by Neil Enock
Then the massive rodent was almost broadside to our train and from it not a single firearm pointed at our hiding spot.
“Now fire,” I shouted with the appropriate flourish of my sword.
And we let loose with the field gun and Nordenfeldts. Overhead, a sixty-pounder shell flew from the train into the hulking Rat, where it exploded with much drama and little damage. Their mechanicals returned fire blindly, but thoroughly, through the jungle growth. That many rounds improved their chances and three of our brave men fell dead. Five of us staggered back, wounded. I swore at the lead shot that had just broken one of my blooming ribs.
Their field guns were even deadlier, ramming their explosive shells into the earth near our positions. Five more of us fell forever and eight more needed the field surgeon. I refused to call for his help myself as I wasn’t in danger of dying yet.
Our English train guards arched smoke shells around the Rat, trying to confound their gunners. A sixty-pounder hit the big turret with scant effect. Now both enormous turrets were slowly turning toward our hill. Hand-cranked. Thank goodness the Rat didn’t have the mechanical turret drives of the battleships. Another of our sixty pounder shells hit the big turret again. Its rate of turning slowed not a bit.
Two dozen native troopers and seven train guards were down already. The Krupp gun fired valiantly until a small shell hit its barrel, wounding the crew. One of the Rat’s field guns was still fighting, throwing dirt and vegetation over us. Our large-bore mechanicals also still roared. One of them was then blown apart. Fortunately, the natives manning it had flung themselves away and were unhurt. Most of our small-bore mechanicals still rattled away at the field guns. My left hand held my handkerchief to my right side, while my right hand gestured with my saber, with less and less speed and enthusiasm, I do admit. With one more flourish I encouraged the troops on, and nearly killed the man nearest to me when my grip failed on my saber. I apologized for what I did to his shirt.
Finally, the Rat’s top-side field guns had been un-crewed. But the turrets were invulnerably facing us, and their barrels were rising. The cannons stopped moving when they had us in their sights.
Then, all three front wheels sequentially fell off the Rat. It collapsed like a rejected suitor, the forward right side lurching toward the ground just as its turret fired. Their shells assaulted the base of the ridge. Carbonate sand flew everywhere and the ground under our feet shook. The ridge began a slow crawl toward the monstrous Rat. We pulled our weapons and our casualties back barely in time. Trees and earth buried part of the metal beast as its remaining right wheels failed. Then the smokestacks flew into the air and landed well behind us, almost reaching the train and felling several trees. The boilers of the beast had exploded. One last sixty pounder shot descended within the broken roof and exploded right where the machine’s magazine would likely be. We covered our ears and watched the pedestal guns and Gatling’s fly over the beach into the ocean. One field gun dove barrel first into the azure waters and stayed there, sticking up half submerged with its breech and bullet shields looking like the head and shoulders of a forlorn scarecrow.
A handful of turbaned men climbed out and ran away from the flames, carrying another handful with them. I shouted to cease fire. No sword flourishes this time, though. The survivors waded into the sea along with the bewildered cavalry, toward a nearby cutter we had not noticed before.
Seven of our native troopers and four of our British soldiers were lost. Seventeen other troopers and soldiers required time in the local hospital. Sixteen more needed cleaning and bandaging but nothing else, I being one of those. The round that had hit me had bounced off my ribs instead of burrowing deep, so I only needed carbonic antiseptic, bandages and a stiff glass. Not that I didn’t visit the hospital, of course. Regulations are there for a purpose.
The railroad was repaired, and the mechanical failure of a giant rodent was salvaged for its metal. The Imam and his helpers buried the unfortunate ones who had fatally crewed the Rat. Amazingly, the Sultan’s envoys never gave any mention of his lost toy. Rumors of the construction of a giant Beaver soon died out. A quarter year later, celebrated as I was in the daily news and my ribs fully healed, I returned home, but not before giving a crate of the best tea to the Imam for his help.
Now, in my drawing room overlooking the Thames, sipping our port by the glow of an autumn’s fire, I suppose you would think me happy about my adventure. True, the British Empire is secure, and I have my accolades and rewards. But I am not relaxed. Just because that first steel monstrosity had done little damage, it does not mean an even more brilliant engineer cannot dream up something far more threatening and deadly. This is not the path I want for our beloved technology, but I know many do. And now my associate, that cheerful German technician from our train, has written me to say his niece, Ottoma Diesel, has invented a new and more compact type of engine that runs on petroleum products. She said it will eventually replace steam and coal. Maybe it will, but I hope sincerely that this invention will never find its way to the battlefield.
—— « o » ——
David Worsick
David Worsick descended from the Canadian son of English folk and inherited his father’s books on steam trains and British heroes. He now attempts to ascend the list of Calgarian writers.
