Ghosts of Engines Past (43 page)

The weapon was one of Tower's Brown Bess models, not as accurate as the new Baker rifles, but quicker to reload. The distance was not great, however, so I could not miss. I took a bead on the fluttering raven as it sawed at the silken tether.

“Oh sir, why kill a poor, bleedin' bird?” asked the corporal.

“It's not a bird!”

I squeezed the trigger and the flint struck sparks. There was a puff of smoke from the flashpan, but no shot. Without even looking I drew out my sharpened nail and cleared the touch hole, then tore a cartridge open with my teeth and poured a little powder into the pan. I had just taken aim at the raven again when the silk cord parted and it flew free. I fired, but against the darkening sky it made a very poor target.

“Attend the condition of your musket very carefully from now on, corporal,” I said as I handed the gun back. “You are about to leave for Spain, and Spain is a place where you want to be very, very sure of a shot when you pull the trigger.”

I had a lantern brought from the stables, but search as I might, I found not so much as a black feather beside the house. Beneath the window I did find a half-gill measure with a handle, the kind used to dispense the daily ration of rum to sailors. I had seen Sir Charles melting wax for his harpsichord wires in such a container. It was sufficiently hard and heavy to smash a window, but light enough to be wielded in the beak of a raven.

The roof of Ballard house fell in after an hour or so, and the place was burned out completely by midnight. The rooms upstairs had been filled with wax, lamp oil, modeling wood and many other materials that burned readily, and Sir Charles had known exactly where to set his fires. I had the troops guard the place closely, but although I picked over the ruins with the greatest of care the following day, I could find nothing useful.

All that was saved were the two steam engines and Winter generators in the stables, and Sir Charles's journals for 1809 and 1810. I already knew that nothing of value was in the journals, and although I drew and noted everything that I could remember of the spark semaphore in the weeks that followed, the devices that were built from the memories of myself and the artisans did not work. A few more days of instruction from Sir Charles would have made all the difference.

Now it is October. The war that is still raging on the continent will probably drag on for years, yet the spark semaphore could have had it concluded in months. Lady Monica has sold the estate and moved to London, there to wear a wig and disport herself before the very cream of aristocratic society. I worry about the raven with its mindslayer weapon, yet it has been used upon me and I am still alive. Perhaps the mindslayer merely distresses humans, without killing them. Whatever the case, surely one raven cannot conquer the world.

Thus I try to reassure myself, but had I the choice, I would live within sight of Monica's house in London, a Baker rifle beside my window, watching for the comings and goings of ravens. Alas, I do not believe that I have such a choice. I am writing these words on a ship, as I return to the battlefields of Spain. It is my hope that you will read this account of my unlikely mission with sympathy, and I submit it to you in the hope that you will allow me to return to your staff. I only wish to be allowed to do what I do best, which is the breaking of French codes. After all, my country is still at war, and like Electrica, I am a living weapon.

Your friend and servant,

Mr. Michael Fletcher,

Lieutenant,

57th Regt.

It is 2012, but 1852 is not out of reach. Some very brave people are about to fly the first steam powered aircraft, and diet will mean the difference between life and death.

Steampunk is all about style, fashion, steam and elegance, and I conclude this collection by asking if it is only the stuff of dreams. Real steam engines are not all that efficient, but you could power an aircraft with one. Just. Only just. A steam powered aircraft? That would be the ultimate steampunk fashion accessory. Is it just a romantic dream? I built a glider based on ideas about aircraft that were current in the 1850s, and it did fly fairly well. I then did some calculations about the weight of steam engines and the power needed to get something about size of the Wright Brother's Flyer into the air. It turned out to be feasible. Steampunk fashionistas, take note, however. Steam powered flight might be possible, but as I said when introducing Eight Miles, don't try this at home.

