There was a deafening bang and a huge ball of fire filled the sky. Great plumes of dark black smoke rose into the grey cloud.
“No… ” Edie felt as if she was going to throw up. She sank down in the mud, clutching her stomach. She was soaked to the skin, her wet nightdress clinging to her.
“Edie.” Gus rushed forward and wrapped the coat around her. “It’s all right.” He shook her gently by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Edie… It’s not your mother. It can’t be. That plane wasn’t one of ours. It was German.”
“German?” It took Edie a moment to understand what he was saying.
“It was a Junkers 88,” Gus explained, in a shaky voice. “I recognized it from my aeroplane book.”
“Oh!” Edie staggered to her feet, relief washing over her. It wasn’t Fliss who had crashed… She slipped her arms back into the sleeves of the mackintosh and hugged herself tight.
“It was definitely a German Junkers,” said Gus. “Although the engine didn’t sound right. There was clearly something wrong.”
“Poor things,” whispered Edie, thinking of the crew. The plane had gone up like a fireball. They must have died for sure. She knew they were Germans and she was supposed to hate them. But she couldn’t. Not while she stared at the plumes of black smoke rising up from the wood. It could so easily have been Fliss.
“They’re the enemy,” snapped Gus. “They came here to drop bombs, remember.”
“I know,” said Edie. She was too tired and cold to argue. The storm had passed over, but it was still raining heavily.
“Go home and get dry,” said Gus. “I’m going to the woods to see where it came down.” His eyes were flashing with excitement. She should have guessed that the boy who spent half his life with his head in an aeroplane book would be desperate to see a real crashed plane – especially an enemy one.
“Wait!” said Edie. “I’m coming too.”
Gus didn’t argue. “If we cross the railway line over the bridge by the canal, we should be able to get into the woods from there,” he said.
They were running now, squelching over the soft mud.
“Gus!” Edie gasped as the railway line came into view beneath them. “Look! There’s something on the track.”
It was an enormous lump of twisted grey metal as big as a boulder.
“It’s from the plane!” Gus was already leaping over the fence and slithering down the bank beyond. “It’s a propeller and part of one of the engines,” he called as she followed him down. “It must have broken free before the crash.”
“What should we do?” said Edie.
Gus was standing on the tracks, staring at the jagged wreckage.
“Help me!” She rammed her shoulder hard against the pile of twisted metal. But it was hopeless it didn’t budge an inch. “Don’t you see?” she cried. “It’s blocking the track. If a train comes there’s going to be a terrible smash.”
Gus leapt forward and began heaving his weight against it too. But it was no good. They were like two ants trying to shift an elephant.
“Look.” Edie pointed to where the iron railway line had twisted and buckled with the force of the crash. Even if by some miracle they could move the wreckage aside, any train coming this way would still be derailed as it thundered over the broken tracks.
“We’ll have to go to the station and warn them,” said Gus, glancing at his watch. “Come on!” He began to run down the line in the direction of the village. “Thank goodness the Dark Demon passed by long ago.”
“Wait!” cried Edie. “What is the time, anyway?”
“About ten to six,” he called over his shoulder.
“Stop!” she cried. It wasn’t the Dark Demon with its cargo of weapons they had to worry about. She remembered the early morning train which had followed after it and the sleepy passengers they had seen with their heads resting against the windows. “You’ll never make it to the station. Not before the Dreaming Dragon is due.”
“The 6.06!” Gus spun around and started running back towards her. “You’re right, there’s no time. What should we do?”
“We’re going to have to stop the train,” said Edie.
“Stop it,” said Gus. “How?”
“I don’t know,” said Edie desperately. “But Aunt Roberta, Uncle Peter and Fliss did it years ago when some trees fell on the line. Aunt Roberta waved her petticoats at the train driver and he stopped just in time.” But her heart sank as she glanced down at what she was wearing – the dark mackintosh and her soaking-wet fawn-coloured nightdress. It was hopeless – and Gus was just as bad in his long black coat and blue pyjamas. Not a red flannel petticoat between them – nothing they could wave in front of the train to bring it to a halt.
“I reckon we’ve got about eleven minutes until the train reaches this part of the line.” Gus held up his watch for her to see.
“Then we need to think quickly,” said Edie. “We have to do something. If the train comes round that corner, it’ll be going too fast to stop. It’ll smash into the wreckage and come off the tracks. Everyone on board will be killed.”
“Not everyone, I shouldn’t think,” said Gus.
“Oh, shut up,” she screamed. Why was he always so exact? This was no time to be such a prig. Then she realized he was probably only trying to comfort her a little.
“Surely someone will come,” she said. “I know it’s still early, but somebody must have heard the plane crash.”
“I’m not sure,” said Gus. “What with the storm. And even if they do, they’ll go into the woods where they can see the smoke. That’s where the main fuselage will be.”
“Hello!” hollered Edie. “Hello.” But there was nothing. She was wasting time.
“Let’s go round the corner,” said Gus. “The more space we give the train to slow down, the better. We can try waving the mackintoshes. It the best hope we have.”
“The only hope,” said Edie.