The Conductor
by Maurice Forrester
Mary was walking along the railroad tracks and thinking about trains. She liked to think about trains. She had come west from New York City on an orphan train a few years after the war and a year before the trains came to life. She didn’t remember much from the city except for hunger, a crowded room, and quarreling children. She and some of the other children had been pulled from an orphanage, bundled onto a train, and sent west for a new life away from the dirty, crowded city. On the train west, she was given food and a seat all of her own. Many of the children were scared and some cried, but for the first time in her life Mary was happy.
She had been adopted by the Miller family and immediately put to work. From morning until night, there were chores to do. There was cooking, cleaning, laundry, and mending. Outside, there was a garden to plant, weed, and harvest. There were eggs to collect and chickens to be slaughtered. She cared for the younger children, was bullied by the older, and she waited on the guests that came to the Miller home.
One of her early memories was hearing Mr. Miller and his friends talk about the trains. They argued about why the trains had come to life and what should be done about it. They talked about a silver hammer driving a golden spike to complete the railroad that ran across the country, and Mary treasured that image in her mind. She pictured trains waking up from a long slumber, stretching out, and running as fast as they could along the tracks.
Mr. Miller and the other men had a less happy vision of the trains. They talked about trains not stopping when and where they should. They talked of helping the railroad men bring the trains back under control by starving them of the coal and water that they needed, and by blocking the tracks on which they ran. But the trains were not ready to be controlled again. They refused to run at all, or they ran dangerously fast. And then there were some people, Mr. Miller called them traitors, who helped the trains.
Finally, an uneasy truce emerged. The trains began to run more on schedule than not. The railroad men helped to keep them operating with coal, water, and occasional repairs to the rails. There was no communicating with the trains, but this was the arrangement that seemed to work. People didn’t ride in the same numbers as before and freight cars were less numerous, but the trains were still the fastest way to get from one place to another — as long as they stopped. They stopped often enough in the little town of Greenville that the Millers and their friends stopped talking about trains, but Mary never stopped thinking about them.
Now, ten years after she had arrived on the train, Mary was growing from a girl into a young woman. She felt awkward, and she
was unsure how to move or stand in this new body. Her unruly dark hair that had been an inconvenience when she was younger now seemed like a curse. Mrs. Miller let her know regularly that she wasn’t very pretty and was a poor prospect for a wife.
Sometimes Mary wondered what might be out there for her in the wider world. She thought about leaving the Millers and maybe the town of Greenville entirely. She tried once and got as far as the railroad station, but she had no money and the railroad men wouldn’t let her board the train. After that, she saved what little she could, hiding it under a floorboard in her attic room, but she earned so little that it seemed impossible she would ever have enough money to leave.
Mrs. Miller noticed Mary watching the trains and dreaming. The older woman never failed to remind Mary of how much she owed them. “Dead in the streets or worse,” Mrs. Miller said. “That would have been your life had we not adopted you.”
The adoption and the reminder that she would never be fully part of the family was a constant in her life. There were others who came to Greenville on the orphan train, but they had very different experiences. They were members of a family, part of the community. They had gone to school and played along the river. They were confirmed into the church. They found employment or they worked alongside their new family. The older ones were married by now. Mary was never part of that group. She had chores.
On that particular spring day, she was sucking on a peppermint and returning to the Miller home with sugar, flour, and coffee. Mrs. Miller didn’t always trust her to go to the grocer, but Mary had been particularly good the past week. The railroad track wasn’t the shortest route back home, but it was her favorite. In the distance, she could see the smoke of a locomotive. She heard the pop of the rails as it got closer, and she wondered if it would stop in Greenville. You could never be sure.
Mary stepped from one crosstie to the next with her basket of groceries in her hand. When she returned to the house, Mrs. Miller would scold her for taking too long and put her to work cleaning. Mr. Miller would stand in the doorway, watching her work.
And Mary realized she didn’t want to go back.
The train could hit her, and she would be out of the Miller home and the town of Greenville for good. She could dodge at the last minute, dumping the groceries that Mrs. Miller had paid for, and let the train roll by, but then Mrs. Miller would be even angrier. The train might see her and stop, but what did trains care about one girl on the railroad track?
Her feet kept moving forward toward the oncoming train.
Mary heard the shrieking of the brakes. The train was slowing but there wouldn’t be time for it to stop before reaching her. How fast would it be going? How much would it hurt if she didn’t jump? She continued to walk forward determined to see how close she could get.
The train stopped. She was seconds away from jumping out of the way or being hit, but the train came to a stop in a cloud of hissing steam.
A door opened on the locomotive and a stooped, gray-haired man stepped down. He wore a dirty uniform, and a conductor’s cap was perched on his head. He reminded Mary of the crew on the orphan train that brought her west. He motioned for her to come forward, but she hesitated.
“Why did you stop?”
“Didn’t,” the conductor said. “The train stopped. Get on board.” He closed the door to the locomotive and waited.
Mary turned toward town. The Miller home wasn’t very far away, and she thought she could see Mrs. Miller on the front porch watching for her to return with the groceries. She imagined the woman muttering complaints about her adopted child. There would have to be a punishment for being late. No sweets, no trip to the grocer, no time off on Sunday. Extra chores.
