The front engine breasted the edge, dragging its carriages — which twisted, flame-nozzles pointing upwards — into the air. The Kallinikos was going at such speed I thought briefly that it might leap the gap, but the bridge-section was in the way. The worm’s head smashed against the pillar, and the whole contraption fell into the Ross with a scream of metal…
…there was an explosion, which left spots in my eyes for months. All the Greek Fire in the belly of the worm went up at once. A patch spread across the water like a floating island of flame.
I assumed we were going to fall into that.
But we slowed. The rails complained.
The brothers Moriarty held fast to canvas straps.
Through the open door, I could count the number of sleepers between us and the edge.
Then, there were half as many…
Then, none. Our wheels, I fancy, touched the lip of the gorge as we slowed to a stop. We all lurched, and Stationmaster Moriarty fell towards the door. Neither of his brothers tried to haul him back, but he got hold of the folding isinglass and didn’t tumble into the burning river.
The engine still ran. The wheels got traction.
And we changed direction, drawing away from the drop.
The sleepers appeared again. The gorge receded. Without the rest of the train as an anchor, we got up speed quickly. We were back in the cutting, rolling towards Fal Vale.
With another gun-prod, I persuaded our reluctant pilot to moderate our speed. A fatal crash now would be beyond irony.
‘How about a toot of the whistle,’ I suggested.
He made no comment.
‘Next stop, Fal Vale Junction,’ I said, light-headed. ‘All change yurr…’ [45]
IX
The surviving head of the Kallinikos rolled into the station. I took care to watch the pilot as he threw the brakes and prodded him as he turned off the engine. A series of switches had to be thrown in sequence. The drone of the dynamos died.
Colonel Moriarty was trying to issue orders again. No one listened. Most of the folk who would have snapped to when he told them had gone into the river with the tail of his wonderful war-worm. The Department of Supplies wasn’t an easy, safe commission any more. In the Colonel’s coming wars, even file-clerk and engine-maintenance soldiers would be asked to pay the butcher’s bill.
At Fal Vale, the fighting was over.
There was some precariousness in getting out of the engine. There was no side door, just an egress to the rest of the train… so, the Moriarty brothers had to clamber down onto the rail bed and then make their way up onto the platform. They could have walked to the far end of the station, and taken the gentle slope up, but Young James pulled himself up to the platform, tearing his uniform at the knees, to show how limber he was. After that, his older brothers grimly followed suit, despite aged bones, tight waistcoats and a seeming unsuitability for such physical action. The Colonel grunted, went red in the face as he lifted his feet off the rails, and had to be pulled up by Stationmaster Moriarty and Berkins. He lost some buttons, and the last vestiges of his commanding manner.
Both brothers stuck out hands to assist the venerable Professor, but Moriarty couldn’t resist letting a card he rarely showed fall out into the open.
After taking a step or two back, the Professor rushed forward, and swarmed out of the rail bed up onto the platform with the agility of a young monkey. He might give the impression of being like a dry stick, with bent shoulders and fragile bones. In fact, he had a wiry, cultivated strength and physical aptitude which — on several occasions — proved a fatal surprise to people who thought he’d be easy pickings in a straight-up punching match. He had some Eastern tricks — nobody knows more about dirty fighting than the Chinese, who’ve made a religion out of pokes, kicks and gouges which would get you barred in disgrace from a British boxing ring — and held by a peculiar diet involving melon seeds and carrot shavings. You couldn’t get me to eat that if it bestowed eternal youth and added six inches to your prick.
I shoved the shadow man out of the train, revolver aimed steadily at the back of his head, and — taking no chances — escorted him to the end of the platform and up the slope. I’ve nothing to prove and if there’s an easy way to be had, I’ll have it. We rejoined the rest of the party by the waiting room.
Berkins — not entirely the yokel I’d taken him for — had Oberstein, Lucas and Sabin tied to the points wheel. The Frenchman had been shot in the shoulder, making him a lopsided match for the German I’d shot in the knee. Lucas had been lightly tortured in a friendly, no-particular-information-required sort of way. They made a sorry lot of minions, and didn’t meet the angry gaze of our un-humbled but bested master spy.
I hoped we could settle the matter of the ringer’s true identity before dawn. I was prepared to peel off his faces, one by one, with a razor.
Berkins took over with rope, and knotted him to his fellows.
The war of the wildcats had to be counted a draw. Ilse von Hoffmannsthal was in the wind, but Sophy Kratides wasn’t dead. The Greek fury, bodice interestingly in shreds, swore revenge against the German valkyrie.
As returning hero, it struck me that a kiss and a cuddle might be in order. Coming through battles alive always makes a body frisky. Yes, a healthy bounce on handy upholstery would see out the night nicely. However, one glimpse of Sophy’s dark face, augmented by a cut along the jawbone, made me think better of the fancy. No one wants to barely escape a train crash and capture a dangerous spy, then get struck in the vitals by a hot-tempered foreign wench. When she found out what had happened to her countryman Lampros, she’d be well off me… even without the detail, which I was keeping to myself, that I’d done for him.
‘There are few railways in South Africa,’ Professor Moriarty said.
I didn’t know where that came from, but the Colonel did.
‘The Boers have no fight in them, James. They’re well down the list. France or Germany, or France and Germany. Then, the Americans.’
The Professor said nothing more. I took his point — a war train was no use unless your enemy obligingly built rails straight into the heart of his territory and then didn’t mine them when hostilities started. Even Greek Fire, if its secret could be recovered, wasn’t suited to a ruck with scattered intransigents who knew the lay of their land. The Kallinikos might have been named the White Elephant for all the good it really was.
My sort of soldier would be killing foreigners for the Queen for the foreseeable. The Department of Supplies would have to lump it. The last whisper I heard was that they were sponsoring mechanical wings which kill every dolt who straps them on and jumps off a cliff.
‘James,’ the Colonel said, ‘what is your association with Colonel Moran? I have made enquiries. He has a, shall we say, somewhat mixed reputation.’
I knew what that meant. Ask anyone who knew me in the army and you’ll hear the same things about Basher. Tiger in the field, bounder in the mess. A good man to have your back, but a bad one to show your back to. Trust him with a fight, but not your sister, your wallet or a deck of cards.
Stationmaster Moriarty waited for the Professor’s answer, too. ‘Moran is my associate, James. I employ him.’
‘For what? Wiping off the blackboard and collecting exercise books?’
‘My business is numbers, James. You know that. Numbers and equations. You do not understand them. You never have. A fault in Supplies, I would have thought. Value is calculated in numbers. And chance. Morality does not come into it. That’s the purity of mathematics. Nothing clouds the issue. Not religion, not politics, not sentiment. I have applied my methods to a well-established field of human endeavour. In this, I use Moran and men and women like him.’
45
The Fal Vale swing bridge was the site of a later, famous railway disaster — which gave rise to another ghostly legend. See: Arnold Ridley,