that is not possible.’
‘Can the engine be decoupled?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Then, he will free himself from the Kallinikos and effect an escape…’
Young James spelled out the obvious ‘…leaving us to go into the river!’
The Colonel made his way, monkey-like, from strap to strap to the rear of the carriage. He tried to wrench aside the door. It was jammed shut.
The Professor went to the hole through which the shadow man had got onto the train, and set about enlarging it enough for me to get through.
I reloaded my revolver.
‘He’ll know you’re coming,’ Moriarty said.
‘Of course,’ I replied, handing him my hat.
I stuck my head through the hole. A rush of air hit me like a wave full of pebbles. The Kallinikos was racing through a deep cutting. A wall of banked-up earth was barely two feet away from the train. If I touched it, I’d be scraped loose and mangled. So I took care to hug the worm’s metal hide as I crawled up on top.
I threw myself flat on the train roof and dragged myself towards the rear engine. By touch, I found the hole where the shadow man had got inside — a long cut made between plates. Typical of the Department of Supplies. For all its armour and revolutionary design, the war-worm was more pregnable than the average third-class carriage on the 8.15 to Dog-Walloper’s Bottom.
I was not fool enough to plop through the hole, and get a knife in my ribs for my pains.
There was a porthole above the controls, offering a glow like a skylight. I made my way there, inch by thorny inch. I didn’t let my head show, but got a glimpse below. The spy master was throwing switches and pulling levers. Electric lights burned. Dials came to life. He was getting his engine running before decoupling the rest of the train.
He kept looking around, alert.
I rose to a crouch, struggling to keep balance. The rushing wind would blow me off the roof if I presented too broad a back. Keeping steady, resisting an impulse to go too quickly, I stood. I let seconds pass, to get used to the slipstream. I took out my revolver and aimed at the porthole.
I fired, then stepped into the hole I’d made.
I intended to drop neatly down into the cabin in a rain of glass.
Instead, the train’s impetus slammed me into the rim of the porthole at waist height. Jagged glass shards ripped through my coat. I fell badly, on top of the ringer.
He got a knife — something small, like a scalpel — in my side, but I smashed my revolver-butt into his nose. It squashed and bled. I didn’t know how badly I was stuck, but got up off him. I kicked the shadow man several times, in the head and kidneys. He rolled away from my boots, and sprang up — agile as a big cat.
I shot him in the chest again, knowing it wouldn’t kill him. At close range, the impact must have broken some ribs. He yelled and fell again.
I saw the wedge — a wrench — that was keeping the door to the compartment shut, and kicked it free.
‘In here,’ I called to the Moriarty brothers.
I hauled the ringer up, took away his knife, and put my gun to the soft part under his chin. No chain mail there. Give him credit, he was already recovering from the equivalent of a sledgehammer blow to the chest. He was scouting for new means to vex me.
The Professor, the Colonel and the Stationmaster entered the cabin. The space was not really large enough to accommodate us all.
‘Why haven’t you killed him?’ the Colonel asked.
‘Can you drive a train, James?’ I said.
‘No.’
‘Can you, James, or you, James?’
Twin headshakes.
‘Then we need him alive, for the present. Can any of you at least decouple this locomotive?’
‘That’s simple,’ the Stationmaster said.
Young James took the loose wrench and used it to open a hatch in the floor. He twisted a lever below. There was a ripping sound, as plates parted. We were free of the rest of the Kallinikos, but still travelling in the same direction — fast.
On a slight incline towards the bridge which wasn’t shut, we gained speed and pressed against the other carriages.
I looked into the shadow man’s angry eyes. ‘Now, chummy,’ I said, ‘do you still want to be an engine driver when you grow up?’
I slightly relaxed the pressure on the pistol, without taking it away.
For a moment, I thought I’d misjudged the man. Plenty would die rather than give in. Some players see mate in two moves and kick over the board. I’ve never found out if I’m that sort myself, but rather think I am. If I’d been the one who knew how to drive the train, I’d have laughed at me and double-dared me to shoot my head off.
This was a more calculating person.
Someone more like the Professor. Cold-blooded, but practical.
Without saying anything, he rose and turned to the controls. A charge had built up in the batteries. I saw dynamos and what-nots whizzing. Acid bubbled in tanks. My impression was that all he had to do was engage this engine — whatever that meant — and we would be away.
The Kallinikos came out of the deep cutting and, miraculously, held to the rails as they took a gentle curve down a hillside towards the Ross Gorge. The other head smashed through a white wooden pole which hung across the line as a warning that the swing bridge was open.
‘Toot-toot,’ I said, darkly.
The shadow man threw a lever. A whistle did sound — not steam, but some indicator that the engine was working. Our wheels screamed as they were forced to turn the other way.
The rest of the train parted from us.
Through the open door which had lead into the previous carriage, now separated from our engine, I saw the rails leading to the edge of the precipice. Our lights showed what awaited us. Below was the River Ross. Not a raging, foaming torrent but a placid waterway. Ahead, useless, was the middle-section of the bridge, turned sideways on its pillar in the middle of the river.
The gap widened, but we were still travelling the wrong way.
If I shot the ringer now, it wouldn’t make any difference. On balance, I decided I’d rather what happened to me happened to him, too.