The Dangerous Years (9 page)

They found the loop line and, out of sight behind a slight swelling of the ground, they brought back their scout engine, then Kelly went to the top of the rise with Rumbelo to watch for the Red train on the slow-curving line that came down from the north. As they sat down in the sweet-smelling yellow grass, the loop of the river in the west was picking up the pink evening light like a shining salmon-coloured snake.

‘How’s the infant, Rumbelo?’ Kelly asked, offering his flask.

‘Fine, sir. Arrived without any trouble.’

‘Made a mistake deciding to call him Kelly. He’ll regret it all his life.’

‘Shouldn’t think so, sir. Biddy and me thought you’d like to be godfather, sir.’

Kelly smiled and Rumbelo was just about to say something further when he stopped and gestured. As Kelly turned he saw a column of steam rise beyond a distant slope, then the Bolshevik train appeared over the brow of the hill and slowly began moving down the slope in front of them at a distance of about nine thousand yards.

‘Get back to the train, Rumbelo,’ Kelly ordered. ‘They ought to be able to hit her as she comes round the curve. I’ll stick up one arm for a short and two for over, and point for direction. I’ll wave both if they’re on target.’

‘Right, sir.’

Rumbelo started running down the slope towards the railway line while Kelly stretched himself out in the grass, his eyes on the enemy bronevik as it moved slowly forward, stopping occasionally like a great suspicious beast. Through his binoculars he could see a string of Kyrillic letters along the sides of the trucks and a huge number on the engine. He felt as if his heart were in his throat, choking him.

Then, as he waited, he heard the crack of the naval six-incher and almost immediately the whine of the shell and the sound of the explosion. It landed fifty yards short of the curve and he stood up and raised one arm. His breath clutching at his chest, he heard the gun bang a second time, while the gun on the Russian train moved, as though looking for its tormentor. This time the shell fell just beyond the train and he stood up and held up both arms.

‘For God’s sake,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Look slippy.’

Then he heard rifle shots and not far away in a dip saw men with horses and realised they were firing at him. Flopping out of sight in the long grass, he peered towards the Bolshevik train. Great jets of steam were coming from it now and through his binoculars he could see it starting to pull back. Then the naval gun fired again and he heard the shell whirr overhead like an underground train and saw the explosion as it hit. A piece of metal went arcing away from near the Bolshevik’s front turret to land in the long grass, and a cloud of steam burst from the engine.

‘Got the bastard!’

Standing up, he began to wave both arms frantically, then a shower of bullets from the men in the dip made him flop out of sight again. As he lifted his head, he saw a battery of guns thundering up the slope, the weapons bouncing behind the gun carriages, the horses straining at the harness. It seemed to be getting dangerous.

Another shell howled over his head and this time he saw a tremendous explosion just abaft the Bolshevik engine, as though they’d hit the ready-use ammunition, and when the steam and the smoke had cleared he could see the engine distinctly canted to one side and men helping the driver from the cab.

The bullets were coming closer now and he saw a machine gun on a cart rattling out of a dip. It seemed to be time to disappear and he started to run as hard as he could down the slope. As he ran he heard two more shells whirr overhead and after the second one a tremendous explosion beyond the rise. Satisfied that they’d done what they’d come to do, he panted up to the train and scrambled aboard.

‘We’d better get out of here,’ he yelled to Galt. ‘They’ve got a battery of guns over there and I wouldn’t like ’em to do to us what we’ve just done to them.’

The train was set in motion by a jerk of the cord to the driver’s cab but, to their horror, instead of going backwards, it began to move nearer to the enemy. Galt tugged at the cord until it broke, but the engine continued to move forward.

‘I think the driver must be a bloody Bolshy,’ Kelly said. ‘Come on, Rumbelo!’

Snatching at the door in the front of the truck, they scrambled across the buffers to the machine gun flat car where the Russian soldiers were yelling frantically at the engine’s crew. Shoving them aside, Kelly jumped on to the engine’s cow catcher and scrambled along the side of the boiler. Rumbelo was behind him and they swung into the cab together. The Russian driver was just about to jump from the train when Rumbelo grabbed him by the shoulder.

‘Got you, you bastard,’ he roared, slamming him against the tender. The fireman was yelling with fright and Kelly drew his revolver and gestured with it under the driver’s nose.

