Nineteenth chapter
Watch yourself when you’re drinking peach brandy (said Oom Schalk Lourens) and please don’t believe the stuff when it insists you’re on the train when you actually missed it and are standing at the station.
The southbound train, labouring through twisted and broken rock, was crawling towards disaster without its driver and stoker realising it. They didn’t even know a policeman named Thatcher was struggling over the coal behind the steam engine, trying hard to reach them.
Did those inside the train suspect disaster? Did Bernardus van Aswegen realise it when, trying to reach Miss Emily at the back of the train, he couldn’t get past the army wagon because someone had locked the card-playing soldiers inside it? Did policeman Blair realise it, tensely waiting to uncouple the second class carriage and the rest of the train?
Not so you’d notice. They were all simply too busy.
On the roof of the train Emily Gibson was busy herself. And close to wetting her bloomers. She believed she knew who she was, what she wanted and didn’t want. She wanted a comfortable life for herself and her family, and she would gladly sacrifice to achieve that. Marrying a rich man should have been enough, but he wanted a child and that she couldn’t deliver. Then she became attracted to a young confidence trickster who promised her a comfortable life if she helped him steal her husband’s diamond, unfortunately Gerrit Johannes proved he couldn’t really be trusted.
Emily felt the handsome young bastard deserved to be shot, his body thrown off the train and left for the mountain vultures. And yet here she was, nervously following the bastard as they crawled along the roof of the train, her one hand twisted into his shirt, holding on for dear life and trying hard to control her bladder.
They were navigating the last sharp bends of the Drakensberg, the train not exactly racing along, speed wasn’t the cause of her anxiety. The problem was the distance between the roof and the ground. Emily was terrified of heights. She had never once set foot on her husband Willy’s beloved balloon. The very idea made her want to throw up.
She tried to close her eyes and just hang onto Gerrit Johannes.
“Are we almost there?” Yes, she really did ask that. “Tell me we’re almost there.”
“We’re almost there,” he lied.
Ahead of them Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra, hurrying along the roof in a crouch rather than crawling, reached a gap between two carriages and looked down at Blair. The inspector constable stood poised to uncouple the carriages.
The two rogues silently readied their axe blades.
The afternoon sun betrayed them: it threw their shadows on the landing where the policeman stood, and made him look up. They were descending like two deadly spiders when Blair performed the bravest final act of his life: he uncoupled the two carriages.
Johnny Zulu crashed down on Blair, slicing him wide open with the pick-axe. Manny Porra, realising the carriages were slowly moving apart, shouted at Gerrit Johannes and Miss Emily.
“Jump! Jump!”
Gerrit Johannes understood the problem and what was needed. Emily did too, but she refused to accept or act on it. She froze. He realised what was happening, caught her around her slender middle and jumped. They landed on the roof of the second first-class carriage – together with the first first-class carriage and the coal wagon now the only part of the train attached to the locomotive – and Gerrit Johannes lost his grip on Emily, she started tumbling towards the edge of the shaking roof. He dived after her.
Two shots rang out, revolver shots.
Bernardus van Aswegen and the soldiers in the army wagon heard the shots. They bundled out onto the landing and stood there, stunned, realising their part of the train was no longer attached to the first class carriages and the steam engine now clacking off into a southbound tunnel.
“Fuck me,” the bearded giant growled.
Gerrit Johannes also heard the two revolver shots but kept his attention on Emily. She was sliding over the edge of the roof. The bright terror in her eyes shone at him. He grabbed her right arm and clung to the roof’s air-vent with his other hand.
It went dark and suddenly very noisy with wind. They were inside a mountain. And the engine, now only pulling a coal wagon and two first-class carriages, was picking up considerable speed.
On the landing of the second first class carriage, in the growing dark, Johnny Zulu staggered away from Blair. The dying policeman tried to fire his revolver for a third time but his fingers went dead and the weapon clattered onto the second first-class landing. The tunnel wind ripped Manny Porra’s tortured scream from his mouth; he could just make out the limp body of Johnny Zulu falling off the landing and into the darkness. Johnny Zulu, his friend, his blood brother, his life.
“Emily!” Gerrit Johannes screeched. “Hold on! Hold on! Please!”
Dangling in space, her body swinging and bumping against the moving outside wall of the second first-class carriage, Emily stared up but couldn’t see Gerrit Johannes in the dark. His hand digging into her right arm was the only thing keeping her alive, and she knew it.
“Don’t struggle!” he shouted at her. “I’m going to pull you up! Don’t struggle!”
He tried to pull her up. The sharp edge of the air-vent cut into his hand, hurting him badly. He was going to lose her. That lovely whiter than white body was going to break and burst on the crushed granite of the railway track.
The tunnel wind was screaming now. Was it his imagination or were they still increasing speed?
In all the noise he could just make out Emily’s voice. “Don’t drop me, don’t drop me, please!”
They were on fire, his fingers, they were on fire and battling to keep their grip on the sharp metal of the air-vent. Gerrit Johannes felt oozing blood oil his skin, making his aching hand slippery and wet.
Don’t let my grip slip, please. He was talking to God, begging Him to save Emily, but he hardly knew he was doing it, her scream of panic and fear filled his very being. Don’t make me drop her, God, I beg you, please.
