The Tin Princess, Page 22

  It was at about that time that an elderly pair of brothers, river-thieves who specialized in breaking into waterfront buildings and lowering the stolen goods into a skiff before rowing away, found their oars snagged by a corpse.

  There was money in corpses, if they got them to the School of Anatomy before they fell apart, so it was worth abandoning the promising-looking tobacco warehouse and hauling this one over the stern.

  She was a fine-looking corpse, too: dark hair, red lips, full figure. It was natural to be disappointed when she began to revive and cough up water, and they were tempted to knock her on the head and make a proper corpse of her, but they were a sentimental pair, these brothers. While Miroslav rowed them back to the crumbling ruin they inhabited in the Old Town, Josef patiently rubbed her hands, helped her sit up, held a flask of plum brandy to her lips. Presently she was breathing properly, and then her eyelids fluttered open.

  "I think she's going to be all right, Slava!" said Josef. "Yes, my dear, save your breath, we'll have you dry and snug in a few minutes. Aren't you lucky we were just going for a little boat ride, eh? Nearly home. You'll be all right now..."

  The statue Jim had referred to was an allegorical figure of Peace, receiving tributes from Commerce and Art, cast in bronze and set on a marble plinth. It had no obvious connection with the Railway Company, but the three stout and cheerful nudes were a favourite meeting-place, and now, with the crowd beginning to taunt the German troops who were drawn up outside the Station entrance, Peace, Commerce and Art were more popular than ever. Several youths had climbed up the monument, and one sat astride the comfortable shoulders of Peace, shaking his fists and yelling obscenities at the invaders.

  So it wasn't hard for Jim and the others to confer unobserved among the jostle. He spoke to Anton first.

  "Anton, you stay in the city. Take these notes - very rough - use them as the basis of a leaflet. Set it up in type and print as many as you've got paper for, and stick them up, shove them through doorways, get them all over the city. The essential thing is that people know what's happened; the Queen was arrested on Godel's orders, and was about to be executed, but she escaped; she's got the flag safe; like Walter von Eschten, she's taking it to Wendelstein. The flag is free - that's the message. Let no one think she gave in or betrayed the country herself. Do that straight away."

  Anton nodded, bowed swiftly and inconspicuously to Adelaide, and vanished. Jim nodded to Karl, who said: "Now we must get to the sidings on the right of the Station, beyond the Hotel over there. Make for the signal-box. Michael says the Royal Train's drawn up in front of it, with steam up in the locomotive. Obviously Godel was going to run, but we'll beat him, as long as we get there quickly. Willi's uncle is an engine-driver; he knows how to work it, and Private Schweigner does too - they'll go to the locomotive and take it over. The main thing is to get the Queen aboard. As soon as she's on, we'll leave, never mind who else hasn't made it. So split up now, find your own way in, and the best of luck."

  It took five minutes to force their way through the crowds around the Hotel and slip down the side-street beyond, twenty seconds to break into the empty baggage-hall and thirty to break out of it. Then they found themselves on a dirty little platform under a great water-tower, and no more than a hundred yards away, in front of the dark signal-box, there were the two maroon carriages of the Royal Train. Steam drifted from the chimney of the little tank-locomotive, and as they watched, the shadowy figures of Willi and Private Schweigner, swathed in his overcoat, leapt up inside the cab.

  "Right, move," said Jim, and they darted down the slope at the end of the platform and across the rough ground towards the train.

  The student Michael was waiting beside the open carriage door. He said quietly, "We'll stay here and block the other trains as long as we can. The points are set to put you on the Andersbad line, and you'll be clear as far as that. Good luck!"

  Hands reached down to pull them aboard, and Michael waved to the engine. A hand waved back, and with a jolt, the train began to move. They'd got away.

  Chapter Eighteen

  WOLFLIGHT

  Shouts from behind, the crack of rifles - but the train was gathering speed, and then they passed out of the sidings and on to the main line. Two figures, dark against the snow, waved briefly and then hastened to switch the points behind them. Jim relaxed and looked around.

