said that bastard Rainy, who’d nicked his bread. Still, Lampy had to admit that the thief knew how to break chains. He probably knew about anything that you needed to know, when it came to breaking into locked property, Lampy thought. Soon they were all merely wearing metal bracelets around their ankles—except Quint, who still had his legs attached together. They looted what they could from the loco’s cab: two buckets, three big water bottles, a little food, a length of rope-like cord, some wire, a couple of shovels, and a penknife Jack had found in the fireman’s pocket. Lampy fancied that, but Jack kept it. The mad Irishman slowed the little locomotive down to barely a walking crawl and they jumped into the flooded little creek, hauling Quint along. “He’ll only rat on us if he stays,” said the Irish feller. That was true enough. Lampy suspected they ought to chop his head off or something to stop him talking. But he didn’t want to do it, or even be there when they did.