‘Back, you sod!’ he roared, and the Russian hurriedly reached for his levers and wheels and began to swing on them.

‘Faster,’ Kelly yelled. ‘Faster! How the hell do you say “Faster” in this half-baked language of theirs, Rumbelo?’

‘Try “pozhaluista,” sir.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘“Please.” It’s the only word I know, sir.’

Kelly shoved the muzzle of the revolver almost up the Russian’s nostril and pointed backwards, and eventually the train came to a stop and began to reverse.

‘Thank Christ for that,’ Kelly said. ‘I wouldn’t fancy taking tea with the Bolshies after we’ve just destroyed their Sunday-best train.’

The train was backing out of the loop line on to the main line when they realised that behind them the track was empty.

‘Where’s Kimister?’ Kelly snapped. ‘He’s supposed to be watching our rear.’

Galt appeared, climbing along the catwalk of the boiler. ‘The silly bugger’s pulled back across the river!’ he yelled, pointing. ‘Together with the infantry who’re supposed to be supporting us and the bloody guns from the river!’

‘Let’s hope they haven’t cut the bridge,’ Kelly snapped. ‘Keep your eyes open astern. Rumbelo, get back there and make sure every one of our chaps has a weapon. Even if you have to take it off one of the Russians.’

Rumbelo vanished and, with Kelly still standing with his revolver against the driver’s head, Galt hung from the side of the engine.

‘There are horsemen on the other side,’ he yelled. ‘They’re coming up the bank. I think they’re Red cavalry.’

‘Where the hell are
our
cavalry?’

‘I think they’ve bolted.’

The wooden piles of the railway bridge were shaking with the speed of the train as it crossed the river in a mad race to get clear before the approaching horsemen arrived. As they thundered off the bridge and into a shallow gulley leading from the river, they saw overturned carts and dead horses and sprawled figures in the grass, and realised that they were the bodies of the Russian gunnery officers.

‘I think the bastards have mutinied,’ Galt yelled.

‘Faster,’ Kelly roared at the driver and the train hurtled backwards, rocketing round the bends to outstrip the cavalry galloping along the skyline after them. ‘Thank God it’ll soon be dark.’

Even as he spoke, however, the rear truck carrying the breakdown equipment hit a log placed across the track, ran halfway over it and fell sideways, flinging steel jacks and khaki-clad figures on the embankment. The corner of the truck dug into the side of the gulley, throwing stones, clods of earth, torn-off woodwork and pieces of bent metal in all directions. The second truck smashed into the first and the third into that, until the whole train caterpillared and the engine came to a stop, screeching with leaking steam.

As he picked himself up, Kelly saw the engine driver bolting across the steppe and heard the fireman screaming. Hot coals had sprayed from the firebox on to him and his trousers were burning. Beating them out with his cap, he dragged the Russian aside and jumped to the track. The first truck had landed on its side and the next wagon was upside down just behind it.

A few of the bluejackets were scrambling to their feet and Kelly saw Rumbelo snatching them from the wreckage.

‘Anybody hurt, Rumbelo?’ he yelled.

‘Mr Gait’s been knocked out, sir, and a couple of the Russians seemed to have copped it. But none of our lot, though a few of ’em are trapped under the armoured truck.’

‘Get the rest up the bank then. We’ve got to hold these bastards off till dark. Have the machine guns brought up, too.’

A spattering fire was already starting as Kelly went along the train looking for injured. In the overturned truck, he could hear men yelling in the darkness, but he couldn’t understand them. He tried to tell them to dig their way out, but as they didn’t stop yelling he assumed they’d not been able to hear.

Galt was sprawled by the side of the track, half-conscious, his face covered with blood from a wound in the head. He was clearly in no position to help and Kelly turned to Rumbelo.

‘How about the gun, Rumbelo?’ he said.

‘She’s undamaged, sir. And the barrel’s just above the top of the bank. We might get off a shell or two.’

‘Well, that’ll keep the bastards back. Get the crew on it. I’ll man the lip of the gulley with the machine guns.’

Takhatin appeared with a sergeant, driving the Russian machine gunners in front of him.

‘Flourish your revolver a bit more,’ Kelly said. ‘They’ll take off and bolt if you don’t.’

