The Steam Mole

by Dave Freer

  “No worries, Missy,” he said, laughing. “I been slapped before, but not with as good a reason. How far are we going?”

  “I hope we can find him. It’s just over the ridge.”

  They got up there, and her fellow rider gave a mighty, “Coooeee!” yell into the darkness.

  They got a call back. The copilot came toward them with three horses accompanying him. He clung to the saddle with one hand. “I was coming. My thighs have gone into spasms.”

  The railway-man jumped down and stopped him tumbling out of the saddle. “Here, mate. You’re nearly there.”

  “I reckon I must be,” said the copilot. “Have you blokes got warning off to Sheba yet?”

  “Puffing Billy will be ready by the time we get back I’d guess,” said the railway-man. “Now, I’m going to get up with you mate. You hold onto me.”

  It didn’t seem so far now.

  Lampy felt very exposed, on his own in the railway place. But the third bloke on the scene in the power station said, “Here, take my arm, sir. Let’s get you somewhere to sit down. I’m Sidney Harris, the manager of this station. Um. Could you tell me what’s going on?” They stepped into the first room and Lampy lowered himself into the chair. “Are you all right, sir? Can I get you anything?” the station manager asked.

  “I just got a broken leg,” said Lampy, lifting it onto the desk, not caring that it was some whitefeller’s desk all full of papers and his foot wasn’t clean. It was swollen and sore, and it throbbed. “You got to tell ’em in Sheba, they got a few thousand British Hussars, Dragoons, and Fusiliers on their way. They’re maybe seven-eight mile from the railway.”

  “We’ll send you with the service locomotive, sir. My men will do their best to defend this place, but we have only ten rifles in the store. Um, what was it that the young lady said about the flying wing? Are there any other survivors?”

  “Yeah. They’re with the steam mole. Most of ’em alive, except one bloke. Some injured quite bad. They’re making for the line. We come on ahead to give warning. They’ll go south. What is there south o’ this?”

  “Dajarra, sir. There are quite a lot of men there, they came through last night for the search.”

  There was a clatter of hooves. “Ah! They’re back, I hope,” said Lampy. “I told Jack I’d look after that girl.”

  The station manager smiled despite everything. “After what I saw out there, I don’t think she needs help.”

  “Too right,” said Lampy, thinking about it too. “Go see, man.”

  It was them.

  And five minutes later Lampy had his first Westralian train trip, as Linda did her best to strap up the copilot’s wrist. As the engineer and his fireman pushed the little loco as fast as they could, Lampy had time, finally, to think about being called “sir.” They’d left his rifle with the station. The station manager looked at it a little oddly. “Took it off a British soldier,” said Lampy.

  “I didn’t even know the wi—Westralian Police were out there.”

  He might have wondered why they all laughed at him. But he had a station to defend.

  Men with lights came running out of the station when Clara had the bright idea of sounding the steam whistle, as the steam mole trundled closer.

  There were a lot of them, and some on horseback. “Hello!” called the first one to reach them. “What have we got here?”

  He appeared, in the moonlight, to be a mounted policeman.

  “People from the flying wing!” yelled Lieutenant Ambrose.

  “Hooray! We were coming to look for you! It’s the blokes from the flying wing!”

  Cheers spread.

  “We’ve got half the British Army on our tail!” yelled the lieutenant to the Westralian policeman riding next to them.

  By the time they got to the station, that, too, had spread. They were greeted at the entrance by a Westralian policeman in uniform with pips on his shoulders.

  “Evening, Inspector Johns,” called the lieutenant.

  “Lieutenant Ambrose! I’m glad to see you. I see you found the missing steam mole.” The inspector took a deep breath. “But for heaven’s sake tell me Max Darlington’s daughter is all right, too.”

  “She was last we saw her. She went ahead with the horses, going northwest a couple of hours back. They might be at the next station along by now. She’s got two good men with her, an aboriginal and the copilot.”

  “Right. Well at least she wasn’t killed in the crash,” said the inspector, looking as if that was a huge weight off his shoulders. The rest was something he could deal with. “Now, what was this about the British Army?”

