The Death Ray Debacle by David McGill

Author:David McGill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silver Owl Press

The train was coming into Pukekohe by the time Dan had bumped and lurched his way through the first-class carriages and maybe a dozen second-class, wrenching open doors at each end, pulling them closed behind him without losing balance on the moving metal plates and doing a header into the rough black bush. He had apologised too many times for blocking people trying to get in and out of the toilets, pushing past small queues of frazzled women with yowling kids, several soldiers who thought he was trying to jump the queue. Inside the carriages was no better, the uneven motion causing him to fall against people trying to get comfortable and settle kids on the hired pillows and whatever rugs they had brought, people trying to heave hand luggage into or out of the overhead racks. A cheeky lad tripped him into an elderly woman knitting something for an infant. She gave him a filthy look, but retained her needles and wool without dropping the row.

On the return journey he met a sweating guard hauling a wooden crate full of cups and saucers, plates and fizzy drink bottles and the remnants of pies, ham sandwiches and block cake acquired in Auckland. They had to stop in mid-carriage, the guard with one hand on the crate waving him to squeeze by. It was not the right time to introduce himself.

Biggart was waiting outside their berths, briefcase in hand, as the train slowed into Pukekohe station.

‘Wait here,’ Biggart said, peering through the window at the crowds getting off and on, the guards among them checking seating numbers and directing luggage to the trolley. Dan hoped Selwyn had his nephew tucked out of sight. He saw Penny embrace his wife looking anxious and bewildered, understandably so as she was abandoned on the platform. Scott nudged Penny up the steps, the guard waved away.

‘Good evening, young man,’ Penny said. ‘Trust you have recovered.’

Dan said he was fine. Scott and Biggart were conferring. Biggart motioned for Dan to leave their berths, Scott nodding at him as he indicated to Penny they were taking this one. Presumably this was some kind of security swap. Penny was waving from the window before Scott steered him into their berths and Biggart indicated Dan follow him along to the next berths, marked 11 and 12. They proved to be even smaller than the berths they surrendered, without table and chairs. Not that it mattered, Dan thought, if they were not sleeping.

Shrill whistles, some muffled shouting, the engine released its monumental steam blast and with a lot of hissing and skidding the train lurched into motion. Biggart handed him the lists of passenger and station stops and told him to familiarise himself with them. He didn’t say where he was going, but Dan assumed it was further strategising with Scott.

He had memorised the stops from Biggart’s list. Pokeno was next, Mercer, coming up Huntly, where the prisoners escaped for a few hours of freedom. The window was frosted on the bunk side, not that there was much to see.

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