The War Heist

by Ralph Dennis

  It was a pleasant supper.

  Sub-Lieutenant Carr had not returned from leave, but the other officers remembered MacTaggart, and an invitation to dine aboard the Emerald was extended to him and his guests.

  By six-thirty they’d eaten and toasted the King’s health.

  A few minutes later they were back on the dock. Lieutenant Foster saw to the boarding of his troops. MacTaggart and Captain McGuire relieved the four-man watch and remained on the pier until the engineer, the fireman, and the brakeman arrived.

  At 7:00, exactly, the train pulled away from the dock. H.M.S. Emerald disappeared behind them.

  There was a clear track all the way to Montreal.

  The last local train that left Halifax departed about twenty minutes after five. It arrived at Wingate Station two hours later. The final coach in that train carried troops. At each major stop along the route, two armed soldiers were dropped off. These guards took up positions in the waiting rooms of the depots.

  Five passengers disembarked from the civilian coach and crossed the platform at Wingate Station. Two soldiers, a private and a corporal, swung down from the military coach and walked along the track bed to the station. The corporal was Robert Lester from Medicine Hat. The private was William Carpenter, and he was from Calgary. The corporal wore a web belt and a canvas holster with a Webley in it. The private carried a Springfield ’03.

  Corporal Lester and Private Carpenter entered the waiting room and had their careful look around the station. The room was empty except for the ticket clerk and an old man who’d arrived on the same train. The old man was waiting for a suitcase that he’d checked at Halifax. The two soldiers watched the old man until the suitcase arrived and was passed to him through the baggage window. About that time the train pulled away from the station.

  The old man shouldered his suitcase and left by the door that faced the main part of town. When the door closed behind him, Corporal Lester took a seat on the bench that faced the platform and the tracks.

  Private Carpenter stood behind him. “We staying here the whole night?”

  “Don’t you ever listen?”

  “I was listening.”

  “A train’s passing through here and it ought to arrive around twenty-one hundred hours. That’s the one we’re supposed to guard. About forty-five minutes later, the regular train from Montreal comes through. We get on that and we’re back in Halifax by twenty-four hundred hours.”

  “If there’s no trouble,” Private Carpenter said.

  “Who’s expecting trouble?”

  “You’re not?”

  Corporal Lester smiled. “This is a holiday trip.”

  Satisfied, Private Carpenter left the waiting room and took up a position on the platform. When he got tired of standing he found a baggage cart and sat down. But that wasn’t regulation, and now and then he looked over his shoulder into the waiting room. Lester didn’t seem to mind.

  When Carpenter was comfortable and about to nap, a clock in the distance struck eight.

  At 8:00 exactly, Gunny carried the twin bundles of dynamite with the rattail fuses attached out to the 1940 Cadillac. He got in the front seat next to Jean. Vic followed him and entered the back seat and sat next to Pierre. He carried identical twin bundles.

  “No smoking,” Gunny said over the seat back.

  “I’m not even breathing.”

  Jean drove. Vic directed him to a spot to the east of town. Vic and Pierre got out, Vic carrying the explosives and Pierre carrying a pickax.

  Jean turned the Cadillac around and headed back through town. Without being told, he took the proper turnoff, the one they’d scouted that afternoon. He parked in the same place, and they got out.

  It was dark now. It took Gunny a few seconds to decide if he’d reached the location they’d chosen. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see the barn he’d selected as a marker. So he said to hell with it and that fifty feet one way or the other wouldn’t matter.

  He handed the explosives to Jean and took the pickax. He stepped into the space between the sets of tracks. He worked fast and hard. He dug a hole between the ties on the inside rails of each track system.

  When he was certain the bundles would fit, he backed away and leaned on the pickax. The exertion had placed a cough just at the back of his throat. He fought to hold it there. A few seconds, and he knew he had it under control. He dropped the pickax and took the twin bundles from Jean.

  He went through it once, showing Jean how the bundles were to be placed and how the fuses were to be laid out.

  “Got it?”

  “I have.”

  Gunny took the twin bundles from the holes under the tracks and handed them to Jean. “The next train passes by here is the right one.”

  “I understand.”

  “Soon as the train passes you plant the dynamite and wait. You’re going to hear all hell break out around the train station. That’s your signal to light the fuse. You got matches?”

  “A whole box.”

  Gunny left him. He set out toward the center of town at a fast walk. It would be at least an hour before the train arrived. It might be longer than that.

  He wanted a rest before the long night began.

  Vic wasn’t about to bend his back when there was another mule in the yard. Pierre, with the felt hat pulled down tight, dug the twin trenches beneath the rails. Vic kept him at it until he was sure the bundles of explosives would fit with some give.

  When he was satisfied, Vic went through the drill, the placing of the charges, three times.

  With some people you just couldn’t be too careful.

  The Gipsons were late leaving the hotel lobby. That was Randy’s fault. He got his back up and said that he didn’t see any reason to rush over to the depot and then have to sit there in the waiting room for more than an hour.

  They’d checked out of the hotel earlier. Their bags were stored at Bassett’s seed-and-feed store. Randy kept his battered gym bag with him. In it he’d packed the two target pistols and a spare box of shells.

