Ribblestrop by Andy Mulligan Page A

clear day. And then we bend round to the west and go through the Ribblestrop Pass, which is one hundred and thirty meters—excavated in, oh . . .”
    â€œSignal, Darren—put your lights on.”
    â€œThanks, Arthur.”
    Darren flicked a switch and the main beam came up like a searchlight.
    â€œIrish built it, I do know that. It cuts through RibblestropTowers, where old whatshisname lived, the murdered scientist. I’m supposed to whistle here, just in case some poor badger’s got itself halfway up the tunnel.”
    â€œI wouldn’t like to be a badger up that tunnel. Can I blow the whistle, Darren?”
    â€œBe my guest, Arthur—it’s above you. I tell you, I can really get some speed up in this tunnel, it’s straight as straight. We’re touching eighty miles an hour, you wouldn’t believe it though, would you?”
    â€œWhat’s that up ahead?”
    â€œWhere?”
    *
    â€œ Ribblestrop, Ribblestrop, precious unto me;
    This is what I dream about and where I want to be.
    Early in the morning —”
    â€œShush!”
    Sanchez stood still.
    â€œHenry!” he shouted. “Was that you whistling, man?”
    Silence.
    â€œDid someone whistle?” said Sanchez, again.
    â€œStand close, everyone,” said Ruskin. “Gather round. This is interesting: can you feel a sort of vibration? It’s like a little earthquake almost, can anyone else feel it?”
    â€œI can,” said Sam. He was sitting on the rail, head in hands.
    The children moved into a tight cluster.
    â€œMaybe it’s blasting from the quarry,” said Ruskin. “You don’t think it’s a train, do you? I know there are two railways in the park, because one of them’s the mainline between Cornwall and London. We used to go down to the fence and wave. I hope I haven’t got the two lines confused, that would be a real gaffe . . .”
    Ruskin stopped there, not because he’d run out of things to say, but because the tunnel was filling rapidly with the most monstrous scream. The sound was spiraling round the walls of the tunnel, echoing on itself until it became an electrifying howl. It was the sound sheet metal makes when it is being torn apart bycircular saws. The sound gets so far into your ears the very eardrums can split and all those little bones, the smallest in the body, simply fragment. It’s the sound of an express train with eighty iron wheels hurtling through a tunnel at eighty-two miles per hour.
    *
    Darren the driver’s accident report was not a long document. The handwriting was more wobbly than young Sam Tack’s, because the writer had temporarily lost all coordination. Arthur, the guard, was barely able to speak let alone write. He told only a police inspector what he had seen at one minute past four in the Ribblestrop tunnel: he never spoke of it again. Some memories have to be suppressed.
    We were proceeding through the tunnel and I had whistled and illuminated my headlight prior to entry. I remember increasing speed because the restrictions had changed. My colleague and I were looking down the track and we saw upward of a dozen small children all dressed in distinctive black-and-yellow school uniforms. I remember there was one lad, closest to us, who seemed bigger than the rest. Some of the little ones, I remember, were (the handwriting breaks down here) were holding hands  . . . One little fellow waved his cap. I applied the emergency lever but there was no way we could stop in time. They never stood a chance .

Chapter Ten
    What had happened to Millie?
    She had left Sam’s bedside, if you remember, after two ugly fights. The first she’d won handsomely. The second had humiliated her and she’d been thrown out into the corridor. She had sat for ten minutes or so, waiting for the throbbing in her head to die down. She calmed herself. Clearly, Sanchez was quick and well