Tomorrow 7 - The Other Side Of Dawn (18 page)

Now I couldn’t tell if they were following or not. I was starting to feel more confident, like I had a chance, but that was a bit premature. They had another tactic that hadn’t crossed my mind. A stream of gunfire suddenly opened up. Although it was way over to my left, it was coming my way. They were traversing the whole slope with an automatic weapon.

I ran another half-a-dozen steps,
then
dived to the ground. I lay clutching myself round the waist as though I’d been hit already. It was terrifying. The shots were rapidly coming towards me. Funny, before the war, if I’d thought about it at all, I would have said that bullets through the bush wouldn’t do much harm. Might break a few twigs, not much more than that. But these bullets were like chainsaws. You could hear them smashing the bush apart. The noise was awful. It wasn’t just the unbearable banging of the gun, it was the branches falling from trees all over the place, splintering and breaking and thumping to the ground. It was the confused screaming of cockatoos, woken from their sleep. It was the screeching of ricochets. The quiet bush had suddenly turned into a wild, out-of-control fireworks display. There wasn’t much to look at, apart from the showers of sparks when a bullet hit a rock, but there was enough noise for an Olympics opening ceremony.

And all the time in the background the steady chugging of the train got louder and louder, closer and closer. I’d never heard such an orchestra of ugly mechanical sounds in my life.

But I think the train might have actually saved me, at that moment anyway. The firing stopped as suddenly as it started, when the bullets were cutting swathes through the bush just ten metres away. I guess they figured that in another few seconds they would be shooting holes in their own train. I heard them yelling, up on the ridge, and I think they were spreading out and coming down the hill. I didn’t wait to find out. Keeping low I sprinted off to the right again, losing height all the time.

In less than a hundred metres I hit the bitumen road that Homer and Gavin and I had been on earlier. I was pretty sure that I was a bit ahead of the chase, so I turned left and ran along the bitumen. Being out in the clear was such a relief, not having to worry about branches or rabbit holes. For the first time that night the air felt fresh and bubbly on my face. Again I had a surge of hope, like a quick hit with an electric prod.

I should have known better. It was so hard to work out what was happening, but I think a second lot of soldiers were coming along the road, looking for me or the others. The first I knew of them was when I heard a clattering of feet, as though a mob of horses with new shoes was belting along behind me. For a second I didn’t get it, but when one of them yelled, in his high-pitched voice, I had no more problems understanding.

‘Oh God,’ I gasped. I didn’t know if they’d seen me: I suspected they hadn’t. But they would in the next few seconds. I really felt that this might be it. There was no cover at all. I put on a burst of speed but I knew it wouldn’t last long. My reserves were gone. I was coming to the bridge over the railway line. The ground was shuddering in sympathy with the train. Most of the carriages had already passed. I could see them stretched away to my right. It seemed like a long train, pulling a heavy load, and it was struggling to get up the hill. As I ran over the bridge the last dozen carriages, all identical open trucks and all empty, started going under it, on my left. I could feel them beneath my feet. A couple of moments later the first of them started coming out the other side. It seemed to come out faster than it went in. But I didn’t hesitate.

Thank God there were no soldiers on these carriages, riding shotgun. I guess because it wasn’t a troop train. There were passenger carriages way up ahead, but at least a couple of dozen goods trucks between me and them, and I couldn’t see any soldiers on the passenger ones anyway.

I landed pretty heavily. The train was grunting away at a slow pace, but it was quite a drop from the bridge, and there wasn’t much to break my fall.
Just a layer of coal about thirty centimetres deep.
I dropped vertically but at the last second twisted sideways, and put a hand out, mainly trying to save my bad knee. In point of actual fact, as Dad says sometimes when he’s trying to be funny, I don’t think there was any brilliant way I could have landed. I didn’t do much damage. Just a heap more bruises and aches and pains to add to the ones I’d already collected in this war. In some ways the worst thing was the sharp jabs from the lumps of coal, each leaving its own individual bruise.

