The train went right through and came out in another tunnel. Here there was a bright light, too. George peered out through the crack. There was more than a tunnel here! What looked like vast caves stretched away on each side of the tunnel, and men lounged about in them. Who on earth were they, and what were they doing with that old train?
There was a curious noise at the back of the train. The hole in the stout brick wall closed up once more! Now there was no way in or out. ‘It’s like the Open-Sesame trick in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,’ thought George. ‘And, like Ali Baba, I’m in the cave -and don’t know the way to get myself out! Thank goodness Timmy is with me!’
The train was now at a standstill. Behind it was the thick wall – and then George saw that in front of it was a thick wall, too! This tunnel must be bricked up in two places – and in between was this extraordinary
cavern, or whatever it was. George puzzled her head over the strange place, but couldn’t make head or tail ofit.
‘Well! Whatever would the others say if they knew you and I were actually in the spook-train itself, tucked away in its hiding-place where nobody in the world can find it?’ whispered George to Timmy. ‘What are we to do, Timmy?’
Timmy wagged his tail cautiously. He didn’t understand all this. He wanted to lie low for a bit and see how things turned out.
‘We’ll wait till the men have gone away, Timmy,’ whispered George. ‘That is, if they ever do! Then we’ll get out and see if we can manage that Open-Sesame entrance and get away. We’d better tell Mr Luffy about all this. There’s something very strange and very mysterious here – and we’ve fallen headlong into it!’
16 In the tunnel again
Jock was really enjoying himself at the camp. He had a picnic lunch with the others, and ate as much as they did, looking very happy. Mr Luffy joined them, and Jock beamed at him, feeling that he was a real friend.
‘Where’s George?’ asked Mr Luffy.
‘Gone off by herself,’ said Julian.
‘Have you quarrelled, by any chance?’ said Mr Luffy.
‘A bit,’ said Julian. ‘We have to let George get over it by herself, Mr Luffy. She’s like that.’
‘Where’s she gone?’ said Mr Luffy, helping himself to a tomato. ‘Why isn’t she back to dinner?’
‘She’s taken hers with her,’ said Anne. ‘I feel a bit worried about her, somehow. I hope she’s all right.’
Mr Luffy looked alarmed. ‘I feel a bit worried myself,’ he said. ‘Still, she’s got Timmy with her.’
‘We’re going off on a bit of exploring,’ said Julian, when they had all finished eating. ‘What are you going to do, Mr Luffy?’
‘I think I’ll come with you,’ said Mr Luffy, unexpectedly. The children’s hearts sank. They couldn’t possibly go exploring for spook-trains in the tunnel if Mr Luffy was with them.
‘Well – I don’t think it will be very interesting for you, sir,’ said Julian, rather feebly. However, Mr Luffy took the hint and’realised he wasn’t wanted that afternoon.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘In that case I’ll stay here and mess about.’
The children sighed with relief. Anne cleared up, with Jock helping her, and then they called goodbye to Mr Luffy and set off, taking their tea with them.
Jock was full of excitement. He was so pleased to be with the others, and he kept thinking of sleeping in the camp that night – what am it would be! Good old Mr Luffy, taking his side like that. He bounded after the others joyfully as they went off to the old railway yard.
Wooden-Leg Sam was pottering about there as usual. They waved to him, but he didn’t wave back. Instead he shook his fist at them and tried to bawl in his husky voice: ‘You clear out! Trespassing, that’s what you are. Don’t you come down here or I’ll chase you!’
‘Well, we won’t go down then,’ said Dick, with a grin. ‘Poor old man – thinking of chasing us with that wooden leg of his. We won’t give him the chance. We’ll just walk along here, climb down the lines and walk up them to the tunnel.’
Which is what they did, much to the rage of poor Sam. He yelled till his voice gave out, but they took no notice, and walked quickly up the lines. The mouth of the tunnel looked very round and black as they came near.
‘Now we’ll jolly well walk right through this tunnel and see where that spook-train is that came out of it the other night,’ said Julian. ‘It didn’t come out the other end, so it must be somewhere in the middle of the tunnel.’
‘If it’s a real spook-train, it might completely disappear,’ said Anne, not liking the look of the dark tunnel at all. The others laughed.
‘It won’t have disappeared,’ said Dick. ‘We shall come across it somewhere, and we’ll examine it
thoroughly and try and find out exactly what it is, and why it comes and goes in such a mysterious manner.’
They walked into the black tunnel, and switched on their torches, which made little gleaming paths in front of them. They walked up the middle of one pair of lines, Julian in front keeping a sharp lookout for anything in the shape of a train!
The lines ran on and on. The children’s voices sounded weird and echoing in the long tunnel. Anne kept close to Dick, and half wished she hadn’t come. Then she remembered that George had called her a coward, and she put up her head, determined not to show that she was scared.
Jock talked almost without stopping. Tve never done anything like this in my life. I call this a proper adventure, hunting for spook-trains in a dark tunnel. It makes me feel nice and shivery all over. I do hope we find the train. It simply must be here somewhere!’
They walked on and on and on. But there was no sign of any train. They came to where the tunnel forked into the second one, that used to run to Roker’s Vale. Julian flashed his torch on the enormous brick wall that stretched across the second tunnel.
‘Yes, it’s well and truly bricked up,’ he said. ‘So that only leaves this tunnel to explore. Come on.’
They went on again, little knowing that George and Timmy were behind that brick wall, hidden in a truck of the spook-train itself! They walked on and on down the lines, and found nothing interesting at all.
They saw a little round circle of bright light some way in front of them. ‘See that?’ said Julian. ‘That must be the end of this tunnel – the opening that goes into Kilty’s Yard. Well, if the train isn’t between here and Kilty’s Yard, it’s gone!’
In silence they walked down the rest of the tunnel,
and came out into the open air. Workshops were built all over Kilty’s Yard. The entrance to the tunnel was weed-grown and neglected. Weeds grew even across the lines there.
‘Well, no train has been out of this tunnel here for years,’ said Julian, looking at the thick weeds. ‘The wheels would have chopped the weeds to bits.’
‘It’s extraordinary,’ said Dick, puzzled. ‘We’ve been right through the tunnel and there’s no train there at all, yet we know it goes in and out of it. What’s happened to it?’
‘It is a spook-train,’ said Jock, his face red with excitement. ‘Must be. It only exists at night, and then comes out on its lines, like it used to do years ago.’
‘I don’t like thinking that,’ said Anne, troubled. ‘It’s a horrid thought.’
‘What are we going to do now?’ Julian asked. ‘We seem to have come to a blank. No train, nothing to see, empty tunnel. What a dull end to an adventure.’
‘Let’s walk back all the way again,’ said Jock – he wanted to squeeze as much out of this adventure as he could. ‘I know we shan’t see the train this time any more than we did the last time, but you never know!’
‘I’m not coming through that tunnel again,’ said Anne. ‘I want to be out in the sun. I’ll walk over the top of the tunnel, along the path there that Julian took the other night and you three can walk back, and meet me at the other end.’
‘Right,’ said Julian and the three boys disappeared into the dark tunnel. Anne ran up the path that led alongside the top of it. How good it was to be in the open air again! That horrid tunnel! She ran along cheerfully, glad to be out in the sun.
She got to the other end of the tunnel quite quickly, and sat down on the path above the yard to wait for the