Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) (9 page)

“Precisely.”

“So existence has been split into two by your act.”

“Apparently.”

“How godlike, the chronic argonaut,” Wells mused.

“The what?”

“Hum. Just thinking out loud.”

They joined a small group of officers who'd gathered at the top of the ridge. Wells indicated one of them and whispered, “That's General Aitken. He's in charge of this whole operation.”

Burton tugged at his khaki uniform jacket, which he considered far too heavy for the climate. He felt smothered and uncomfortable. Perspiration was running into his eyes. He rubbed them. As they readjusted, the vista that sprawled beneath him swam into focus, and all his irritations were instantly forgotten.

Seen through the distorting lens of Africa's blistering heat, Dar es Salaam appeared to undulate and quiver like a mirage. It was a small white city, clinging to the shore of a natural harbour. Grand colonial buildings humped up from its centre and were clustered around the port—in which a German light cruiser was docked—while a tall metal structure towered above the western neighbourhoods. Otherwise, the settlement was very flat, with single-storey dwellings strung along tree-lined dirt roads and around the borders of small outlying farms.

A strip of tangled greenery surrounded the municipality—“They look small from here, but those are the artillery plants,” Wells observed—and beyond them, the German trenches crisscrossed the terrain up to a second band of foliage: the red weed. The British trenches occupied the space between the weed and the ridge.

Like a punch to the head, Burton suddenly recalled the Crimea, for, as in that terrible conflict, the earth here had been torn, gouged, and overturned by shells. Flooded by heavy rains some weeks ago, the horrible landscape before him had since been baked into distorted shapes by the relentless sunshine. It was also saturated with blood and peppered with chunks of rotting human and animal flesh, and the stench assailed Burton's nostrils from even this distance. Bits of smashed machinery rose from the churned ground like disinterred bones. It was unnatural. It was hideous. It was sickening.

He unhooked his canteen from his belt, took a swig of water, and spat dust from his mouth.

“That's our target,” said Wells, pointing at the metal tower. “If we can bring it down, we'll destroy their radio communications.”

“Radio?” Burton asked.

Wells smiled. “Well I never! How queer to meet a man who isn't familiar with something that everyone else takes for granted! But, of course, it was after your time, wasn't it!”

Burton glanced uneasily at the nearby officers, who were peering at the sea through binoculars.

“Keep your voice down, please, Bertie,” he said. “And what was after my time?”

“The discovery of radio waves. The technique by which we transmit spoken words and other sounds through the atmosphere to literally anywhere in the world.”

“A mediumistic procedure?”

“Not at all. It's similar to the telegraph but without the wires. It involves the modulation of oscillating electromagnetic fields.”

“That's all mumbo jumbo to me. What are they looking at?”

Wells turned to observe the officers, then raised his binoculars and followed the men's gaze.

“Ah ha!” he said. “The rotorships! Have a squint.”

He passed the binoculars to Burton, who put them to his eyes and scanned the eastern sky, near the horizon, until two dark dots came into view. As they approached, he saw they were big rotorships, each with twelve flight pylons, wings spinning at the top of the tall shafts. The black flat-bottomed vessels were rather more domed in shape than those from his own time, and he could see guns poking out of portholes along their sides.

“Astraea
and
Pegasus,”
Wells said. “Cruiser class. The
Pegasus
is the one on the right.”

“They're fast. What are those little things flying around them?”

“Hornets. One-man fighters. They'll swoop in to shoot at the ground defences.”

“Actual insects?”

“Yes. The usual routine. Breed 'em big, kill 'em, scrape 'em out, shove steam engines into the carapaces. The method hasn't changed since your day. Look out! The
Königsberg
is bringing her cannon to bear!”

Burton directed the glasses to the city's harbour and saw that the decks of the seagoing vessel were swarming with men. A gun turret, positioned in front of its three funnels, was turning to face the oncoming rotorships. A few moments later, orange light blazed from the muzzle. Repetitive booms, lagging a few seconds behind the discharges, rippled out over the landscape, becoming thin and echoey as they faded away.

He looked back at the rotorships, both almost upon the city now. Puffs of black smoke were exploding around them.

Hornets dived down at the light cruiser and raked her decks with their machine guns.

“Come on, lads!” Wells cheered.

Burton watched men ripped into tatters and knocked overboard as bullets tore into them. A loud report sounded. He lowered the binoculars and saw that metal and smoke had erupted from the side of the
Pegasus.

