Bloody Passage (v5) (15 page)

There was a certain amount of confusion which was understandable enough when one considers that we must have looked at first sight like a group of their own comrades. And then Husseini dodged out of the shadows, yelling in Arabic and the fat was in the fire.

The nearest one to us loosed off a burst of his assault rifle on full automatic, firing from the hip a yard wide of us to the right, the bullets ricocheting from the cobbles. Hampered by Wyatt, who was leaning heavily on me, there wasn't a great deal I could do in return, but someone fired three or four shots from behind me that lifted the soldier right off his feet, slamming him back against one of the trucks.

His comrades retreated, firing wildly, and Langley and Nino both replied with long bursts that drove them back into the shelter of the parked trucks. Which left us still completely exposed. The sentry above the gate fired twice and far too close for comfort so I drew the Stechkin machine pistol I carried on my right hip from its wooden holster. As I'd set it on full automatic he got about fifteen rounds in reply for one pull of the trigger and fell off the wall into the entrance to the gateway tunnel.

Barzini grabbed Wyatt's other arm and we ran for the train, dragging him between us, Simone at our heels. We dropped him in the shelter of the first boxcar and Langley and Nino joined us, both firing short bursts from the hip to cover our retreat.

I crouched beside the track and peered through one of the wheels. It was a mess, no doubt about that. Soldiers appearing as if by magic from all over the place, some of them only half dressed, but all with rifles in their hands.

Bullets thudded into the boxcar and ricocheted from the wheels. Langley appeared beside me, grinning like a fiend. "Not so good, old stick. The best laid schemes, eh?"

A bullet clipped the woodwork just above his head, a splinter slicing his cheek like a razor. He put his fingers to it and looked at the blood and stopped smiling just like that.

"Bastards!" he said. "Bloody wog bastards! I'll give them something to think about."

He pulled one of the Sturma stick grenades from his belt, yanked the pin and lobbed it over the top of the boxcar towards the gate area. It landed on one of the trucks and fell between two of them. Someone cried out in alarm and several soldiers ran into the open. Langley jumped out of cover himself, laughing insanely and cut three of them down, firing from the hip.

A second later the grenade exploded, blowing one truck onto its side and then, like an instantaneous echo, its petrol tank went up, scattering chunks of metal, wood and burning debris far across the courtyard.

It was a scene from hell, flames everywhere, soldiers searching helplessly for cover, Langley and Nino firing steadily. A half naked woman staggered across the courtyard, screaming, and fell over a body. Husseini ran out of the shelter of the gateway to get her, firing a submachine gun with one hand. I could have shot him, but held my fire. He was a brave man, whatever else he was.

A bullet tugged at my left shoulder and then a whole stream ripped into the boxcar above our heads. When I turned, Masmoudi was in the gateway of the house firing an AK at us and two men beside him were setting up a light machine gun on its tripod.

Barzini pulled at my sleeve. "We stay here, we're finished. Better inside."

We got Wyatt on his feet again, dazed and uncomprehending, and ran alongside the train into the engine shed. Simone and Nino were right behind us, but Langley was taking his own sweet time, firing madly. It was only when the light machine gun opened up that he turned and ran for it.

I eased Wyatt down against the wall beside the locomotive. It was warm up there. There was a smell of hot iron and steam. I turned to Simone. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "What are we going to do, Oliver?"

"God knows." I looked around me. The shed was partially illuminated by the flickering light from the burning tracks. "This certainly looks like a dead enough end."

Langley was crouched at the entrance, peering outside. For a moment there seemed a lull in the firing. I said, "What's going on out there?"

"I think he's grouping his forces, old stick. Better get ready for some sort of frontal assault."

Nino called, "Look what I found. A machine gun."

It was mounted on the roof of the boxcar immediately behind the engine tender. Like the rest of their hardware it was Russian, an RPD using hundred-round dram magazines. There were about eight of those in the ammunition box beside it. Which was something because the way things were shaping up we'd need all the help we could get.

I jumped down and joined Langley at the entrance. Over by the tracks a line of men were trying to do something about the fire, passing buckets of water from hand to hand. Masmoudi had thirty or forty men beside the villa wall and he and Husseini had their heads together.

"What do you think?" Langley said.

I didn't get a chance to reply because there was a sudden sharp cry behind me and Barzini called, "Heh, Oliver, look at this."