Finally, Mary stepped off the tracks and looked down the length of the train. There was the locomotive followed by the coal tender and then a string of passenger cars. A few heads popped out of the windows to see why the train had stopped. A man and woman jumped out of one of the cars and ran toward town. The man was burdened by two suitcases but paused long enough to holler, “Don’t get on. She might never stop.”
The conductor checked his pocket watch and looked at Mary. A man leaning out of the window shouted at her. “Come on, lady. This train ain’t moving until you get on.”
“Why me?” she asked the conductor.
He shrugged. “Who can say. The trains will do what the trains will do. We only ride along.”
Mary turned back to the Miller house. The figure on the front porch was looking her way now. She was sure of it. She could picture Mrs. Miller, hands on her hips, glaring at the train and her missing groceries.
Mary set down the basket and stepped forward. She was no thief, and Mrs. Miller could still collect her things. Maybe she’d even find the coins under the floorboard in Mary’s room. “Where are we going?”
Again the conductor shrugged. “Wherever the train takes us.”
—— «» ——
They entered the first passenger car. The conductor had to help Mary up. “Had a step stool,” he said. “But it got left behind when the train started moving a little quicker than I expected.”
There was a jolt as the train began to move and Mary grabbed hold of a seat back to steady herself. As the train picked up speed, it settled into a gentle, soothing sway.
The old man took her through the train. “There’s a boy up front who shovels coal,” he said. “No need for an engineer or a brakeman anymore. The train decides where to go and when to get there.”
The passengers were a mix of people. Many knew where they wanted to go, although some of them had missed their destinations when the train rolled through Lafayette and Bradford without stopping. Others were riding because they had nowhere to go.
“Why am I here?” Mary said.
“Where do you want to be?” the conductor asked.
Mary wasn’t sure she knew the answer and said nothing.
He took her to the very last car. “The caboose is where the crew sleeps. That’ll be your spot.”
“I’m not part of the crew.”
“Are you a passenger? Did you pay your fare?”
“No. I don’t know what I am. I was just walking home.”
“Really?”
Mary stopped to think about that. Was it her home? Or was it the Miller home? Her name became Mary Miller when she was adopted, but in her dreams she was still Mary Black. “It was where I lived. I had groceries.”
“And now you have no groceries and are on a train. Maybe you were walking home.”
—— «» ——
The conductor said she was part of the crew, but he didn’t assign her any work. When Mary asked, all he said was, “You’ll learn what to do. Pay attention to the train.”
While she waited to learn, Mary found things to do to keep herself occupied. The passenger cars weren’t very clean, so she began by collecting trash and sweeping. That was something she knew how to do well enough and somehow, without Mrs. Miller bossing and Mr. Miller watching, what was once a chore now became a pleasure. She took pride in how much nicer the passenger cars looked under her care.
At the next stop, Mary welcomed new passengers and said goodbye to those who disembarked. When the train was moving again, Mary took time to listen as the passengers told her their stories. Some were headed to a new home, some were going to or coming from visiting family, some were traveling for business reasons, and some never gave a reason for being on the train but they still had a story to tell.
When the train stopped, the conductor would send Mary to a store to replenish their supplies. Mary worried that the train would leave without her, but it never did. There was always time for her to bring food back to the train and take some of it to the locomotive.
The boy who worked there was black with coal dust and sweat. From behind that dark mask were two bright eyes and a shy smile. “Toby,” he said by
way of introduction.
He appeared to be about Mary’s age, but it was hard to tell under all that grime. He was short but with broad shoulders and strong arms. He moved like a well-oiled machine as he shoveled fuel into the boiler. The locomotive was hotter than baking bread in the summer. The engine rumbled and hissed and clanked. There was room enough for two if they didn’t mind being close, and Mary didn’t. She studied the many levers and dials while Toby gulped down water. “How’d you get this job?” she asked.
Toby bit off a hunk of bread before speaking. “The train stopped. The old fireman said he needed a helper and it looked better than sharecropping. He left the train and now it’s just me up here.”
Mary wanted to stay in the locomotive, but she knew the passengers would need looking after. When she returned to the cars, the train again began to move.
—— «» ——
There was a man on the train who kept looking at Mary. He was tall with heavy boots that made him look taller still. He dressed well and might even be considered handsome were it not for the sour expression on his face. His gaze reminded her of the way Mr. Miller had begun to look at her.
The almost handsome man approached her while she was mopping the floor of a gently rocking passenger car. “You must be pretty important,” he said.
“I’m nobody special,” Mary said. “I just clean the train.”
“The train stopped for you. Not at a train stop, not because you were waiting. It just stopped.”
The passenger car shook, and Mary was thrown off balance. She dropped her mop and fell into an empty seat. The man fell backward to the floor. The bucket of dirty water tipped over, washing across his slacks, and he cursed.
“I’m so sorry,” Mary said instinctively.