The Steam Mole

by Dave Freer

  What Linda had seen was an airship. It wasn’t that far off, either. They’d all been focusing their attention on the ground while it sneaked up on them.

  The copilot took one look, whipped his gloves off, and worked the Marconi-transmitter while the pilot steered them upward in a slow spiral, working his controls with a deft and delicate touch.

  “The airship,” said Tim. “I think it’s heading back.”

  Clara turned her head to look, and as she did a distant flash in the sky caught her eye. “There’s another—low and bit north of us!”

  Tim peered, too. “I think…that’s not an airship. It’s one of those flying wings. The Westralians have them.”

  “Maybe they can keep each other busy.”

  “I’d guess that’s what they’re planning to do. The airship looks like it’s heading for them, not us. It must be able to see our smoke, but I guess the other aircraft is more important."

  “Let’s get to those hills, and we can get ready to dig in and try to hide our tracks while they do that. You watch them, we seem to be having a temperature problem. The pressure is dropping.”

  “It’s probably one of those bits of wood jammed. I’ll go out and have a look. I’ll be able to see better from there, anyway,” said Tim, going to the door and out, leaving Clara driving. He came back a minute or two later. “Need the pry bar. It’s good and jammed up, up there. I’ll manually feed some wood first. The airship is definitely heading for the flying wing.”

  Up on the top of the tender, Tim hauled wood and dropped it into the feed for the furnace. He then lifted the cover and set about trying to break apart the pieces of limb that had crunched themselves into a tangle and somehow got a branch into the roller-wheels. It looked like the flying wing and the airship were going to battle it out.

  The airship closed in on them, and also rose as fast as it could. Linda could see sudden puffs of smoke from the gondola. The flying wing banked sharply, then the pilot jinked the other way. The flying wing shuddered as if something had slapped it, but continued to climb. So did the airship. The flying wing had the edge in maneuverability and speed, but at climbing, well, the airship was doing better. And it was doing better at shooting at them. The flying wing slewed viciously again, then began to dive. The wing certainly could move a lot faster than the airship. It would easily outrun it, Linda thought.

  Only it couldn’t outrun bullets. The starboard engine suddenly blossomed flames and smoke as the pilot fought for control.

  Jack, the soldier, and Lampy kept heading for the rough country. “Whatever that Westralian machine is, it’s tough. Survived that bomb. I would have thought it would blow it to smithereens,” said Jack. “It should keep them off us, though. Keep the airship busy.”

  “I think that airship got its own problems,” said Lampy, pointing. “That’s one of them Westralian fliers. I saw them patrolling when I was here with my uncle.”

  “Well, maybe we should make contact with the Westralian machine. If they can survive that bomb they must be quite something. Could give us shelter. I reckon they’ll be quite glad to hear about the lot we escaped from,” Jack said, glancing at their prisoner. But McLoughlin was beyond noticing. He was white-faced and clinging to the horse’s mane.

  “He’s going to fall off just now, I reckon,” said Lampy. He’d never thought he’d feel sorry for a soldier, but he did. One had to admire the way he stayed on a horse, if nothing else.

  “Better reason to get him to that machine,” said Jack.

  “I ain’t having nothing to do with them Westralians, Jack. They’ll shoot any blackfeller they see. Prob’ly shoot you, too, with that hat. Hello. Look. One of them has climbed on top of the thing.”

  And then Lampy swallowed hard. The man—and he wasn’t particularly large—wore railway-man clothing.

  Only…he was black. Well, as black as Lampy anyway.

  And then, suddenly, even from here they could hear the gunfire.

  It was coming from the airship. Lampy could see the little puffs of smoke from the cabin-thing that hung underneath it. The flying wing was behaving like a bat trying to get away from an owl.

  The engineer climbed out of his nacelle and down the struts to the wing itself, clinging desperately, but at least away from the flames. With one set of engines out, the Wedgetail turned back toward the airship. And then Linda realized it was more than the engine sending them back. The pilot steered them in a sharp arc.

