Chapter Five

The Empire’s Second Cities

1.

IT WAS WITH the greatest of sorrows that Arnaud packed his suitcase as the airship prepared to dock. Childish it may have been, but he resented being deprived of the lifestyle into which he had grown so accustomed—over two days, at least. For the rest of the first day he had got solidly blotto on cognac, and then was invited by a certain Lady Hawkston for an evening reception and lunch. In a cramped and second-class cabin she had introduced her daughter Cecily (mentioned many times but not yet seen) as if she were the Duchess of Dubai. Cecily had clearly scrubbed up for the occasion. He had had to concentrate hard in order to not fall over, and in all honesty, had felt more attraction for the Skreelan of Venus.

Then followed lunch in the ballroom, along with wine. Arnaud didn’t remember much after that, and awoke feeling like the Devil’s own cleaver had been brought down hard between his eyeballs. He had stayed in bed until 4pm, and after bathing for another hour and feeling sorry for himself, he threw on some clothes and staggered off to find something to eat. There was no sign of the fellow, Ashpan, or whatever the devil’s name was, the devil take him. An early evening buffet had begun and, using his clout as a potential dauphin, he persuaded the chef to knock up some kedgeree, and sent for a brandy. As he was snaffling the spicy rice, eggs and haddock Lady Hawkston passed by, and turned her nose up. Of poor Cecily there was no sign.

It was only after he’d stuffed himself with the kedgeree, followed by English muffins and three cups of coffee, that Arnaud had begun to feel even marginally human again. Feeling sedated and sleepy, he elected to spend the rest of the day gazing from a porthole and snoozing, only to find the black-clad man waiting back in his cabin, reading a paper with his legs resting on Arnaud’s bed. He uncrossed his legs and put the paper down.

“Feeling better, are we, dauphin?” he asked.

To cut a long story short, it turned out the bugger’s name was Coyne and he was dead set against letting Arnaud stay on the ship to Bombay.

“We’ll be docking south of Calcutta within the hour, Arnaud,” he said, bored, as he passed Arnaud another shirt to pack. “You’ve had your fun, and now we’ve got work to do.”

Arnaud was still mildly hung-over. He packed shirts and prayed for somewhere close to the landing pad where he could sleep. He could already feel the heat of the Indian sun beating at his temples through the window.

2.

THE HEAT WAS also bothering Annabelle and George. Annabelle felt momentarily flushed, and lifted her fan. But not because of the temperature, no—the pleasant Arizona breeze rushing through the train’s open windows kept her cool—but because she was curious to see what would happen if she dropped it.

George was sitting next to her. In order, he maintained, to get into the proper holiday spirit, he would put away his usual histories and biographies and read something a bit different. Unfortunately, this flash of literary derring-do had only occurred to George after they boarded the airship (having thankfully been relocated to a comfortable double room with a nice view. It turned out, incidentally, that the luggage had been in this room all along). He had insisted on scouring the nearest dead-end town and didn’t leave until he ended up procuring several penny dreadfuls and Volume II of Don Quixote. Have discovered Don Quixote to be written in the original Spanish, he was now attempting to enjoy some lurid tale, which, inasmuch as Annabelle could work out, was mostly about soldiers shooting things. He was absorbed, and Annabelle was bored.

And so she raised her fan. This was a test for him.

Affecting a touch of the vapours she tilted her head back and let out a little sigh, then nonchalantly dropped the paper fan. She kept her head back, waiting for George to acknowledge her feigned distress. He did not, and kept his nose in the book. She cleared her throat. He turned a page. She cleared her throat again.

“George,” she hissed.

“Hmm?”

“I’ve dropped my fan, George.”

George looked up, then down at Annabelle’s feet.

He beamed. “Oh, so you have!” He picked it up and dropped it in her lap, and then got back to his book. “I’ll just finish this chapter.”

