Chapter 1

I was so exhausted by the time I landed that as soon as I’d tied everything down I just fell asleep in my harness.

Even in thick clothes, sleeping half hanging in a harness, propped up awkwardly against a rock on a cold hillside, is not ideal. I have no idea how long I slept like that. I woke from terrible nightmares.

My left arm was numb and completely unresponsive, and it took me some minutes massaging it with my right hand to get the circulation going. The cold, stale blood invading my innards made me feel very ill, and my head pounded.

With my left arm still feeling rather wooden it was difficult to get out of my harness, but eventually I succeeded. I drank some water, stuffed some clothes into my rucksack, and headed down the hill.

I met an old chap in the village. He seemed friendly, but we didn’t have any language in common. As far as I could make out he was telling me in mime that if I took a right turn further down the road, I’d get to a railway.

At the end of the village there was a muddy track to the right. I thought, that can’t be it, and walked on. After what seemed a long way I reached a crossroads, and took the road to the right.

I rounded the shoulder of a small hill, and found I was entering a narrow valley. Further down I could see houses with rough dry-stone walls and flagstone roofs, their backs built into the valley sides, and their fronts straight onto the road. As I approached, ragamuffin children ran into the road in front of me, stared at me for a moment, then dashed back into the houses before I reached them. I saw no sign of any adults, but suspected they were watching me from the dark openings of their glassless windows, or out of their open doors. It was cold, but I couldn’t smell any smoke. I didn’t think anyone had lit their fire for the evening yet.

It didn’t seem a very welcoming place. With luck there might be a railway in a mile or two. I pressed on.

It was a long mile or two. It'll get dark before long, and I'll have to find somewhere to stay. I was just considering going back to that last village, when I saw a flickering light high on the hillside, and a rough track leading towards it. In the gloom, I could make out trees around the light – the first trees I’d seen since I landed.

I headed up the track, hoping the people would be hospitable.

The woods were thick on each side of the track, and almost closed overhead, forming a dark tunnel; but the track was better here, and I could see the firelight ahead.

The house was much grander than those in either of the villages I’d seen. The walls were dressed stone, straight and tall, and the entrance was a double door of finely carved wood, glazed in the upper half with small panes of clear glass. I could see through them into a grand hallway, lit by a fire in a huge fireplace.

I knocked at the door – it had a heavy iron ring for a knocker. The sound echoed, but there was no response. I pushed the door gently, and it opened quite easily. I went in, and called softly, “Is there anyone at home?”

There was still no response, but I could hear a murmuring, as of many people chattering at some distance. I stood in front of the fire for a while, wondering what to do next, and hoping someone would come and find me.

The floor was featureless – a dull, dark red, very smooth and almost waxy looking, but not at all slippery. I’d no idea what it was made of. I was pretty sure there was nothing like it back in England.

A wide passageway led from the hall, dimly lit by oil lanterns with glass chimneys that disappeared through the ceiling. I decided to investigate. After ten metres or so there was a half-glazed door on the right, similar to the entrance door, followed by a series of windows in a similar style. Through the windows I could see people sitting at candlelit tables, chattering and laughing. Opposite the windows the passageway opened out into another hall, similar to the first, but larger. I stood for a moment in the hall, wondering whether to approach the people in the adjacent room, or wait for them to approach me.

Then there were people issuing from another passageway.

A tall, middle-aged lady came over to me. Her clothes were like nothing I’d ever seen before, patterned in seemingly random blotches of strong, dark colours. Her skirt hung like a curtain, with deep folds, and brushed the floor. Her blouse puffed out around her body and upper arms. She seemed to be about to speak, then stopped, as if not knowing what to say. She made a gesture that I took as an invitation to speak.

“I was hoping that you’d allow me to lie by your fire for the night.”

She stared at me, then turned to a lady beside her and spoke in a language I didn’t recognize, much less understand.

Suddenly I was surrounded. They didn’t look unfriendly, just perplexed. They all stared at me, then turned to each other and began talking earnestly. Finally a tall, elderly man pushed through the throng, and said, in English, “I am Haarig. You speaking English?”

I almost collapsed with relief; but he scarcely understood a word I said, and wasn’t able to say much in English. I thought he confirmed the existence of the railway, but I wasn’t sure. But I didn’t sleep by the fire. They fed me well, and gave me a comfortable bed.

