Battle Hymn (14 page)

"As you can see, there's a rail yard just on the other side of the wall on the west side of the compound. Branch lines go to other factories making guns, to the airship works, and to that new factory that only Bantag are allowed to enter."

He started to trace out one of the lines. "This is the one that comes through the gate, into our foundry compound. It's the track most of you cross over every day going in and out of the building. My plan is that we seize one of the trains, run it to the end of line at the city of X'ian, and from there flee, hopefully by boat. I've gone nearly all the way up the line half a dozen times with new trains. I've never dared to draw a map, but I've remembered everything. Once we get out by train, I think we can actually make it all the way."

The others all started shaking their heads. Hans stood silent, looking straight at Alexi.

"Impossible," Hans sighed, his disappointment showing. Alexi had been the first to approach him about an escape, before the factory was even half built, and he had hoped that more thought would have been given to it.

"First, the trains leaving the factory pass through the gate at the entrance. The train has to stop and be checked by those bastards before the gate is opened. Then it goes to a siding to get coal and water before it heads onto the main line."

"And the switches," Lin interjected, surprising everyone by stirring from his grief. "Remember, I am outside the gate every day. There's a Bantag guard at the switch house. He is armed, and I think he has a key that locks the switches. If you do not catch him by surprise the switches will be jammed. But I don't think you'll even get through the gate. It is a counter-weighted barrier. They've thought that we might try this and have planned for it. All the guard needs to do is cut the rope to the weight and the gate is locked shut, with us trapped inside. There isn't even enough length of track to build up speed in hopes of smashing the gate down."

Lin shook his head in disgust and turned away from the table.

"Let's hear him out," Hans said quietly. "Go on, Alexi."

"We don't seize the train on the inside. We take it on the outside."

Hans stirred. He had pondered the problem ever since coming to this nightmare. In designing some of the facilities he had tried in one way or another to build in some flaw, some weakness that could perhaps be exploited, but Karga, receiving advice from someone, had always found out the flaws and changed them at the last minute.

"How?"

"We tunnel out to the rail yard."

"Tunnel?"

"Look at the map. From the northwest corner of the factory it's only twenty-five feet to the barrier wall. Once under the wall, we cross under the tracks and bring it up underneath the food warehouse by the main siding where Lin works."

Now Lin examined the map again, with renewed interest. "I don't know," he said quietly.

"Just listen," Alexi said excitedly. "It's less than two hundred feet, as opposed to four hundred feet from any of the barracks. You know the Bantag worry about tunnels; they're always looking under the barracks because they figure that's where we'd dig. But I'm telling you we can dig one right under their noses, from inside the factory."

He nodded at Gregory.

"I guess this is where I come in," Gregory announced, standing up. "When Alexi first suggested that I find a place in the foundry to dig a tunnel, I thought he was insane. But I kept my eyes open and finally hit on the spot."

His gaze locked on Ketswana.

"I never told you this before, my friend, but it's right behind your furnace, number three, in the charcoal pile."

Ketswana laughed. "We're in the northwest comer, so where else could it be?"

"The two corner furnaces are furthest away from the two entry gates in the middle of the building. I've already checked and I know the guard posts there cannot clearly see number three, even when all the furnaces are cold. When we've got pours going and the building fills with smoke, number three might as well be on the other side of the world."

"What about roving guards, especially Karga?" Lin asked.

"I've been watching them for months now. The heat in the back of the buildings tends to keep them away. They usually stop a good thirty yards short. For those who do come closer, we'll set up a watch system."

"Are you talking about digging in the open?" Hans asked.

"This is the ingenious part of Gregory's plan," Alexi chimed in. "Next time number three is shut down to be cleaned and recharged with ore and charcoal, we quickly cut through the floor in the charcoal pile alongside number three furnace."

Alexi pointed out the place on the map.

