There was a sharp crack behind him. He jerked his head round as the door burst open with a swirl of wind and sand, and one of his men staggered through. There was another crack and he collapsed. His blood spread across the floor.
Gerhardt tried to up-end his table, but it was screwed to the floor. There was movement in the dark beyond the door. There were gunshots from behind him as his men fired past him.
Gerhardt drew his pistol and moved back along the train.
He grabbed Edgbaston and pulled him to his feet. A bullet splintered the wall near his head. Gerhardt pulled Edgbaston round as a barrier, holding him in place, then pointed the gun at the admiral. “Get up.”
The admiral looked him in the eye and shook his head. Instead he slipped to the floor and lay along it. Gerhardt growled. He desperately wanted to shoot the man but his ammunition was limited. Instead, he kicked the admiral in the head as hard as he could, slamming it against the wooden wall.
The admiral’s tense body slumped into relaxation.
Gerhardt pulled Edgbaston back further, until he moved past his men. The British took that moment to advance through the door and take cover behind the partition walls. But they were not firing.
“Preserve your ammunition,” Gerhardt said quietly then retreated towards the rear of the carriage. He kept Edgbaston as a barrier but concentrated on the rear. There was no way of knowing how many they were, though he was fairly sure the two that had come in were from the group at the house—which implied there might only be those.
There was only one way they could have caught up. The girls and their plane. They must have dropped them onto the train before it entered the sandstorm. It would be a happy day if that act had resulted in their deaths.
The rear door opened. Gerhardt held his fire; he wanted a clear shot. With both doors open to the elements, the wind ripped through carrying a stream of sand with it. The door opened wide and a man threw himself through it. Gerhardt fired but the bullet lodged in the door frame as the fellow disappeared. The wind changed direction and the door slammed shut.
The storm was getting worse and the carriage rocked with frightening ferocity. It sounded as if the sand would tear away the ceiling and walls. Perhaps he should order them to stop the train. But that was no longer possible.
The new fellow at the rear popped out his head and Gerhardt took a shot at him. He missed again. Still, having Edgbaston prevented them from firing.
“To fight is foolish,” he shouted in English. “You want your men and we simply wish to leave.”
“It’s not that simple any more, Gerhardt,” said the Englishman. “You have kidnapped an official representatives of Her Majesty’s government, never mind waging war on her subjects. We cannot allow you to leave.”
“Then we are at an impasse,” called Gerhardt.
The train carriage lurched and tilted. As he tried to stay hidden, Gerhardt lost his grip on Edgbaston, who fell against the opposite wall. There was a shriek of metal and a crash. The entire rear wall of the carriage ripped away leaving tattered edges. Wind-driven sand swirled through the gap. Gerhardt threw up his hands to cover his eyes as something huge and metallic lurched forward and crashed into the carriage.
From behind the glass windows of the Pegasus the red-haired girl glared out, her entire focus on him.
Gerhardt dropped his hand from his eyes and squinted against the driven sand. How was this possible?
The girl and her vessel. Here. On the train? She was going to kill him, he knew it. He jumped across to where Edgbaston had fallen and pulled him to his feet. A wing from the ship slammed down in front of him, piercing the wooden planks and twisting them. Then it ripped upwards, tearing away the roof.
He pulled the girl’s father in front of him and pointed the gun at the man’s head. Still holding the ace, he fixed the girl with a glare of his own. She met his gaze with one equally stony.
The wing that had taken away the ceiling slowly folded back. Not into the body, but back into a position with its end feathers touching the shifting and rocking floor of the carriage.
Gerhardt could see the other girl, the Schwarze, standing beside the pilot. She was saying something. On the other side was a woman he did not recognise. The one they had rescued from the collapsing house? She too was talking at the girl, in her other ear. They would be telling her to control herself. That if she did anything then her father would die and it would be her fault.
Gerhardt slowly smiled. He would win this after all.
At that moment there was a movement from the man who had come through before.
His gun appeared. Gerhardt took a quick shot in his direction.
The last thing he remembered was the iron wing flicking up at him impossibly fast. And the pain.
xxviii
With the Pegasus’s Faraday switched on, the crane at Luxor station did not have any difficulty lifting the vessel from the broken train. The ship swung precariously as Sellie wrung her hands.
She had insisted the foreman check the mounting points three times before she was satisfied.
A crew of naval engineers was waiting to go through every movable part of the ship and clear out any sand that had got into the works. She had to trust them because they worked in this environment all the time and knew what to look for. Still, she would check every seam and every joint after they had finished.
She also wanted to finish the job she had started with the extra Faraday grids.
Harry, their father, and Mrs Hemingway had all gone to the hotel. Dad needed to get some sleep, a good clean, and a change of clothes. Sellie had had a long discussion with Harry about it and they decided that Sellie should stay with the Pegasus while Harry went with him.
It had been a decision between them, and it was the right one, but Sellie could not help but feel she was being left out. The crane lurched and Sellie shouted at the foreman.
* * *
Harry got changed into proper clothes. She had never thought she would be so glad to put on layers of petticoats. Mrs Hemingway had helped her but this was a different woman to the one they had known half their lives. She did not boss Harry around, she asked and made suggestions—every one of which Harry agreed to.
She had slept on the train and had not been through the same ordeal as her father. She was tired, but not exhausted.
She glanced out the window. The train had emerged from the sandstorm after three hours and it had taken until the next morning for them to arrive in Luxor, though they had stopped briefly in Aswan and a message had been sent ahead.
A boy knocked at the door of their suite—provided by the British government—and handed them a card. Mrs Hemingway glanced at it and then passed it to Harry. She smiled on seeing it was from Lt Cmdr Laxton.
