The Return of the Railway Children

by Lou Kuenzler

  Greta held her beloved elephant, of course.

  “Phew!” she said, when they saw the pale sunshine outside at last. “Mr Churchill did not like that one bit!”

  As they reached the end of the tunnel, Edie blew out the lantern.

  Karl tugged at Gus’s sleeve and asked him something. Edie could hear pleading in his voice.

  “He wants to go into the fresh air,” Gus explained. “Out in the light.”

  “Of course he does,” said Edie, thinking how terrible it must have been to be crouched in the dark for so long. “We could hide him behind that big tree there. Just while he eats his food.” She pointed to a broad old oak. He would be hidden by the high bank on one side and the tree on the other. “Nobody could see him from the fields or from the train track either.”

  “All right,” said Gus. “Just while we decide what to do next.”

  “We can always throw a picnic blanket over his head if anyone comes,” laughed Edie, trying to sound more relaxed than she felt. She poked her nose out of the end of the tunnel and looked quickly in both directions. “Come on.”

  She darted out into the sunlight, picked up the basket of food they had left on the side of the bank, and scurried behind the tree.

  The others followed. Karl winced and shielded his eyes from the sudden bright light.

  “Here, drink this,” she said, digging into the basket when he had sat down in the shade of the tree. She handed him the old ginger beer bottle filled with water that she had packed this morning. “I hope it hasn’t gone too warm in the sun.” But from the way Karl gulped the water down, it seemed it could have come fresh from the mountain streams of the Alps.

  Then he ate all the boiled eggs and most of the cake too, cramming it into his mouth with shaking hands.

  “I thought we were supposed to share,” said Greta.

  Edie’s own tummy was rumbling but she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She handed Greta a piece of bread. “Have this.” She just hoped that cake and eggs weren’t going to be too rich for Karl. Aunt Roberta hadn’t allowed her anything like that when she was ill. He’d probably have been better with a little beef tea after having eaten nothing at all for so long.

  “What are we going to do now?” she whispered, edging down the bank a little with Gus as Karl lay on his back and sighed contentedly. Greta was making daisy chains for him.

  “We can’t hide him any longer,” said Gus. “We have to hand him over to the Home Guard. It’s what we should have done in the first place. Colonel Crowther will do the right thing.”

  “But the colonel’s not here,” said Edie. She remembered what Mr Hodges had said when he delivered the scraps from the pig club this morning. “He’s gone to London.”

  “That means the Snigsons will be in charge… ” said Gus. He glanced over his shoulder, whispering even lower. “And you know what they’ll do to Karl if we hand him over to them.” He made a swift cutting motion with an imaginary knife at his throat.

  Edie shuddered. “It’s not just what they’ll do to Karl; it’s what they’ll do to you,” she hissed. “Imagine if they find out you’re German and you let an enemy airman escape.”

  “Even Greta wouldn’t be safe,” said Gus. “Perhaps we should tell Aunt Roberta and Uncle Peter.”

  “No,” said Edie firmly. She was surprised how strongly she felt certain that they shouldn’t, although a big part of her had a suspicion it would be the sensible thing to do. “We shouldn’t get them involved unless we absolutely have to. Not yet. People might think they were in on it somehow. They might say Uncle Peter was a spy too. He does speak German… ” She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone questioning him – shouting and raising their voices or trying to lock him away. He couldn’t even be in the stable workshop without the door wide open. “At the very least he would lose his job with the government.”

  “You’re right.” Gus nodded. “We’ll have to hide Karl. But where? He can’t go back into the tunnel. Not now the trains are running.”

  Edie thought for a moment. “How about HQ?” she said. “It would be perfect.” They could sneak Karl along the edge of the railway line and make him a bed hidden under one of the old tables in the dining car. Edie was sure it would be safe. Nobody except their little gang ever went there and it was certainly better than the tunnel. “It won’t be for long. All we’ll need to do then is keep him fed and watered until Colonel Crowther gets back,” she added.

  “It might just work,” agreed Gus and he began to explain the plan in German to Karl.

