“Thank you,” she whispered.
And, next moment, the train thundered into view like a great dragon billowing smoke.
“Stop!” Edie began to wave her flag and yell. “Stop!” she cried, leaping up and down. “Stop the train!”
Chapter Fourteen
“Our Duty In A Time Of War”
The train kept coming, roaring along the line towards them.
“Stop!” cried Edie. Her ears were pounding and her nose and throat were full of the sooty smell of smoke. “Stop! Oh, please stop!” Her voice was drowned out by the rattle and roar of the engine. She leant forward, right over the edge of the tracks, and waved her flag frantically in the air. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the German airman waving too.
“It’s no good,” she cried, and without even thinking, she grabbed his arm. “It’s no good at all.” If the train crashed, hundreds of people might be killed, it was travelling so fast. Pictures flashed through her mind of all the awful things she’d seen in London – bombed buildings, injured people, the broken shell of the Café de Paris. She couldn’t bear for something terrible to happen here too – not when she’d felt so safe at Three Chimneys. She had to stop that train!
Edie sprang forward, leaping over the wet rails and stood in the middle of the track itself, waving her flag more frantically than ever.
“Vorsicht!” cried the German, panic rising in his voice.
“Get back!” roared Gus from the other side. Edie knew she should listen. She knew it was dangerous and stupid to stand on the line, especially with the train hurtling towards her. But she had to make it stop.
Through the thick drizzle she heard a scream of breaks and a hiss of steam.
“It’s working,” she cried. “See!”
The train seemed to be slowing down at last.
She waved her flag one more time and leapt towards the safety of the bank. But her foot slipped on the wet rail as she jumped.
She heard her own voice scream – as if it was someone else very far away – and everything seemed to go into slow motion as she fell. Sharp pain seared through her knee as she hit the track. She tried to scramble to her feet, but her legs were caught up in the hem of the long mackintosh and she struggled like a fly in a web. She looked up and saw the train looming down on her – a roaring, rattling mass of flying sparks and flashing metal.
“Help!” she screamed. And she felt a hand grab her collar. She was whirled through the air so fast, everything was a blur.
Next thing she knew, she was lying on the wet grass and the German airman was staring down at her. The train had finally screeched to a halt. It was juddering and shuddering on the rails, shivering like an angry iron stallion, just a few inches from where she lay.
“We did it!” she murmured. The train had been stopped – they had prevented the crash. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a long, deep breath. By some miracle, she was still alive. All because the German airman had pulled her from the tracks.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “You saved my life.”
But, as she lifted her head, she saw that the young man had gone. He had vanished, melting away into the smoke and rain.
Edie was still trembling as the driver jumped down from the train. She had a big gash on her knee and stood, leaning on Gus’s shoulder.
“What the blazes did you kids think you were doing?” roared the engine driver. “It’s an offence to stop a train … not to mention how you could have been killed!”
“But … ” said Edie weakly. She really couldn’t find the words to explain. “There’s a plane … ” She waved her hand up the line in the direction of the wreckage.
“A what?” snapped the driver. Passengers were leaning out of the carriages now, staring down the line.
“A plane,” said Gus. “Or part of one, at least.”
“He’s right,” cried the sooty-faced fireman, who had jumped down, still holding his shovel from heaving coal into the engine, and run to the bend in the track. “I can see it. It’s blocking the whole bleeding line too. We’d have all been goners if we’d hit that!”
Word seemed to travel fast then, and all the passengers leaning out of the window began to clap and cheer. “These kids saved the train!” she heard a sailor in a white hat shout. Edie steadied herself against Gus’s shoulder. She tried to smile, but still felt a little sick.
“I owe you an apology,” said the driver, when he had been to look at the wreckage for himself. “You youngsters saved a lot of lives today, and no mistake.” He shook them both by the hand. “Without your quick thinking, there would have been a terrible catastrophe.”
Gus cleared his throat. “Thank you, but we were only doing our duty in a time of war,” he said in a stiff little voice.
“Oh, dear!” A laugh escaped from Edie’s lips. She couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the shock or the throbbing in her ears or the pain in her knee, but it suddenly seemed terribly funny that Gus was trying to be so serious and sounding so grown up.
The engine driver looked at her as he wiped his brow with his sleeve. “You all right there, Miss?”
“Never better,” said Edie. But that only made her laugh even more. Then suddenly she wasn’t laughing, she was crying and her nose was running and she was biting her lip.
“Sorry!” she said to Gus. She knew how he hated a fuss, but she saw that his eyes were shiny with tears too.
“Better get you home, I think,” said
