Waistcoats & Weaponry (13 page)

“I’d miss you, too, my lovely.”

“Would you stop leaning!” Sophronia actually was worried. Felix wasn’t trained to fall overboard the way she was.

“Looks like there is writing on the side of one of the freight cars. Can’t read it, though. Might be a hint.” He finally pulled himself to safety.

“Well,” said Sophronia philosophically, “since it looks to be headed in the correct direction, shall we try for it?”

“Why not?” said Sidheag.

They floated on with greater purpose, if no greater speed.

Unfortunately, the little breeze they were riding wasn’t fast enough. The engine of the train puffed to life, without the customary
toot of warning. This peculiar beastie was apparently interested in being stealthy. Or as stealthy as possible, for a train.

“We aren’t going to make it in time.” Sidheag looked resigned, but no closer to tears than normal. That was a relief. She seemed to be getting her gumption back.

Felix rounded on Soap. “Can’t you make her go faster?”

Soap did not dignify this with a reply. Airdinghies were designed for secrecy, not speed.

Sophronia took out her hurlie and lashed one of the airdinghy mooring ropes behind the grapple.

Dimity followed this action with wide, troubled eyes. “I do not think what you are about to do is a very good idea.”

Sophronia looked at Felix and Sidheag. “Can you rig something up with one of the other mooring ropes?”

Felix looked doubtful but went poking about the gondola for something sharp and curved.

Dimity produced an umbrella, but it was not strong enough.

“What we need is an anchor,” said Sophronia.

They closed in on the train; it was now spitting distance away.

It steamed up and began to leave the station with a quiet chug-chug.

Sophronia took aim and shot her grappling hook.

Felix leaned over the side and took a swing with an improvised lasso. He missed whatever protrusion he was aiming for.

Sidheag tutted at him and took the lasso away to give it a try. Being a gentleman, he let her, although he was clearly not pleased with ceding a sporting endeavor to a female. Sidheag, however, managed to loop the lasso over a finial-looking thing on the last passenger carriage on her first try.

Sophronia’s hurlie scraped along the top of the same passenger carriage and then hooked into the front top lip of the last coach. Now they had purchase on two points of the same carriage.

The train picked up speed out of the station and both ropes jerked. Sophronia, for added security, unstrapped her hurlie and fastened it to the railing of the gondola. She trusted Vieve to have built the hurlie to hold her weight, not necessarily to haul an airdinghy full of people.

The airdinghy leaned dangerously as it was suddenly being dragged along by a moving train. Luckily, the locomotive wasn’t moving fast. Nevertheless, an airship had not yet been built to be dragged along by something big on the ground.

“Soap,” yelled Sophronia into the wind, “we need to take her down, land her on top of the train.”

“Oh, miss, that’s not your best idea.”

“We can do it.”

“You, my dear, are overly optimistic!” said Felix, agreeing with Soap for once.

The gondola leaned all the way to one side. Dimity shrieked and almost tumbled over the edge. Sidheag grabbed on to her and the railing at the same time. Soap braced himself against the tiller, and then realized there was no point—the sail was now useless.

The train slowed. The airdinghy partly righted itself.

Soap pulled in the sail.

Sophronia said, “Everyone take a corner of the basket and let out the helium, slowly now, not too fast.”

“Oh god oh god oh god,” murmured Dimity, who up until that moment Sophronia would never have categorized as particularly religious. “This is bad.”

Sidheag agreed. “Cut us loose, Sophronia, you’re hurting the poor train. There’ll be another one along soon.”

But Sophronia
knew
they could do it. Plus, she was wildly curious about that strange-looking train. “Brace for it, and hold tight!”

Sidheag took one corner, Dimity another, Felix the third, Sophronia the fourth, with Soap holding the center and manning the controls.

Each of the four balloons had various dangling cords, but one cord in particular, lined with small red flags, was connected to the helium release flap at the base.

Sophronia nodded and they all tugged on their red flags at once.

The airdinghy jolted and sank like a stone.

“Whoa, stop, too much!” yelled Soap.

The train below them picked up speed and the gondola tilted in response.

