Hell Train

by Christopher Fowler

As they fled toward the ragged field of corpses, their pursuers started closing in. Nicholas knew that their valises were slowing them down, but he could not possibly travel without his belongings.

  Ivan and Josef were strong country lads and quickly gained ground. Then Isabella missed her footing and fell heavily, pulling him down into the grass.

  Moments later, the fleeing couple were seized by their pursuers.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE TRAIN

  THOMAS AND MIRANDA had seen the torches of the arriving army wavering through the treeline, and had fallen into panic.

  Miranda wrung her hands and paced back and forth on the platform. In England, she took control of every situation in which she found herself. Here, it was impossible to do so. She had never felt so powerless. ‘We don’t have the right papers,’ she cried. ‘They’ll see that we’re English.’

  ‘We must pray to Our Lord,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Is that your only solution? It’s too late for prayers.’

  ‘That is a blasphemy, Miranda. Remember, we are all children of God. The conventions of war demand that we be taken prisoner and remain unhurt. No harm shall befall us.’

  ‘And that’s it, is it? Abject surrender? Begging for leniency?’ Miranda rounded on her husband. ‘I do not understand how you can say that, when you know perfectly well that the Central Powers are not honouring the code of conduct set out by the Allies. The newspapers have been full of nothing else, for all that they have been censored.’ Her husband’s pacifism was increasingly making her angry. The world was fast descending into a fiery pit, and all she heard was the damp drizzle of appeasement. Why did the weak always pin their hopes on compassion?

  But Thomas was no longer listening. She had seen him do this a hundred times before, closing his mind to anything he did not wish to hear. With each passing day of her marriage, she was becoming less and less pious. If God had chosen to speak through man, she was fairly sure He would not have picked Thomas to be his mouthpiece.

  Something pricked at Miranda’s ears. The rails were pinging, softly at first, then more clearly. ‘There’s something coming,’ she said.

  ISABELLA TRIED TO free herself from Ivan’s grip. Nicholas fought off his attackers, smashing the first man who touched him in the nose with a Marquis of Queensberry jab, only to be viciously kicked in return.

  Now another advanced on him with a flensing knife in his right fist. Nicholas brought up his knee and broke the farmhand’s arm with a sharp crack.

  Josef looked as if he had just realized he was required to fight for his fiancee. Physically imposing but held down by his bulk, he slowly advanced on the Englishman. Nicholas studied his solid gait, his thick arms and bull neck with dismay. He knew that one well-placed punch from the foundryman could render him unconscious. He desperately searched around for something he could use as a weapon.

  Too late. Josef attacked. Nicholas had been taught boxing skills at Cambridge, but was not afraid of playing dirty. He kneed Josef as hard as he could in the groin, sending him over, onto his back. Isabella screamed. Josef threw out a hand to grab his opponent. Nicholas was faster, but he slipped on the wet grass.

  Josef seized his chance and pinned Nicholas down on an overgrown grave-slab edged with iron railway spikes. Pressing his arm across the Englishman’s throat, he began to choke the life from him, bearing down with his full weight. Nicholas could pull his arms free, but this would not help his situation. He tried to bring Isabella into his line of vision, but could only hear her crying out. Josef pressed the advantage, pushing down harder.

  Lights danced before Nicholas’s burning eyes. His right hand gripped the grave’s iron corner spike, desperate for leverage, and he was shocked when it came away in his hand, rusted through.

  As Josef pushed down to break his neck, Nicholas stabbed at the soft flesh of his attacker’s throat with the sharp tip of the spike. The pain was enough to make Josef release his grip.Isabella pulled forward and tried to separate them, bringing Ivan with her. Josef rolled onto his back as Nicholas climbed to his feet and found Ivan running at him. He grabbed Ivan’s sleeve and spun him around, kicking away his legs to send him sprawling. The foundrymen were strong but slow.