He had climbed up into the cab of the locomotive and now appeared holding a tiny wizened little Arab in greasy khaki turban and bush shirt.

"He was hiding up here."

The little Arab said, "No, effendi, please. I meant no harm. I am the engine driver. Talif."

"You speak good English," I said.

"Damn good English, effendi. I work for British army during the war. I served with General Montgomery."

Somehow he made it sound personal. I said, "What were you doing up there?"

"Sleeping, effendi. It's warm next to the fire box and then the shooting started ... I was afraid."

I said, "There's a fire going in this thing?"

"But of course, effendi. We leave at seven in the morning on the Tripoli run and without steam ..."

Langley, who had been listening from the entrance, said, "Do you mean you've got a head of steam on?" He kicked a wheel. "Will she go?"

"You mean now, effendi?" Talif shrugged. "Not at full power, you understand. For that the fire would need stoking."

"How fast?" I demanded impatiently.

"Fifteen, maybe twenty miles an hour."

Barzini said, "You think this could be our way out, Oliver?"

"It's got to be. The only question is can the damn thing move fast enough to take that gate with it."

"There's only one way to find out." He turned to Nino. "Heh, boy, you get in that cab and start shoveling coal. I want to hear that fire roar."

Nino did as he was told and Talif said timidly, plucking at my sleeve, "You are taking the train, effendi?"

"No, you are," I said. "We're just coming along for the ride."

"Please--effendi." He looked scared to death. "On my mother's grave, I beg you. Colonel Masmoudi will hang me up by my ears if I should do such a thing."

"And if you don't," Barzini told him, cheerfully, "I'll hang you up by something else. Now climb in that cab and get things started."

Talif turned away, shoulders hunched and scrambled up onto the footplate. I reached down and pulled Wyatt to his feet. He swayed, leaning against me, looking really ill.

"When do I wake up?" he said wearily. "Or don't you ever feel like that?"

"Only on Monday through Friday," I said and heaved back the sliding door of the boxcar with the machine gun on the top. "Just get in there and keep your head down." I gave him a push up and said to Simone, "You stay with him. All right?"

"He's in a bad way," she said.

"Aren't we all?"

"Now there speaks the hard-nosed bastard I've come to know and love," she said, and climbed up into the boxcar.

Langley was back at the entrance and now he called, "Better come quick, old stick. This looks interesting."

Masmoudi was half-way across the square waving a white handkerchief. Barzini said, "What do you think, Oliver?"

"I think you make ready to get out of here while I talk with our friend," I said and I shouldered my assault rifle and stepped into the open.

I went only a few yards in his direction then paused to light a cigarette, making him come the rest of the way. He smiled. "I like that. Nice and casual. Not a care in the world. Good psychology."

"You seem to know your business yourself," I said, more to keep the conversation going than anything else.

"I went to Sandhurst," he said simply.

Which was enough to take the wind out of anyone's sails. We stood facing each other against the backdrop of burning trucks looking, I suspect, faintly ridiculous. The assault group, under Husseini, crouched in the shelter of the wall. It had stopped raining and the sky was clearing fast.

I said, "What do you want?"

"I should have thought that was obvious. You are finished, you and your friends. You have failed. Why waste more lives? Better to give up now."

"And end like Wyatt? No, thanks."

"You are being very foolish," he said. "You cannot hope to last for long if I mount a general assault. At least let the girl leave."

"All right," I said. "I'll see what she says. Wait here."

I went back inside the engine shed. Nino was shoveling away for dear life and the smell of steam was heavy and pungent on the night air.

"What does he want?" Barzini demanded.

"Total surrender. Are we ready to go?"

He turned to Talif. "Well?"

Talif shrugged fatalistically. "As Allah wills, effendi. If you wish it, we go now, but as I warned you, we will be short of full power."

"Right, make ready and when I say go, you'd better get us out of here just as fast as you can because if we don't break that gate down at the first try, you're going to be just as much in trouble as the rest of us." I turned to the others. "I want one of you on top with that machine gun and really pour it on as we go across the square. Keep their heads down because that's going to be the crucial bit."

"Leave it to me, old stick." Langley climbed the ladder to the roof of the boxcar.

