The Steam Mole

by Dave Freer

  There was a moment’s silence. “He tried to kill me. I stuck him with my spear,” said Lampy, his knuckles tightening on the rifle he held.

  Lieutenant Willis didn’t notice that. He just went on cutting carefully. “That explains it.”

  “Um…I could use the mole to dig a shelter in that hillside, sir,” said Tim. “Make shade, and be safer from bombs. The airship bombed us, but we were underground and that seemed to protect us.”

  “That would be a good idea. And if you drive it past the lieutenant’s makeshift hospital, we can speak to the rest and maybe move those who can’t walk. Can you operate the machine safely enough to stop there?” asked the captain.

  “Oh, yes, sir. But Clara is a much better driver, sir.”

  “You would say so, Barnabas. If you can let us up, Mr. Green, and the lieutenant can let us have the time it takes? How long will it take, Barnabas?”

  “She’s still warm, sir. Let me just see the pressure. Ah. Two or three minutes, sir.”

  Lampy had expected trouble, real trouble, when they saw he was still holding the rifle. But they didn’t even seem to notice. It was, he supposed, because they were Tim’s people. He hadn’t really quite understood all of what Tim had told him, but their accent was different from Australian whitefellers. So was Jack’s to theirs. It was good that Jack had his family. Odd that Lampy felt a little left out about it.

  Then he’d gone and told them he’d speared the soldier. He’d expected…he didn’t even know why he’d admitted it, except that Tim had already told them. And they had acted like he’d said he had tea that morning.

  Tim was busy getting the steam mole going, and the lieutenant was carefully cleaning and prodding the groaning soldier. And the captain said, “So, tell me about these soldiers. Can you describe their headgear?”

  He didn’t seem to care that a blackfeller had stuck a whitefeller with a spear. “Shakos. And black little hats with a pom-pom and little tassels, and checked ribbon, and big floppy green berets.”

  “Hussars, Lowland Dragoons, and Inniskillen Fusiliers,” said the captain. “Some of the British Empire’s finest troops.”

  “He said he was a sapper,” said Lampy. The words came out in a rush. “I’m sorry I speared him. But he was shooting. He would have killed Jack or me, otherwise.”

  The captain patted his shoulder. “There are times when we have to do these things, boy. I can see it upsets you, but it wasn’t as if you set out to murder someone. You did what had to be done. We’ll look after him as best as possible.”

  The man didn’t understand at all. And yet…the way he didn’t understand was important. Lampy began to see why Tim was so lit up when he talked about the ‘Cuttlefish crew,’ they were pretty good.

  The mole trundled over to the lieutenant’s makeshift hospital, Tim driving carefully. Lampy could see that he really wanted to show this captain how good he was. They pulled up, and the captain said, “After you, Mr. Green. You have a sore foot.”

  So they got down from the mole, Tim last, as he was shutting things down. There was Jack sitting with a woman who was as blond as his daughter, lying with her head on his knee. All three of them looked as if they’d still be smiling next week.

  “Lampy!” said Jack. “Come here, will you? Mary is not to get up, and I’m doing pillow duty.”

  So Lampy did, feeling very awkward.

  “Mary. This is the lad I was telling you about. Without him I would never have got here. Never crossed the desert, never managed to break out in the first place. I must tell you about what he did on that train!”

  She beckoned to him. “They won’t let me get up.”

  He squatted down next to them. And she sat up and put her arms around him. “You’re supposed to lie down,” said Jack, as Lampy tried to stay upright, too. “Here, Mary, lie down for heaven’s sake.”

  “I owe you more gratitude than I can ever repay,” said Jack’s missus. She had one of those posh voices, like the nun who had taught him back at the mission school, and that made Lampy feel a little odder than being hugged and thanked did, and that was strange enough.

  “’S nothing, ma’am. But you lie down see.”

  She did, but held onto his hand. “Jack tells me you’re an orphan, and very worried about Westralia. Well, you brought my family to me. We’re your family now. And if anyone, just anyone, dares to raise a finger to you, they’ll have us to deal with.”