  Nicholas grabbed at the sobbing Isabella and pulled her away, snatching up her bag, making a dash for it. He had lost his own valise in the fight, but had thankfully retained the wad of banknotes inside his breast pocket.

  The commotion had drawn the attention of the incoming soldiers, who were raising the alarm. More torches could be seen in the town’s streets, flickering against the walls, stretching shadows into monsters. It seemed their pursuers were uniting into a single lynch-mob.

  Isabella and Nicholas could only stumble to their feet and flee from the graveyard in the direction of the station, the fiery procession closing in behind them. Now luck came to their aid, for a line of trees blocked the revealing moonlight, shielding them from sight as the soldiers swarmed among the cemetery stones, shouting to each other in drunken confusion.

  As the exhausted couple passed the church clocktower, Isabella saw that the iron hands were almost at midnight. Ahead, she could make out the low black form of the station building.

  ‘This way,’ she called, pulling at his sleeve. ‘We must run faster.’

  Nicholas had a stitch in his side. The clocktower began to strike twelve, the sharp clang of the bell cleaving through the clear night air. One more muddy field to cross, with the torchlit rabble weaving toward them.

  They reached the misty station and charged up the ramp onto the platform. The single straight track was empty. Two figures were waiting at the platform edge, but it was too dark to make out their features. They were also carrying luggage, and one of them appeared to be wearing a straw boater, something surely no-one but an Englishman would do.

  The soldiers had now been joined by other villagers, and were running along the path to the station in a chaotic hue and cry.

  Thomas and Miranda turned, astonished by the noise of the pursuit. Just as the simple boy had predicted, the railway lines were singing, then rattling. Miranda could feel the platform trembling beneath her boots, and was suddenly filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. She leaned forward to try and see if there was something coming, but could only make out a black billow of sparkling coal-dust forming in the cut between the pines. The cinders glittered like stars falling to earth.

  Then she saw two lamps like tiger-eyes, one vermilion, the other amber, swaying slightly, growing larger. The great stack of the chimney darker than the sky, chuff-chuff-chuffing toward them in great plumes of choking firefly smoke, a gleaming disc of green steel, engine and coal-car and links of carriages, hurtling towards them, as the great train stormed into the station.

  For a flickering second, the front of the engine had the Devil’s face, an illusion caused by shadows and smoke. Like some great extinct creature recreated in mechanical form, the locomotive thundered and wheezed to a stop with eruptions of stinging cinders and sprays of arterial oil.

  Isabella looked into the carriages and froze, some distant demon roiling in her head. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘no, not this.’ She began to back away, but Nicholas grabbed her hand. He looked into the carriages himself, but they appeared bright and bare, nothing out of the ordinary.

  By now, the rest of the villagers had reached the ramp to the platform. The soldiers among them were raising their rifles. There was not a second to waste. Nicholas flung open the door of the first carriage behind the coal car, ready to push Isabella inside. She tried to resist, but she knew that if she stayed behind she would never survive the swarming soldiers. In that brief moment, she was forced to make a decision.

  The soldiers opened fire. Bullets sang against the wall of the train. Miranda screamed. The decision was made.

  One of the villagers made a grab at Nicholas, but caught a bullet that tore away a quarter of his skull above his right ear, sending him spinning off the platform and onto the track. His
blood spattered the wheels. Nicholas froze in shock, covered with gore and flecks of white bone.

  There was nothing else for it. Isabella was pulled up the carriage steps. Having come to a halt, the engine driver had seen the commotion on the platform, and was preparing to depart in haste.

  At the next carriage door, Thomas and Miranda were fighting to get aboard with their luggage. Thomas was determined to leave nothing behind. For a moment it seemed as if they were not going to make it. With the train releasing its brakes and rolling once more, Isabella threw wide the door and grabbed at them. Their hands reached out and connected, from Nicholas and Isabella to Miranda and Thomas. In that brief flash of life, Isabella felt as if their fates were joined together.

  Thomas reached back and pulled the door shut behind him with a bang, just as a bullet flicked his boater from his head.

