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Chapter 7b

     “Is this seat taken?” asked the woman.

     The Brigadier groaned internally. There was no way to avoid replying without breaking the rules of civilised conduct, and then he would be in a conversation with her. Oh well. If it had to be, might as well make the best of it. “No, Madam,” he said therefore. “Please be seated.”

     “Thank you.” She sat opposite him and Barnaby sat beside her. “The last carriage was full of the most awful People. Working men, all talking about how much better things will be when the rebels overthrow the government, and they kept looking at us in the most awful way, as if they were going to attack us! We didn't feel safe. We had to get out of there. Find a carriage filled with more civilised People.”

     “I don’t think they would have done anything,” said Barnaby. “It was just talk...”

     “Oh Barnaby! You heard them! You saw how they were! They were like animals! They were working themselves up to violence!”

     “They were doing no such thing, dear. They were just talking, that’s all.” He turned to the Brigadier. “She tends to overreact. They were probably perfectly decent people....”

     “Please don’t talk like that about me to other people. What will he think?” She turned back to the Brigadier. “I do hate train journeys. It wouldn’t be so bad if they still had separate carriages for the upper classes...”

     “The upper classes don't use trains any more,” replied Barnaby. “It was just a fad. The moment they started carrying cargo they became quite unfashionable. Trains are for coal, cattle and the masses. No real nobleman would be caught dead on a train these days. We wouldn’t be here ourselves if it weren’t so urgent that we reach Whitemay before the end of the week.”

     “And what would you call this gentleman?” asked the woman. “A proper aristocrat if ever I saw one, and probably just as grateful to have quality people to talk to. You are an aristocrat, I assume, Sir?”

     “I suppose,” replied the Brigadier. “I don't actually have a title, but I come from a wealthy family and I suppose I’ve earned a certain reputation during my army days, the result being that people treat me with a certain... Deference is probably the best word.”

     “An army man!” said the woman, beaming with delight. “May I ask what rank you hold?”

     “Brigadier. Brigadier Weyland James at your service, Madam.”

     “And my name is Isobelle. Isabelle Frankes, and this is my husband, Barnaby Frankes. We own a respectable textiles industry, employing dozens of people.”

     “Charmed.” The Brigadier stood and bowed, then sat again, while thinking that anyone who felt it necessary to say that their business was respectable was probably anything but.

     “Such a comfort to have an army man with us, with those ruffians in the next carriage.”

     “I don't think they're going to come chasing after you, Dear. They were probably just as glad to see us go as you were to leave them.”

     “Why Barnaby! What a thing to say!”

     The Brigadier mentally tuned out their bickering and looked out the window again. The small stately home was moving in front of the dark clouds, as he'd thought it would, and as the background became less bright he found he could make out details of its structure. It was hard to be sure from this distance, but he thought there were dark smudges above the windows, as if the building had been gutted by fire. Then he saw tiny figures moving around in front of it, which confused him if the building had been abandoned for some time. Perhaps the owners were thinking of having the fire damage repaired.

     The gardens around the building contained large, neatly pruned hedges, and as the train continued to move different parts of the gardens came into view through gaps in the hedge. Gradually, something large and red came into view, and the Brigadier leaned forward in his seat, feeling a twinge of alarm when he saw that it was a fire truck. Most of the small figures were firemen, he now saw. The fire must only just have been put out. An accident? Or was it arson, committed by members of the Popular Uprising against a hated member of the nobility? And if the latter, were those people still in the area? His hand went to his pistol, hidden under his jacket.

     “Is everything all right, Brigadier?” asked Barnaby.

     “Of course,” replied the Brigadier, still watching the small mansion. Then the train passed behind a small patch of woodland and it was hidden from sight. Probably nothing for us to worry about, he thought. As Barnaby had said, trains were used by the common people much more than the nobility. There was no reason they would be interested in attacking a train. Or at least, he corrected himself, they wouldn’t have any interest in the passengers. Cargo trains also used this length of track, though, and they might have a great interest in seeing that certain goods didn't reach their destinations...

     He wondered what the official procedure would be if the rebels had blown up a section of track ahead of them. The train couldn't just sit there waiting for the next one to come crashing into the back of it. Neither could it return to a crossover and proceed on the other section of track running parallel to it unless they were completely certain there wasn't another train coming in the other direction. The only thing it could do, he decided, was to return the way it had come until it came to a crossover and then return to Farwell, where they could inform the railway authorities that there was a section of track needing repair. If that happened, he would have to leave the train. Take his horse and go the rest of the way to Carrow on his own. He had two days before the train to Carrow left Ramback. It was possible that he might arrive in time to catch it. The poor horse would be exhausted, of course, but it would have a nice long train journey in which to recover.

     So. No need to become alarmed. Even if the worse happened and the rebels sabotaged the track, he still had an excellent chance of reaching the Princess in Bonewell. He couldn't help but take one last look back towards the burned out mansion, though, before settling back in his seat.

     He became aware that the woman had asked him a question, and he had to replay the last few seconds in his mind to remember what it had been. “Yes, I've seen action,” he replied. “It's not something I like to talk about, though. I hope you understand.”

     “Of course, of course,” she said, nodding sympathetically. “It must be very traumatic for you. The violence, the killing. Losing comrades. What you soldiers do to protect the Empire... You're heroes, every last one of you.”

     He was wearing civilian clothes that were Imperial in style, so of course she thought he was a soldier of the Empire, and the Brigadier saw no reason to correct her. “Thank you,” he said, therefore, feeling a little awkward.

     “Do you have a lot of medals?”

