One Shot Kill - Robert Muchamore Page 0,19

sisters to feed,’ Justin said. ‘This is my work. I sneak into a loaded wagon on the way out. On the way back I work along all the skips, collecting the lumps of coal. Every wagon has a few bits that don’t get tipped out.’

‘Quite a scheme,’ Rosie said.

‘I can sell you coal if you want it,’ the boy said, as he scratched his matted hair. ‘I do OK, but the dust makes you itch like a bastard.’

Edith laughed, because it was kind of cute hearing this little lad swear. ‘I don’t need coal.’

‘I could swap coal for food if you haven’t got money.’

‘You must come from somewhere,’ Rosie said.

‘Course,’ the boy said. ‘But you didn’t tell me your name when I told you mine, which is being evasive.’

He made evasive sound important. As if it was the new word he’d learned in school the week before.

‘I’m Rosie,’ Rosie said, though she realised she should have lied. ‘Do you ever get caught?’

‘Loadsa times,’ Justin said. ‘The driver and guard let me be, but the railway police bash me up if they catch me.’

‘Sounds rough.’

‘Tunnel,’ Justin said urgently, before taking a quick breath and burying his face inside his jacket.

Rosie didn’t understand why until they plunged into pitch darkness. The blast of steam from the engine billowed around the tunnel, and air currents blew up a storm of coal dust off the wagons. She began coughing, then made things worse by rubbing her eye with a blackened finger.

Justin sounded exhilarated when they came out. ‘You’ve gotta take a deep breath when you see a tunnel. It’s actually fun once you get used to it.’

Rosie didn’t see the appeal as she hunted blindly for her water and blinked the grit out of her eye. Then she remembered Edith and turned anxiously to see what the tunnel had done to her.

‘Did your friend fall off the horse or something?’ Justin asked.

Rosie couldn’t tell whether the dust had affected Edith. But she was starting to realise that Justin might be more than an irritation.

‘So where do you get off the train?’ Rosie asked.

‘She needs a doctor,’ Justin said, as he went down on one knee and studied Edith more closely.

‘I know she does.’

‘You’ve got a gun,’ Justin said. ‘She’s got whip marks on her arms, and that looks like a cigarette burn on her neck. Did you kidnap her?’

Rosie sounded irritated. ‘Answer my question. Where do you get off the train?’

Justin smirked. ‘You’re not answering my questions either.’

Rosie put her hand on the gun. ‘That’s because I’ve got this and you haven’t.’

‘I suppose that’s true,’ Justin said, as he sat down on the platform cross-legged. ‘I get off the train near my house. There’s a water tower where the train has to stop and fill up. I live right by it.’

‘She’s going to die if I don’t get her to a doctor quickly. Is there a doctor near where you live?’

‘You can walk to the doctor in town.’

‘She doesn’t have documents,’ Rosie said. ‘Are there checkpoints?’

Justin backed up a little, scared, impressed and confused all at once. ‘You’re on the run from the Boche, aren’t you? Tunnel coming up in a second!’

This time Rosie put a wet rag over Edith’s nose and mouth before pulling her jacket up over her face. This tunnel was longer than the first and when they emerged there was a blacked-out town silhouetted in a valley below the tracks.

‘I can pay if you help me find a doctor,’ Rosie said, as she showed a ten-franc note.

Justin looked offended. ‘You think I’d take money for helping a sick person?’

‘And is your doctor a good person? Can we trust him?’

‘Her,’ Justin said, as he shrugged. ‘I think she’s OK. I went once when I went deaf and had to get my ear syringed. Mum was broke, but the doctor said pay something when you can. Have you ever had your ear syringed? It’s so loud, cos they’re shooting water right in your lughole.’

Justin’s mix of street-smarts and boyishness lightened Rosie’s mood after bleak hours with nothing but dark thoughts for company. She reached into her backpack and passed over a stick of high-energy chocolate.

‘Suck it or it’ll break your teeth,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s survival rations. Like they give to RAF pilots, in case they get shot down.’

Justin beamed as he peeled the foil off the chocolate and tried biting a corner off.

‘Bloody hell,’ Justin said, before bursting out laughing. ‘Tunnel!’

CHAPTER TEN

Apart from nightly rides on the coal train, Justin didn’t travel