Miss Emily’s Smile – By Paul C Venter – Chapter 7

Seventh Chapter

It’s sad, of course, but unfortunately you have to die first (said Oom Schalk Lourens) before you can truly hope to live in peace.

     Gerrit Johannes had already told Miss Emily everything she needed to know about Bernardus van Aswegen. She appeared impressed, but he couldn’t truthfully fathom what she was thinking or feeling.

     She’s having second thoughts, he thought. She’s almost ready to run back to the Bricklayer if she could.

     “You know I love you,” he said.

     “Gerrit, you’re always saying that.”

     “You never say it back,” he said.

     She just looked at him until he looked away. It’s a good thing he didn’t tell her about Comrade Grootjan and why he had to keep his powder dry.     

     Miss Emily and Gerrit Johannes were already hiding in their compartment in the second first-class carriage by the time Captain Lawrence and his detectives entered theirs in the leading first-class carriage. Conductor Bernardus van Aswegen saw to that. According to railway rules passengers stayed in their carriages, where they had their own dining car and saloon. The conductor kept the doors between the carriages locked. That helped minimize the chance of Gerrit Johannes or Miss Emily bumping into the wrong passengers.

     But did it completely eliminate that chance?

     Not so you’d notice.

     Bernardus van Aswegen saw to it that Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra had proper seats and bedding in second class. Passengers in second class often sneaked live chickens and small livestock on board, mostly lambs and piglets, occasionally a tame snake or monkey. Naturally the seats and bedding suffered. There were some domestic animals present, and yet second class on this armoured train was reasonably quiet. It probably had to do with the close proximately of white men with real rifles. The English riflemen could be heard laughing and occasionally singing in their wagon, a dangerously short distance away.

     The absence of strong drink also had an effect. It was not allowed in second class, and Bernardus van Aswegen warned the passengers his spies were everywhere: “One drink and you’re off this train, orright? You and your chickens are walking home, orright?”

     That was more than orright with Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra. They knew they needed to stay as sharp as the Mountaineer’s Friends hidden in their bags. When they heard the conductor’s whistle announce their departure and felt the shudder of the train moving, they nestled down in their seats and tried to get some sleep.

     Outside the train windows with their gun slits it was still the early twilight of Wednesday afternoon, but Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra knew tonight was going to be a long and wet night. Wet with blood, hopefully not theirs.

     In the failing light of Wednesday two furiously indignant ladies, the widows Agnes and Gladys, sat waiting in a hired coach while the coachman delivered a note to the gateman of Heavenly, the William Gibson mansion. The widows had come directly from an afternoon bridge game where certain shocking facts had been relayed to them.

    The strongly worded note was immediately delivered to Willy, just back from an outing with Prime Minister Botha and Neef Berg. At first it amused him, then he frowned and ran through the house. He had only to look inside his wife’s empty wardrobe to confirm she really was gone. He sank down on her bed, still holding the note from the wrathful widows in his hand. They not only accused one of his mine workers of running off with his wife on the armoured train, but of actually planning to steal Miss Emily’s Smile and start a new life with the money.

     A shrill voice cried Nooooo!  It sounded like someone screaming, probably a woman with a voice shatteringly high, couldn’t be him doing it, never.

     Slowly his mind started working again. The A4 Pacific pulling the train was the fastest steam locomotive in all of Africa, you needed wings to catch it.

     Wings.

     His hobby had wings, in a manner of speaking.

     He ran outside to prevent his ground crew from collapsing the great balloon.

     “Stop! Stop!” he roared. “This ride isn’t bloody over yet!”

     Prime Minister Botha and Neef Berg, waiting for their own ride back to Pretoria, were watching the crew work the balloon.

     “Where are you going?” Botha smiled. “I thought ballooning at night’s a bit dangerous.”

     “It’s bloody dangerous!” Willy shouted. “This is an emergency! Someone’s trying to steal Miss Emily’s Smile!”

     Botha didn’t take this lightly. “You’re not making sense, Willy.”

     “How do you know that?” asked Neef Berg.

     “The bloody bastard kidnapped my wife!”

     Botha was truly shocked, Neef Berg acted it. Deep down he felt elated as if Willy had just revealed to them the Boers actually won the war.

     The train was picking up speed as it headed south through sun-browned fields of maize.

     Captain David Lawrence, feeling far too uneasy for dinner, was already trying to settle in for the night. He had a weak brandy with water by his side, and a recent letter from his son Shawn on his lap. The yellow-wood chest was cleverly hidden,  and the compartment door firmly latched. His Mary had left the letter in his jacket pocket; she knew he  wasn’t always in the mood for his son’s fantastic tales.