  Lampy swallowed, shook his head, not quite knowing how to deal with this. “I’ll be right, see. I got some cousins down near Jericho. I reckon Jack can spare me some horses now. They ain’t going to catch me.”

  “Your ankle is hurt, and you need to sit down and have it seen to,” said Jack. “Make him sit, Clara.”

  Lampy wasn’t used to being pushed around by girls, but from what Tim said, he’d better get used to it from this one. She started to get up, so Lampy sat down. It was much easier on the ankle. “He learns quicker than Tim,” said Clara, grinning. “Don’t even try and argue until you’re able to run. Ask Tim.”

  “Too true,” said Tim, who had been standing behind them.

  “Tim Barnabas!” exclaimed Jack’s missus, trying to sit up again.

  “Stay down, Mary.”

  Tim squatted down next to her. “Hello, Dr. Calland.”

  She reached up for him and he leaned forward and gave her an awkward kiss on the cheek.

  “I was so afraid for you, Tim.”

  “I was so upset about you, ma’am. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and dig a shelter with the mole.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Clara. “Hello, Captain Malkis!”

  “You’ve led us a merry chase, cadet,” the captain said. “I gather you’re the expert driver. We’ll need shelter, and then I suspect we’ll need to send the worst of the injured back to the power station.” He squatted down and held out a hand to Jack. “Captain Joaquim Malkis. You’re the luckiest man alive, Calland,” said the captain. “I can see your daughter in you.”

  “And from what I can gather from my daughter, you’re best the captain of the greatest crew that ever lived.”

  “That’s about right,” said Clara. “Except when he’s wrong, of course.”

  “I shall ignore that, cadet, until I can assign you to slops duty,” said Captain Malkis. “Now Mr. Calland, I believe you saw these troops?”

  “Yes. They’re readying for action, and we saw motor-trucks coming in on the railway.”

  Lampy kept quiet, thinking about it all. Thinking and wondering, as Jack gave the details to the captain. He was a noticing feller was Jack. Counted things…Lampy noticed something himself. The mole hadn’t moved.

  Then the lieutenant got down, in a hurry. Came up to the captain. “Sir. Pardon me for interrupting, sir, but the patient in there is delirious. Insisting he has to be back before the eighteenth…for the attack.” The lieutenant paused. “That’s tomorrow, sir. I don’t think we can dig holes and wait it out. If it goes ahead, if they succeed, sir, we’ll be trapped out here, even if the Imperial forces don’t find us. And the summer is still coming. We’ll need to get back.”

  “Moving thirty-seven people. Some of them injured,” the captain pointed to Lampy. “But not until you’ve seen to that foot, lieutenant. I’ll get Ambrose and start to get things in train.”

  “Give him the instruction, sir, and you’re to rest. MO’s orders,” said Lieutenant Willis.

  “And the MO trumps the skipper,” said the captain. “Very well, Willis. My back hurts a bit, I’ll admit.”

  The lieutenant was deft and quick…and it hurt like billy-o when he moved Lampy’s foot. “I’d guess you have a broken fibula, the smaller of the two bones in your leg. Breaks of the tibia or fibula when jumping or landing awkwardly is one of the more common fractures, and I’m fairly certain that’s what you’ve done. We need to splint and immobilize that. You’re not moving it for the next three or four weeks, son.” He turned to the girl who hovered next to him. “We ne
ed two of those splints. I’m going to put one either side. He really needs plaster-of-Paris, but strapping in is the best I can do.” He turned back to Lampy. “You need to keep the foot up as much as possible. That’ll bring the swelling down.”

  “Will…will I be able to walk again?” Lampy was ashamed that he let his fear show.

  “Oh, yes. I should think in six weeks you’ll be right as rain. If you don’t keep it still, preferably in plaster-of-Paris, it won’t heal and you won’t ever get mobility back again, though.”

  Lampy kept his foot dead still through the strapping process. He needed that foot, to hunt and to live as a man should live.

