“Thank you.” Loch went slowly to the iron shed, and sat down to the instrument. He called,—“Lewis, Lewis, Lewis,” in his clumsy fashion, now clumsier than usual, in that his fingers seemed to be as big and stiff as pincushions. He called for several minutes, waited, and called again. He was beginning to forget about the fever and the weariness.
The instrument clattered, stammered, hesitated. At last the answer—“Is that you, Gondoko?”
“Yes. Gondoko. Gondoko. Have you got that? Gondoko. Is that you, Jimsy? Jimsy, is that you?”
A space of meaningless clickerings and stutterings. Then suddenly, clear and sharp, “Loch, I want . . . .”
And then silence.
Loch sat for perhaps five minutes, patiently calling. But the silence was unbroken. He sat for another five minutes, thinking; and the burden of his thoughts was a little white-headed boy who used to follow him round the school play-ground, saying, “Loch, I want you, Loch.” Often the little boy was smitten for his pains, but no other boy dared smite him. Loch went out on the platform and shouted. The convict-deserter, who was presently known as Hatch, came running.
“Is there anything with steam up?”
“Number eight, she has steam up.” Hatch spoke proudly.
Number eight was a complex-compo-compound loco, collected from scrap heaps of half a continent, and put together at Gondoko.
“She’s to pull out, with sheet-iron for Banda, at midnight or thereabouts.”