"What about roving guards, especially Karga?" Lin asked.
"I've been watching them for months now. The heat in the back of the buildings tends to keep them away. They usually stop a good thirty yards short. For those who do come closer, we'll set up a watch system."
"Are you talking about digging in the open?" Hans asked.
"This is the ingenious part of Gregory's plan," Alexi chimed in. "Next time number three is shut down to be cleaned and recharged with ore and charcoal, we quickly cut through the floor in the charcoal pile alongside number three furnace."
Alexi pointed out the place on the map.
"We pull up the flagstones, keep others working around them, shoveling charcoal, and they dig down. Once they're a few feet in, we can build up a wall of charcoal around them to conceal the work. By the time the shift is over, they should be seven or eight feet down. I've designed a lid that we can then place over the hole, with two men down inside."
"What about air?" Hans asked. "How will they breathe?"
Alexi smiled and pulled out another slip of paper.
"I thought of that." He rolled the paper out. "By a small bellows. We run a pipe up through the tunnel, out through a hole in the lid, and hide it in the charcoal pile. We have one man work the bellows to pump the bad air up the pipe. A second pipe, which also starts in the charcoal pit, feeds fresh air in to replace the bad air pumped out."
"Petersburg. The Crater," Hans whispered.
Alexi looked puzzled.
"I'll tell you about it sometime. Something of the same idea that we used in our war on Earth. All right, you've got the air taken care of. What about getting rid of the dirt? And lumber for shoring up the tunnel?"
"We bag the dirt, hoist it up, and throw it into the furnace or scatter it on the floor. Shoring—I don't think we'll need much. The soil underneath is clay, but to be on the safe side we should shore as we go under the building foundation and tracks. We can steal the lumber from the barracks and smuggle it in. Or a treadmill breaks and we repair it, but some of the broken parts wind up hidden in the charcoal pit."
"And the breakout?" Hans asked. "How do we pull that off?"
"On the night of the next double Moon Feast." Even as he said the words, Hans felt a shiver of dread. Those who in some way had antagonized a Bantag guard might think that the issue had passed, until the afternoon of the feast, when they, and their loved ones, were suddenly tied up and led away. Karga often made a game of it, casually threatening whoever got in his way, laughing at the terror on their faces.
"That's only thirty days from now," Ketswana said.
"Precisely," Gregory replied. "Ketswana, since it is your furnace we're going to be digging from, I think you should be head of security for this operation."
Hans smiled at the suggestion. Ketswana had the trust of most everyone in the factory. He also had an uncanny skill at spotting traitors in the ranks and those occasional new arrivals who turned out to be loyal pets, placed in the factory to learn of anything unusual going on.
"Such a secret will be impossible to keep for long," Ketswana said, automatically falling into his new job. "Someone will slip. Once the word gets out, it will be impossible to control. There'll be panic, people demanding to be taken, threatening that if they're not, they'll tell, or simply they'll tell anyhow, to spare themselves or gain a moment's favor with the master."
Hans nodded slowly in agreement. "The date is the Moon Feast, then," he interjected. "Besides, the bastards start celebrating early that day. Most of them will be drunk by sundown."
Alexi smiled and nodded. "I already have the parts for the bellows. We can start tomorrow when we begin the next load for the furnace."
"Keeping the secret, though," Ketswana said. "There's no way that this secret will ever be kept."
"Only the work crews and those in planning will know right now," Alexi replied. "That will keep the number down to thirty at most. The night of the breakout we'll try and pull out as many as we can."
"How many?" Ketswana asked.
Alexi hesitated. "There's just under seven hundred in our compound. I think we can get three to four hundred out before the guards realize what's happening."
"Are you mad?" Ketswana snapped. "There'll be a panic. A mob will form at the tunnel entrance, clamoring to get in."
"Most won't know until the moment we tell them," Alexi relied.