     It is believed by some that, a number of years after Captain Lawrence had shuffled (been pushed hard, to be exact) off this mortal coil, the tall tales of his son Shawn Lawrence were heard by a young schoolmaster teaching in the Marico district, and he later immortalized the failed farmer as the storyteller Oom Schalk Lourens in a collection of truly extraordinary stories. The schoolmaster’s name was Herman Charles Bosman.

     While the Captain’s one eye struggled to follow his son’s scribbled and ink-stained words, two detectives code-named Meshach and Abednego sat in the saloon car and drank coffee mutinously laced with vodka.

     “Let’s keep it down to a shout,” said Meshach. “We do have a task to perform…in spite of our leader.”

     “I sincerely hate our leader but shall refrain from getting sloshed,” said Abednego. “Blotting the name of Meshach, my poor dad will turn in his whiskey-sodden grave.”

     “I think I’m Meshach, actually,” said Meshach.

     “I was hoping I had the honour,” said Abednego.

     “I suspect our leader dubbed you Abednego,” said Meshach.

     “What a cunt, I can’t even fucking pronounce it,” said Abednego.

     At that moment their leader code-named Shadrach was on his knees in the compartment adjoining the Captain’s. Praying. And only partly for the success of their mission. In the private world of Detective Sergeant Wilson there were many secrets he only shared with God. One of them was this problem he had with trains.

     The movement of trains, to be precise; the hypnotic, swaying movement of trains.

     He was asking God to keep him awake through his duty shifts on this incredibly important journey. He was begging God, he was imploring God…    

     He didn’t know it, but he was already snoring.

     Speaking geographically, the A4 Pacific locomotive pulling the armoured train was leaving the flat bottom of an inverted bowl (the Highveld) and heading south down the incline of the bowl towards its lip (the Natal coast) but it wasn’t exactly a smooth incline: part of it was broken country, the most beautiful, dangerous and terrifying part of of it a range called the Drakensberg.

     It was a jagged wall of mountains between the Natal coast and the Highveld.   

     The A4 Pacific would need a great deal of steam to get over, though and down south through that. Situated immediately behind the locomotive, the coal wagon was full for now, but the train would have to stop for coal and water at railway stations later along the way. That would naturally coincide with ordinary passengers getting off.

     At the small Albertina station, the first stop on the line to Durban, Gerrit Johannes and Bernardus van Aswegen had a surprise waiting for Captain Lawrence and his detectives.

     This was the part of the plan Miss Emily really hated. And she didn’t even know Comrade Grootjan with his dry powder.

     Please let her forgive me if the plan works, Gerrit Johannes told himself as he watched her stand and clean her Remington Derringer. If it doesn’t work she’s probably shoot me.

     “Gerrit Johannes?”

     It was Bernardus van Aswegen tapping at the compartment door: five touches of the knuckles, a signal. Miss Emily hid her cute little gun where no-one would dare look for it and she could easily retrieve it. Gerrit Johannes still lay fully dressed on the lower bunk, one hand on the loaded revolver under his pillow.

     “One moment,” Gerrit Johannes told the door.

     Miss Emily jumped on the bunk above his head, covered herself with blankets. He left the revolver under his pillow, quickly slid open the door latch. Bernardus van Aswegen, a solid rock ignoring the sway of the train, was still dressed as a railway conductor.

     Gerrit Johannes whispered, “We there already?”

     “Nee, Albertina’s still a bit ahead. Come with me.”

     Gerrit Johannes stepped into the corridor and closed the compartment door behind him. On the upper bunk Miss Emily waited anxiously, her hand touching the Remington Derringer wherever it was she kept it.

     In second class the passengers shared food and stories, and laughed softly. Most of them were mine workers on leave, going home to their families. The muted sounds didn’t wake Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra.

     They were really the brothers Brand. Half brothers. Johan Otto Brand and Emanuel Heinrich Brand. Strong German names given to them by a godly couple who also gave them a comfortable home, new clothes and toys, regular meals, a proper European education, taught them the Bible front to back, and at night bound them with wire and viciously hurt them for pleasure.

     The nightmare went on for years. Not a single soul would believe the boys when they tried to escape and they were always forced back into the eager arms of two very sick people. When they reached their mid teens, the boys decided they had had enough. If no-one would help them, they would do something about it themselves.

     Something so final their oppressors couldn’t possibly recover from it and torture them again.

     This was the part of their story Gerrit Johannes kept from Miss Emily. He told her there was a fire and the boys managed to survive, ran off and found work on the mines. Nothing more. He didn’t want her to think too badly of them.