Striding down the track in the morning, my mood was much lighter. I’d slept better than I had in a long time. Above all, however little they and I had understood each other, I felt cared for. It was even colder than it had been the previous evening, but the sky was blue, and I’d had a nourishing, warm breakfast. My rucksack felt lighter on my back, despite having a generous packed lunch in it.

Back on the road, I tried to make good time. I wondered what the train service would be like when I finally reached the railway – and how much further it really was. And how I was going to pay for my ride. If there was really a railway at all.

I came out onto a high, steep escarpment, overlooking a vast plain. The road descended in a series of hairpin bends.

At the foot of the slope was the railway, a single narrow-gauge track. I could see where the road crossed it at an unmarked, ungated crossing. There was no sign of a station as far as I could see in either direction.

It took me about half an hour to get down to the railway. I was relieved to see that the track was well used: the running surfaces were bright and shiny, completely rust free. There was a footpath alongside. But which way was the station?

I was about to choose a direction at random when I heard what I thought was a distant train. I looked both ways, but couldn’t yet see anything. I climbed onto a rock close by the line to see further, and saw the train coming from the east. On an impulse, I decided to wave as it approached – and was astonished when the driver waved back, and brought the train to a squealing halt.

It wasn’t a passenger train. The wagons were windowless vans. The driver beckoned to me, and gave me a hand up onto the footplate. Without a word, he turned to his engine, pulled a huge lever, and with a hiss of steam we were off again. He reached over the railing behind the cab, picked up a couple of lumps of wood, and shoved them into the firebox. Finally, he turned to me and spoke.

Again, we had no common language. But he was smiling, and seemed quite happy to take me wherever he was going. I hoped we were going in the direction of some city, rather than further out into the wilds, but I’d no means of knowing.

We travelled a while in silence. Well, not silence – the engine was very noisy – but not trying to communicate. We weren’t going very fast, maybe twenty-five miles an hour. Every now and then the driver shoved a couple more lumps of wood on the fire, but most of the time he was just leaning out of the side of the engine, first on one side, then on the other, mostly looking ahead, but occasionally glancing behind. I spent most of my time watching the countryside.

The driver pulled a metal ring above the firebox. There was a long, piercing whistle – and suddenly we were in a tunnel. The sound of the engine, echoing from the tunnel walls, was deafening. The smoke made me cough a little.

After what seemed a very long time we emerged into the sunlight. The driver touched my arm, and pointed ahead. There was another train, waiting for us in a passing loop. The driver pointed at the other train, covered his eyes briefly with his hands, and then pointed at me. Then he looked over the side of the train, pointed at me again, and made a walking movement with his fingers towards the side of the train. I realized that he didn’t want the driver of the other train to see me, and was indicating where I should hide. There was a narrow walkway above the engine’s wheels, and a handrail above it. I was to crouch beside the boiler, on the side away from the other train.

We slowed as we came into the passing loop, and stopped. I could hear the drivers laughing – and then my driver was beckoning me back into the cab.

Introductions were a lot of gesturing, smiling, and uncomprehended speech. His friend seemed to have brought food for my driver as well as himself, and I was cordially invited to share their meal – so I produced my packed lunch and offered to add it to the feast. Each took a morsel, but they made me keep most of it for later, making it clear that they thought they’d got plenty for the three of us without. Although I was careful not to eat more than an equal portion, I was certainly well fed by the end of the meal. I hoped they were too – they indicated so, anyway, with a pat of their stomachs and a motion of their hands around imaginary big bellies.

It was at least half an hour after we arrived before we parted with a hug – how different from England! – and were off.

The line continued more or less level for a couple of miles, then we began climbing. With a whistle we went into another tunnel, still climbing. It wasn’t a long tunnel, but when we came out we were on a rocky plateau. In the cab it was warm, but it looked cold outside despite the sunshine.

We were going faster than we had been, running level, sometimes in a cutting through rock, sometimes on an embankment, often close to ground level. For a while a crow flew alongside us, keeping exactly level with the cab. The driver pointed to it, and hugged the air as though hugging his friend again, saying, I presumed, that the crow was being friendly. I nodded. But maybe really it’s riding our bow wave, the wind blowing around the train. It’s still flapping its wings, but maybe it’s getting a boost from us. I couldn’t think how to express that thought in mime, and kept it to myself.

