The Steam Mole (18 page)

“For what it's worth, I think you did what any decent man would have done in the situation.”

Lampy shook his head. “I should have left there, straight off, when I see what he was doing. I knew it wasn't right.”

“It's easy to be wise after the fact. There are plenty of mistakes I wish I hadn't made. I reckon you paid a high price for them already. Nothing to deserve dying on the railway, in chains.”

“Never gunna let anyone chain me again.”

It was already getting hot by the time Clara finally figured out the problem…and that her use of the horn was at least partly to blame. The water supply to feed over the burners was low, and they had, she assumed, some kind of a pressure switch that had levers that choked the fire and stopped it melting the copper pipes.

The cooling steam fed through a big cooler, and recondensed and fed back into the system. It did have one major escape, as far as she could work out: through the steam whistle.

Now all she needed was more water, and to get the burners going again, and she would be able to move. And she did have water in a huge tank on the tender…it was just how to get it from one place to the next? But in finding this she also found that she'd used quite a lot of the fuel.

It took some time to work out that there was a tap, a hand pump, and an indicator just behind her seat in the cab. Obviously the second member of the crew of the scout mole was supposed to see to the water level.

Now that she had the water situation sorted—and had used rather a lot during the refilling—she merely had to get the burner going. That should have required priming and half an hour…

It took her a lot more than that, and a fair amount of the primer fuel—some kind of alcohol that made her feel odd, just smelling it in the fire box. She had a horrifying moment when the steam mole started to trundle…and she wasn't in it. She had to clamber desperately along the frame, burning her hands on the hot pipes, to
swing into the cab and pull the levers back. The gauges still read no pressure at all, and really, the steam mole had been going slower than a crawling baby. She could have jumped off and walked to the ladder up to the cab. It was late afternoon before she was ready to start the steam mole moving again. Now, knowing she was lost, knowing that only chance would let her see Tim or Tim see her, she kept the steam mole rumbling along the plain, as she stared out.

Come full dark, she stopped and smothered the furnace with its damper choke. She had, in her exploring and learning how it all worked, at least learned how to do that. She would have to reprime and get it all going in the morning, but at least that too had no mysteries anymore.

She ate and drank frugally, spread the bedroll in the cab, and opened the door slightly.

Sleep was a refuge from all the uncertainty and fear.

Unfortunately, sleep was a long long way off. She really didn't know what she should do in the morning. Gnawing at her was the fact that she'd failed. She hadn't found Tim. There was a chance, maybe, but a chance that she wouldn't let herself let go of, that he'd found his way back to the power station. But by now she knew that his chances out here were very, very small. It was hard not to feel sorry for herself, and to cry, for him, for her mother, and for the father she was not sure if she could ever reach. Now that she'd seen and been in the desert, it was quite a different concept to somehow rescue her father from a prison somewhere on the other side of it, with no resources but a stolen steam mole, and that probably wouldn't get that far.

Tim's other discovery had been a broken egg shell that led him to climb up to a bird's nest. It was empty, dashing the hope he'd had of eggs. Then it occurred to him that an empty little egg shell could at
least make a tiny bowl for the slow drips from the seep in the crack. The egg had lost its big end, and he propped it carefully, positioning it so that the drops—about one every minute, landed in it. It was better than lying on his back with his mouth open waiting, or licking it off the rock, both of which he'd tried. Gradually through the day, he got egg-full after egg-full to drink, as he sat in the shade, dozing, not daring to sleep too long.

As the heat began to burn off with the sun dropping red onto the horizon, Tim knew he had to move on. He knew he had nothing like enough water, so there was no point in staying there. Of course…the next place could be even worse. Temptation warred within his breast. If he stayed put overnight, he might see the fire again…

Or he might die of cold. If he'd had a fire or more water he might have tried. He'd tried knocking rocks together to see if he could make a spark, but had no other ideas on how one made fire.

He had an egg shell full of water, and about fifty of the little figs threaded onto a plait of grass…supplies!

He started walking down across the still-hot sand with occasional tufts of dead grass and one or two twisted-branched, waxy-leafed trees, so stunted they barely stood much more than shoulder height. And then he heard something. A thumping sound. A
regular
thumping sound.

The sound of pistons.

The red sunset gleamed off the curve of the roof of a scout mole a mile or so away.

With a yell of joy he started running after it.

He soon realized he wasn't gaining on the thing, and that the gathering dark was making his tired, weak half-run even more difficult.

In the brief twilight Tim staggered toward the steam mole, which trundled steadily along the plain, knowing he could never reach it, but knowing he had to try. He screamed. But he knew, even as he did it, that inside the sealed cab, with its input air running
over the coolers and the thump of the steam mole's pistons, the driver would never hear him.

Eventually he just had to stop.

In the distance, a growing distance now, he could see the spark of the fire box…and then, nothing. It must have moved into a gully. He couldn't even hear it anymore.