For a minute I stayed down in among the coal. If anyone had seen me from the bridge they’d be firing at me right now. Like people at
a wedding
throwing rice; I’d be saturated with bullets. All I could do was pray two big prayers: one, that they hadn’t seen me, and two, that if they did, no-one had a mobile phone or a walkie-talkie, for calling ahead of the train, or maybe even talking to the guys on it.

I didn’t hear any bullets, but that didn’t mean a lot. The train was making such a racket getting up the gradient that I mightn’t have heard them anyway.

Just as I couldn’t rely on the first prayer being answered, so too I couldn’t rely on the second.
I waited a few moments until the train reached the top of the cutting, when it started surging forward. It had new energy as it came out of the hills and approached the flatter country. I dragged myself up and went to the front of the truck. With the greatest of caution I put my nose over the top and had a look. Ahead, the long line of the train curved away like a giant snake lying across the land. It had no lights.
Just a dark shape in the darkness.

I took a look behind.

And wished I hadn’t.

At first I thought I was seeing things. It was the slightest movement that caught my eye. As I gazed anxiously, my heart so big in my chest that it felt like it was suffocating me, I got the proof I didn’t want. A soldier flung himself over the side of the truck two away, and dived headlong into it.

I knew he wasn’t the only one, because the movement I’d seen a moment earlier was the hand of another soldier in front of him, leading the way in the chase to capture me and become a hero.

At least I hoped he was leading the way. If there was another one – or more – in front of him, I had no hope.

I flung the pack off my back and knelt beside it, ripping the straps out of the buckles. The soldiers looked like they were unarmed – they’d probably abandoned their rifles when they jumped into the train, or maybe they’d damaged them – but that was too bad for them.

I grabbed my grenade from the dark musty inside of the pack. We’d armed the grenades back in the clearing, the previous afternoon. I’d been nervous of it when I was running through the bush. We only had one each, but one would have been enough to blow me to smithereens. And one should be enough now, if I did this right. I just hoped I’d be more successful with them than Mr
Pimlott
, who’d blown himself up.

I ran to the end of the truck. I ripped the pin out with my teeth, the way Ryan taught us, and stood up to throw it.

A soldier was staring into my face.

He was climbing out of the truck behind mine. Only the coupling between the two carriages separated us. It wasn’t much of a gap. I could see his face clearly. He wore glasses, which really threw me off-balance. I always associate glasses with serious, gentle people. Not logical, but that’s what I do. In the act of throwing the grenade, I hesitated. I knew I could lob it over his head, into his open truck, but if I did it would give him huge encouragement to make the leap into mine. I didn’t want him in there with me. But on the other hand I couldn’t stand around holding a live grenade for much longer.

I threw it.

There was no other decision I could make really. I’d waited long enough. I threw it, then turned and ran. This time I didn’t pick up the pack. I figured if I was still alive after the explosion I could come back and get it later. I got to the end of the truck and started scrambling up it, then realised I’d waited too long for that as well. So I dropped down and huddled into the corner. At the other end the guy with glasses took the leap and dived into the diagonally opposite corner to me. For about one second we huddled into our respective corners, both covering our heads with an arm, waiting for the explosion. I took a little glance at him. The grenade went off.

By then the train was
choofing
along at a fair speed. I’m not very good at estimating speeds, but I’d say it was doing nearly a hundred. The air was cold and the train was thundering, rocking backwards and forwards like a rodeo bull. When the grenade exploded it made a bang, sure, but not as loud as I’d expected. There was a big heavy thud and I felt my carriage twist and shudder, but it stayed on the rails. It seemed to drag for a bit, that was all. What did happen though, and what I didn’t expect, was another fireworks display. Not a nice pretty one where you sit in your deckchair and watch, going ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’, but a bloody dangerous one. Bits of hot metal went scorching into the air and started falling. You could hear the wild whooshing sound as they went up, then a scary wailing noise as they fell. Some of the pieces were big; most were small. The small ones were the biggest problem though. Only a couple of big ones fell near me, and I avoided them easily. But the little ones fell like snow, and were as hard as snowflakes to dodge. At least four bits landed on me and two of them burnt through to my skin. I gasped with the pain of it, but at the same time I knew I couldn’t sit around waiting for
Savlon
and Bandaids. The moment the worst of the shower was over I was up and racing for the wall again.