"But sooner or later they will find out. By all the gods, there'll be madness, for all will know that if they're left behind they'll be slaughtered in vengeance."
Hans extended his hand for silence. The very issue Ketswana had raised was the reason he had buried a dream of escape for so long.
"We can't save everyone," Hans said quietly. "All we can hope is to save some. Ketswana, it will be your job to prevent the panic until we've seized the train and are ready to flee."
"Seizing the train," Tamira mused. "I've heard much about the tunnel, but nothing of what we will do once it is finished."
Hans smiled at the criticism. It was a point he had forgotten in the momentary excitement.
Alexi responded. "Lin, this is the part that you will have to arrange. The tunnel will come up under the food warehouse."
"Why there?"
"Because it's the closest building outside the compound. We can hide everyone there until the moment comes to rush a train. On the day of the breakout you must make sure that the corner of the building closest to the factory has a cleared floor space. As soon as you close the warehouse our diggers will break through."
"Usually there's at least one Bantag guard prowling about, though. Sometimes he goes into the building, if only to steal food."
Gregory nodded. "That's why I'll go through first. It will be the most dangerous moment. If need be I'll kill him before he can spread the alarm. Once that's secured we can start bringing people up. The warehouse will provide us with food for the journey as well."
"Again, though," Ketswana interjected, "why so many? If you think we can save everyone, it's a fool's dream. The guards are in the foundry day and night. At some point they will notice people gathering around the entry hole."
"It will be your job to work out a schedule and a means of concealing it," Hans replied. "If we're going to try this, I don't want just a handful to have their chance."
"Seizing the train is only the first step," Alexi added. "Chances are, we'll have to fight our way out, and the more people we have, the better the chance of making it all the way. I've got a list drawn up of who we need and the priority in which they get out."
"Not in writing?" Ketswana asked, his voice filled with concern.
"No, of course not. Those who work on the tunnel and their families. Those who work in the warehouse that we tunnel into. The yard crews and workers on the train should go first."
"Some of these people have children, young ones," Manda said.
“I've thought about that," Alexi replied. “The children have to go, of course. For the very young ones, we'll bribe a guard for some opium to make them sleep so they don't make any noise."
“That could be dangerous for them," Tamira said. Then realizing all that was being implied, she smiled and nodded her head.
"We wait until the daily trainload of rails has gone out and the engine is loaded with wood and water. Then we rush it. I don't like the fact that it’s open flatcars, but at least we're sure it will be there and ready to go. If there should happen to be another train in the yard, preferably with boxcars, we'll take that one instead. Just before we make the rush, Gregory will lead several men to the switch house, kill the guard, and get the keys for the switches. The telegrapher works in there as well. I'll make sure he's one of us. He'll order any trains on the track ahead onto sidings, and he should know the next day's schedule as well. We then cut the wire, rush the engine, and head out. With luck we can stay ahead of the news of our escape."
"And once at X'ian, then what?" Hans asked.
"I've been told that at X'ian there's a nav
igable river all the way down to the sea and freedom. I think this has to be true because I've seen loads of what looks like ship's armor and several very large guns being moved westward on the line."
"When was the last time you actually rode a train that far?" Lin asked.
"I've never been there," Alexi replied. "They only let me run the train back in the early days when the line was still being built. Since then all engineers are Bantag, though occasionally they'll still have human firemen working in the tender, but we don't know where they're kept."
"So how can you be sure?"
"I can't," Alexi replied. "But I do know that's where the rail line goes. It fits a logical pattern. We time our arrival into the town at dark. By that time we should have caught at least one train loaded with guns."
"A big if," Hans interjected.
"A good chance, though. There's at least one or two boxcar loads going up there every day or two. I overheard a couple of guards talking about it several months back, that there's several training camps for their new army along the rail line."
"You mean we're going right through training areas?" Hans asked.
"No alternative," Gregory replied. "But if we can seize some weapons it will give us a fighting chance once we get into X'ian."
