“They’ve gone. Is it a trap to lure us out? For God’s sake, what are we to do?” he was whispering frantically.
Quarles ignored the man, trying to hear.
Nearly a quarter of an hour passed, and nothing happened. Flies were already buzzing loudly in the stillness. Whoever had been groaning up ahead had stopped. But now someone was calling for water. It was a London voice, Cockney.
Quarles shoved the shivering man beside him out of his way and, keeping his head down, crawled to the nearest window, unable to stand the uncertainty.
There was nothing as far as the horizon. Neither man nor animal.
The Boers had vanished as swiftly as they’d appeared. Evering had put up a good fight, but the commando sharpshooters were used to hitting their mark.
He crawled into the next carriage, to be sure, shoving the sergeant aside. The man was dead, his body unwieldy. Quarles carefully lifted his eyes to another window. Nothing to be seen on that side, either.
The Boers had gone.
He stood up, his legs shaky from crouching so long, and wiped his forehead with his hand. He was close to laughing at the sight he must make, bloody enough to be a hero.
It was his first fight, and by God, if he had anything to say to it, it would be his last. Looking around, he grimaced at the amount of blood covering the carriage floors. He hadn’t realized that a man had so much in him. Or that it could sicken the stomach with its stench.
Penrith, peering out from behind the crate in the last carriage, pleaded,
“Is it over? Say something.” His frantic appeal carried in the silence.
Quarles ignored him. He went through the rest of the carriages, to see how many of Evering’s men had survived. Then he came back to the last one, where Evering lay badly wounded. The man’s eyes blazed up at him, and his voice, only a husky whisper, demanded, “Where were you?”
As if one more man might have mattered. As if another rifle could have held them off.
Quarles dragged the lieutenant out of the sun and propped him against a box of shells.
It was only then that he saw what the lieutenant was lying on—two leather bags, one of them torn open, with the edges of pound notes just visible in the white African light spilling through the window.
He knelt over the bags and reached in, unable to believe his eyes.
There was more money in them than he’d seen in his lifetime, more money than God himself had. He wasn’t sure where it was being taken, or why. It was there, and he couldn’t stop looking at it.
Evering was saying something, but Quarles didn’t listen. His mind was enthralled by the sight, and he knew he wanted that money more than he’d ever wanted anything. Ever.
Penrith came stumbling toward him. He said, “Most of them must be dead—”
“I counted four wounded,” Quarles answered, quickly shoving pound notes under the edge of Evering’s tunic, out of sight. “Not including him.” He jerked his head at the lieutenant.
But Penrith had seen the money. “Good God!”
Falling on his knees, he reached out to touch the bag just as Quarles snatched it away. Evering, behind them, said quite clearly, “Put it back!”
But Quarles had no intention of obeying. He picked up the two bags. “Four wounded,” he repeated. “Five counting him.” He got to his feet and reached for his rifle, starting toward the engine. “Wait here.”
“I’m coming.”
“Stay with him, I say!”
Quarles went forward to find three men bleeding profusely but still alive. The fourth was already unconscious, his face gray.
“Water?” one of the men begged, reaching out, his hand shaking like a palsy.
Quarles shot him, and before the others could move, he shot them as well. Then he moved on to the locomotive. Both the engineer and the fireman were dead. Looking out, he could see the Boers had pulled out the tracks and piled the ties in plain view, to force the engineer to stop. There would be no going forward now. And no returning to the depot unless Penrith knew how to manage the damned controls. He went back to the last carriage and knelt beside Evering.
“Is there any more of this?” He held up the bags for the lieutenant to see them.
Evering shook his head.
“What’s it for, then?”
Evering, fighting to stay alert, didn’t answer.
Penrith, crouched in a corner, said, “I heard gunfire! They’re back—”
Quarles was on the point of shooting him as well. And then he thought better of it. “I was afraid there was something out there. Never mind, it was nothing. Nerves. Penrith—can you run the locomotive?
The way ahead is blocked, we have to go back.”
“Me? No. What are we to do, then? We’ve got to get the wounded to cover, and one of us ought to go for help.” Even as he said the words, he read the decision in Quarles’s face, and began shaking his head. “Why does it have to be me?”
Quarles was in no frame of mind to argue. “I’ll see to the men. Go on, then, walk as far as you can before dark, then find somewhere to dig in. I’ll stay here until you come back.”
“I don’t want to go. And what about this money? What are you going to do with it?”
“I’ll see to that as well. Mind you don’t mention it to anyone! Otherwise they’ll take it from us.”
“I’m not leaving it behind. I don’t trust you.”
“You’ve done nothing to earn it, my lad. Not yet. Go for help.
Leave me to clear away here. And when you find that help, mind you act dazed, confused. Just tell them the Boers attacked, and the lieutenant here sent you for help. The less you say to them, the better.”
Without warning, he set aside his rifle and swung his fist as hard as he could, catching Penrith on the cheekbone, and then hit him again.
Blood ran from a torn lip, dripping onto his uniform.
Penrith, angrier than he could ever remember being, lunged at Quarles, but the man had already retrieved his rifle and kept him at bay.
“Don’t be a fool, Penrith! If you arrive after a fight with the Boer looking fresh as a bleeding daisy, they’ll be suspicious.”
Something in his face made Penrith look sharply at him. “I counted four shots. You killed them, didn’t you? The wounded.”
“Yes, and I’ll kill you too, if you don’t listen. You want a share of that money? How are we going to do that, hmmm? Tell the Army we’ve taken a fancy to it? Tell them no one else is alive, so we thought we’d help ourselves? They’ll hunt us like animals. First we must deal with this lot. Go back to the camp. And think about it as you walk. If we’re smart, we’ll let the Army blame the Boers for the money going missing. We know nothing about it, eh? It was the lieutenant’s little secret, and we never laid eyes on it.”
“But he’s alive—”
“Look at him. Do you think he’ll last the day? I’m no doctor, I can’t save him. He’s the only one can talk, if we keep our heads. What’s it to be, then? Do your part or die with the others. It’s all the same to me.”
Penrith, staring at the rifle in the other man’s hands, said with as much bravado as he could muster, “I’ll go. But play any tricks on me, and I’ll see you hang.”
He backed out of the carriage, his gaze on Quarles, and nearly stumbled over a railroad tie as he stepped down. Then he stopped.
Fool that he was, he’d left his own rifle in the train.
As if he’d read Penrith’s mind, Quarles reached down, picked up a rifle, and tossed it to him. “Take the sergeant’s. You won’t get far without it.”