  “Tell him the colonel is an honourable man,” prompted Edie as the young airman’s face looked worried. “Say he’ll treat Karl fairly under the proper code for prisoners of war, or whatever it is called.”

  Gus translated what she had said and Karl gave a solemn nod.

  “Good,” said Edie. “Then that’s agreed.” She was certain Karl was too weak and try to run away from the old railway carriage. He just wanted to be safe and cared-for now, waiting to go home again when the war was over.

  “Come on then.” She packed away the remains of the picnic. “Let’s get going.” She glanced anxiously along the tracks.

  All they had to do was get the airman safely hidden in HQ before anyone saw them.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Lie of the Land

  “Ey up. Where’ve you been?”

  Perky was waiting for them on the lane above Three Chimneys.

  “Nowhere,” said Edie and Gus together.

  “Nowhere at all,” said Greta, twisting her hair round her fingers. Edie could feel herself going red. The plan to hide Karl had gone smoothly, but they had agreed not to tell Perky anything about the airman unless they absolutely had to. Edie wasn’t sure he would keep it secret if he found out. He might insist they do their patriotic duty and hand the prisoner over right away, even if that did mean leaving him at the mercy of the Snigson brothers. On the other hand, if Perky did decide to help, he would lose his job at the post office, for sure. Anyone accused of harbouring an enemy airman would never be allowed to deliver telegrams again. His aunty Patsy might even lose her position too. The only problem was going to be keeping Perky away from HQ for the next few days; they’d just have to think of something else to do if he suggested visiting the railway carriage. For now, he was looking at them very strangely with his head on one side.

  “Funny… ” he said, scratching his chin. “If you’ve been up to nowt, how come you all look so guilty?”

  “Guilty?” Gus’s ears were burning bright red. Greta was jiggling up and down as if she needed a wee. Edie gave her a hard stare. She wasn’t sure the little girl was going to be able to keep their secret for more than two minutes. Gus had wanted to threaten Mr Churchill and the Twiglets with all sorts of terrible things if she said a word, but Edie hadn’t been convinced that would do any good. Instead, she made Greta promise not to mention Karl by name or say the words “German airman” out loud. If she wanted to talk about him at all, she had to pretend she was discussing a fox…

  “We just went on a picnic, that’s all,” said Edie, showing Perky the empty basket. “We felt a bit guilty because you were stuck at work.”

  “How the other half live, eh.” Perky sighed but he seemed satisfied with their answer at last.

  “We definitely didn’t see a fox, did we, Mr Churchill?” Greta blurted out and then started giggling uncontrollably.

  “What’s this about a fox?” said Perky.

  “Just ignore her,” said Gus.

  “The truth is,” said Edie, thinking quickly, “we didn’t want to tell you we’d gone on the picnic, because … well, because we were going to save you a slice of birthday cake and in the end we ate it all.”

  “You scoffed the lot!” Now Perky really was indignant. He chased them back across the meadow roaring like a wild bear. “You ate my cake!”

  Greta squealed with laughter. “We didn’t eat it,” she whooped. “It was the fox!”

  Gu
s and Edie exchanged glances as they ran. Perhaps Gus was right – it would have been safer just to threaten the Twiglets if Greta betrayed Karl, rather than dreaming up the whole charade of the fox.

  “So,” said Perky, when they had stopped running at last and were lying on their backs in the long grass at the bottom of the meadow. “Shall we go to HQ tomorrow morning? We haven’t spied on those sneaky Snigsons for a while.”

  “Er… No,” said Gus. “Not in the morning. I think I’ve got to do … er … Latin.”

  “How about this afternoon then?” asked Perky. “I’ll ask Aunty Patsy if I can swap shifts.”

  “Erm… I might have history then,” said Gus weakly.

  “Really?” Perky looked amazed. “I thought you lucky beggars hardly ever did any lessons. Now it’s starting to sound like real school.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Edie quickly. “I’ve got a much better idea than going to HQ. You know how you said there was an old signal box down the line in the other direction, Perky? Well, I’d love to see it.”

  “You would?” Perky raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said it sounded like a lot of dusty old levers and that the dining carriage was much a more exciting place to be.”

