Shadow of the War Machine (The Secret Order) (13 page)

They took a moment to catch their breath. Then John climbed up a ladder to the left of the locomotive and turned a new set of wheels. A long brass arm moved through the air and fixed over the boiler chamber. Will, without needing instruction, scaled the engine like a cat, swinging himself over rails and opening the boiler in spite of the fact that it probably hadn’t been touched in years and was likely corroded shut. He had such an easy way with machines now, as if he understood them intuitively.

I fought with my skirts to reach the step up into the cab. The blasted things were always in my way. The least I could do was check the tender for fuel. We didn’t have to go far. With a train traveling through a tunnel beneath the channel, we could be to Calais by nightfall. A small hill of coal waited for us in the tender. It was connected to the firebox with a machine that would pull the coal into the firebox without the use of shovels.

Will swung down into the cab, followed by John, who set his knit cap at an angle.

“Are we ready?” John asked.

“Brace yourselves,” Will mumbled under his breath.

“Don’t we need to light the fire?” I asked.

“Not yet we don’t.” John reached up and pulled a large red handle.

The train shuddered, and a resonant moan filled the chamber, followed by the squeal of grinding metal. I turned around to see the entire back half of the chamber collapsing.

No, not collapsing—lowering. It was an enormous counterweight designed to wind the gears.

The train vibrated beneath my feet as Will took another lever and pulled it with all his strength.

The engine surged forward by the power of the
clockwork gears. The massive wheels turned beneath us as the headlight blazed to life, illuminating the long tunnel ahead.

“We’re coming, Papa,” I said as I held on to the handrail at the door. The wind buffeted me as the golden engine found its stride charging into the darkness.

“
OPEN THE FIREBOX. WE NEED
more air for the initial stoke,” John shouted over the deafening noise of the train roaring through the tunnel. The wheels clacked against the rails, while the wind rushed through the cab.

I turned the handle on the firebox and pulled open the heavy door. If the outside of the train had been beautifully gilded, the inside looked like the pit of hell. The metal had been heavily charred. The machine that fed coal into the firebox dropped more and more onto the pile. John turned a switch, and a puff of coal dust rose out of the firebox.

“Watch the first flare. If it catches that dust, it can turn nasty,” John shouted.

Will touched my arm and forced me back a step before grabbing yet another wheel to the left of the firebox and spinning it. Sparks showered through the firebox, and a ball of flame roared out of the engine. I felt the heat like a wave washing over my face and hands. If I had been any closer, I would have singed off my hair. Will swung the firebox door closed and turned the latch.

“Meg,” Will yelled, his voice getting lost in the noise. “We need a spotter. If something’s on the tracks, we could derail.”

“Right!” I shouted back as loudly as I could, then looked around the cab for a safe perch. Will was more than capable of tending the engine. He was used to dealing with steam engines on the Foundry ship, and taming fire seemed like an inborn talent for him. Between Will and John, they would keep the train moving. I needed to be their eyes.

In the front of the cab was a wall of iron with shining brass pipes flowing over it. Various valves sprouted from the pipes toward the top. Between the pipes, levers and gauges decorated the iron like jewelry, even as the clockwork components of the train wove together seamlessly behind the pipes. The clockwork components spun, whirring with the speed and urgency of the train itself. At the very bottom was
the firebox, already radiating heat as the channel beneath the grate in the floor fed it coal.

To the left of the firebox was a small space with a narrow window facing forward so I could see the tracks before us. There wasn’t much room but I would be able to see straight along the boiler engine to the tunnel beyond. I bound up my skirts as best I could around my legs and climbed up into the space. The only problem was the window on the side of the cab. I wedged myself against a narrow riveted strip of metal next to the open window. If I wasn’t careful, I could fall backward out of it.

I grabbed on to a long pipe running up through the corner of the cab and held on as the wind tore at my hair with frantic urgency.

The train was traveling at an unnatural speed. The clockworks must have had something to do with it. Holding on to the brass bar with one hand and pushing my hair out of my face with the other, I peered dutifully into the tunnel illuminated by the enormous beam of light coming from the headlamp.

