Most of the vehicles were abandoned, some burning or overturned. Wounded animals screamed, their voices shrill over the calling of hundreds—thousands—from within the great building, adding the last touch of hell. Wounded men were pouring out of the tall blushwood portals and out into the square, all of them who could move. Or could stagger along grasping at the walls, or support each other, or crawl. The stink of death and gangrene came with them in waves, strong enough that even a few of the marines gagged at it.
“Sir,” Henry said, “we’d never have made it down if we’d left half an hour later. And there’s no way in hell we’re going to drive back to the embassy.”
“No,” John said, smiling slightly as he checked his pistol and then slid it back into the shoulder-holster under his frock coat. “But I don’t think we’ll have much of a problem finding my wife.”
He nodded towards the left-hand tower. Someone on top had strung two strips of brightly colored cloth from corner windows to the middle of the front facing, and another straight down from the point at which they met. Together they formed an arrow—>, pointing upward at the tower-top. He took his binoculars out of the dashboard compartment and focused on the tiny figure waving at the apex of the signal.
“Let’s go,” he said.
* * *
The driver cleared his throat. John released Pia and stepped back; even then, in that charnel house of a place, the Marines were grinning. Pia blushed and tucked strands of hair back under her snood.
“Sir,” Harry said, “We’re not going to get back to the embassy.”
“No, we have to get out of the city entirely,” John said thoughtfully.
They were in one of the loading bays of the station; fewer bodies here, fewer of the moaning, fevered wounded. None of the Marines was what you’d call squeamish—they’d all seen action in the Southern Islands—but several of them were looking pale. So did Pia’s friend; a couple of the troopers were courteously handing her safety pins to help fasten up her ripped dress.
“Sure you’re all right?” John asked again.
“As right as can be,” Pia said stoutly. “We cannot go to the embassy?”
John shook his head. “The fires are out of control, and there’s fighting in the streets. The Chosen are close to the western end of the city, too.”
Pia shivered and nodded. John turned his head slightly.
“Sinders,” he said, “didn’t you say you worked for the North Central Rail before you joined the corps?”
Sinders blinked at him. “Lord love you, sir, so I did,” he said. “Locomotive driver. Had a bit of a falling out with the section foreman, like.”
Someone spoke sotto voce: “Had a bit of a falling down with his daughter, you mean.”
“Follow me,” John said. He hopped down from the platform; cinders crunched under his boots. They handed down the women and walked over the tracks to the other side of the vast shed. “There, that one. Could you drive it?”
A steam engine and its fuel car stood pointing eastward; vapor leaked from several places, hiding the green-and-gold livery of the Imperial Pada Valley line.
“Sure, sir. It’s Santander made, anyway—standard 4–4–2, rebuilt for the Imperial broad gauge. That’s if we got time to raise steam, that could take a while.”
“It has steam up,” John said. Center drew a thermal schematic over his sight.
“But where would we go on it, sir?”
“East a ways, at least.”
The Marines looked uncertain. “Ah, beggin’ yer pardon, sir,” the corporal said “But ain’t those Land buggers all around?”
“Maybe not to the east. And if we do run into them, we’ve got a better chance of standing on diplomatic immunity when they’re in the field and under control by their officers than when they’re turned loose on the city. I can speak Landisch and I’ve got the necessary papers.”
And code words to prove he was a double agent working for Land Military Intelligence, if it came to that. Useful with the army, although the Fourth Bureau would probably kill him. Military Intelligence was as much the Fourth Bureau’s enemy as anything in Santander was.