Hell Train

by Christopher Fowler

  Filling a tray with beers for Josef and his boorish friends—Ivan and Karek—she set them down before the man she had been instructed to marry. She could see that Ivan was trying to get him drunk again. Jealous of Josef’s success with her, he was always undermining his friend.

  ‘The coalition army will destroy the railway station,’ said Josef glumly.

  ‘Our comrades are fighting beside them,’ Ivan reminded him. ‘We stay as their allies, or run as their enemies.’

  ‘I can’t leave Isabella here, Ivan. Look at her. They won’t leave her alive.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve got yourself a little firebrand there,’ Ivan said in a voice loud enough to carry to her ears.

  ‘I love her,’ Josef admitted, drinking deep.

  ‘All the men in town want her. They’ve probably had her, too.’ Ivan slyly caught her eye.

  ‘All except you, Ivan,’ laughed Karek, who always had trouble following the conversation. Ivan lashed out, slapping Karek around the ear.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ Karek clutched at his head like a scolded child.

  ‘Isabella is keeping herself for me,’ Josef assured his companions.

  ‘That old story?’ Ivan scoffed. ‘You really think that’s true? Did you see the way she looked at the fine city gentleman?’ He clapped his friend on the shoulder. Isabella stood a short distance away, listening.

  ‘Marry her fast and give her a dozen babies,’ Ivan advised. ‘No-one will look twice at her then. Not when her breasts are falling to her belly.’ He slurped his ale and roared with laughter.

  ‘She will be a fine mother,’ said Josef.

  ‘Perhaps she will,’ said Ivan. ‘But the army will shortly be arriving here. A girl like her will turn soldiers into animals.’

  ‘I will protect her.’

  ‘That won’t be enough to save her. You must take her virginity,’ Ivan replied. ‘Tell them she’s diseased. Scar her face. Make men shun her. You must do something so that they won’t look twice at her. Take this. Do it soon.’ He removed a lethal-looking razor from his leather belt.

  Isabella’s doubts crystallized at that moment. Leaving the beer glasses to dry themselves, she ran behind the counter and removed her apron.

  ‘Wait, Isabella,’ Josef called, knowing that Ivan had gone too far this time.

  ‘The barrel needs changing,’ said her father.

  She caught his eye defiantly. ‘I shall only be a few minutes.’ She went to the back door, but found it locked. The keys were in her father’s leather apron. Returning to the bar, she slipped up behind her father and carefully removed the key ring from his pocket. Then she ran for the door.

  Isabella had no jacket, but did not dare risk collecting it from her room. She darted out into the courtyard, then stopped, fearful of being followed. Looking back through the dimpled glass, she saw Ivan and Karek raising their tankards to Josef. They had already forgotten about her.

  She ran to the restaurant.

  She found Nicholas seated before a plate of roasted and sliced pig’s head, and sat down beside him. Realising that he was witnessing an assignation, the waiter poured Isabella a glass of red wine and slid discreetly away, keeping watch from the corner of his eye.

  ‘You came.’ Nicholas only just resisted kissing her.

  ‘I have to leave.’ Isabella looked terrified. ‘They spoke of cutting my face. So the soldiers wouldn’t—’

  ‘Listen to me, Isabella. Part of your country has joined the enemy. Very soon now it will be hard to know who to trust. It won’t be safe for you when the troops arrive here.’

  ‘They want me to bear Josef’s children because he will inherit a directorship at the iron foundry. It is the lifeblood of the town.’ She cast a longing glance at the railway travel poster on the wall. ‘I have seen London in books,’ she confided, ‘and I have been there in my dreams.’

  ‘You could be there tomorrow. I’d pay your ticket.’ She demurred, but he drew closer. ‘Why not? What do you really have to lose?’

  ‘I feel so confused.’ She touched the crucifix at her neck, apologetic now, almost ashamed of her innocence. ‘I am supposed to marry a man from the town, like all the girls.’

  ‘Are you so sure this is the life you want?’

  They watched from the window as a drunken villager rolled past, groping at his fat wife’s fat bottom.