"We pull up the flagstones, keep others working around them, shoveling charcoal, and they dig down. Once they're a few feet in, we can build up a wall of charcoal around them to conceal the work. By the time the shift is over, they should be seven or eight feet down. I've designed a lid that we can then place over the hole, with two men down inside."

"What about air?" Hans asked. "How will they breathe?"

Alexi smiled and pulled out another slip of paper.

"I thought of that." He rolled the paper out. "By a small bellows. We run a pipe up through the tunnel, out through a hole in the lid, and hide it in the charcoal pile. We have one man work the bellows to pump the bad air up the pipe. A second pipe, which also starts in the charcoal pit, feeds fresh air in to replace the bad air pumped out."

"Petersburg. The Crater," Hans whispered.

Alexi looked puzzled.

"I'll tell you about it sometime. Something of the same idea that we used in our war on Earth. All right, you've got the air taken care of. What about getting rid of the dirt? And lumber for shoring up the tunnel?"

"We bag the dirt, hoist it up, and throw it into the furnace or scatter it on the floor. Shoring—I don't think we'll need much. The soil underneath is clay, but to be on the safe side we should shore as we go under the building foundation and tracks. We can steal the lumber from the barracks and smuggle it in. Or a treadmill breaks and we repair it, but some of the broken parts wind up hidden in the charcoal pit."

"And the breakout?" Hans asked. "How do we pull that off?"

"On the night of the next double Moon Feast." Even as he said the words, Hans felt a shiver of dread. Those who in some way had antagonized a Bantag guard might think that the issue had passed, until the afternoon of the feast, when they, and their loved ones, were suddenly tied up and led away. Karga often made a game of it, casually threatening whoever got in his way, laughing at the terror on their faces.

"That's only thirty days from now," Ketswana said. '

"Precisely," Gregory replied. "Ketswana, since it is your furnace we're going to be digging from, I think you should be head of security for this operation."

Hans smiled at the suggestion. Ketswana had the trust of most everyone in the factory. He also had an uncanny skill at spotting traitors in the ranks and those occasional new arrivals who turned out to be loyal pets, placed in the factory to learn of anything unusual going on.

"Such a secret will be impossible to keep for long," Ketswana said, automatically falling into his new job. "Someone will slip. Once the word gets out, it will be impossible to control. There'll be panic, people demanding to be taken, threatening that if they're not, they'll tell, or simply they'll tell anyhow, to spare themselves or gain a moment's favor with the master."

Hans nodded slowly in agreement. "The date is the Moon Feast, then," he interjected. "Besides, the bastards start celebrating early that day. Most of them will be drunk by sundown."

Alexi smiled and nodded. "I already have the parts for the bellows. We can start tomorrow when we begin the next load for the furnace."

"Keeping the secret, though," Ketswana said. "There's no way that this secret will ever be kept."

"Only the work crews and those in planning will know right now," Alexi replied. "That will keep the number down to thirty at most. The night of the breakout we'll try and pull out as many as we can."

"How many?" Ketswana asked.

Alexi hesitated. "There's just under seven hundred in our compound. I think we can get three to four hundred out before the guards realize what's happening."

"Are you mad?" Ketswana snapped. "There'll be a panic. A mob will form at the tunnel entrance, clamoring to get in."

"Most won't know until the moment we tell them," Alexi relied.

"But sooner or later they will find out. By all the gods, there'll be madness, for all will know that if they're left behind they'll be slaughtered in vengeance."

Hans extended his hand for silence. The very issue Ketswana had raised was the reason he had buried a dream of escape for so long.

"We can't save everyone," Hans said quietly. "All we can hope is to save some. Ketswana, it will be your job to prevent the panic until we've seized the train and are ready to flee."

"Seizing the train," Tamira mused. "I've heard much about the tunnel, but nothing of what we will do once it is finished."

Hans smiled at the criticism. It was a point he had forgotten in the momentary excitement.

Alexi responded. "Lin, this is the part that you will have to arrange. The tunnel will come up under the food warehouse."

"Why there?"