     But then, as far as we know, when they first got together Gerrit Johannes never asked Miss Emily what happened to the miner who raped her and left her pregnant. Forced to think about it later, Gerrit Johannes probably had to accept it would’ve been against her nature to let the bastard live.

     The balloon was ready to fly again.    

     At Willy’s insistence Botha had his office dispatch a telegram to all stations on the Durban line. To warn Captain Lawrence of the new danger to the diamond and the presence of the real Miss Emily on the train. And to ask all stations to light a large fire and keep it burning through the night. The telegram did not say why the fires were needed.

     At Botha’s insistence Willy agreed to take Neef Berg along as personal security. Neef Berg, always carrying his cowboy revolver, also armed himself with a Christmas gift Willy never used: a beautiful engraved shotgun from Spain, double barrelled. And filled his coat pockets with shells of shot from a bin in Willy’s snooker room. Balloon pilot Willy would fly unarmed. He believed shooting, if any, should be the job of the bodyguard sharing the small gondola with him.

   With the soft burr of the gas burner in their ears,  and the sun already gone behind the horizon, Willy and Neef Berg finally rose from the closely cut grass of Heavenly. As the hot air balloon climbed above the horizon, the late sun flashed a last brilliant gold at them. It only lasted for a few seconds, then the cold blue night crept over them.

     Neef Berg shivered inside his coat. “What’s the young man’s name?”

     “Gerrit bloody Pretorius.”

     Neef Berg, holding the beautiful shotgun, actually giggled. “Father in heaven, I hope the detectives don’t rip him apart. They should leave a bit for us.”

     “What do you mean us? I’m not going to stop you, but leave me out of it.”

     “Ja, of course, don’t worry, Sir William, I will shoot him for you.”

     Willy thought it best to change the subject. “I don’t trust this bloody wind, if it shifts too far east we’re going to have to use more gas.”

     “Because we go up and down looking for the right wind?”

     Willy seemed surprised. “I’m glad someone understands. Your boss gets confused when I talk about high and low wind-streams.”

     Neef Berg grew serious. “It’s not his fault. The Bothas are not scientific people. But you can’t tell him anything about horses, he knows everything.”

     Willy shut off the gas burner. “Wind’s too strong up here, need to drop a little.”

     “What happens if you get strong wind on every level? And it’s not blowing the way you want to go?”

     “I don’t think you want to know that.”

     Neef Berg grinned in the gathering dark. “I don’t scare easy, Sir William, come on. Will we just blow away to sea?”

     Over dark fields of grass the two horses raced, the sounds of their hooves and breathing loud in the quiet evening. The riders wanted to shout for joy, it felt as if they were back on commando again, comrades riding out to face the English bastards, slung rifles pressing against their backs, hats kept on tightly by the shoelaces tied under their beards, blood roaring with excitement in their veins.

     Comrade Grootjan rode the large white stallion. His name meant Big Jan or Great Jan. The man, not the horse. That’s important. Remember that. The rifle slung across his back was the same Mauser he used to kill English bastards in the war. His wife buried the Mauser and a stolen Lee Enfield in his father’s grave on their farm before the English bastards blew the farmhouse up and threw his wife and teenage daughter in a concentration camp where they both died from fever and hunger. When Grootjan and his grown son Kleinjan (Small Jan) returned from exile on a cold rock in the middle of the fucking Atlantic Ocean, they dug up the Mauser and the Lee Enfield, cleaned and oiled the rifles carefully,  then hid them where they could quickly get at them.

     They hoped it would happen soon.

     Tonight was the first time they needed to get the rifles out.

     They hoped it would not be the last time.

     Kleinjan rode the lovely black mare and he had to rein her in, because she always wanted to race his father’s white stallion or his new bride’s grey mule. She was a real bitch when it came to speed. The black mare, not Kleinjan’s new bride. The young woman was fast in another way. Just thinking about her gave Kleinjan an erection.

     She said she would wait up for him tonight. She wanted a child. He wanted to give her one. But first Kleinjan and his father Grootjan had important work to do. They both hoped it would involve shooting English bastards.

     Father and son, comrades in arms again!

     For one of them it would actually be the last time.

     But we never know that in advance, do we?     

     Bernardus van Aswegen unlocked the outside door of the first first-class carriage. Gerrit Johannes quietly followed him past the Captain’s compartment. They stopped outside the door of the adjoining compartment.

     “Listen,” Bernardus van Aswegen whispered.

     Gerrit Johannes pressed his ear to the door. He frowned and then smiled thinly: someone was snoring inside the compartment. Loudly.

     “Which one?” he whispered.

     “Shadrach.” Bernardus van Aswegen’s eyes twinkled. “Meanwhile Meshach and Abednego are having themselves another drink,” he whispered.