In the distance, I could see a line of hills. We were heading for a gap in them, but even the gap seemed to be quite a bit higher than the plateau we were crossing. Several of the highest peaks were capped in snow, brilliant white in the sunshine.

As we approached the gap in the line of hills, we began to climb again, first on an embankment, then on a high viaduct. The viaduct began on a long, gentle curve, and I could see that it was a series of huge stone arches, a really beautiful piece of architecture. As we climbed, the ground dropped away beneath us as well – there was a wide valley between the plateau and what I could now see were substantial mountains.

Long before we’d finished crossing the valley, the viaduct straightened up and I couldn’t see it any longer, so that we seemed to be flying. We were still climbing hard, and we’d reached a dizzying height before the ground began to rise to meet us. Ahead I could see the mouth of a tunnel.

I saw the line of another railway climbing up the wall of the valley, then disappearing into its own tunnel. The driver saw where I was looking, pointed to the other track, and described in hand movements how it passed beneath our line, then doubled back, climbing all the way, and joined with our line some distance further on.

Just before the end of the viaduct, I looked down and could see that the other line had two parallel tracks, narrow gauge like ours.

We were in the tunnel for some time. We emerged into a different world – a gorge on a grand scale. On both sides, almost vertical rock walls rose a hundred metres or more. Our viaduct took us around a curve to join the rocks ahead, where it clung to the cliffside on a series of stone arches, like half a viaduct built into the rock. Far below us, a huge river ran amongst jumbled boulders.

There were now two tracks, and I guessed that the other line had joined ours somewhere in the tunnel.

We were heading downstream. At first I thought that this river must feed into the broad valley we had crossed earlier, and that we’d soon leave the river again, perhaps through another tunnel; but no, we continued following the river, descending gently at first, and then quite steeply. The river descended below us in a series of rapids and waterfalls. Our line curved back and forth, sometimes following the wall of the canyon, occasionally tunnelling through a spur or bridging a side valley, or crossing from one side of the canyon to the other on what must have been fantastic bridges or viaducts, but most of which I was unable to see from the train.

We were descending steeply, but the river below us was descending much more steeply still, and we were getting higher and higher above it. For a while we clung to the left side of the gorge, then we were out of the gorge and I began to get distant views again. We’d passed right through the mountains. Far ahead, I could see the towers and spires of a city, and beyond it the sea, shimmering in the evening sunshine.

I looked at the driver, and tried to ask in mime if that was where we were going. He looked puzzled for a moment, then slapped his forehead.

He patted his breast pocket, pulled a piece of paper from it, then pointed to where my pocket would have been if I’d had one; but of course I didn’t have any papers. He showed me his paper. There was a lot of incomprehensible writing on it, and a thumbprint in one corner. He pointed to the thumbprint, then to his dirty thumb, and laughed. It was evidently some document he needed to pass some checkpoint, and I needed one too; but he spread his hands as though to say not to worry, and turned back to his engine.

The line steepened yet more, onto a long incline diagonally across the face of another huge escarpment. We were running faster than we had all day, but we’d not used any fuel since we came out of the last tunnel. The fire was burning very gently. We flashed through cuttings lined with cut stone, and over embankments and viaducts.

We thundered across a bridge over a ravine, and the slope began to level out. Then we were flying along between fields of maize, wheat, and other crops that I didn’t recognize. The driver began to make up his fire.

The sun was almost down to the horizon, and I realized that we’d not reach the city until after dark. I wondered what would happen when it was discovered that I didn’t have any documents, and where I’d spend the night. But the driver seemed to understand the situation, and didn’t seem to be worried.

Our pace slowed as we lost the momentum we’d gained in the descent, and the mountains shrank behind us. Gradually the light faded. Here and there I could see firelight in the distance.

We stopped in a village. The driver jumped down from the engine, indicating I should stay where I was. He returned a while later with food, and we ate together as the train gathered speed again. I again offered my packed lunch, and again he took just a morsel, and made me keep the remainder.

Long after dark, we passed through several larger villages quite close together, and then began to cross a long, clattering metal bridge.

The driver lifted up a panel in the floor of the cab. Underneath, I could see rough wooden boards spanning the chassis. I had to hide there! It was a very cramped little space, made all the more cramped by the presence of several sacking parcels bound with coarse string.

Shortly after the end of the bridge – I heard the changed sound – we began to slow, and finally came to a halt. Someone climbed into the cab. There was a short conversation, and then the sound of someone climbing down again.