  ‘Josef is a good man.’

  ‘But he is your father’s choice, not yours.’

  ‘No, it’s not that...’

  ‘Then come to London.’

  ‘They would never allow me to leave.’

  ‘Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor, Isabella. A chance like this may never come again. You’ll never know what might have been.’

  Isabella glanced back at the framed picture of the train on the wall. She could see her reflection imposed upon the train. All of her life she had been surrounded by images of travel. Nicholas pressed his advantage.

  ‘Each minute brings you closer to danger. Look at you—what will the soldiers see? A pleasure to be taken and discarded. Life does not run on a track like one of your trains. This may be the only time in your life when you can choose. You are free to go wherever you want, if you believe in—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘—the power of love.’

  Seizing the moment, Nicholas drew her face close and kissed her; a long, lingering meeting of mouths. She had watched the girls and their swains at the village fair, but this was different from the way they kissed, from the chaste, dutiful way that Josef kissed; it felt reckless and full of heat.

  But she was the first to pull away. According to the priest, all girls had to choose between damnation or paradise. Girls who were promised to one man and dallied with another were destined to go to Hell. But she was curious to see the other path of her life, to know what might yet be. While the other girls barely thought about their destinies, Isabella’s greatest weakness had always been her curiosity.

  ‘Please, Isabella, I want this for you.’

  ‘Don’t you see? It is madness.’

  ‘No, the war is madness, and this is the only sane answer for you.’ Nicholas believed what he was saying, even though it was not the first time he had used such words on a local girl.

  ‘I cannot leave everything behind and come with you.’

  ‘It is only fear that keeps you here, Isabella. Fear of the unknown. Take the chance.’ He kissed her again, touching her tongue with his. ‘Take flight with me. We’ll pack our bags and catch the midnight train.’

  ‘But my father...’

  ‘They’ll all be drunk by now. I will give you the world. Say yes.’ He kissed her a third time, deeper than before, and she felt herself slipping under his spell. A new world was opening up at her feet, and she was willing herself to fall.

  ‘Yes,’ she heard herself say. ‘I know a way out.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE WARNING

  BACK ON THE railway platform, acrid coal smoke from the departing train still hung in the air. A young couple dressed in English touring clothes, a style most noticeable for stripes of inconsistent width, stood beside their luggage, which included tennis rackets, shuttlecocks and a cricket bat. It was a wonder they had not brought picnic tables with them. The man was balding and already running to fat, and wore a blue and white cricket jacket. He could not have looked more out of place if he had been wearing a grass skirt.

  ‘Missed it!’ Thomas exclaimed, ‘How is that possible?’

  Miranda was four years older than her husband, and already developing the shrewish nature of her mother. Her attractive mouth had lately started becoming pinched, never more so than when she thought about money. Her eyes seemed to narrow more suspiciously with each passing day.

  ‘You said they never leave on time,’ she accused.

  ‘Damn and blast!’ Thomas kicked out at his suitcase. The stationmaster had disappeared. There was no-one else to be seen.

  ‘Thomas, remember who you are! I
told you we should have set off earlier. Well, there’s nothing else for it. We’ll simply have to go back.’ Miranda stooped to pick up her valises. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Indeed, with a husband like Thomas, the skill was virtually a necessity.

  ‘We can’t go back, Miranda. Apart from anything else, I’ve not allowed more money for another room.’

  ‘I told you, we should never have left England,’ she said unhelpfully.

  ‘There must be someone around here who knows when the next train is.’

  He stumped off along the platform looking patently absurd, and stopped at the ticket office. When he rapped his knuckles on the wooden counter, the stationmaster suddenly rose from behind it, making him jump.

  ‘I say, you there. Look here, are you in charge? The train has gone.’

  ‘Then you have missed it.’

  ‘I expect there’s another, yes?’

  ‘There is not another, no. You can expect nothing here. There will be no more trains tonight.’

  ‘But what are we to do? We cannot go back. In case it has escaped your attention, your country is heading for civil war.’