"Because it's the closest building outside the compound. We can hide everyone there until the moment comes to rush a train. On the day of the breakout you must make sure that the corner of the building closest to the factory has a cleared floor space. As soon as you close the warehouse our diggers will break through."

"Usually there's at least one Bantag guard prowling about, though. Sometimes he goes into the building, if only to steal food."

Gregory nodded. "That's why I'll go through first. It will be the most dangerous moment. If need be I'll kill him before he can spread the alarm. Once that's secured we can start bringing people up. The warehouse will provide us with food for the journey as well."

"Again, though," Ketswana interjected, "why so many? If you think we can save everyone, it's a fool's dream. The guards are in the foundry day and night. At some point they will notice people gathering around the entry hole."

"It will be your job to work out a schedule and a means of concealing it," Hans replied. "If we're going to try this, I don't want just a handful to have their chance."

"Seizing the train is only the first step," Alexi added. "Chances are, we'll have to fight our way out, and the more people we have, the better the chance of making it all the way. I've got a list drawn up of who we need and the priority in which they get out."

"Not in writing?" Ketswana asked, his voice filled with concern.

"No, of course not. Those who work on the tunnel and their families. Those who work in the warehouse that we tunnel into. The yard crews and workers on the train should go first."

"Some of these people have children, young ones," Manda said.

"I've thought about that," Alexi replied. "The children have to go, of course. For the very young ones, we'll bribe a guard for some opium to make them sleep so they don't make any noise."

"That could be dangerous for them," Tamira said. Then realizing all that was being implied, she smiled and nodded her head.

"We wait until the daily trainload of rails has gone out and the engine is loaded with wood and water. Then we rush it. I don't like the fact that it's open flatcars, but at least we're sure it will be there and ready to go. If there should happen to be another train in the yard, preferably with boxcars, we'll take that one instead. Just before we make the rush, Gregory will lead several men to the switch house, kill the guard, and get the keys for the switches. The telegrapher works in there as well. I'll make sure he's one of us. He'll order any trains on the track ahead onto sidings, and he should know the next day's schedule as well. We then cut the wire, rush the engine, and head out. With luck we can stay ahead of the news of our escape."

"And once at X'ian, then what?" Hans asked.

"I've been told that at X'ian there's a navigable river all the way down to the sea and freedom. I think this has to be true because I've seen loads of what looks like ship's armor and several very large guns being moved westward on the line."

"When was the last time you actually rode a train that far?" Lin asked.

"I've never been there," Alexi replied. "They only let me run the train back in the early days when the line was still being built. Since then all engineers are Bantag, though occasionally they'll still have human firemen working in the tender, but we don't know where they're kept."

"So how can you be sure?"

"I can't," Alexi replied. "But I do know that's where the rail line goes. It fits a logical pattern. We time our arrival into the town at dark. By that time we should have caught at least one train loaded with guns."

"A big if," Hans interjected.

"A good chance, though. There's at least one or two boxcar loads going up there every day or two. I overheard a couple of guards talking about it several months back, that there's several training camps for their new army along the rail line."

"You mean we're going right through training areas?" Hans asked.

"No alternative," Gregory replied. "But if we can seize some weapons it will give us a fighting chance once we get into X'ian."

"You're talking about turning our people into combat troops in a single day, Gregory."

"Well, sir, I figure that over the next month you can teach Ketswana and his workers how to use a gun. That way they'll have something of a head start."

Hans could not refrain from laughing at the thought of secretly drilling with imaginary weapons right under the noses of the guards.

"Alexi and I were in the army, and at least four of the Cartha laborers were in their army during the war against us. It's a start, and desperation can be one hell of a reason for learning quick."

"Assuming we get the guns in the first place," Hans replied, trying to hide his sarcasm.

"Something like that, sir. If we're very lucky we might not even have to fight," Alexi continued. "I think it's a fair assumption that the train must come up close to a dockyard. We swarm out, surprising the bastards, seize a boat, and then get the hell down the river and out to sea."