“She's hit!” Wells cried.

The rotorship listed to her left. As her shadow passed over the
Königsberg
, small objects spilled from beneath her. They were bombs. With an ear-splitting roar, the German vessel disappeared into a ball of fire and smoke. Fragments of hull plating went spinning skyward. Another huge detonation sounded as the ship's munitions went up.

The
Pegasus
, rocked by the shock wave, keeled completely over onto her side and arced toward the ground. She hit the southern neighbourhoods of Dar es Salaam and ploughed through them, disintegrating, until, when she finally came to rest, she was nothing but an unrecognisable knot of twisted and tattered metal slumped at the end of a long burning furrow. Hundreds of buildings had been destroyed, maybe thousands of lives lost.

Wells opened his mouth to say something but his words were drowned by thunder as the
Astraea
started to dump her payload onto the middle of the city. The noise slapped again and again at Burton's ears as the colonial district was pummelled and decimated. Soon, all he could see was a blanket of black smoke through which the red lights of Hades flickered, and gliding along above it, silhouetted against the glaring white sky, the menacing rotorship, drawing closer and closer to where the tip of the radio tower emerged from the expanding inferno.

Wells stood on tiptoe and put his mouth to Burton's ear, which was ringing with such intensity that the explorer could barely hear the correspondent's soprano voice: “We had no choice but to do it. I wonder, though—will the human race ever transcend the animalistic impulses that lead to such behaviour?”

Burton yelled back: “I suspect animals would be most offended to be associated with an atrocity like this! What of the people down there? What of the Africans?”

“Casualties of war. As I said, we had no choice!”

“But this isn't their bloody conflict! It isn't their bloody conflict, damn it!”

A quick succession of blasts marked the end of the radio tower. The
Astraea
slid over the belt of red weed and sailed northward with hornets buzzing around her.

The attack was already over.

Silence rolled back in from the surrounding countryside, broken only by occasional small explosions.

“She's probably on her way to give Tanga some of the same treatment,” Wells said, watching the rotorship receding into the distance.

Burton stood silently, struggling to stay on his feet. His legs were trembling violently, and his heart hammered in his chest.

“Bismillah!” he muttered. “Bismillah!”

THE BAKER STREET DETECTIVE

Macallister Fogg's Own Paper! Issue 908.

Every Thursday. Consolidated Press.

One Penny.

This Week:

Macallister Fogg and his lady assistant, Mrs. Boswell, investigate

THE PERIL OF THE GRAVITY PIRATES!

by T. H. Strongfellow

Plus the latest instalments of:

DOCTOR TZU AND THE SINGING COBRA
by Cecil Barry
FATTY CAKEHOLE'S DORMITORY EMPIRE

by Norman Pounder

“T
ake us up, Mr. Wenham, no higher than seven thousand feet, if you please.” The order came from William Henson, the rotorship's first officer. He was a slender man, about fifty years old, with an extravagant moustache that curved around his cheeks to blend into bushy muttonchop whiskers. He wore tiny wire-framed spectacles that magnified his eyes while also accentuating his precise and somewhat stern manner.

He turned to Burton and Swinburne, who were standing next to Captain Lawless, having been invited up to the conning tower to witness the takeoff. “We have to keep her low, gentlemen, on account of our ventilation problems. Until we get the heating pipes fixed, flying at any greater altitude will have us all shivering in our socks.”

A vibration ran through the deck as the engines roared. There was no sensation of movement, but through the windows curving around the front and sides of the tower, Burton saw the horizon slip downward.

“Here we go,” declared Francis Wenham, the helmsman. He was at a control console at the front of the cabin, manipulating three big levers and a number of wheels; a beefily built man with pale blond, rather untidy hair, and a wispy goatee beard.

“One thousand five hundred feet,” murmured the man at the station beside him. “Swing her forty degrees to starboard, please.”

“Forty degrees to starboard, aye, Mr. Playfair.”

The horizon revolved around the ship.

Playfair turned to Henson and said, “Course set, sir.”

“Thank you. Ahead, Mr. Wenham. Get her up to forty knots.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Flight time to London, three and a half hours,” Playfair noted.

Swinburne eyed the sharp-faced, dark-eyed navigator. “I didn't see him consult his instruments,” he muttered to Lawless. “Did he just do that calculation in his head?”

“Yes,” the captain answered quietly. “He's a wizard with mathematics, that one.”