It washed the tunnel immediately in front of the train in a bath of light, but beyond that lay the constant darkness. There was nothing ahead. Surely we weren’t about to travel all the way to Dover underground.

Something flickered up ahead, then flashed. A light, but it wasn’t the end of the tunnel. It wasn’t steady enough.

We were coming up fast on something and I didn’t know what it was.

With my stomach twisted in knots, I shouted, “There’s something ahead. A flashing light.”

“That’s the signal,” John called as he too grabbed hold of one of the brass pipes. “Better hold on. This might be rough.”

I braced myself. Will climbed up in the back and held on to a bar. The tunnel walls that had been made of large dark bricks changed as we flew past a swinging mirror. The bricks seemed to melt away into enormous clockwork gears. The gears turned, spinning faster and faster as we barreled through the tunnel. The motion of the gears created a strange visual illusion. The tunnel looked as if it were shifting and twisting unnaturally.

Suddenly a light opened up before us. It began as a crack in the darkness and then widened, the power of it burning so brightly, I had to squint against it. The train shuddered and strained against the tracks as John pulled a handle and a piercing whistle filled the tunnel.

I let out a shout of pain as the sound split my ears. I couldn’t cover them and hold on at the same time. The train
surged upward, sending my insides flying into my throat. We burst into the light, leaving the tunnel behind. I squinted open my eyes at the barren fields before us.

Then I gasped in both shock and wonder as I watched a section of the ground split and a set of tracks rise up to meet the wheels of the train.

I pushed out of the nook and stumbled to the back of the cab. The split ground had been lifted on large metal plates, moved by gears. As the gears turned, the plates tipped and reformed the illusion of solid ground behind us. No one would ever suspect there were tracks hidden just beneath.

“This is incredible,” I shouted to Will, but my voice sounded strange with my ears still ringing from the whistle. I climbed back up into the nook and held on as I watched the tracks rise to meet us, emerging from the patches of dark earth the shifting plates exposed.

“Watch for ice,” John shouted. “If one of the sections of track doesn’t rise, we’ll have a lot of explaining to do. That is, if we survive the wreck.”

I pulled myself closer to the window even as the freezing air whipped around me. The heat from the boiler radiated outward, but it did little to battle the bitter wind.

But I didn’t care. I found it exhilarating. Surely no one
had ever traveled so quickly on all the earth. The train gleamed in the light that reflected off the patches of snow. The setting sun caught the cold world on fire, and the engine itself blended into the golden light.

The tracks flew beneath us, and it took no time at all before we were crossing wide sloping fields. It looked as if the earth ended on a sharp edge, with clouds rising straight from the ground. Those were the white cliffs. We were getting close.

As the next set of tracks revealed themselves, a pole rose with a swinging mirror that caught the light.

“Hold on tight. It’s a long way down,” John Frank yelled as the ground in front of us split, rising up like the doors to a root cellar. I clung to the bar in the corner and also to one of the pipes along the firebox. The front of the train reached the open hole, and then the entire engine tipped forward into the abyss.

The train screamed into the tunnel, gaining speed as it slid down the grade. John pulled hard on the brake. Sparks flew from the wheels, lighting the side of the train as the trapdoor closed back over us, shutting out the light from behind. Only the headlamp illuminated the way, but my eyes needed a moment to adjust. Everything ahead was a murky black.

John released the brake, and we gained momentum again as we sped through the dark. I heard a loud snap, then a crack and rattle. It sounded like a gunshot.

“What was that?” Will shouted.

“We hit a rock,” John answered as he turned the steam release valve. “Let’s hope that’s the worst of it.”

My eyes finally adjusted to the lack of light. Good Lord, we were in for trouble. “We’re not out of the woods yet. The tracks are littered with bricks.” On the walls of the tunnel ahead I could see large dark patches where the bricks had crumbled and fallen onto the tracks. “The mortar is falling apart.”