  They were in the rear of the two carriages. He couldn't see much of it, though, because the only light came from outside until Karl struck a match and turned up the gas in one of the lamps. As the burner took the flame and flared and settled, the interior came softly into view: an open, comfortable sitting room or saloon, with plush seats, a carpeted floor and mahogany panelling.

  Adelaide was laying the flag carefully on one of the tables. When she'd got it lying tidy, she looked up.

  "Mr von Gaisberg," she said, "would you ask everyone to come and see me in here, please?"

  Then she saw Becky, white-faced with exhaustion, holding on to the back of a seat.

  "Sit down," she said, sitting herself. "You can have a snooze in a minute, but I want to talk to everyone first."

  Karl came back, bringing with him five other students and Corporal Kogler. She asked them all to sit down, and they did, the Corporal most uncomfortably, holding his rifle upright by his side.

  With Becky translating, Adelaide spoke to them.

  "Well done, all of you. You can see how close we came to losing the flag; it's obvious what Baron Godel was going up the Rock for. But we've still got it, and Razkavia is still free, and I'm still Queen. What we're going to do is this. We're going to take this train into Andersbad - that's where the line goes - and go straight to the garrison. I'll speak to the troops there, and I'll call on all the loyal people of the town to support me. Then we'll march up to the old castle at Wendelstein. The whole country'll know what that means."

  Karl coughed. "Wendelstein is only a few miles from Schwartzberg, Your Majesty. Count Otto..."

  He hesitated. Adelaide said, "Go on."

  "Well, are you sure of his attitude to you? We all know he expected to succeed. Has he been involved in these plots?"

  Adelaide's face set firm and her eyes blazed darkly. Jim and Becky recognized that expression.

  "I don't know what Count Otto will do. I have been Queen long enough to know the importance of the flag, and what Walter von Eschten did at Wendelstein. So does Count Otto. The part he chooses to play is a matter for him to decide. Has anyone else got any questions?"

  She looked around the little carriage. The faces that looked back were sombre. No one spoke.

  "Very well. Now we all need some rest. I suggest we try to sleep between here and Andersbad. Make yourselves comfortable wherever you can. And I'm proud of you all..."

  Becky had reached that stage of tiredness when you begin to imagine things, or perhaps to see things normally invisible. She seemed to be seeing a kind of look on Adelaide's face when she looked at Jim, and on Jim's when he looked at Adelaide, that was fierce and tender and greedy and shy and somehow animal, all at once. They couldn't keep their eyes off each other. When she and Becky had gone through to the front carriage, and Becky had lit the lamp in the main sleeping compartment, she turned to see Adelaide chewing a fingernail, her cheeks flushed, breathing deeply.

  "Go and fetch Jim," was all she said.

  Becky did so, and when they came back Adelaide was opening the little velvet bag she'd asked Becky to fetch from the bureau that morning, so long ago, when they'd awoken in her suite in the Palace. Jim was trembling, his green eyes red-rimmed but blazing with the same emotion as hers. Really, Becky thought, it's positively indecorous; if they touch each other they'll explode...

  Then Adelaide surprised them both.

  "I was going to do this on me birthday, but I'm not sure when that is, and none of us might live that long anyway. And if you feel like refusing or anything I'll scratch your bloody eyes out, because I'm the Queen and I can do what I like. Now, J
im, you're supposed to kneel, go on. Kneel!"

  He did, slowly, and she took out a gold star-shaped decoration on a dark-green silk ribbon.

  "This is the Order of St Stephen. It's an order of nobility. It means you're a nobleman, a baron or summing, I can't remember. Because of everything you done, right from the beginning, for King Rudolf and for the country, not for me."

  For once in his life, Jim was utterly without the power of speech. His eyes flashed with what Becky thought was anger, but then he took the hand Adelaide held out and kissed it.

  She put the ribbon around his neck and turned to Becky.

  "And you," she said. "I got one for you and all." She fumbled in the bag and brought out a gold medal on a crimson ribbon. "Come here," she said.

  Becky came, and Adelaide pinned it on her breast.