Only Soap managed to hang on, possibly because he was the strongest among them. Everyone else cried and fell. Sidheag landed with her feet near Dimity’s head. Sophronia landed on Felix. The picnic hampers landed one on Sidheag’s foot and the other on Soap. Soap caught it by the handle and lashed it down to the base of the tiller with a few quick loops of spare rope. Sidheag grunted in pain but seemed no more than bruised.

“Well, Ria, this is nice,” said Felix.

Sophronia was plastered against him. She struggled to roll away. He put one skinny arm about her, keeping her close.

It was a bit too good feeling. Sophronia had a brief hysterical thought that perhaps Felix was like figgy pudding. Rich and
delicious but best sampled in moderation. A seasonal treat. He smelled amazing.

Sophronia righted herself and shrugged Felix off. “Ready, everyone, let’s try again. Little more gradual this time.”

Soap was tall enough to lean over and pull down on one release cord and then another. Sophronia rolled to one side and Dimity to the other, pulling on those flags. The basket sank some more. Felix and Sidheag began to ratchet in the mooring ropes. No easy task against the pull of the train, but they did their best.

It was working. By careful degrees they sank down, taking care to go toward the train before sinking further; otherwise they might be dragged directly behind and fall to the tracks. The mooring ropes had winches attached to the top. Sidheag and Felix strained against the levers.

Then, with a clunk, the gondola landed on the top of the rear passenger carriage. The basket was still on its side, which made for an awkward crash. The last of the helium escaped the balloons, and the balloons collapsed half on top of the train, half onto the basket and everyone’s heads. Quickly as they could, the five stowaways untangled themselves and climbed out. Sophronia knew they had made too much of a racket on the roof, but no one seemed interested in checking the source.

Everyone was bruised and shaken, but otherwise unharmed. Dimity was white faced but still functioning. After all, there had been no blood. Sidheag was looking, if anything, buoyed by the experience. Soap was stoic and calm. Felix was grinning.

“Jolly good,” he said, sounding a bit too much like a toff out on the town.

Sophronia gave him a quelling look and tried not to think about being pressed against him.

After a brief discussion, they decided to leave the airdinghy where it was. Its usefulness was weighed as superior to the fact that its discovery would alert others to their presence.

“Here’s hoping we don’t go through any tunnels” was Sophronia’s opinion.

They extracted their supplies. Mercifully, the picnic hampers had stayed latched during the landing, although Sophronia couldn’t vouch for the condition of the contents. The hard-boiled eggs had probably coddled in shock. They had to collect the clothing, scattered about, and stuff it back into the sack.

Sophronia’s heart was in her mouth. “Oh, no, where’s Bumbersnoot!”

She began frantically rustling through the collapsed balloons, her world in crisis. Had he fallen out? Was he lying damaged and alone in the middle of the moor?

Soap produced him from within the second picnic basket. “Stashed him there for safety when we first took to the skies.”

Sophronia clutched her mechanimal gratefully. “Oh, thank goodness!” She resisted a near-overwhelming urge to embrace Soap.

Bumbersnoot wagged his tail at her and tooted a bit of smoke out his ears in excitement.

The train rattled along at a snail’s pace, for which Sophronia was grateful. They lashed down the gondola and rolled up the balloons as much as they could. Then they cautiously made their way to the side and peered over the edge. Like most
first-class carriages, this one had three doors along its side for boarding at a station, one to each separate compartment. There was no ladder or way to climb down, and simply a footboard at the coach door.

Soap, who’d only ever seen a train from above, was intrigued. “It’s like they stuck three horse coaches together.”

Sophronia smiled at him. “I believe that was the basis of the design, yes.”

“We’ll have to all share one coach, then, won’t we, miss?”

“I know, terribly uncouth, girls and boys traveling together without a chaperone.” Sophronia gently mocked his prudishness, especially since they’d recently been tumbling all over one another in a balloon.

“I suppose we need to be able to communicate,” relented Soap, who nevertheless looked wistfully down at the footboard of the middle door, as if he actually wanted to be separated from the girls and alone with Felix for the rest of the evening.

Felix, who by rights ought to have been more gallant than Soap about everyone’s sensibilities, only gave the sootie a scornful look.

Sophronia selected the very last of the three doors.