There is something special about things that changed the world. I cannot say what it is, but I can feel it. I have stood before the Vostok capsule that carried the first man into space. Influence glowed from it. I knew where it was even with my eyes closed. In the Spurlock Museum I saw the strange, twisted, lumpy thing that was the first transistor. The significance that it radiated was like the heat from a fire. The Babbage Analytical Engine of 1871 had no such aura, yet the whole of Bletchley Park did. There was no doubt in my mind about which of them had really launched the age of computers.

The Wright Brother's Flyer had no feeling of significance for me either. This made no sense. It was the first heavier than air machine to fly, it proved the principle, it changed the world, yet my strange intuition said otherwise. Then I saw the Aeronaute, and everything should have become clear to me.

There was an 1899 Daimler parked across the road from my flat when I arrived home from work. Admirers were milling around it, and a security guard was making sure that nobody took any liberties. I knew early model cars fairly well after being dragged along to countless car shows by my father, but cars are not my thing. Pausing only to admire the Daimler as something Art Nouveau that actually worked, I opened my front door.

On top of several packages of things ordered online was a large envelope. I seldom get letters. Anything that can be turned into text or pixels comes over the Internet. The address on the envelope was handwritten, and the handwriting was clear, elegant copperplate. A genuine penny stamp was at the top right hand corner, but there was no postmark. This had been delivered by hand.
Who writes copperplate in the second decade of the Twenty-First Century?
I wondered. Picking it up was like stepping back into time, and it begged to be opened by something with more class than my front door key.  

Going upstairs, I found a real letter opener in the shape of a medieval sword, bought on some trip to the British Museum. The covering note merely said “Dear Mr Chandler, can I have your opinion on the enclosed photos? Yours sincerely, Louise Penderan.” There were four photographs with the note, all colour prints on A4 paper. They were of the wreckage of an aircraft that had never existed.

Take a modern ultralight, describe it verbally to a mid-Nineteenth Century engineer, have him build one, then crash it. That was the subject of the first photo. Unlike most Nineteenth Century machines, this aircraft seemed not to have an ounce of excess weight. The background suggested that it was in a barn.

The second photograph showed four lightweight cylinders that were connected in a spiral pattern to a crankshaft. This was a steam engine, and it was also built to minimize weight. The next photograph showed a propeller that resembled a windmill with two blades. The last picture featured what was left of a cloth panel with the word AERONAUTE painted in silver.

The doorbell chimed while I was still examining the photos. It was 6pm, not the usual time for people pedaling telco plans or religious salvation, and my friends always texted me before coming over. As I walked down the stairs I had a feeling that whoever was outside was connected with the envelope. It had been just five minutes since I had arrived home. Perhaps they had been waiting in the café over the road, giving me those minutes to examine the photographs. Perhaps they even owned the 1899 Daimler.

I opened the door to a couple dressed in matching brown ankle coats and wearing motoring goggles on their foreheads. I am six feet tall, yet they were both tall enough to look down at me. The woman gleamed with silver jewelry, mostly in the shape of electroplated cog wheels, dials and piping.

“Are you Leon Chandler?” she asked, giving me an overwhelmingly broad smile.

Her eyes were large, intense and just a little sly. They did not match her smile. I held up the photos.

“Yes, and you must be Louise Penderan,” I replied.

She nodded. “That's me, and this is my partner, James Jamison.”

James Jamison managed to sneer while smiling, then slowly, reluctantly, extended his hand. I registered the slight, ignored his hand, and gestured up the stairs.

“Won't you come in?” I said, moving aside.

My flat is above a shop, but it is quite large. I showed them into the living room, where they paused to look around. Their eyes lingered on the model steam engines that were on the bookshelves, and mantelpiece, and were crowded into the display cases and crystal cabinet.

“Did you build all these?” asked James, making the question sound like an accusation.

“Yes, I specialise in steam engines by the pioneers: Newcombe, Papin, Heron, Trevithick, Watt, and so on. They all work.”

“Yet you dress in black and have a signed Alice Cooper poster on the wall,” he observed.

“Cool music.”

“Your furniture and all your walls are black.”

“Black is relaxing.”

