The Lieutenant’s Lover by Harry Bingham Read Free Book Online

hand. Misha felt a sudden lurch of excitement, a cold wash of adrenalin. His hand shook very slightly as he wiped it clean on his trousers.
    ‘What do you think, comrade?’ asked Tupolev, examining him narrowly. ‘I can see – well, really, the state of them!’
    Misha got a grip over his feelings, and replied normally. ‘These hoppers. They’re for the port railway, you said?’
    ‘The port? No. For Vyborg. The Vyborg line. Don’t tell me what I said, you exploiter! You want to scrap them, I expect, but—’
    ‘I’ll mend them.’
    Tupolev was taken aback. He might be a fool, but he knew the basic technical side of his job well enough. These hoppers were all but useless and he knew it. ‘Mend them! Mend…’
    ‘After all, they’ll be needed for the harvest. Just think how angry the comrades in the Export Bureau will be if they can’t—’
    Misha never finished his sentence.
    From the far end of the rail shed, there was a thundering crash and a loud scream, abruptly terminated. A few moments of total silence followed, succeeded by the shouts of men as they ran to the scene. Misha sprinted over, aware that Tupolev was lumbering on after.
    It soon became clear what had happened. A carriage had been raised on the yard’s only usable winch. The winch hadn’t been properly secured, and the carriage had come plummeting down. A man lay on the tracks underneath. The man wasn’t from the repairs yard. He wore an ordinary railwayman’s uniform and a bottle of vodka lay smashed to smithereens beside him. The man must have been dead drunk inside one of the carriages. He must have woken up and climbed or fallen from his compartment. Then, when the winch broke, he’d ended up trapped.
    Misha pushed through the knot of people. The man was still alive, but his arm and foot were trapped and he was bleeding fast. Unless he was extricated quickly, he could easily die from loss of blood.
    ‘See?’ Tupolev was shouting. ‘Inattention and slovenliness! And there’s too much vodka drunk all round, I’d say. Oh yes!’
    Misha threw himself down beside the trapped docker and peered in through the steel wheels in order to try to gauge how to release the man. He stared a few moments, then rolled back into a sitting position.
    ‘We need to lift the carriage. That winch is still usable, it’s only the loading pin which has sheared off. You, Feodorov, go and find a pin. Volsky, get up the ladder to the drumhead and clear the old pin. Andropov, go for a doctor. Run!’
    Tupolev was still shouting too, but people followed Misha’s instructions in preference. Tupolev stood clenching and unclenching his fists by the injured man. His whole air was that of a man worried about a delay in his schedule. Misha continued to direct proceedings, feeling the hammer of excitement, the vital importance of speed.
    Six minutes later, the winch was ready. The carriage began to sway off the ground. The docker, a man prematurely aged by drink with just four teeth left in his filthy mouth, was unconscious now. Unconscious and dying. And still trapped. Though the carriage was no longer pressing down on him, his arm had become caught between the wheels. The only way to release it would be to climb under the carriage and ease it clear.
    Misha checked the winch. Feodorov had found a new loading pin, but it was far too small for the weight of the carriage. At any time, the whole thing might come thundering down, killing anyone who might be underneath. Tupolev brought his huge bulk close to the trapped man.
    ‘Right now, comrade, one big heave and it’ll all be over.’
    He was about to heave, when Misha snapped at him.
    ‘Don’t be a bloody fool, you’ll tear his arm off. Stand back.’
    Swallowing once, aware of the carriage’s precarious weight looming above him, Misha rolled beneath it.
    Under the wheelbase, it was much darker than Misha had expected and for a moment he could see nothing except a knife-blade of pale sunlight between the