The Steam Mole Page 8

  He looked at the panting messenger. “How long is all this going to take? The scout’s just about ready to go.”

  “How the Hades would I know?” replied the messenger with a shrug

  “Yeah, well, more than an hour and her burners will be out, we’ll have to reprime her. And that’ll set us back half an hour.”

  “I don’t think McGurk cares about half an hour right now. They’re threatening to break the winder unless he agrees not to charge them.”

  The group of men, some with crowbars and some with shovels, set off down the passage, closing the door behind them.

  Clara waited until their footsteps grew faint before scrambling up the wrought-iron ladder and into the cab of the small steam mole. She closed the door and dropped the heavy latch bar in place. Now they couldn’t get her out of here, she thought with some satisfaction. If they wouldn’t look for Tim, she would. They could come and find their toy, and her and Tim. Or not.

  Well…if she could make it go. Clara got up into the driver’s saddle. She had no idea what to do next. There were levers and knobs and dials. She was too angry and desperate to think straight. She hit the first button. The whistle sounded, loud enough to startle her into some semblance of thought. She read labels instead of just hitting buttons.

  “Coal feed.”

  She pulled that lever and was rewarded by the conveyor starting up, dumping more coal down a chute. The pressure gauge needle started to come up slowly. But how did you make it go forward?

  There were two levers at her hand level, sticking up from the floor. She pushed one of them forward cautiously. The little steam mole began to move…left…and into the wall, which cracked alarmingly. She pulled the lever back in haste…a bit too far. Now the mole swung backward, the coal tender smashing the door Clara had come through and collapsing the passage behind it. Clara pulled it upright, and they stopped. Very, very cautiously, she tried the lever at her left hand…and the mole moved forward, turning right.

  Both hands down, and it moved straight forward. Well, sort of straight. She hadn’t started straight, because of experimenting with the levers. The mole was very heavy and solid…but quick to respond. She pulled back on the right lever to stop it scraping the wall and pushed on the left to have the little mole turn a half-circle on the spot before she stopped, completely destroying the corrugated iron shed that had sheltered it.

  Clara gulped and ducked her head involuntarily as the pieces of roofing clanged on the top of the mole—but the machine was built for burrowing and was not in the least worried by that. She took a deep breath and pressed both levers forward. The little tracked mole thrust its way through the debris and out into the desert. The sky was red and so heavy with dust, looking ahead it was hard to tell where the land ended and sky began. Resolutely Clara set about following the humped ridge that was the termite run. The little mole was doing, according to the dial, eight miles to the hour. Of course, it wasn’t merely a matter of driving dead straight, which she struggled with anyway, but avoiding obstacles as well. Her steering wasn’t very good yet, and she tended to overdo it then correct and recorrect. Her trail, of course, would be dead easy to follow. Looking back, it also looked as if it had been made by two drunken worms crawling in parallel.

  Clara knew she was in more trouble than she could imagine, that the destruction she’d caused was considerable, and that the machine she’d borrowed…well, stolen, was rather valuable. Probably worth more than she could ever earn.

  Right now, she also couldn’t bring herself to care.

  “Don’t waste time on the shackles, get the point of them pry bars into the chain links and twist them opposite ways,” said that bastard Rainy, who’d nicked his bread. Still, Lampy had to admit that the thief knew how to break chains. He probably knew about anything that you needed to know, when it came to breaking into locked property, Lampy thought.

  Soon they were all merely wearing metal bracelets around their ankles—except Quint, who still had his legs attached together. They looted what they could from the loco’s cab: two buckets, three big water bottles, a little food, a length of rope-like cord, some wire, a couple of shovels, and a penknife Jack had found in the fireman’s pocket. Lampy fancied that, but Jack kept it. The mad Irishman slowed the little locomotive down to barely a walking crawl and they jumped into the flooded little creek, hauling Quint along.

  “He’ll only rat on us if he stays,” said the Irish feller. That was true enough. Lampy suspected they ought to chop his head off or something to stop him talking. But he didn’t want to do it, or even be there when they did. He just wanted to get away.