"You're talking about turning our people into combat troops in a single day, Gregory."
"Well, sir, I figure that over the next month you can teach Ketswana and his workers how to use a gun. That way they'll have something of a head start."
Hans could not refrain from laughing at the thought of secretly drilling with imaginary weapons right under the noses of the guards.
"Alexi and I were in the army, and at least four of the Cartha laborers were in their army during the war against us. It's a start, and desperation can be one hell of a reason for learning quick."
"Assuming we get the guns in the first place," Hans replied, trying to hide his sarcasm.
"Something like that, sir. If we're very lucky we might not even have to fight," Alexi continued. "I think it's a fair assumption that the train must come up close to a dockyard. We swarm out, surprising the bastards, seize a boat, and then get the hell down the river and out to sea."
"And what about the pursuit?"
Alexi grinned.
"We smash everything on the way. Burn bridges, tear up track, cut telegraph lines. We'll sow chaos all the way up the line. At each place we arrive they'll know nothing. If we can bluff our way through, well and good. If not, we fight, try to trigger rebellion with the people who are slaves there, and move on. I'd like to think that in X'ian we might even get thousands of people rioting."
Hans sat quietly, trying to absorb all that was being offered. Part of him wanted to believe that this mad dream was indeed possible, that in a month they might be free, heading back to Rus, to safety, to living. Yet another part of him whispered that it was a fool's dream. So much could go awry. He had heard the words "assume," and "hope for" too many times in the plan presented to him.
He saw that the others were caught up in their own mad dreams, the mere telling of it convincing them that it was real. Yet, he thought, if any single link in the chain of events breaks, it will all fail apart. The tunnel is discovered, a panic breaks out on the night of the escape, the train breaks down, the switches jam, we run across armed Bantag troops while we have no weapons, word gets out ahead of us—any of a million random events could destroy even the best of plans.
"What about the flyers?" Lin asked quietly.
"What about them?" Alexi replied.
"First. If only we could seize them, there would be our escape."
"A dream," Alexi replied. "They're kept half a dozen leagues away, back toward the main encampments of the Horde. We don't know anyone there, we don't even know exactly how to get to them, let alone how to fly them. Even if we did, each flyer can carry, at best, only half a dozen humans. Hundreds would be abandoned."
"But in all your plans of escape," Lin continued, "I haven't heard your plan for how to deal with them. We can cut the talking wire, that I see, and once we are clear of this cursed place those ahead of us will know nothing. But all they need to do is send a flyer up. If it gets ahead of us with word of our escape, they'll just have to tear up fifty yards of track, smash a switch, or burn a bridge, and we'll be trapped."
Alexi nodded and Hans watched him closely, waiting for an answer. "Pray to Kesus that the winds favor us and slow the flyers down."
"And that's your plan for them?" Hans replied coldly. "Rely on prayer?"
Alexi looked around the room and then finally nodded.
"We'll all have to pray that it's not just the winds that favor us," Hans said quietly.
He scanned the group, wondering yet again. He knew that if he said no, they would listen. It rested with him. He could see the youthful enthusiasm in Gregory, believing that all things were possible, and it conjured up a memory. Andrew would say yes, but I would urge caution, urge him to think about it some more. And yet what alternative was there here? Can I lead them, knowing it's pure madness even to try? That's what they want—and it's the one thing I can still do.
Getting to the train will be the first step. Then it will be fighting all the way up the line for hundreds of miles. That's something they tried to skip over. Hell, they gave Andrew's men the first Congressional Medals of Honor for stealing that train in Marietta, Georgia, and trying to smash the line north to Chattanooga. They also caught and hung Andrews and half a dozen of his men. Hanging would be preferable to what the Bantag will do to any they catch trying to escape. Even the Moon Feast would be a blessed relief.
He looked at Tamira again, Andrew still asleep in her lap. At least they won't take them alive, he thought quietly. She smiled that bewitching, childlike smile of hers that could still make his heart constrict. Yet again he sensed that somehow she could read his mind, knew that he was contemplating her death, and knew as well that it would be a final act of love.