The meteorologist—short, very stout, very hairy, and wearing his bulging uniform jacket tightly buttoned—announced: “Clear going until we reach the capital, sir. Fog there.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bingham.”

The captain turned to a tall, heavily bearded man who'd just entered the cabin and said, “Ah, there you are. Sir Richard, Mr. Swinburne, this is Doctor Barnaby Quaint, our steward and surgeon. He'll give you a tour of the ship, see that you're settled into your quarters, and will make sure that you have whatever you require.”

“Is there a bar on board?” Swinburne asked.

Quaint smiled. “Yes, sir, in the lounge, though it's closed at the moment. I dare say I could rustle you up a tipple, should you require it. Would you care to follow me, gentlemen?”

They took their leave of Lawless, left the command cabin, and descended a metal staircase. A short corridor led them past the captain's quarters on one side and the first officer's on the other, and through decorative double doors into the glass-encased observation deck.

They were greeted by Detective Inspectors Trounce and Honesty, Commander Krishnamurthy, Constable Bhatti, and Mrs. Iris Angell, who was beside herself with excitement.

“Who'd have thought!” exclaimed Burton's housekeeper. “Dirty old Yorkshire—see how pretty it appears from up here, Sir Richard!”

He stepped to her side and looked out at the little villages and patchwork fields passing below.

“The northern counties have some of the most beautiful countryside in all of England,” he said. “Did you think it would be different?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “I expected horrible factories everywhere!”

“You'll find plenty of William Blake's ‘dark Satanic mills’ in and around the manufacturing cities, Mrs. Angell, but as you can see, the horror of the North felt by those in the South is generally quite unjustified.”

Burton watched the scenery slide by for a couple more minutes then moved over to where Detective Inspector Honesty was standing alone.

“Hello, old fellow,” he said. “I didn't see much of you at Fryston. Are you all set for Africa?”

Honesty turned to him. “I am. Wife unhappy but duty calls. Must finish this business. Stop interference from the future.” The detective gazed back out of the window and his pale-grey eyes fixed on the horizon. “Africa. Exotic flora. Might collect specimens. Cultivate in greenhouse when we return.”

“Are you an amateur horticulturalist? I didn't know.”

Honesty looked back at Burton and the explorer noticed a strange light in the smaller man's eyes—an odd sort of remoteness about his manner.

“Should've been a landscape gardener. Always wanted to be. Joined the Force on account of my father. A Peeler. One of the originals. Very dedicated. Passionate about policing. Me—I'm just good at it. But gardening—well—” He paused and a small sigh escaped him. “There are different versions of history, Captain?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe in one, I made another choice.
Thomas Manfred Honesty: Landscape Gardener.
Hope so.”

He returned his attention to the vista outside.

Burton patted the detective's shoulder and left him. He felt troubled by his friend's detached air. Honesty hadn't been quite himself since last September's battle with the Rakes, when he'd had his fingers broken and been throttled almost to death by an animated corpse. It was, Burton thought, enough to unnerve any man.

Trounce approached him. “How long until we reach London? I'm eager to get back onto the trail of our murderer.”

“A little over three hours.” Burton lowered his voice. “I say, Trounce, what's your opinion of Honesty? Is he a hundred percent?”

Trounce glanced toward his colleague. “I'd say he's the most determined of us all, Captain. He's a man who likes everything to be just so. The idea that an individual can hop back through time and turn it all on its head doesn't sit well with him.”

Burton gave a small nod of understanding. “The steward is taking us on a tour of the ship. Join us?”

“I will, thank you.”

Leaving Honesty, Krishnamurthy, Bhatti, and Mrs. Angell—all of whom had been around the vessel earlier that morning—Burton, Swinburne, and Trounce followed Doctor Quaint back into the corridor. As they passed by the captain's rooms, a small, slightly pudgy boy emerged.

“All shipshape, Master Wilde?” the doctor asked.

“That it is, sir. Good morning to you, Captain Burton, Mr. Swinburne, Detective Inspector Trounce. Welcome aboard!” The boy grinned, habitually raising his hand to his nose in order to conceal his rather crooked and yellowing teeth.

“Hallo, Quips!” said Burton.

Quaint addressed the explorer: “I understand Master Wilde is with us at your recommendation, sir?”

“He is indeed.”

“And I'm much obliged, so I am, Captain,” Wilde said.

