Alistair MacLean - Breakheart Pass

'I have, my dear girl, I have. I'm just trying to take my mind off them.' He screwed his eyes as the rope tightened on his inflamed wrists. He said protestingly:

'Easy, now, easy.'

She made no reply, tightened the last knot, helped ease Deakin to first a sitting, then a lying position, then left, still without a word. Back in her own cubicle, she closed the door softly behind her, then sat on her bed for a long time indeed, her eyes unfocused but her face very thoughtful and still.

In the redly and brightly illuminated driving cab the face of Banlon, the engineer, was equally thoughtful as he divided his time and attention between the controls and peering out the side window to examine the track ahead and the skies above. The black mass of cloud, moving rapidly to the east, now obscured more than half the sky; in a very short time indeed the darkness would be as close to total as it could ever be in uplands where mountains and pines – and increasingly the ground itself – were overlaid with a blanket of white.

Jackson, the fireman, was as close a carbon copy to Banlon as it was possible to be – abnormally lean, dark-complexioned and with two enormous crows' feet that traversed his parchment face from the ears almost to the tip of his nose. Despite the cold, Jackson was sweating profusely: on steep gradients such as this, the continuous demand for a full head of steam gobbled up fuel almost as quickly as it could be fed into the cavernous maw of the fire-box, casting Jackson in the role of little less than a slave to a very demanding master. He heaved a last section of cordwood on to the glowing bed of coals, mopped his forehead with a filthy towel and swung the door of the fire-box shut. The immediate effect was to reduce the footplate to a state of semi-darkness.

Banlon abandoned the cab window and moved towards the controls. Suddenly there came a loud, metallic and very ominous rattle. Banlon addressed a series of unprintable epithets towards the source of the sound.

Jackson's voice was sharp. 'What's wrong?'

Banlon didn't answer at once. He reached swiftly towards the brake. There was a moment's silence, followed by a screeching, banging clamour as the train, with a concertina collisioning of bumpers, began to slow towards a stop. Throughout the train all the minority who were awake – with the exception of the bound Deakin – and most of the majority who had just been violently woken grabbed for the nearest support as the train ground to its jolting, shuddering, emergency stop. Not a few of the heavier sleepers were dumped unceremoniously on the floor.

'That damned steam regulator again!' Banlon said. 'I think the retaining nut has come off. Give Devlin the bell – brakes hard on.' He unhooked a feeble oil-lamp and peered at the offending regulator. 'And open the fire-box door – I've seen better glow-worms than this goddamned lamp.'

Jackson did what he was asked, then leaned out and peered back down the track. 'Quite a few folk coming this way,' he announced. 'They don't seem all that happy to me.'

'What do you expect?' Banlon said sourly. 'A deputation coming to thank us for saving their lives?' He peered out on his own side. 'There's another lot of satisfied customers coming up this way, too.'

But there was one traveller who was not running forward. A vague and palish blur in the darkness, he jumped down from the train, looked swiftly around him, stooped, scuttled swiftly to the track-side and dropped down the embankment to the riverside below. He pulled a peculiar peaked coonskin cap low over his forehead and started running towards the rear of the train.

Colonel Claremont, despite his pronounced and very recently acquired limp – he had been one of the heavier sleepers and the contact his right hip had made with the floor had been nothing if not violent – was the first to reach the driving cab. With some difficulty he pulled himself up to the footplate.

'What the devil do you mean, Banlon, by scaring us all out of our wits like that?'

'Sorry, sir.' Banlon was very stiff, very proper, very correct. 'Company's emergency regulations. Control failure. The retaining nut–'

'Never mind that.' Claremont tenderly rubbed his aching hip. 'How long will it take to fix? All damned night, I suppose.'

Banlon permitted himself the faint smile of the expert. 'Five minutes, no more.'

While Banlon was bringing his expertise to bear, the running figure with the coonskin cap stopped abruptly at the base of a telegraph pole. He looked back the way he had come : the rear of the train was at least sixty yards away. Apparently satisfied, the man produced a long belt, passed it around himself and the pole and swiftly began to climb. Arrived at the top, he produced from his pocket a pair of wire-cutters with which he rapidly snipped through the telegraph wires on the side of the insulators remote from the train. The wires dropped away into the gloom and, almost as quickly, the man slid down to the ground.

On the footplate Banlon straightened, spanner still in hand. Claremont said: 'Fixed?'

Banlon raised a grimy hand to cover a prodigious yawn. 'Fixed.'

Claremont spared some of the concern for his aching hip. He said : 'You sure you're fit to drive for the rest of the night?'

'Hot coffee. That's all we need – and we have all the means and the makings right here in the cab. But if you could have Jackson and me spelled tomorrow–'

'I'll see to that.' Claremont spoke curtly, not from any animosity he held towards Banlon, it was merely that the pain in his hip was clamouring for his attention again. He climbed stiffly down to the track-side, made his way down the left side of the train and climbed as stiffly up the iron steps towards the entrance to the leading coach. The train slowly got under way again. As it did so, the coonskin-hatted figure appeared over the embankment to the right of the now moving train, glanced fore and aft, moved quickly forward and swung aboard the rear end of the third coach.

FOUR

Dawn came and it came late, as dawn does in mountain valleys so late in the year and in those altitudes. The distant peaks of the previous evening were now invisible, even although measurably closer; the grey and total opacity of the sky ahead – to the west, that was – was indication enough that, not many miles away, snow was falling. And, as could be seen from the gentle swaying of the snow-clad pine-tops, the morning wind was steadily freshening. Some of the pools in the river, where the water was almost still, had ice reaching out from both banks to meet almost in the middle. The mountain winter was at hand.

Henry, the steward, was stoking the already glowing stove in the officers' day coach when Colonel Claremont entered from the passageway, passing the recumbent and apparently sleeping form of Deakin without so much as a glance. Claremont, his limp of the previous night apparently now no more than a memory, rubbed his hands briskly together.

'A bitter morning, Henry.'

'It's all that, sir. Breakfast? Carlos has it all ready.'

Claremont crossed to the window, drew the curtain, rubbed the misted glass and peered out unenthusiastically. He shook his head.

'Later. Looks as if the weather is breaking up. Before it does, I'd like to speak to Reese City and Fort Humboldt first. Go fetch Telegraphist Ferguson, will you? Tell him to bring his equipment here.'

Henry made to leave, then stood to one side as the Governor, O'Brien and Pearce entered. Pearce moved towards Deakin, shook him roughly and began to untie his knots.

'Good morning, good morning.' Claremont was radiating his customary efficiency. 'Just about to raise Fort Humboldt and Reese City. The telegraphist will be here shortly.'

O'Brien said : 'Stop the train, sir?'

'If you please.'