He started back to their compartment and had just opened the door when the heavy clank of steel wheels came from immediately behind the train.
A solid impact at the train’s rear sent him staggering into the compartment.
He regained his balance and whirled around, even as he recognized the grating, clanging, and clunking for what it was. He glanced at Diana, then at the now-wide-eyed children. “They’ve added another carriage to the rear of the train.”
“Oh,” Roland said, and the children obviously calmed.
Toby didn’t; he didn’t appreciate the new situation. That potentially, they might have pursuers ahead of them on the train and also behind them didn’t sit well at all.
Yet when he’d booked their tickets at Arona, he’d been assured this carriage would be the rearmost passenger carriage on the train.
He was debating whether to find a conductor and ask about moving carriages so as to be at the rear again when Bryce, who with Roland and Evelyn was kneeling on the seat and staring out of the windows across the corridor to the platform, suddenly pointed. “Look! Animals!”
Toby turned and saw a procession of farm animals being led, presumably by their owners, through a secondary gate onto the platform and toward the carriage behind theirs.
The rearmostpassengercarriage on the train.The station master at Arona hadn’t steered him wrongly. Theirs was, indeed, the rearmost carriage for passengers, and with relief seeping through him, Toby accepted that there was little threat in having a farmyard of animals at their backs.
Except that the animal carriage cut off their easiest escape route.
Re-evaluating their options, he glanced at the others. “Wait here while I check what’s going on.”
He stepped out of the compartment, closed the door, and walked to the end of the carriage. Through the still-open door to the platform, he could see the line of animals forming up, waiting to be allowed on board. There were sheep, goats, three pigs, two calves, and baskets of geese, ducks, and chickens, and their handlers, many grizzled farmers accompanied by their wives and, in some cases, younger folk, were dressed in neat, going-to-market wear.
Toby moved to the door at the end of the corridor, which, instead of opening to the tracks behind the train, could now be used to enter the newly added carriage. He didn’t open the door but looked through the window in it and through the matching window in the door of the new carriage and confirmed that the carriage that had been added was, indeed, a livestock carriage, with bare wooden benches for the accompanying humans.
While he wasn’t delighted by the change, it was unlikely to pose any direct danger.
He returned to their compartment, opened the door, and paused as everyone inside looked at him questioningly. He smiled reassuringly. “As I’m not fond of goats, we won’t be moving compartments.”
“Can we see?” Bryce asked.
“Please,” Roland pleaded.
Naturally, Evelyn and Rupert the Bear wanted to come, too.
After exchanging a resigned look with Diana, who appeared to be amused, Toby stepped back into the corridor, and the children eagerly filed out. He ushered them to the door at the end, and the boys peered through the glass panes at the animals that were now boarding and settling into their places.
Evelyn wasn’t tall enough to see through the windows, so Toby picked her up and held her so that she—and Rupert—could see over her brothers’ heads.
The trio were happily engaged in pointing out this animal and that when Diana came to stand beside Toby. She, too, peered through the glass, then straightened and caught his eye. “How many hours to Cuneo?”
He waggled his head. “Between three and four. It’s a straight run, no stops.” He nodded toward the animals. “These must be on their way to the market there.”
Diana patted his arm. “Well, if the children get bored, this might be a useful distraction.”
He huffed. “I suppose there’s that.”
Raised voices from outside the livestock carriage reached them, then a door shut, and the train whistle blasted a short first warning.
“We’d better get back.” Toby herded the children in Diana’s wake, and they returned to their compartment.
As he set Evelyn on her feet, he noticed the door to the platform was still open. With his family safely in the compartment, he returned to the carriage door to check the platform one last time.
Looking out, he confirmed that the platform gates—both the one for passengers and the larger one the animals and their owners had used—were closed and latched. The train’s whistle blew again, this time a long screech, and the conductor started striding up the train from the rear, closing the carriage doors as he passed.
With the door to their carriage slammed shut, Toby made for their compartment only to have a flash of topaz drag his eye to where, just behind the passenger gate, a well-dressed man and a lady in a topaz-colored coat and hat were remonstrating with the stationmaster.
Toby halted and stared in disbelief as the stationmaster flung his hands in the air, then opened the gate to allow Heinrik and Eva to rush through. They ran to the nearest carriage, somewhere in the middle of the train.
