Edie swallowed hard.
“Thank you!” she said. “Thank you very much.”
Gus was blinking a little and mumbling something else about honour and duty. This time she didn’t laugh. Instead she gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. They had done it. They had saved the train, all by themselves … except it wasn’t by themselves, of course. The German airman had been there too.
Edie felt her stomach tighten with anxiety. She glanced along the edge of the tracks, searching for any sign of him. She saw Gus looking too, his eyes scanning the trees on the bank. But neither of them said a word.
She knew they should raise the alarm. There was an enemy airman loose in the countryside. He was German, and everyone said the Germans were bad. But he had saved her life. He had saved hundreds of lives. He could have hidden in the bushes or fled, leaving them to stop the train alone. But he had stayed to help them. He might be the enemy, but he was a good man too, she was sure of that.
Her head was spinning, but in spite of the twisting worry in her stomach, she saw that it had turned into a beautiful day. It had stopped raining at last and pale morning sun was breaking through the clouds, making everything sparkle where it was still wet.
“Hop up quick,” said the driver and before Edie could say another word, he helped her scramble into the cab of the train. The step was so high she wouldn’t have been able to climb in by herself even if she didn’t have a sore knee. The driver gave Gus a bunk-up too and he squeezed in beside her on a little metal seat, next to the pit of roaring coals that drove the engine.
“I’ll need to propel the train backwards to the station and warn them,” shouted the driver above all the noise and clatter of the cab. “It’s not an easy business – especially with all these carriages. But the sooner we get back there, the sooner they can telegraph for help.”
He was already turning nobs and twisting dials, which hissed steam as the fireman shovelled coals.
Gus’s eyes were wide as he stared at all the levers and pistons.
“What’s that one for?” he asked, leaping to his feet as soon as the train was chugging backwards.
“That’s the injector,” hollered the driver. “It fills up the boiler, see? And this here’s the automatic brake… ”
While they were all looking at the engine and leaning out of the windows to stare down the line, Edie rolled up the edge of her sodden nightdress to examine her knee.
It wasn’t too bad, really. Just a deep cut. She’d had worse when she’d skidded in the playground on ice, in the terrible cold winter they’d had this year. Being as clumsy as she was, Edie was never without a scab or a bruise somewhere on her legs and knees.
She realized she was still holding a strip of white parachute silk. Nobody had asked them how they had made the flags – not yet, at least, although there were bound to be questions later. She tied the material tight around her leg like a bandage. It would stop any bleeding. Then she pulled her nightie back down over her knee.
A moment later, the train screeched backwards into the station. Everybody began to shout and there was a great commotion up and down the platform as news passed back and forward.
The driver leapt down and helped Edie and Gus from the cab. Within minutes signals had been changed and emergency calls sent out so that every train coming from north and south and stations all along the line had been warned that the track was not safe.
Perky was on the platform too, almost dancing with excitement at all the drama. “Drawn to disaster like a wasp to jam,” as his roly-poly aunty Patsy said, tweaking him by the ear.
“They’ve found the rest of the plane,” said Perky, when he had finished congratulating them and slapping them both on the back. “Smashed to smithereens in Bailey’s Wood. Aunty’s got the pony and trap outside; she’ll take us down to see it, if you like?”
“Oh!” Edie was still in a daze. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go anywhere near the crash site just yet. Seeing the plane plunge into the trees from a distance had shaken her up badly enough. The thought of being up close to the wreckage made her shiver. Gus seemed to hesitate for a moment now too.
“Perhaps I should take you home instead? You must have had a terrible shock,” said the postmistress kindly.
“Erm… ” Edie faltered for a moment, but Perky was already bustling them along the platform.
“Come on! How often do you get the chance to see a thing like this?” he said. “They reckon the plane might’ve been hit by an ‘ack-ack’ anti-aircraft gun in Maidbridge and tried to limp back to the coast. But then they got lost in the storm.” He beamed at Gus and Edie. “Who says all the excitement’s down in London, eh?”
“In you pop, then, if you’re sure you’re all right,” said his aunty Patsy. She seemed excited to see the crash too. A chubby grey pony, as round and roly-poly as she was herself, was standing between the shafts of a cart outside. “I hope you don’t mind a bit of squeeze.” She pointed to a sack full of letters and parcels. “I’ve got all my deliveries over Marlow Bridge way to do, yet.”
And before Edie knew it, they were on their way.
News travelled fast and most of the village seemed to have come to the wood to see the German plane.
Chunks of twisted wreckage were strewn between the trees. People scrambled amongst the debris, chattering and calling out to one another: “There’s a wheel