I watched in horror as another brick hit the heavy pilot that protruded down from the front of the train. The plow-like object scooped the brick up and flung it toward the wall. Once the brick hit the wall, the shattered pieces flew back toward the train like grapeshot fired from a cannon.

“Meg, get down!” Will shouted. A piece of the brick hit the edge of the window opening near me. I threw my hands over my head and ducked, but I felt the sting of bits of brick as they peppered my arm and shoulder. “Quick, behind the boiler.” Will reached out, and I grabbed his hand. He pulled me down near the firebox.

We were running blind, but I couldn’t risk lifting my head.

More bricks shattered against the pilot and then rained down on the train in quick succession. We were under siege. I tried to keep my head down, but my arm stung from the places where I’d been struck, and the heat from the boiler burned my cheek.

We remained at the mercy of the flying pieces of brick for what felt like an eternity. The entire time, I remained braced for an impact. This was dangerous, but it was far too late to turn back now. I prayed we’d make it through in one piece.

Finally we leveled out deep beneath the English Channel. John stood to adjust the airflow in the firebox, and a piece of brick caught him in the face. He spun as he fell. Will caught him and pulled him back toward the tender. When John looked up again, blood poured down his face from a wound below his eye.

He grabbed his red cap and pressed it to his face. Dear Lord, the man was going to get a horrible infection and end up in a wooden box if he wasn’t careful. I pulled a handkerchief from one of the pockets I had sewn into my skirts and handed it to him.

“Much obliged,” he said. He pressed the white cloth to his face, then shouted into the dark, “Is that the best you can do?”

The train didn’t strike any more bricks for a few moments. Like a mole crawling out of his hole, I pulled myself up from behind the boiler and dared to peek out the window once more.

“Perhaps it’s over,” I said as I touched the wounds on my arm and flinched. I wasn’t bleeding, thank heaven, but the shattered pieces of brick had bruised deeply.

“Meg, you injured?” Will asked, holding on to the valves and wheels as he tried to reach me.

“I’ll be fine. Nothing is broken. John is the one who needs aid.” We began traveling up a grade and the train slowed significantly. I finally let out a breath. Will let go of the engine and moved toward John. He soaked my handkerchief in something from a flask, then passed the handkerchief back.

When John pressed it to his face again, he winced.

“How much farther?” I asked. Now that we were climbing, we had to be at least halfway to France.

John took a peek at a small pocket watch, squinting in the low light. “Not far now.”

“Thank the Lord,” I said, looking up at the tunnel ceiling. The steam and smoke from the stack curled along the bricks. I didn’t like imagining an ocean above us. Still, I had
a job to do. A dark streak on the ceiling marred the otherwise regular pattern.

“Oh no.” I pulled myself to my feet and climbed into the gap where I could see the tracks. I peered as far as I could and prayed the headlamp could reach deeper into the darkness.

There was a crack in the ceiling.

My heart lodged in my throat.

Sure enough, bricks had dropped out once again onto the track, but I didn’t duck away as the train struck them. There was something in the tunnel. Something massive and white.

White.

It was chalk.

“Brake!” I screeched, pulling myself around the controls and grabbing the heavy lever myself. “Brake! The tunnel’s collapsed!”

Both Will and John Frank joined me, grasping the lever and pulling with all their weight. Together we strained against the engine brake. John pulled a second lever, and the gears within the cab strained as they shifted into a counter-rotation. The train screamed like a wounded beast as we fought against the momentum of the enormous monster.

It thundered toward the pile of rock and debris ahead of us.

We were going to slam into it. My arms shook with effort, and the entire engine shuddered with the force of the brakes. Sparks flew from the wheels.

Closer.

Closer.

We weren’t going to stop in time.

The train was going to crash.

THE ENGINE WHINED, PULLING AGAINST
us the way a panicked horse strains against the reins. I felt the burn of my effort through my chest and shoulders as I used what weight I had to hold the brake tight.

The train squealed until the close-set bars of the pilot rammed into the pile of debris.

The impact hurled us forward. I slammed into Will, who crashed into the machinery in front of us. The train continued to move, pushing the debris forward until the locomotive finally groaned to a stop.