Dolly saw the security wagon move back the way it had come and then the two patrol cars draw away from the station. She was willing them to move off, out of sight, one hand on the electric power switch for the signal box, the other clenched around the hatchet for the alarm wires. She knew exactly which ones they were because this moment, like the entire raid, had been rehearsed. The mains box opened and closed four times. Even so, when that power went out in the box, the moment of panic for Jim was only going to last a second or two before he hit that separate linked alarm switch. If that went off, the two cop cars could turn back within minutes and they’d have major problems. She had to pull the main switch and slash the wires within seconds of each other.
The train passed, one carriage, second carriage, mail carriage, last carriage, and she said to herself, ‘Now, now, now.’
The lights switched from red to off, perfect. The signal box went completely dark. Jim didn’t panic, went towards the emergency generator but, as he was about to switch it on, he heard something from beneath him. He could not ascertain what it was, his eyes still unaccustomed to the dark.
Dolly slashed down the hatchet. The wires strained and two or three remained intact. She slashed again and then pocketed the hatchet before clipping at the cables. One sprang away, then the second. She had four more to go as Jim began to panic. His delay in getting worried gave Dolly the valuable time she needed to put the live wires against the generator sides. If Jim tried to switch on up in the box he’d get quite a shock — not enough to kill him but enough to stop him trying it again in a hurry.
Dolly ran under the fence, and was almost at her horse when she froze. Jim was hurtling down the signal box steps, having almost been thrown across the signal box when he tried the emergency generator. He leaped down the steps, still semi-shocked, and fell to the ground. He moaned, clutching his ankle, rolling in the grit of the signal-box forecourt. He couldn’t hear Dolly, let alone see her, as she mounted and headed towards the bridge, the train moving slowly up ahead. But her horse was nowhere near as well trained as Julia’s so it was a much slower ride. He was nervous and skittish and no matter how much she pressed him forward, he refused to go at speed.
The guards aboard the mail carriage had no idea anything was wrong at the station. They were moving and would soon pick up speed as usual, the bridge crossing always being slow. The windows of the carriage were all blacked-out; they saw nothing, heard nothing.
The train driver didn’t look back. He was used to the bridge crossing and could do it blindfolded. In fact, he looked over to the lake a moment before the flashlight swung from side to side twenty yards up ahead of him. He put his hand up to shield his eyes from the bright light as it swung, indicating for him to stop. He began to brake in plenty of time, moving almost at a snail’s pace as he leaned out of his cab. All he could see was a police officer standing sideways across the track.
‘You fucking crazy?’ he screamed. Now he rammed on the brakes but they were still travelling so slowly, it didn’t jolt or jar the rear carriages. The train just slowly trickled to a halt. He presumed something had fallen across the tracks, waiting as the interphone rang from the centre carriage. He picked it up. ‘There’s a problem on the line, let me get back to you.’
He still held the phone as Julia began to move closer, very slowly. He leaned even further out. ‘You’re taking one hell of a bloody risk — there are live cables under you.’
Still she waited. Then she switched on the flashlight again, shining it at the driver’s face, as she eased the horse on to the narrow verge, moving away from the rail tracks, backing Helen dangerously along the stone-flagged parapet. Again he yelled at her, asked what was going on, but she was edging further and further away from the train and to safety. If it started and tried to pass her, there wouldn’t be room for the horse — it would swipe her belly.
‘What the hell is going on?’ the driver yelled again. The guards were now lifting up the blinds on the covered windows. The train had been stationary for one and a half minutes.
Julia was within six feet of safety when she turned the flashlight on once, twice, three times and Gloria pressed down the detonator. They were just a fraction off but the explosion ripped through the second carriage instead of directly between it and the mail carriage. She swore as the carriages rocked and shuddered and the railway line buckled under the impact. Next she crawled to the second device and thumped it down. This time it was almost right on its marker as the rear carriage broke loose. The explosion was terrifyingly loud, echoing across the water, glass and metal splintering. There was hardly a window left intact. The guards sprawled across the floor lying face down. They didn’t know what was going on.
Gloria had used too much Semtex and there was a dangerous gap in the bridge itself. The tracks beneath the carriage had buckled towards the gap but in the frantic next stage they didn’t realize the imminent danger as there was so much going on. Some of it was rehearsed or surmised by Dolly, and Julia didn’t waste time being impressed, but it was Dolly’s calm voice she could hear in her mind, ‘Soon as you move from the track, you chuck this into the main front carriage, as close to the driver as possible. It’ll work on a long radius and scramble any calls he tries to make from the train to the next station. It won’t give us long but it’ll be long enough.’ It was another of Ashley Brent’s toys.
Julia was clear and galloping to her next position. She now collected Dolly’s horse and began to drag it towards the others down below by the lake. Dolly was on foot and running towards the centre of the bridge.
Ester rammed her shotgun through the broken window. The men inside still lay sprawled on the floor in terror as two more shotguns appeared through the broken windows from the other side. Dolly was the only one to give the order and she screamed it. ‘Open the doors. Come out.’
Mike switched on the powerful beam of the positioned spotlight, twisting it a fraction to aim directly at the centre carriage. He had seen the train moving off and knew or hoped the driver’s phone would be scrambled. Then he jumped into the speedboat and with the rowing boat trailing behind, headed at top speed for the bridge. He cut the engines as he came directly in line with the spotlight. It covered the doors of the train and the path down to the rowing boat.
The dazed and terrified guards came out one by one. Dolly took up her position, screaming instructions as she pointed the shotgun towards them. ‘Lie down, face down.’
Suddenly she saw, to her horror, that the mail carriage was slowly moving to the gap in the bridge. It was going to go over the side as it creaked and groaned towards the gap.
The guards lay down beside the track, as, unaware of the danger, Connie and Gloria went aboard. Ester came round to the open doors. The sacks were passed out and dropped into the rowing boat, easily seen by the spotlight. Inch by inch, the carriage kept moving closer to the hole as they worked frantically. Below, Mike stacked the bags, gesturing to the women without saying a word. They all knew the danger but Dolly stood over the men, who didn’t move as they lay face down listening to the bags crashing down and the awful sound of the carriage as it ground towards the gap.
The guards were helpless to do anything and, if they moved so much as a muscle, they felt a hard dig in the centre of their back. The women all wore ski masks, not one showing her face as they worked on, lifting, passing, dropping the mail-bags, the danger obvious, the carriage still on the move.