  It was half-eight when they left the lobby. Randy carried the bag. It was a short walk to the train station. The night was clear and warm. Clark entered the waiting room first. He took a seat on the bench that faced the entrance on the town side of the depot. Randy followed him, and his eyes flicked a time or two at the soldier who sat on the bench facing his brother. Clark didn’t look at him. He was staring at the soldier. Randy backed his way toward the ticket window. He turned and leaned on the counter until the ticket clerk noticed him.

  “When’s the next train to Montreal?”

  “You just missed it.”

  “Maybe there’s another one,” Randy said.

  “I can’t be sure.”

  “Huh?” Randy looked over his shoulder and grinned at Clark. There was an expression on Clark’s face that Randy couldn’t read. “Run that by me again.”

  “A special troop train’s passing through. I won’t know if the scheduled express …”

  “When will you know?”

  “When they tell me,” the clerk said. “You want tickets?”

  “For a train that might not show up?” Randy laughed at him. “We’ll wait.”

  He was still laughing when he sat on the bench next to Clark. “How do you like that nonsense?” He placed the gym bag on the floor between his feet. When he looked up again that same odd look was on Clark’s face.

  The soldier on the facing bench uncrossed his legs. His boots had a glossy spit shine. His trousers had a crease like a knife edge. Randy’s study of the soldier stopped at his waist.

  The corporal tugged at his gun belt. The holstered Webley pistol shifted on his hip until it was balanced, braced on the front edge of the bench.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Of the three day coaches between the freight cars and the caboose the most forward one had been taken over by the Canadian Railway Express representative and the Bank of England specialists led by Mr. Craig. The Railway Express man w
as a Mr. Bruce Telford, a pudgy man in his late fifties who wore heavy convex glasses that were about a double thickness of window glass.

  Mr. Telford wasn’t with the train because Railway Express had insured the shipment. No one, not even the Canadian government, would insure a cargo as valuable as this train transported. However, the freight charges would amount to almost a third of a million dollars, and Railway Express had assigned their top troubleshooter to the project.

  As a part of his watchdog role, a telephone had been installed in Telford’s coach. This instrument placed him in the middle of any communication between the brakeman in the caboose and the engineer in the locomotive.

  The soldiers under the command of Captain McGuire were assigned seats in the final two day coaches. There was no dining car. At breakfast time, some distance down the line, a mess car would be taken on.

  Duncan MacTaggart selected a seat in the last coach, next to the caboose. After the troops were settled in, Captain McGuire made his halting way down the aisle and tapped the empty seat next to MacTaggart. “You mind company?”

  “Glad of it.” He watched McGuire pivot toward the seat. He kept his hand on his left hip, supporting it, and he didn’t relax completely until his behind hit the cushions. He sighed, and when he leaned back MacTaggart could see that the perspiration from the strain was oil-slick on his forehead.

  “It looks easy from here in,” Captain McGuire said.

  “I’d like to drink to that.” MacTaggart toed the bag that held the last of the Irish. “But I think I’d better save the drop that’s left for the real celebration.”

  “I’ll have it with you.”

  “I thought you might.” MacTaggart looked the length of the coach. The soldiers were straight up, at the ready, their rifles braced against their legs. “You’ve a good outfit.”

  “You noticed that, too?” McGuire smiled. “Good, but green as gooseberries.”

  “Hard to tell that from here.”

  “We’ve done our best, young Foster and me, in the time we’ve had to work with them. Two months aren’t a God’s plenty.”

  “You’ve done the job.”

  McGuire shook his head. “It’s a beginning. The rest will be done in England.” He saw MacTaggart’s questioning look. “That’s right. They’re shipping for England as soon as this detail’s completed.”

  “The boy …”

  “Young Foster?”

  “Seems a fine type.”

  “The best,” McGuire said. “I knew his father in the other war, our war.”

  “France?”

  “A year of it.”

  “I was there myself. And it was our war. I figure one war to a man’s lifetime.”

  “It works out that way.” McGuire patted his left hip. “I won’t be going with them. I’m with training.”

  That explained it for MacTaggart. He had his doubts about the captain. The hip was more than enough to keep him out of the war. It wasn’t, it appeared, enough to keep him from a position in training command.

  Lieutenant Foster pushed open the door that connected the final coach with the one forward of it. He stopped in the aisle, and his eyes swept the seats until he located Captain McGuire. A jerk of his head, and he worked his way to the back of the coach. On the way he stopped here and there to pass a word or two with his men. He reached McGuire and leaned on the headrest of the seat. “They’re settled in, Captain.”

  “Stay alert. Have Sergeant Jones pass that on.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lieutenant Foster smiled and turned away.

  McGuire watched him go. “It’s hard on the boy. I attended his wedding a month ago.”

  “Hard on a lot of people.”

  “Some more than others. The lad’s been like a son to me. His father, Robert, died in the trench right next to me. A sniper. We thought the morning mist covered us.”

  “That drink we take,” MacTaggart said. “We’ll drink some luck to him in England.”

  “I’ll look forward to that drink even more now.”

