Powerscourt was now walking uncertainly along the roof. The train was travelling at about twenty-five miles per hour. Light snow was beginning to fall. He saw that the gap between the two carriages was only four or five feet, not too hazardous a leap even for a person who was terrified of heights and regarded the roof of a Russian train as being about the same height as a skyscraper in Chicago. Then he heard it. There was a volley of shots down below, followed by a small cheer. Five seconds later there were four rounds from the pistol, followed by two screams and the sound of Ricky Crabbe coming up the steps and along the roof. Powerscourt thought there might be a pause down below while the wounded were attended to. Perhaps the other three were dead. As he jumped across to the top of the fourth carriage he saw that Ricky was now lying flat, waiting for the first Russian head to surface on to the roof of the carriage before he blew it away. Telegraph transmission seemed to be a good training ground for war. For the first time Powerscourt began to hope that they might survive this escapade. He had done what he was called on to do. He had fulfilled his mission. He dared not imagine what Lady Lucy would think of him cavorting about on top of a Russian train in the middle of the night, pursued by a gang of Russian soldiery. Lady Lucy, he realized bitterly, would be even less pleased with him now. For Nemesis had arrived at the other end of the third carriage. Johnny Fitzgerald and Mikhail must have descended back into the train before Nemesis began his climb.
Major Shatilov was looking at Powerscourt, delighted with his prey.
‘Good evening, Major.’ Powerscourt was trying to sound calmer than he felt. ‘A very good evening to you.’
The Major was standing right in the centre of the roof of the carriage. He took a gun from his pocket and shook his head. He shouted at Powerscourt in Russian. Then he pulled a whip from his other pocket and waved it vigorously towards his enemy. After a while he cracked it a couple of times. The thong seemed to Powerscourt to travel through the air at incredible speed. Then Shatilov pointed to his watch and his right hand went round many many times. It’s going to be a long-drawn-out affair, Powerscourt thought, death that might take a week or maybe two. Shatilov shouted some more. Powerscourt remembered the dreadful stories of Russian criminals sentenced to a thousand birch lashes in the terrible punishment known as running the gauntlet. When the victims collapsed after three hundred lashes or so they were carried off the parade ground. But when they had recovered they were merely restored to the gauntlet at the point where they had stopped on the previous occasion. Second time around most of the prisoners dropped dead long before they reached the thousand blows.
Powerscourt wondered if Ricky Crabbe could hear the crack of the whip or the sound of Shatilov’s voice. Maybe it was lost in the wind. He wondered if he should jump off the train and take his chance with a broken leg on the hard ground. He thought of his children and said a prayer for Lady Lucy. Maybe he should never have accepted this assignment and should have remained with the transepts and clerestories, the chantry chapels and the sarcophagi of England’s cathedrals. The Major was still fingering his whip, feasting his eyes on Powerscourt and his plight. Then Powerscourt saw hope. He saw more than hope. He saw Nemesis coming this time for Major Shatilov, as long as he didn’t look around. Powerscourt began talking to hold his attention. He pretended to plead for mercy. He sank to his knees, his hands raised in supplication. All the time his brain was calculating speed and distances and the time he would have to act unless he was to meet the same fate as the Major. On and on he went with his pleading. Already he had worked out what to do when the last moment came. It was nearly here. Shatilov was still looking at him. Now! Now! Powerscourt flung himself down and pressed his head and his body as tightly as he could into the roof of the carriage. The full force of the centre of the brick bridge hit Shatilov between the shoulder blades and broke his back. He was flung on to the roof of the carriage and his body scraped along the top of the bridge’s arch for a while before he toppled over the side. He was further mangled by the wheels of the train as they passed over him and rolled on into the night.
Ricky Crabbe crawled over to Powerscourt. ‘I had him covered, sir, but I didn’t want to shoot in case I only wounded him and he shot you. I’ve seen off one of those soldiers coming up to the roof. Don’t think the rest will be in any great hurry.’
A couple of minutes later they were dropping down into the first carriage, nearly stepping over Johnny Fitzgerald who was lying flat on the floor with a pair of enormous spanners in his hand. The sergeant was by his side, his tunic removed, his shirt sleeves rolled up, ready for some enormous feat of physical exertion.
‘Am I glad to see you, Francis. The peasants pretending to be soldiers are all down at the back of the train. We’re all here now, us and the four ladies.’
Powerscourt saw the women huddling together as if for warmth right in front of the door into the driver’s compartment. Mikhail stood between them and the door. God only knew what debauchery they expected now there were four of the foreigners to play together. Powerscourt told Johnny about the Major’s end. ‘I bet you were glad to see the end of him, Francis. Killed at the bridge eh? Like Horatius he asked, “Now who will stand on either hand And keep the bridge with me?” No answer in both cases. Now, if you’ll stand back, I’m going to try this. I’ve nearly finished but I had to wait till you showed up, Francis. All my life I’ve wanted to do this.’
Johnny took one of his enormous spanners and bent over the divide between the first and second carriages. There was an enormous grunt, then another, closely followed by a screech of metal. Then he and the Black Watch sergeant lent all their force into pushing the second carriage away from the first. As Powerscourt stared at the second carriage he saw a wounded soldier enter it at the far end. But as the man began to walk towards the front of the train, he seemed to be getting, not closer, but further and further away. They could see a look of astonishment on the man’s face as he realized he would never reach the front of the train, that he would not reach the doctors of St Petersburg on this journey. Johnny had decoupled the engine and the first carriage from the rest of the train. What remained of Shatilov’s pathetic army would soon be stranded in the middle of the countryside with no engine. They would probably block the line until they could be towed away. As Powerscourt looked round his little band, Johnny with grease on his hands and his arms, Ricky Crabbe, his clothes filthy from crawling along the roof, Mikhail with a great bruise on his forehead from bumping into the rungs up to a carriage roof, the sergeant trying to get the dirt off his arms, he felt very proud of them. Johnny was still staring out the back, rubbing his hands together in his delight, rejoicing in his severed train. It was Mikhail who spoke.
‘I’ve managed to convince the ladies, Lord Powerscourt, that you at least are a respectable person. I’ve told them you can reassure them in Russian. They’re going to ask you now.’
With that Mikhail had a brief conversation with the four women. One of them stared hard at Powerscourt and fired a rapid salvo at him in Russian.
‘I am from the British Embassy and we all have diplomatic immunity,’ Powerscourt replied in what he hoped was his best Russian and trying to remember where Mikhail had told him to put the emphasis. There was another blast from the four ladies. Powerscourt looked inquisitively at Mikhail.
‘What have we here?’ he asked.
‘They say,’ Mikhail laughed, ‘that you’re nothing better than a damned horse thief and they’re going to report you to the authorities the second this train reaches St Petersburg.’
Before he went to bed that night Powerscourt drafted a letter for the Ambassador to send in the morning. It was addressed to the Tsar and outlined in considerable detail what had happened to him and his colleagues, the theft of the horses, the beginnings of torture, the total lack of respect afforded to citizens of the United Kingdom and a man attached to its Foreign Office. How would the Russians feel, he asked rhetorically, if a member of their diplomatic staff on a mission to the King in Buckingham Palace was hijacked on his way out and taken to be stretched on the rack at the Tower of London? Powerscourt made no reference to their escape and the little battle on the train. Nor did he say anything about the substance of his conversation with Nicholas the Second. He doubted very much if the letter would reach the Tsar himself. Some court official would doubtless read it, but even that, he felt, should be sufficient to put a stop to the activities of Major Shatilov’s successors. In that assumption he could not have been more wrong.