We proceeded at what I guessed was about walking pace for some time, then the panel above me opened again, and there was the driver grinning down at me, his grubby face illuminated by the light of the fire. He helped me out of the hole. I ached all over.

He began to pull the parcels out of the hole. Dimly, I could see a woman walking alongside the engine. The driver passed the parcels to her without a word. She disappeared into the night, then a moment later reappeared and climbed into the cab. She and the driver talked quietly for a while, she looking me up and down every now and then, and he smiling and patting her hand. Then she climbed down again, and beckoned me to follow.

Climbing off a moving train, even one moving very slowly, wasn’t something I was used to. In the dark, I missed my footing on the rough ballast, and fell awkwardly towards the train. I fended myself off, and fell the other way. There was a yelp, and somebody leapt to my aid, catching me before I hit the ground. I could barely see him, but it seemed to be a young man or a large boy.

The woman said something to me; judging by her tone of voice she was asking if I was okay. She and the boy helped me to my feet. I’d twisted my ankle and bruised my hand, but I wasn’t badly hurt, and said so, but I was sure they didn’t understand a word. The boy put my arm around his shoulder and half lifted me.

We set off along the track, then in almost complete darkness turned into a narrow, muddy alleyway between high walls. The last few wagons of the train rumbled past behind us. The sound of the train slowly faded, and I gradually became aware of the sounds of the city.

The alleyway turned a right angle, and then another. There was a little more light here. We emerged onto a narrow, dimly-lit cobbled street between high, scruffy buildings. Most of these seemed to be shops of some kind, with open fronts and oil lamps hanging inside. Above the shops were several storeys of windows, many dark but a few illuminated from within. The street was full of people.

We crossed the street diagonally, and went into a dark passageway between two shops. Almost immediately we began to climb a staircase, too narrow for the boy to support me. He went ahead, and the woman followed me. It wasn’t easy climbing steep, slightly irregular stairs, in almost complete darkness, with a twisted ankle, but the handrails on both sides helped a lot.

We reached a landing after about fifteen steps, but the staircase doubled back towards the street. A little light came in from the street through a window at the top of the second flight, and I could see doors on each side of the next landing. We continued up another six short flights, and reached the top of the stairs. I could see lamplight under a door to our right, but the boy opened a door on our left and we went through. He turned up the wick of an oil lamp that was hanging above him, and I could see a large, dim, cluttered room. We were just under the roof. Four huge, roughly hewn beams spanned the room above head height, and the ceiling sloped right up to a high ridge above them. On each side, between the middle two beams, there were large dormer windows.

Opposite the door was a rough brick wall with a fireplace in the middle, and a fire burning very low. A tiny old woman was sitting by the fireplace, picking at the knots on the parcels I’d been smuggled with. She’d evidently been doing this by the light of the fire until the boy turned up the lamp, which I realized she probably wasn’t tall enough to reach.

One of the parcels was already open. It was full of cloth like that of the clothes the woman had been wearing at the house where I’d spent the previous night. It seemed so long ago.

The younger woman stirred up the fire, added some wood to it, and got a good blaze going. Then she planted me firmly in a comfortable chair by the fire. She lit another oil lamp and put it on a table in the corner, then she and the boy sat on benches each side of the table and started to prepare some vegetables.

The old lady looked at me. Then very tentatively she began speaking, saying a few words, then looking at me apparently for signs of comprehension, then trying a few different words. I guessed she was trying different languages. After a while she gave up.

I tried all my languages. We didn’t have a single language in common, despite seemingly having half a dozen each. She laughed, and spread her hands in a gesture that said, “Oh, well.”

The younger woman said something to her, and the old lady got up and came over to me. She seemed very sprightly for her age. She sat on the floor by my feet, and made me pick up my injured foot. She removed my boot carefully, and peeled off my sock. My ankle was quite swollen and discoloured. She examined it and clucked disapprovingly. She said something to the younger woman, who got up and came over to the fire.

There was what I could only call a cauldron beside the fire. The younger woman picked up a large bowl and a jug, half filled the bowl from the cauldron, and put it on the floor in front of me. The old lady gently put my foot in the water, which was very pleasantly warm.

