by A. S. Hames
Ah, the quiet. It feels more relaxed in here, especially with the better quality seating and the oil lamps already lit. While I’m flexing my legs and trying to get the numbness out of my backside, two women look at me as if I’m trespassing.
VROMMM! Whoa! BANG! The whole world’s turning! BANG! Oww! I’m sliding! What’s happening! Where… where… wh…?
It’s quiet. I’m on the floor. My leg, arm, and side hurt. It’s a little darker now that all the lamps are out and it takes me a moment to realize that the carriage is on its side.
“Can you help me?”
It’s coming from below me. I’m squashing someone. It’s one of the women who looked on me with displeasure.
“I’ll try,” I say.
I move, but, in the half-light, I see she’s pinned into place by a piece of the carriage frame and oh… she’s bleeding bad. I can smell the iron in her blood. I look away. She doesn’t need to see me looking scared. This cannot be my fault. But I think of Henry Crawford’s clerk. I think of him getting a radio message to a bunch of murderous rebels. News of the Representative. A chance to win the war.
No, please, no…
“Is my friend…?” the woman utters. But there’s no energy left to say whatever other words she had lined up. I can actually see her life draining away.
“Your friend’s fine,” I tell her, even though her friend is beside me, smashed up around the middle and stone dead against the broken window that now constitutes the floor.
A shot zings through the carriage roof, which is now a wall.
This is not good.
A second shot pings off a metal hand rail. Either the shooter is a bad shot aiming at something else, or he’s a fair way off.
I need to get out of this tomb so I pull myself up. Feeling my blood run from my head, I lean against a seat. I hear more shots but they’re not into this carriage.
“Soldier? Can you take this?”
Back along the carriage there’s a man with a sturdy box.
“We’re under attack,” I tell him.
“I can’t leave it behind,” he says. “Here, take it from me.”
I ignore him and make my way to the connecting door. It’s jammed. The crash has distorted the frame. I kick the window and kick it again. Damn. The glass won’t break. It almost makes me laugh. The whole place is smashed up except the one bit I need to get through.
As I look for something I can use, there’s the man with his stupid box. I grab it from him and smash it into the glass, cutting my hand into the bargain. I drop the box and kick the rest of the glass out. Now I can climb through into what’s left of the dull, rainy daylight.
“We can’t leave it,” he says. “My money’s in there.”
I guess he’s got a fair bit more than the few cents I have in my pocket, but I concentrate on the door to carriage three. It’s open and I can’t see any dead in there. I go in and find my rifle and pack. Then I exit the way I came in and get myself to the wheel-side of the train, where a fair few have gathered.
“God knows how they found out,” the colonel says.
His words make me feel small and vile. Maybe I should confess and face my punishment. But I can’t because I’m a miserable coward.
BEN
Shots keep coming in. Some of us return fire. I’m just glad our attackers didn’t think of a pincer movement.
“We need to spread out,” the colonel says. “I want three guns up that end, three guns down the other.” He hands his spyglass to Ax. “Go take a look, captain.”
As the soldiers move off, the Representative and three escorts are coming our way. Unbelievably, the Representative is holding a silver tea tray over his head to keep the rain off.
“Colonel, do we know who they are?”
“Not yet, sir. I’m sure they’ll let us know soon enough.”
“Keep firing.”
“Yes sir.”
The engine driver nudges Jay.
“Two of my friends are dead.”
“I’m sorry about that,” she says.
He wipes rain and sweat from his brow in a thoughtful way.
“None of this surprises me,” he says. “The Nation is losing the war. Did you know we’ve lost land all along the—”
Krak!
The gunshot stuns me. The driver’s face doesn’t even register the terrible hole above his nose. He just slumps on the spot, stone dead in the slushy mud. For a second, I’m wondering how the bullet got through all that engine metal, but then I see where the Representative’s gun is pointing.
“He was a spy.” The Representative is happy to stare right into my eyes.
Me? I feel like I’ve taken a leap into an ever-worsening storm of madness and damnation.
“The Nation is strong,” he says. “Just remember that.”
Ax comes running. “Five or six men on horseback! Two to three hundred yards.”
It’s a terrifying prospect. Horse riders are like a magical force. They can position themselves anywhere fast and if they have good rifles you’re as good as dead.
I try to hold down the panic.
“Come on,” the colonel calls to all. “Up to that ridge.”
I look, but it’s surely too far. Shouldn’t we stay and hold them off until it’s dark enough for us to slip away? But the colonel moves off and we have no choice but to follow him.
19. Death in the White Tip Mountains
BEN
Less than a hundred yards away, there’s a rain-lashed steep-sided rocky incline with trees and bushes growing in clumps. The colonel isn’t wrong – if we can get up there, we’d have an advantage.
“Keep moving,” the child-sergeant yells.
Taff unties Von’s leash. He’s giving the wolf a chance to get away. Only Von is staying with us. At least, for now.
Alongside the intermittent firing and the damned rain, I begin to hear the dull, rhythmic thumping of hooves into dirt. This is no place to be. It’s so open and exposed. We’re away from the cover offered by the train and at least five men on horseback are coming across the railroad tracks.