She looped Bumbersnoot’s reticule strap over her neck and went first, without discussion. Carefully, holding fast to the roof railings, she eased over the edge and lowered herself down. She was tall enough so that when her arms were fully extended, she only had a short drop. It was tricky, as the footboard wasn’t very wide. She wobbled dangerously on the landing and nearly tumbled off the train entirely. Sidheag and Soap, who were tall, would have an easier time of it, but she’d have to watch
Felix and Dimity carefully. She peeked in the small window of the coach door. Inside, it was dark and apparently vacant. She motioned for the others to wait while she fished her picks out of a pocket and jimmied the lock. The tumblers went over without protest. She scooted along the footboard, out of the way, and the door opened easily.

It was eerie inside. Moonlight filtered in from the windows opposite the door, slanting across the two facing blue velvet benches and dust motes in the air. The compartment was definitely empty, and she would lay good money on the other two being vacant as well. This entire first-class carriage seemed deserted. The coach held no luggage and no evidence that occupation was ever intended. It was odd, like a ghost train.

Sophronia, thinking of her exhausted friends, made a quick decision. It was unlikely anyone else could climb down as they had, so they should be safe until they reached a station. Climbing back to the roof and down to the next-over footboard seemed like an excess of precautions when this coach was safe and empty, and she was exhausted. She put Bumbersnoot down on the floor to snuffle about in the dark. If he came across anything unusual, he’d swallow it either to burn in his boiler or to be kept in storage. Which reminded her of the present delivered by Mrs. Barnaclegoose. There came a clattering behind her, and she forgot once more.

Soap swung down and in. With the door open, the narrowness of the footboard was not such a challenge. One could simply dismount by falling forward into the coach. Which was what he did.

“Ah, good, you managed it,” greeted Sophronia.

Soap gave her a dour look.

“I know, stuck with all us girls, must be tragic for you.”

The others began leaning over from the roof and passing or throwing down the supplies, with Sidheag and Dimity, trained in stealth, trying their best to keep Felix muffled. There could, of course, be occupants in the other carriages, but they were either heavy sleepers or the sound of the train covered any noises made by the five new passengers in first class. Six if you counted Bumbersnoot.

They crammed inside the coach. As Soap had feared, it was a mite intimate for society standards. Sophronia closed and bolted the door, drawing the curtains over both it and the windows opposite in just such a way that she could peek out a corner if needed. From the outside the drapes would appear messy enough to have unintentionally rattled loose, to the untrained eye.

The five sat down and looked at one another in profound relief. The three girls took the forward-facing bench. The two boys sat opposite. This seating arrangement ensured a respectable distance between them, one that even Mrs. Temminnick might approve. First-class coaches were
luxurious
. Although, after falling on top of one another in an airdinghy recently, such concerns seemed silly. And Soap still looked uncomfortable with the arrangement.

Save Sidheag, they were all still wearing masquerade outfits, without masks, hair sticking up or fallen loose.

“We must look a treat,” said Dimity into the exhausted silence.

Sophronia shook herself. “You’re right, we should change. Best if we look more like stowaways, in case we do get caught.”

The boys rose and made as if to leave the coach.

Sophronia had no idea where they intended to go, perhaps outside to balance on the footboard or climb back onto the roof? She shook her head. “We should stick together. We’ll have to trust you two to turn around and not look.”

Dimity went white as a sheet, more terrified by this than the hair-raising ride they had recently endured. “Must we? If anyone finds out, our reputations will be in absolute tatters, so…”

“We must ensure no one finds out,” said Sidheag, already unbuttoning her hideous tweed dress.

Then Soap, still facing them, went red as a beet at Sidheag’s action and hastily turned to face the back of his seat, eyes screwed tightly shut.

Felix, after one startled glance, did the same. He did not look quite so embarrassed.

Sidheag continued with her changing while Sophronia upended the bag of clothes. She rummaged through for something that looked to fit her friend, realizing that they’d have to cannibalize the train curtain cords for belts. Dimity helped Sidheag remove her corset, tight lipped with disapproval. Sophronia envied her the fact that she didn’t have to wrap. Sidheag donned a shirt, vest, and trousers. Her boots were already so practical as to be almost masculine. Once out of her dress, she looked very like a boy, lanky with mannish features. Were it not for her long hair, she could pass without further mussing.