Annabelle crossed her arms and harrumphed. At least Mister Boon had left them alone for the present, reasoning, she assumed, that he thought there wasn’t much she could get up to on a speeding train. Her eyes fell on the seven or so other cheap novellas George had acquired at such great cost. There was one about an adventure on Venus (full of factual errors on even the briefest glance), an historical one about previous generations of soldiers shooting things in Africa, and another historical one that caught her eye…. The Lusty Knight, it was called. She picked it up, and the frontpiece showed a rough illustration of a wench with a cavernous bosom being swooned upon by a shining, softly handsome knight. Medieval drapes and stone walls swam, badly inked, in the background. Flicking through, she noticed Chapter IV (subtitled ‘A Passionate Encounter’) was by far the longest in a fairly short book, and Annabelle decided she might as well sit and have a read too.

3.

MEANWHILE, AT THE Admiralty, Folkard and Enderby were hardly so pleasantly diverted. They were packing for a trip of their own. Yet they would not experience the pleasure of a first-class cruise, nor the manic squalor of Calcutta’s slums and the danger that waited therein. They would not feel the Arizona winds on their faces nor the warm embrace of a Dublin pub, because for them, the destination was far bleaker.

Folkard was calm. As he packed thick clothes, bully beef and ammunition into his rucksack he gripped each item tightly. The Heart was in his head, his lost ones were singing, and tonight would be a full moon in a clear sky. Enderby watched him, nervously.

4.

MISTER BOON HAD returned and, much to Annabelle’s delight, had brought a covered tray of breakfast with him. George had dozed off and was snoring while Annabelle had immersed herself in a rather racy tale that (on more than one occasion) had caused her to pause and look up to George. Her radiant knight, drooling onto a paperback. He was still asleep when Boon had lifted the platter to reveal poached eggs, toast, grilled kidneys and bacon, coffee, tea and the morning paper. George became instantly awake.

“Little bit of home, Commander,” said Boon. “My treat. It’s your honeymoon after all.”

It was easy to see. George was touched. Boon nodded, pleased, and turned on his heels.

“Bertrand, is it?” asked George.

“Well, Mister Boon, professionally. But in all honesty, I prefer Bert.”

“Well, Bert, that’s… That’s incredibly generous of you!”

“Thank you, Bert,” added Annabelle.

“Thing is, sir. I know how it is.” It seemed as if he’d relaxed a bit, his natural South London accent coming though. “This job, all that. They cart you off without a by-your-leave and half the time you don’t even know where you’re going, let alone what you’re supposed to do when you get there. But they told me all about your wedding, so I felt I had to. Missed seeing my first born, see. Thanks to the job. Anyway, not my place. I just wanted to make it feel like a special occasion for you.”

“Bert, please,” insisted George. “There’s more than enough for the carriage, let alone us two. Won’t you join us?”

“I’d love to, sir. Really would. But I’ve gotta have a quick recce of the rest of the train. Couple other of our fellows aboard, see. Pays to crack the whip. ’Fraid I couldn’t get you The Times, sir. Just a fairly local thing, but it’s got a crossword, at least. Enjoy your breakfast.” And with that, he was gone.

“He’s a boon indeed,” said George, rubbing his hands together and ogling the food before him. “I wonder if I should give him a tip?”

“Don’t be asinine, George,” said Annabelle and, feeling she had just uttered a line worthy of one of Mister Dickens’ heroines, she picked up a piece of buttered toast and nibbled at the edge. George poured himself a cup of tea and tucked into the meat with gusto.

5.

AFTER THEY WERE both sated, George got back to his boy’s own novella and left Annabelle to her own devices. She was tired of her own paperback, the passionate encounter of Chapter IV having been and gone, and so instead decided to riffle through The Blackwater Ledger, the newspaper Boon had so thoughtfully provided. She found the news she read there oddly comforting. It seemed the west had changed little—there were the same old announcements of births and deaths, the opening of a new railroad or the closure of a spent silver mine. Murders and their perpetrators, acts of faith and villainy, tiny type cramped between adverts for horses, brand new ventures and snake oil. And then one headline caught her eye.

Prospectors Spared Indian Savagery! The Reason: Innocence?

