The English Assassin by Michael Moorcock

days since the train had left Edinburgh. Pyat brushed at his torn and grubby uniform. He had nothing else to wear, yet it was now far too dangerous to be seen in military uniform outside London. He munched the last half of his stale sandwich and sipped a drop of vodka from his hip flask. There had been no change in Cornelius and Pyat had had no time to revive and question him. The colonel had given up his original ambition, anyway; now he hoped he might use the contents of the coffin as his safe conduct, his guarantee of asylum, when he reached Ladbroke Grove and contacted one of the Cornelius relatives. Matters had not gone well in Berlin after Auchinek and his Zaporozhian allies had arrived. Somebody had told Pyat that no-one could hold Berlin for more than a month and he hadn’t believed them. Now this knowledge was his consolation— even the Jew would not last long before someone else took over what was left of the city.
    From within the coffin came a further succession of muffled shrieks and cries. Pyat heard a querulous shout from further up the train. Another voice replied in a strong Wolverhampton accent.
    “Electricity failure, they think. The two other trains can’t run. No signals, see.”
    Again the distant shout and the Wolverhampton voice replying: “We’ll be moving shortly. We can’t go until the signal says we can.”
    Pyat lit a cigarette. Sourly he paced the carriage, wishing he had thought of a better plan. A week ago England had seemed the safest state in Europe. Now it was in chaos. He should have guessed what would happen. Everything broke down so rapidly nowadays. But then, on the other hand, things came together quickly, too. It was the price you paid for swift communications.
    The light faded and the single electric bulb in the roof glowed and then dimmed until only the element shone with a dull orange colour. Pyat had become used to this. He settled down to try to sleep, convinced that the sharp pain which had returned to his chest could only be lung cancer. He wished he had some cocaine.
    He began to nod off. But then the sounds from the coffin filled his head. They had changed in tone so that this time they seemed to be warning him of something. They had become more urgent. He stretched out his boot and kicked at the coffin. “Shut up. I don’t need any more of that.”
    But the urgency of the cries did not abate.
    Pyat climbed to his feet and stumbled forward with the intention of unstrapping the lid and putting a gag of some kind into Cornelius’s mouth. But then the truck lurched. He fell. The big Pacific-class loco was moving again. He hugged his bruised body. His eyes were tightly shut.
    * * *
    It was dawn.
    A green Morgan of the decadent Plus 8 period droned swiftly along the platform, passing the train as it pulled at last into an almost deserted King’s Cross station. The car followed the train for a moment, then turned off the platform into the main ticket office and drove through the outer doors and down the steps into the street. Through his peephole Colonel Pyat watched blearily, certain that the Morgan had some connection with himself. A strong smell, like that of a fair quantity of hard-boiled eggs, reached his nostrils. He spat on the boards and jammed his eyes once again to the spy-hole.
    Expecting a large crowd at King’s Cross, he had planned to lose himself in it. But there were no crowds. There was no-one. It was as if all the people had been cleared from the station. Could it be an ambush? Or merely an air raid?
    The locomotive released a huge sigh of hot steam and halted.
    Pyat remembered that he was unarmed.
    If he emerged from the carriage now, would he be shot down? Where were the marksmen hiding?
    He unbolted the sliding doors of the wagon and slid them back. He waited for the other passengers to disembark. After a few seconds it became clear that there were no other passengers. A few small, innocent sounds came from various parts of the station. A clatter. A