  The small mob of ex-prisoners struggled through the shallow water into the scrub. Lampy knew he could run faster, but his conscience troubled him a little. He didn’t owe the rest much, but this Jack…He’d stick with them a little while.

  The land, even without the haze of rain, was flat and featureless away from the creek. There were some plants, mostly twisted little red gums barely taller than a man at the highest. At first Quint tried to drag behind, but Donner threatened to cut his throat. They must have been at least a mile from the railway when Lampy decided he’d had enough of the man, but he was beaten to it by one of the others who said, “If the Irishman won’t let us kill ’im, I’m not gunna drag ’im all the way to Queensland. Tie him to a tree and leave ’im.”

  “Use his breeches,” said Jack. “We might need the rope.” So they shredded Quint’s clothes, tied him to a “tree,” and left him.

  The feller would work his way loose in time, thought Lampy, and he’d bet that was what Jack planned. Lampy was getting some idea how the bloke worked now. He was too soft for this…but then…it was all too confusing. He needed time and space to think it over.

  A little later, the group stopped again. “Need to loop back to the rail or we’ll never find our way,” said Deloraine. “Gunna be a long walk back to Rocky.”

  “I am going on,” said the Irishman.

  Deloraine, free now, was taking on his cocky, gang-boy attitudes again, and fast. He snorted. “You’re bloody mad, Irishman. It’s desert out there.”

  The Irishman nodded and smiled like he was missing a few screws in his head. “I’m crazy. I’ll go on a bit. Can’t be too far from the border to Westralia,” he said. “Got to be cooler there. Anyone with me?”

  Lampy nearly said something, but Donner beat him to it. He was only half bad, that big bloke. “Too right you’re crazy, Irishman,” said Donner. “There’s no border posts, nothing. It’s just wild country. No one really knows where Queensland stops and Westralia starts. No one really cares. Come with us. We owe you, man.”

  “Me, I’m goin’ north,” said Marni. “Ain’t gunna find me in my people up there. But they won’ take you whitefellers. I got a rifle now. They’ll like that.”

  “Aw, we’re gunna need that,” said Deloraine, dangerously. “You boongs don’t.”

  “Leave him be,” said Jack flatly. “He’s earned it.”

  For a moment it looked like a fight. Marni backed off and held the rifle ready. “Yeah. If you wasn’t crazy, Irishman, I’d take you along. And call me that again, Rainy-boy, and I’ll kill yer. Come on, boy,” he beckoned at Lampy.

  Lampy shook his head. He’d made up his mind now, he just wanted to watch a bit more. “My mother was one of the Tialatchari people. This is our country here.”

  They split up, Jack going west and the rest, bar Lampy and Marni, going east in a bunch.

  Lampy walked far enough out into the rain to hide himself, and followed with his ears and nose, like his uncle had made him practice back there in the good country of being young.

  Jack knew his chances out here in the desert were slim, but, except for the aboriginals, the others were as likely to be a liability as an advantage. He needed to get as far as possible from the railway line and the obvious places the guards would search for them, keep as much of the water as possible, and head west at night. He also knew he had to follow the
water—flowing southwest—as far as possible. The rest of the escapees were going upstream, hoping to get over the divide to where water flowed east. He followed the creek out into the middle of Australia.

  Contrary to what he’d let on, he did have a plan, and an idea of what he had to do. First, he planned to cross the railway line. To follow the flow of the water to the southwest. The little creek would probably dry up, unless more rain fell, but it might take him part of the way to this “Sheba” place. It was fairly common knowledge—gleaned from the soldiers guarding and driving them—that this rail line was being built to attack Sheba, in Westralia. They planned, eventually, to join it to the termite run from Sheba to ship ore out.

  Jack wasn’t too sure what Sheba was, besides a mine and a rich prize. He hadn’t known what a termite run was either at first, but he knew now. There was a covered rail line running north-south. And they had to be nearly within the range of those trucks. Jack understood the logistics of capturing and holding such a place. They’d need a lifeline to bring in more troops and ship out whatever it was they were after.