  “It’s going to look a sight, sir, but I think we can do it,” said Lieutenant Ambrose to the captain. “We can get most of the seriously injured inside the vehicle. It’ll be crowded, but possible. There are handrails and running boards on the outside of the mole. We’ve collected some rope from the launch gear, and we’re trying to unbolt the landing gear, and we’ll make a sort of trailer. Then we’ll put the horses on a long string behind that, just in case. We’re not going to move fast, just steadily westward. As the crow flies, or rather, the Wedgetail would have flown, we can’t be more than thirty to forty miles out. Of course, we have to collect more fuel, and it isn’t going to be a straight route back. But five or six hours should do it.”

  Tim had a feeling the lieutenant was thinking of travel by sea or by air. But he wasn’t going to comment. It didn’t matter that much, did it? He and Clara were back together with the Cuttlefish crew, and that was the important thing. Clara seemed to quite like making decisions. Tim made them if he had to. He was happy to have people he trusted making them for him, after the last while. But of course the captain noticed and asked his opinion.

  “Uh. Probably longer, sir,” Tim answered. “The up and down and going round seems to take more time. And the steam mole can probably push through anything, but it’s not worth it. If we get stuck we have a huge problem, so we need to take care.”

  “I told you he was officer material, sir,” said Lieutenant Ambrose.

  “I’m not so sure I want to be!” said Tim, truthfully. “It’s…it’s a lot of responsibility.”

  That made the captain smile and the lieutenant laugh. “I think if we could get rid of candidate officers who didn’t realize that, we’d start with half as many and be twice as well off,” said the captain. “Most of them only learn that later. When will we be ready to start loading?”

  “Two hours, sir. The question I have is what happens to the flying wing?”

  “Ask the copilot. They may hope to recover it, or destroy it to stop it falling into enemy hands.”

  So Tim was sent to do so, while the lieutenants and the captain organized rosters of who would be where and do what.

  The copilot was with the surviving engineer, helping to unbolt the two wheels from the flying wing, with half a dozen of the submariners helping. He was glad enough to step aside and speak to Tim.

  “So you’re the lad who wasn’t dead,” he said cheerfully. “The wrath of heaven was nice compared to that skipper of yours talking to the mob at Dajarra about what they’d done to you.”

  “Uh. His crew is pretty important to him.”

  “I got that!” said the copilot. “Now, what do you want, youngster?”

  “The captain wants to know what needs to be done about the flying wing when we leave here. Do we set fire to her or something?”

  “Standing orders are to destroy it, if possible, only if we fall behind enemy lines. And this is still part of Westralia. They might send a lifter-airship and haul her out. She’s not that badly damaged, poor old bird. We’ll take what we need and leave the rest.”

  “Has she got anything we can use as fuel?”

  The copilot laughed. “I’ll ask the engineer what he thinks of the possibility of running your machine on aero-fuel. We can get the two final reserve tanks out, easy enough. They’re only twenty gallons each. I reckon flying wings from down south will be over here and searching by midmorning tomorrow. Might be useful for signal fires if the steam contraption doesn’t make it.”

  Tim found himself feeling defensive about the “steam contraption,” but left it at that and went back to the captain to report. And an hour and forty-eight minutes later the steam mole and its contrived trailer were ready to go. Tim found it quite funny that he and Clara were the only two with any experience driving the steam mole, and so would take turns in doing so.

  “Besides, you’re fairly small, and the cab is quite crowded,” said Lieutenant Ambrose cheerfully. “You get to hang on the outside first, though. Clara’s driving.”

  “It’s rough country here, and she’s better than I am,” said Tim. “She’s had more practice.”

  “So she told us when someone suggested the engineer from the flying wing might drive,” said Lieutenant Ambrose.

  Tim was assigned to the makeshift trailer, which had been bolted together and then roped onto the back. All it had to save the passengers from bouncing as high as the moon was the fact that the mole flattened the bumps with its endless treads. The bars had been padded with some of the sheepskins from the flying wing, and Tim was grateful for them. He’d have been more grateful for some springs on the wheels. He said so to the copilot.