  The captain of the airship must have realized what a burning engine would do to his great bag of hydrogen, and tried to turn away, venting hydrogen and dropping as they hurtled toward him. That might have been a mistake, as the flying wing now had more height and more maneuverability than his craft…and looking out of the window, Linda saw that the engineer clinging to the strut in the hundred-mile-an-hour wind had been joined by another—the copilot. And they were working on something, hauling at levers, despite being about a thousand feet up and out on the wing. The pilot flicked his eyes at them, and then, out on the wing, as they were racing ever closer to the airship, the copilot managed to wave. The pilot signaled to them to hold on.

  The pilot dropped the wingtip and side-slipped. Linda hung on for dear life as the flying wing flipped over. They all fell about, except the pilot. He clung like a monkey to his levers as the flying wing shuddered, as if she’d been slapped, and began to dive and turn hard again. And as she fell toward her seat, Linda saw the still-burning engine fly on without them, like a burning cannonball, straight for the airship.

  She watched, time seeming to drag out, as the burning engine plunged toward the airship. The captain of the airship must have dumped all his ballast at once, and the airship rose.

  It was going to miss—

  And it did.

  It missed the gas bag.

  It hit the engine and steering vane instead, sending a tearing shower of debris and flame arcing downward. The airship went on rising, as the pilot of the flying wing tried to stabilize his craft. He beckoned Linda close and yelled in her ear, “Get ten men onto the starboard wing. Right!”

  As they watched the aerial battle unfold from where they were hidden in the little fold in the landscape, Lampy glanced across the open flats to see that the Westralian machine had stopped. And a second person had joined the first on the roof of the tender. Even from here Lampy could see that this person had yellow hair…and wore a dress. He had barely time to take this in when the last act in the aerial battle took place.

  “Mary McCree!” said Jack, shaking his head. “Did you see the poor fellow on the wing fall! That was some skill! But I think they’ve paid a dear price for it. They’re losing height.”

  The flying wing, which had changed from a bat fluttering away from an owl to a swallow fluttering away from a hawk, was indeed coming down. The airship wasn’t. It continued to rise, but seemed to be drifting rather than flying. It certainly wasn’t coming back this way.

  At that point, McLoughlin did fall off his horse.

  “I think,” said Lampy, as Jack got down to him, “we need to go to that steam engine. I go fetch ’em.”

  “I’d better go,” said Jack, laying the groaning, semiconscious man flat. McLoughlin clung to Jack’s hand.

  “I’ll be right for it,” said Lampy, hoping he was right about what he’d seen. At the same time he laid the rifle on its sling off his shoulder and forward onto his saddle bow. He rode closer. He sang out from a good three hundred yards off from the steam machine. Them dopey Westralians hadn’t actually even seen him, they were too busy watching the flying wing coming down and the airship drifting off. But that was definitely a blackfeller…in the clothes of a railway-man. Sooty and dusty clothes, but railway-man clothes, and the girl was wearing a little straw hat, and yes, pleated skirts. They didn’t look as if they were even his age, either of them. Mind you, there were plenty of men working at his age.

  Linda scrambled into the crawl way to the wing. She got to the first submariner, pulled his earmuff asid
e, and yelled in his ear. Then she moved on to the next until she had ten moving over. Then she went back to the pilot’s nacelle. The copilot was back, looking grim. He wrote: “Have to crash-land. Pass it on.” Then he wrote it again and gave her the two notes, pointing at the wing crawlways. He went back to the pipes he was working on, under the floor panel he had open.

  Linda went to deliver the messages, then got herself back to her seat—to be handed a piece of rope.

  “Tie yourself to the seat,” Clara’s mother yelled in her ear.