Takhatin gave him a quick smile. I think of that already, sir,’ he said, pushing at his men until lie had them lining the lip.

Behind and above them, the gun’s crew were training the gun round and they heard the breech clang shut. The crash of the shot was deafening and as the shell burst just over a mile away the approaching cavalry wrenched at their horses and vanished as if by magic into one of the dips near the river. The second shell was answered by one from the mutineers of the field gun battery and the White Russians lining the lip of the gulley scrambled down out of sight. Kicking them back again with Takhatin, Kelly stared round him. The two derailed trucks had cleared the track and the wheels of the third one had left the rails and it now lay jamming the track with one end hanging over a small ditch.

‘You know,’ Kelly said, ‘if we could uncouple that bloody truck and throw it over, I think we could take this gun back where it came from. Can you keep these bastards firing?’

‘I can try,’ Takhatin said.

‘Rumbelo,’ Kelly yelled. ‘Collect a few of the Russians. We’re going to need them.’

Working in the growing dusk, they manhandled the jacks from the wreckage of the breakdown truck and with a crowbar managed to force the twisted couplings of the derailed truck from those of the truck next to it.

‘Now let’s see if we can make this bloody engine go.’

Climbing into the cab, they picked up the burned fireman who was whimpering with pain on the tender and tried to explain what they wanted. He seemed to have given up all hope and Kelly made ferocious signs of throat-cutting and, pointing into the distance to convince him that he’d be safer if he got the engine moving for them, they finally got across their message. He nodded, almost too overcome with pain and terror to understand, and fishing in his pocket, Kelly took out his watch. It was one his grandfather had given him on his twenty-first birthday and he stared at it for a while then solemnly gestured at the fireman, indicating that the watch was his if he did as he was told.

Propping him up in the driver’s seat, they tried once more to explain that they wanted the engine to push the derailed truck from their path. It seemed to take hours and, all the time, bullets kept whanging against the boiler or kicking up little spurts of dust from the other side of the gulley. Then the mutineers’ gun fired again and earth and stones erupted in a cloud of dust.

Half the Russians lining the lip of the gulley immediately scrambled down and began to climb aboard the train, and Kelly had to go along pushing them off while Takhatin swung from their legs and arms and the seats of their trousers, plucking them away like flies from a fly paper and driving them back up the bank. They were clearly not inclined to take any risks, but at last they managed to convince them that the best thing was to stay where they were until they’d cleared the track.

‘Right,’ Kelly said. ‘Let’s go.’

The crash as they hit the rear end of the derailed truck almost shook their teeth loose.

‘Again!’

Moaning in pain, the fireman swung on his levers and wheels. The engine drew back, then, getting up steam, rolled towards the truck once more until they crashed into it with a nerve-shattering jolt.

‘It’s going, sir,’ Rumbelo said, his head out.

Immediately, a bullet spanged against the side of the cab and Kelly yanked him back.

‘Keep your head down, you ass,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to make sure you get back to Biddy and my godson.’

Rumbelo grinned and went to work again by the firebox. As they drew off once more, the gun roared and they saw the shell throw up dust and earth against the lemon-yellow sky. Then one of the 12-pounders came into action with a sharper crack.

‘One more go ought to shift it, sir,’ Rumbelo yelled.

This time the truck swayed, balanced on its edge then crashed in a cloud of dust into the ditch alongside the track. Immediately, the Russians, terrified of being left behind, abandoned the lip of the gulley and began to scramble aboard. This time Takhatin was well in the lead.

‘What about the chaps under the truck, sir?’ Rumbelo said.

‘We’ll get ’em out. Keep that gun going.’

Dragging Takhatin and a few of the Russians off the trucks, Kelly thrust spades and pickaxes into their hands and started them digging at the side of the overturned truck. Several times they crept away, and he kicked them back, threatening them with his revolver until eventually the first scared soldier wriggled out through the hole they’d dug. He was one of the British and he gave Kelly a nervous grin.

‘Thank Christ for that, sir. I thought we was goners. But you’ll have to make that ’ole a bit bigger. The corporal’s got a corporation.’

The last man was dragged out, spitting out grit and earth, and pushed with the unconscious Galt aboard the truck.