  That said, McGuire settled back against the headrest and closed his eyes. MacTaggart watched him attempt to work his left leg, the hip, into a comfortable position. His teeth gritted with the strain. After a minute or so, either he got it right or he accepted the discomfort.

  Gunny Townsend arrived at the old seed-and-feed building. He stood outside for a couple of minutes to get his breath after the fast walk. His shirt was soaked, and he could feel the toothache warning of the chill that was under the surface, about to break through.

  When he was steady he went in and got the pump shotgun from the back of one of the Bulldogs. He shucked the shells and loaded it from a fresh box. The rest of that box and one other box he divided and stored away in his pockets. He didn’t think he would need that many shells, but it was always better to have more than you needed.

  He propped the pump gun against the wall to one side and sat down. He closed his eyes and waited. He drew all his strength from deep inside him to fight the chills.

  “Gunny?”

  He opened his eyes. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been resting. The nightmare fever dreams had just started. He blinked and looked around the room. Nothing much had changed. He decided only minutes had passed since he’d closed his eyes.

  Major Renssler leaned over him. “Is it done?”

  “The west approach to town is.”

  “Good.”

  He heard his own voice. It sounded thin and reedy. “I did as much as I could,” he said. “Everything but light the fuse and hold his hand while it blew.”

  “It’ll work out.” The major backed away.

  Gunny’s eyelids fluttered. He closed them tight.

  Before the fever dreams began again he heard Vic arrive. Vic said, “… clown will probably blow himself up along with the track.”

  A bull’s roar of laughter from Harry. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” Captain Whitman said. “Good luck to the dumb burrhead.”

  Randy jerked his eyes away from the holstered Webley. The corporal was staring at him.

  “Americans, aren’t you?”

  “Us?”

  “I heard you talking to the ticket clerk. You know, I was in Detroit last summer.”

  “Is that right?” Randy swung his head toward Clark. “I’ve never been there.”

  “I saw a baseball game. It was a pretty slow affair.”

  “You’ve got to grow up with it,” Randy said.

  “The whole Sunday afternoon, two games, and …”

  “A doubleheader,” Randy said.

  “… nothing happens.”

  “You don’t go there expecting …”

  Randy let it trail off. The telegraph key began its chatter. He heard the first part of the message. The telegrapher’s hand wasn’t that practiced. He was slow as a beginner.

  EXPECTED … TIME … ARRIVAL … TWENTY … ONE … HUNDRED … HOURS … PLUS … TEN.

  “But the man who throws the ball,” the corporal said.

  “The pitcher.”

  “He takes his own good time with it.”

  Randy lost the rest of the message. That damned soldier. Had to be talking. He looked to the side and saw that Clark had left the bench and was stretching as he paced back and forth in front of the ticket window.

  He relaxed. Clark could read a key as well as he could. The corporal leaned forward, caught up in the conversation. So Randy settled into it with him. He told the Canadian about the lazy man’s game. How you went to a game and sat in the sun and got a tan, and you had a couple of bottles of pop and some hotdogs, and even if you had to take a trip to the bathroom, there wasn’t much chance you’d miss anything

  important.

  The key stopped. Clark returned to the bench and sat and crossed his legs. Randy looked over his shoulder at him. Clark shrugged. Whatever had followed hadn’t been important.

  About seventy miles out of Halifax, Billy Jeffers, the brakeman, closed his lunch pa
il. He had a final swallow of the ink-thick coffee. Still chewing the last of his cheese and tomato sandwich, he mounted the steps to the perch. From this seat—a kind of tower that projected above the caboose—he looked down the full length of the train ahead of him.

  It had been ten minutes since he left the perch. During the time he took for his meal something had changed. Ahead, where there had only been darkness before, now there was a shower of sparks.

  Hotbox, he thought. Before he left the perch he counted the cars. Three day coaches ahead. Then four boxes beyond that. The seventh box in front of the caboose, that was where the hotbox was.

  He pressed the buzzer that connected the phone to the engineer’s station forward. When he heard two clicks, he remembered that there was also a phone in the Railway Express station three coaches forward.

  He began his report.

  The first sign MacTaggart had that all was not well was the gradual slowing of the train. It wasn’t for a brief period, what might be an adjustment to the terrain. No, this was an all-out slowdown.

  He got to his feet and stepped over McGuire’s legs. The captain didn’t move. His breathing was a blubber of a snore.

  He rushed through the middle coach and into the forward one. Telford, the Express representative, was on the phone. MacTaggart circled Telford and got a nod and a wiggle of a finger from him.

  “And it will mean how much additional time?” Telford blinked behind the thick glasses. “Twenty minutes? No more than that?”

  Telford placed a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “We’ve a problem with one of the boxcars.” Before MacTaggart could speak, Telford shook his head at him and lifted his hand from the mouthpiece. “And that would be Wingate Station? The first available siding?”

  Behind Telford, Craig and the bank experts leaned forward, listening.

  “Very well, if that’s the best we can hope for.” Telford broke the connection and placed the phone on the hook. He turned back to MacTaggart. “We have to slow the train down to just this side of a crawl.”

  “Why?”

  “We’ve got a hotbox acting up.”