The Titanic Secret Page 28

  By the time Bell got to the melee, Charlie Widney was heaving the last of the attackers over his shoulder and into the black waters of the harbor. Captain Fyrie and Arn Bjørnson had remained on the ship but seemed prepared to join in had the fight gone differently. Farther down the pier, additional men were spilling from the back of the grocer’s cart under the direction of Gly and Massard.

  In the other direction were the two open-bed Leyland trucks. Bell pointed at one, and shouted to Brewster, “Move that to the gangway.” He looked back at the Icelandic captain. “Can your men load the ore onto the truck?”

  “We’ve got it. Go!”

  “And please grab my travel bag from my cabin.” Bell pulled the knife from its ankle sheath. “Follow me.”

  He ran to the end of the gangway and dodged left toward where Gly and Massard’s men were gathering. The numbers seemed evenly matched, but these men were big, healthy-looking, and eager to get at it, while the Coloradans were a little bloodied from the first round. And yet they didn’t hesitate. Except for Brewster, who was turning the truck’s engine crank so they could steal it, the miners rushed after Isaac Bell like a pack of baying hounds.

  The two groups crashed together like opposing football teams, only the idea was to maim and kill rather than merely tackle. Bell managed to stab one man in the arm before ducking out from under a swinging club. That man was struck in the shoulder by Walt Schmidt, brandishing the flensing knife like a halberd. The blood looked black in the murky dockside lighting.

  Men scrambled and fought, throwing punches and heaving weapons when the confines were too tight to swing. Bell looked for Gly or Massard. For them, he’d risk pulling the .45 and ending this now, but neither man showed himself. Someone swung a length of chain at his head. He threw up an arm, and the links coiled around his bicep. He clutched at the end of the chain, and both he and his adversary pulled at the exact same instant. The tension as they pulled made the links as taut as an iron bar, and each man strained to best the other.

  Knowing how to end the stalemate, Bell willed himself to relax and let the man yank him forward. He couldn’t get an angle with the knife, so he whipped past his opponent and then planted a foot and swung his body with everything he had. His extra momentum yanked the attacker backward, and Bell was able to swing him hard enough that when he released his grip on the chain, it rattled free of his arm and the man went plunging off the dock and into Aberdeen Harbor.

  Around him, bloodied men fought desperate battles. On the filthy concrete, those who lost the melee lay moaning or dead. Bell still couldn’t find Gly or Massard. He tried to reach the grocer’s wagon to see if they were hiding behind it, but one of the men ran at him with a bat. Bell ducked back and the man held his ground, a smug look on his unshaven face. Another came to join him at his side, and just as quickly as the two groups of men had attacked each other, they separated to take a breather, as if this were a boxing match and the round had ended.

  The Hvalur Batur’s whistle suddenly blew during the lull. Bell hadn’t set up a signal with Ragnar Fyrie, but it sounded like the crew had finished loading the byzanium ore and the ride out of this trap was ready. Like schooling fish or a flock of birds that change direction as one entity, the miners wheeled and started running back toward the ship. Their attackers, winded by the fight, were still game and were about to give chase.

  Bell pulled his .45 from its holster and held it in such a way that the brawlers saw its silhouette. “First man to take a step gets one in the heart.”

  30

  Bell’s action had the desired result. The fighters stopped in their tracks, giving him a chance to race after his people. He heard Gly behind him and stopped to look back. The bald Scotsman had been behind the wagon. He was now on the seat, cajoling his men to pursue. Bell took aim, but he was already too far away for an accurate shot. He was also down to just six bullets. He turned to follow the miners, the heavy pistol swinging from one hand while the other held his blood-smeared knife.

  The ten wooden crates were settled in the truck’s flat bed and the engine was purring. Arn was sitting behind the wheel and had his hand on the gearshift ready to wrestle it into drive.

  “What are you doing?” Bell asked, panting.

  “I’ve been to Aberdeen before. I know how to get out of the city.”

