Eighteenth chapter
Time hardly matters when we have lots of it (said Oom Schalk Lourens) but it matters a great deal when it’s running out.
In the army wagon the soldiers started squabbling seriously. They were done waiting for the train conductor and had no real leader now. Some of them insisted they should move Lieutenant Connelly to the conductor’s wagon, the proper place for a body on a train. Others demanded a search party to look for the lieutenant’s killer and whoever beheaded their machine-gunners.
No-one volunteered to climb up and command the machine-gun nests again.
In the end two of them, armed with their rifles, went off to look for the conductor in his wagon at the back of the train. Four of them, also armed with their rifles, went forward towards first-class to search the train. The others held their rifles close, and tried to pass the time playing cards.
The two looking for the train conductor, rifles ready, stepped from the landing of their wagon to the landing of the conductor’s wagon. One of them tried to open the conductor’s battered door. He was the first one to lose his head, literally. The second soldier, realising death had come from above, quickly raised his rifle. And then he lost his head as well.
Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra shoved the bodies off the train, and locked the door to the army wagon from the outside; they didn’t want to sit on the roof and watch that door all the time, and then have to kill the soldiers coming through it.
They didn’t want to watch the army wagon’s door on the other side either, so they crawled over the roof and locked that one from outside as well. The soldiers inside the army wagon would stay inside the army wagon now, whether they liked it or not.
Jonhnny Zulu and Manny Porra took the roof back to the conductor’s wagon. They felt it was time Gerrit Johannes stopped trying to talk sense to Miss Emily. They suspected that was what he was doing in the conductor’s wagon.
They were right.
“You shot Lieutenant Connelly,” Gerrit Johannes said, “I shot the policeman Shadrack, Johnny and Manny beheaded I don’t know how many English soldiers. We need to get out of here, Em, there’s a rope or a firing squad waiting for all of us.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” Emily said. “Give me my diamond and I’ll sneak off at Frere, make my own way.”
“It’s not your diamond, Em.”
“It belonged to my husband.”
“He and Captain Lawrence cheated Johnny and Manny out of it. In a perfect world it belongs to them.”
“Fuck you, we’re not living in a perfect world, Gerrit.”
The twisted wagon door squeaked open. Johnny Zulu entered with Manny Porra at his shoulder, their pick-axes dark with blood.
“Orright, it’s time,” Johnny Zulu said, “the soldiers are trying very hard to get out of their wagon.”
“If they break down their wagon’s doors,” said Manny Porra, “we’re going to have to fight all of them and they have too many rifles.”
Gerrit Johannes didn’t even have to think about it. “Orright, let’s do it. We go over the roof of their wagon, uncouple their wagon, leave this part of the train behind.”
A shocked Emily glared at him. “Damn it, who gave you that idea?”
Johnny Zulu liked the idea. “Ja-nee, sweet, that could work. Let’s see them walk out of the Broken Teeth of the mountains.”
“But we better move quickly,” said Manny Porra. “We have three or four bends plus a tunnel left, then we’re out of the Broken Teeth and the train will pick up speed again.”
Gerrit Johannes looked at Emily. “Orright, make up your mind, are you leaving or staying?”
“I hate you!” she shouted at him, but at the same time she was getting off the cot, obviously ready to leave. “That was my idea, damn it! Bernardus is getting the policemen to help us: we get the diamond, uncouple the stam engine and the first first-class carriage, leave the rest of you behind.”
Gerrit looked at her, burst out laughing. “Great minds think alike! Drop the part of the train we don’t need!”
Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra didn’t find it funny at all.
“Is Bernardus doing that already?” Manny Porra asked.
“No, no, no,” Johnny Zulu whispered tensely.
“I suppose he’s waiting for me,” Emily said, “and I’m waiting for the diamond.”
“Then I suggest we go over the roof immediately,” Gerrit Johannes said. “We can debate ownership of the stone later.”
“Over the roof,” Manny Porra agreed. “Right now.”
Louis Botha stood up when his officer of the guards escorted the two Boers into the prime minister’s private office. The other man present in the office, a tiny Jewish man in a tailored suit, remained in the background.
“Good afternoon, Grootjan and Kleinjan, the bravest of the brave,” Botha grinned, offering his hand. “The honour is all mine.”
Father and son actually blushed, at a loss for words.
“I believe you have something for me,” Botha said.
Grootjan produced the stone. “We brought it a long way, General.”
Botha didn’t mind being called General. “I know, I know, thank you.”
He opened his hand and Grootjan placed the stone on his palm. It seemed to reflect every source of light in the room.
“Four Arabians from my own stable,” Botha said. “One stallion and four mares. They will be delivered to your farm within a month. You can start your own thoroughbred stable.”
Grootjan and Kleinjan stuttered their thanks.
“No, my brave comrades, don’t thank me,” smiled Botha. “I must thank you and Bernardus van Aswegen on behalf of our future republic. My officer of the guards will show you the horses. They’re not ready and groomed for you yet, but I want you to see I’m not going to give you donkeys.”
They all shared a laugh.
The officer of the guards escorted Grootjan and Kleinjan out again. Botha closed the office door, handed the stone to the little Jew who was taking a magnifying glass from his jacket pocket.
“Please,” Botha said, “I need to be absolutely sure.”
Peet Jansen and Knocky Koch reached the railway line and turned north sharply, the sweat flying off their horses.
“About ten minutes to the cutting!” shouted Peet.
Knocky understood and lay low in the saddle, giving his horse its head.
To the south, racing north along the same track in a cloud of dust, Police Captain Wellington and his men strained their horses, keeping a lookout for the first sign of two horsemen heading for the railway cutting through the mountain.
Blair followed Bernardus van Aswegen along the corridor of the second first-class carriage, nearly running towards the back of the train.
The policeman stopped following the train conductor when they reached the landing between the second first-class carriage and the now empty second class carriage. Bernardus van Aswegen showed Blair how to uncouple the two carriages.
“Piece of cake,” nodded Blair.
“But not yet,” growled the bearded giant. “Couple of minutes and I’ll be back with Miss Emily, then we uncouple, orright?”
“If Thatcher gets the driver on our side,” Blair said.
At that moment Thatcher was on his way to the locomotive, trying to navigate the coal wagon without slipping. He could see the train driver on his seat with his back to the rest of the train, busy eating a sandwich or something. A short distance from the driver his young stoker was shovelling coal into the fire. The two men were completely unaware of Thatcher crawling like a spider over the heap of coal. Shouting didn’t help; the noise of the steam engine obliterated sound.
It was obvious to Thatcher that he would have to shout in the driver’s ear to get his attention. He thought the man’s reaction would be quicker if he stuck the Webley from Gerrit Johannes in his ear. People always took instant notice of a gun barrel in their ear.
The one thing Thatcher didn’t want the driver to do, was stop the engine when he realised only the coal wagon and the two first class carriages were still attached to it. That was when he needed to increase speed, thank you very much. And by then, please God, Bernardus van Aswegen would have succeeded in bringing Miss Emily and the diamond to the right side of the uncoupling.
The more Thatcher thought about it, the more he realised he was going to have to employ the revolver to get the driver to listen to him. And shooting the one who controlled the engine didn’t seem like a really clever thing to do.
But time was running out, bloody hell, he was going to have to do something.
If Thatcher had taken a moment to glance back himself, he would have seen from his hill of coal four figures moving quickly along the top of the train. They were Miss Emily, that bleeding Gerrit Johannes and his two axe-carrying henchmen. And they were on their way to the front of the train.
Time was indeed running out.