The Steam Mole (20 page)

“Right. We'd better go.”

“You better know my name, too,” said the wounded man. “Private Dale McLoughlin. I'm from Portrush.”

“Well, McLoughlin,” said Jack, as he helped the man up. “You've a choice. You can sit on the horse, or I can tie you across it like a sack. I'm hoping you can stay on a horse. You try anything and I'll have to shoot you, and your horse will have no water, even if you do get away.”

“I'll sit. Look, I've orders to bring you in alive, or at least your body. I'll take you in alive, my word on it. You can't get away. It's just desert out there. You'll end up eating sand.”

“Well, on the bright side, there's a lot of it,” said Jack, hefting McLoughlin up onto the horse. He then did the same for Lampy.

They rode on a little, when a whicker from the dark announced that the two other horses had found them.

Lampy was glad of a saddle to sit in. Losing blood had made him feel nauseous, and riding was no pleasure with the ache in his leg.

By the moans in the darkness, the soldier felt worse.

Tim was shaken awake. “You come. We got to go. Railway-men coming,” said the desert aboriginal.

Tim blinked and sat up. He was stiff from sleeping on the ground, but his mind was feeling sharper than it had for days. His first thought was relief. And his second was what if that Vister and his friends wanted to finish the job.

Plainly the aboriginals weren't waiting around to find out. They were running off already. Tim looked. He could see the smoke and the dark shape of the steam mole—a good two miles off. Well, it might not actually come here. He'd chased it in vain last night. And they might want to kill him…He got up and trotted after the aboriginals. They hadn't gone that far. About four hundred yards away was some rough country with a spur of rocks. The aboriginals hid there, watching.

“Whitefellers find our spring, we got trouble,” said his guide of last night. “They take all the water, then we got to go. Good country this.”

It obviously depended on your point of view, Tim thought. The scout mole puffed to a halt near the waterhole. The aboriginals muttered angrily…and the door clanged open and out came—

Clara!

Even at this distance Tim recognized her in her chip straw hat and blond braids. But he was too astounded to say anything. He just swallowed and rubbed his eyes, staring as hard as he could. It…had to be her. He knew her walk, the way she stood and looked at things with her head at an angle, even with a little parasol held
against the sun. He opened his mouth to yell…and a hard hand clapped over it. Other hands grabbed him

“You be quiet. Railway-men trouble for blackfellers.”

“That's not the railway-men. That's Clara. She's a girl.
My
girl. She's come looking for me. She won't hurt you. I promise,” said Tim with all the sincerity he could muster. “She's the best girl in the entire world.”

Something about the way he said it must have got through, because the hands holding him eased their grip. “The other railway-man's still inside,” said the older, gruff man who had stopped him yelling.

Clara walked to the side of the scout mole, took down a bucket, and walked to the water. And there she must have seen footprints because they saw her bend down and stare.

“Look,” said Tim. “She wouldn't be carrying water if there was anyone else to do it. If I stay here…and if she does anything wrong, you can kill me, stick a spear in me, but someone just go and ask her if she's looking for Tim Barnabas. Please. Please!”

There was a silence.

“Please!” He tried for terms he hoped they might understand. “She'll take me back to my own land, to my own people. She's not a railway-man. They don't have any women here.”

“Try to take our women,” said the older man. But by the discussion among them in their own tongue, Tim was sure he'd gotten through to them. The older man pushed him forward. “You walk. Ten hands,” he held up five fingers, “steps. No more. Call. You run we spear you. Railway-man come we spear you.”

Tim stepped out of the shelter of the rocks and began walking. Counting steps. Taking as long a step as he dared. Wondering…weighing the risks in his mind. If someone else got out of the cab…if she got back in to go. He was going to chance that terrible feeling between his shoulder blades. But should he call to her? Would they use him to lure her out so they could kill or capture her?

He was spared the decision by her looking up, looking around…and seeing him. And dropping the bucket and running toward him yelling her lungs out: “Tim,
Tim!
” Her arms outstretched, reaching.

“Clara! Clara, stay there. There are men with spears behind me.”

“I don't care! I found you, I found you! Oh, I've been so worried. Oh, Tim. Tim!” She was plainly not going to stop. So Tim turned to the watchers in the rocks. “Kill me first. Don't kill her. Please. She's not going to hurt anyone.”

Clara kept right on running, and Tim decided that meeting her was worth a spear in the back. So he stepped forward into her arms and held her, keeping his body as much of a shield as he could while being hugged, and between pants, kissed.

“I can't tell you how worried I've been,” Clara gasped.

“We're not out of trouble. They're behind me in the rocks, Clara, with spears. And they hate the railway-men.”

“So do I!”

“Yeah. They tried to kill me.”

“I know, I got to Dajarra and you were missing.”

“Look…are there any other people in the mole?”

“Just me. I stole it to look for you.”

“You did
what
?”

“I stole it to look for you. The railway-men are probably ready to murder me too now.”

“Oh. Where's your mother?”

Clara was silent. Then she said, in a very small voice. “Sick. In a coma. Maybe even dead. I came to you for help.”

Tim swallowed. “Fat lot of help I've been. Look…I think we better talk to the aboriginals. Face them. We can't run and…and they were looking after me.”

“Then I'm grateful to them. It's…I thought you might be dead, Tim. I was so scared.”

“It was pretty close,” he said, as they turned around and walked,
still holding onto each other, back to the rocks. “Lots more luck than good judgment. I was a bit confused when I came out of the termite run. Reckon it must have been the lack of oxygen down there or something. My stupid fault.”