  "It's the Most Noble Order of the Red Eagle," she said. "Second Class. That's for civilians. 'Cause you been a good interpreter. Now you go out and sleep in the other compartment, Becky, 'cause I want to - I want to talk to -"

  Becky left, and as she shut the door she heard a soft half-choking sigh, or gasp, or both. She felt shut out, to be sure, but not by being made to sleep next door; it was - that the other two so urgently wanted to ... to what? She knew, but she blushed to think of it. They wanted it with an intensity which she could only marvel at. Perhaps she wasn't old enough; perhaps passion came with another couple of years' life; or perhaps there was one particular person whom she hadn't yet met, and with whom...

  With a blush on her cheeks and the Most Noble Order of the Red Eagle (Second Class) on her breast, Becky fell asleep. The train chugged on through the snowy silence of the night.

  On the footplate, Willi the student checked the controls. The pressure gauge was hovering around the hundred and twenty pounds per square inch level, which was a little low, but on the other hand the water level was low too. They hadn't had time to fill the tank properly. Could they afford to stoke the furnace and raise the pressure? It might mean having to stop and take on water; but where could they do that? However, if they kept the speed down, they might be caught... It was a puzzle.

  It wasn't the only puzzle, either. Was the line clear? There were no trains scheduled, but a special could come along at any time; and would all the points be set in their favour?

  And then there was the soldier, Private Schweigner. Willi found it hard to make him out. He'd been stoking with a will, but he'd said little, answering in monosyllables when Willi spoke to him. And now he was leaning out of the cab on the left, shading his eyes against the smoke and the snow, which had begun to fall thickly again.

  The heavy flakes swirled into the cab, and Willi was glad of the roaring furnace in front of him. Curious to see where they were, he leaned out on the right as Schweigner was doing on the left, hand sheltering his eyes. A roaring speckled darkness was all he saw. A second later, a blow from the shovel struck him so brutally on the head that he heard it ring, or was it his imagination? He seemed to be kneeling suddenly. His hand reached for the rail, everything happened with extraordinary soothing slowness, and then came another blow that brought with it all the pain the first one had just begun to remind him of.

  "The Queen -" he started to say, but got no further, because he was on his face and then he was sliding and then the wind tore him out of the locomotive and into the thundering darkness, where there was gravel, and tree roots, and ice, and under the ice, deep still water.

  Private Schweigner stood up, shaking. He could barely hold the shovel. But he'd done his duty, or the first part of it; the rest wouldn't take long.

  He gripped the handle firmly, threw several more shovelfuls of coal into the furnace, and swung the door shut. He checked the speed: twenty-five miles per hour, but they were going up a steepish gradient here. The pressure was rising. He traced the steam line to the safety valve and beat it flat with the shovel. Then, as the locomotive slowed to just over twenty miles an hour at the top of the gradient, Private Schweigner jumped from the footplate and rolled down the snow-covered bank, coming to rest with a thump that knocked the wind out of him.

  He struggled up, holding on to the tree he'd bumped into, and wiped the snow from his eyes as he watched the train roll past above him and gather speed over the crest of the hill. There was a long run downwards now; Schweigner knew the line well. He couldn't predict when the boiler would explode, though; that was a matter for God.

  Wincing, he clambered back up the slope and began to trudge the half-mile back to the little town of St Wolfgang, where he knew there was a telegraph-office.

  From the basement of a jobbing printer's in the University district, figures carrying bundles of leaflets with the printer's ink still wet on them slipped through the streets, thrusting rough paper into hands, through letter-boxes, into pockets, pasting them up on the walls, lamp-posts, doors. Here and there people stood reading them, or tugged at a neighbour's sleeve and pointed them out:

  "The Queen's taken the flag! She's gone to Wendelstein like Walter von Eschten!"

  "What a coup! It's as good as the Middle Ages!"

  "That'll fox 'em..."

  The streets were in confusion; there was open fighting in a number of places. The commander of the German force, General von Hochberg, was keeping the larger part of his troops in reserve, because he thought that at some point the Razkavian army might gather its wits and come out to support the raggled little groups of civilians with their hunting rifles and cobblestones.

  As soon as he'd learned what had happened on the summit of the Rock, he put Baron Godel under arrest. The Chamberlain, astonished and bitter, could hardly bring himself to resist. Immediately afterwards General von Hochberg, seeing a large fire burning in the banking quarter, sent in a company of grenadiers with orders to put out the blaze and protect the civilians, and he was about to deal with the barricades around the University when an excited major galloped up accompanying a closed carriage.

