The Complete McAuslan. George Fraser MacDonald

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      “But the shooting …” “What the hell …”

      “There’s nothing to it,” I said. “A prisoner jumped the train, and the sergeant took a pot at him. He got away. Now, go back to your compartments and forget it. We’ll be in Jerusalem shortly.”

      Through the confusion came Old Inevitable himself, the pouchy half-colonel, demanding to know what had happened. I told him, while the others faded down the corridor, and he wheeled to the drawling major, who was at his elbow, and bawled:

      “Stop the train!”

      “Now, take it easy,” I said. “There’s no point in stopping; he’s over the hills and far away by now, and he’s a lot less important than the safety of this train. We’re not stopping until we get to Jerusalem.”

      “I’ll decide that!” he snapped, and he had an ugly, triumphant look as he said it. “You’ve lost the prisoner, in spite of my instructions, and this train is being stopped …”

      “Not while I command it.”

      “You don’t! You’re a complete bloody flop! I’m taking over. John, pull that communication …”

      It must have been pure chance, but when the major turned uncertainly to touch the communication cord, Sergeant Black was right in his way. There was one of those pregnant silences, and I jumped into it.

      “Now look, sir,” I said to the half-colonel. “You’re forgetting a few things. One, I am O.C. train, and anyone who tries to alter that answers to a general court-martial. Two, I intend to report you to the G.O.C. for your wilful hampering of my conduct of this train, and your deliberate disobedience of orders from properly constituted authority.”

      “Damn you!” he shouted, going purple.

      “You left the train when we halted, in flat defiance of my instructions. Three, sir, I’ve had about my bellyful of you, sir, and if you do not, at once, return to your compartment, I’m going to put you under close arrest. Sir.”

      He stood glaring and heaving. “Right,” he said, at last. He was probably wondering whether he should try, physically, to take over. He decided against it. “Right,” he said again, and he had his voice under control. “Major Dawlish, you have overheard what has been said here? Sergeant, you are a witness …”

      “Aye, sir,” said Black. “I am that.”

      “What do you mean?” snapped the half-colonel, catching Black’s tone. “Let me tell you, Sergeant, you’re in a pretty mess yourself. A prisoner in your …”

      “Not a prisoner,” I said. “A man who had warned us about the railway line and was being carried on to Jerusalem, possibly for interrogation.

      He looked from me to Black and back again. “I don’t know what all this is about,” he said, “but there’s something dam’ fishy here. You,” he said to me viciously, “are going to get broken for this, and you, Sergeant, are going to have a great deal of explaining to do.” He wheeled on his buddy. “Come along, John.” And they stumped off down the corridor.

      When they had gone I lit a cigarette. I was shaking. I gave another one to Black, and he lit up, too, and I sat down on a box and rested my head on my hand.

      “Look,” I said. “I don’t understand it either. But there is something dam’ fishy, isn’t there? How the hell did he get away?”

      “I told ye, sir. He jumped.”

      “Oh, yes, I know. But look, Sergeant, let’s not fool around. Between ourselves, I’m not Wild Bill Bloody Hickock, but he couldn’t have broken from me, so I’m damned sure he couldn’t break from you. People as experienced as you, I mean, you carry a Luger, you know?”

      He said, poker-faced, “I must have dozed off.”

      I just looked at him. “You’re a liar,” I said. “You never dozed off in your life—except when you wanted to.”

      His head came up at that, and he sat with smoke trickling up from his tight mouth into his nostrils. But he didn’t say anything.

      “What are we going to tell them in Jerusalem?” I said.

      “Just what I told you, sir. He was a gey fast mover.”

      “You could get busted,” I said. “Me, too. Oh, it’ll be well down my crime-sheet, after tonight. I’ve done everything already. But it could be sticky down at your end too.”

      He smiled. “My number’s up in the next couple of months. I’ve got a clean sheet. I’m no’ worried about being busted.”

      He seemed quite confident of that. He looked so damned composed, and satisfied somehow, that I wondered if perhaps the exigencies of the journey had unhinged me a little.

      “Sergeant Black,” I said. “Look here. The man was a terrorist—you think so, anyway. Well, why on earth …”

      “Yes, sir?”

      “Never mind,” I said wearily. “The hell with it.”

      I knew what he was going to come back to. Terrorist or not, he had saved the train, and everyone on it, me and the pouchy half-colonel and Angie and Petey and the A.T.S. and lavatory-locked legionnaires. Why, God alone knew. Maybe he hadn’t meant to, or something. But I knew Black and I were speculating the same way, and giving him the benefit of the doubt, and thinking of what would have happened if he had been a terrorist, and there had been tabs on him in Jerusalem.

      “The hell with it,” I said again. “Sergeant, I’m out of fags. You got one?”

      It was while I was lighting up and looking out at the desert with the ghostly shimmer that is the Mediterranean dawn beginning to touch its dark edges, that for no reason at all I remembered Granny’s story about the cattle-train at Tyndrum. I suppose it was the association of ideas: people jumping from trains. I told Sergeant Black about it, and we discussed grannies and railways and related subjects, while the train rattled on towards Jerusalem.

      Just before we began to run into the suburbs, the white buildings perched on the dun hillsides, Sergeant Black changed the topic of conversation.

      “I wouldn’t worry too much about yon half-colonel,” he said.

      “I’m not worried,” I said. “You couldn’t call it worry. I’ve just got mental paralysis about him.”

      “He might think twice about pushing charges against you,” said Black. “Mind you, he stepped over the mark himsel’. He wouldnae come well out of a court-martial. And ye were quite patient wi’ him, all things considered.” He grinned. “Your granny wouldnae have been as patient.”

      “Huh. Wonder what my granny would have said if she had been wheeled before the brigadier?”

      “Your granny would have been the brigadier,” he said. “We’re here, sir.”

      Jerusalem station was an even bigger chaos than Cairo had been; there were redcaps everywhere, and armed Palestine Police, and tannoys blaring, and people СКАЧАТЬ