The Severed Cord by Stephen Twartz

Author:Stephen Twartz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silverbird Publishing

*

Jimmy woke, startled and wondered what had disturbed him. The sound of shuffling feet, distant echoes of activity. He could only guess at their purpose.

Laughter filtered through the iron door, humourless, strident, like the ridicule from those bastards who taunted him as a child.

The heat, radiating from the high, barred window was waning, the light not quite so intense, the putrid smell of a baking, partly dismembered rat in the corner of the room, dissipating with the encroaching evening cool.

Jimmy stood, raised his hand to the side of his head, felt the crusted scab, his fingers coated with the flaking, black remnants of blood when he pulled them away. The wound seemed to sweep from his temple to the jawline below his ear. His fingers found the sweet spot, a sharp stab of pain. He wondered whether it was a broken jaw.

His attention was suddenly diverted to a metallic crash beyond the high window, shouting, a revving motor. The commotion died, but as he subsided once again onto the low, stained cot, he recalled his mistake …

In the carriage, surely close to camp by now, a slight fading of the black hinted at the first of dawn as it crept into the eastern darkness. People were reclining at awkward angles on the wooden benches; Jimmy straightened, stretching to clear the pain in his joints, rose high enough for a look through the window, no glass, the acrid smell of the coal-burning engine an assault.

He realised the constant rhythm of the wheels and the rails had changed. They were slowing.

He dropped his feet to the floor, throwing his arm to the side, a light punch to Joe’s shoulder.

‘We’re here,’ he said, the carriage jolting as the train braked.

He caught Joe’s eye, wasn’t sure if Joe fully understood, and repeated it, more emphasis this time. ‘We’re here!’

The only response a grunt.

Jimmy rose, squeezing sideways past Eiric’s prone form on the bench, to the carriage doorway with door missing, the refuse of previous passages a blur at the side of the tracks.

‘Short walk to the camp, then,’ Joe said, pointing to the east.

Jimmy lifted his gaze to the twinkling lights of the camp.

‘Trick is,’ said Jimmy, ‘gett’n inta the camp.’

‘Only a short walk,’ said Joe.

‘Provosts.’ Jimmy felt he didn’t need to clarify.

Jimmy stood at the doorway, silent as the train slowed amongst the squeal of wheels against rails.

‘They’re fat bastards,’ Joe said. ‘Slow, lazy dimwits.’

While agreeing with the ‘fat bastard’ tag, Jimmy couldn’t see them as lazy or dimwitted. Their arrest record was typical of zealots, a fanaticism that translated to misery for those caught, grabbed, held, beaten. It was almost a religion for those sad characters called to its service. Jimmy would need to be quick to evade their attention.

He swung down from the train, stepping lightly across the tracks, a straight line to the camp, lights across the rail yards twinkling in the pre-dawn haze.

‘They’ll be wait’n,’ he said, to no one in particular. ‘Those bastards will definitely be there, at the main gate.

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