And then Manny Porra was there, a solid presence in the dark, his strong hand grasping Gerrit Johannes by his belt and the other gripping Emily by the buttoned collar of her dress as he yanked her up and onto the roof. She shook and sobbed, clinging to Gerrit Johannes. And he held her as if determined never to let her go again.
“Inside!” Manny cried. “Quick, quick!”
Gerrit Johannes and Miss Emily tried to obey him, but they seemed lost in the blackness and stuck to each other. Manny had to drag them to the ladder, where he urgently assisted them down to the landing and inside the second first carriage.
Only then did Gerrit Johannes speak up, his voice a croak.
“Where’s Johnny Zulu?” he asked.
Up ahead Thatcher managed to crawl from the coal wagon onto the steam engine, desperate to talk sense with the train driver and firmly gripping the revolver taken from Gerrit Johannes. Showing the revolver was a mistake. It wasn’t completely dark here. In the orange glow of the locomotive fire the driver saw the armed man approach, sharply shouted something and his stoker obeyed, swinging a coal shovel, the sharp edge of it slicing half of Thatcher’s face off. He staggered backward, spouting blood, then stepped into the gap between the steam engine and the coal wagon. He disappeared.
Did Thatcher make a final sound? Not so you‘d notice in that black, roaring tunnel.
Ground or minced meat. That was what undertaker Knocky Koch called an unfortunate who ended up under the wheels of a moving train. He hated using a full-sized coffin for that kind of burial, it was really a waste of space, but the shattered family often insisted because their imagination couldn’t take in what was actually left of the dearly departed.
Minutes from the railway cutting and riding hard in Peet Jansen’s wake, Knocky saw the quick dark puffs of dust before he heard the rifle shots. Peet heard it too and looked back. Knocky did the same.
What followed them about sixty yards away, ten abreast on horseback, was a force of mounted police firing rifles and revolvers. The officer in the middle, sunlight glinting off his insignias, could only be the Frere district’s well-known Captain fucking Wellington.
The second they saw and in their minds identified the killer policeman, Peet and Knocky were probably struck by the same horrifying thought: We’re dead.
“Dek my!” Peet shrieked in Kitchen Dutch.
The two words meant Cover me. Knocky yanked his Mauser from its saddle holster and leapt off his horse. He hit the ground running but too fast, stumbled and fell, then rolled into a protective triangle of rocks and immediately returned fire. A cowboy from silent film could not have improved on the undertaker’s quick action.
He shot two policemen off their horses. Captain Wellington shouted an order. The mounted police dismounted instantly, dove behind rocks and started firing back at Knocky. His horse, insane with fear, was struck by a number of the bullets and the animal sank to the ground with a shrill sound, while other police bullets sheared off pieces of Knocky’s rock triangle. Nothing touched him, thank you, heavenly Father, and he grimly continued returning fire.
This gave Peet the time he desperately needed. He slipped off his horse, slapped it away, then ran with the dynamite and plunger box into the cutting and immediately started laying his charge against the railway track. A shock and stinging pain in his left buttock-cheek told him there was a fucking good marksman among the police. He flattened himself against the track, and desperately tried to finish the job without raising his head. The continuing bark of a heavy Mauser assured him Knocky was doing his utmost to keep the police at bay.
Captain Wellington understood the situation. Knocky Koch was providing his comrade with covering fire, giving Peet Jansen time to plant his explosives. And that, damn it to hell, was what Wellington had to prevent.
“Never mind Knocky!” he roared at his men. “I want Peet Jansen! Shoot Peet, blast it!”
His men swung their aim away from Knocky’s rocks and fired into the cutting. Peet Jansen was hugging the ground, they couldn’t really see him, but they were hoping a lucky shot took his Boer head off.
Suddenly, out of a mountain tunnel to the north of them, a steam engine shot from the dark and into afternoon sunlight. It came hurtling down the track with unexpected speed.
Lying beside the cutting’s railway line in a storm of bullets, Peet Jansen looked up and saw the engine coming, understood this must be the damn train they were expecting, and he hurriedly finished connecting the dynamite wire to the plunger box.
In his rock triangle, heart like a fist against his ribs, Knocky saw this and begged God to help Peet finish the mission before the train reached the dynamite.
Wellington and his policemen also saw the train speeding towards the cutting. A very short train, only two carriages and a coal wagon pulled by its engine.
Peet, clutching the plunger box to his chest, started rolling away from the track, the dynamite wire unspooling after him. Knocky saw this, halleluja! Their mission will not be a failure!
But then a police bullet found its mark again. Not hitting Peet’s buttock this time: the bullet struck the right side of his head, broke the skull bone, flew into his brain and spun around viciously before exiting just behind his left ear.
The train was close now.
Knocky knew Peet was dead before his body stopped twitching. Without really thinking, mainly acting on pure instinct, Knocky jumped up and ran towards Peet.
The plunger, Knocky knew he had to press down the plunger before the train raced past and escaped the fiery destiny Louis Botha had planned for it.
Bullets kicked dust in his face but he kept running.
At that moment the last part the train, also moving fast now, appeared from the tunnel with grim-faced Bernardus van Aswegen and a number of soldiers standing on the army wagon’s front landing. With the exception of Bernardus, they were all armed to the teeth and seemed ridiculously intent on starting a war to get the front part of their train back.