The Steam Mole (4 page)

So did Duke Malcolm, for entirely different reasons. The prize was Sheba. A mine in the rebel republic of Westralia—the part of Australia abandoned by the Imperial authorities because it was too hot or too dry, or both, after the Melt. It had once been a part of Queensland, before the catastrophe, and before the mines had been discovered. The decision to pull people and resources out of the outback and focus on maintaining the east coast had been justifiable then. There was no value in a desert where the summer daytime temperatures soared to over a hundred and twenty degrees.

“The railroad construction is relatively slow,” Malcolm said, “and we've had to maintain secrecy, which adds complexity.”

Albert tugged his goatee. “This ‘railroad' business seems unnecessary. Don't our troops have feet? Horses? Or sufficient motor-trucks? I know this is your business, Malcolm, but it would be wise if you could present Ernest with a
fait accompli
, rather than letting him stick his tasseled boots into the affair.”

That would be nearly as disastrous as having Albert conduct military exercises, thought the duke. But he needed Albert, so he answered, “The motorized force is ready for railing forward. I think
the rail link is about twenty miles short of striking distance. We're two or three weeks off completion. The military was concerned about their supply line given that the strike at the mine would leave them isolated and unable to hold it. The terrain and problems getting petroleum for their vehicles makes the rail link doubly vital. Besides, it's needed for shipping the ore from the mine out.”

“And the cake is definitely worth the candle? Not like that diamond mine in Baluchistan?” asked Albert, naming a military folly the duke would rather forget.

“This time we're as sure as we can be. The rebels are even building a second, slightly shorter one of their underground railways to it. The cost of that is so high they wouldn't be doing it if they weren't certain. The Sheba mine is one of the most productive in the world. We need the silver from it, yes, but that's a pittance compared to the value of the huge output of copper, zinc, and lead. You know, or should know, how badly we need those. And in political terms…the output of that single mine makes nearly one-quarter of the wealth of that upstart republic thorn-in-the-flesh. The smuggled mineral wealth is what's keeping them, and, oddly, us afloat. It will be a lot more profitable going directly through us.” The duke didn't mention his deeper strategy. If they succeeded in cutting communications before the Westralian government was alerted, striking via their own railroad at Ceduna, the Royal Navy could relieve and supply that, and then Roxby would be in striking range. With those gone, only the gold of Kalgoorlie remained to keep the rebels afloat. The many mines around there might let them survive, but the Republic would be weaker and smaller.

“Still,” said the prince, “it's been on your agenda for what…three years? I remember us talking about it.”

“The project's been ongoing for that long. It's the only one of their major mines that we can take on without a marine landing or impossible supply lines. Their other major mines at Roxby and the Kalgoorlie area are simply impractical to recapture. But the
Dominion of Queensland is still a part of the British Empire, and the covered-over railway—a simplified version of the method the Westralians are using—stops it being detected from the air, and keeps the troops cooler. That's important in those temperatures.” It was, the duke had been assured by the tropical military experts, vital. The sun was a killer.

It was killing work for the prisoners sent to dig and build the railroad.

Clara got the list of addresses for the
Cuttlefish's
crew a few minutes after Mrs. Darlington had replaced the trumpet-like receiver back on its brass and ebony stand. It struck Clara that someone in Westralia was keeping very close tabs on the crew of the
Cuttlefish
. The names of the places were strange. “C/O Power Station 1786, Dajarra, Cloncurry Shire.” That was Tim's address. She had to go and find an atlas to work out just where that was.

It was very, very far away.

She wrote letters into the heat of the day. It was a chore trying to keep from smudging the ink by turning the pages sideways and dipping just enough of her pen to get the bare minimum of ink on the steel nib from the inkwell on the little writing desk. Some of them were simple enough. But to the captain, and Lieutenants Willis and Ambrose…she asked if they could contact her…as she had questions about her family. She dared not say too much, just in case the person who had all the addresses also read all the letters. That was the way living in Ireland had made her think, she realized. It had been so relieving to be away from the secrecy and the spying…and that was when she was fourteen. What must it have been like for Mother, who had really been involved in secret things?

Then came the really hard part: the letter she'd put off to last, writing to Tim. She'd never written to…well, a boyfriend before. Some of the girls at St. Margaret's collected their love letters, and must have been good at it. Clara concluded she was good at starting and then wasting pieces of paper, smudging the ink with teardrops, and finally
realizing she had no more paper and would have to use that sheet anyway. It was not a letter that she would have been proud to show her friends. She really hadn't had any friends after Daddy had been locked up. The letter wasn't the sort of goo the other girls seemed to like, though. It didn't say any of the things she needed to say, or wanted to say. It felt stilted, awkward, and pretentious. And she couldn't finish it with “love,” let alone rows of x kisses, as she'd seen the other girls do. Instead she uncertainly settled on “lots of love, Clara.” She hoped he'd understand the part about someone she was proud of, thanks to him, and no one else would. How would they know that Tim had finally helped her to be proud of her father, instead of ashamed of him being in jail?

