The Steam Mole (2 page)

And then Clara's mother ended up in hospital.

And then something else happened—something Clara wasn't talking about. It was probably her boyfriend.

Tim Barnabas had had quite high expectations of Westralia, mostly thanks to Cookie, the submarine's Westralian cook. Cookie was a good 'un, kind to a hungry young submariner, full of jokes, and decent to work for. Tim didn't mind being up to the elbows in greasy water or any other dirty job. They had to be done, and Cookie did them, too.

Cookie never made Tim feel that he didn't think of him as quite human. That had happened in Westralia, quite a lot, and it was worse working on the steam mole. It seemed the overseer really didn't like “Abos” on his machine, and did his best to make their lives so miserable they left, even though it was hard to get anyone to work on the drilling machines.

Tim staggered along toward the boiler under the weight of the two steam-biscuits he carried to the furnace.

“Get a move on boong-boy!” shouted Shift-captain Vister, swinging his fist against Tim's ear.

“Ouch!” Tim ducked a second blow. “You don't have to hit me. I'm doing my best.”

“If you don't like it, you can get out. Go back to your own kind. We don't want you here, anyway.”

Tim didn't have his own kind to go to. Not here, out in the middle of the Australian desert. Besides, he wasn't from Australia at all. His “kind” were the submarine crew, and most of them came from Under-London. Tim's father had once come from Jamaica, long ago, before the Melt. “I wish I could,” muttered Tim as he swayed down the rattling gap to the conveyor, clanking the steam-biscuits—compressed coal shaped into ovoid perforated slabs—into place in the fire-dropper.

“Aw, next time we stop, take off into the desert. It's home for the likes of you. Hot as hell out there, which is why you beggars are all burned black,” said the foreman, who was nearly as bad as the shift-captain, only stupider.

As all of them were covered in coal dust, Tim wondered just how he could say that, but arguing only made them worse. The recruiter back in Ceduna hadn't prepared Tim for this. He'd come to the submarine the day after the
Cuttlefish
had been pulled into the dry dock and Clara had vanished into the Westralian city. He'd come the day after Captain Malkis called them all together to give them the difficult news.

The coal-fired submarine had made it all the way to Westralia with a very precious cargo: a cargo the British Empire had gone to huge lengths to try to capture or destroy. They'd failed, and Captain Malkis and the
Cuttlefish
and her crew had successfully brought Dr. Mary Calland and the secret of ammonia synthesis to safety. It was something that the Liberty, the government that ran Under-London, and had built her submarines, would have backed them in doing.

But right now…the ship was broken. They'd had to leave her valuable cargo of nitrates in their drogues on Flinders Island. And though the people from the government of the Republic of Westralia had been glad to welcome the scientist, they weren't paying the
Cuttlefish
for bringing her to them.

“As you know, gentlemen,” said the captain, “we do have small reserves of gold for paying for expenses. Normally our ventures are profitable, but this time…we have no cargo to sell. And the damage to our good ship is extensive, and it will cost us a great deal to repair her. It's also going to take three to four months. So it will be that long before the boat can leave, and then that'll only be for a local trip, to Flinders Island to pick up our cargo.”

He looked around at the crew and went on, “The Liberty will of course be good for your wages, but in the short term we're going to have trouble paying you. Actually, we would find it impossible to
afford food for the crew, and you wouldn't be able to live on the submarine while she's being repaired and refitted. Food is very pricey in Westralia, and accommodation is just not easy to find.”

He took a deep breath. “You have been a great crew, and I would hate to lose you. But…we have another problem.”

There was a long silence. Tim couldn't imagine life now without the
Cuttlefish
and her crew. They'd all been through too much together.

“Nothing that we can't solve, sir,” said Lieutenant Ambrose stoutly. “My fiancée says the Westralians are yelling out for labor of any kind in their mines and factories. And they pay well. They have to. Most of the mines provide bunkhouses and food, too. We could do three months and then come back to the boat.”

“Too right we could,” said Cookie with a grin. “And yer's will all get to see me country a bit. I reckon after a bit of time in the Gibson Mines or the like yous'll be glad to be back to me cooking. It's easy to find jobs. There's blokes recruiting all the time. If yer give me shore leave, captain, I'll try to get someone decent and honest to talk to the lads.”

Tim had been rather looking forward to the experience then. The recruiter painted a glowing picture, too: free food, bunk-space, and a short contract. And for those crew members the captain had especially commended, jobs in the toughest and best paid service in Westralia: the steam moles.

“They're like land submarines,” said the recruiter. “You'd be at home in one, young man. And your captain has given you a glowing testimonial. Good experience for you.”

“What's a steam mole?” asked Tim.

The recruiter grinned. “Something like a cross between a tunneling machine on rails and a termite.”

The joke fell flat to a boy from the tunnels of a drowned London. “What's a termite?”

“My word! You really don't know?”

Tim shook his head.

“Well, they're like ants—white ants, people call them. They eat wood, but the sun will kill them, so they make mud tunnels up trees and poles so that they can get to the wood while staying out of the sun. We have to do the same north of the Tropic of Capricorn. It's so hot in the sun in summer, you can't sweat fast enough to cool down. So the tracks to the mines up there are covered over. Shallow tunnels, if you like. The steam moles make them. They're busy with a big push to get a whole new network going, especially to the north.”