“By Jove, little 'un!” Trounce exclaimed. “If someone had told you a year ago that you'd be flying to Africa as a crewmember aboard the biggest rotorship ever built, would you have believed them?”

“I can believe anything provided it is incredible, Mr. Trounce.”

“Ha! Quite so! Quite so! And I daresay it's a great deal better than going to school, hey?”

“I wouldn't know, never having suffered such an indignity. While education may be an admirable thing, it is well to remember that nothing worth knowing can be taught. Now then, I must get myself up to the captain to have these acquisition orders signed. There's much to be done, so there is, if we're to depart the country without leaving unpaid debts behind us. I'll see you later, gentlemen!”

“Good Lord!” Quaint said as Wilde disappeared up the stairs to the conning tower. “Where does he get those nimble wits from?”

“I have no idea,” Burton answered. “Perhaps his diet of butterscotch and gobstoppers has affected his brain.”

They moved on down the corridor, passing the crew's quarters, and entered the lounge, a large space stretching from one side of the ship to the other. There were tables and chairs, a small dance floor and stage, and, to Swinburne's evident satisfaction, a bar in one corner.

“How many passengers can the
Orpheus
accommodate, Doctor?” Burton asked.

“Two hundred, sir. The smoking room is ahead of us, and beyond that the dining room, then a small parlour, and the first-class cabins all the way to the stern, where the reading room is situated. From there we'll take the stairs down to the rear observation room, pass through the cargo hold to the galley and pantries, then the engine room, and on to the standard-class cabins in the prow end of the ship. As you can see, those rooms have access to this lounge via staircases on the port and starboard sides. Of course, the ship has a number of other rooms, but those are the main ones.”

“Phew!” Trounce gasped. “Mr. Brunel certainly likes to work on a grand scale!”

They continued their tour, marvelling at the opulence that surrounded them—for every fixture and fitting, and every item of decor, had been handcrafted from the finest materials—and eventually came to the galley, where they found Isabella Mayson unpacking foodstuffs and stocking the larders.

“By heavens, Miss Mason!” Quaint cried out. “You're making fast progress! The last time I looked in, this room was chock-a-block with unopened boxes!”

“A place for everything and everything in its place, Doctor Quaint,” the young woman responded. “We took a great many supplies on board in Yorkshire and we'll be adding more when we get to London. If I don't have the kitchen in order by then, it'll mean more work and delayed meals. We wouldn't want that, would we?”

“Certainly not!” Quaint agreed.

Miss Mayson smiled at the steward and said, “I shall be serving an early lunch at half-past twelve, Doctor.”

“Good!” Swinburne interjected. “I'm famished!”

Quaint led them out of the galley, past cabins given over to various shipboard functions, and into the first of the huge engine-room compartments. After Daniel Gooch had shown them around the massive twin turbines, they moved on to the standard-class cabins, where they encountered Sister Raghavendra, who was organising a small surgery. As Quaint explained, it was essential to have medical facilities aboard the ship, not only to cater for any passenger who might be taken ill, but also because some of the engineering duties were exceedingly hazardous. It was the job of the riggers, for example, to maintain the flight pylons, which sometimes meant crawling out onto them while the
Orpheus
was in mid-flight. They wore harnesses, of course, but a fall could still be damaging. Riggers had been known drop then swing into the side of their ship, suffering a crushing impact.

“Now that you have your bearings, gentlemen, I shall take my leave of you,” the doctor said as they reached a staircase at the prow of the vessel. “There is much to be done before our principal voyage begins, as I'm sure you appreciate.” He looked down at Swinburne. “I have to pass back through the lounge, sir. If you'd care to accompany me, I'll organise that breakfast tipple for you.”

“Bravo!” Swinburne cheered. “That'll be just the ticket!”

“And you, sir?” Quaint asked Burton.

“Too early for me. I'll retire to my quarters to go over the expedition inventory.”

“Then I shall see you at lunch, sir.”

The top ends of four colossal copper rods poked out of the dense fog that blanketed London. Guided by Francis Wenham, HMA
Orpheus
slid into position between them and gently descended into the central courtyard of Battersea Power Station.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon.

“How times have changed,” Swinburne commented as he and Sir Richard Francis Burton disembarked, wrapped tightly in their overcoats, top hats pressed onto their heads. “Who'd have thought, a couple of years ago, that we'd end up working with Isambard Kingdom Brunel?”