It still didn't solve her problems, though. If only she knew what to do.

The next morning started worse. She heard Mrs. Darlington's husband's deeper voice, talking to his wife. The words were indistinct, but as they came down the hallway, they grew clearer.

“She may just be deeply asleep,” said a doubtful sounding Mrs. Darlington.

“I'm afraid not, my dear. Try and stop the girl calling her on the telephone tomorrow.”

“What'll become of her, Maxwell? You know…she's a sweet child. She's been a good companion for Linda. A good influence I think, taken her mind off horses, boys, and fashions a little. She was writing thank-you letters to the crew of that submarine until all hours last night. If…if the worst happens, I think…we should adopt her.”

“If that's what you want, my dear,” he rumbled. “Mind you, an extra child is a great deal of work.”

“I've got one daughter, I might as well have two.”

Clara lay there, rigid. Sleep did not come back. Eventually she got up and reread the letter the little man had slipped into her reticule the day before at Hansmeyers Emporium, as she'd walked around with Mrs. Darlington and Linda, buying suitable clothing for a young lady.

The writing was shaky, but the signature was definitely her father's. Tears blurred her eyes when she realized that she couldn't clearly remember his face anymore. And he was a prisoner somewhere in North Queensland…

Clara stared at the atlas she'd borrowed to see just where Dajarra in the shire of Cloncurry was.

The two places were not that far apart.

Her mother was getting the very best medical help they could provide. By her reading of it, her father would not live that long without help.

So it was up to her, really.

She knew precisely where her mother kept the little money they'd had with them. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.

She left the letter from her father in its place. Then she left a letter for Linda hidden behind the mirror, where Linda kept her love letters. She said she was going to Queensland, to her father, and that she was sorry to not tell her…and begged her not to tell anyone else. She felt a bit stupid writing it, but Linda trusted her and deserved trust in return.

Then she gathered up all the essentials of a respectable young lady—a small bandbox, a parasol, her reticule, and her breeches from the
Cuttlefish
, which might shock Mrs. Darlington rigid, but were essential nonetheless, and climbed out of the window onto the broad verandah. She stepped down the path, out the wrought iron gate, and out into the street.

It was dark, and it occurred to her that she had no idea how to get to the station, or even, in this country, where to buy a ticket or when the trains ran. There were no trams running at this time of night, either. Clara was about to abandon her decisiveness and try to spend the next “day” doing some research when a slurred voice spoke out of the darkness, “What's a pretty little white girl doing out at this time of night, eh?”

Clara gripped the handle of her parasol tightly as a ragged, dark-faced
man lurched out of the shadows. “Um. I…er…am just on my way to Dajarra.” It was a stupid thing to say to a ragged man breathing alcohol fumes at her and leering, but it was all she could think of.

“Dajarra!” he laughed. “That's up on the Diamantia. No place for your kind up there. Give us a kiss.” He lunged at her.

Instinctively Clara threw herself backward and pushed at him with the rolled-up parasol, hitting him in the stomach. He doubled over and she dropped the bandbox and ran all the way back to the house she'd just climbed out of. She lay on her bed, shaking for a while—furious and worried. Partly she was angry with herself for being so frightened. But common sense said that running had been the best thing she could have done. But there was the issue of the missing bandbox and the clothes in it. She wondered if she dared go back to look for it, and decided that she didn't. She had another bandbox—one of Mother's. And Mrs. Darlington probably wouldn't notice the missing clothes for a day, if Clara didn't tell her. At least she still had the money.

But it meant that leaving soon was not only an option but a necessity. If the bandbox was found and returned, the Darlington's would surely take steps to stop her going. And then there was the note she'd slipped in behind Linda's mirror…

She crept into the girl's room and was just pulling it out when Linda said, “What are you doing?” It was a very cross, suspicious, low-voiced “What are you're doing?”

“Um. I can explain.”

Linda turned on her light, and her eyes were hard and angry.

“What are you doing with Nicky's letter? Give it to me!” she hissed.

Clara had little option but to hand it over. “It's not one of Nicky's letters. It was from me to you. Only I thought I better get it back,” she whispered.

Linda unfolded it and looked at it. “Oh.” She looked at
Clara again, taking in the fact that she was not in her nightclothes. “You mustn't
do
that, Clara. You'll get in such trouble.”

“I'm not. I came back…I had such a horrible experience out there. I want a pistol, I think!”