  Nicholas was surprised to find that the rest of their pursuers were suddenly falling away, fighting with each other and the soldiers. ‘They’re not following,’ he said. ‘Why aren’t they coming after us?’

  The four new passengers crowded at the window, watching the tumult shrink away as the train pulled out and the platform receded, and they left the townspeople of Chelmsk to the anarchy of the invading army.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE CONDUCTOR

  THEIR JOURNEY HAD been baptised with blood. Not a good way to start.

  Thomas and Miranda had collapsed into the plush velvet seats of the First Class compartment and were struck dumb by what they had just seen. Miranda was trying hard not to cry. Under normal circumstances, they would now have been sniping at each other in the way that English travellers did all over the world, fussing over the luggage, who had been responsible for packing so much, why had they not shipped one of the valises ahead and so on, but instead other questions crowded in. Why had a group of villagers run after them, and why had they fallen back just as suddenly? And where had the other couple disappeared to now? The one who looked English—where had he gone? They glanced around the six-seat carriage and found themselves alone.

  ‘Did you speak to them?’ Miranda asked.

  ‘No, but the man was definitely one of us, I’m sure of it. Had it not been for the girl we would never have boarded in time. We should find her and thank her.’

  ‘This dreadful war makes animals of men.’ Miranda shuddered. ‘What a frightful experience. I daresay our paths will cross theirs again. Fellow countrymen have a way of finding each other. Show me the map.’

  Thomas dug in his tennis bag and produced a creased wad of densely printed paper. ‘I looked at it earlier but the last panel appears to be missing. The route goes off the edge of it.’

  ‘Then we are in unknown territory. More excitement.’

  ‘Not too much, I hope,’ said Thomas.

  Miranda did not bother to explain that she was being sarcastic.

  ISABELLA LED NICHOLAS along the ornately decorated corridor of the train. The lower half was clad in polished teak boards, topped with a slender brass rail. Above this, the walls were painted a lustrous deep green, with fitted brass lamps and framed maps lining the way. The air smelled of pipe smoke, dusty fabric, wood shavings and metal polish, but there was something else in the air—a tang of sulphur, probably from burning coal. They passed a decorative silver plaque embossed with the name of the train and a date: Arkangel—Maiden Voyage, August 1887.

  They were picking up speed now, racing through the lush green countryside beneath a black sky sprinkled with coldly glimmering stars like points of frost.

  ‘That couple,’ said Nicholas, ‘English, obviously. Perhaps we should find out what they’re doing here.’

  ‘There’s time enough for them later. First we have to see—’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone else here.’ Isabella was anxiously peering in through the compartment windows.

  ‘Of course not. This is the first class carriage. We’re in peasant territory. The locals will all be in third. This part won’t fill up until we reach a decent city.’

  ‘Oh. I have never been on a train before.’

  ‘Why did you pull back?’ Nicholas demanded to know. ‘You could have got us killed.’

  ‘I did not want to board.’

  ‘In Heaven’s name, why? There’s nothing to be frightened of now. You are being borne away from the town with each passing second.’

  She shook her head. ‘I realized we had no choice.’ She would say no more on the subject.

  ‘You are angry with me,’ said Nicholas, after the silence between them had grown too long. ‘I fought in self-defence, you know. It was him or me.’

  ‘My poor Josef.’

  ‘Come, I’m sure he has suffered worse. Anyway, there is nothing to be done now. Let’s find out where we’re going.’ He took her hand once more and continued along the corridor.

  She stopped to point to a framed map on the wall. ‘Look, there are four stops after Chelmsk on the route: Snerinska—Schlopelo—Blankenberg—Zoribskia.’

  ‘You must know these towns.’

  ‘No, I have never left my village. On my thirteenth birthday we planned to visit the coast, but we were prevented from making the trip. That was the day they shot the English teacher.’

  ‘What had he done wrong?’

  ‘He tried to run off with one of the local girls.’