  “We’ve got a convoy of a few thousand Hussars, Lowland Dragoons, and Inniskillen Fusiliers in trucks a few miles to the east,” said the lieutenant.

  “Should be able to see them from the top of the cooling roof,” volunteered Tim.

  “Good lad,” said Captain Malkis. “Take one of the topmast men up there. We need to know where they are. As you can see, Johns, we’ve found our prodigals! But we have some injured men…”

  “There are two doctors here, down from Sheba,” said the inspector. “Sergeant, get the doctors up here on the double!”

  Tim had Gordon with him. The submariner had one of the best records for sighting ships at sea. The two of them raced up the steel ladders into the high roof, leaving the organization to happen below. They were able to climb out onto a platform put there to service the high cooling vents, and to look across the dark desert.

  They could see the lights of the convoy. Only they weren’t quite where Tim had been expecting. They were heading north. The two of them watched the convoy in silence. “If they keep going that direction,” said Gordon, “they’re going to hit the tunnel somewhere between this station and the next. We’ll be cut off.”

  “Might just be avoiding some of that rough country,” said Tim, thoughtfully. “We just drove more or less straight, but the mole will go over things a truck won’t.”

  “Could be. You shimmy down and tell the skipper. He better organize a watch up here.”

  So Tim went.

  Down below things were in a ferment. Some of it involved shouting. Captain Malkis, however, seemed to have assumed overall command just by being himself. Tim ran up, saluted, and reported what they’d seen to him. The captain gave orders and soon Gordon had a second watchman and a set of men to relay messages. Tim found himself coopted for another job. “The steam mole is being refueled with coal. Unfortunately, Mr. Barnabas,” said Inspector Johns, “we didn’t anticipate having it back or needing it. And we deputized the normal driver and his fireman to assist Sergeant Morgan in taking the prisoners back to the lock-up in Sheba. They didn’t come back, as the clanker was used to transport the men and the horses for tomorrow’s search. We’ve got two aboriginal trackers, and the idea is to use the mole to transport the injured away from here, as it will possibly be attacked. We need you to drive the steam mole.”

  “Clara could do it.” Tim thought he was being quite clever. It would get her away.

  “Er. Legally that might be a bit tricky. You’re still an employee of the railroad. She isn’t.”

  Tim looked at the man. This didn’t seem like the time to argue about petty legal points. “I guess you’ll have to forget the law and choose the better driver…sir.”

  “I could send both of you,” said the inspector with just a trace of irritation. “Look, if we manage to brush through all of this—and the flying wings will be here by midmorning—I want that young girl in the minimum of possible trouble.”

  “That’s it! Excuse me, sir. I need to go and speak to the captain.”

  Tim ran and found the captain sitting down. “My back is a bit sore, and I made the mistake of telling someone who asked,” he explained without being asked. “At the moment I am giving orders and arbitrating. The police, miners, railway-men, and Cuttlefish crew don’t take orders from each other very well. The police should be in charge, but it turns out the militia have th
e final authority in war, and the railroad employees are automatically militia members. And the miners don’t like the police anyway. So here we are, facing danger, and they’re bickering instead of organizing their defense. They come to me, and I tell them to listen to Inspector Johns, who is doing a good job. About all that has happened that is effective is the Puffing Billy has been sent to carry warning.”

  Tim didn’t want to tell the captain he had been resisting authority, too. “Sir, I think I’ve worked out what they’re doing, and why.”

  “Ah. Tell me.”

  “Well, sir, you remember Clara’s father said they might want to get inside the tunnels and use them to move? And McLoughlin is a sapper. They plan to blow their way straight into the tunnel. It won’t take much in a lot of places. It only runs half below the surface. The tunnel is a sun shield.”

  “Yes, they could do that, but they could access them from the power stations,” said the captain, thoughtfully.