  "General! Look who's in here! We found him by the Botanical Gardens Station..."

  The General looked in at the figures of Prince Leopold and the nurse Baron Godel had sent with him.

  "Who's this?"

  "Prince Leopold," said the nurse, anxious to protect the Prince, and anxious too in case she was doing something wrong.

  "Ah! Now I see." What the General now saw was the rest of Baron Godel's plan. He cast a glance at the pitiful figure of Prince Leopold, and turned back to the major. "Take this poor man back to the Palace, give him a great deal of brandy, and let nature take its course. Neumann, where are you? Let's deal with those barricades..."

  Meanwhile, the students with the leaflets moved on, into the Old Town, through the alleys and warrens and hidden little courtyards, with their message of escape and hope. Miroslav Kovaly, one of the elderly river-thieves, was out scavenging for some scraps of food for their guest from the water, when a young figure thrust a leaflet into his hand.

  "Here you are, Grandpa! Read this! Take it home and show the family!"

  "I will, I will. Thank you..."

  The swaying of the train shook Jim into wakefulness. His arm was under Adelaide's head. She was still asleep, and when he tried to withdraw it she stirred and murmured, "Don't go..." But he kissed her and sat upright, shrugging his shoulder to restore the circulation.

  There was no doubt about it: the train was rocking from side to side like a boat on a stormy sea, and jolting so hard that Adelaide's velvet bag and his own jacket had shaken off the pegs they'd hung on.

  "Wake up!" he said, and shook her silken shoulder. "Come on, love - for God's sake -"

  "What is it?" She sat up drowsily, felt the motion of the train, and threw an arm around his neck for support. "Jim - what's happening?"

  "I think the train's out of control. I'm going to go forward and see. Get your clothes on and mind the flag. Stay near the bed in case we crash - it'll be soft, at least."

  He dragged his jacket on, laced his shoes with quick rough movements, and then caught h
er up in his arms.

  "I love you," he said. "You understand? More than anything. Life, death, Razkavia, England, they're nothing beside this. I didn't tell you just now, but I've got to say it at least once."

  Her face was buried in his neck. Blindly he stroked her rich, dark, scented hair, and heard her say, "Jim, of all the men I've ever known, I only loved you, and I loved you from the first day I saw you in Lockhart and Selby's ... I never stopped. I love you, Jim--"

  Then there came an explosion that took them back several months to a sunny morning in St John's Wood, for it sounded as if a bomb had gone off. An instant later came a jolt bigger than any yet, and then the whole carriage swayed and toppled, with a splintering crash that hurled the pair of them against the wall; but which was wall, or floor, or ceiling, neither could have said. A breathless struggle against enveloping bedclothes - and then the smell and hiss of escaping gas, and the blaze of spilled coals, the heat of red-hot iron -

  Jim gathered himself in an effort of painful wrestling. His leg was trapped. Tugging it free from something, he fell backwards and shattered a pane of glass. He tore himself up again, found Adelaide all but unconscious, cut over the eye, and hauled her roughly free.

  She was in her chemise. In the tangle of bedding Jim caught sight of her dark cloak and pulled that out as well, and then, standing, banged his head and cursed before knocking out the glass of the window above him.

  "Come here," he said, and lifted her up. She was as light as a child. He pushed her through the gap, and then lifted her feet so that she could scramble free.

  "Move! Get away from the engine, and I'll look for Becky!" he shouted, and then he saw one of her boots. She was barefoot in the snow, so down he went, the jumbled sideways carriage lit now with flickering red, the hiss of gas louder every moment. A few seconds' scrabbling and he found the other boot, and then leapt out with them.

  "Get back! Go and fetch the flag, but move!"

  She nodded, looked up at him with those black beloved eyes, and slipped her boots on before clambering back to where the second coach lay, even further over. Other voices came back to Jim, and there were arms and heads and bodies emerging from the shattered coach, but he turned back, scrambling along the upturned side of the carriage towards the next door.