Two prospectors, to whose request of anonymity we have graciously conceded, have today returned to Blackwater after a frightful ordeal in the desert—involving Indians! The pair, who had been informed of possible deposits of gold to the west of Horton’s Pass, set out and rode perhaps ten to fifteen miles beyond where they had intended. Lost, thirsty and disorientated, one prospector claims they were set upon by a starving mountain lion, while the other insists it was nothing more than an ill-tempered fox. Irrespective of these minor details, one of the pioneers found himself with a sorely twisted ankle, unable to walk or even move. Thanks to a spot of squirrel hunting and previously packed supplies, the duo managed to survive the night, with the uninjured of the two intending to set back to the nearest town at first light—perhaps four days’ ride away.

And yet! His journey was not to be! He awoke in the silky dusk light to find his friend had been rolled away from him, towards the dying embers of the fire, and that in the stygian gloom he could just make out a hulking figure…leant over the prostrate form of his companion!

Instantly, the prospector tells us, he was alert and had drawn his pistol. The figure had simply raised a great hand akin to that of a bear and waved him off. It was then that the prospector noticed a young girl, perhaps eight or nine years old, standing behind the man, holding out a sheaf of herbs. The old man was chewing on the herbs and rubbing the resulting, foul-smelling mixture on his companion’s ankle, and binding it with strips of cloth and leather.

In what was described as “Excellent English”, the Indian advised the pair to ride to our fair town of Blackwater, far closer than the original destination and, in the opinion of this humble reporter, a far more desirable one. He advised the injured man that he could ride after a day’s rest, so long as he rode side-saddle and kept the weight off the bound leg. With that, the Indian and his young accomplice took three tins of beans and two roasted squirrels, and departed into the night. The following day, the prospectors began their journey to our town, where they sought out our fair publication forthwith, in order that their story might be told.

Could these two men have survived an encounter with the famed Apache outlaw Geronimo? This reporter thinks not. If they had encountered that misanthropic beast of the wilds they would surely have been scalped alive. And yet, perhaps it was the presence of that innocent, the young girl of the tribe, that tempered the savage heart. Even though it is not uncommon for a squaw to be married and bear children at such a shockingly young age, perhaps this Wild Man retains some semblance of humanity, and chose to spare the girl the sight of such unconscionable bloodshed.

It was clear to Annabelle that this was the kind of disreputable journal that sold itself primarily on hyperbole and populist cant; it was all gossip and ill-informed conjecture, nothing more. She tossed the paper angrily aside.

6.

TWO DAYS PREVIOUSLY, in the lounge of The Bleeding Horse, Nathaniel was directed to a booth at the back of the lounge, one of several, all numbered, with doors that could close the occupants snugly in. This room sat at the very rump of the pub, down a short flight of stairs and possibly underground. There were no other tables on the floor and, save the dimmed ruckus from the main bar, the room was silent.

“They nickname it ‘The Confessional’,” smirked Tally, as he closed them in the booth.

Out of politeness more than curiosity, Nathaniel had accepted a pint of Guinness from Tally. It now sat before him, untouched, while Tally’s was nearly halfway gone.

“You not gonna touch your Guinness, Professor?” asked Tally, genuinely interested.

“I’m not much of a drinker, let alone of ale.”

“Well, there’s yer first mistake, as this ain’t ale. G’wan. Give it a go. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Nathaniel couldn’t really argue with his logic. He gripped the glass tightly. It felt slightly heavier than he remembered from carrying it across, and he brought the thick black liquid topped with thick, white foam to his lips, and sipped. A deep, chocolaty goodness passed into his mouth, followed by a rich taste of velvet molasses that coated his throat as he swallowed.

“Dear Lord,” he muttered. “That really is rather pleasant.”

“First taste of Ireland. Welcome to Dublin, Professor Stone.”

Nathaniel smacked his mouth appreciatively and took another sip.

“Careful now,” said Tally. “That stuff’ll leave you with a fair old head in the morning.”

“Yes, quite,” agreed Nathaniel. “And I fear I’ll need my faculties over the coming days. I’m assuming it’s safe to talk?”

“Safe as houses.”

“Then I’m led to believe you have information pertaining to the identity of the Horseguard’s Bomber.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” said Tally. “I do and I don’t.”