Krak! Krak!
One amongst us goes down.
Krak!
And another.
The riders are getting near. The Representative empties his gun at them, then he throws the weapon at a rider. The man with the strongbox drops his cargo. Instead of leaving it, he stops to pick it up. He is knocked down by one horse, and while still trying to reach his treasure, a second horse plants a hoof through his brain. Ax and the colonel let off several shots apiece making the riders turn back.
I feel myself moving toward panic, but we reach the base of the incline that will take us upward to safety.
The riders try again. More shots come in. A regular soldier falls in front of me. I leap over him. He’s dead. His life has ended and I cannot feel anything apart from relief that I haven’t stumbled on his corpse. What I’d give to hear the trickle of a creek or sweet little birds singing in our valley, but all I hear is rain and hooves and gunfire.
I slip!
But Essie has my arm. He pulls me along and I steady myself.
I’m okay.
“We’re going to make it,” he says, but a bullet passes through his neck and some of his throat sprays out the front.
I howl, I stumble again, I fall, I throw up.
I’m on the ground. Essie is dead beside me.
JAY
Essie! Oh Essie! This is all my fault! But I don’t want to die! I shudder and I damned well pull Ben up and run! And the leading horse is coming around again, alongside me. This is it. This is it! But Von is at the leading horse like a demon and the horse is up on its hind legs, throwing its rider and I’m calling “Von! Von!” and we’re running together but not before I see the fallen rider screaming as his terrified horse tramples him into the earth and most likely breaks all his bones.
I keep moving. Shots are coming in and going out. There’s a noise in my head that fills up all the spaces. Poor Ess
ie. Poor, poor Essie. He was twelve, dammit! This is all my fault. All of it. I’m a goddamn criminal! But I have to keep going because with a little luck we’ll get out of this and my secret will be safe. Unless Henry Crawford’s clerk turns up. I pray to God he doesn’t because I’d have to shoot him dead.
And just when it seems all hope has failed us, we begin to climb a rocky spur. It’s not the best place in the world, not by a million miles, but getting over it will lead us to safety, so we throw ourselves into conquering it.
While we scramble, slip, and inch our way up, a shot pings off the rock just above my head. A tiny fragment goes in my eye. It doesn’t hurt, but I have to blink a lot and my eye is sore and watering. I wish I had time to get the bit out. Even just a single moment. Maybe a moment I could stretch into forever. Or is that a way to describe death?
I don’t want to die.
More shots come in and we send more back. Another rider falls. I return to the climb and blink my eye. The engine driver can’t do that. He can’t blink to remove the foreign object that pierced his skull and killed him. Neither can Essie.
The man alongside me falls. I blink my eye some more. He was another regular soldier, so that’s a big loss. He’s the kind of person you need when you’re being chased by killers.
“Keep going,” someone below me says.
I do keep going. Whatever else in this world would I be doing? We must give the enemy no chance to catch us and reveal that a female soldier matching my description gave them the information.
“Why aren’t you shooting back?” a voice below me says.
It’s the Representative. Before I can ask what he means, he’s pointing to the rifle strapped over my shoulder. “Shoot, you fool! Shoot!”
“I have a faulty weapon,” I say. “It might explode if I fire it.”
“I don’t care! Shoot before we’re all killed!”
I stop climbing. I take my rifle in my hands.
“Shoot!” he says again. “Shoot, shoot!”
I point the muzzle toward the enemy. But what if it explodes? What if it blows my hand off? Or my face?
“Shoot!” he says. “That’s an order!”
I squeeze the trigger.
Nothing.
It’s damn-well jammed.
“You useless fool!” he says.
He climbs up and grabs the rifle off me. He bangs the handle against the rock, aims it and fires. Bits of bullet explode all over. A piece hits me in the shoulder. He gets a lot more though, some of it in his face.
He throws the weapon back at me as if it’s my fault.
“Don’t blame me,” I tell him, letting it fall. “I’m not responsible for the junk I’m given.” I sound like Dub but I mean it, even though I see disgust on the Representative’s bloodied face. He’s blaming me because otherwise he’d have to blame the Nation.
Even so, I do want to stay alive. And I do need a gun. So I start back down the rock face.
“What are you doing!” Dub yells as I pass him.
It’s a good question. I think I’ve gone insane.
Ping! A shot cracks the rock a few yards away. I have to get to the dead regular. His gun will be a good one. If I don’t get killed in the next thirty seconds, it could save my life later.
Ping! Another shot misses.
I realize that I have actually gone crazy. I’ve lost my senses. Oww, the rock digs into my leg. I’m crazy but I keep going and reach the corpse. He’s looking at the sky. Dead, but looking up all the same, as if he’s taking it all in. Maybe he is. Who knows? His weapon is a short kind of rifle with a strap. I take it from his hand.
“Sorry,” I say, although I have no idea why I apologize. Maybe his spirit is looking down at me. Maybe it’s yelling at me, blaming me, swearing at me.
Ping! More bits fly off the rock face.