With Mrs Hemingway as chaperone, she made her way to the lobby where they were shown into a large room with wide and open windows. Both Laxton and Lt Keating were there, wearing clean and smart uniforms they must have acquired from somewhere, and there was another man, a bureaucrat by his suit and an important one by his bearing.
“Miss Edgbaston, Mrs Hemingway,” began Laxton, “may I introduce His Excellency, Lord Walton. Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Egypt.”
Harry curtsied as well as she could remember. An ambassador was the monarch’s direct representative and thereby deserved almost as much respect. She wondered how surprised Mrs Hemingway was by her manners—though there was the possibility she had got it all wrong and any surprise might be embarrassment.
None of the men reacted so she assumed she had got it right. The ambassador held out his hand and helped her to her feet.
“Miss Edgbaston, I have heard a great deal about you.” His voice was deep and comfortable, like a feather bed, though Harry noticed there was nothing soft about his grip.
“Thank you, Your Excellency,” she said.
“Not all of it was good,” he added.
“I’m sorry.”
“But, on balance, it was positive.”
“Than
k you.”
The ambassador pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it. “I’m afraid I do not have much time, Miss Edgbaston, as I have a meeting with the German ambassador directly.”
“He’s in Luxor, too?”
“You are in the middle of an international incident, Miss Edgbaston.” His voice carried the tone of someone who was not at all pleased with the situation. “It’s just as well you did not kill Hauptman Gerhardt.”
“It was an accident.”
“I somehow find that hard to believe.”
“No, I mean ‘not killing him’ was an accident,” she said. “I was aiming for his head.”
The ambassador hesitated. “I see. Well, I believe I will not relay that part of the story. At least, not officially. But I wanted to meet with you to see what sort of a girl Miss Harriet Edgbaston is before I spoke with him.”
“Am I what you expected, sir?”
“Truthfully? Not in the least.”
The ambassador took his leave and Lt Keating left with him, shutting the door behind them.
“It’s been a pleasure, Miss Edgbaston,” said Laxton and held out his hand. Harry took it, though she was surprised.
“Really?”
“Except the part where you almost killed me ripping out the wall.”
“Sorry.”
“No harm done,” he said. “The navy will ensure that your bird is ready to fly again as soon as possible, and you can go home.”
Harry pulled a face. “I don’t have a home anymore.”
Laxton grunted. “Oh yes, and I have this for you.” He reached into an inner pocket and pulled out two envelopes. He glanced at them and handed one to Harry. “And this one is for your sister.” The second had Khuwelsa’s name written out in full. Each envelope bulged slightly in one place.
“Thank you.”
He smiled. “You can open it now.”
Harry passed Sellie’s envelope to Mrs Hemingway then ran her thumb up hers and tore it open. There was a letter with the Royal Navy seal at the top. It was an official acknowledgement for rescuing the admiral and her father. And a metal badge. Two wings mounted on the rectangle of the Royal Ensign, the official insignia of the Royal Navy Aerial Fleet.
“We do not hand out badges like sweets, Miss Edgbaston,” he said. “These are to signify that you have the genuine gratitude of Her Majesty and the Senior Service. If you or your sister should ever wish to become a part of it we will endeavour to find you a place.”
He and Lt Keating saluted and left.
Harry turned the badge over in her hands. There were no women in the Royal Navy.
Perhaps she and Sellie could be the first.
~ end ~
What to read next
Frozen Beauty #1: The Chinese Vase
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About the author
Steve Turnbull has been a geek and a nerd longer than those words have had their modern meaning.
Born in the heart of London to book-loving working class parents in 1958, he lived with his parents and two much older sisters lived in two rooms with gas lighting and no hot water. In his fifth year, a change in his father's fortunes took them out to a detached house in the suburbs. That was the year Dr Who first aired on British TV and Steve watched it avidly from behind the sofa. It was the beginning of his love of science fiction.
Academically Steve always went for the science side but he also had his imagination and that took him everywhere. He read through his local library's entire science fiction and fantasy selection, plus his father's 1950s Astounding Science Fiction magazines. As he got older he also ate his way through TV SF like Star Trek, Dr Who and Blake's 7.
However it was when he was 15 he discovered something new. Bored with a Maths lesson he noticed a book from the school library: Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee. From the first page he was captivated by the Beauty of the language. As a result he wrote a story longhand and then spent evenings at home on his father's electric typewriter pounding out a second draft, expanding it. Then he wrote a second book. After that he switched to poetry and turned out dozens, mostly not involving teenage angst.
After receiving excellent science and maths results he went on to study Computer Science. There he teamed up with another student and they wrote songs for their band - Steve writing the lyrics. Though they admit their best song was the other way around, with Steve writing the music.
After graduation Steve moved into contract programming but was snapped up a couple of years later by a computer magazine looking for someone with technical knowledge. It was in the magazine industry that Steve learned how to write to length, to deadline and to style. Within a couple of years he was editor and stayed there for many years.
During that time he married Pam (who also became a magazine editor) who he'd met at a student party.
Though he continued to write poetry all prose work stopped. He created his own magazine publishing company which at one point produced the subscription magazine for the Robot Wars TV show. The company evolved into a design agency but after six years of working very hard and not seeing his family—now including a daughter and son—he gave it all up.
He spent a year working on miscellaneous projects including writing 300 pages for a website until he started back where he had begun, contract programming.
With security and success on the job front, the writing began again. This time it was scriptwriting: features scripts, TV scripts and radio scripts. During this time he met a director Chris Payne, who wanted to create steampunk stories and between them they created the Voidships universe, a place very similar to ours but with specific scientific changes.
With a whole universe to play with Steve wrote a web series, a feature film and then books all in the same Steampunk world and, behind the scenes, all connected.
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Harry gets Her Wings (Iron Pegasus Book 3) Page 11