  “Did I?” Edie shrugged. “I don’t remember.” Although she knew perfectly well that is exactly what she had said. “I’m much more mature now. I’ve had a birthday, you know… Being so grown up, I’ve become interested in … well, in signal boxes and things. I want to know how the railways work. It’s all very well, waving to the Green Dragon and picking daisies on the bank, but it’s the nuts and bolts and… ”

  “Levers?” prompted Gus.

  “Exactly!” said Edie. “It’s the nuts and bolts and levers, I should really know about.” She wondered if she’d overdone it a bit.

  But Perky nodded. “Fair dos. I’ll meet you at the station tomorrow and we’ll head on down to the signal box. Say two o’clock?”

  “Two o’clock it is,” said Edie.

  That gave them the whole morning to see to Karl.

  They woke next day to beautiful sunshine.

  “Like spring has finally kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes,” as Uncle Peter said. It seemed he was having one of his good days, and the sun had lifted his spirits.

  Aunt Roberta had already left for work. It didn’t take much to persuade Uncle Peter to let them skip lessons once more.

  “Why not? Make the most of these sunny skies,” he said. “Perhaps we should admit defeat and say it is officially the summer holidays anyway. September will be here soon enough, and you’ll be at the mercy of those Maidbridge school teachers … a far stricter bunch than I will ever be.”

  “Thank you, Uncle Peter. You are a darling.” Edie kissed his cheek, wishing she didn’t feel quite so guilty about the bottle of his favourite pale ale she had sneaked out of the larder or the extra chunk of precious goat’s cheese and the slice of ham hidden in the bottom of the picnic basket. She just hoped he wouldn’t notice anything until tomorrow. By then, Colonel Crowther would be home and she could hand Karl over. She had decided it would be far better if she did that part alone. She was going to do everything she could to keep Gus and Greta out of it.

  “I lay awake thinking all night,” she explained to them both, as they hurried along the edge of the tracks towards the old dining carriage. “If I say I found Karl by myself, and I report that to Colonel Crowther, nobody will think too much of it. I’m just a girl who stumbled across a hidden airman. If either of you get involved, they might discover your father is German. They’ll accuse you of hiding an enemy. They’ll say you are spies – especially you, Gus, because you’re older.”

  “I don’t want to talk to Colonel Crowther anyway,” said Greta. “He’s scary.”

  “No he’s not,” scoffed Gus. “But Edie might be right.” He looked over at her. “I just don’t want you to get into trouble all by yourself.”

  “I won’t get in to trouble,” she said. “All I’m going to do is tell Karl to wait by the railway line tomorrow morning. I’ll make sure it is around the same time Colonel Crowther will be driving up to Three Chimneys with the pig scraps. Then I’ll dash out on to the lane, screaming and waving my arms and saying I’ve seen a German.”

  “It’s not a bad plan. You’ll probably end up being a hero all over again,” said Gus.

  “Oh, I hope not!” said Edie. “I’ll slip away as soon as I see that Karl is safely in the care of Colonel Crowther. I don’t want any more fuss.”

  There had been talk of them getting some sort of medal for saving the train. It made Edie feel guilty because she knew there’d be all sorts of talk about how marvellous and patriotic and British they had been and, of course, that wasn’t true at all. The day they’d saved the train was the same day they’d first let Karl escape. It was also the day that he had saved her life, and the lives of all those people on the train.

  “If anyone’s a hero, it’s Karl,” she said out loud. “He could just have run away from that crash site and we would never even have known he was there. We owe it to him now to keep him safe.”

  “I agree,” said Gus. They had reached the old dining car and Greta scampered across the log drawbridge to the door.

  “Knock, knock! It is Snow White,” she said, in the coded greeting the older two had reluctantly let her invent.

  “And I am Doopey,” came a sleepy voice, in a strong German accent, from inside.

  “Not Doopey, Dopey, silly!” said Greta, flinging open the door.

  It looked as if Karl had only just woken up. He stretched and raised his head, banging it on the table above him.