Tim liked being in a submarine, and he was used to tunnels. He'd spent his whole life in them, up to the last year. The one rub had been Clara. He wasn't even sure where she'd gone, or how to contact her. One moment she'd been there, and the next whisked away by the Westralians. She'd promised to come back and see him just as soon as she could.

“Of course you get a week off after every month, back here in Ceduna if you like, if you take a steam-mole job. Most of the mining jobs you'd get a day off a week, and you can't get away from the mine for that day. It's too far to travel to anywhere. You'd get a month after twelve months from them, but you blokes aren't planning to stay that long. Mind you, when you get among that kind of money…”

No kind of money was enough to keep Tim from the
Cuttlefish
. But the figure the recruiter talked about was very tempting indeed to a poor boy from the tunnels. He could do a lot with that money. Maybe even think about a snippy girl who took going to university as inevitable.

But all that was before he got to the steam mole, and before he found out he was the only one from the
Cuttlefish
on this machine.

And before he'd found out that they hated him for the color of his skin. He was the youngest and smallest person on the steam mole, and he really didn't know how he was going to survive for a month, let alone three.

The steam mole was one of two pushing south from the Sheba mine to meet the northbound rail. She'd work for two days then, as the new-cast tunnel needed to set for eight hours, go back along her tracks to the last station. There was a station like this every twenty miles, and a big one every sixty. When the line was complete they'd provide the power station for that section of track. The trains running on the tracks down here wouldn't have locomotives, but would be towed along in the dark by a long, endless steel cable. All the coal smoke and steam could be vented from the power station, leaving the air in the termite tunnel cool and breathable. But the steam moles had to have their own power. While they were building, the air out in the tunnel was full of coal smoke. A long, floppy air hose made of leather stretched back to the power stations, and one of Tim's jobs was to attach new sections to the air pump then wind them in and detach them as the steam mole backed up.

It was hot, hard work, and you risked losing your fingers with every unhook, but it meant he was away from the steam-biscuit line and Shift-captain Vister, so Tim preferred it. It was that or being a greaser on the brass piston fingers of the drill head, and that was noisier and even more dangerous. It was also where the news from outside first came to the steam mole.

“Hear they're upping the contract period from three months to six,” said one of the other hose-men to one of his companions. “You're stuck for another four months, Fred.”

“Bunch of Welshing b—” swore the other hose-man. “They promised they wouldn't do that. They're tryin' to push to Sheba before the Ogg-Nullabor line. I was lookin' forward to gettin' out of here.”

Tim felt as if he'd been dunked in ice water. “But…but surely they can't just change our contracts without—?”

“Oh, yes they can, boong-boy,” said Fred. “Do anything they please. Only that means they battle to get men to work…so they makes it worse for the men who
are
working. Makes perfect blooming sense, really, to some feller in a cool office in Augusta or
Ceduna. And it's not worth breakin' the contract, see. They'll put you in stir.”

Tim had been in Westralia long enough to know what “stir” was. Jail. He swallowed, unable to speak.

“Someone gunna have to rein these blooming companies in. Bunch of Ned Kellys,” said Fred's mate, angrily tossing down the brass connector. “S'oright for your kind, boong. You can always go bush and they can't find yer.”

Tim just stared helplessly at him. Six months? The
Cuttlefish
would be gone by then. And as for “go bush,” well, he might just have to. He didn't really know what it meant, but he'd lived out in the wild pipes under flooded London for a day or two.

If he could get back to the submarine in time, he was sure Captain Malkis would hide him and take him away when they left. The awkward part might be ever coming back to Westralia, and he wanted to, as Clara would be here. He'd have to check out the practicalities of it all when he got his time back in Ceduna. Mind you, it had taken two whole days and nights of traveling along the termite track in a jostling, clacking carriage with one dim Bakelite fitting to get here. His week off in Ceduna was going to amount to three days there, and four days traveling.

She was worth it, though, thought Tim. He'd get to see Clara somehow, and talk it over with her.

Jack Calland was dying. He knew this because he'd just seen his wife and daughter. And that, some small, rational part of his mind said, was impossible. He was in Australia, transported in a rusty iron hulk into this hell, and they were in Ireland.

He said so.

“They're in the rebel-held part of Australia,” said the tall, slim man in tropical dress whites, who had been holding the picture.

Jack laughed.

That was a bad idea, or so said the excruciating pain that followed.

“Stop that,” said another man, in a cool, dispassionate voice. “You'll kill him and that would be of no value to us, and I am not going to tell Duke Malcolm that we killed his pawn early. You…Martins, take him to the doctor. Tell McLennan I said to fix him up. I need the next letter.”

Jack was vaguely aware of being dragged out into the heat and then back into the shade. And that was all he knew for some time, as he wandered in troubled dreams, looking for, and never quite finding, his beloved Mary and little Clara, catching glimpses of them under the gaslights and in the narrow, sooty streets of Fermoy. Calling to them…