  Not about to pass up local expertise, Bell stepped onto the running board while the others piled atop the treasured crates. “Let’s go.”

  With a thousand pounds of ore, and two thousand more of men, the Leyland was grossly overloaded and had barely started creeping forward when Arn engaged the transmission. The heavy links of its chain drive slipped a few cogs as the machine tried to overcome so much inertia. Bell, Charlie Widney, and John Caldwell—the youngest of the miners at nineteen—all jumped from the vehicle and started pushing it to build up some speed before clambering aboard again. Well behind them, Foster Gly had managed to turn the team of horses and was starting to give chase, his men hanging from the sides of the wagon or clinging to its roof.

  Bell watched them come. It took him just a few seconds to see that the old horses were actually faster than the Leyland, at least until the truck could build up more speed. The problem would come when they hit the streets of Aberdeen. It was late enough that traffic had thinned, but there were certainly going to be delays. Further impeding them was the necessity of slowing to a crawl in order to make a turn. And then acceleration, once they were clear, would be painfully slow.

  The only thing keeping Gly from pressing his attack was Bell’s .45 pistol, yet he knew a missed shot would put any late-night pedestrians at unacceptable risk. If Gly had been able to bring weapons from France, Bell doubted he’d have qualms about firing indiscriminately into the crowd. He was grateful the thug had arrived without firearms.

  There was a night watchman at a guardhouse where the dock ended and the city streets began. He might have heard the pistol shot had the fight not taken place too far down the quay from him to detect. He looked alert as the lumbering truck approached, while a hundred yards back the grocer’s wagon was coming like it was a sulky in a harness race. The guard carried only a flashlight and he waved it like a train conductor to get their attention and compel them to stop. He would certainly know the truck’s rightful owner and recognize that none of the men hanging from it were he. Behind him, a chain-link gate was pulled closed across the road but didn’t look like it had been padlocked.

  “What do I do?” Arn asked.

  “Ignore him and keep going,” Bell said. He and Arn drew their bodies tight against the truck’s cab as they raced past the astonished watchman and slammed into the swinging gate. The impact didn’t slow the truck but left the wire gates bent and quivering and emitting an odd metallic warble. The guard shouted after them as they motored on.

  “With luck, he’ll face down the horses,” Bell said, “and buy us a little time.”

  Just a couple of blocks from the dock was Aberdeen’s fifty-year-old train station, a crumbling affair soon to be replaced with a modern building. The truck’s motor was working doubly hard trying to move its ponderous load, and Bell realized there was a better way to do this.

  Bell said, “Drive past the station and turn left along the outgoing tracks. We need something faster than this truck.”

  Before they made the corner, Bell looked back. Just before the guard shack went out of view, he saw the watchman had placed himself in the middle of the exit, and the horses, so well conditioned, had stopped at the gate and no amount of urging by Gly would get them moving again. In moments, the guard would be manhandled aside, but Bell was getting the additional time he needed.

  The truck went extra wide through the corner and almost plowed headfirst into an oncoming car. That vehicle had to cut sharply to the inside of the truck at the last second, the ashen-faced driver recovering his wits enough to curse them out. The maneuver didn’t cost them as much s
peed as it would have if Arn had stayed in his own lane, and they were accelerating again almost immediately. Beyond the passenger terminal, along College Street, were the freight yards. They were mostly hidden from the city by a corrugated metal fence, but there were gates leading into the secured depot. Farther ahead, the road had been torn up in preparation for the construction of the new Aberdeen rail station. The overburdened truck wouldn’t stand a chance through this area where the macadam and cobbles had been dislodged.

  Bell had Arn stop next to one of the gates and made short work of the lock with his pick. Beyond, he could hear the huff and snort of locomotives and the clank of rail couplings. Like before, men needed to hop out of the Leyland to get it moving again once Bell swung the gates open. Because they were metal sheets, Bell couldn’t resecure the lock from the inside, so he found some proper-sized stones to use as ballast from a nearby railbed and wedged them on either side of the gates’ roller wheels so they couldn’t move.

