The First to Land by Douglas Reeman

Author:Douglas Reeman [Reeman, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780099594062
Google: nL7EAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2014-01-01T13:00:00+00:00

The train rattled along the tracks, the speed held down in case of damage or hidden mines.

Blackwood sat in one corner of the compartment, the window lowered to its full extent to encourage a flow of air. With the sun getting higher above the flat landscape the carriage was already an oven, and he knew they would all have to guard against dozing or falling asleep. Clack-clack-clack-clack, even the wheels on the rails seemed to lull him away from any sort of vigilance.

Occasionally he saw a tiny village or perhaps a farm. Low, yellow buildings almost lost in the heat haze and the train’s drifting dust. They always seemed to be a long way from the railway tracks, as if the inhabitants had never really trusted its invasion, another invention of the foreigners.

Private Dago Trent was on the opposite side, his eyes slitted against the glare, his rifle propped on the window ledge. It reminded Blackwood of the youth Erskine who had lost a foot. He and Dago had been friends. The veteran and the wide-eyed recruit. They had been inseparable. Trent was probably thinking of him right now, that he would be better dead than a cripple for all those years to come.

Sergeant Major Fox came through from the rear of the carriage. Blackwood wondered how he always managed to appear neat and tidy no matter what the conditions were like. Even his tunic was whiter than anyone else’s.

‘All quiet?’

Fox glanced at Blair who was apparently fast asleep, arms folded, his legs thrust out amongst the piled ammunition as if it was the first good rest he had had in weeks.

He replied, ‘Corporal Lyde reckons he just spotted some ‘orsemen to th’ right of us, sir.’ He smiled. He had almost said ‘starboard’.

Blackwood said, ‘Pass the word to the machine-gun section. They might have been some of our people, I suppose.’ That was another unsettling thing about the haste of Seymour’s actions. There had been no proper information about who was doing what. It was rumoured that the Russians had landed some Cossacks, that the Germans too were to use their cavalry for the relief of Peking. But nobody really knew anything for certain. Corporal Lyde might be a brawler and a natural fighter, but he was a very reliable NCO. If he said he had seen mounted men then there was no doubting him. But if the horsemen stayed out of contact with the slow-moving train it seemed very likely that they were either Chinese regulars or Boxers.

Fox climbed through the little door in the front of the carriage and over a pile of hastily filled sandbags.

Without opening his eyes Blair murmured, ‘Boxers. Must be. The whole damned countryside will know we’re coming.’

Blackwood grinned. ‘Thought you were asleep, sir.’

‘Never asleep. Not any more. Getting old. Past it.’

Swan appeared with two steaming mugs. ‘Tea, sir.’ He saw their surprise. ‘One o’ th’ interpreters ‘as brewed up, sir.’

The tea was surprisingly good and refreshing, and once again Blackwood drifted into

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