“So you're a Goth?”

“You may have noticed the sign on the door: SteamGoth Models.”

I like to keep people guessing. Those who are too cool for school think that all steamheads wear anoraks and stand about on railway platforms spotting trains. After surviving a childhood of ridicule and bullying because I made models instead of playing online games, I had opted to dress cool, make models, and generally be a bit peculiar as an adult.

“Your models are quite beautiful,” said Louise, who was caressing the boiler of a Newcombe engine with an ochre fingernail cut to a talon shape.

“It's just a hobby, but it pays.”

“We actually need a professional,” said James, rather abruptly.

Suddenly I had their measure. James was abrasive, but Louise followed him with praise. I was being conditioned to be sympathetic to her. She wanted something from me, something related to the wreck in the barn. I decided to force the issue.

“Well then, you might as well leave,” I said, gesturing to the stairs.

James had actually reached the stairs before he realized that Louise was not with him. There was a hostile exchange of glances between the two of them.

“Perhaps James expressed himself a little awkwardly,” she said. “We need a professional, and you are perfect.”

James capitulated. Now I knew who had paid for the Daimler.

While I rather like the theory of steampunk fashion, I keep my distance from it. I prefer cogwheels to turn each other, not just be on display. I think that nothing is truly beautiful unless it works. For my real job I customise engines for an ultralight aircraft company, and my flat contains not a single painting or decorative vase. My Alice Cooper poster once advertised something, so it passed my functionality test. It was dad who made me this way. He had bought an old Mini Minor a year before I was born, and a quarter of a century later the little car was still scattered all over his garage floor, supposedly being restored. From a lifetime of watching him obsessively wipe, oil and polish parts that are never reassembled, I had developed a love of things that actually do something.

I spread the photos out on the coffee table and we seated ourselves around them.

“What do you think of the Aeronaute?” Louise asked.

I had decided that the aircraft was a modern steampunk sculpture, something from a pretend history. I dislike sculptures, they are form without function.

“It looks like some retro steam powered aircraft that never was,” I replied, already thinking about what to have for dinner, and wondering if a well crafted insult might send them storming off down the stairs.

“The date stamped into the engine is 1852.”

That was a shock. My pulse quickened as I picked up the photos and looked at them more closely. The engine was very lightly built, and the Aeronaute's frame was all thin spars, wire and wicker. Even a moderate wind would demolish it, but on a calm day it just might have struggled into the air.  

 I began to trawl my memories for steam aircraft. The Besler brothers had flown a steam powered biplane in 1933, and the first balloon propelled by a steam engine had flown in 1852.  Steam engines are external combustion machines, so they have low power to weight ratios. They are not ideal for aviation, but neither are they out of the question.

The Aeronaute might not be a hoax,
I realised.
Aviation history might have to be rewritten.
The temptation to babble hysterically was almost overwhelming, but I forced my voice to remain level and spoke slowly.

“Where were these photos taken?” I asked.

“On my family's estate, in Kent,” said Louise.

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

I arrived at the estate the very next morning, riding my black Vespa. One of the groundsmen told me to be off or he would call the police.

“Let me guess,” I said as I removed my helmet. “Louise Penderan's boyfriend told you to chase away any visitors wearing black.”

He pointed to the gate and opened his mouth to shout—then apparently realized that what I had just said was true, and remembered who was paying his wages. Without another word he went into the house, then Louise came out and welcomed me. She was now wearing black overalls, a bandolier of chrome plated tools, and a technoGoth hairpin-screwdriver. Without her high heeled laceup boots she was barely my height. James followed her, dressed in immaculate Belle Epoch motoring gear and looking unhappy.

The barn where the Aeronaute had been kept for over a century and a half was in a field behind the house.

“My family knew about it for generations, but they treated it as a bit of a joke,” she explained as we crossed the field. “Nobody ever bothered to tell me, because I think countryside stuff is only for driving past, you know? James and I came here yesterday to check if the barn was okay for our big steampunk wedding reception.”