The younger woman brought a little bottle from a shelf in the corner, and poured a small amount of bright red oil into the old lady’s hand. The old lady lifted my foot out of the bowl, and began to rub the oil around the swelling. A feeling of heat spread through my foot. It felt wonderful, and I smiled. The old lady smiled back.

The boy brought a pot full of vegetables and hung it on a hook over the fire. The younger woman worked the fire back up into a good blaze again.

As she was doing this, I heard the creak of the door behind me, and turned – and there was the engine driver, with another man.

The two men went to the corner where the table was, picked up one of the benches, brought it over to the fire, and sat down. I realized I was in the engine driver’s chair, and started to get up, but he waved me back down. The two of them stretched their hands out to the fire. How much that was for physical warmth, and how much psychological, I wasn’t sure: it was very noticeable how much warmer it was than it had been the previous night. Whether this was a change in the weather, or because we were in a city, hundreds of metres lower down and a couple of hundred miles or more further south, I didn’t know.

I guessed the other man was also an engine driver. Both of them were pretty filthy, and similarly dressed.

The engine driver said something to the boy, who went back to the corner. He took down a huge jug and several mugs from the shelves, and poured out a dark brown liquid into the mugs. He brought three large mugs. He handed one to me first, then one to the other man, and finally one to the engine driver. I held my mug, wanting to see whether others would engage in some ceremony before drinking. The boy went back to the table, and brought another three, somewhat smaller mugs. He gave one to the old lady, then one to the younger woman, and finally sat on the end of the bench next to the engine driver with his own.

The engine driver raised his mug and made a short speech. Then everyone lifted their mugs, so I did likewise. Everyone laughed, and indicated that I shouldn’t have raised mine. Then they lowered their mugs, and the other man immediately raised his, and made another short speech. This time nobody else raised their mugs – but the younger woman indicated to me that I should, so I did; then she made a gesture as though speaking, and pointed to me. It was evidently my turn to make a speech, so I said “Thank you. I wish I could speak your language!”

The other man muttered, “English!”, and smiled at me. I lowered my mug, and the younger woman indicated that I should drink first, so I did, just a sip at first.

The drink was quite a surprise. It didn’t seem to be very alcoholic, if at all. It was a kind of fruit drink, but it was very spicy and sweet, which made the fruit or fruits hard to identify.

Then everyone lifted their mugs with an exclamation, and drank, but it was clear that they intended to make their drinks last. They just took sips at intervals, so I did the same.

Conversation resumed, but everyone was looking at me much of the time. Finally the other man turned to me, and said, “You English talk.” I replied that I did, and he said, “Very sorry, English I not much, I try.”

The people at the house where I’d stayed the previous night were friendly in a remote kind of way; these people were much more interested in what I was doing there. They all kept trying to talk to the man who knew a little English, getting him to say things to me or ask me questions. It was obviously quite hard work for him – and it was quite hard for me, too. Often he didn’t understand what I was saying, so I had to rephrase things; and he was often lost for words, too. We resorted to mime quite a lot.

Before he started to work on the railways he’d been a sailor, and that was where he’d learnt a little of many languages. Initially, he assumed that I wanted to try to get back home, which really was not what I wanted to do at all.

What I wanted to do was find somewhere where I could do something useful, earn my keep, and settle down. Getting this idea across wasn’t easy, and a meal of spicy vegetable stew and hunks of bread was ready before we’d reached that level of understanding.

I had learnt who everybody was. The engine driver was Peyr, his friend was Judd, Peyr’s mother was Yaana, his wife was Yaani, and their son was Grim.

They had a daughter, Aila, older than Grim, too; but she was working somewhere out of the city.

By this time it was well into the middle of the night, but no-one seemed to be thinking of sleep at all, apart from Yaana, who was fast asleep, and had to be woken up for the meal.

When we’d finished the stew and bread, Judd said that Peyr wanted me to get out my packed lunch, and share it round. It was evidently luxurious fare. Everything was exotic to me, so I couldn’t tell what was ordinary and what was special. Everyone seemed very pleased with it, which pleased me of course.

Conversation continued over the meal, and well into the night thereafter.

At first I was a bit reticent about telling them my story, but they made me feel very much at ease. Gradually they came to understand my situation better.

Through the big dormer windows, I could already see the light beginning to appear in the sky when Judd said Peyr thought we ought all to get some sleep. Beds were simply piles of cloth on the floor, and there was no sort of privacy at all.

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