Ministry Protocol: Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Page 30

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  Dusk was settling over the riverbank by the time Barry had everything in place. It was by no means perfect; in fact it was downright rough, but with any luck it ought to work. Maybe not well, but hopefully well enough.

  The warriors milled about, keeping a safe distance from “te pakeha porangi” —the crazy pakeha—as he had heard some of them mutter. Clambering over discarded metal plates and pipes, he pulled himself into the gunner’s seat, which now hung over the control gears, the driver’s seat tossed aside. The machine-cannons swung behind him on the denuded platform that had once been their hansom. To either side pipes bent upwards past his shoulders from the air- and gas-tanks bolted underneath, thrusting into the mouth of a huge canvas bladder which looked suspiciously like several army-issue field tents all sewn together with thick hemp. Four tent-poles held the bladder’s mouth aloft while its remaining bulk lay spread out across the mud, draped up on the scrubby manuka bushes alongside the track.

  “Righto,” Barry muttered. “Time to kick it in the guts.”

  Thumping the propane pedal, he cranked the ignitor. With a geyser’s hiss, a white flame burst from the overhead pipes, billowing hot air into the bladder’s mouth.

  Barry figured that these warriors must have seen Army airships during one of the three attempts that British forces had made to invade the Ngai Tohai stronghold in the eastern North Island, but Barry, on pumping the pedal to coax more heat from the burner, was gambling they would be sceptical that a makeshift balloon would ever lift the tractor high enough to get it free of the mud. Not even the detritus of metal plates and bolts and other junk strewn beside the track could possibly make the critical difference. Surely not.

  “Come on, girl,” he urged the extremely unlikely dirigible, “you can do it.”

  Others’ scepticism was why Barry Ferguson preferred to work alone. While his wardens japed at his folly, Barry watched the balloon swell and lift. His fingers grazed the lever by his seat as his eyes glanced down at the iron plates he had slipped inside his coat. Another gamble, but they would have to be protection enough if the snipers were still paying close attention.

  Because when it happened, it was going to be a very close thing indeed.