  “What are we doing, Bell?” Joshua Hayes Brewster demanded from the back of the truck, where he sat atop the crates like a Near Eastern potentate.

  “Our truck doesn’t have the power to outrace those two nags hauling the meat wagon.”

  “So? Gly won’t get too close. You’ve got a gun, and it doesn’t look like he could smuggle any into England.”

  “I have less than a full magazine. After that, my pistol’s just a fancy paperweight.”

  Brewster didn’t respond, and Bell concentrated on his surroundings. There were a half dozen rail spurs that led out of the yard and progressively merged until becoming a single track running parallel to the passenger line as it followed the River Dee out of Aberdeen. A string of freight cars sat idle on the far track and appeared to be abandoned. On another spur, a small shunting locomotive was backing in a row of slat-sided wagons used to move livestock.

  Closer was a more modern train, with metal freight carriages. The locomotive, a 0-6-2 from the Stoke Works, was attached, steam streaming around its six tall drive wheels, while brakemen and the engineer performed visual checks. At the rear of the train was the guard’s van—what in the States was referred to as the caboose. There were gravel crossings over the rails for vehicles, overhead platforms with stairs for workers. Halfway down the depot was a tower with an observation platform for the yardmaster to coordinate freight handling and switches when the yard was busy.

  Bell didn’t see any security, as he might at an American depot, and wondered if England didn’t have the need, as no one tried to illegally ride the rails. He was glad for it. They didn’t have time for a confrontation with a bunch of thick-necked railway bulls.

  He pointed to where he wanted Arn to park the truck. It was a spot just behind the locomotive’s coal/water tender and next to a boxcar with an open door and room enough for the byzanium ore.

  “Who are you and what’s all this?” a brakeman, in smudged overalls, asked when the truck’s engine shuddered to silence. He had a working-class accent that was almost too thick to understand.

  Bell ignored the question and asked one of his own. “What train is this?”

  “The ten-ten to Glasgow. What’s it to you?”

  Bell leapt from the truck’s running board and approached the train’s engineer, the confused brakeman following in his wake and muttering to himself, “This is the ten-ten to Glasgow. Right?”

  “Aye,” the engine driver said, eyeing Bell suspiciously.

  “Mr. McDougal asked that we load these ten crates and accompany them to Glasgow Station.” It was pure bluff.

  And it didn’t work. “I don’t know any Mr. McDougal. And I don’t care if the King himself asked ye to put them boxes onto me train. It isn’t gonna happen. Now, who are ya and what’s yer business here?”

  “So much for the easy way,” Bell muttered. He moved so that the brakeman and engineer were in front of him and pulled the .45 from behind his back. Both men’s mouths turned into matching round holes and the color drained from their faces. Their hands went up instinctually. “My men are going to load our cargo, and then you’re taking us to Glasgow.”

  “Easy there, mate,” the engineer said when he could find his voice. “We don’t want any trouble.”

  “Nor do I want to give you any,” Bell said mildly. “Yet here we are. Is the train ready to leave?”

  “It is. But, we’ve another fifteen minutes until we depart.”

  “No one ever complains when a train’s early, only when it’s late. Get aboard and let’s get going.”

  “You don’t understand. The track may not be clear. Our railroads run on very tight schedules.”

  “We can slow down once we’re out of Aberdeen, but we are leaving now.”

  “I won’t do it,” the engineer said defiantly, feeling that since it was he who knew how to drive the train, he had some leverage with his would-be abductor.

  Bell shouted over to where the Coloradans were loading the crated rocks into the goods wagon. “Can any of you men help me run a locomotive?”

  Alvin Coulter poked his head out of the boxcar. “In my sleep, Mr. Bell.”

  Seeing his leverage disappear, the engineer started blubbering. “Please, don’t shoot us, mister.”

  Bell rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to shoot anyone.”

  The blast from the gun was like standing inside a thunderclap.