I nodded to Barzini who scrambled up onto the footplate. "All right, Aldo. When I say go, go."

I went out into the courtyard again where Masmoudi waited patiently. I said, "Sorry, she says she liked the champagne, but not the company."

"What a pity. On her own head be it then."

He turned and started to walk away and I hurried back inside the engine shed. "Okay, let's go, let's go!" I cried and I scrambled up into the boxcar beside Simone and Wyatt.

There was a hissing of steam, it billowed around the wheels as they started to turn, the clanging echoing between the brick walls. There was another great rush of steam, the wheels spun and then, quite suddenly, we coasted out into the open.

Masmoudi was only half way back to his men. He turned with a startled cry and raised an arm, calling on them, I suppose, to fire. He was in the way, which didn't help, but by then Langley was firing the machine gun, working it from side to side, knocking down several of the assault group and throwing the rest into complete confusion.

We were moving faster now, gliding across the square at perhaps ten miles an hour. Bullets started to fly when we were halfway across. I fired back from the entrance to the boxcar and behind me, Barzini and Nino were shooting from the footplate.

And then the first cars were inside the tunnel and I shouted to Simone. "Hang on tight, this could be rough."

There was a great splintering crash, the boxcar rocked from side to side. For the briefest of moments we seemed to stand still and then nudged inexorably onwards, the great double gates falling to each side, torn from their hinges.

We moved on, wheels rattling over the points to a chorus of angry shouts and a great deal of shooting, none of which did any good at all, for a moment later we really started to pick up speed and were away.

12
Night Run

T
he sky had cleared considerably by now and the moon was very bright, stars strung away to the horizon. Barzini leaned out of the cab and called, "Heh, we showed them, didn't we, Oliver?"

"I'm coming over." I turned to Simone. "How are you doing?"

"Fine. I'm not too sure about Wyatt. He seems very weak to me. They must have given him a terrible time in there."

He lay back, his head on her lap, eyes closed. I said, "All right, do what you can. I'll be back."

I left the assault rifle beside her and worked my way along the side of the boxcar, hanging on to the bars until I reached the tender. From there it was an easy matter to make it to the footplate.

The fire was roaring. Nino shoveling away, covered in sweat, but we were still doing no more than fifteen miles an hour. I said to Talif, "How close do we go to Gela?"

"Half a mile, effendi. No more. There is a tunnel there. Maybe a fifteen-mile run from here."

"Fifteen miles?" Barzini said. "You must be crazy. It's not half that."

"As the crow flies, effendi, but the line loops inland for some distance. It was the easiest way to lay track when the Italians built it."

"So it gets us there what does it matter?" Nino said. "Half an hour ago we were dead men." He laughed out loud and tossed a piece of coal out into the night. "Do you suppose Lazarus felt like this?"

"Don't look now," Barzini said, "but I think someone just threw another spadeful of earth on the lid of your coffin."

I turned to look where he pointed. At that place a road ran parallel to the track perhaps fifty yards away. Three Landrovers followed each other in echelon, each with a light machine gun mounted on a tripod. Masmoudi was in the front one with Husseini and three soldiers, clear in the moonlight.

The machine guns in the two rear Landrovers opened up. As Langley replied, Masmoudi's Landrover picked up speed and forged ahead, disappearing into the night at sixty or seventy miles an hour.

The two remaining Landrovers kept on firing and Langley replied with the RPD. They were scoring hits only occasionally for the road kept swinging away because of the terrain. After a few minutes we ran into an area of low hills studded with olive groves and lost them altogether.

"Do we meet the road again?" I asked Talif.

"Five or six miles from here, effendi."

"And how long does it stay with us?"

"A mile or two--no more. We come together again about five miles after that close to the Gela tunnel. The road stays with the railway then, except for the section through the cut as far as the river crossing. That's two miles further on."

I said to Barzini, "I'd better warn Langley," and I scrambled up over the tender to the top of the boxcar.

He was reloading as I joined him. "How's it going, old stick?"

I filled him in on the situation ahead. He seemed completely unconcerned and lit a cigarette. "Lovely night for it."

Crazy it may sound, but he was right. The sky was clear and bright, stars everywhere and the moon seemed bigger than I'd ever known it before, bathing the countryside in its hard, white light. The hills were like silhouettes cut out of black paper, the valleys and defiles between them very dark. We were picking up speed now and I left him and worked my way back over the tender to the cab.