I strap the weapon over my shoulder and head back up. All the others are at the top now. They’re safe.
Ping!
As I climb, I become tense.
Ping!
In my mind, I hear my attackers’ voices. Look, it’s the idiot girl we’ve heard so much about. Get her! Two points for the torso, three for the head.
My knee is bleeding, my hand is bleeding, my shoulder is bleeding, my eye is sore, but I’m almost there. I must not panic. Panic is like riding an untrained horse. It’s liable to gallop off with you aboard if you’re not careful.
“Come on!” Dub says.
Ping!
And…
Ping!
And…
I’m there! I’m there! With a helping hand from Dub and Ben, I haul myself out of the line of fire. I’m safe. I’m safe!
“Thanks Dub. Thanks Ben.”
They pat me on the uninjured shoulder and take up positions to join those shooting back. I’m relieved. I was scared, but I didn’t lose my mind for too long. I’m pleased about that.
The Representative is staring at me.
“Why aren’t you shooting?” he says.
God, I hate war.
“Shoot, girl. Shoot!”
I make a point of looking around first, to see who’s here. Von with Taff, Dub, Ben, Zu, Tallboy, Ax, Colonel Five-Five, Sergeant Seven-Nine, the child-sergeant, two regulars, the Representative, and two of the film team. We’ve lost too many.
“What are you waiting for!” the Representative says.
Why is he singling me out? I feel like telling him to shut up, but instead I take my new gun and find a good place to use it. I will shoot toward where the trouble is coming from in the hope of making it stay there.
“Okay,” the colonel says, “cease firing.”
Everyone stops before I can fire a shot.
“What is it, colonel?” the Representative says.
“It’ll be dark soon,” the colonel replies. He’s right about that. There’s almost no daylight left at all. “We’ll move off in the last few minutes of light. They won’t be able to catch us.”
“Moving in the dark could be dangerous,” Ben says.
“Yeah, they wouldn’t have to kill us,” Dub says. “We’d do it ourselves by breaking our necks.”
“You’ll probably get eaten by wildcats,” a regular soldier says, “but if the colonel says you go, then you go.”
“Couldn’t we try talking to them?” Taff says. “See who they are and what they want?”
“We know what they want,” the film woman says.
I’m guessing some of the others don’t know at all, apart from the fact they want to kill us.
“They could have derailed us in a far more deadly place,” Ax says. “Or they could have stood outside the wreck and shot the place up.”
That makes sense. The rebels chose to stop us, not kill us. They want the Representative alive.
“If they think like me,” the film woman says, “they’ll want to take the Representative so they can film him. I think I know what they’d want you to admit to, sir.”
She’s looking directly at him.
“I can’t see how they know I’m here,” he says. “This was all a last-minute change of plan. Only a handful of people knew.”
The Representative looks at the colonel with obvious suspicion.
“There are spies everywhere,” Ax says.
“Get ready to move,” the colonel says.
But there’s a sound from below. The way we came up. The scuff of a shoe on rock.
“Get ready,” the colonel whispers. He summons the sergeant and they discuss something out of my earshot.
I look to Dub and he’s looking mean, like a real soldier. He’s ready with his gun in a way that I can’t match. I tell myself it’s because he’s been a worker all his life, but I doubt I’d look that mean if I worked for fifty years. I wish I could be back at school.
I make a decision. Once we’re out of danger, I’m going home. I’m going to find Ma in the forest over the river and we’ll try our luck on the coast using fake ID cards.
Ben squats alongside me.
“Are you okay?” he whispers.
I’m not okay. I’m too shaken up to get a sense of anyone and I’m too confused to know the right thing to do.
“I’m okay,” I whisper back. “We’ll all be okay soon enough.”
God, I hate lying.
“Do you think so?”
The worry on his face makes him look young, so I try, try, try to calm myself.
“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “We’ll get through this. We’re all going to get back home, get jobs, marry…”
“I’ve already gotten married,” he whispers.
Well, really. If that’s his idea of a joke.
“The Nation age for marrying is eighteen, Ben.”
“I’m from the valleys. Some of us get married off at fourteen.”
Fourteen? I don’t know about being ready for war, I sometimes wonder if I’m ready for life.
“Is that how old you are? Fourteen?”
“No, I’m seventeen – although I feel about ten right now.”
“Let’s move,” the colonel says in a low voice.
I briefly wonder about the enemy on the rock below, but I’m glad to be moving in the opposite direction, toward a craggy domain that offers both safety and death. I note that Sergeant Seven-Nine has remained behind.
Didn’t someone, somewhere, mention the White Tip Mountains? Is that where we are now? It doesn’t sound like a place anyone should die.
Krak!
A gunshot. Either the sergeant has killed the spy, or it’s gone the other way. In near-dark, I just concentrate on finding my way over treacherous terrain, silently, inch by inch, in confusion, alongside the other train-wreck survivors.
20. Bodyguards
BEN
Eight hours into our blind flight it finally stops raining. I’m soaked through and I’ve slipped and stumbled fifty times along the way, but I haven’t been shot, so it’s nothing to complain about.