  An instant before Bell’s ears registered the noise, obscene pits appeared on the brakeman’s face and neck as a dozen pellets from a shotgun at full choke raked his body as well as that of the engine tender behind him.

  Bell lost a fraction of a second to shock and horror and then leapt sideways while the gore-spattered engineer just stood there paralyzed with fear. Bell rolled when he hit the stony ground so that he was facing back toward where the blast originated, his .45 brought to bear. Around him, as though trained by professionals, the Coloradans went into action like soldiers. The last of the crates were heaved into the railcar while Alvin Coulter, John Caldwell, and Vern Hall raced for the locomotive cab by first climbing over the tender’s coupling and using its bulk as cover.

  Knowing how few rounds remained in his pistol, Bell held his fire until he had better situational awareness and fully understood the scope and press of the attack. Near the gate they’d entered, he saw the upper half of several men just outside the wall. They had to be standing atop the delivery wagon. Yves Massard was there, holding a smoking shotgun pressed to his shoulder as he prepared to fire another shot. Other men were trying to find a way over the coiled barbed wire that topped the fence.

  Bell didn’t know why Massard hadn’t used the gun back at the dock unless he and Gly thought they could get the job done with muscle alone or they didn’t want to draw undue attention. As he’d thought at the time, his single shot had been ignored, but a protracted gun battle would have brought the police.

  Two thoughts struck him as he ran under a pull cart loaded with quarter-ton hogsheads of distilled Scotch whiskey. The first was that the shotgun had to be an expensive model to fire such a tight grouping at the range Massard had engaged from. The other was that the Frenchman wasn’t a very good shot, because he’d pulled it to the left and killed the brakeman rather than firing the double-aught straight into Bell’s back.

  The shotgun roared again, and the gravel in front of Bell’s position turned into so much shrapnel when the lead pellets raked its surface. His eyes were spared the worst of it, but they teared up from a faceful of grit. His skin burned where sharp stone chips bit into his flesh. As the Frenchman was reloading, Al Coulter, who’d reached the locomotive’s cab, vented a shrieking blast of steam from the boiler that enveloped the train in a dense white cloud. Unseen in the mist, the engine began to creep forward, causing the string of mechanical couplings to clank taut.

  Under cover of the cloud of steam, Bell scrambled out from under the cart and climbed up into the moving l
ocomotive’s cab. It was a tight fit, with all four men, but the labor of shoveling coal from the tender into the firebox would be better shared with him present.

  Massard fired two more times. For the most part, the pellets pinged off the rolled-steel boiler, but a couple found their way into the cab and ricocheted for a couple of terrifying moments before falling harmlessly to the floor. Massard’s men were unable to find a way through the concertina wire without tearing themselves to shreds, and the gate remained impassable despite the unseen efforts of more hired thugs trying to force it from the outside.

  For good measure, Alvin sounded the whistle as the train gathered speed out of the rail yard. Bell watched the wall, where Massard’s men were coming to the realization that they’d failed and were giving up their struggle to breach the wire. They watched bovinely as the train continued to pull inexorably from the depot. Massard was ready when it drew abreast of his position. It was his best angle from which to fire down on the locomotive. The door to the boxcar containing the ore and the remaining miners was closed on the Frenchman’s side, so all his rage was focused on the cab.

  Unwilling to risk Massard’s getting off a lucky shot, Bell fired off three rounds just before both barrels of the Purdey 12-gauge thundered. From a moving vehicle, and at well over eighty paces, one of Bell’s shots still managed to strike one of Massard’s men and spin him into the tangle of razor wire. It was enough of a distraction to throw the Frenchman’s aim off. The tight spread of pellets peppered the engine’s tender.

  And then the train was past the danger zone. The relief at making such an audacious escape made Bell laugh aloud. The others—Coulter and the two acting stokers, Hall and Caldwell—joined in.

  31

  The depot’s six rail spurs merged into a single track out of the yard, and, by necessity, Coulter kept the speed down so the train didn’t derail. They were also hauling at least a dozen cars, and the weight slowed the locomotive.