“You do and you don’t?” blurted Nathaniel loudly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Whoa there, Professor,” cautioned Tally. “These things are private, but they ain’t soundproof.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “What I mean by I do and I don’t is that I do know something, but I don’t know yer man who lit the fuse.”

“Well,” pressed Nathaniel, “what is it?”

“It’s me nephew. He’s a zookeeper.”

“A…zookeeper?”

“Aye. Up in Dublin Zoological Gardens. You never heard of Dublin Zoo?”

“Does it matter?”

“Aye, I guess not. Anyway, young Simon (for that’s his name), young Simon notices one day the Earth sorta shiftin’ underneet his feet, like a tremor, an earthquake or what-have-you. Pretty soon after that, see, parts of the zoo get closed off, no explanation, and young Simon says he could hear the sound of drilling, an’ explosions. All this over the past couple of months. Anyway, they’ve opened it up again now, but our Simon noticed some shady goings on in that exhibit, the new one, what with stuff from Mars. Visitors after closing time, that sort of thing. When young Simon told the gaffer about it he was told to shut his hole and feed the ferrets.”

“But what’s that got to do with the bomb?”

“Not a lot. But there’s been rumblings in certain…organizations. That an expert was in town, just doing his own thing, but he suddenly opened himself up to giving certain organizations lessons in new an’ deadly ways to make things go bang, if you get what I mean. Apparently, this expert was seen a lot in Phoenix Park, not far from the Zoo.”

“What does he look like?”

“Ah, nobody’s all that sure. The lads who attended his little masterclass have apparently been sworn to silence. But he’s one of your lot, a Britisher. Doesn’t seem to care to hide it, neither. Tweed, leather gloves, an upturned nose and a stick up his arse. Only… Only there’s always this other feller with him, and he’s the type that tends to draw the eye.”

“Oh? How so?”

“He’s built like a side of beef on both sides, is how so. They say he’s got brass hands, always wears these damn welding goggles. Never talks.”

7.

THEY HAD DISCOVERED their destination in the final briefing: Severnaya, Russia, miles from the middle of nowhere. It was here, they had been informed, that the Russians were studying and perfecting dangerous new technologies that had the potential to eclipse those of the British Empire. Grant had provided some information, either through rambling, enraged rants or spidery notes pushed out from under doors as the doctor wailed in the locked room beyond. The Secret Service Bureau was dug in well in Dublin, and though the intel was vague there was a definite Russian connection. Treading on enemy soil—it was by far the most dangerous of missions. Yet Folkard relished the prospect. Not for the adventure nor the protection of his homeland—it seemed that every passing moment brought him closer to the mission, and that also brought him closer to the Heart, and, ultimately his dear wife.

There was no choice. They could not have gone by rail or commercial flyer. This clandestine mission required far much more finesse and resources, and so HMAS Sovereign had been commissioned for their flight.

Folkard felt a strange sense of nostalgia being back on the ship, but not once did he ever feel the need to go to the bridge. He mostly stayed in his room. The rumblings of the engines through the walls—that exact pitch—was one he knew so well, like the close embrace of someone long lost. But with those rumblings came an energy, a direction, that was bringing him closer to the Heart. He could feel it.

He had taken a stroll round, of course. The old girl was looking fit as a fox, he had to admit, and he noted that even some of the improvements he had suggested to the Admiralty following his decommission had been implemented. He felt proud to have made the ship what she was. But he was also aware that many of the men would know his face, catch his eye—he would cause unrest on board if he made his presence obvious. One or two trusted souls he’d like to speak to, of course… But for the most part, he wished his presence to be ghostlike.

8.

ARNAUD WAS RATHER surprised at how easy this was all turning out to be—despite this damnable, oppressive heat. He had felt the temperature rising steadily over the second day of his journey east; by the evening the observation deck of the airship had become sweltering due to the great glass windows, and all but the hardiest of passengers had retired to their rooms to snooze and escape the sun.