     Gerrit Johannes grinned. This was going to be easier than relieving horny widows of their dead husbands’ money.

     “We could do this in our sleep,” he said.

     Bernardus van Aswegen frowned. “Don’t say that, you’re vexing the Lord. Go back to Miss Emily. You’ll know when it’s time.”

     How did you really steer a balloon back then?

     “With the power of prayer,” the American balloonist John Jeffries wrote in a letter, only partly joking. This was in 1785, after he and the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard managed to complete the first human flight across the English Channel.

     To a certain extent those pioneers had already steered their balloon by changing its altitude, opening a panel in the balloon’s upper skin to release hot air to lose height, firing the gas burner and heating air inside the skin to gain height. Could this still work when the wind streams at different altitudes filled the entire sky and became a thundering flood of air hell bent on one direction and one direction only?

     Not so you’d notice.

     Willy was using these same up and down methods, working with considerable skill in the confined space of the gondola. He had been a quick learner and was proud of the fact. His compass showed they were heading south steadily, and he believed they would soon see the lamp-lit stations along the Durban railway line. But he knew a monster wind from the wrong corner of the sky could dramatically change their direction. He kept testing the strength of the wind with a cute little flag. A red one. Miss Emily’s favourite colour.

     Neef Berg asked, “How far have you been blown off course?”

     Willy didn’t even have to think about it. “One fine wind-still morning I decided I’d balloon to the mine for breakfast, just for a lark, scare the shit out of the workers.”

     “Heading east from your place in Johannesburg? That wasn’t all that far.”

     “Yes, but then a huge wind from the west hit me so hard I didn’t have time to change altitude. Nearly threw me out of the gondola. I bloody ended up having lunch with the Portuguese governor in Mocambique.”

     Neef Berg thought about it.

     “How fast are we moving now?” he asked.

     “Not quite as fast as the train, but the train is stuck to its track, we’re floating in a fairly straight line. If we don’t blow away we will overtake her.”

     “I’m going to talk to God about that,” Neef Berg smiled.

     Willy probably didn’t smile back. He had very little in common with the Boer bodyguard.

     In their compartment in the second first-class carriage Emily seemed fast asleep. Gerrit Johannes latched the compartment door again and moved quietly to his lower bunk. He told himself he would just close his eyes and relax a bit before they got to Albertina. Everything was going to be so much easier with the detectives drinking and out of the way. His hand reached for the revolver under his pillow.

     It wasn’t there.

     It was in Miss Emily’s angry hand, a Webley Top-break Revolver, forty-five calibre, aimed down at him from the upper bunk. The slice of moon in the window’s gun slit showed Gerrit Johannes just how black the mouth of his revolver really was.

     Here we go, he thought, she’s really going to shoot me.

     “You’re hiding something from me,” she said.

     “Your dreams must be terrible. You were mumbling in your sleep.”

     “Don’t talk nonsense to me. What are we doing at Albertina?”

     “Getting water, dropping people. It’s the first stop.”

     She pulled the hammer of the revolver back. He heard it quite clearly.

     “What else are we doing at Albertina?”

     “Orright, orright, can I get something out of my pocket? It’s not a weapon.”

     “I will shoot you,” she said.

     “I know.”

     He carefully took something from his pocket. It flashed brightly in the slice of moonlight.

     Miss Emily’s eyes went wide with shock. “What on earth…? You’re completely insane. We’re supposed to wait for Durban.”

     “Look again. It’s just a bit too small. The real one’s still with the Captain.”

     He held the stone out to her. She touched it with her free hand.

     “It feels real,” she whispered.

     “It’s silicon carbide. Very hard too, but it shines brighter than a diamond. Slightly.”

     “Where did you get it?”

     “From a dealer in Pretoria. He thinks I believe he sold the real Gibson stone to me. And that I bought it with real money.”

     “It looks so real. Will it float?”

     Spoken like a diamond mine-owner’s wife: that was the catch with most fake diamonds, they didn’t have the density of real ones and tended to float in water.

     “That’s what makes silicon carbide special,” he said.  “It even sinks like a real stone.”

     “You’re going to do replace the real one with this. Why didn’t you tell me?”

     “Because that’s not what I’m going to do.” He look solemnly up at her. “With this one…I’m keeping a promise I made to Bernardus.”

     “Bernardus? What promise?”

     “He’s here for the Boer cause, not for us. I promised him the Gibson Diamond. I want him and his comrades to believe this is it.”

     “What on earth is wrong with you? He will kill you.”

     “Ja-nee, he could do that, but when he finds out we should be in Australia. Me, you, your mom…”

     “This is insane.”