  “Then they’d waste time, sir. And daylight is not that far off. A flying wing that was armed could shoot their convoy to shreds. The copilot was talking to me about their fighters, with Gatling guns. The British airships use machine guns and bombs, the Westralians use Gatling guns and rockets. Once the convoy is inside the tunnel…they’re safe and invisible. That’s what they plan. And everyone will be defending outside…and they’ll come up inside and underneath.”

  The captain got up. “Lieutenants,” he bellowed.

  Then he turned to Tim. “We can’t fight them above ground. We’ve got twenty-one rifles and fourteen Westralian police with revolvers. But in the tunnels…we can. We have a steam mole. And we have experience.”

  “The Westralian policeman wanted me to take the mole with the injured away into the desert, sir.”

  “Well you can’t,” said Captain Malkis, firmly. “That idea worked best for defense of the indefensible. There is no point in moving people. The British are not coming here. I need it. And you, and probably Miss Calland, and some horses. And someone who knows the lay of the land along the tunnel. We need a deep section. Get me Johns as well. We need to stop his crews from attempting to block the northbound tunnels. We’ll be going that way.”

  Duke Malcolm was in his headquarters listening to the report from General Von Stross. The truck convoy carried a Marconi transmitter and their progress was being relayed. So far the information obtained about the flattest route had largely been accurate. The scouting work, with aboriginal trackers, had been good, it seemed. The strike force would be safely under cover before dawn. Even if, somehow, the Westralians had word of the impending attack…

  The duke heard someone shout, “Atten…shun!” He turned to find his staff coming to attention and clicking their heels and saluting. He rose and bowed respectfully.

  Even he had to do that when the King just…dropped in, with Albert in tow.

  “I asked Field Marshal Viscount Von Belstad to tell me what was happening with this gold mine, Malcolm. He said the whole thing was underway already. You promised to tell me.”

  “I had to set it forward in the early hours of this morning, Your Majesty,” said Duke Malcolm. “And how is your new boat?”

  “Now, Malcolm, don’t distract me,” said the King. “I’ve ordered one of those new hydroplanes. What’s that fellow interrupting us for?” he said, pointing an irritable finger at the speaker on the Marconi transmitter.

  “It’s the radio report from Australia. From the strike force I have aimed at Sheba,” explained the duke. Ernest was capable of ordering the machine’s summary removal to the Tower of London.

  “Ah. Well, how is it going?”

  As if he were deaf, thought Malcolm. “Well, Your Majesty, I believe the sappers have just blown a way down into the tunnel and the engineers are busy making it drivable. The vehicles are all fitted with double-ridged tires and will be able to use the rails as a roadway. They should be able to cover the fifty miles to be inside Sheba an hour after dawn.”

  “But it’s nearly four in the afternoon. Jolly slow effort, Malcolm. My new boat would do that in forty minutes.”

  “It’s five in the morning there, Your Majesty. Now about this hydroplane of yours…”

  Duke Malcolm led the King away from the radio room to a drawing room, where the King could tell him all about it.

  The telephone line to Sheba had been busy with official calls for the last ten minutes or so. Alice and Port Wyndham had been alerted, as had the military command of Westralia. They were a long way from their help, Linda knew. Still, the armed flying wings had been scrambled. Some were possibly flying already. Two armed wings and three search craft had apparently left at about two that morning anyway, after the incident they weren’t sending unarmed flying wings here again. Now, at last, the operator put her through.

  “Hello. Mrs. Leonie Darlington speaking, who is calling?” came the voice from three-quarters of a continent away.

  “It’s me. Linda.”

  “Linda!” the shriek came down the telephone line. “Darling, are you all right? Max! Max! It’s Linda!”

  “I’m fine. Safe in Sheba.” Linda was rather surprised at just how happy her stepmother sounded.

  Then her father’s voice came on the telephone. She wasn’t used to it cracking like that.

  “No, I’m not hurt at all. Father, teaching me to ride was the best thing you ever did for me.”

  “Make that the best thing he ever did for Westralia,” said the copilot.

  The sky to the east was beginning to pale. Tim and Clara would have known that if they’d been above ground. Instead they were digging. Well, the little steam mole was digging. The rock was rather hard for it, and Tim just hoped they had enough time.

