第32节

The wagon train nosed round the next bend and was met by a shrieking,

howling wind that ripped away the mist, replacing it with driving rain

that hammered along the length of The Lady like an unending fusillade

of bullets.

Hartmann pressed forward for another mile. The rain poured down

relentlessly; bolts of lightning split the sky to be greeted almost

simultaneously by earth-shaking thunderclaps: a sign that the raging

storm was directly overhead.

The depth of water rushing beneath the wagon train increased rapidly.

It was no longer a stream, it was a river and one that Hartmarm was

suddenly anxious to get out of.

Rounding another bend, he found the right hand bank less steep than

before. He sent The Lady rolling up it. The tyres of the command car

skidded wildly. The rain had turned the slope into a mud-slide. This

in itself was not an insurmountable problem. As long as there was

twenty-five per cent traction, the wagon trains could usually push or

pull themselves over most obstacles and out of trouble rather like a

centipede. All wheels, however, have certain limitations; even those

designed by the First Family; especially in mud.

Urged on by Hartmann, The Lady angled up the bank, the skidding lead

cars pushed by those at the rear. A few yards from firmer ground, the

wagon train began to slip sideways. The helmsman turned the wheels,

Hartmarm called for full power. The huge cleated tyres spun wildly,

'sprayed mud, slipped even further to the left then shuddered to a halt

as the left front wheel sank into a hole.

Hartmann told the helmsman to straighten her up and tried to roll her

out using front and rear-end traction. The offending wheel merely dug

itself in deeper, blocked from going forward by something immovable

probably a rock.

Hartmann cut the drive to the front-end wheels and tried again. The

Lady edged forward a few feet and stopped again. The First Engineer

got a red light from the strain gauge on the front left axle.

'We're going to have to back down and take another run at it,' he told

Hartmann. 'Otherwise we're going to tear that wheel off."

Hartmann cursed under his breath and passed control of the steering to

Jim Cooper, the Deputy Wagon Master stationed in the rear command

car.

Cooper eased The Lady off the slope, ran her two hundred yards down

river and gave her back to Hartmann. The wagon master was determined

to roll her out, mud or no mud. He took her out of the deepening river

up on to the shallow slope at the foot of the steep left-hand bank so

that he could curve round across the bed of the river to hit the mud

slope at a better angle.

And that, although he couldn't really help it, was his fourth mistake

of the day. As The Lady moved back across the river with the body of

the wagon train angled over on the slope behind him, he and the rest of

the crew became aware of a low, rumbling roar that built up rapidly

into a thunderous crescendo.

It was a flash-flood.

An angry foaming, twenty foot-high, mud-coloured wall of water crashed

against the outside bank of the upriver bend then careened crazily down

towards them, carrying trees and boulders in its wake. 'The raging

torrent exploded against the exposed flanks of the first five cars in a

great cloud of spray then swept over and around them to engulf the rest

of the train. Huge trees swept down river, slamming, like floating

battering rams, into the sides of the lead cars with tremendous force,

causing branches as thick as a man's body to crumple like matchwood.

The Lady reeled under the repeated blows. The lead cars tilted over

and stuck at a crazy angle as boulders carried along the river bed by

the current became wedged