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Chapter 14 Back Down the Track

 

Back in my room, I lay down with all my clothes on, meaning just to rest — and immediately fell fast asleep. But I was woken up only half an hour later by someone calling for George. The first thing I realized was that the train had stopped, and that set off alarm bells in my mind, since we were not due to stop for another two hours, in Kamloops.

I went out into the corridor and found George's aged assistant - the one who was travelling with Leslie Brown in the horse-car.

'Where's George?' he asked.'

'I don't know,' I said. 'What's the matter?'

'We've got a hot box,' he said, as if that explained everything. He seemed very worried by it, whatever it was.

'What's a hot box?' I asked.

'An overheated axle,' he said. 'But don't worry about the details. Let's just find George. He must radio Kamloops to get them to stop the Canadian. It must be only a few miles behind us, I'd guess.'

'I can use the radio,' I said. 'Come on.'

When we reached George's office, however, I saw that no one could use the radio. There was an empty coffee cup beside it and it was wet: someone had poured George's coffee on it. And the radio phone wouldn't work out here in the middle of nowhere. There was still no sign of George.

'How long will it take for the axle to cool down?' I asked. I was now beginning to get thoroughly alarmed.

Quite a while. It's red-hot at the moment. The engineers are putting snow on it, but it'll take longer to cool it down than the Canadian will take to reach here.'

There must be something we can do. What did you used to do in the old days, before radios were invented?'

'Plant flares.'

'What do you mean?'

'Someone has to walk back along the track and plant flares by the side of the track and light them so that the Canadian will see them and stop . . . I'm too old - you'll have to go.'

He opened a cupboard in George's office and took out three objects which looked like large matches, with sharp ends for sticking into the ground.

'You can light them on a rail or a rock,' he explained. 'They burn bright red, for twenty minutes. You'll have to go at least half a mile back down the track, because the Canadian takes that long to stop once it has started to brake. And then walk back towards us with the third flare.'

'Why?'

'Because if the driver doesn't see the first two, you'll have to throw the third one in through the window of the engine: the window's always open because of the heat.'

I stared at him. 'That sounds impossible.'

'But that's what you've got to do. The train will be going at only about 35 m.p.h.* But don't worry: I'm sure the driver will see the first two flares. Go on now. Hurry.' He suddenly grabbed another flare from the cupboard. 'You'd better take another one, just in case.'

'In case of what?' What eke could there be?

'In case of wild animals.'

I set off east past the end of the train, along the single railway track. One arm held the four flares, while the other hand grasped a torch.



Half a mile. How long was half a mile?

Hurry, George's assistant had said. That was hardly a necessary instruction ... I half walked, half ran along the centre of the track. It had stopped snowing, but it was bitterly cold. My efforts and my fear would keep me warm, I thought — or at least keep me from noticing the cold.

I didn't see the danger in time. It moved fast, but at least I could tell that it was human, not an animal. He must have been hiding behind rocks or trees at the edge of the track. I sensed, rather than saw, a raised arm, a blow coming.

The Brigadier's saying, 'Thought before action', did not apply here: there was less than a second for purely instinctive action. I bent forward at the last moment, so that the blow landed across my shoulders, not on my head.

The pain was terrible. I fell to one knee, dropping the torch and the flares. I knew there was another blow on the way. I turned to face my attacker, so that I was inside and under his descending arm. I pushed myself upwards to crash into his chin with my head, and at the same time raised my knee violently between his legs. One of the many things I had learned during my years of rough travelling throughout the

 

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* Miles per hour, a measure of speed.

world was how to fight dirty -I had never needed the knowledge more than I did now.He cried out in pain and fell to the ground; as he did so I grabbed the heavy piece of wood from his hands and hit him on the head with it. I hoped I had hit him hard enough to knock him out, but not enough to kill him. He lay face down in the snow by the rails. I turned him over with my foot, picked up the torch and saw the thin face of Johnson.

 


Date: 2015-12-24; view: 514


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