  The question was just how far they were from that Westralian covered rail line, and whether he was strong enough to walk it.

  He’d never know by standing still. He had a penknife and some cord that was close enough to rope, and a fire-bucket…and half a sandwich. Not much for a walk of seventy or eighty miles across what would become an even worse desert. Across temperatures that, when this rain abated, could kill him. They even stopped the prisoners working during the midday heat, let them lie in the shade. They couldn’t sweat fast enough to cool down.

  The rain at least gave coolness and water, and a haze that hid everything. He carefully skirted the area where they’d left Quint, then cut back down to next to the water.

  Then he walked on, trying to stay out of the water. He wanted a scent trail going northeast, pointing them to Quint, rather than the way he was going…the rain might still wash it out.

  Back at the rail tracks, he took two broken branches, crossed the line, and jumped into the water again, taking the branches, too, and letting the water carry them away. Now he was careful to stay in the water. The only smell-trace left behind led the other way.

  He was worried about the wet and sand chafing on his thin prison sandals, but he hoped the water would hide his scent.

  It was, besides the sound of the rain and the running water, strange to be so alone. It was the first time since he’d been shipped from Ireland that he’d actually been completely alone. It was a good feeling after all this time. He might die out here, but at least he would try, and die free. Alone and free.

  A mile or two later he realized just how ignorant he had been.

  Lampy had been a bit shaken, for the how many-th time today, by the way things had panned out and how fast. He’d never had any intention of sticking with the group, himself. Just didn’t want to make leaving an issue, or have any arguments about the loot turning ugly. He’d not worried too much about taking things. He could live off the land, and the only thing he wanted was either the gun or the knife. He knew he couldn’t get either without a fight.

  He hadn’t expected it all to fly apart quite so quickly, either. Or for the Irishman to stand up for Marni. Lampy had backed off, with Marni, because you don’t mess with a man with a gun, and, well, he wanted nothing to do with the rest of them.

  Except that his uncle had taught him to be a man, and at the same time, that a man had…obligations.

  You paid back what was due. And you stood by family. Yes, well that was why he’d gone back to his father after his uncle had been shot. That, and not knowing quite what else to do.

  He owed that Irishman. And he knew, better than anybody else around, that the desert would kill the man. Following him in the old way, keeping just out of sight, using his ears and his nose to keep Jack placed was easy…Well, he nearly lost him once. There was a perente flushed out of its hole by the rising creek, and he couldn’t turn down food. The big goanna tried to scratch and bite, but Lampy was a match for it. He killed it, tied it onto himself, and set out to follow the Irishman again. He caught up in time to watch Jack cross the line with his bits of stick.

  He was a clever one, even if he knew nothing about the bush.

  Lampy followed for a while longer, trying to decide what he should do and what he should say. If the man didn’t want to go southeast, well that was his lookout. So he cut ahead a little and waited for him. The Irishman was looking tired already, but he had a little smile on his face.

  Jack looked up to see Lampy standing there, watching him.

  “You go die out there, man. It’s not good country for white men,” said the youngster.

  Jack wondered how long he’d been followed and been unaware of it. “My daughter and wife need me. And that lot’ll be caught. The only way I have any chance is to do what they don’t expect. I’ll follow the water as far as possible.”

  “You doin’ clever, Irishman,” acknowledged the boy. “But they got dogs and horses. Got trackers, too, back in the camp. They’ll find you.”

  Jack nodded. “I know. I’m hoping they’ll follow the group and give me a little extra time. I’m hoping to get to the Westralian termite run.”

  Lampy scowled. “Them railways fellers are no good. They’re as bad or worse than the soldiers to us blackfellers.”

  “The more the fool them,” said Jack, tiredly.

  “Yeh. Look, Irishman. You was good to me back there. And you got us loose. You trail alonga me a day or two. I’ll keep you alive. Teach you a few things. You ain’t stupid.”