     “We don't do it for medals. We do it to protect our homes and the people we love.” He thought of starting a new topic of conversation to get away from the uncomfortable subject, but that would probably just encourage her. Better to just keep his answers as short and boring as possible in the hope that she eventually lost interest.

     A gentle deceleration pulled him forward in his seat and his hand went to his pistol again in sudden alarm. He relaxed when he realised that it was a gentle, controlled slowing of the train, not the sudden slamming on of the brakes in response to a blown section of track or something. It was probably just a scheduled stop to take on water.

     His guess was confirmed when he looked out the window and saw a water tower standing beside the track, beside a small hut where the water engineer had his office. As the train approached, the engineer, a small, wiry man in a grimy grey uniform with a peaked cap, emerged from his hut to stand beside it and grin at them in obvious excitement.

     “That guy must have the most boring job in the world,” said Barnaby, leaning towards the Brigadier to see out the window. “How often does the pump have a problem that needs an engineer to fix it?”

     “We’re over a hundred miles from the nearest large town here,” pointed out the Brigadier, “and that tower probably only stores enough water to supply half a dozen trains or so. It the pump fails, it might be days before someone could be brought here to fix it, and the laws of economics mean that the company builds as few of these towers as possible. If a problem with the pump means that the tank’s empty and the train can't get water here, it probably won't have enough to get it to the next one, leaving it blocking the track. Very bad for business. Employing someone to just sit here for months on end in case the pump fails makes sense from the Company’s point of view.”

     “The poor guy's probably half crazy from the isolation.”

     “Yes. This looks like a pretty isolated spot. The train drivers might be the only people he ever gets to talk to. Still, some people might like the isolation. Poets, philosophers and so on. They might enjoy a job that pays the bills and leaves them plenty of time to indulge their hobby. And there are always people who are just antisocial by nature, who hate the company of other human beings.”

     If that was so, though, this particular man didn’t seem to be one of them. He was clearly glad to see the train, and was waving at them with a wide grin on his face. The Brigadier wondered whether he actually lived in the water house, or whether he had a real home nearby. There might be a small town just out of sight through the trees where he went at the end of the day, after making sure the tower contained enough water to supply any train that passed by during the night.

     The driver was bringing the train to a gentle stop that would leave the engine under the tower's water pipe, and so the Brigadier stood. “If you will excuse me,” he said, bowing politely to each of them in turn, “I should take the opportunity to check on my horse.”

     “Yes, of course,” said Isobel Frankes with visible disappointment, and the Brigadier left through the connecting door they'd come in by, heading for the back of the train.

     He found his horse, along with half a dozen others, in the rearmost carriage and patted it on the neck while he checked to see that it was healthy and comfortable. Most of the water had slopped out of the water trough, he saw, and as soon as the train came to a complete stop he opened the sliding door and jumped out onto the dry, yellow grass that covered the ground. The driver was jumping out of the engine to pass some words with the slightly crazed looking water engineer, and the Brigadier waited patiently while the train engineer opened the hatch of the train's water tank and guided the tank’s dispensor chute towards it. He pulled a lever on the side of the chute and water began to flow.

     “Passengers should remain on the train,” the engineer said when he saw the Brigadier standing there.

     “Yes, Sir,” replied the Brigadier. “I was wondering whether I could have some water for the horse trough.”

     “There's a bucket in the office,” said the water engineer cheerfully. “Fill ‘er up from the pipe by the pump.”

     The Brigadier thanked him and went off in the indicated direction.

     He kept an ear on the sound of the pouring water as he went back and forth between the office and the horse carriage with the bucket, not wanting to be left behind if the train left unexpectedly. Not that there was much danger of that, really. Every other time the train had left a station or a watering point, it had accelerated slowly. If it did the same this time, he would have plenty of time to hop back aboard so long as he didn’t leave it too long.

     The horses all crowded around the trough as he filled it, drinking thirstily, and he wondered what the owners of the other horses were doing. Didn't they care enough about their animals to check up on them? The trouble was, of course, that no-one kept the same horse for long, in case they formed a parent bond with them. Any owner that held onto the same horse for very long would soon be looking for another owner to swap it with, possibly someone who'd been riding his horse hard and needed a fresh animal that he could continue on with. Another result of this, though, was that owners rarely developed feelings of affection for animals, unless they intended to adopt them and raise them as children.

     When the water trough was full he checked the oat trough, filling it with the scoop that had been left in the food box. Then he replaced the bucket in the engineer's office, noting as he did so that the engineer was still in conversion with the driver. The train engineer, meanwhile, had cut off the flow of water and was pushing the dispenser chute away from the engine. Seeing this, the driver made his apologies to the water engineer and walked back towards the engine, the other man following as he did so, still talking with what the Brigadier thought was a slightly desperate tone of voice. He carried on talking in his slightly insane, chattery way even as the driver shovelled more coal into the fire box and turned a wheel on the boiler.

     The Brigadier climbed back aboard the train as it began to move away, gathering speed with glacial slowness. He found himself in a different carriage than the one he'd left, which suited him just fine. He had no wish to endure more conversation with Mrs Isobel Frankes. He found a section of the carriage in which all the seats were empty and chose one with a good view ahead through the window. On an impulse, he turned to look back the way they'd come, to see the water engineer still standing there, staring after them as if watching his only son marching off to war. He wondered how long it would be before the next train came. The next passenger train, the one he needed to catch, would be two days, but cargo trains also used the track and he was pretty sure they ran more frequently. Even so, the evening was getting on, and the Brigadier thought it unlikely that another train would be passing by today.

     The idea preyed on his mind a little, but with an effort he settled back in his seat as the train gathered speed and closed his eyes. It would be nice if he was able to get a little sleep, lulled by the gentle swaying of the train.

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