Naturally, then she had to tell the whole story. Linda, now that she'd got over thinking Clara was stealing her letters, was desperate to talk Clara out of running away.

“Look, it can't work. And why Queensland? It's so hot there. Your mother might get better…please don't do this. Please. Promise me.”

“Promise you won't tell.”

“Of course I won't. But you mustn't do this. Anyway, you can't get there. You'd have to go with the smugglers across the Spencer Gulf. You've got no one to go with you. You can't go without a chaperone.”

“I know. I'm going to bed now.”

“Promise you're not going?”

Clara shook her head. “Not now. I'm going to bed.”

The next predawn “day” Clara spent being cloyingly sweet—which Mrs. Darlington seemed to adore—and doing some careful investigation. And at about eight in the morning, she said she had a headache and would like to lie down.

“Shall I get dear Dr. Leaming to come and have a look at you?” asked an anxious Mrs. Darlington.

“No. I'm just tired. I didn't sleep well last night, worrying about my mother.”

“You poor dear. You should have a little lie-down. And Linda's such a little bagpipe, I should think you need a rest.”

Clara smiled at her new friend, and then at Linda's mother, feeling like a complete fraud to both of them. “Thank you. Linda's been so nice. But…I'm tired. I don't think I will get up for tea, if you don't mind.”

“My dear, you have to eat!” said the plump Mrs. Darlington, who lived for her food—especially macaroons.

“I'll be fine. I just need a good sleep.”

That at least was true, even if it wouldn't be happening. Ten minutes later Clara had slipped out of the window and boarded the trolley-bus to North Central Station. The man at the ticket office didn't even question her buying a ticket to Mandynonga, where the farms fed by the drip-irrigators with desalinated water grew the expensive food. It was a common enough destination. It was also where the food for the power stations on the Northern Sheba line, which Tim was working on, was loaded. Clara had to smile wryly to herself. It was quite possible that she'd beat her letter up there.

It was also sure that people would ask awkward questions about her traveling alone all that way. So she'd better have a story. She already had a kitchen knife from Mrs. Darlington's cutlery drawer, in case of any more unwelcome attentions.

The Mandynonga line was still above ground, and Clara got her first look at the Westralian countryside outside the sand walls of Ceduna.

It was not quite as bleak as she'd expected. There were plants: a few scrubby, spiky, odd-leafed trees in little coppice-like clusters; yellow patches of grass…and something that hopped away from the train. In spite of her anxiety and all the things on her mind, Clara couldn't help but be delighted at her first sight of a kangaroo outside the pages of books. But the trip made Clara realize two things about Australia. It was flat, and there was a lot of it. She knew it wasn't all flat, of course. But the broadness of the horizon and the searing blue sky made her feel very small.

The chaos of Mandynonga station and the termite run workers getting off their odd-shaped carriages made her feel lost, too. But she hadn't got this far to be put off. There were glum-looking groups of men getting on the curious white, flattened carriages, swinging their bedrolls and bags aboard, as well as the raucously cheery ones getting off. Clara studied the train, and the first thing she realized was that it wasn't really a train. It hung from an overhead rail.

There was no locomotive. Maybe that would come later…

A whistle blew.

“Departure five minutes. All passengers and freight for the Alice and Diamantia Line, last call. Embark or load now or we leave without you!” bellowed a florid faced man in blue dungarees and a little frogged waistcoat.

Clara wasn't even sure how to get a ticket, let alone if this was the right train. But that horrible drunken man had said something about Diamantia. And Clara was nothing if not decisive. Wrong sometimes, yes, but she'd decided she'd rather do things than just worry about them. Mother kept saying it would land her in trouble.

Well, it might. But still she swung herself into the nearest carriage. The men sitting on the wooden benches with their swags gaped at her as if she'd crawled out of a piece of green cheese.

“Here, Missy,” said one finally. “You can't get on this clanker. She's going up north.”

“So am I. I am going to find my brother. He's at Power Station 1786, Dajarra,” she said airily. “I have to talk to him about our father, and seeing as he's on a contract, he can't come to Ceduna. Or that's what he said in his letter.”

The audience stared at her. Finally one said, “Are you
sure
he's your brother, Missy?”

Clara surprised herself by starting to cry, having her carefully constructed story come apart before she'd really even started on it. She put it down to being dog-tired and over-worried. “My mother is unconscious in hospital. And my father's a prisoner in Queensland. I need to get to Tim.”

It took a few seconds for the sandy-haired fellow—the one who'd asked if she was sure if Tim was her brother—to react. “Eh. Simmo. Davo. Gimme your swags. We'd better tuck you under the bench, Missy. Conductor will be here in a few minutes and he'll chuck you off if he sees you.”