  “Can we go west?”

  Young Lampy scowled again. “Hard country, that. Can take you west a bit, if you want to go that way. They not going to look west till they finish looking east. Then they find the tracks. Give us a few days maybe. But I ain’t going near them Westralians. They’re a bad lot. Shot me uncle.”

  “I wouldn’t go either if it wasn’t for my wife and my child,” said Jack. If it wasn’t for them, he’d be trying to get back to Ireland.

  “Fambly come first,” agreed Lampy, who was barely more than a boy himself in Jack’s eyes. “I c’n understand that. Let’s move along. We don’ want to be this close when they turn the dogs loose. They’ll smell us anyway, even if they can’t smell our trail.”

  Jack hadn’t thought of that. How far did the smell of human carry on the desert wind?

  He walked faster. Jack had always thought himself a strong walker. But soon he realized that he was a toddler compared to this aboriginal boy, who walked easily barefoot where Jack struggled in his wet sandals. The cloaking rain was slacking off, and already the heat began to bake through it. The land streamed with water, but soon it would be steaming and humid, then hot and dry again. Jack wondered if the search was underway yet. The guards made sure the prisoners saw the big hunting dogs they kept. They didn’t want to encourage escape, but Jack wondered just how effective they could be.

  Well, Lampy obviously thought they were a real danger, and he ought to know.

  For Dr. Mary Calland the turning point had come when she swam into a sort of dizzy consciousness just as the doctor was there on his rounds. In her giddy eye he’d looked…less than pleased to see her looking back at him. “I thought I was to be called if she regained consciousness,” he said to the sister.

  That crisp woman in whites and a mask looked down her nose at him. “I’ve had one of the nurses sitting watching her for the entire time, doctor. This is the first time she’s opened her eyes, or done more than moan. How are you feeling, Mrs. Calland?”

  Mary Calland’s mouth was very dry “’ater, ’ease,” she said.

  The sister lifted her and held a tumbler to her lips with gloved hands, smiling encouragingly. “Just a little, now.”

  Mary sipped. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked, feeling as if the answer should be “everything.”

  “We’re not sure, Mrs. Calland,” said the sister. “Some tropical illness.
We’re keeping you in quarantine, although no other cases have been reported.”

  Mary could remember now. Pills, and feeling worse.

  “Well, obviously the medication is beginning to work,” said the doctor. “See that she continues with them, Sister. Immediately. She’s missed several doses.”

  “Yes, Doctor.” The sister nodded.

  A few minutes later the sister arrived with the tablets. Four instead of the usual two. “The doctor said to double the dose. It’s all we’ve got, but he said he’d bring more in the morning.”

  “What is it?”

  The sister shrugged. “I don’t know. Dr. Foster had them made up for you.”

  Mary took them with a very welcome drink of water, the sister supporting her trembling hand. She knew she shouldn’t drink so much water, but she was so thirsty. And a minute later she paid for it by being sick.

  The sister looked at the result. By the wrinkled eyes above the mask, she pulled a face. “I’ll have to try to reach Dr. Foster.”

  A little later a young doctor showed up, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. “I’m afraid we can’t find Dr. Foster. If you don’t mind, I’d like to examine you.”

  Mary, despite having thrown up, was actually feeling a little better. She put up with the prodding quite well.

  “The rash you had seems to have gone, and while your liver is enlarged and tender, and your pulse is a little fast, you seem to be doing better than the charts indicated. I’m afraid there is no proper entry of what the medication was that Dr. Foster prescribed. I believe the hospital has sent runners to look for him. In the meanwhile, we’ll keep you under observation.”

  Mary was glad enough to rest. But she didn’t sleep. And now that her mind was less cloudy, she was recapturing how she’d got here. Dinner with several officials and scientists…and then, just after the tea tray had been brought in, feeling unwell. Fortunately, one of the Republic’s leading physicians, Dr. Foster, had been there…and then it got murky. She did remember something about quarantine.