‘Finnegan,’ Ginger Kerrigan asked, Woodbine dangling out of the side of his mouth. Outside it was already dark and the temperature had dropped dramatically as they huddled around the crackling wood stove. ‘What do you think of that stationmaster?’
By way of answer, the little train driver drew a dirty finger across his throat. ‘Bad man,’ he growled, chewing on the raw cod which the stationmaster had brought them and which the crew of the Swordfish had refused on sight. ‘I tink he Red. Bad man.’
Ginger pondered the information as Billy Bennett asked, ‘Why can’t we get loaded up with logs and do a bunk, Finnegan?’
Sitting at the other side of the hut, Dickie Bird said, ‘Yes, why can’t we?’
The Finn swallowed the rest of the raw fish and licked his dirty fingers as if he had just devoured a great delicacy. ‘’Cos, gentlemens, he’s got the key to—’ He fumbled for the word, couldn’t find it and made a gesture as if pulling something back with both hands.
‘Ye mean the switch, man?’ CPO Ferguson prompted, with a look in his grey eyes which said, why can’t yon ruddy foreigner speak English?
‘Yes, switch to change—’ Again he fumbled for the word, and like a man sorely tried, Ferguson said, ‘The points.’
Finnegan beamed and nodded.
‘Well then, we’ll knock him over, the jolly old bean,’ Dickie Bird said brightly, ‘and make a run for it.’
‘Good idea, gentlemens,’ Finnegan agreed. ‘But the telegraph’ – he meant the signal telegraph which linked the stations together – ‘one of his mens could telegraph up the line. The bandits – they tap line. Know we coming.’ He thrust his filthy forefinger up his nose, pulled something out, looked at it as if it were of some importance and then flicked it away with his forefinger and thumb.
There was silence in the hut, while outside the wind howled and shrieked, making the flame of the petroleum lamp which illuminated the place tremble and flicker, casting their shadows in wavering magnification on the walls. Dickie wished that Smith was there, helping to work this thing out. But he was with the woman in the other hut, talking about the plans for the morrow… or something.
It was Billy Bennett, not regarded as the brightest of the Swordfish’s crew, who came up with the idea. ‘If Finnegan here,’ he jerked a thumb like a hairy sausage at the train driver, ‘can produce a hawser or stout piece of wire, we could sling it over the telegraph wire. Once we move off, the telegraph comes down and it’s Bob’s yer frigging uncle.’
‘Why didn’t I think of that!’ Dickie Bird exclaimed in delight. ‘What a splendid wheeze that would be!’
Ferguson looked pained. In the Royal Navy, he told himself, officers and gentlemen should not talk like that, but then again he had never understood officers.
Dickie turned his attention to the Finn, who was now biting the black oily grime from beneath his nails with his front teeth. ‘Well, have you got any wire, Finnegan?’
‘Sure gentlemens, I have.’
‘Right then,’ Dickie Bird said. ‘As soon as that rascal of a stationmaster thinks we’ve settled down for the night, we’ll act. We’ll take our weapons. But I think we ought to refrain from firing unless it’s absolutely necessary. So we’ll look around for some sort of cosh thing.’
‘All ye need, sir,’ Ferguson broke in, ‘is a sock.’
‘A sock?’ they chorused as one.
‘Ay,’ the old Scot said in that dour manner of his, ‘I mind the many a time when I’ve made one out of a sock when I’ve been in a tight corner. Now gie heed, this is the way you do it…’
In the other hut, as the crew of the Swordfish prepared to break out of that remote railway station, Smith and Mrs Reilly made love. There was no bed and she had refused to lie on the cold stone floor. So now she was sprawled across the rough wooden table, her dress thrown up about her naked waist, while he pumped furiously at her from behind. It was rough and brutal, but the very roughness and brutality seemed to excite her. ‘More!’ she gasped. ‘Oh please, deeper and harder!’
Gasping like an asthmatic, his face crimson with the effort, Smith did as she ordered. His fingers bit cruelly into the soft white flesh of her hips as he pumped himself into her, in and out, in and out, with ever-increasing fury. It was almost as if he were angry with her. She, too, choked and moaned, as if being subjected to some terrible torture. It wasn’t a lovemaking; it was a coupling – of animals in heat rutting – and Smith knew it. But the desire was so great that he had to and he knew she had to as well.
Suddenly she gave a loud groan. Her body tensed convulsively and went slack in the same instant that he achieved his own fulfilment, slumping over her half-naked body, all energy drained out of him as if a tap had been opened and allowed it all to go.
For one long moment they lay thus, then he raised himself and pulled up his trousers.
Slowly she turned. She didn’t bother to pull down her dress. Instead she sat there, revealing all her delightful nakedness, staring at him with those glowing dark eyes of hers, as if she were seeing him for the very first time. Outside all was quiet save for the howl of the night wind in the forest and the slither of snow as it was blown down.
Finally she broke the heavy silence. ‘De Vere, I know I am not for you. Your life is very different from what mine will be.’ Suddenly, surprisingly, she took his right hand and pressed it lovingly to her hot cheek. ‘But you have been very good to me. I’ve needed someone like you for a long time.’
Smith blushed and gently freed his hand. ‘You’ve been tremendously good to me, too. But your husband—’
She held up her hand for silence and pulled down her dress. ‘Sidney Reilly and I are finished, de Vere. I shall help to get him and the boy out of Russia and back to England – if that is his intention. Thereafter, our ways will part. I have a small private income from my mother’s estate, and I can work if necessary.’
‘Where will you go?’ he asked, telling himself it was about time he got back to the others.