     “No-one will find us there, I’m not lying.”

     She shook her head. “Why didn’t you talk to me first?”

     “I didn’t want you to leave me.” Real honesty sounded strange to him.

     “ It won’t work, Willy knows diamond dealers in Sydney, Perth, everywhere.”

     “Em, I hear Australia’s almost as big as America and it’s full of desert and bush. The Bricklayer will need wings to find us.”

     She shook her head again. “This is a mistake, you’re a mistake. I wasn’t thinking straight. This is going to end badly.”

     Neef Berg saw the glow of lamps first. “I don’t see a fire, but that must be Greylingstad.”

     Willy accepted that Botha’s bodyguard knew the sequence of the railway stations going south. In the war Botha and his Boers had blown up the line more than once. Perhaps not the entire line, but it was a famous part of the Botha legend. It was also the line on which he caught a young reporter named Winston Churchill.

     “Where would they stop for water first?” Willy asked.

     Neef Berg shrugged. “Cornelia. Albertina. They’ll probably let off passengers as well. I’m sure we’ll see the signal fire.”

     “Cornelia, Albertina. Why do you Boers always name shit holes after girls?”

     Neef Berg said quietly, “Some of us buried girls named Cornelia and Albertina in those holes.”

     They fell silent. Willy pulled the burner’s lever. Somehow the soft hissing spurt of flame and the occasional ripple of the balloon skin made the silence deeper, almost sacred. The two men remained silent for quite a while.

     Then the moon rose, immediately switching the inside of the balloon on like an amber lamp. It set the embossed silver of the Spanish shotgun aglow, as well as the clear glass on Willy’s compass. It felt like a truly miraculous moment and it made the hushed night feel even more church like.

     “I have a confession to make,” said Neef Berg.

     Willy didn’t like this, it made him nervous, and he tried to ward it off with a smile. “You don’t have to.”

     “Sir William, please. Our Father in heaven wants me to talk and you must listen.”

     “I yield to the member from Pretoria,” Willy said with a nervous chuckle.

     He couldn’t read Neef Berg’s face, it was in the shadow of his sheepskin coat’s hood, but he could read his body language. This was not a laughing matter.

     “I don’t just read the Bible at Sunday school, I read books too. Percy Fitzpatrick did well for a dog and bushveld writer, but he used a little too much imagination. I know you didn’t really fight in the war, Sir William, you were a stretcher bearer in uniform.”

     “You and your boss didn’t blow up all those bridges yourself.”

     “Please let me finish. Up until today I thought you’re just another greedy, cowardly heathen coward like Cecil Rhodes, you just wanted to make more money and write sir before your name…but this, what’s happening now, flying through the night to bring your beloved back, that’s good, Sir William. That’s brave.”

     “Thank you, sir.”

     And then Neef Berg offered the accolade that really mattered to men in those days. “You would’ve made a good warrior.”

     Willy didn’t know what to say. He let the burner whisper another hiss of fire and glanced at his compass. They were still heading south. In the right direction. Towards Miss Emily and her bright smile.

     “If it’s not a real kidnapping,” he said awkwardly, “she’s young, she’ll get over him. She’s going to be a wonderful mother. I know that.”

     Neef Berg wanted to say, “Let’s stay with it’s a real kidnapping, it’s better that way.”

     He didn’t.

     Somewhere in the night Comrade Grootjan and his son Kleinjan watered their horses by a stream once dark with the blood of English bastards.

     Now it moved golden and silently in the moonlight. You’d think the serene beauty of nature would touch a cord in farmer types like these two.

     Not so you’d notice.

     They were smoking their pipes as the horses drank, and talked about what Bernardus van Aswegen really knew.

     Comrade Grootjan said, “I think he knows Louis Botha won’t stay angry. When he sees the weapons we can buy with that money…I think he’ll tell the English they can stick this prime minister bunk up their arses.”  

     “How many English riflemen on the train? Did he say?”

     “He didn’t say. But don’t start shooting before they do, son. For heaven’s sake, please. This is important.”

     “I hope they start shooting,” Kleinjan said.

     The screech and crash of the stopping train woke Detective Sergeant Wilson, code-named Shadrach.  It hurled him from his bunk and onto the hard carpet of the compartment. It was very dark down on the floor.

     “Meshach? Abednego?” No answer, so he tried their real names. “Blair? Thatcher?”

     Still no answer. He slowly got back on his feet. His team was not present and accounted for. He was alone in the compartment. He needed a smoke. Did he sleep through the entire night? He fell to praying again, this time telling God he really tried to stay awake and actually managed it for most of the time, but he had to admit flesh was still only human.