  He’d heard the explosions a little earlier, as the Imperial troops blew their way into the tunnels about four miles south. He wondered if they could hear them digging in here, or if they would work out what it meant.

  “The drill sound has changed. I think we must be through into the tunnel,” said Clara. And sure enough the little mole lurched abruptly forward and nosedived into the tunnel, her endless tracks spinning.

  For a horrible moment Clara thought they were stuck. She put the tracks in neutral, then twitched and wriggled each one. They didn’t have time for this…but it had to be done. She cut power to the drill head, and the steam mole gained traction and pushed into the tunnel.

  She heard Tim sigh with relief. They bumped down the tracks into the darkness…only that was definitely lights in the distance, coming toward them.

  “Nearly there,” said Tim. “Yep. There it is.”

  Clara pulled the little scout mole to a halt. The tunnel was dead straight and those were oncoming trucks…at speed. Would the mole have time?

  Thorne, the artificer from the Cuttlefish, was already screwing the sealer into the steam whistle pressure valve. Other men shoveled extra coal into the boiler.

  The lights were coming closer. Something tinged and ricocheted off the ceiling. And then there was a flare of light farther down the tunnel. It was only aero-fuel burning, but Clara just hoped it would hold them. They ran back to the emergency exit and left the dark of the tunnel, climbing up into the grey, cold desert predawn.

  Behind them, down in the tunnel, coal fed at its fastest along the conveyor into the furnace of the little steam mole. It sat jammed across the deepest section of tunnel, where the drillers had cut through rock to keep the grade nice and gradual. Steam pressure built in the mole’s boiler. It would have nowhere else left to go very soon.

  As for Clara, Tim, and the rest, they did have somewhere to go, and very soon, too. The horses were waiting.

  They were three hundred yards off when the horses took fright. The ground shook, dust rose, and a dull boom echoed. Clara clung to her saddle. So did Tim, but he, crazy boy, was laughing. “You never told me this ‘riding’ was such fun.”

  That, Clara was sure, was not what the men underground were having. The Imperial soldiers had cut the c
able. They thought they couldn’t meet an oncoming train…

  They hadn’t thought of one from behind. The tunneling steam mole had been put on the turntable and was coming from Dajarra, steaming toward them, drill head turning, smoke belching, using up the oxygen in the tunnel.

  Captain Malkis had been sure the sappers with the Imperial forces would stop it with explosives before it crushed them and their vehicles. It wasn’t fast, just heavy and solid. And the second steam mole was ready and waiting if they broke through that one.

  Clara was glad she wasn’t facing the mole coming puffing down the tunnel. They probably would stop it. But that would leave them trapped in a deep section of the termite run. There were escape hatches…two of them, which the policemen, miners, and railway-men with the twenty or so rifles they had, and Molotov cocktails, could seal quite effectively. They planned to let them surrender…and come out one-by-one.

  That was the idea, anyway. The only way the few armed Westralians could handle the numbers of Imperial soldiers was to let them out in a trickle. The captain had contingency plans in case it all went wrong. He said battle plans almost always did.

  Clara and Tim had no part in this, however. They were with the desert group, just out from Dajarra, watching for signals.

  “You have more desert experience than the rest of them,” said Captain Malkis firmly when she’d tried to protest. “Leadership goes where it is needed most, not where it wants to, Cadet.”

  It was a kind of compliment, really. From him, it was enough to make her glow with pleasure and not even try to argue.

  Duke Malcolm drank his second glass, and Ernest and Albert were onto their second bottle, and quite merry, with the duke quietly glancing at the clock, when Major Simmer burst in. “Your Grace…sorry to interrupt, Your Majesty…Uh, Your Majesty, I need to speak to His Grace on a matter of utmost urgency.”

  “So. An accounting of Sheba? Those uppity Westralians asking for terms?” said King Ernest, who could absorb alcohol like a sponge. Prince Albert beamed vacantly. He could not, and seldom drank at all.