  Nicholas squinted at the faded map, attempting to follow the blue train line to its conclusion. ‘What’s our final destination? What comes after Zoribskia?’

  Isabella traced the route with her finger. ‘The terminal is obscured. Ink has been poured on it. There must be someone on board who can tell us.’

  They walked along the rocking passageway to its end, opened the door and stepped across into the second class carriage. Here they found another map detailing the train’s route, but this too had lost its final destination. The terminal in the bottom left-hand corner had been scratched out, even more severely than the last.

  Ahead, Nicholas could see a dark figure unaffected by the swaying of the train. He approached the motionless man, a tall, dark-eyed fellow with a long chin, dressed in a blue conductor’s uniform with double rows of brass buttons, black silk piping and a round flat cap. He stood in his alcove surrounded by mementoes of his journeys, waiting to be called upon, like a statuette kept in a cupboard. His sea-legs absorbed the roll of the carriage, keeping his torso still and erect, something that probably came with experience.

  ‘I say, are you in charge here?’ Nicholas demanded to know.

  The figure slowly turned to stare at him, as he might peer at an insect. He had a pair of lethal-looking silver clippers in his right hand. ‘I am the Conductor of the Arkangel,’ he replied in perfect English. He was as pale as ivory. The low timbre of his voice resonated from somewhere deep and far away. Although deeply set in the caves of his skull, his shining black eyes missed no detail.

  ‘Well, what is our destination?’ asked Nicholas sharply.

  ‘That must depend on you.’

  ‘Perhaps you didn’t understand the question. Where does the train terminate?’

  ‘We need to stay on board until we cross the border,’ asked Isabella. ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘You will finally come upon a border, yes.’

  ‘Then we’ll need tickets to get us there.’ Nicholas dug into his jacket and began to count out some notes from his billfold.

  The Conductor looked down at the notes in his hand as if being proffered used toilet paper. ‘I cannot accept your money.’

  ‘If it is the wrong currency—’

  ‘It has nothing to do with the currency.’

  Perhaps the railway did not wish to encourage dishonesty. ‘How else can I pay?’ Nicholas asked.

  ‘Those without tickets must find another way.’

  There were places in Eastern Europe where bills had to be stamped and restamped by teams of clerks before payment. ‘Even if this is some kind of local custom,
it still doesn’t make any sense,’ he said. Clearly the man was not of a helpful disposition. ‘Wait here, Isabella. I’ll be back.’

  There had to be somebody else on board the train. Nicholas pushed on ahead and came to the next second-class carriage. Here two of the compartments were occupied with single men. One was grave and correct, in the garb of a decade ago, an aesthete perhaps, or an actor. He sat with his chin on his knuckle staring out at the rushing countryside. Curiously, there was fresh dirt on the shoulder-pads of his frayed jacket, as if he had just been dragged from a grave. The other passenger was a rotund fellow with a caliper on his leg, a man who was clearly falling upon hard times; a salesman, judging by the sample case stowed above his head. Neither of these men would be willing to give up their passage home.

  Nicholas continued onwards, searching without success.

  The third and final pair of carriages housed the lowest grade of compartment. Here the wooden slatted third class seats were arranged in an open plan, with iron luggage racks large enough to hold suitcases and crates of vegetables. At the far end he found a sleeping peasant couple, the ruddy-cheeked wife collapsed upon the husband’s shoulder like a dozing potato. This was more promising.

  Nicholas studied the husband and noted his top pocket, from which protruded a pair of unstamped tickets.

  Returning to the centre of the train he found the Conductor in exactly the same place, as if he had not moved a single muscle. Nicholas offered him the purloined tickets. The Conductor threw him a suspicious look, but took them all the same.

  ‘I would like to upgrade those tickets to first class,’ he explained.

  ‘There is no difference in payment,’ said the Conductor. ‘Passengers find their own class and sit there, for that is where they are most comfortable.’

  ‘That sounds very... communistic. What is our journey time?’

  ‘We must travel deep into the night.’