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silence. Twenty-five, said the speedometer. Twenty& fifteen& ten& five. A last savage
twist at the accelerator and a kick from Tiffany Case at the engine-housing and they
had stopped.
"  " said Bond, once. He got painfully out on to the side of the track and limped to
the petrol tank at the rear, pulling his bloodstained handkerchief out of his trouser
pocket. He unscrewed the filler cap and lowered the handkerchief down so that it must
reach the bottom of the tank. He pulled it out and felt it and sniffed it. Dry as a bone.
"That's that," he said to the girl. "Now just let's think hard." He looked all round. No
cover to the left, and two miles at least to the road. On the right the mountains, perhaps
a quarter of a mile away. They might get there and hide up. But for how long? It looked
the best chance. The ground beneath his feet was shaking. He looked down the line at
the glaring, implacable eye. How far? Two miles? Would Spang see the handcar in
time? Would he be able to stop? Might he be derailed? But then Bond remembered the
great jutting cow-catcher that would sweep the light car out of the way like a bale of
straw.
"Come on, Tiffany," he called. "We've got to take to the hills."
Where was she? He limped round the car. She was running back down the track in
front. She came up panting. "There's a branch line just ahead," she gasped. "If we can
push the thing there and you can work the old points, he might miss us."
"My God," said Bond slowly. Then, with awe in his voice. "There's something better
than that. Give me a hand," and he bent down and gritted his teeth against the pain and
started pushing.
Once started, the car moved easily and they only had to follow behind it and keep it
rolling. They came to the points and Bond went on pushing until they were twenty yards
past.
"What the hell?" panted Tiffany.
"Come on," said Bond, half stumbling, half running back to where the rusty switch
stuck up beside the rails. "We're going to put The Cannoriball on to the branch line."
"Oh, boy!" said Tiffany Case reverently. And then they were both at the switch and
Bond's bruised muscles were cracking as he heaved.
Slowly the rusty metal shifted in the bed where it had lain unmoved for fifty years, and
millimetre by millimetre the rails showed a crack and then a widening gap as Bond
strained and jerked at the lever.
And then it was done and Bond knelt on the ground with his head down, fighting the
dizziness that threatened to drown him.
But then there was a glare of light on the ground and Tiffany tugged at him and he
was on his feet again and stumbling back to the car and the whole air was full of
thunder and the doleful clanging of the warning bell as the great flaming iron beast
came roaring towards them.
"Get down and don't move," shouted Bond above the noise, and he thrust her to the
ground behind the flimsy shelter of the handcar. Then he limped quickly to the side of
the track and drew his gun and stood sideways on with his pistol arm up like a duellist
and squinted back up the track into the great on-rushing eye below the volcano of
swirling fire and smoke.
God, what a monster. Could it possibly take the curve? Wouldn't it just hurtle on into
them and smash them to pulp?
 86
On it came.
'Phut.' Something whipped into the ground beside him and there was a pinpoint flash
from the cabin.
'B-o-i-n-g-g-g.' There was another flash and the bullet hit the rail and whined off into
the night.
'Crack. Crack. Crack.' Now he could hear the gun above the rear of the engine.
Something sang sharply in his ear.
Bond held his fire. Only four bullets and he knew when they would go.
And then, twenty yards away, the flying engine thundered into the curve and took the
siding with a lurch that sent logs hurtling towards Bond off the top of the tender.
There was a shrill scream o£ metal as the flanges on the six-feet-tall driving wheels
ground into the bend, a swift impression of smoke and flame and pounding machinery,
and then a glimpse into the cabin and of the black-and-silver figure of Spang,
spreadeagled, clinging to the side of the cabin with one hand and with the other hand
outflung to the long iron handle of the throttle lever.
Bond's gun shouted its four words. There was a lightning impression of a white face
jerked up towards the sky and then the great black-and-gold engine was past and
hurtling towards the shadowy wall of the Spectre Mountains, the beam of its pilot-light
scything at the darkness ahead and its automatic warning-bell clanging sadly on, ding-
dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.
Bond slowly tucked the Beretta into his trousers and stood looking after the coffin of
Mr Spang, and the trail of smoke drifted over his head and for a moment put out the
moon.
Tiffany Case came running to him and they stood side by side and watched the
flaming banner from the tall smoke-stack and listened to the mountains throw back the
echo of the charging locomotive. The girl clutched his arm as the engine gave a sudden
swerve and vanished behind a spur of rock. And now there was only a faraway
drumming in the mountains and a red glow that flickered off the crags as The
Cannonball tore on down the cutting into the belly of the rock.
And suddenly there was a great tongue of fire and a terrible iron crash as if a
battleship had run on a reef. And then a muffled clanging that seemed to come from
under their feet. And, finally, a deep distant boom from the bowels of the earth and a
barrage of miscellaneous echoes. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]