  ‘Then you will have to choose a side, Englishman.’ The stationmaster hawked and spat on the floor. Lately, spitting at foreigners had virtually become a national pastime. He slammed his ticket window shut.

  Miranda had seated herself on her luggage. It was still hot, and she was perspiring. ‘Is there nowhere safe in Europe?’ she asked, dabbing at her neck with a handkerchief. ‘It’s as if the world has gone mad.’

  ‘There’s supposed to be another train,’ said Thomas, puzzled. ‘I’m sure I heard someone mention it in the café earlier.’

  Miranda fanned herself. ‘When?’

  ‘I can’t be sure. Towards midnight, I think. But the stationmaster—’

  ‘But what if the army arrives before then?’

  Thomas was trying to think of an answer when some kind of animal released an unearthly scream from the misting wheatfields beyond the station.

  ‘What on earth was that?’ Miranda tried to see.

  ‘It sounded like a pig. Probably caught in a trap.’ Thomas unfolded his map and followed the railway line. ‘Here we are. Chelmsk—Snerinska—Schlopelo—Blankenberg—Zoribskia, just those stops, then nothing. It makes absolutely no sense.’ He turned the map around to show his wife. The part revealing the final destination had been scrubbed away, as if it no longer existed. ‘We got into the country, Miranda. There must be a way back out.’

  Miranda was exasperated. ‘This is no longer neutral territory, Thomas. They are closing the borders.’

  ‘We have to stay ahead of the army.’ Thomas shielded his eyes from the low sun, trying to see signs of life, but there were only the endless green and yellow fields.

  ‘And if they arrive here? We could be shot.’

  ‘Then we have to be on the last train.’

  ‘What train? There’s nothing on the schedule!’

  Her husband firmed his jaw. ‘We must have faith, Miranda.’

  Thomas touched the crucifix at his neck, and not for the first time Miranda regretted marrying a country vicar. He checked his pocket watch and looked anxiously down the line.

  ‘Can you see anything?’ she asked.

  Thomas’s eyesight was poor, but he could discern a faint glow moving in the shadowed woods.

  ‘Is it the train?’

  ‘No,’ said Thomas gloomily. ‘I think it’s the army.’

  The bushes at the end of the platform suddenly rustled and parted. Emerging from them, a filthy boy stepped onto the paving stones. His clothes were ragged and his feet were unshod. His piercing blue eyes held the signs of madness.

  Thomas refused to be intimidated by a mere child. He strode up to the urchin and confronted him.

  ‘Little boy, can you understand me?’

  The child studied him, then pulled something alive from his wild hair and put it in his mouth. ‘We all speak English. There was a teacher here once. We liked our teacher very much.’

  ‘Jolly good. When is the next train?’

  ‘No train.’ The boy scratched at his head, looking for more lice.

  ‘I thought there was supposed to be one at midnight.’

  ‘Something comes at midnight.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Something that looks like a train.’ The boy examined another wriggling bug held between his fingers, then ate it.

  ‘Where does it go?’

  ‘Mustn’t look at it. Turn away when you hear the rails sing. Cover your ears when you hear the whistle. At midnight you must run. Hide.’ The boy turned to go.

  ‘Wait—’

  But it was too late. The child had vanished in the darkening woodland.

  ‘What was the boy saying?’ Miranda called.

  Thomas could hear the worry in her voice. ‘Nothing that made sense,’ he told her.

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘What can we do?’ said Thomas. ‘We wait.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE ESCAPE

  NICHOLAS LOOKED THROUGH the window of the tavern and saw trouble brewing. Josef and Ivan were standing with Isabella’s father. There was much gesticulation.

  ‘Wait here,’ he told Isabella, and he went as close to the window as he dared, listening.

  ‘Wake yourselves up, you two,’ the landlord was saying. ‘Stop the Englishman. And find my daughter. Ivan, sober up and help Josef. It’s his wife he’ll be losing.’

  Nicholas watched as Ivan and Josef left the bar with sudden purpose.