“You're not stupid. They tried to kill you,” said Clara, angrily. “The station boss was pretty mad about it, but not enough to actually get anyone to
look
for you.”

“McGurk? You met McGurk? He's a terror. Not like Vister or that foreman, but driving everyone to get the tunnel finished.”

Men were standing up among the rocks. Black, fierce-looking. Spears ready. Not smiling. Tim knew, by now, that these were people who smiled a lot. Tim raised his hand. “There is no one else in the steam mole, and she's not from the railway. She was looking for me.”

“Leave tracks right to our water. The railway-men follow.”

“We'll brush them out,” said Clara. “I don't want them to find us either.”

“Brush them? We follow that easy,” said the older man who seemed to be the spokesman for the group. His tone was decidedly scornful.

“You do,” said Tim. “But I don't think the railway-men could track a two-year-old child covered in mud crossing a clean floor.”

And that made several people laugh, and even cracked a slight smile from the older man. A few comments in their own language, a little more slightly derisive laughter. The spear points came down a little.

“Besides,” said Tim. “I think you need us to take the machine away. They can't track, but they could see it. See it from a long way off, especially from up in the air.”

“I want to say thank you,” said Clara. “I owe you a debt for looking after—” she held onto his shoulder—“my Tim. You're wonderful.”

The older man shook his head, but he was smiling a little. “She cause you trouble, this one,” he said to Tim.

Tim laughed a little with relief. “You have no idea how much, sir. But she's there when you need her.”

“I've not caused you trouble, Tim Barnabas! Huh. It's only search the whole desert for you that I've done,” said Clara, with a suitable show of being indignant.

“And found me, too. Still, you drove past me last night. I ran after you.”

“It's faster you need to learn to run,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him. She knew she was being silly, that they were still in danger, but shock, the fear she'd been coping with, and now the relief and happiness were making her want to giggle and
be
a little crazy.

Still, her behavior was also affecting the aboriginals. Most of them were grinning openly.

“You go race she,” said someone.

“Ha,” said Clara. “He can't run.” She hitched up her skirts. “Race you, Tim Barnabas. Last one to the water is a rotten egg.”

“To that stump over there,” said Tim, pointing to a dead spike of wood about fifty yards off. “And I'll give you a head start. Go.”

She didn't. “I'd not be letting go of you. Last time I did that you got lost in the desert.”

“We find him if he get lost,” said the older man, smiling now. “You run.”

She did. And Tim ran after her. He had much longer legs. She might still have won, though, if she hadn't lost her grip on her skirts and tripped over them and managed a full, if unintended, somersault. Tim skidded to a halt. “You all right?” he asked, helping her up.

“Fine,” she panted. “Well, I think I skinned my knee a bit. And I tore a flounce. But it got them laughing at us.”

And so it was that they walked back to the mound spring with the aboriginals around them, talking, asking questions, and behaving as if they hadn't been a hair's breadth away from being speared. They all helped refill the water tank and inspected the scout mole. The older man appeared doubtful, looking at the deep indents of the endless tracks. “How you go brush that out?”

“I thought we might tie some branches behind it,” said Clara.
“I'd only have to go back to where I turned, and then on, as if I didn't come here.”

“I've a better idea,” said Tim. “We make a brush and tie it to the drill head. That'll wipe it out.”

“I've worked out how to make it go up and down, not round and round. Besides, it would make a groove in the middle before it took out the tracks.”

“Oh, it'll be like the big mole. It'll need to be fired up and got spinning. Look, there are igniter holes…”

“It's still not going to work.”

“We could make it do an elliptic.”

“It's not going to work,” she said firmly. “We need some leafy bushes.”

They bickered amiably and eventually settled on trying his method—which made a lot of dust and thrashed the branch to pieces, and then her method, which with a bit of weight on the branches worked quite well.

They left with waves and goodwill and even some seed-cakes and a piece of cooked meat.

Back on Clara's track, and well away from the spring mound, Tim sighed. “You drive really well.”

“Of course I do,” she said cheerfully. “I taught myself. I'll be getting Captain Malkis to let me drive the
Cuttlefish
next.”

“So…where are we going?” asked Tim. “Because to be honest with you, I don't know where we are.”

“Australia.”

“You're a great help, Clara Calland,” he said, laughing. “A natural navigator. Now where are we going?”

“I thought I was. I can take you back to your friends at the spring. They need a junior submariner,” she said, avoiding the subject.
She just wasn't quite ready to explain, to tell of the disasters and her decision just yet.

She should have known better with Tim, though. He read her better than most. And he was a lot harder than the average teacher ever had been to lead off on a tangent.

“That doesn't explain why you needed my help or what you're doing here. Not that I'm not glad to see you, because I always am. Especially when you find me in the desert.”

“I saw their fire. I came up to Dajarra because…because you understood about my father. He's a prisoner in Queensland. The letter said he'd been sick. His handwriting was all shaky. He said he loved us and missed us. He…always sent me his love. Never to Mother. And now I know, well, know they pretended to be divorced for me. If he said that…I know he must be really, really sick, so it doesn't matter anymore. And the man in Hansmeyers Emporium said…said if I wanted to see him alive and staying that way I needed to cooperate, and fast. Only I couldn't. And when I went back later, and the next day, he wasn't there.”

“It's a trap, Clara. They want you for a hold over your mother.”

“Except Mother is in hospital. They wouldn't even let me see her. She was unconscious and they said…well they didn't say, but the doctor told Max Darlington that she wasn't going to recover. He said it was best if I remembered her alive,” said Clara, tears coming now.