I said, "So far so good. Things might warm up in another five or ten minutes, but the crunch is going to come when we reach the Gela tunnel."

Barzini stuck one of his Egyptian cheroots between his teeth. "If we simply stop the train and get off they'll see us. We won't last long on foot. Half a mile to the beach. They're certain to run us down."

"I'd been thinking about that one myself," I said. "Let's say the train stopped in the tunnel, time enough to get off, no more than that. If it came out at the other end with someone working the machine gun, they'd continue to follow. All the time in the world then to get Wyatt down to the beach."

"Heh," Nino said. "That makes a hell of a lot of sense to me."

"Except for the guy on the machine gun." Barzini prodded me in the shoulder angrily. "Naturally you see yourself in that heroic position. What's wrong with you? You got a death wish or something?"

"Not particularly," I said. "It's simple enough. I stay with the train for another couple of miles, probably until the river crossing, then jump for it. If I do it right, they'll still follow the train. I'll be in Gela inside the hour."

"And if you're not?"

"You put to sea. You carry on with the job. You get Wyatt back and exchange him for Hannah. Then you see she gets back to London safely, that's all I ask."

"On your own you don't stand a chance," Barzini said. "If you stay, I stay."

"Now who's talking like a crazy man? You've seen the state Wyatt's in. He wouldn't make fifty yards on his own. Getting him half a mile over rough country to that beach is going to take all of you."

"He's right," Nino said. "Face facts, Uncle Aldo."

Barzini knew it, but didn't like it. He turned away, stamping his feet angrily. I said to Nino, "Tell Langley and Simone. Make sure they know exactly what we're doing. When the time comes everybody's going to have to move fast."

He slung his rifle over his shoulder and worked his way along the bars to the entrance to the boxcar. Barzini jerked a thumb at Talif. "What about him? How can you guarantee he'll keep this thing rolling with no one to watch him?" He brightened suddenly. "On the other hand, it's the rails that take it where it's going. You only need the driver to turn it on and off."

The look of dismay on Talif's face was something to see, for I suppose he imagined a bullet in the head might be next on the agenda. "Effendi--please. I give my word. I swear on my mother's grave."

"No need," I said. "I prefer a business arrangement. Much more sensible."

In the past, I had always carried a little mad money with me on such assignments, just in case anything went drastically wrong and I'd seen no reason to alter the habit on this occasion, there being no difficulty in fulfilling my requirements in Palermo. I opened a canvas purse at the back of my webbing belt, took out a small leather bag and poured the contents into Talif's hand.

"The trouble with paper money is that it changes from country to country," I said. "But this kind of thing is welcomed everywhere. Gold pieces, my friend. English sovereigns. Fifty of them."

His eyes widened, the mouth opened in awe. For a long moment he stared down at them and then he quickly poured them back into the leather bag, tied it and stowed it carefully away in his tunic pocket.

"All right, effendi, I do it, but there is one thing more you must do for me."

"And what would that be?"

"Beat me, effendi." He pointed to his face. "Knock hell out of me so Colonel Masmoudi can see I didn't have any choice."

Barzini laughed harshly, "You know something, he's got a point."

Talif turned to him, smiling eagerly, and Barzini punched him in the mouth, grabbed him by the shirt front and punched him again. A third blow drove him to his knees and Barzini moved back.

Talif looked up, blood pouring from his smashed nose and lips. He touched his face gingerly with his fingertips and actually smiled as he stood up. "Excellent, effendi. Exactly what I wanted."

"A pleasure to do business with you," Barzini said, and at that moment Langley cried out a warning and there was a burst of firing.

I went up over the tender and found him on top of the boxcar. There was the road again, fifty or sixty yards away to the right. The two Landrovers emerged from an olive grove where they had presumably been waiting and drove on a parallel course, their machine guns working furiously.

They were scoring plenty of hits on the boxcars but nothing serious and Langley was giving it to them good and hot in return. He ran out of ammunition and I yanked off the empty and shoved on another hundred round drum for him as the Landrovers disappeared into a fold in the ground.

"Now you see them, now you don't," he shouted. "I used to be great at this sort of thing in the amusement arcades on the front at Brighton. Nino tells me you intend to go out trailing clouds of glory?"

