Storm and Silence (Storm and Silence 1)

‘What?’ he hissed.

‘Can you teach me to shoot? I’d like to learn.’

A shot hit the metal wall of the draisine, which reverberated like a church bell. Mr Ambrose ducked, as a second shot raced over his head.

‘You cannot be serious!’ he hissed.

‘Of course I am, Sir. Wouldn’t it be useful to have some more firepower right now?’

‘But you… you are a…’

‘Yes?’

‘Nothing, Mr Linton.’

My eyes sparked.

‘You were about to admit that I am female!’

‘Nothing of the kind, Mr Linton.’

‘Stop with the Mister already! I am a girl! And girls could use guns just as well as men, if somebody took the trouble to teach them.’

Another shot hit the draisine. And another.

‘This is hardly the right time to discuss gender politics, Mr Linton.’ Mr Ambrose glared at me with a cold intensity that would have sent a pack of lions running for the hills. I didn’t back down an inch.

‘Indeed? And why not, Sir?’

‘Because,’ he said in a deliberate voice, ‘we are about to reach the end of the tunnel. And when we do, we need to run.’

My head whirled around - and light stung my eyes.

He was right! I had been so focused on him and the men who were after us that I hadn’t noticed how the tunnel around us had become steadily brighter and brighter. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust. When they had, I could make out a patch of bright blue. Sky? No, it glittered. The sea! The Mediterranean. Dear God, the tunnel didn’t open onto the sea, did it? I had a brief flash of Mr Ambrose and me plunging three hundred feet to our deaths, to provide a meal for the lobsters of the island, eager to take revenge on humans for the massacre the cooks of France had committed among their people. Not a jolly thought. Especially since I hadn’t eaten a single lobster in my life.

Suddenly, though, there was brown and green mixed in with the blue. I caught the blurred forms of bushes and grass. Grass didn’t grow on the Mediterranean. Huzzah!

Behind me, another shot from Mr Ambrose’s revolver ripped the air apart. Quickly, I pressed my hands to my ears. My head was beginning to hurt.

‘Why don't you take your own advice, Sir, and do that more quietly?’

‘I am afraid nobody has yet invented a noiseless gun, Mr Linton.’

‘How disappointing!’

He didn’t even glance at me, which, under the circumstances, I suppose I could understand. His eyes were firmly trained on our pursuers. ‘Back to the matter at hand, Mr Linton. Do you see the exit?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it far ahead?’

‘No, I don't think so.’ I growled. ‘These aren’t the best circumstances to judge distances, though. I don't have a yardstick, and I’ve never sat on a draisine racing downhill in a mining tunnel with shooting maniacs right behind me, before.’

‘You don't say. What do you see outside?’

‘Why don't you look yourself, Sir?’

‘There’s this small matter of me trying to shoot our pursuers before they shoot us; it is distracting me slightly. Now - what do you see?’