  Linda did her best with the rope. They were much lower…and moving far slower now. The ground was still going past rather fast. Linda looked out the forward window and braced herself. In the distance, she could still see the airship. They were barely fifty feet above the gibber plain now, with the pilot fiercely intent, huddled over his controls, fighting for every last bit of air to slow them down and to put the flying wing down safely. They cut the surviving engine…and the next instant they were bouncing, and slewed wildly across the ground. Linda was wacked back into her seat and then slammed forward with her face onto her knees as the aircraft came to a stop.

  The black-skinned railway-man and the woman were surely very surprised to see Lampy. Neither reached for guns. They waved instead. A little warily, it seemed to Lampy.

  “Day-ee. We got a hurt man back there. You want to bring this machine closer. I don’t think he can ride no more.”

  “How far?” said the blackfeller, nodding.

  “Maybe six hundred yards. Maybe a little more. He’s hurt bad. You follow me, an’ I show you.”

  “I suppose we’d have to help, then. I was thinking we should go to that flying wing. It must have landed hard,” said the girl.

  “These people are nearer,” said the blackfeller on the cab of the machine. “Who are you?

  “My mother was Tialatchari. Who your people?”

  The bloke looked at the girl and laughed. “Cuttlefish, I guess. We’ll follow you, we just need to get the steam up.”

  “There anymore o’ you?” asked Lampy, staring at the windows of the machine.

  “No, it’s just us,” said the girl. They climbed down the iron and brass ladder and into the cab, and a few moments later the big machine gave a belch of smoke and began to move.

  Lampy trotted the horse back toward Jack and McLoughlin. Puffing and clattering, the steam machine followed.

  “Well, that was clever of you,” said Clara. “Looks like you found us a trusty native guide after all.”

  “More like he found us. He had a rifle, don’t know if you noticed. This could be trouble, Clara.”

  “When is there ever anything else?” she said wryly. “It’s more empty than I thought it would be, this desert in the middle of Australia.”

  “When you’re walking around lost in it, it’s pretty empty,” said Tim with feeling. “Ah. There’s someone else there, waving. Didn’t even realize this fold of land was here. It’s much less visible than where we were out on the plain.”

  Clara slowed the steam mole. “We’ll not quite stop until we can see them, and all around them.”

  But that wasn’t hard, once they got closer. If there was an ambush it would have to be a very clever one. There were a bunch of tired horses, and a man knelt next to another fellow lying on the ground with a bloody bandage and a pallid, almost yellow face. The man seeing to him had a ragged beard and a gaunt face, with very blue eyes. He raised a hand to them. There was something oddly familiar about his face.

  “Looks harmless. Like the real thing. Better let me go first,” said Tim.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Clara. “I’m coming, too.” She pulled the dampers down, stood up, and they climbed out of the cab together. Tim did manage to be first out. Just. She’d have to train him better.

  The man who’d been seeing to the injured fellow stood up and dusted off his hands. “I wasn’t expecting a young lady out here. I’m glad to see you. My name is Jack. Jack Calland. And this lad’s Lampy Green. We’ve got a wounded soldier here.”

  Clara felt the ground go wobbly under her feet, and it was only Tim’s arms catching her that stopped her falling over.

  “What’s wrong?” asked her father, stepping forward.

  It was him. He was older, exhausted, gaunt, bearded…but the eyes. She would always recognize those eyes. She couldn’t say anything, the lump in her throat was too big. But she could smile and reach for him.

  He blinked. “Er…” His face was a study in confusion.

  “She’s come a long way to find you, sir,” said Tim. “This is your daughter, Clara.”

  “Clara?” he said as she took his half-outstretched hands.

  She nodded. “It’s me, Daddy,” she managed to croak around the lump in her throat.

  He folded her in his arms then, saying her name over and over. Then he held her away from him, looking at her, his eyes wide, as if he wanted to see as much of her as possible. “It’s big you’ve grown, girl,” he said thickly. “I didn’t even recognize you at first. Is…is your mother here, too?”