I didn’t waste time looking behind. I knew he’d be there. There was a chance I’d got lucky and he’d been dropped on from a great height by a hunk of molten steel, but it wasn’t much of a chance. I wasn’t going to sit around relying on it.

I shinned up the metal and rolled over the top.

For a moment I hung, looking down. It was a horrible sight. The couplings were rocking and rolling. Below those I could see the dark track racing along. It’d be all gravel and sleepers and steel rails. One slip and I’d lose a leg. Another slip and I’d be ripped apart, crushed to a pulp.

There was nowhere stable to stand. But I had to get across. I let myself down onto the narrow step, and turned, facing the gap. With my arms out on either side I took a hesitant step. My boot landed on a big buffer thing that was grinding against another buffer. I couldn’t get a good platform. ‘Look,’ I told myself sternly, ‘this is hopeless. You won’t get anywhere being nervous. Just charge across and be done with it.’

It was like jumping a creek that you thought might be too wide.

I took a deep breath and put all my weight on the buffer, but not for long enough to rely on it. With panic threatening to pull me apart I made a nervous leap, as big as I could manage, to the little step at the end of the next truck. Then, while I was on the roll, I kept going and reached for the top of the metal wall, pulling myself up till my head was over it.

At that moment, just when I thought I was getting somewhere, I felt a terrific pressure on my left leg.
Like it was being pulled out of its socket.
Hanging onto the top of the wall I looked down. The soldier, still wearing his glasses, was glaring up at me. He looked like a crazy man. He was on the buffers, and he had the fingers of his left hand around the side of the carriage and his right hand on my leg, pulling it down like a truckie tightening a rope on his load. I gripped the edge of the wall even tighter but as I did I thought, ‘There’s no future in this’. I mean, what was I meant to do, hang on there till the end of the war? The guy with the glasses had all the advantage. With my back to him and no hands, I was helpless. If I was going to beat him I had to use my brains.
But how?

The pressure increased and I felt my fingers start to slip. He was strong, no doubt about that. Still not quite sure what I could do, I let my body relax, hoping to bluff him into thinking he’d won already. I think it did surprise him. I felt him change his grip, letting go slightly and then grabbing me again, a bit higher up. At that moment I kicked out with all my strength.

I must have used a bit of force, because my body came right away from the wall. I know that, because I slammed into it again a moment later. But at the same time I felt my leg free of his grip. I scrambled up that wall as fast as a rat across a roof. At the top, as I went over, I took a quick look
behind,
hoping to see nothing, hoping the man had slipped through the couplings and was now lying in a mash of flesh and blood and bones back on the track. I wanted him out of my way, and fast. I felt so panicked by him, desperate to escape. But as I rolled over into the next truck I saw him come back up, grabbing at me. Bad luck for him, he couldn’t get a good enough grip before I was over and running for the front of that carriage.

Up, over, run, up, over, run.
I did it through that truck and two more, getting glimpses of him each time I scaled the next wall. He just kept on coming. As I ran and climbed I tried to think. I knew I’d soon be out of carriages. Each time I got to the top of another one I could see the passenger ones getting closer. There seemed to be about a dozen of them, and only seven or eight more trucks between us. This guy chasing me was tougher and stronger than me; well, tougher, anyway. I’d have to use my brains, I just had to.

When I got into the next truck I didn’t do the sprint across its lurching surface like before. This time I crouched under the protection of the wall I’d just straddled.
And waited.

It wasn’t a long wait. Only a couple of moments later I heard his boots thump into the wall on the other side. His hands scrabbled at the dark steel. I looked up. His fingers were already over the top, gripping the thick edge. I got ready. I tried to think of my tired legs as springs, tried to imagine they were on springs. I summoned up all the energy I could find.