He suddenly realized that he had been lost in thought and that his companions were waiting.
“Each of you, get your teams organized. Gregory, you oversee digging and concealment; Ketswana and Manda, security. Alexi, intelligence on the outside. Lin, your role comes in when we get ready to break out. The building has to be ready and rations for four hundred people for a week prepared. Ketswana, I want you to know if a Bantag or anyone who is not in on the secret gets within a hundred paces of the mine. Watches are to be kept on any person we don't trust completely. Alexi, train schedules. We have to pull in the telegrapher and the dispatchers."
He saw the childlike delight in their eyes, as if a stem and elderly schoolmaster had suddenly announced a holiday.
“For weapons, it's going to be picks, shovels, and whatever knives and sharp tools we can steal from the kitchen when the time comes."
He took a deep breath.
"Assume from this moment on that we are all dead. Even if we succeed with the tunnel, getting out and taking a train are improbable at best. It's hundreds of miles to the end of the line, and again, the odds are against us. If word gets ahead of us for any reason, we're dead. Once at the end of the line we'll have to seize a boat; we don't even know if one will be there. We're not even sure of the size of the garrison there, the defenses, or how to get past them. And if we do get a boat, then what? Even if we get to the open sea, it's at least five hundred miles to republic territory.
"If possible, we'll need to recruit people who have experience with boats, anyone who has worked on the rail gangs or traveled on the line, and especially anyone who has lived or worked in X'ian."
He turned to Ketswana. "We will have to fight terror with terror. Once a person is approached, he cannot back out or refuse. If he refuses, he will soon realize that as soon as we make our break, chances are he will die anyway. In that situation he is bound to denounce us."
He hesitated. "Anyone who refuses must be killed. Is that clear?"
Ketswana nodded slowly in agreement.
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"Everyone we recruit must understand as well that if we are denounced, somehow, some way, if any survive they will track the traitor down and kill him, even if he is moved to the furthest reaches of the Bantag realms. Ketswana, I want you to select two or three people that no one will ever know about, not even me. If we break out, they go with us. But if we fail, they will be the seekers of vengeance."
"It has already been done," Ketswana replied with a chilling grin.
Hans carefully studied the towering Zulu and his wife. There was such cold determination in the man's eyes that Hans felt a sense of awe. He realized that Ketswana would kill without a second's hesitation if any of them were ever threatened.
"Are you ready to start digging tomorrow?"
"As soon as we begin loading the furnace," Gregory replied.
"Then let's do it. Now get out of here. We've been together too long already."
He could not recall the last time he had felt such joy in those around him. One by one they slipped out of the room until finally he was alone with Tamira.
"Will it truly work?" she asked.
"Of course it will."
And, as always, he knew she could tell when he lied.
Leaning back from his desk, Andrew listened as Kathleen opened the door downstairs.
"Mr. President. What a surprise. Won't you come in?"
Andrew put down his pen and rubbed his eyes.
"Andrew, we have company."
The voice echoed up the stairs, and standing up, he looked down at the pile of reports. For once he almost wished he could stay with the paperwork of running an army. He scanned the room, filled now with the memorabilia that Kathleen had so proudly put on display. She had wanted to hang the original painting by Rublev, the most popular Rus artist, of Andrew surrounded by his staff at the Battle of Hispania, but Andrew had preferred instead a simple portrait of himself, Katherine, their daughter, Madison, and the boys, Abraham and Hans. His shot-torn guidon rested in the comer, and a display case against the wall opposite his desk held half a dozen books on the wars and the latest release by Gates Publishing, A History of the Thirty-fifth Maine and Forty-fourth New York. His most treasured possessions of all, his Congressional Medal of Honor and papers of commission to the rank of colonel signed by Abraham Lincoln, were framed next to his desk.
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