"I always fancied it," I said. "Like Beau Geste and his Viking funeral."

The Landrovers emerged into an open stretch of road again and commenced firing, bullets plowing into the top of the boxcar in front of us. Langley answered in a continuous burst that seemed to go on for ever and suddenly, the rear Landrover veered sharply off the road and plowed through an olive grove, coming to rest against a stone wall.

The other vanished from sight as the road disappeared behind a series of low hills and Langley laughed out loud and patted the RPD. "One down, one to go."

"Two to go," I said. "You're forgetting the lead Landrover--the one with Masmoudi and Husseini in it."

He looked mildly surprised, "You know, you've got a point there, old stick. What do you think they're up to?"

"Something nasty, I've no doubt. Maybe they intend to try and block the track at some suitable point up ahead. If they do, I'm keeping my fingers crossed it's after the Gela tunnel. That's our big strength. Masmoudi doesn't know where we intend to get off."

"I'll keep my eyes skinned," he said cheerfully. "I'd like to cut a notch for Masmoudi before we go."

I left him and climbed down the side of the boxcar, using the bars and slipped inside. Wyatt still lay with his head in Simone's lap and Nino crouched beside them.

"How is he?" I asked.

"Not so good," Nino answered. "I tell you something. Getting him down to the beach is going to be one hell of a job."

"I didn't say it would be easy." I dropped to one knee beside Simone. "You know what to do when we reach the tunnel?"

"Yes. Nino told me." She put a hand on my arm. "Has it got to be this way, Oliver?"

"Can you suggest anything better?" Her eyes dropped and I patted her cheek. "See you in church. Keep smiling."

She looked up. "Is that a promise?"

But I didn't reply to that one, mainly because there didn't really seem to be much point. I worked my way along the bars to the tender and joined Barzini on the footplate.

There was a quick burst of firing from Langley and I turned to see the remaining Landrover appear briefly in a gap between two hills. It didn't bother to reply and disappeared a moment later. This performance was repeated three or four times over the next couple of miles. It was somehow uncanny, the Landrover appearing and disappearing in the hard white light of the moon without a sound except for the sullen chatter of Langley's machine gun, the rattle of the train.

"What are they playing at?" Barzini demanded. "Why don't they fire?"

"Keeping us under observation, is my guess," I said. "They've got a radio aerial on that thing, which means they're probably giving Masmoudi a blow-by-blow account every step of the way."

"And where in the hell is Masmoudi?"

"Somewhere up ahead, waiting for us." I turned to Talif. "Where would be a good place?"

"To block the line, effendi? That's easy. There is a way station at Al Haifa on the other side of the river. There are points there and a loop so that we can be taken off the main line if something is coming the other way."

"I see," I said. "So he's no need to block the line, just throw the points and we'll be turned into that loop without being able to do a damn thing about it."

Barzini chuckled and slapped me on the back. "And the only thing wrong with that from Masmoudi's point of view, is that we'll be long gone."

"Gela tunnel very soon now, effendi," Talif said. "Other side of the next cut."

We dropped into a defile between high banks, came out of the other side at the top of a long incline and below, perhaps quarter of a mile away, was the entrance to the tunnel. There were olive groves on the left dropping down to the sea, clear in the moonlight. Langley loosed off a quick burst and I turned and saw the Landrover appear briefly on a clear section of road.

It disappeared and Talif was already applying the brakes as we coasted over the final section of track into the dark mouth of the tunnel. Once inside, he braked hard and we ground to a halt.

Steam seemed to be everywhere. Barzini jumped from the footplate and ran to the entrance of the boxcar to help Nino and Simone with Wyatt. Langley came down across the tender in a shower of coal. He said something before he jumped down to join the others but I couldn't hear it because of the hissing of the steam.

Barzini called, "Okay, we're clear!" I tapped Talif on the shoulder and we started to move again.

I opened the gate to the fire box and started to shovel coal and Talif pulled on the cord above his head and sounded the whistle, a banshee wail rebounding from one wall to the other.

"Good, effendi?" he shouted above the noise of the train.

"Very good!" I said.

I could see the other end of the tunnel now. I pushed in some more coal, kicked the door shut and threw down the shovel. As we coasted out into the fresh night air, Talif sounded the whistle again and it echoed far away across the valley.