‘Africa, South America…’ She shrugged those pretty shoulders of hers carelessly. ‘Anywhere away from this accursed Europe of ours. I’m sick of it and its wars and revolutions.’ She started to tie up her sheer black silk stockings with the frilly red garters that had definitely come from Paris.
‘England was all right,’ Smith, the patriot, said stoutly. ‘I think we’ve got a pretty good show going back home.’
‘England was all right before the Great War. But I fear she, too, is going into a decline. The war took the heart out of the old country. But no matter.’ She was businesslike once more, hiding those delightful legs of hers under the long velvet skirt. ‘We must get out of this place before dawn, de Vere.’
‘I know. My chaps are working on it right now.’ He kissed her. ‘Now lock the door after me and wait for me to come back and let you know what the plan is.’
She smiled at him wryly and wordlessly opened her handbag. Inside there lay an ivory-handled .22 pistol. ‘I can defend myself,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet through that rogue’s heart.’
Smith went out, telling himself what a strange, passionate woman Mrs Reilly was. She was as tough as nails, yet at the same time she seemed to him very vulnerable. What a life she must have led with this Sidney Reilly!
Slowly, thoughtfully, he walked across to the other hut, feet crunching over the frozen snow. An icy wind blew across the forest and not a light burned in the little settlement. It was obvious that they went to bed with the chickens in these parts. Just as he was about to open the door of the hut, he thought he heard a sound – a horse whinnying. He cocked his head to the wind and listened hard. Nothing… After a moment, he gave up. He went inside, glad of the cheerful warmth after the freezing cold outside.
The men looked at him a little curiously, he thought. But he brushed away his sudden inhibitions and said briskly, ‘Well?’
Swiftly Dickie Bird explained the plan. When he was finished, Smith nodded his approval and said, ‘All right, let’s get started. All hands to action stations. We’ll load the logs first. And PDQ.’
‘Pretty damned quick indeed,’ Ginger agreed. ‘It’d freeze the goolies off’n yer out there now.’
Ten minutes later they had filled the tender and, huddled beneath an old tarpaulin, the Finnish driver raised steam almost noiselessly, concealing the flames that came from the open firebox as they shoved logs into its greedy red maw. Meanwhile Ginger had clambered up the end of the second flat car and, muffled to the eyes, set up the ugly Lewis machine gun. Smith dropped from the cab and said to Mrs Reilly, who was to accompany him in case any talking was to be done, ‘Are you sure you want to come?’
‘I’m sure,’ she said firmly and CPO Ferguson, with the sock filled with earth, nodded his approval.
‘All right, off we go.’
They started to move over the frozen snow, crouched low and hardly daring to breathe, as behind them Billy Bennett, using the hawser like a cowboy’s lasso, tossed the heavy metal rope effortlessly over the telegraph wire.
Now the three of them were outside the stationmaster’s tumbledown house. All was silent. Nothing stirred save a shutter swinging back and forth in the wind. Gingerly, Smith tried the door. It opened. They passed through. A pile of clothing lay on the rough sofa. From behind the door of the next room came the squeaking of rusty bedsprings.
CPO Ferguson pulled a face. ‘Yon man’s fornicating – at this time o’ night!’
In spite of the tension, Smith grinned and whispered, ‘Search those trousers. See if you can find the key.’
Hurriedly the old Scot, who knew about such things, rifled the man’s pockets while they stood guard. There was no sound inside the house save that of the rusty bedsprings. Smith whispered in Mrs Reilly’s ear, ‘I suppose that’s the only kind of entertainment they have in this Godforsaken place.’
She giggled softly.
Five minutes later they were on their way back with the key for the points switch.
Now things happened fast. The Finnish driver let out sand and gravel onto the line, just in case it was iced up. He didn’t want to slip his wheels once he opened the throttle. Up ahead, brawny Billy Bennett opened the points back to the main line and doubled back heavily to the waiting train.
The Finnish driver opened the throttle. Steam gushed up from the outlet. The wheels clattered on the slippery tracks, caught and started to move the little train. ‘Hold on your hat!’ the driver cried cheerfully over the clatter and the hiss of escaping steam. They started to move forwards.
Over in the stationmaster’s house, the lamp was suddenly illuminated. There was a cry of rage. A shot rang out. A dark figure pelted across the track to where the telegraph shed was. Ginger Kerrigan ripped off a burst – and missed. Frantically Billy Bennett looked upwards at the cable with the hawser around it. ‘Come on, yer sod!’ he cursed as the wires obstinately refused to break. Crack! Next instant they came tumbling down in a flurry of angry blue sparks.
The train started to gather speed. The Finn opened the throttle wider. Steam gushed upwards, the wheels clattering round and round, driving the pistons to and fro with ever-increasing energy. Billy Bennett clambered up on the tender. With his brawny arms he slung log after log into the cab. With one hand the Finn concentrated on the controls, kicking the logs closer to the firebox for when he needed them. ‘Hot dickety!’ he kept chortling over and over again as if it were some kind of litany.
Smith craned his neck. Lights were flashing in the firs. Were they a signal? He didn’t know. All he knew was that wild firing was erupting on both sides of the track.
Whoever the rascally stationmaster had been in touch with had been preparing to ambush them on the morrow. He shouted to the driver, ‘Come on, Finnegan, give her all you’ve got!’
On the flat car, Ginger Kerrigan opened up with his Lewis gun once more. Scarlet flame stabbed the night. Tracer sailed through the darkness like glowing golf balls.
Answering bullets pattered off the side of the locomotive like heavy tropical raindrops on a tin roof. Then they were through the hamlet, heading for the open spaces once more, trailing huge black clouds of smoke behind them. They had done it again. Minutes later they had vanished into the darkness.