  ‘Come this way,’ Isabella whispered. She was holding open a narrow wooden door at the side of the tavern. He slipped inside, and followed Isabella to the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Go to your room and pack your bag,’ Nicholas said. ‘I need some things. Be as quick as you can. I’ll meet you outside.’

  Running lightly up the stairs, Isabella darted into her room and stuffed her mother’s old cloth bag with a few essential items. When she glanced out of the window, she saw Ivan and Josef burst into the courtyard below. Isabella blew out her candle and descended, leaving through the back door, into the alleyway at the side of the inn.

  Outside his room, Nicholas froze as the floorboards creaked. He listened intently, but hearing nothing from the floor below, he continued inside. Quietly and quickly, with an expertise that revealed much practice, he grabbed his valise and the string-tied wad of notes he had hidden under the mattress, and started to leave, crab-walking awkwardly down the back stairs.

  At the bottom of the staircase, the landlord and his men were waiting for him. The barkeepers of Eastern Europe kept a keen eye for men who tried to slip out. ‘Where do you think you’re going, friend?’ asked Isabella’s father. He tapped a heavy stick in his palm.

  Isabella stared through the window helplessly as Nicholas was hauled back into the inn by the drinkers, and was forced to sit on a stool before the open fire. He was surrounded by angry villagers who never once took their eyes from him.

  Nicholas considered his options. He had, in truth, been in stickier situations. There had been that time in Valencia with the Mayor’s daughter, for a start. They had nearly cut his fingers off. But the door was too far away for him to cut and run. The others in the bar would never allow him to leave.

  ‘There is no time for this,’ he warned, trying to rise but held down on the stool. ‘The enemy is already inside your walls.’

  ‘Whose enemy?’ asked the landlord. ‘Not ours. This town was built by the railways. Our families were raised on iron and fire. Our men are engineers and metalworkers, and our women become wives and mothers, not sport for bored city folk.’ He had been mulling red wine over the open fire in an iron cup. It was now boiling.

  ‘And you would see Isabella raped to save yourselves.’

  ‘Let’s show the stranger our hospitality. Pour him a drink, boys.’ Two of the toughest looking farmers in the bar pinned Nicholas down and forced ope
n his mouth. The metal wine cup was red hot and bubbling fiercely. The landlord drew up a three-legged stool and seated himself before Nicholas. Perhaps, Nicholas considered, this situation is worse than Valencia. He struggled, turning his head aside.

  Outside, Isabella watched in horror, unable to act. She was shocked by the ferocity of men she had known all her life, men she thought she knew. What she was witnessing only firmed her resolve to leave. But there was nothing she could do to save Nicholas now.

  The landlord lowered a pair of tongs into the fire and lifted the iron cup, carefully raising the glowing goblet over Nicholas’s open mouth. Drawing it close above the fine English gentleman’s upturned face, he started to tip it. Behind him, a tough old farmer held Nicholas’s arms by his sides.

  Kicking out as hard as he could, Nicholas knocked the fat landlord off his stool, upending the scalding cup into the farmer’s eyes. The farmer roared, blinded, and fell back. The cup fell on his forehead, branding his flesh. Nicholas seized the moment to make a break for freedom. Grabbing the farmer, he slammed him into the fire, setting his hair alight.

  He dashed for the door and barged it open. Seizing Isabella’s hand, he rushed from the tavern with the others in pursuit.

  The pair ran as fast as they could. Isabella pulled Nicholas aside as Ivan and Josef came around the side of a building and blindly charged past.

  The streets were dark and empty, both a blessing and a curse. As they reached the town’s outer wall, they saw that a platoon of bedraggled soldiers had began pouring in through the open gate.

  ‘The town has one road in and out,’ Isabella warned. ‘If we are to survive, we must cut across the fields.’

  Panicked, she ran even faster, with Nicholas close behind.

  In the penumbral gloom ahead, Nicholas could make out rows of upturned marble tablets, angled among grassy hillocks like rotten teeth. ‘Is that a graveyard?’

  ‘Yes. We must go through it to reach the station. From there we can follow the tracks out of town. It is the fastest way.’