  “It’s worse when you’re landing. One rock and she wants to dig her wing tip in.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” admitted Tim.

  “The new wings have this arrangement of a magnet in a tube, but I’d have to get the engineer to explain it to you. Flying and navigation is my thing!”

  He was only a few years older than Tim, and they fell into conversation about navigation first and then the rest of the world. He was intensely curious about that. Tim found him easy to talk to, not like most of the Westralians who had avoided talking to him. He said so.

  “Ah. Depends on who you get in with and where they come from. I grew up on a farm in South Australia, and I only had black kids to play with, and my da made a point of getting on with the local tribe. But some farmers didn’t, and also the railway…well a lot of the workers are scared blacks will take their jobs. Bit stupid when there are three jobs for every willing man, but the bosses encourage it. ‘Give trouble and we’ll get the blacks in.’ Leads to nasty situations. But I never really heard of it going to murder before.”

  “It happens more than you know, then. Lampy’s uncle was shot for fun down at someplace called Boiler or something.” It had been niggling at Tim like a toothache since they got to Cuttlefish’s crew and he’d been told by several of his friends what a good time they’d had in Westralia. If it didn’t affect you, you didn’t know about it.

  “Boulia! There was a big fuss about the railway-men shooting some old abo down there. But it all turned into a tall story. There was one witness who swore black-and-blue he’d seen it, and laid charges. You should talk to Sergeant Morgan about it. He was the investigating officer, and nearly got himself tossed out of the force because he insisted it did happen. But they never found a body, and the bloke who was accused denied it, and so did his mates. Morgan searched the area himself. I mean there have been a few incidents, but it is against the law.”

  “Yeah, like what the shift-captain tried to do to me. They’d have got away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for luck and Clara, and the Cuttlefish crew,” said Tim.

  The copilot absorbed this. “Well. Westralia’s not perfect. The abos can’t vote like they used to do in Vic and New South Wales before direct Imperial rule, but they fall under the same law as everyone else here in Westralia. Not like in Queensland, with the aboriginal statute list. That’s better and worse. But the truth is, I suppose, the police and magistrates turn a blind eye to a lot of the abuse.”

  “The people who picked me up out of the desert didn’t think much of them. Oh. We seem to be stopping.”

  “Looks like a good spot to collect fuel.”

  It was. A tangle of long-dead trees from somewher
e farther north had been left here by a long-ago flood. It was hard to imagine all of this under water, but the railway had been built to withstand it.

  There were lots of people, but still only one bow saw, an axe, and a hatchet. The lieutenants were organizing so that they all got maximum use, but it was still going to be slow going. Tim looked at it and had a bright idea. “Sir, we could start the drill head and chop it up a bit,” he suggested to Lieutenant Willis.

  “And give me a whole lot more patients, probably,” said the lieutenant. “Hoy, Amby, what do you think of this idea from young Barnabas?” He explained it.

  “Ask Thorne. We haven’t got anyone higher up from engineering here,” said Ambrose. “Might work. Might turn it all to sawdust.”

  Thorne suggested they try it on one of the edges, so they did.

  The results were…interesting. The wood, old and dry, got flung, rather than cut. Quite a lot of it did get broken. Some landed on the mole, and the dust made it difficult to see. “Not exactly brilliant,” said Lieutenant Ambrose, “but worth trying on the main lot.”

  “If everyone stands clear,” said Lieutenant Willis. “A long way clear.”

  So they did that, and then it was more a case of hauling the smaller, broken pieces of wood back to the tender and even onto the little trailer. It took a lot more wood than coal to run the mole. In the gathering dusk Tim walked off to go and collect some more pieces, when a voice called him from a few rocks on the side of the dry watercourse. Tim went over to see who wanted what, not thinking twice about it.

  It was only when he saw the spear and the black face of its wielder grinning at him that he realized it hadn’t been one of the crew, but the man who had taken him to the camp on the first night. “These your people, Tim Barnabas?”

  Tim nodded. “Yes, they came looking for me on the flying wing. I’m trying to get them back home.”