  There was such hope in his voice that Clara couldn’t speak again, Just shake her head. It was left to Tim to say, “I’m afraid Dr. Calland is sick. Um. She may be dead, sir. That’s why Clara came on her own.”

  “Mary? What’s wrong?” His voice was desperate, shaken to the core.

  “We don’t know,” said Clara quietly, misery rising into her happiness and flooding it. “She…was in a coma. They…they think it’s some tropical disease. She was in quarantine and…and they said she was never going to get better. And they said you were dying, too. Your letter…I thought you were.”

  She closed her eyes. “Mother’s dead, Daddy. I know it, I just didn’t want to admit to it to myself. She loved you so much.” Which was enough to start both of them crying again, holding onto each other.

  There were still tears streaming down Jack’s face, and Clara’s, when he pushed her away a little. He squeezed her shoulder. “I’ve lost the love of my life,” he said quietly. “I hoped…prayed that I’d see Mary again before I died. But at least I’ve found my girl. And that was more than I ever really thought to do. But for now…we have an injured man here, and we’d better go and see if anyone survived that crash. And you’d better introduce me to this gentleman.”

  Clara nodded and looked at him again, the new image putting itself firmly over the cloudy one of long, long ago. “Daddy…Oh. I never thought I’d be saying that again. Daddy, this is Tim. Tim Barnabas. He’s my…friend. My boyfriend.” She saw the look on his face and added, “And Mother approved of Tim! Just so you know.”

  Tim awkwardly extended his hand. “How do you do, sir? I was one of the crew of the submarine that brought your wife and daughter to Westralia.”

  “He saved my life. A couple of times!” said Clara.

  Her father took his hand. “Then I am in your debt, but I think she’s rather young for a boyfriend.”

  And Tim, the traitor, nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “I am not!”

  Her father shook himself like a dog coming out of the water. “I suppose it has been some years since I went to jail, and you are older now, little one. Now, Lampy injured his foot, so do you think you can give me a hand getting McLoughlin into the cab, Mr. Barnabas? Is there space for him to lie down? What is this thing, anyway?”

  “It’s a steam mole, sir, a scout mole, to be exact. And yes, there is some space. There are some swags we can put him on. I’ve got some laudanum in the cab, too. What’s wrong with him? His hands seem to be tied. Is he…confused?” asked Tim, joining hands with Clara’s father to carry the semiconscious man.

  “He’s delirious. He’s tied up because he was one of the soldiers chasing us. We couldn’t just leave him, so we brought him along.”

  With difficulty they got him up into the cab of the scout mole and laid him down on the swags.

  “Right. I wonder, what we should do with the horses?” said her father. “It’s a v
ery smart machine this. How did you come by it?”

  “I stole it,” Clara said.

  “Ah,” said her father. “I did wonder how you and Tim came to be wandering around the desert alone.”

  “I stole it because they wouldn’t go to look for Tim, and then when I eventually found him, we went to go and get you from Queensland.”

  Her father blinked and shook his head. “You’re so like your mother.”

  “That’s what she said to me, but about you, every time I did something outrageous,” said Clara.

  “Yes, but every time Mary did it to me, I just didn’t expect it. She didn’t look like she would. She looked so…well, angelic,” said her father. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

  “Well, sir,” said Tim. “I’ve never been on a horse in my life, but how about if Lampy and I ride and you talk to Clara? She’s a really good driver.”

  Her father looked tempted. “No. I’d like to, but if you’ve never ridden, it would not end well. I’m sore enough, and I used to ride almost every day, once.”

  “I’ll ride,” said Clara. “Tim can drive. It’s been a few years since those riding lessons, Daddy, but at least I have ridden a horse before!”

  “Skirts,” said Tim. “Dunno if you can ride in those.”

  “Pooh. They’re broad enough to spill over.”

  “There are some spare breeches back in the locker there. You could put those on,” said Tim.

  “I’ll do that. I hope they’re not too big.”