     He desperately needed a cigar. Did he know he was lying to God? Prime Minister Louis Botha once said in a speech he tried hard not to dwell on his personal life when he prayed, because he never lied to God, only to sinners like himself. He was a real Christian, always in church on Sunday, Shadrach had seen him there with his wife Annie. Shadrach wanted to believe he was a real Christian too, but would a real Christian really call himself Shadrach and his men Meshach and Abednego for a mission as wordly and materialistic as this? To protect a fucking rock so it could sit on the head of a man other men treated like a god?

      Shadrach frightened himself when he had thoughts like these, and he usually wrote them down to get rid of them. He didn’t call these writings his journal. His family would, after his death, and sell the so-called journal to make some money.

     Meanwhile…

     Shadrach’s men were playing cards in the saloon when the train stopped. They had had a few, but they were not really drunk. They were playing for pennies.

     “Is this a water stop?” wondered Meshach (Blair).

     “Piss stop,” giggled Abednego (Thatcher).

     They didn’t step outside to check.

     At that moment Lieutenant Michael Connery stepped from the first first-class carriage and onto the rocking landing. The world roared like a beast as it flashed past.  Connery started climbing the ladder to the roof of the carriage. He had to climb with great care, the metal of the ladder was dangerously wet with dew. He stopped when he could make out the machine-gun nest against the dark roof. The metal of the gun glittered in the moonlight.

     “Sergeant!” he whispered sharply at a shadowy head showing behind the sandbags. “Why are we stopping?’

     “Water stop, sir,” came the reply.

     “Isn’t it too soon?”

     “Trains get thirsty quick, sir.”

     Right about then, in his private compartment, Captain Lawrence was aiming his good eye at the gun slit in the window. He saw a quiet lamp-lit station with a water tower and two men under it, probably railway workers, one with the steel hook to swing the spout in place over the locomotive’s water tank. A third man was building a roaring fire in a drum, feeding it large chunks of wood. He wore a station master’s dark uniform. A fourth man approached the station master from the train, a bearded giant: it was the train conductor, what’s his name, Bernard or Bernardus something? The train conductor spoke, probably a joke, it made the station master laugh and the railway workers joined in. From the train a group of passengers now silently carried their bundles off into the night, going home or wherever.

     The Captain lay down on his bunk again. All was well, it was just a water stop and passenger drop.

     Meanwhile…

     Kneeling on his bunk and peeking through the window’s gun slit, Gerrit Johannes watched Bernardus van Aswegen distract the station master and the railwaymen. Miss Emily kneeled next to him, still holding the revolver but not quite pointing it at him.

     “I can’t see a thing,” she whispered. “Where are the men supposed to help Bernardus?”

     “Doing their job,” he whispered.

     “Where? I can’t see them.”

     “That’s because they’re doing their job.”

     Outside the train, still on the ladder leading to the first-carriage roof with the machine-gun nest, Lieutenant Connery heard laughter and saw the conductor telling jokes to the station master and railway workers. It irritated the young officer. What was the conductor up to? They were on a vital mission, time was of the essence, they had to be at Durban harbour tomorrow, this was not the time – suddenly his legs were yanked from under him, he tried to grab the ladder but his hands slipped on the wet metal and he crashed down to the first carriage landing. A boot struck his head hard. He lost consciousness.

     The boot belonged to a young bearded Boer who looked like he just stepped out of the war. Kleinjan. He obviously loved doing what he just did to the young English officer.

     On the station platform Bernardus van Aswegen recognised Kleinjan and knew what he just did to the young lieutenant, so he worked even harder to keep the station master and his men focused on him. The railway worker with the hook was swinging the water spout to the locomotive where the train driver and his stoker were opening the train’s water tank.

     “You heard the one about the circus clown who thought he was a seal?” Bernardus van Aswegen grinned at the station master and clapped his hands hard.

     In their compartment Gerrit Johannes and Miss Emily saw and heard the hands clapping. It was the signal they were waiting for.    

     “I could need my revolver,” he said.

     She took a deep scared breath. “If you’re lying to me…”

     “Emily, come on. Please.”

     He tried to take the Webley from her. Really tried. She gripped it tightly for a second or three, then let him take it.

     “I love you,” she said and probably meant it at that moment.

     “I love you forever,” he said and definitely meant it.

     He kissed her gently on the cheek, jammed the revolver into his belt, covered it with his shirt. “Stay here. Lock the door. Remember you’re not here. Orright? I’m here on my own, you’re not on this train. Em? Are you listening?”