He stood there, looking forlorn, hoping to see at least where it was going, when someone spoke in the darkness next to him. It wasn't English. And, looking hard into the darkness, he saw the spear the black man held half-raised. He spoke again in the strange language, repeating what he had said before.

Tim slowly raised his hands. “I'm sorry, but I don't understand. I'm lost,” he said.

“What mob you come from? What you want in our country?” asked the stranger.

The question, and the way it was said, was…guarded. Not unfriendly, just guarded.

“I don't want anything except to stay alive and get out of your country,” said Tim, not knowing what answer the man wanted and too tired and too desperate to try anything more than the truth. “It's not my place. I'm lost.”

There was a chuckle. “Good answer, boy. How you come here? Where you come from? Who your people?”

“I come from Under London. And I got lost from the railway.” Tim wasn't sure who his people were, besides the crew of the
Cuttlefish
.

“You a long way from the railway.”

“Um. I've been walking for a few days. I'd…I'd like to get back there. Or back to the south coast. Ceduna. My people are there,” said Tim.

“You Yarulandi?” asked the stranger.

“No…I'm Tim. Tim Barnabas.” Tim stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you. After walking around for days I'm just so pleased to meet anyone.”

“We know. Bin watching you from this morning.” The man didn't take his hand. Then he appeared to reach a decision. “You come alonga me.”

Tim did his best. But he was weak and struggled to walk at half the speed of the man with the spear. After a while the man stopped. “What's wrong, boy?”

“I'm just…thirsty and tired. I haven't eaten much,” said Tim, feeling he was offering excuses. “Sorry. Don't mean to hold you up.”

“Ah. How long since you had any tucker?” asked the man.

Tim had learned that word from Cookie. “A few days. I had some figs and a bit of a bird, but no food—real food—in a few days. I don't know how to live off the country. It's not like where I come from.”

The man held out something to Tim. “Suck it. We ain't got too far to go now.”

It was sweet gum and it did help, both for the thirst and for some energy. Still, Tim was very relieved by the time they saw the flicker of a small fire. Even from here Tim could smell cooking meat.

He went through the ritual that followed in a somewhat hazy state. It did involve water, which was very welcome, and having smoke fanned into his face, which made him cough. It was easier to breathe than the coal smoke in the tunnel, though. And it ended up with him getting food—cooked meat and a very odd hard bread that tasted like no bread he'd ever eaten—and the inquisition. They were very kind to him, but they were convinced that he was an Australian aboriginal, at least in part. And the sea was not something they really seemed to grasp too well. They spoke some English, to varying degrees, but their own language between themselves, most of the time.

And none of them seemed in the least surprised that someone on the railway should try to kill him. “Some of them whitefellers are mad. Kill a blackfeller just for fun.”

Tim slept well for the first time since what seemed forever.

Lampy woke with Jack shaking his shoulder. “Bad news, son. I think I see something behind us.”

It was very early morning and they'd slept on a slight rise in the ground. That was definitely a light in the distance. Lampy looked at it and shivered slightly. It wasn't, as Jack feared, pursuit so close they could see their light. But it was something that he'd last seen the last time he'd been into this country, with his uncle. “It's a min-min light,” he said, hoping his voice didn't shake. “You see 'em sometimes here. My uncle, he reckoned it was bad spirits. Come on, we're awake. Let's get away from this place.” Just in case Uncle Jake was right.

They walked west. Lampy had enough stories and enough horrors brought back by those lights. They stopped, ate, drank from the nearly empty bucket. It was more awkward than a Coolamon, but he'd rigged a harness for it and carried it on his back. It was coming on for the heat of the day, time to stop again, when, looking back, Lampy realized they couldn't. They'd been walking up a long, gentle slope. Knowing the way the channels ran and the nature of the country, they'd start a descent into a country of southwest-running channels beyond that. Then there was the rock country on the other side of that, then gibber plains and the tall rock Uncle Jake had taken him to. Important place that. The railroad was not more than sixty or seventy miles the other side of it, with the deep desert beyond. Only, looking back, that was dust. A little patch of it, suggesting a mob of camels or…

He pointed back.

Jack squinted in the brightness. “Could be trackers. I wonder just how many?"

“Dunno, but even two is too many. We go on.”

So they did. Down in the channels, they stumbled on a dingo kill. The dingoes…and the birds of prey, were not inclined to give up on the dead kangaroo easily, but a few loud noises and prods with their spears sent them clear. “If that is the chase, we'll need the
meat,” said Jack, severing a leg and tying it to a piece of the thin rope he'd looted from the locomotive.

“What you planning, man?” asked Lampy.

“They can outrun us. We can deal with dogs, if there aren't too many of them. We can try to deal with men if there aren't too many of them. We have no chance on both. So we need to distract the dogs, at least. And if we're wrong, we'll have some tucker.”