  “Ow!” He let out a howl and the same German swear word he had used the day before. He blushed bright red and began to apologize. “Es tut mir so leid… ”

  “We have breakfast for you.” Edie crouched down as he crawled out from under the table. She had brought along a tablecloth and a real china plate. She laid out the ham and cheese with a little bread. She had always known it would be fun to play house in the dining carriage. “And beer too,” she said, producing a pint glass and waving the precious bottle of Uncle Peter’s pale ale under his nose.

  “Wunderbar!”

  She had expected Karl to be rather stern and serious. She thought all Germans were a little serious. But he had big twinkly eyes and a wide toothy smile. If anything, he looked a little goofy – like the funny blond paperboy they’d had in London, who lost his job for posting a frog through snooty Mrs Hampton’s letter box.

  Edie smiled as he wolfed down the breakfast. Then Greta led him to the table and demanded that he draw her some pictures.

  “Excuse me! Did I say you could borrow those, Greta?” Edie saw the little girl had brought along her new birthday pencils without even asking.

  “Oops!” Greta just giggled. “Karl is going to draw me a fox,” she explained. “And I don’t have an orange crayon – only a sort-of-funny brown one which is too thick and a bit broken.”

  Edie raised her eyebrows. There was no point in arguing. She supposed this is what having a real little sister would be like and the thought made her smile.

  Karl drew Greta a picture of a mother fox with four cubs all tumbling over each other at the edge of a wood.

  “It’s wonderful,” said Edie. She could almost sense their whiskers twitching.

  “He says the picture is like the forest where he lives,” Gus explained, translating for Edie. “He has two brothers and a little sister called Brigitte. I think they are supposed to be the cubs.”

  “He must miss them a lot,” said Edie. “Ask him how old they are.”

  But Gus was much more interested in quizzing Karl about the Junkers 88. He had brought along his book of aeroplanes and before long they both had their heads bent over it, chattering away in German.

  Greta wanted to play a game where she and Edie had to be foxes. “You can be Mama Fox and I’m the baby,” she said. “Pretend this railway carriage is our burrow… ”
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br />   “All right!” Edie loved make-believe and imagining. She knew lots of girls her age would say they were too old for such silly games, but she was delighted to have an excuse to play. “If only we had a nice plump duck for our dinner,” she said, wrinkling her nose as if she had her very own set of splendid whiskers. She agreed with Greta, the railway carriage made a perfect foxes’ den.

  About half an hour later, Edie – or Mama Fox, as she was being – looked out of the window to check that there weren’t any huntsmen riding by.

  “Oh, no!” she gasped. A shock of horror ran through her. “It’s the Snigsons.” She caught a glimpse of the tall, thin figures of Donny and Len beyond the line of trees outside the carriage.

  “Dear me,” said Greta, in her Baby Fox voice. “I stole three chickens from their farm yesterday.”

  “No,” said Edie, grabbing the little girl and pulling her to the floor. “I’m serious. It really is the Snigsons. Look!” She ducked under the windowsill and Gus came and crouched beside her. They lifted their heads a little and peered out.

  The Snigsons were walking up and down the edge of the field, just a few yards away from the siding where the carriage was parked.

  “What are they doing?” hissed Gus. The brothers seemed to be pacing about, just like they had done at the edge of the railway track before.

  “Perhaps they’re still looking for whatever it is they lost,” said Edie, her heart thundering.

  “Sie messen etwas,” said Karl, peeping out of the other window beside them.

  “What’s he saying?” asked Edie.

  “He thinks they are measuring,” Gus explained hurriedly. “And he’s right. Papa told me – it’s what engineers do before they build a new road or a bridge or something. They have to pace it out to see the lie of the land.”

  “Why would the Snigsons want to build a bridge?” asked Edie.

  “I don’t know,” said Gus. “But whatever they’re up to, they’re noting it all down.” Len was scribbling something in a big book.

  “How odd.” Edie watched as he stuffed the notes into his big signalman’s satchel, which was already bulging with other papers. “And what’s that?” she whispered as Donny stooped to pick up what looked like a long leather cylinder from the ground.