     She nodded, close to tears. He couldn’t leave her like this. He took out his beloved pocket-watch, pressed it into her hand. She tried to smile. Perhaps she understood. He kissed the top of her head and hurried out. She shut the door, yanked the latch back on.

     The conductor clapping was also the sign Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra needed. They were heading for the door of their second-class carriage.

      On the platform the station master handed Bernardus van Aswegen a telegram. They were standing away from the hot fire in the drum. The flames were shooting sparks into the sky.

     “What’s this?” the giant asked.

     “It’s from the prime minister himself,” the station master said.”He’s on his way here.”

     Meanwhile…

     In the first carriage saloon, Shadrach stood glaring furiously at Meshach and Abednego sheepishly putting away their cards and pennies.

     “You know God is watching you?”

     Meshach: “Yes, sir.”

     “You know how important this mission is?”

     Abednego: “Yes, sir.”

     “Meshach, you take the first watch. Abednego, I want you in bed and fresh for the next watch. Do I make myself clear?”

     Meshach and Abednego: “Yes, sir.”

     Meanwhile…

     In the machine-gun nest the Sergeant yawned as he watched the station master chat with the train conductor. Two Boer bastards fortunate to be alive and employed. The irony, the Sergeant thought. They should thank their lucky stars, and the merciful idiots in Great Britain. They would’ve been dead if, during the war, they had crossed paths with someone like the Sergeant. They could still be dead if he turned the machine-gun on them right now. He wouldn’t mind doing that at all. The young gunner at the Sergeant’s side said something in his sleep.

     “You’re dreaming,” the Sergeant scolded him.

    The Sergeant didn’t hear the two figures climb onto the roof behind him. They moved as quickly and quietly as naughty monkeys slipping through an open window to raid the pantry of a sleeping house.  Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra had brought their sharp Mountaineer’s Friends with them.

     Meanwhile…

     Down below, in the first-carriage corridor, Meshach stood loosely at attention outside the locked door of the Captain’s compartment, playing guard, his hand on the police revolver inside his jacket. He so wanted to go home and be ordinary Detective Constable Blair again. His colleague Abednego, trying to sleep in the adjoining compartment, felt very much the same.

     Outside on the first carriage landing, the Webley revolver in his hand, Gerrit Johannes ran into a young bearded Boer wearing a hat and commando-style clothes with a full cartridge belt across his chest, straight from the pages of an illustrated Boer War magazine. He was busy lowering the limp Lieutenant Connery to the ground on the blind side of the train. They did the dumb password thing.

     “Paul,” said Gerrit Johannes.

     “Kruger,” said Kleinjan.

     It was probably thought up by Bernardus van Aswegen; he obviously didn’t trust the average intelligence of his own people.

     Gerrit Johannes moved to the platform side of the train. The two railwaymen were busy watering the locomotive, one handling the spout, the other the cock of the water tower. Still on the landing, Gerrit Johannes pursed his lips and produced a nervous owl-like call. On the platform Bernardus van Aswegen heard this, said something to the station master and shook his hand, then started strolling towards the train. To anyone watching it would certainly look like an innocent stroll. He actually wanted to run.

     Approaching Gerrit Johannes he growled, “You’re supposed to be an owl, not a church bell.”

     “Where am I making a noise?” Gerrit Johannes reacted testily.

     “Do you have it?”

     Gerrit Johannes nervously handed Bernardus van Aswegen the fake diamond.

     It flashed in the lamp and firelight from the station. Behind Gerrit Johannes the young bearded Boer caught his breath sharply.

     “Fok,” Kleinjan whispered. Fuck in English. 

     Bernardus van Aswegen was equally impressed. “We can’t give this to their useless fucking king. Never.”

     “This time the English must do the running,” said Kleinjan, “and we will shoot them like rabbits. You’re sure it will pay for a proper war?”

     Gert Johannes nodded solemnly. “It will pay for that and more. We can chase the English into the sea.”

     “May God hear your words,” Bernardus van Aswegen said, “but we may have a problem.”

     At that moment the door to the first carriage opened and Shadrach stepped out. He was lighting a cigar, not really expecting trouble.

     He started to smile. “Conductor, why is everyone…”

     Gerrit Johannes fired before Shadrach could complete his smile or ask what everyone was doing here. The forty-five calibre bullet flew right through his English head. Chief Detective Inspector Wilson, not quite forty years old, staggered backward off the train and was dead before he landed on top of the unconscious Lieutenant Connery.

     That was a mistake, Gerrit Johannes realised immediately.

     The scowl on Bernardus van Aswegen’s face said he agreed.

     Fast footsteps on hard ground: Johnny Zulu and Manny Porra, their pick-axes wet, nearly stepped on the two bodies as they raced back to their second-class carriage. Manny Porra flashed Gerrit Johannes a quick thumbs up in passing. 