That selfsame sun was now beating down on Arnaud like a hammer at a forge. He was wearing a safari suit made of cream-coloured cotton, but even this light fabric was sodden with sweat and clung to his body like a wet bathing costume. After the airship had docked, Arnaud had been one of the first passengers to disembark. The aerodrome (if you could call it that—a more accurate, though less flattering, description would be a raised mound of earth surrounded by a few sorry looking huts, with telegraph poles spidering away from them towards the horizon) was located some miles south of Calcutta, and yet with commendable alacrity Coyne had procured them a sort of rickshaw affair, piloted by a local peasant in a loincloth on a bicycle that had been bolted to the passenger’s bench in a worryingly ramshackle fashion. Neither the driver’s emaciated appearance or the shoddy design of the vehicle were built for speed, and any hopes for relief from the heat by a cooling breeze were remote. Arnaud found himself constantly fanning his face with his hat or wiping the sweat from his eyes with a damp handkerchief. Coyne, still in black, seemed unperturbed.

The city of Calcutta crawled up to meet them. It was not like approaching London, he thought. Or even Paris. Calcutta snuck up on you slowly. First came an increase in locals by the roadway, often walking towards the city, mostly alone, often carrying or carting improbable loads—mangoes, scrap metal, bundles of newspaper tied with strips of leaves. Skeletal dogs trotted beside them or slumped, breathing heavily on their sides, by the edges of the road.

Then the slums began. The first of the hovels had shocked Arnaud—it seemed incomprehensible to him that people could even survive—let alone make a living—in such appalling squalor. From a distance, he had thought the first was some kind of rest-stop dropped carelessly onto the barren landscape, little more than a few wooden boards propped together, topped with a waxed fabric roof. It was perhaps five feet square. As they approached Arnaud saw an ancient looking Sikh sitting cross-legged on a mat beside the door, smoking a sort of upright wooden pipe. Through the doorway he could see figures sleeping, cramped together on woven mats, and on the other side of the hut a broad-hipped woman in a colourful sari was pegging out washing on a line. It was then Arnaud realised that this was not a rest-stop but a home, and he thought back guiltily to his two days of sloth and drunken indulgence.

Thereafter, similar huts began to pepper the roadside, all equally cramped and ill-constructed. He began not to be shocked by them, and then not to notice them at all, and occupied his time drifting off into hazy, febrile daydreams. Occasionally, children would run alongside the rickshaw with their arms outstretched to beg, only to have the driver curse at them in a rapid, angry staccato and wave his arms at them to clip their ears.

“This is nothing compared to the slums in the city proper,” said Coyne. Was Arnaud mistaken, or did he detect a sort of malicious glee in the way the fellow said it? Either way, the Frenchman was too wilted for conversation and grunted non-committally, returned instead to his daydreams and, eventually, thoughts of Garrecreux.

Bizarrely, or perhaps because of this feverish heat, one of the only things that Arnaud could recall of his would-be mentor was his eyebrows. Great, big, black bushy things they were—vast to the point of ridicule. More than once an undergraduate night of drinking had ended with a cooled chunk of charcoal being pilfered from the grate to facilitate an impromptu impression, and Arnaud smiled at the memory of long-gone, carefree days. It struck him that they had mocked Garrecreux because they did not respect him—not in the same way they had respected Professor Fournier. Garrecreux had an insincerity about him that Fournier lacked, a shifty, squint-eyed suspicion that would wash across the lecture theatres like the beam from a lighthouse. Where his gaze was keen, his teaching was dull and dry. To him, rocks were no more than dead objects to be studied, minerals ground down to powder to make statistics out of scientific composition. What was there, was there; they had no more stories to tell after they were reduced into dust. Fournier’s approach—and consequently Arnaud’s, thanks to the former’s tutelage—was to find magic, life and mystery in the floor beneath humanity’s feet.

As well as that, there was Garrecreux’s instance of one-to-one tuition and an alarming penchant to lean uncomfortably close when checking Arnaud’s notes. Arnaud had been little more than a boy then (though at the time, naturally enough, he believed himself to be far more), and even as a man the thought of those weasely eyebrows brushing against his cheek made him shudder. He steeled himself. This was not to be a pleasant reunion of old university acquaintances. His only hope, he reasoned, was to challenge the old man’s pride, and force him to prove that he could, in fact, help.

Yet whatever happened, Arnaud was certain that he would be remembered.