     “Go, go, go!” Bernardus van Aswegen whispered fiercely, thrusting the stone into Kleinjan’s hand. “Tell your father I’ll see you in Pretoria!”

     Kleinjan gripped the stone and jumped onto the station platform, doing the owl call as he ran. From the shadows behind the station Grootjan appeared on his great horse, rifle hanging from his shoulder, holding the reins of Kleinjan’s horse.

     “Run!” he shouted to his son.

     Kleinjan was already doing that.

     Meanwhile…

     The revolver shot woke Captain Lawrence. He tried, he really did, but he couldn’t get himself to step out of the protection of the compartment.

     The sound of the shot sent Abednego (Thatcher) reeling from his bunk, looking ridiculous in his sleeping cap and gown. He then stumbled rather than ran and slammed into Meshach (Blair) cocking his own Webley Revolver.

     Miss Emily, still on her knees but alone now, clutching a pocket-watch, tried to remain calm and follow what was happening outside at the station. It was impossible to see everything through the gun slit.

     The two railwaymen stayed close to the platform ground, their heads down. The station master hid behind the fiercely burning drum. The train driver and his stoker were nervously struggling to shut the hatch of the locomotive’s water tank. Kleinjan leapt into the saddle of his horse and galloped after his father. They disappeared into the night.

     Bernardus van Aswegen angrily took the Webley off Gerrit Johannes and fired two shots into the air.

     “Attack! We’re under attack!” he called at the top of his voice.

     And then he swung the revolver, hitting Gerrit Johannes a glancing blow on his right cheek.

     Gerrit Johannes staggered, gritting his teeth. “That was hard.”

     “Ja! You deserve it!”

     “Can I have my revolver back?”

     Bernardus van Aswegen glared at him. “Who else would you like to shoot? We could’ve used that man.”

     “He’s a policeman.”

     “Now he’s just a puddle of blood. We have a problem, Gerrit. The station master believes the prime minister…”

     On the ground on the blind side of the train, Lieutenant Michael Connery stirred back to life, saw he had a dead detective half on top of him and started screeching, “Sergeant! Sergeant! We’re under attack!”

     In the machine-gun nest on top of the first first-class carriage the Sergeant didn’t hear anything. His sliced-off head was lying in his lap. The Sergeant’s blood mingled with that of his gunner who probably didn’t even wake up when Manny Porra cut his throat from ear to ear.

     Bernardus van Aswegen jumped down to the young lieutenant’s side and helped him up. “It wasn’t a full attack, Lieutenant. Some rebels from the farms around here, I think. We managed to chase them off.”

     Connery blinked up at the giant. “Thank you, conductor. Much appreciated.”

     Meanwhile…

     Grootjan made sure they were not being followed, then reined in his horse. Kleinjan did the same, his eyes on fire. They were among giant rocks spilled from what had probably been a mountain in the time of Moses and was now a rock-strewn hill.

     “I heard shooting,” Grootjan said.

     Kleinjan grinned. “I saw an English bastard die instantly. Bullet right through his head. I think I had tears in my eyes.”

     “Give me the stone, son.”

     Kleinjan handed it over. Grootjan held the fake stone up in the moonlight.

     “It’s big,” he said.

     “Oom Bernardus said he’ll see us in Pretoria.”

     “If the good Lord spares us.” Grootjan took his tobacco bag from his jacket pocket, pushed the stone deep into the loose tobacco leaves, then yanked the string of the bag shut again. “We will leave the horses at Bitter Water siding, take the Pretoria train.”

     “It will probably be late again.”

     “We have time,” Grootjan said. “Oom Bernardus promised he would give us enough time. His word is his bond.”

     As it turned out, the Pretoria train from Durban would indeed be late again. A normal passenger train, not armoured and without military protection, it stopped at virtually every station and lingered there to drop and take on passengers.

     Bernardus van Aswegen probably meant it when he promised Grootjan he would give him and his son the time they needed to deliver the stone to Pretoria, but fate had other plans for Bernardus van Aswegen.  

     A wind rose from the northwest, pushing the balloon. Filled with moonlight it looked like a glowing lightbulb soaring through the night. It was getting fiercely cold inside the gondola. The occasional firing of the burner didn’t help much. Willy kept an eye on his compass. They were drifting slightly off-course, but he wasn’t unduly concerned about it just yet.

     Neef Berg saw the fiery glow of the drum first. “There! The signal! Thank you, our Father in heaven!”

     Willy sighed, relieved. “I was starting to think no-one got the bloody telegram.”

     Meanwhile…